(I administrate a mailing list/resource site for Open Spectrum here (sign up here). "Discussion and community effort towards the proliferation of open spectrum policy and regulations world-wide (including developing nations).").
I'm particularly interested in the remarks by Patrick Gelsinger, chief technology officer of Intel, quote "focused on the catalyzing role lenient regulatory statutes have played in spurring growth in nations with advanced wireless infrastructures"
> Wireless services based on Wi-Fi cost less to deliver than do services > offered through other broadband technologies such as DSL and 3G > (third-generation) wireless, Gelsinger said, making Wi-Fi "the only > way to build a broadband infrastructure" in developing nations. Wi-Fi > is an interoperability specification for wireless LAN technology based > on the IEEE 802.11 standards, but is often used loosely as a synonym > for wireless LAN technology in general. > > However, many of those nations are taking actions that are detrimental > to Wi-Fi development, he argued. > > "We're seeing developing nations be the slowest and the most > conservative in terms of making unregulated, unlicensed spectrum > available," he said. "We see this idea of a scarcity mentality, this > 'We have this spectrum, we're holding onto it and maybe getting a few > dollars from licensing it.' " > > Gelsinger later clarified his remarks, saying that by "unregulated" he > doesn't mean governments should take an entirely hands-off approach > toward overseeing spectrum allocation, but rather that governments > should set aside spectrum bands with no end-user licensing > requirements for wireless device use, as the Federal Communications > Commission has done in the U.S.
I think he's absolutely right that a lot of nations governments are basically not well-educated about Open Spectrum. They see spectrum still as something that they get cash from licensing. How do we convince them that they can benefit even more from adopting open spectrum policy?
His remark "unregulated, unlicensed spectrum" though is bad. Open Spectrum is NOT unregulated. It is REGULATED to be OPEN. That includes the very important aspect of power-level restriction and the rule "thou shalt accept interference from other sources".
Also, I'm very concerned when I hear from government people in the developing world that the 2.4 GHz band is not Open Spectrum but 'ISM' which is an old USA-ism. The original ISM didn't allow any telephony to be done. But that's ancient history. Unfortunately the old language seems to have somehow propagated itself into the minds of some people so that they think that ISM and Open Spectrum are the same.
simon
Cry havoc! And let slip the slashdogs of war
on
Isn't It Ironic?
·
· Score: 1
Hooray, I call backwards day! Any off-topic post is, ironically, on topic! You can't moderate me down, you can moderate me up! Isn't that ironic?!
And now, I bring you a short poem.
1. on the first day of christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a parse tree 2. on the second day of christmas my true love gave to me two kernel dumps 3. on the third day of christmas my true love gave to me three branch ends 4. on the fourth day of christmas my true love gave to me four calling backs 5. on the fifth day of christmas my true love gave to me five token rings
Would you mind finishing it for me? That's as far as I got.
[note, it really should be NAPT (network address and port translation), NAT alone is pretty harmless]
Let's say I'm the author of a voice over IP application on a platform that supports IPv6, like, say, Mac OS X. I get myself a NAPT-replacement box that I stick on the edge of my home network. It assigns an IPv6 address to each of the inner systems using 6to4. Then, when my caller wants to try to phone me, I give her my IPv6 address. She connects to that address and her magic box sets up an IPv6 tunnel to my magic box automatically. Then my magic box forwards the packets to the right machine in my network.
Add a firewall to that, and you've got something that replaces NAPT.
You could keep IPv4 NAPT as a legacy feature for inside hosts and applications that don't support IPv6 yet. But apps that do support IPv6, would not have to do any work to traverse the NAPT.
simon
Re:What SCO is really afraid of.
on
My Visit to SCO
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
I'd bet a all the money I have that if that "offending" code was revealed tonight we'd have it all rewritten by Monday morning. The Linux community is more angry about this than anything that has ever touched it. All that anger would be unleached in an orgy of coding the likes of which even God has not seen.
The big headache will come if SCO manages to get through this without ever revealing the code. Then they can charge extortion money from anyone without end.
"Going around asking people in a public forum if they had access to proprietary code years ago that they're not legally allowed to disclose is juvenile at best."
RTFA. That's NOT what he's asking. He's asking for people who had access to the code and NO LEGAL OBLIGATION TO KEEP IT SECRET to please let him know about that.
