As a ham radio operator, I appreciate the efforts of others to shield their interfering devices. Open boxes can, and do, make a mess of the radio frequencies all the way up through UHF. Shortwave listeners, scanner enthusiasts, and wireless communications users would appreciate your efforts, too.
Besides shielding your box, it's nice to put ferrite RF chokes on the cables, especially the video cable but preferrably all cables running out of the computer. The cables work as antennas, potentially leading some of the RF noise out of your shielded box and emitting it. Some cables have the choke molded in, if yours doesn't, get the clip-on kind from the Radio Shack. The more turns of wire through it, the better it works.
I also use shielded CAT-5 wire on my 100-base-T network, and I use that same wire for my DSL connection, from the point where it enters the house.
Gee, I'm surprised I have to explain this one any longer.
The GPL restricts your right to take away other people's rights. It's better that everyone be allowed to modify the program than just you, and nobody after you.
Freedom includes responsibility. The GPL mandates that you behave responsibly regarding other people's freedoms.
There's been some question regarding the legal status of the Open Source certification mark. Although the mark still exists, its application for federal registration has apparently been allowed to lapse, perhaps temporarily. In February, I published It's Time To Talk About Free Software Again, because I felt that the use of the phrase Open Source had caused us to think less about the freedom involved in Free Software. What I said then still stands, and thus I'm ambivalent about the fate of the Open Source certification mark. However, the Open Source Definition is still a good idea. That document has been a very important standard: it's helped us distinguish between licenses that provide a fair return to the free software community for the effort our developers contribute, and those that don't. Many large corporations and individual developers have been influenced to use better licenses because the community insisted that they be OSD-Compliant, and that's helped free software prosper.
Now more than ever, as Free Software finally becomes commercialized, as $100 Million dollar IPOs draw the greedy as well as those who would treat us fairly, it's important that the free software community continue to insist on licenses that comply with the OSD. Our stand on licensing during the next year will make the difference between life and death for free software. Either we maintain the quid-pro-quo, or the developers who have made free software great will leave in disillusionment. Without the fair return to the free software community that the OSD stipulates, we'll be left with will be shareware-with-source, when we can get source at all.
I wrote the OSD with the help of the Debian developers, and it still exists as the Debian Free Software Guidelines. None of the presently-announced Open Source Initiative board members were involved. This isn't to imply anything negative about them, it's just to point out that they aren't essential to the preservation of the OSD. Regardless of what happens with the Open Source trademark and the Open Source Initiative, the author of the OSD and many other members of the free software community will continue to stand behind the Open Source Definition. We will insist on software with OSD-compliant licensing, and we won't donate our efforts to anything else. I hope you'll do the same.
Since there are a lot of newcomers to our community, I guess some of you might not have encountered the Open Source Definition. You can read an extended analysis of the OSD, with commentary, at this link.
Yes, but the first use by me in a public announcement of the Open Source campaign and certification mark is well-documented and precedes that Infoworld mention. So if OSI or SPI want to register it again, they have precedent and they can prove it.
Actually, to be registered as a certification mark, it's exactly the opposite. Others have to use it in commerce, with SPI or OSI's permission. The fact is that at least 20 companies have been using it in commerce with OSI's permission.
The closest equivalent is the "Union Label", the garment workers union certification mark. They license it for the manufacturers to use, they do not use it in commerce themselves.
Did you say you were an attorney? Not an IP one, are you?
Burnt out, maybe. Folded up the tent and stolen into the night? Nope.
OK, I read my own response. I walked off of OSI's board because I couldn't stand behind Eric any longer. The overriding of a board vote, the constant deprecation of Stallman, etc. I don't regret that decision.
It has to be used in commerce. It's being used in commerce, and has been for quite a while now. Given the number of IPOs around it, I'd think you'd notice.
Well, remember that I walked off of the OSI board a while ago, and I said at the time that it was time to call it "Free Software" again.
However, if OSI has let this drop, it must be deliberate. They still have a trademark, just not a registered one. They can still re-apply.
Geez, you sure give us a hard time for being the ones with the nerve to stick our necks out and do something. Want to try a mile in my moccasins, Kemosabe?
Well, remember I walked off of OSI quite a while ago and said it was time to call it "Free Software" again. So, I'm not going to get upset about the status of the trademark for its own sake.
However, I had heard a while back that OSI had failed to respond to an office action, though I don't understand why they'd do that it was undoubtably deliberate.
I wish Evan wouldn't sound so malicious. Doesn't he understand that a trademark is the best protection against someone else registering a trademark on the same thing?
It wouldn't do them any good, anyway. It would be trivial for either SPI or OSI to contest that trademark successfully. Note that we did get the Linux trademark back (although it was a hassle).
