CitiBank did the right thing when they were cracked. They went to the authorities, cooperated, helped in tracking the crackers down, and were willing to testify against them. Exactly the right way to go about putting these criminals in jail
Unfortunately, as these things go, the press ran with the usual "CitiBank gets hacked!" headlines, with the result that CitiBank lost nearly all of its most lucrative accounts almost immediately. This lesson has not been lost on other banks, who will now gladly pay a protection racket "reasonable" fees rather than loose their own lucrative accounts. This will probably go on until either the authorities jail some high-level banking executives for obstruction of justice or complicity in covering up a crime, or depositers wise up and realize that a bank like CitiBank is probably a much more secure place to put one's money than a competitor which gets cracked in exactly the same way, but covers up the incident and finances future cracking missions with payoffs to boot!
Fortunately, the US is becoming less and less important as other, more populous countries, enter the information age. 260 million people are allot, but pale in comparison to China's or India's billion, or even Europe's 340 million. Losing the American market would hurt now, but in five years time it will hurt considerably less, and in fifteen years it will hardly be relevant.
As I argued in another (much longer) post, the ability of the US government is limited to destroying its own software industry and intellectual base -- the government's foolish policy of allowing software patents could put a dent in the Open Source movement here in the US, but it will not be able to stop the movement from thriving elsewhere. They will only be able to impotently look on, while the rest of the world, unfettered, catches and surpasses us.
Right now these sorts of frivolous lawsuits appear whenever a software company is acquired by another company with deep pockets. I say frivolous, because that is what the patents are which are being granted so irresponsibly by the USPO. The hope is to get some extortion cash out of those deep pockets in a settlement, not in a trial where they might actually have to defend (and have overturned) the patents themselves. Ironic that the lawyers and politicians have managed to distort our democracy into a society where legalized extortion and legalized bribery has become an institution, but I digress.
In the not so distant future, as Free Software and Open Source begins to make a real impact, we can probably expect this phenominon to shift, where lawsuites are aimed at entities (and probably individuals) without deep pockets. Not for the purpose of getting a settlement and some easy cash, but for purposes of disrupting and even destroying (financially) the entity in question, who presumably cannot afford to defend themselves in court. Countless opponents of software patents have been warning us of this ugly scenerio for quite some time.
Fortunately, I do not think things are as grim as that. In the worst case, where a government of lawyers, by lawyers, and for lawyers refuses to correct the software patent absurdities and such frivolous abuses of the legal system stymie and even crush the Open Source ventures, all that will happen is that progress moves overseas (where governments have been much more intelligent with respect to patenting in general). So Red Hat moves their headquarters to Europe. So Linus Torvalds telecommutes from Helsinki. Linux and Open Source will continue to thrive outside of the US, while progress in this country stagnates beneath a horde of litigation.
The best minds in the industry will undoubtably follow suit, reluctantly at first, but then in greater numbers, moving to places where they can practice their art unhindered by such foolishness. In this scenerio one of two things will happen -- either legislation will be passed to correct the situation, or the United States will experience a brain drain with respect to information technology and eventually become a backwater to the rest of the world. Of course, then the politicians will be blaming some kind of "unfair trading practice" when they discover that all the high paying and expertise have gone overseas, all the while ignoring their own complicity in devastating the American software industry. It has already happened with cryptography, and none of those responsible show any sign of recognizing their own rather obvious roles in what has happened.
Of course, this won't matter to us much. Free Software and Open Source, be it Linux, FreeBSD, or Joes New Quantum OS, will thrive and grow, just as Open Source always have. What will it matter, that a nation of 260 million people with their heads up their collective ass will have complacently watched their government drive yet another prosperous industry overseas?
I hope Corel gets this fixed. I suspect it was a generic beta agreement they've always sent out with their software, which no one thought to review in light of the GPL. If so, it's an honest mistake they can easily fix.
I expect these kinds of hiccups will be all to common as corporations not used to thinking in terms of Open Source and the GPL will have to rethink allot of their "standard practices." It behooves us to yell loudly when something like this happens, but let's not go too far off the deep end while crying foul and letting them know they've slipped up. There are constructive ways to get this point across, and none of them involve personal insults or excessive profanity.
How many different systems have incorporated X? Are you running Linux? Do you have an X with source? The GPL does not prevent code from being "stolen" any more than the BSD/X licenses do.
The GPL does prevent an entity (I'll use Microsoft as an example, as they have a reputation far and wide for doing such things) from taking my code, embracing and extending it, and using it to deny everyone else access to a particular marketplace. This is IMHO theft, and the GPL does prevent it, at least on paper. You may need lawyers to get (MS) to adhere to the law, but the the BSDL you don't have any recourse, whatsover.
Furthermore, do you recall the recent debacle with the so-called OSF and X? The BSD license didn't provide any protection for contributing authors, many of whom donated hundreds of hours to what they thought was a free project, only to have the OSF dump the BSD-style X license in favor of a much more restricted, non-free license. Later they backed down due to public pressure, but nothing in the X license required them to. This attempt is perhaps one of the most startling examples of the kind of theft that BSD-style licensing does not provide adequate protection against, and we can all count ourselves extremely fortunate that the OSF bowed to public pressure and backed down.
In other words, you are demanding rights to my hard work.
No. I'm allowing you to use MY hard work, at no cost, with a few very reasonable strings attached, such as "share and share alike." Nobody is holding a gun to your head insisting that you use GPLed software.
I keep hearing how various Evilsoft companies are immoral beasts. I just thought I'd point out that at least Evilsoft knows right from wrong.
Implying that the Linux community does not. An ad Hominim attack, and a complete absurdity to boot. Perhaps Evilsoft does know the differerence between right and wrong. If so, that makes their conscious choice to do wrong even more unconscionable.
So the BSD/X licenses spurn choice? Whereas the GPL only leaves you with one choice. I keep hearing how choice is good from the GNU community, let's see it backed up.
This entire thread is taking on the tone of flamebait. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your passion for your point of view is getting you carried away. With that in mind, how many examples of the GPL leading to a plethora of choices do you need?
The GPL has done a very good job of allowing choice while maintaining the coherency of projects. Examples of this include (but certainly are not limited to) the various distributions of Linux, various ad-hoc patches and modifications to the kernel and OS utilities (the Linux Router Project, microlinux, and so on), various desktop and window managers (gnome, KDE, and so on). The beauty of it is, anyone can take pieces from any of those products and combine them to make a completely new product, creating yet more choice. The GPL assures everyone of that right, while preventing the kind of splintering that threatened to destroy UNIX not so long ago.
