In 1997, right after Chips n' Dips had faded away, to be replaced by the enigmatically named http:///..org, all of us free software nerds hung on its every story, comment and poll like it was carved on tablet and flung from a burning bush. A year later I had started at hardware maker VA Research and/. was falling down for lack of machinery, so we rummaged through our returns piles and sent Rob and Jeff some 2u servers to help out. That was for me the beginning of some of the most important friendships in my adult life.
Its hard to explain how important Slashdot was to all of us 10 years ago. Indeed, without it it would be hard to imagine HN, Reddit, Digg, Fark or any of a thousand lesser sites. The editorial perspective of Rob and the other editors of/. is what kept people coming back and for a long time that perspective was Rob's, then Rob and Jeff and a bunch of us (some, like Timothy and samzenpus, still around!), but then Jeff left, now Rob. In some way I see this as a passing of an era in free software.
Throughout, while some have left for those greener shores, slashdot abided even while buffeted by the markets and the de/evolving internet news world, and it has remained a default tab in my and many others' browsers.
I didn't mean this post to be about Slashdot though, but about my friend Rob. I'll only say that while the site will be the lessor for you leaving, I firmly believe that computer science will gain my. While this note reads like an epitaph or the last pages of a book, it is really no more than a thank you note from me and many I know to your for your decade+ of work on the site. So...
Hey, the fellows in netops asked me to clarify for you folks here's the story:
1e100.net is a Google-owned domain name used to identify the servers in our network. Following standard industry practice, we make sure each IP address has a corresponding hostname. Starting in October 2009, we started using a single domain name to identify our servers across all Google products, rather than use different product domains such as youtube.com, blogger.com, and google.com. We did this for two reasons: first, to keep things simpler, and second, to proactively improve security by protecting against potential threats such as cross-site scripting attacks. Most typical Internet users will never see 1e100.net, but we picked we picked a Googley name for it just in case (1e100 is scientific notation for 1 googol).
If you head over to LWN, we've already gone back and forth on this a bit. http://lwn.net/Articles/372419/. The short form is that if they don't like how we use the kernel, we're unlikely to be accepted upstream. It's all still released as source code to the world, but the mainline is not interested in most of what we've with to the kernel.
I'd like to point out that the Kogan phone folks could have adapted the code to the screen size, but it would have taken longer than their product plan would have allowed. So in that case, you are right, but if they had started the screen porting stuff earlier, then they probably could have shipped something like what they put on their website.
Let me remind you that the structure of the droid licensing is very clear: linux kernel, then apache/bsd all the way up from there (With a dollop of lgpl). You don't need googles permission to ship an android based device. There are some apps (maps comes to mind) that you do need googles permission to ship, but those are closed anyhow.
This isn't like that at all....the phone can read bar codes, which is nice, it isn't some grand marketing initiative with tie-ins with Wired and all that. But I can see people replacing the old bulky symbol style handhelds for something like this.
Well, I'd disagree, I think we're doing fine from a kernel release perspective. We could do more, and in time, we will, but we only really started a concerted effort to release changes 3 years ago, so...not so shabby. Red Hat has been more important than Google or any linux -user- in the development of the kernel.
Your comments about manipulation are weirdly paranoid. The original list that Greg posted was 20+ companies long, and originally didn't include us, as he didn't count Andrew to us. He fixed that, and the post I sent to you was from his talk at Google. It's part of his presentation to call out the company he visits, which is one of the reasons we invited him out.
Google is built on software, some of which comes from the world of open soruce, and most of which was written here. To give back, we both release code from the company (a significant amount >1m lines per year), fund external code (uncountable, really) and through the summer of code, create new developers and even more code still (2.1m+ last year, at least 3m this).
That's not too shabby, in my book. I also would point out that it is disingenuous to equate linux use with some license fee savings. If linux had initially charged a license fee, then the world of linux users would be using bsd. Linux is successful because it is free of charge and free to use and free to modify. I think it is important that we give back and the rest, and we do that, but to multiply the number of machines running linux on the internet and consider that money as having been stolen is antithetical to the whole idea behind free software and open source.