A pattern of such access would maybe void the trade-secret status of the code.
RTFA. He's not looking for people who are culpable. He's looking for people who AREN'T culpable. People who were just given the code with no restrictions. He specifically stated that he wants situations where the mistake was made farther up the chain.
[1] Since they knew that portions of the work were encumbered, the GPL ceases to enable distribution of any of it, thus copyright law applies. See damages above.
It's an interesting idea but how do you know that the GPL will cease to cover everything? That's not stated in the GPL. I think that the license would continue to cover the non-infringing work. The only parts not covered by the GPL would then be the hypothetical code that was stolen from SCO. But then, since they released it with the GPL label, and THEY ARE the owners of that code, then it is covered under GPL;-)
Yes, but they're arguing that section 1 a, which defines The Program, does not include their code. They're saying that their code doesn't BECOME the Program, because it doesn't qualify as original work. Thus, 2 b wouldn't apply either.
"I was always curious about this. By this rule some engineer at MS with access to windows code could add it to some open source project and all of windows would be GPL?"
The difference here is that it was actually Caldera that released the code. They distributed it, they wrote the press release. Once that's done, the fact that they failed to verify what it was that they released seems like their own problem.
Right. If some employee on a lark decides to break their NDA and release all the code under the GPL, two things will happen. First, the company will sue the employee. Second, the company will try to convince a judge that they retain the trade secret because they took steps to prevent it from happening, caught it and are after the hooligan who did it. Now, the judge can rule that the code is still an MS trade secret, and rule that it's not available under the GPL since the engineer was guilty.
They're trying to say that if the person who contributes the code is not the copyright holder, then the GPL doesn't apply, so they're not responsible for GPLing the code, so their distro doesn't count. But it does.
He had this to offer about the GPL and SCO: "The GPL, by its terms, only applies to software programs or works which contain a notice "placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. (emphasis by him)
But they published the code, and it contained a notice, which they also published, saying that it's under the GPL. Even if the code went through other hands first, they are claiming that they are the copyright holder, AND they published it with the notice. So they STILL fall under the GPL provisions.
is CSMA/CD . What a brilliant MAC. You just start shouting, check to see if anyone else was shouting, and if they were, wait a random amount of time and start shouting again. It's so simple and stupid that no one would ever think it works.
Have a look at http://www.intersil.com/design/prism/papers/sympos um.pdf to see a summary of the loss you'll get through various materials. (page 4). Two other materials I've heard about but aren't listed are plaster with metal lath, and rebar concrete. Both will drop the signal dramatically. They basically both as as a faraday shield. Rebar concrete is what's used in most apartment buildings, it's concrete embedded with steel bars. Plaster in walls of houses often has a metal mesh called lath in it. In both its the metal content that kills the signal.
Here's the list from the PDF
> 2.4 GHz Signal Attenuation: > Window Brick Wall 2dB > Metal Frame Glass Wall into Building 6dB > Metal Door in Office 6dB > Cinder Block Wall 4 dB > Metal Door in Brick Wall 12.4dB > Brick Wall next to Metal Door 3dB
Brick and wood aren't much of a problem, so if you've somehow got a brick & wood apartment building, with no rebar, you're in luck;-) (you're probably also in Asia)
Yup, there's all kinds of ways to dodge questions. The most effective way to fight that is to point out that they dodged the question and make them look bad.
But if you really want to see them squirm you have to ask the right question. Ask about fair use for example. As a question where every reasonable person who's listening knows what the answer should be, yes. But where you expect the person to answer no. Then you get to watch them squirm because they know what everyone wants to hear as well.
You have to be completely sincere and honest when you ask these kinds of questions. Don't let them brush you off as a joker or a crackpot.
"If you support fair use, how can you justify draconian laws like the DMCA that are headed to destroy that?"
It's a good question because there's no cracks that weasel words can get out of. He can't say "I don't support fair use" so you've eliminated his ability to weasel out by making the protection-is-more-important-we're losing money argument. You can't let him go into that area because they can gain sympathy that way. You can force him to deal with the issue that the Monopolists are ruining fair use with their overpowered laws. You also get in your own position -- that the DMCA is draconian -- which is another one that no one can argue with. He can't call the question unfair, because all the assumptions are true.