Splintering of projects is not necessarilly the same as offering choice. Indeed, as the history of UNIX has shown, it can have the opposite effect, locking a business (or individual) into one vendor for hardware, OS, and software alike.
Software licenses aren't about religion, they are about achieving one's goals and protecting one's rights. The GPL allows many of us to achieve our goals and provides us with protections we feel are important. It has proven itself with many successful projects and continues to prove itself. That the BSDL does the same for you is great. Just don't expect the rest of us to buy in to your personal vision.
"I am opposed to all usage of the BSD License because it destroys creativity and personal freedom (and is slightly more immoral than say, a Microsoft License, Microsoft would never try to claim ownership rights of my work). But it is simpler to fight the BSD License one instance at a time."
It can be argued that:
* Creativity is hampered ("destroyed") when one cannot be guarunteed that their work won't be misused (such as stolen for a proprietary product by, say, Microsoft). The GPL provides guaruntees for this, BSDL does not. * Personal freedom is completely eliminated when code is taken into a prorpeitary project, "embraced and extended" and never given back. You are no longer free to touch your own (modified) code, and have no legal recourse! The GPL protects my freedom to use my own, and other's code, and be assured that I'll have access to fixes and improvements as they are made. * Morality has nothing to do with either licensing scheme. Take your religion back to church. * This is an old philisophical debate. Your sour grapes because the GPL is proving (in the Free World of Free Software) to be more popular (some would say successful, but I disagree as both licenses serve their specific purposes well) than the BSDL is hardly constructive. Reasons for the GPLs success probably include
- The GPL being very good at preventing code forking, as all changes are contributed back for (possible) inclusion in the main tree (for example, how many versions of BSD and on a similar note, proprietary X servers are there, vs. how many forks of the Linux kernel? Of KDE? Of gnome? Of gcc (there was egcs, but the two merged again despite some severe personality conflicts)? - Developers can be assured that their hard work will remain available for others to freely use and improve (as long as those others don't try to horde their changes or steal one's work altogether). Protection against theft from Joe Shmoe as well as Microsoft or Sun is very appealing to many, myself included. Did it occur to you that this very protection may be why a commercial enterprise such as 3com chose the GPL over BSDL? - The continuity of the project is supported and to a degree assured by the GPL, for reasons above, which makes using the product in a commercial as well as private setting much more appealing than, say, a propreitary product. BSDL is good for this as well, but GPL offers more assurances in this respect and is IMHO better.
BSD is better if you don't mind the possibility of your code or project being used by Sun, Microsoft, and others for their own proprietary projects. Nothing wrong with this, if this is your intent, but those of us who use the GLP do not want this, and our license has and continues to serve us very well. Presumably the BSDL serves you well. Fine. But do not presume to think you are qualified to tell the rest of us how we should license the code we write.
As for your comment about Microsoft not claiming rights to your work, you may be one of the lucky ones.:-) To read about those less fortunate, might I suggest back issues of The Wallstreet Journal, the New York Times, and numerous other news periodicals?
This is only a good idea if the trademark is dontated to someone like Linux International, or Linus Torvalds. It would be inappropriate for one competing distribution (say, Red Hat) to own the Linux trademark and be in a position of denying every other distribution maker (Suse, Mandrake, Debian, Joe Shmoe) from using the word Linux(tm) in relation to their product. Even if privately held Red Hat would never do such a thing, we cannot be certain of the eternal benevolence of publicly traded Red Hat which is, now, beholden to its shareholders, not the Linux community at large.
I agree! I don't know what annoys me more -- people with no sense of humor who flame webcams,/., and anyone who dares find the advent of a major storm interesting, or those with no sense of empathy or concern for those about to have their lives turned upside down by a terrible act of nature. Neither are people I'd be in a hurry to invite home for dinner.
The boat thing hits particularly close to home as I have a friend who is, at this moment, somewhere on Lake Eire or in the Erie canal, sailing toward Florida with the goal of living there (aboard his boat). I live in an apartment building in Chicago, where the entire midwest is due for a severe earthquake (the fault cuts loose every two hundred years or so -- by some accounts it is past due already) I'm sure that, when I'm lying crushed beneath tons of brick and masonry there will be pundits commenting on how stupid those midwesterners were, to be living in tall buildings so near a major fault... perhaps while sitting next to a cozy fire in their fireplace, surrounded by the tinder-dry forest of the Rockies...
My thoughts go out to those about to get pounded as well. Best of luck, and be safe (get outta there before the damn thing hits, and to hell with the boat/house/etc!)
In an ideal world, one would sail the boat out of harms way before hurricane season starts, then come back after it is over. Unfortunately, most jobs prohibit people from leading that kind of nomadic existence, however ideallic and (in terms of property loss at least) practical.
I do find it refreshing that at least one geek in Florida can face that kind of impending doom with enough of a sense of humor to set up a Linux webcame, point the thing into the face of danger, and leave the box running. Sure beats the usual news drivel laced with insincere and trite rhetoric of empathy for those suffering while capitalizing shamelessly on their plight. If someone who lives there can laugh in the face of destruction, who the hell are the rest of us to wax judgemental?
Unternet (emphesizing "resisting The Man" with a German twist) Undernet (a la the underground railroad) civilrights net resistence net liberty net freedom net protection racket (OK, I had to have a little fun here) safe net (emphesizing how little saftey we as individuals have using a protocol which allows big brother to know our every keystroke -- or at least our every mouse click on a URL)
Substitute "protocol" for "net" in any of the above, for even more choices.
I would like to see something at the network layer which would allow greater anonymity, encryption, and the like. Maybe a plugin for IP v 6. The problem is, at some level the packets have to actually reach their tartet. Perhaps a double blind routing system of some kind...
Alas, many of the suggestions above are probably trademarked as well -- but you need to find a name you like which isn't and trademark it yourself, since what you are doing is very helpful and good for the public, and will therefor make you a big, fat target. (Just ask Phil Zimmerman.) No sense giving the bad guys any more ammunition to use against you (such as trademark law) than they probably already have.
There are many tradeoffs one has to make, whether it is supporting 2GB (or 4GB) memory vs 1 GB, or 128 processors vs. 1. For Linux these kinds of choices have never really been a problem, as one can recompile the kernel at will, optimizing for the local configuration and intended use.