It's still in the USPTO database under pending trademarks. I did hear elsewhere that OSI failed to respond to an office action, but I'd not call it dead yet.
It's still a trademark, regardless of the status of its registration. OSI can re-apply if they wish.
I don't know why OSI elected to drop the ball on registration. When last they corresponded with me, they had an attorney working on it. I sent the registration papers to Nils Lohner at SPI quite a while ago, and he would have forwarded them to OSI.
Transvirtual sells its own Java-compatible virtual machine. They also release a free software version. When you own the copyright to software, you are able to release that software under any number of licenses, including the GPL and a non-free license, simultaneously.
Sun's control of Java was predicated on the idea that nobody else was smart enough to write their own. They should have known better. Someone else did, and now Sun has no way of keeping MS from putting in their own incompatible extensions.
About Transvirtual's being a tightly-held MS-funded startup, well, maybe now, but they've been releasing free software for two years or so. I suspect that the article is seriously garbled on this aspect.
Every major publisher in this business is willing to pay you to write books with Open Source Licenses, if you are willing to write them.
You'll need a writing sample for these publishers. Produce your writing samples, and hone your skills, by writing documentation "gratis" for an Open Source project. This group will help you do it!
Yes, that's what I meant. RMS would not be against digital signature, but would be against having a file containing his secret key that other people could not read.
I don't think RMS would use PGP, but I haven't asked him. He doesn't like the idea of having files that other people can't read, like his secret key file.
Why 20K? Because they are absolutely sure that people will donate that much to sponsor this work. No problem.
They paid Ian Murdock about $10,000 for work on Debian. This is not a first.
A long time ago, I worked in a retail electronics store. At the time, we'd just started selling telephones in competition with the phone company. One day, a woman came to my counter in the store and told me that I was taking food out of her children's mouths by selling those phones, because her husband worked for the phone company! She thought I should really be ashamed of myself.
I didn't argue, she just seemed too silly. She never considered that I had just as much right to compete with her husband's business as her husband had to compete with mine.
I have already written a GPL'ed chapter and have had it published. The book made #12 on Amazon's list. I only made $1500 from that chapter, but I got invited to speak in Iceland as a result of the chapter (the conference paid for the trip and a week's tourism) and a number of other fun things have happened. I was compensated fairly.
If you can't stand the competition, too darn bad. We're not going away.
RMS does use a system at the Santa Fe Institute for mail, I have no reason to believe this is fake.
Every publisher I've been talking with lately says they'd be willing to use an OSD-compliant license on their book as long as the license applies on the day that printed copies get to stores and not before. That sounds fair to me. It gives the publisher lead-time over the other publishers who did not pay for the work, and we get free documentation.
The down-side is that you might make less royalties on the book. Many of us can live with that, and if the author makes it clear to potential purchasers which publishers pay him a royalty and which do not, he might make a good lot of money anyway.
This is a specious argument. Airplanes that carried people practically was a applied science problem, the planes had already flown. Demand for computers is a marketing issue, not a scientific one. In contrast, the scientific theory behind cold fusion was wrong. There wasn't any fusion. All of the applied science in the world won't make there be fusion if the theory's wrong.
Wishing just won't make it true. Faith doesn't make the theory work if you have a bad theory.
If Microsoft GPL-ed Windows 2000 tomorrow, and decided to keep Word proprietary, you'd still think it was an improvement. Look at Corel in that light. Corel is recognizing that infrastructure should be Open Source but you can make some money off of proprietary applications that run on that infrastructure as long as you don't make it impossible for Open Source applications to fill the same niche. They will be constantly competing with Open Source applications, so their software had better be incredibly good or it won't sell.
Cold Fusion that produces usable power practially would be nice if it were real. All of the wishing you can do won't make it real.
Sure, there was a campaign to suppress the little gadget that turned water into gasoline, we heard all about that 20 years ago.
We can't suppress real things, like atomic bombs. Although there is a lot of applied science to do, the basics are understandable by every high-school science student.
I think slashdot editors need to switch from reading Popular Science Magazine to something a bit more sophisticated.
Well, your employer might have something to say about who they want looking at salary data.
For example, back when I worked at Pixar, someone who had physical access to a Mac in Payroll mailed everybody's salaries to everybody else. That's the basis of the IBM "hacker" commercial. It got a lot of people at Pixar very rightfully annoyed.
It's,i>your personal data, though. The usual argument against it is the "slippery slope" one, first salary data, then medical data, then even more personal stuff. Then you're Winston Smith.
Your salary data is your property, not the states. The fees for that data should go to you, not the state.
The best way to control this sort of thing is to take away the money. How about a class-action suit against companies that sell your data to recover profits that should be rightfully yours.