And, if he does argue that the question is unfair, he's digging his own hole. Then Lessig comes back and says, no, you've just said that fair use is wrong, or DMCA is invalid, and you're wrong. You've forced them to say something indefensible. So no matter how they answer, you win.
I had this same idea in response to a slashdot posting except on a marginally smaller scale in senegal. Some nice people kicked a few holes that you might find interesting:
>> The fact remains that longhaul wireless can reach beyond the grid, >> and battery operated, generator charged, or solar power can keep them >> running. > > This I simply cannot fathom. The solar panels and batteries described > in > the Bhutan project (http://www.bhutan-notes.com/clif/) cost $4500, and > that's just for one repeater!
$4500 is a lot but it's not a showstopper.
Senegal is 192 000 km^2. Let's say that there is one WiFi mesh tower ever 20km in a square grid completely covering senegal. 20^2 = 400 km^2 per tower 192 000 / 400 = 480 480 * $4500 = $2 160 000
Senegal's only 500 km wide, so the costs will be scaled up accordingly. Still, I think that's pretty cheap.
<shameless plug> I started a mailing list to talk about long-distance wifi/wireless/802.11b , called wireless long-haul. Check it out here. There's also a Wiki with links to existing long-haul wifi projects and resources. </shameless plug>
How come Objective C doesn't come up on any of these lists? I mean, it's being used now by tons of programmers discovering the magical world of Cocoa. It's just C, with a tiny itty little bit of syntax added on to do (almost) everything Smalltalk does (and a little bit more). It's got dynamic typing. You haven't lived until you've tried dynamic typing. It's got all the good stuff you need to do OO and none of the nastiness and crud in C++. You use the objective bits for objective stuff and use C for all the normal, procedural stuff that OO programs still usually (and rightly) have.
And it's self-documenting! No kidding! Check out the method call syntax: [self dataWithPDFInsideRect:copyRect] and you can mix and match your C and ObjC syntax: fabs([lastAbortDate timeIntervalSinceNow])
Those are simple examples, though, this one shows the power of the language better:
So now are we going to see a chill on self-publishing of music? How many small artists who publish their own work on their site get "accidental" threatening letters just because they share a name with some RIAA-sponsored pop star?
OK, this doesn't seem like a long-distance solution like traditional VHF data links. I was thinking that you were talking about something with the potential for 100s of kms of range like HF/VHF data links. I can't find ANY information about range, except that its being considered mainly for 3G so I'm thinking the range isn't that impressive (compared to the OFDM type stuff that's coming from IEEE 802.16...)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm particularly interested in the remarks by Patrick Gelsinger, chief
technology officer of Intel, quote "focused on the catalyzing role
lenient regulatory statutes have played in spurring growth in nations
with advanced wireless infrastructures"
Patrick said, [quote from infoworld article]I think he's absolutely right that a lot of nations governments are
basically not well-educated about Open Spectrum. They see spectrum
still as something that they get cash from licensing. How do we
convince them that they can benefit even more from adopting open
spectrum policy?
His remark "unregulated, unlicensed spectrum" though is bad. Open
Spectrum is NOT unregulated. It is REGULATED to be OPEN. That includes
the very important aspect of power-level restriction and the rule "thou
shalt accept interference from other sources".
Also, I'm very concerned when I hear from government people in the
developing world that the 2.4 GHz band is not Open Spectrum but 'ISM'
which is an old USA-ism. The original ISM didn't allow any telephony to
be done. But that's ancient history. Unfortunately the old language
seems to have somehow propagated itself into the minds of some people
so that they think that ISM and Open Spectrum are the same.
simon
Hooray, I call backwards day! Any off-topic post is, ironically, on topic! You can't moderate me down, you can moderate me up! Isn't that ironic?!
And now, I bring you a short poem.
1. on the first day of christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a parse tree
2. on the second day of christmas my true love gave to me two kernel dumps
3. on the third day of christmas my true love gave to me three branch ends
4. on the fourth day of christmas my true love gave to me four calling backs
5. on the fifth day of christmas my true love gave to me five token rings
Would you mind finishing it for me? That's as far as I got.
simon
[note, it really should be NAPT (network address and port translation), NAT alone is pretty harmless]
Let's say I'm the author of a voice over IP application on a platform that supports IPv6, like, say, Mac OS X. I get myself a NAPT-replacement box that I stick on the edge of my home network. It assigns an IPv6 address to each of the inner systems using 6to4. Then, when my caller wants to try to phone me, I give her my IPv6 address. She connects to that address and her magic box sets up an IPv6 tunnel to my magic box automatically. Then my magic box forwards the packets to the right machine in my network.