If I have a uniprocessor machine, I can compile the kernel without SMP support altogether. If I have a 128 processor machine, hopefully I would be able to compile the kernel with SMP support and, additionally, "massively parallel optimizations = Y" or something similar. This is the beauty of having the source available -- we can have our cake and eat it too. With any luck my old i486 will be able to sit next to the latest SGI 128 processor box my boss *will* be purchasing for me (I wish), both running 2.4.x of the kernel. I'll let the new guy have the i486.:-)
Perhaps. Your best bet would probably be to configure and run a customized runlevel, optimized for gaming. This would probably shut down most services, excess VCs and the like, but possibly keep network and multi-user facilities in tact (in case the game clobbers the IO interface and you have to ssh in to reset the box. Unusual, but possible with both svgalib and X.
Myself, I find games run excellently under Linux in its normal configuration, but them I'm spoiled with a fast CPU and lots of memory -- it takes something like Windows 98 or NT to really slow it down.:-)
Official Stamps of Approval(tm) not the answer
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9/9/99: News? Nein!
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· Score: 1
Two points:
1) The MS NSA story was not an assertion, it reported a factual discovery made by a reputable security consultancy. At worst it made some reasonable, if provocative, speculations based on the facts known at the time. Microsoft's later response to the story was painfully emberrassing to any who read it, not to mention profoundly insulting to the reader's intelligence. They have unwittingly given the "NSA back door key theory" a huge boost in credibility, and would have been much better off keeping their mouths shut.
2) A "trusted agency" is a single point of failure, capable of erring just like an individual, or being suborned by third parties for their own purposes. An industry wide consensus, or lack thereof (ie an open, ongoing debate), is a much better indicator of the veracity of a story than a single, offical stamp of approval. Neither approach is perfect, and certainly neither can substitute for a lazy reporter's lack of research, but the latter is much less subject to manipulation and/or outright corruption than the former IMHO.
ComEd, Y2k ... It's the End Of The World (not)
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9/9/99: News? Nein!
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· Score: 3
If you are in Chicago, it's just more of ComEd's crumbling infrastructure rearing its ugly head. I'm half-expecting complete outages by Y2K, but the bugs aren't going to be related to 01/01/00 -- they are a result of years of criminal negligence on the part of an underregulated power monopoly, the results of which are just now coming to fruition.
Having said that, I am indeed skeptical of all of the "Y2K readiness" leaflets I receive in the mail. I suspect a good percentage of them are written from the standpoint of "we're not quite ready yet, but we will be, so let's sooth the unwashed masses." Unfortunately, as anyone who has ever written anything more than a trivially simple program realizes, deadlines have a way of slipping real fast in the world of software. I suspect there will be two major dangers resulting from the whole Y2k hoopla:
1) People being stupid and panicky (as many others have mentioned already), cleaning out stores and what have you before Y2K arrives.
2) People having done too little to prepare, trusting deceptive reassurances from those companies and services who weren't able to make their deadlines and be compliant on time, who then do an about face from blase' "it's nothin' to worry about" to full-fledged panic as they discover a whole host of inconveniences which combine to make their lives more than a little difficult.
In both cases the danger will be a result of panicy people, not technology. But to dismiss the notion that one should be planning for contingencies invites a whole host of problems of its own, quite possibly making a touchy situation worse. The best approach IMHO is to take some reasonable precautions:
* Have a little extra cash on hand in case the ATMs are down * Have a hard copy of your statement from a day or two before the new year on hand * Have a little extra food on hand (maybe a month's supply, instead of a week's) * Have a few candles lying around * Have a warm blanket handy in case the power does fail (thanks ComEd). * Have a good book or two, for the same reason * Relax. All those preparations were probably unnecessary, but now you don't have to worry even if things do come unravelled for a little while.
If one has made reasonable contingencies, one won't be one of the idiots consumed by panic when we usher in the new year with a few bumps. Of course, don't go shooting your gun into the air new years eve. Not only could the bullets injure someone when they fall back to earth, but, more importantly, you'll probably need that ammo come January first. (For the humor impaired: the last comment was a joke!)
AFAIK everything went fine, at least as far as aviators are concerned. My Lawrance worked fine all the way through the "rollover" and the upgrade.
I did have the GPS go out on me for ten or fifteen minutes one night flying back to Chicago along the Indiana shoreline. A quick look at the satelite page revealed the Satelites in an unusual constellation -- a bunch of them were all lined up in a row! Once the satelites were out of alignment with one another the GPS found itself and continued to work just fine.
This is an example as to why one NEVER relies on a single instrument for navigational and situational awareness (unless it simply can't be helped) -- cross checking your GPS against your LORAN, VORs, and MARK I eyeballs (is that river outside where the GPS and LORAN say it should be?) is the only way to be certain you are where you think you are.
Ob Y2K: If even a fraction of the banks and other firms are even half as dishonest and non-forthright about their Y2K readiness and infrastructure as Commonwealth Eddison has been this summer (not even bothering to tell the proper authorities after their efforts to fix serious problems on the sly failed and resulted in a huge power outage downtown, for example, coupled with numerious, ongoing power outages throughout the city which show no sign of letting up as their neglected infrastructure continues to show its age), then the Y2K issue could well end up being more than just a little hiccup. Armageddon? No. A royal pain in the ass, bigger than most expect? Quite possibly.
Theoretically they could even do this on systems that don't have microphones attached -- by using the system's speakers. A speaker can easilly be used as a microphone (ambient sound in the room can move the speaker's magnet(s), which in turn produce small signals going up the speaker cable and into the sound card. A little clever programming, loaded into the MS "security" module... well, you get the idea). Do a little signal cleanup on the raw data and wala -- it may not be 32-bit stereo, but it is understandable.
I agree that having two disparate populations is not a desirable outcome, and would much prefer that the procedure be available to everyone. However, I also see ethical problems with denying someone access to a procedure that could improve them or their children, simply because not everyone can afford it. Should we disallow heart and liver transplants? Ban college (most people can't afford it, at least without grants and loans of some kind) and private schools?
If we as a society decide it is unacceptable to allow only the wealthy (and I would hope we would), or (much more likely) only the middle class and wealthy, to enhance themselves genetically, then we should work toward subsidizing access to such technologies for the underpriveleged rather than simply banning the practice for everyone. Unless, of course, we want a world in which only the criminals are super intelligent.