Please note that the LSST -isn't- about os politics, but about near earth object detection, and the telescope is going to create a crapton of data that needs storing and processing but last I talked with the engineering team, they were planning on running Linux across the -many- machines they need to process the data.
Here's the background on the request and what happened internally:
"Here's a bit more background on this situation. Members of the Israeli
Shaarei Tikva Council accused an anonymous blogger of defamation and
asked for an injunction against Google requiring us to provide the IP
address of the blogger. We opposed the injunction, in part because we
wanted to give the blogger a chance to explain in court why his or her
IP address shouldn't be disclosed. The court agreed that the blogger
should be given notice. The court also directed Google to give the court
the IP address and when the blogger did not reply to the notice the
court provided the members of the council with the IP address. What we
did in this instance was standard. We objected to the injunction, but
were ultimately directed by the court to provide it with the IP address."
It is worth pointing out since we are going to be releasing a ton of code here that openmoko can absolutely adopt it and incorporate it into their work. That's a nice thing about open source.:-)
Thanks for posting this Greg! I thought it was some kind of joke when Ashlee emailed me, I mean, how many times do we have to say we're not creating our own licenses, you know?
You're thinking David Cross. He has a funny bit about McDonalds. "I don't think that people will suddently worry where they're going to get their big mac if you skip a day," and then launches into a polemic about paying thier workers slightly better.
David Cross is funny:-)
Although it seems the kind of joke that you'd hear other places, too.
First off, you should have that in your docs. I'll double check but either a) you didn't get them for some reasons or b) you're making this up. Secondly, the tivoisation is an issue for GPLv3, not 2.
I think there were a few boxes that didn't ship with proper docs a few years ago, I'd hate it if it happened again (hence why I'm checking). But I gotta ask you again: why are you so ready to be pissed off at us? This is why I called you a moron, and maybe I shouldn't have, but I gotta tell you this level of stridency against us is a waste of time and makes your arguments smell contrived, dishonest and demented. Anonymity added on top of that makes you seem downright fishy. After all, how can I fix things if I don't know who you are? Please email me at cdibona@google.com and I'll personally fedex you copies of the notices and the gpl, printed on paper or even a t-shirt, for that matter.
Call me a 'name caller' if you must, but your rage, I say again, is ill placed. There are plenty of bad actors using open source improperly, Google isn't one of them. We're not perfect, but there isn't anything all that dramatic going on here.
Okay, how about instead of 'sigh' I spell it out for you and those that might read you an say: You're an astroturfing (or simply dishonest) moron. We provide such documentation at sales time to those who buy the product.
Slashdot Mirror
For the record: I really thought that champagne cooler was empty.
Its hard to explain how important Slashdot was to all of us 10 years ago. Indeed, without it it would be hard to imagine HN, Reddit, Digg, Fark or any of a thousand lesser sites. The editorial perspective of Rob and the other editors of /. is what kept people coming back and for a long time that perspective was Rob's, then Rob and Jeff and a bunch of us (some, like Timothy and samzenpus, still around!), but then Jeff left, now Rob. In some way I see this as a passing of an era in free software.
Throughout, while some have left for those greener shores, slashdot abided even while buffeted by the markets and the de/evolving internet news world, and it has remained a default tab in my and many others' browsers.
I didn't mean this post to be about Slashdot though, but about my friend Rob. I'll only say that while the site will be the lessor for you leaving, I firmly believe that computer science will gain my. While this note reads like an epitaph or the last pages of a book, it is really no more than a thank you note from me and many I know to your for your decade+ of work on the site. So...
Thanks.
Sorry, but Theora is still not as high quality as later codecs. That hasn't changed. But I was very happy to fund this work out of my group.
1e100.net is a Google-owned domain name used to identify the servers in our network. Following standard industry practice, we make sure each IP address has a corresponding hostname. Starting in October 2009, we started using a single domain name to identify our servers across all Google products, rather than use different product domains such as youtube.com, blogger.com, and google.com. We did this for two reasons: first, to keep things simpler, and second, to proactively improve security by protecting against potential threats such as cross-site scripting attacks. Most typical Internet users will never see 1e100.net, but we picked we picked a Googley name for it just in case (1e100 is scientific notation for 1 googol).