Add a firewall to that, and you've got something that replaces NAPT.
You could keep IPv4 NAPT as a legacy feature for inside hosts and applications that don't support IPv6 yet. But apps that do support IPv6, would not have to do any work to traverse the NAPT.
simon
I'd bet a all the money I have that if that "offending" code was revealed tonight we'd have it all rewritten by Monday morning. The Linux community is more angry about this than anything that has ever touched it. All that anger would be unleached in an orgy of coding the likes of which even God has not seen.
The big headache will come if SCO manages to get through this without ever revealing the code. Then they can charge extortion money from anyone without end.
simon
OK, this REALLY isn't offtopic ;-)
.........
- tool use
- language
- agriculture
- writing
- the steam engine
- the assembly line
- the computer
- the internet
what's scary is that if you chart those out on a timeline, the periods are decreasing exponentially
simon
More discs that look like CDs and DVDs but aren't, will be coming soon.
simon
"or whatever non-disclosure agreement you had was not enforced."
If you were part of a company that had code under NDA, and the company went ahead and leaked it anyway, then your non-diclosure is not enforced.
it's weak, but that's just one of many situations he's interested in.
simon
"Going around asking people in a public forum if they had access to proprietary code years ago that they're not legally allowed to disclose is juvenile at best."
RTFA. That's NOT what he's asking. He's asking for people who had access to the code and NO LEGAL OBLIGATION TO KEEP IT SECRET to please let him know about that.
A pattern of such access would maybe void the trade-secret status of the code.
simon
RTFA. He's not looking for people who are culpable. He's looking for people who AREN'T culpable. People who were just given the code with no restrictions. He specifically stated that he wants situations where the mistake was made farther up the chain.
simon
"Just use PNG for charts/screenshots and jpg for photos and don't think about it."
... in every case but this one ...
yes
[1] Since they knew that portions of the work were encumbered, the GPL ceases to enable distribution of any of it, thus copyright law applies. See damages above.
;-)
It's an interesting idea but how do you know that the GPL will cease to cover everything? That's not stated in the GPL. I think that the license would continue to cover the non-infringing work. The only parts not covered by the GPL would then be the hypothetical code that was stolen from SCO. But then, since they released it with the GPL label, and THEY ARE the owners of that code, then it is covered under GPL
simon
Yes, but they're arguing that section 1 a, which defines The Program, does not include their code. They're saying that their code doesn't BECOME the Program, because it doesn't qualify as original work. Thus, 2 b wouldn't apply either.
simon
IANAFL
"I was always curious about this. By this rule some engineer at MS with access to windows code could add it to some open source project and all of windows would be GPL?"
The difference here is that it was actually Caldera that released the code. They distributed it, they wrote the press release. Once that's done, the fact that they failed to verify what it was that they released seems like their own problem.
Right. If some employee on a lark decides to break their NDA and release all the code under the GPL, two things will happen. First, the company will sue the employee. Second, the company will try to convince a judge that they retain the trade secret because they took steps to prevent it from happening, caught it and are after the hooligan who did it. Now, the judge can rule that the code is still an MS trade secret, and rule that it's not available under the GPL since the engineer was guilty.
simon
How about PNG? I saved it as PNG using GraphicConverter and it was 52 K. But I agree GIF gives even better results (but maybe lossy?)
simon
well, you're nitpicking. What I said was true, it jsut wasn't the whole truth. there's more to it than what you said too.
simon
They're trying to say that if the person who contributes the code is not the copyright holder, then the GPL doesn't apply, so they're not responsible for GPLing the code, so their distro doesn't count. But it does.
He had this to offer about the GPL and SCO: "The GPL, by its terms, only applies to software programs or works which contain a notice "placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. (emphasis by him)
But they published the code, and it contained a notice, which they also published, saying that it's under the GPL. Even if the code went through other hands first, they are claiming that they are the copyright holder, AND they published it with the notice. So they STILL fall under the GPL provisions.