All of the points you mention undoubtable put the fear of into the hearts of government beaurocrats everywhere. However, I as an individual am hardly harmed. If the IRS gets their facts wrong and I underpay, the IRS is at fault, not me. I may have to hire a good lawyer and go to court, but no lasting harm is done. If my only source of information for a recall is a government web page I have to take the trouble to find and dig through, then there are more serious problems with the recall notification procedure than a petty vandal's mucking with the web page.
I am at most inconvenienced by such things. The government, on the other hand, has its power to govern more seriously hampered. Which is why the FBI et. al. are so enthusiastic when the vilify and imprison crackers. It isn't to protect you or I, it is to protect their own base of power. What matter that some clever, foolish children get destroyed by their actions? Intelligent people don't make good (read: docile) citizens anyway.
Crackers are spending more time in prison than muderers, rapists, and child molesters because the government, particulary those portions of the executive branch concerned with the control and (mis)use of information (the FBI, CIA, NSA, SS, etc.), feel much more threatened by a cracker (whether a knowledgable one such as Mitnick, or Script Kiddie such as Davis appears to be) than they do by most violent criminals.
Let's face it, if someone spray paints obscenities on your house, rapes your child or kills your mother the government is not the least bit threatened, no matter the degree of personal trajedy in your life. On the other hand, crackers inhibit the government's ability to propogate its world view when they deface a web page, with the (unspoken?) threat of possibly doing much more (such as compromizing their databases and whatnot). Add to that the perceived threat to large business interests and you have an explosive combination of political will to CRUSH the perceived threat. Details like fairness, civil rights, or even constitutionality have a long and dark history of being swept under the rug under these kinds of circumstances. The law is being used to protect the existing base of power more than it is to protect individuals. It should be no surprise that the government will spare no expense going after those people it finds threatening, nor will it feel any compunction whatsoever in treating those individuals with as little fairness as it can get away with.
If we do not speak up and put an end to this dispraportunate treatment of crackers it will not change, as it does serve the interests of those who persue and prosecute the cases.
Sun has a history of playing Microsoft's game by the same rules. Remember Open Windows? NEWS? "Embrance and extend" applied to the X Window System -- perfectly within their rights, but an effort to tie customers to their platform via proprietary extentions to an existing standard. Solaris 2.x is an example of this philosophy applied to System V UNIX, with results that range from humorous to downright irritating. The difference is that Microsoft played the game with much greater success than Sun.
The Sun SCSL was IMHO responsible for Java becoming just another language, rather than the Microsoft-killer cross-platform environment it had the potential to become. Sun has squandered opportunity after opportunity to court the Open Source community and leverage it's talent pool. It seems to be a control issue with them more than anything else -- they end up giving away the product (i.e. little or no revinue) but they forgoe the contributions the Open Source community could have made to making their product(s) better and more widely used, simply to keep absolute control of the spec. Not only have they shot themselves repeatedly in the foot from a purely practical perspective, but politically they have squandered an immense amount of good will they once enjoyed (as the standard bearer against the Microsoft Monopoly -- a role that has since been taken over by Linux) and replaced it with deep suspicion and a fundamental lack of confidence among Open Source users and developers which they will not easilly be able to overcome. Most distressing of all, they don't appear to learn from their mistakes. As a result, I am not at all optomistic about the medium and long term future of Star Office now that it is in Sun's hands, and I believe it would be a mistake for the Linux community to pin its hopes to that product.
On the commercial side we have Corel Office Suite on the horizon. In addition we have KOffice and Gnome Office emerging on the Open Source front. I think it is here that the Linux community should be concentrating its efforts and resources. This is an area where Red Hat, with its newfound wealth, could truly make a significant difference. The Office Suite of the future does need compatability with archaic file formats such as Microsoft Office, but as importantly, it needs to be unencumbered and open source (preferable GPL, but any Open Source license would be preferable to the SCSL IMNSHO). Perhaps RHAT could hire a team of programmers to write libraries for manipulating Microsoft Office and Wordperfect file formats, linkable by any Open Source project. An alternative license could be marketed to Corel and others who wish to make commercial offerings, allowing an even greater variety of Office Suites to interchange file formats in a coherent and compatible way, and providing an easy migration path from MS Office to whatever Office Suite the consumer desires.
Yes, they could. And they'd win. The law (unfortunately) is on their side (and thousands of claims in small claims court would likely net them millions with little cost -- well worth it).
If you oppose software patents but are not politically inclined, please at least do your part to make patented software (and, apparently, patented file formats) obsolete by not using them.
We *really* need transparency support for PNG to be implimented in Netscape and other browsers. I too like the transparency feature (and, in moderation, the animation feature can be nice too). The PNG spec does allow various forms of transparency -- supporting it shouldn't be that difficult.
As an aside, I just got done eliminating all of the GIFs in my personal web site and replacing them with PNG equivelents (which Netscape 4.5 appears to support just fine), and am copying the changes to the website as I write this. When I get a chance I'm going to put together a nice little "GIF Free" icon using the GIMP (in PNG format naturally:-)) to advertise that the page doesn't use GIF's with a link to the anti-GIF page explaining why. Software patents are a very bad thing IMHO, so I do this for philisophical reasons more than "fear" of a UNISYS crackdown. The fact is, however, that if the law allows for UNISYS to demand the kinds of royalties alluded to in Sunday's article, their assurances that they will refrain from demanding such royalties doesn't mean they won't do so in the future. Clearly their first responsibility is to their shareholders -- how long before economic pressures to increase revinues causes them to rethink their position and revise their policy again -- this time even less in our favor? Better to simply make the entire issue moot, by not having a single GIF image anywhere on one's website.
The solution is quite simple, really (if a little rude).
Remove all support for displaying GIF images from all future versions of Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, and the like. If you want your web page viewable by the next generation of browsers, DON'T use GIF images. It would be quite simple to strangle Unisys at the source, by making the outdated format which uses their obsolete algorithm inaccessible to most users.
Those requiring lossless compression could use PNG. Otherwise, JPG is kinder to bandwidth anyway. As for animations -- I believe there are a number of non-GIF methods for supporting them if they are really that necessary (a debatable point).
A suggestion to prevent this kind of nonsense
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911 Calls Linux
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· Score: 3
Roblimo,
To prevent this kind of sowing of doubt, may I suggest each story have a small link next to it entitled "verification" or something similar, that would take the curious or doubtful to a web page summarizing the verification process in much the same way you just did? For links to other news sites this probably isn't necessary, though it might still be a nice touch to have the same kind of link, pointing to that new site's journalistic "standards" page (if they have one).