So there you go!
If you head over to LWN, we've already gone back and forth on this a bit. http://lwn.net/Articles/372419/. The short form is that if they don't like how we use the kernel, we're unlikely to be accepted upstream. It's all still released as source code to the world, but the mainline is not interested in most of what we've with to the kernel.
Let me remind you that the structure of the droid licensing is very clear: linux kernel, then apache/bsd all the way up from there (With a dollop of lgpl). You don't need googles permission to ship an android based device. There are some apps (maps comes to mind) that you do need googles permission to ship, but those are closed anyhow.
Chris
Chris
This isn't like that at all....the phone can read bar codes, which is nice, it isn't some grand marketing initiative with tie-ins with Wired and all that. But I can see people replacing the old bulky symbol style handhelds for something like this.
Chris
Just saying....the game business is weird sometimes.
Chris
Well, I'd disagree, I think we're doing fine from a kernel release perspective. We could do more, and in time, we will, but we only really started a concerted effort to release changes 3 years ago, so...not so shabby. Red Hat has been more important than Google or any linux -user- in the development of the kernel.
Your comments about manipulation are weirdly paranoid. The original list that Greg posted was 20+ companies long, and originally didn't include us, as he didn't count Andrew to us. He fixed that, and the post I sent to you was from his talk at Google. It's part of his presentation to call out the company he visits, which is one of the reasons we invited him out.
Google is built on software, some of which comes from the world of open soruce, and most of which was written here. To give back, we both release code from the company (a significant amount >1m lines per year), fund external code (uncountable, really) and through the summer of code, create new developers and even more code still (2.1m+ last year, at least 3m this).
That's not too shabby, in my book. I also would point out that it is disingenuous to equate linux use with some license fee savings. If linux had initially charged a license fee, then the world of linux users would be using bsd. Linux is successful because it is free of charge and free to use and free to modify. I think it is important that we give back and the rest, and we do that, but to multiply the number of machines running linux on the internet and consider that money as having been stolen is antithetical to the whole idea behind free software and open source.
Chris
There was a neat study that Greg KH did about corporate contributions to the kernel, which has us at a not-too-shabby 13th.
Chris DiBona
"Here's a bit more background on this situation. Members of the Israeli Shaarei Tikva Council accused an anonymous blogger of defamation and asked for an injunction against Google requiring us to provide the IP address of the blogger. We opposed the injunction, in part because we wanted to give the blogger a chance to explain in court why his or her IP address shouldn't be disclosed. The court agreed that the blogger should be given notice. The court also directed Google to give the court the IP address and when the blogger did not reply to the notice the court provided the members of the council with the IP address. What we did in this instance was standard. We objected to the injunction, but were ultimately directed by the court to provide it with the IP address."
-Chris
Chris
Chris DiBona
Chris
Chris DiBona
We could have our own section!
You're thinking David Cross. He has a funny bit about McDonalds. "I don't think that people will suddently worry where they're going to get their big mac if you skip a day," and then launches into a polemic about paying thier workers slightly better.
David Cross is funnyAlthough it seems the kind of joke that you'd hear other places, too.
I think there were a few boxes that didn't ship with proper docs a few years ago, I'd hate it if it happened again (hence why I'm checking). But I gotta ask you again: why are you so ready to be pissed off at us? This is why I called you a moron, and maybe I shouldn't have, but I gotta tell you this level of stridency against us is a waste of time and makes your arguments smell contrived, dishonest and demented. Anonymity added on top of that makes you seem downright fishy. After all, how can I fix things if I don't know who you are? Please email me at cdibona@google.com and I'll personally fedex you copies of the notices and the gpl, printed on paper or even a t-shirt, for that matter.
Call me a 'name caller' if you must, but your rage, I say again, is ill placed. There are plenty of bad actors using open source improperly, Google isn't one of them. We're not perfect, but there isn't anything all that dramatic going on here.
Chris
http://code.google.com/mirror/gsa.html
So much outrage spent on nothing.
http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&p a=showpage&pid=43
Chris