Simon
is CSMA/CD . What a brilliant MAC. You just start shouting, check to see if anyone else was shouting, and if they were, wait a random amount of time and start shouting again. It's so simple and stupid that no one would ever think it works.
simon
Have a look at http://www.intersil.com/design/prism/papers/sympos um.pdf to see a summary of the loss you'll get through various materials. (page 4). Two other materials I've heard about but aren't listed are plaster with metal lath, and rebar concrete. Both will drop the signal dramatically. They basically both as as a faraday shield. Rebar concrete is what's used in most apartment buildings, it's concrete embedded with steel bars. Plaster in walls of houses often has a metal mesh called lath in it. In both its the metal content that kills the signal.
;-) (you're probably also in Asia)
Here's the list from the PDF
> 2.4 GHz Signal Attenuation:
> Window Brick Wall 2dB
> Metal Frame Glass Wall into Building 6dB
> Metal Door in Office 6dB
> Cinder Block Wall 4 dB
> Metal Door in Brick Wall 12.4dB
> Brick Wall next to Metal Door 3dB
Brick and wood aren't much of a problem, so if you've somehow got a brick & wood apartment building, with no rebar, you're in luck
simon
SCO accuses IBM of stealing their UNIX code.
SCO sends out nasty letters to tons of companies that use Linux telling them they'd better pay up.
Microsoft pays up.
That gives legitimacy to SCO's claim, makes other companies more worried. More worried that they need to pay for Linux.
They thought Linux was free.
Now they're not so sure.
simon
for providing the single american answer to every problem: sue the bastards. /sarcasm
simon
Yup, there's all kinds of ways to dodge questions. The most effective way to fight that is to point out that they dodged the question and make them look bad.
But if you really want to see them squirm you have to ask the right question. Ask about fair use for example. As a question where every reasonable person who's listening knows what the answer should be, yes. But where you expect the person to answer no. Then you get to watch them squirm because they know what everyone wants to hear as well.
You have to be completely sincere and honest when you ask these kinds of questions. Don't let them brush you off as a joker or a crackpot.
"If you support fair use, how can you justify draconian laws like the DMCA that are headed to destroy that?"
It's a good question because there's no cracks that weasel words can get out of. He can't say "I don't support fair use" so you've eliminated his ability to weasel out by making the protection-is-more-important-we're losing money argument. You can't let him go into that area because they can gain sympathy that way. You can force him to deal with the issue that the Monopolists are ruining fair use with their overpowered laws. You also get in your own position -- that the DMCA is draconian -- which is another one that no one can argue with. He can't call the question unfair, because all the assumptions are true.
And, if he does argue that the question is unfair, he's digging his own hole. Then Lessig comes back and says, no, you've just said that fair use is wrong, or DMCA is invalid, and you're wrong. You've forced them to say something indefensible. So no matter how they answer, you win.
simon
message 1: But hey, if you want to try to do it you might think about the cost:
message 2 Then I started to think about making it a fixed mesh instead of just one long line, for reliability.
message 3 Senegal's only 500 km wide, so the costs will be scaled up accordingly. Still, I think that's pretty cheap.
<shameless plug>
I started a mailing list to talk about long-distance wifi/wireless/802.11b , called wireless long-haul. Check it out here. There's also a Wiki with links to existing long-haul wifi projects and resources.
</shameless plug>
simon
And it's self-documenting! No kidding! Check out the method call syntax: [self dataWithPDFInsideRect:copyRect] and you can mix and match your C and ObjC syntax: fabs([lastAbortDate timeIntervalSinceNow])
Those are simple examples, though, this one shows the power of the language better:What does it do? You have one second. OK, time's up.
I think the main thing people hate about ObjC is that they don't get to use it.
simon
So now are we going to see a chill on self-publishing of music? How many small artists who publish their own work on their site get "accidental" threatening letters just because they share a name with some RIAA-sponsored pop star?
simon
OK, this doesn't seem like a long-distance solution like traditional VHF data links. I was thinking that you were talking about something with the potential for 100s of kms of range like HF/VHF data links. I can't find ANY information about range, except that its being considered mainly for 3G so I'm thinking the range isn't that impressive (compared to the OFDM type stuff that's coming from IEEE 802.16...)
email me if I'm off sbwoodside@yahoo.com
simon
PS it's interesting tech