Clearly this kind of stunning success for Linux is rubbing some folks the wrong way -- wonder why.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
CitiBank did the right thing when they were cracked. They went to the authorities, cooperated, helped in tracking the crackers down, and were willing to testify against them. Exactly the right way to go about putting these criminals in jail
Unfortunately, as these things go, the press ran with the usual "CitiBank gets hacked!" headlines, with the result that CitiBank lost nearly all of its most lucrative accounts almost immediately. This lesson has not been lost on other banks, who will now gladly pay a protection racket "reasonable" fees rather than loose their own lucrative accounts. This will probably go on until either the authorities jail some high-level banking executives for obstruction of justice or complicity in covering up a crime, or depositers wise up and realize that a bank like CitiBank is probably a much more secure place to put one's money than a competitor which gets cracked in exactly the same way, but covers up the incident and finances future cracking missions with payoffs to boot!
Fortunately, the US is becoming less and less important as other, more populous countries, enter the information age. 260 million people are allot, but pale in comparison to China's or India's billion, or even Europe's 340 million. Losing the American market would hurt now, but in five years time it will hurt considerably less, and in fifteen years it will hardly be relevant.
As I argued in another (much longer) post, the ability of the US government is limited to destroying its own software industry and intellectual base -- the government's foolish policy of allowing software patents could put a dent in the Open Source movement here in the US, but it will not be able to stop the movement from thriving elsewhere. They will only be able to impotently look on, while the rest of the world, unfettered, catches and surpasses us.
Right now these sorts of frivolous lawsuits appear whenever a software company is acquired by another company with deep pockets. I say frivolous, because that is what the patents are which are being granted so irresponsibly by the USPO. The hope is to get some extortion cash out of those deep pockets in a settlement, not in a trial where they might actually have to defend (and have overturned) the patents themselves. Ironic that the lawyers and politicians have managed to distort our democracy into a society where legalized extortion and legalized bribery has become an institution, but I digress.
In the not so distant future, as Free Software and Open Source begins to make a real impact, we can probably expect this phenominon to shift, where lawsuites are aimed at entities (and probably individuals) without deep pockets. Not for the purpose of getting a settlement and some easy cash, but for purposes of disrupting and even destroying (financially) the entity in question, who presumably cannot afford to defend themselves in court. Countless opponents of software patents have been warning us of this ugly scenerio for quite some time.
Fortunately, I do not think things are as grim as that. In the worst case, where a government of lawyers, by lawyers, and for lawyers refuses to correct the software patent absurdities and such frivolous abuses of the legal system stymie and even crush the Open Source ventures, all that will happen is that progress moves overseas (where governments have been much more intelligent with respect to patenting in general). So Red Hat moves their headquarters to Europe. So Linus Torvalds telecommutes from Helsinki. Linux and Open Source will continue to thrive outside of the US, while progress in this country stagnates beneath a horde of litigation.
The best minds in the industry will undoubtably follow suit, reluctantly at first, but then in greater numbers, moving to places where they can practice their art unhindered by such foolishness. In this scenerio one of two things will happen -- either legislation will be passed to correct the situation, or the United States will experience a brain drain with respect to information technology and eventually become a backwater to the rest of the world. Of course, then the politicians will be blaming some kind of "unfair trading practice" when they discover that all the high paying and expertise have gone overseas, all the while ignoring their own complicity in devastating the American software industry. It has already happened with cryptography, and none of those responsible show any sign of recognizing their own rather obvious roles in what has happened.
Of course, this won't matter to us much. Free Software and Open Source, be it Linux, FreeBSD, or Joes New Quantum OS, will thrive and grow, just as Open Source always have. What will it matter, that a nation of 260 million people with their heads up their collective ass will have complacently watched their government drive yet another prosperous industry overseas?
I hope Corel gets this fixed. I suspect it was a generic beta agreement they've always sent out with their software, which no one thought to review in light of the GPL. If so, it's an honest mistake they can easily fix.
I expect these kinds of hiccups will be all to common as corporations not used to thinking in terms of Open Source and the GPL will have to rethink allot of their "standard practices." It behooves us to yell loudly when something like this happens, but let's not go too far off the deep end while crying foul and letting them know they've slipped up. There are constructive ways to get this point across, and none of them involve personal insults or excessive profanity.
How many different systems have incorporated X? Are you running Linux? Do you have an X with source? The GPL does not prevent code from being "stolen" any more than the BSD/X licenses do.
The GPL does prevent an entity (I'll use Microsoft as an example, as they have a reputation far and wide for doing such things) from taking my code, embracing and extending it, and using it to deny everyone else access to a particular marketplace. This is IMHO theft, and the GPL does prevent it, at least on paper. You may need lawyers to get (MS) to adhere to the law, but the the BSDL you don't have any recourse, whatsover.
Furthermore, do you recall the recent debacle with the so-called OSF and X? The BSD license didn't provide any protection for contributing authors, many of whom donated hundreds of hours to what they thought was a free project, only to have the OSF dump the BSD-style X license in favor of a much more restricted, non-free license. Later they backed down due to public pressure, but nothing in the X license required them to. This attempt is perhaps one of the most startling examples of the kind of theft that BSD-style licensing does not provide adequate protection against, and we can all count ourselves extremely fortunate that the OSF bowed to public pressure and backed down.
In other words, you are demanding rights to my hard work.
No. I'm allowing you to use MY hard work, at no cost, with a few very reasonable strings attached, such as "share and share alike." Nobody is holding a gun to your head insisting that you use GPLed software.
I keep hearing how various Evilsoft companies are immoral beasts. I just thought I'd point out that at least Evilsoft knows right from wrong.
Implying that the Linux community does not. An ad Hominim attack, and a complete absurdity to boot. Perhaps Evilsoft does know the differerence between right and wrong. If so, that makes their conscious choice to do wrong even more unconscionable.
So the BSD/X licenses spurn choice? Whereas the GPL only leaves you with one choice. I keep hearing how choice is good from the GNU community, let's see it backed up.
This entire thread is taking on the tone of flamebait. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your passion for your point of view is getting you carried away. With that in mind, how many examples of the GPL leading to a plethora of choices do you need?
The GPL has done a very good job of allowing choice while maintaining the coherency of projects. Examples of this include (but certainly are not limited to) the various distributions of Linux, various ad-hoc patches and modifications to the kernel and OS utilities (the Linux Router Project, microlinux, and so on), various desktop and window managers (gnome, KDE, and so on). The beauty of it is, anyone can take pieces from any of those products and combine them to make a completely new product, creating yet more choice. The GPL assures everyone of that right, while preventing the kind of splintering that threatened to destroy UNIX not so long ago.
Splintering of projects is not necessarilly the same as offering choice. Indeed, as the history of UNIX has shown, it can have the opposite effect, locking a business (or individual) into one vendor for hardware, OS, and software alike.
Software licenses aren't about religion, they are about achieving one's goals and protecting one's rights. The GPL allows many of us to achieve our goals and provides us with protections we feel are important. It has proven itself with many successful projects and continues to prove itself. That the BSDL does the same for you is great. Just don't expect the rest of us to buy in to your personal vision.
"I am opposed to all usage of the BSD License because it destroys creativity and personal freedom (and is slightly more immoral than say, a Microsoft License, Microsoft would never try to claim ownership rights of my work). But it is simpler to fight the BSD License one instance at a time."
:-) To read about those less fortunate, might I suggest back issues of The Wallstreet Journal, the New York Times, and numerous other news periodicals?
It can be argued that:
* Creativity is hampered ("destroyed") when one cannot be guarunteed that their work won't be misused (such as stolen for a proprietary product by, say, Microsoft). The GPL provides guaruntees for this, BSDL does not.
* Personal freedom is completely eliminated when code is taken into a prorpeitary project, "embraced and extended" and never given back. You are no longer free to touch your own (modified) code, and have no legal recourse! The GPL protects my freedom to use my own, and other's code, and be assured that I'll have access to fixes and improvements as they are made.
* Morality has nothing to do with either licensing scheme. Take your religion back to church.
* This is an old philisophical debate. Your sour grapes because the GPL is proving (in the Free World of Free Software) to be more popular (some would say successful, but I disagree as both licenses serve their specific purposes well) than the BSDL is hardly constructive. Reasons for the GPLs success probably include
- The GPL being very good at preventing code forking, as all changes are contributed back for (possible) inclusion in the main tree (for example, how many versions of BSD and on a similar note, proprietary X servers are there, vs. how many forks of the Linux kernel? Of KDE? Of gnome? Of gcc (there was egcs, but the two merged again despite some severe personality conflicts)?
- Developers can be assured that their hard work will remain available for others to freely use and improve (as long as those others don't try to horde their changes or steal one's work altogether). Protection against theft from Joe Shmoe as well as Microsoft or Sun is very appealing to many, myself included. Did it occur to you that this very protection may be why a commercial enterprise such as 3com chose the GPL over BSDL?
- The continuity of the project is supported and to a degree assured by the GPL, for reasons above, which makes using the product in a commercial as well as private setting much more appealing than, say, a propreitary product. BSDL is good for this as well, but GPL offers more assurances in this respect and is IMHO better.
BSD is better if you don't mind the possibility of your code or project being used by Sun, Microsoft, and others for their own proprietary projects. Nothing wrong with this, if this is your intent, but those of us who use the GLP do not want this, and our license has and continues to serve us very well. Presumably the BSDL serves you well. Fine. But do not presume to think you are qualified to tell the rest of us how we should license the code we write.
As for your comment about Microsoft not claiming rights to your work, you may be one of the lucky ones.
This is only a good idea if the trademark is dontated to someone like Linux International, or Linus Torvalds. It would be inappropriate for one competing distribution (say, Red Hat) to own the Linux trademark and be in a position of denying every other distribution maker (Suse, Mandrake, Debian, Joe Shmoe) from using the word Linux(tm) in relation to their product. Even if privately held Red Hat would never do such a thing, we cannot be certain of the eternal benevolence of publicly traded Red Hat which is, now, beholden to its shareholders, not the Linux community at large.
I agree! I don't know what annoys me more -- people with no sense of humor who flame webcams, /., and anyone who dares find the advent of a major storm interesting, or those with no sense of empathy or concern for those about to have their lives turned upside down by a terrible act of nature. Neither are people I'd be in a hurry to invite home for dinner.
... perhaps while sitting next to a cozy fire in their fireplace, surrounded by the tinder-dry forest of the Rockies ...
The boat thing hits particularly close to home as I have a friend who is, at this moment, somewhere on Lake Eire or in the Erie canal, sailing toward Florida with the goal of living there (aboard his boat). I live in an apartment building in Chicago, where the entire midwest is due for a severe earthquake (the fault cuts loose every two hundred years or so -- by some accounts it is past due already) I'm sure that, when I'm lying crushed beneath tons of brick and masonry there will be pundits commenting on how stupid those midwesterners were, to be living in tall buildings so near a major fault
My thoughts go out to those about to get pounded as well. Best of luck, and be safe (get outta there before the damn thing hits, and to hell with the boat/house/etc!)
In an ideal world, one would sail the boat out of harms way before hurricane season starts, then come back after it is over. Unfortunately, most jobs prohibit people from leading that kind of nomadic existence, however ideallic and (in terms of property loss at least) practical.
I do find it refreshing that at least one geek in Florida can face that kind of impending doom with enough of a sense of humor to set up a Linux webcame, point the thing into the face of danger, and leave the box running. Sure beats the usual news drivel laced with insincere and trite rhetoric of empathy for those suffering while capitalizing shamelessly on their plight. If someone who lives there can laugh in the face of destruction, who the hell are the rest of us to wax judgemental?
Unternet (emphesizing "resisting The Man" with a German twist)
...
Undernet (a la the underground railroad)
civilrights net
resistence net
liberty net
freedom net
protection racket (OK, I had to have a little fun here)
safe net (emphesizing how little saftey we as individuals have using a protocol which allows big brother to know our every keystroke -- or at least our every mouse click on a URL)
Substitute "protocol" for "net" in any of the above, for even more choices.
I would like to see something at the network layer which would allow greater anonymity, encryption, and the like. Maybe a plugin for IP v 6. The problem is, at some level the packets have to actually reach their tartet. Perhaps a double blind routing system of some kind
Alas, many of the suggestions above are probably trademarked as well -- but you need to find a name you like which isn't and trademark it yourself, since what you are doing is very helpful and good for the public, and will therefor make you a big, fat target. (Just ask Phil Zimmerman.) No sense giving the bad guys any more ammunition to use against you (such as trademark law) than they probably already have.
Best of luck!
There are many tradeoffs one has to make, whether it is supporting 2GB (or 4GB) memory vs 1 GB, or 128 processors vs. 1. For Linux these kinds of choices have never really been a problem, as one can recompile the kernel at will, optimizing for the local configuration and intended use.
:-)
If I have a uniprocessor machine, I can compile the kernel without SMP support altogether. If I have a 128 processor machine, hopefully I would be able to compile the kernel with SMP support and, additionally, "massively parallel optimizations = Y" or something similar. This is the beauty of having the source available -- we can have our cake and eat it too. With any luck my old i486 will be able to sit next to the latest SGI 128 processor box my boss *will* be purchasing for me (I wish), both running 2.4.x of the kernel. I'll let the new guy have the i486.
Ouch! I forgot I had moderated a couple of comments in this discussion earlier today! ARGH! Apologies to those who just lost their +1 points ...
Perhaps. Your best bet would probably be to configure and run a customized runlevel, optimized for gaming. This would probably shut down most services, excess VCs and the like, but possibly keep network and multi-user facilities in tact (in case the game clobbers the IO interface and you have to ssh in to reset the box. Unusual, but possible with both svgalib and X.
:-)
Myself, I find games run excellently under Linux in its normal configuration, but them I'm spoiled with a fast CPU and lots of memory -- it takes something like Windows 98 or NT to really slow it down.
Two points:
1) The MS NSA story was not an assertion, it reported a factual discovery made by a reputable security consultancy. At worst it made some reasonable, if provocative, speculations based on the facts known at the time. Microsoft's later response to the story was painfully emberrassing to any who read it, not to mention profoundly insulting to the reader's intelligence. They have unwittingly given the "NSA back door key theory" a huge boost in credibility, and would have been much better off keeping their mouths shut.
2) A "trusted agency" is a single point of failure, capable of erring just like an individual, or being suborned by third parties for their own purposes. An industry wide consensus, or lack thereof (ie an open, ongoing debate), is a much better indicator of the veracity of a story than a single, offical stamp of approval. Neither approach is perfect, and certainly neither can substitute for a lazy reporter's lack of research, but the latter is much less subject to manipulation and/or outright corruption than the former IMHO.
If you are in Chicago, it's just more of ComEd's crumbling infrastructure rearing its ugly head. I'm half-expecting complete outages by Y2K, but the bugs aren't going to be related to 01/01/00 -- they are a result of years of criminal negligence on the part of an underregulated power monopoly, the results of which are just now coming to fruition.
Having said that, I am indeed skeptical of all of the "Y2K readiness" leaflets I receive in the mail. I suspect a good percentage of them are written from the standpoint of "we're not quite ready yet, but we will be, so let's sooth the unwashed masses." Unfortunately, as anyone who has ever written anything more than a trivially simple program realizes, deadlines have a way of slipping real fast in the world of software. I suspect there will be two major dangers resulting from the whole Y2k hoopla:
1) People being stupid and panicky (as many others have mentioned already), cleaning out stores and what have you before Y2K arrives.
2) People having done too little to prepare, trusting deceptive reassurances from those companies and services who weren't able to make their deadlines and be compliant on time, who then do an about face from blase' "it's nothin' to worry about" to full-fledged panic as they discover a whole host of inconveniences which combine to make their lives more than a little difficult.
In both cases the danger will be a result of panicy people, not technology. But to dismiss the notion that one should be planning for contingencies invites a whole host of problems of its own, quite possibly making a touchy situation worse. The best approach IMHO is to take some reasonable precautions:
* Have a little extra cash on hand in case the ATMs are down
* Have a hard copy of your statement from a day or two before the new year on hand
* Have a little extra food on hand (maybe a month's supply, instead of a week's)
* Have a few candles lying around
* Have a warm blanket handy in case the power does fail (thanks ComEd).
* Have a good book or two, for the same reason
* Relax. All those preparations were probably unnecessary, but now you don't have to worry even if things do come unravelled for a little while.
If one has made reasonable contingencies, one won't be one of the idiots consumed by panic when we usher in the new year with a few bumps. Of course, don't go shooting your gun into the air new years eve. Not only could the bullets injure someone when they fall back to earth, but, more importantly, you'll probably need that ammo come January first. (For the humor impaired: the last comment was a joke!)
AFAIK everything went fine, at least as far as aviators are concerned. My Lawrance worked fine all the way through the "rollover" and the upgrade.
I did have the GPS go out on me for ten or fifteen minutes one night flying back to Chicago along the Indiana shoreline. A quick look at the satelite page revealed the Satelites in an unusual constellation -- a bunch of them were all lined up in a row! Once the satelites were out of alignment with one another the GPS found itself and continued to work just fine.
This is an example as to why one NEVER relies on a single instrument for navigational and situational awareness (unless it simply can't be helped) -- cross checking your GPS against your LORAN, VORs, and MARK I eyeballs (is that river outside where the GPS and LORAN say it should be?) is the only way to be certain you are where you think you are.
Ob Y2K: If even a fraction of the banks and other firms are even half as dishonest and non-forthright about their Y2K readiness and infrastructure as Commonwealth Eddison has been this summer (not even bothering to tell the proper authorities after their efforts to fix serious problems on the sly failed and resulted in a huge power outage downtown, for example, coupled with numerious, ongoing power outages throughout the city which show no sign of letting up as their neglected infrastructure continues to show its age), then the Y2K issue could well end up being more than just a little hiccup. Armageddon? No. A royal pain in the ass, bigger than most expect? Quite possibly.
Theoretically they could even do this on systems that don't have microphones attached -- by using the system's speakers. A speaker can easilly be used as a microphone (ambient sound in the room can move the speaker's magnet(s), which in turn produce small signals going up the speaker cable and into the sound card. A little clever programming, loaded into the MS "security" module ... well, you get the idea). Do a little signal cleanup on the raw data and wala -- it may not be 32-bit stereo, but it is understandable.
I agree that having two disparate populations is not a desirable outcome, and would much prefer that the procedure be available to everyone. However, I also see ethical problems with denying someone access to a procedure that could improve them or their children, simply because not everyone can afford it. Should we disallow heart and liver transplants? Ban college (most people can't afford it, at least without grants and loans of some kind) and private schools?
If we as a society decide it is unacceptable to allow only the wealthy (and I would hope we would), or (much more likely) only the middle class and wealthy, to enhance themselves genetically, then we should work toward subsidizing access to such technologies for the underpriveleged rather than simply banning the practice for everyone. Unless, of course, we want a world in which only the criminals are super intelligent.
All of the points you mention undoubtable put the fear of into the hearts of government beaurocrats everywhere. However, I as an individual am hardly harmed. If the IRS gets their facts wrong and I underpay, the IRS is at fault, not me. I may have to hire a good lawyer and go to court, but no lasting harm is done. If my only source of information for a recall is a government web page I have to take the trouble to find and dig through, then there are more serious problems with the recall notification procedure than a petty vandal's mucking with the web page.
I am at most inconvenienced by such things. The government, on the other hand, has its power to govern more seriously hampered. Which is why the FBI et. al. are so enthusiastic when the vilify and imprison crackers. It isn't to protect you or I, it is to protect their own base of power. What matter that some clever, foolish children get destroyed by their actions? Intelligent people don't make good (read: docile) citizens anyway.
Crackers are spending more time in prison than muderers, rapists, and child molesters because the government, particulary those portions of the executive branch concerned with the control and (mis)use of information (the FBI, CIA, NSA, SS, etc.), feel much more threatened by a cracker (whether a knowledgable one such as Mitnick, or Script Kiddie such as Davis appears to be) than they do by most violent criminals.
Let's face it, if someone spray paints obscenities on your house, rapes your child or kills your mother the government is not the least bit threatened, no matter the degree of personal trajedy in your life. On the other hand, crackers inhibit the government's ability to propogate its world view when they deface a web page, with the (unspoken?) threat of possibly doing much more (such as compromizing their databases and whatnot). Add to that the perceived threat to large business interests and you have an explosive combination of political will to CRUSH the perceived threat. Details like fairness, civil rights, or even constitutionality have a long and dark history of being swept under the rug under these kinds of circumstances. The law is being used to protect the existing base of power more than it is to protect individuals. It should be no surprise that the government will spare no expense going after those people it finds threatening, nor will it feel any compunction whatsoever in treating those individuals with as little fairness as it can get away with.
If we do not speak up and put an end to this dispraportunate treatment of crackers it will not change, as it does serve the interests of those who persue and prosecute the cases.
Sun has a history of playing Microsoft's game by the same rules. Remember Open Windows? NEWS? "Embrance and extend" applied to the X Window System -- perfectly within their rights, but an effort to tie customers to their platform via proprietary extentions to an existing standard. Solaris 2.x is an example of this philosophy applied to System V UNIX, with results that range from humorous to downright irritating. The difference is that Microsoft played the game with much greater success than Sun.
The Sun SCSL was IMHO responsible for Java becoming just another language, rather than the Microsoft-killer cross-platform environment it had the potential to become. Sun has squandered opportunity after opportunity to court the Open Source community and leverage it's talent pool. It seems to be a control issue with them more than anything else -- they end up giving away the product (i.e. little or no revinue) but they forgoe the contributions the Open Source community could have made to making their product(s) better and more widely used, simply to keep absolute control of the spec. Not only have they shot themselves repeatedly in the foot from a purely practical perspective, but politically they have squandered an immense amount of good will they once enjoyed (as the standard bearer against the Microsoft Monopoly -- a role that has since been taken over by Linux) and replaced it with deep suspicion and a fundamental lack of confidence among Open Source users and developers which they will not easilly be able to overcome. Most distressing of all, they don't appear to learn from their mistakes. As a result, I am not at all optomistic about the medium and long term future of Star Office now that it is in Sun's hands, and I believe it would be a mistake for the Linux community to pin its hopes to that product.
On the commercial side we have Corel Office Suite on the horizon. In addition we have KOffice and Gnome Office emerging on the Open Source front. I think it is here that the Linux community should be concentrating its efforts and resources. This is an area where Red Hat, with its newfound wealth, could truly make a significant difference. The Office Suite of the future does need compatability with archaic file formats such as Microsoft Office, but as importantly, it needs to be unencumbered and open source (preferable GPL, but any Open Source license would be preferable to the SCSL IMNSHO). Perhaps RHAT could hire a team of programmers to write libraries for manipulating Microsoft Office and Wordperfect file formats, linkable by any Open Source project. An alternative license could be marketed to Corel and others who wish to make commercial offerings, allowing an even greater variety of Office Suites to interchange file formats in a coherent and compatible way, and providing an easy migration path from MS Office to whatever Office Suite the consumer desires.
> can they sue MILLIONS of people?
Yes, they could. And they'd win. The law (unfortunately) is on their side (and thousands of claims in small claims court would likely net them millions with little cost -- well worth it).
If you oppose software patents but are not politically inclined, please at least do your part to make patented software (and, apparently, patented file formats) obsolete by not using them.
We *really* need transparency support for PNG to be implimented in Netscape and other browsers. I too like the transparency feature (and, in moderation, the animation feature can be nice too). The PNG spec does allow various forms of transparency -- supporting it shouldn't be that difficult.
:-)) to advertise that the page doesn't use GIF's with a link to the anti-GIF page explaining why. Software patents are a very bad thing IMHO, so I do this for philisophical reasons more than "fear" of a UNISYS crackdown. The fact is, however, that if the law allows for UNISYS to demand the kinds of royalties alluded to in Sunday's article, their assurances that they will refrain from demanding such royalties doesn't mean they won't do so in the future. Clearly their first responsibility is to their shareholders -- how long before economic pressures to increase revinues causes them to rethink their position and revise their policy again -- this time even less in our favor? Better to simply make the entire issue moot, by not having a single GIF image anywhere on one's website.
As an aside, I just got done eliminating all of the GIFs in my personal web site and replacing them with PNG equivelents (which Netscape 4.5 appears to support just fine), and am copying the changes to the website as I write this. When I get a chance I'm going to put together a nice little "GIF Free" icon using the GIMP (in PNG format naturally
The solution is quite simple, really (if a little rude).
Remove all support for displaying GIF images from all future versions of Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, and the like. If you want your web page viewable by the next generation of browsers, DON'T use GIF images. It would be quite simple to strangle Unisys at the source, by making the outdated format which uses their obsolete algorithm inaccessible to most users.
Those requiring lossless compression could use PNG. Otherwise, JPG is kinder to bandwidth anyway. As for animations -- I believe there are a number of non-GIF methods for supporting them if they are really that necessary (a debatable point).
Roblimo,
:-)
To prevent this kind of sowing of doubt, may I suggest each story have a small link next to it entitled "verification" or something similar, that would take the curious or doubtful to a web page summarizing the verification process in much the same way you just did? For links to other news sites this probably isn't necessary, though it might still be a nice touch to have the same kind of link, pointing to that new site's journalistic "standards" page (if they have one).
Clearly this kind of stunning success for Linux is rubbing some folks the wrong way -- wonder why.