Slashdot Mirror
Besides shielding your box, it's nice to put ferrite RF chokes on the cables, especially the video cable but preferrably all cables running out of the computer. The cables work as antennas, potentially leading some of the RF noise out of your shielded box and emitting it. Some cables have the choke molded in, if yours doesn't, get the clip-on kind from the Radio Shack. The more turns of wire through it, the better it works.
I also use shielded CAT-5 wire on my 100-base-T network, and I use that same wire for my DSL connection, from the point where it enters the house.
Thanks
Bruce Perens K6BP
The GPL restricts your right to take away other people's rights. It's better that everyone be allowed to modify the program than just you, and nobody after you.
Freedom includes responsibility. The GPL mandates that you behave responsibly regarding other people's freedoms.
Thanks
Bruce
There's been some question regarding the legal status of the Open Source certification mark. Although the mark still exists, its application for federal registration has apparently been allowed to lapse, perhaps temporarily. In February, I published It's Time To Talk About Free Software Again , because I felt that the use of the phrase Open Source had caused us to think less about the freedom involved in Free Software. What I said then still stands, and thus I'm ambivalent about the fate of the Open Source certification mark. However, the Open Source Definition is still a good idea. That document has been a very important standard: it's helped us distinguish between licenses that provide a fair return to the free software community for the effort our developers contribute, and those that don't. Many large corporations and individual developers have been influenced to use better licenses because the community insisted that they be OSD-Compliant, and that's helped free software prosper.
Now more than ever, as Free Software finally becomes commercialized, as $100 Million dollar IPOs draw the greedy as well as those who would treat us fairly, it's important that the free software community continue to insist on licenses that comply with the OSD. Our stand on licensing during the next year will make the difference between life and death for free software. Either we maintain the quid-pro-quo, or the developers who have made free software great will leave in disillusionment. Without the fair return to the free software community that the OSD stipulates, we'll be left with will be shareware-with-source, when we can get source at all.
I wrote the OSD with the help of the Debian developers, and it still exists as the Debian Free Software Guidelines. None of the presently-announced Open Source Initiative board members were involved. This isn't to imply anything negative about them, it's just to point out that they aren't essential to the preservation of the OSD. Regardless of what happens with the Open Source trademark and the Open Source Initiative, the author of the OSD and many other members of the free software community will continue to stand behind the Open Source Definition. We will insist on software with OSD-compliant licensing, and we won't donate our efforts to anything else. I hope you'll do the same.
Since there are a lot of newcomers to our community, I guess some of you might not have encountered the Open Source Definition. You can read an extended analysis of the OSD, with commentary, at this link.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
The closest equivalent is the "Union Label", the garment workers union certification mark. They license it for the manufacturers to use, they do not use it in commerce themselves.
Did you say you were an attorney? Not an IP one, are you?
Bruce
OK, I read my own response. I walked off of OSI's board because I couldn't stand behind Eric any longer. The overriding of a board vote, the constant deprecation of Stallman, etc. I don't regret that decision.
But fold up my tents? What gave you that idea?
Bruce
Bruce
However, if OSI has let this drop, it must be deliberate. They still have a trademark, just not a registered one. They can still re-apply.
Geez, you sure give us a hard time for being the ones with the nerve to stick our necks out and do something. Want to try a mile in my moccasins, Kemosabe?
Bruce
However, I had heard a while back that OSI had failed to respond to an office action, though I don't understand why they'd do that it was undoubtably deliberate.
I wish Evan wouldn't sound so malicious. Doesn't he understand that a trademark is the best protection against someone else registering a trademark on the same thing?
Bruce Perens
Bruce
Bruce
I don't know why OSI elected to drop the ball on registration. When last they corresponded with me, they had an attorney working on it. I sent the registration papers to Nils Lohner at SPI quite a while ago, and he would have forwarded them to OSI.
Evan is so darned malicious.
Bruce
Sun's control of Java was predicated on the idea that nobody else was smart enough to write their own. They should have known better. Someone else did, and now Sun has no way of keeping MS from putting in their own incompatible extensions.
About Transvirtual's being a tightly-held MS-funded startup, well, maybe now, but they've been releasing free software for two years or so. I suspect that the article is seriously garbled on this aspect.
Thanks
Bruce
Every major publisher in this business is willing to pay you to write books with Open Source Licenses, if you are willing to write them.
You'll need a writing sample for these publishers. Produce your writing samples, and hone your skills, by writing documentation "gratis" for an Open Source project. This group will help you do it!
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Why 20K? Because they are absolutely sure that people will donate that much to sponsor this work. No problem.
They paid Ian Murdock about $10,000 for work on Debian. This is not a first.
Bruce
A long time ago, I worked in a retail electronics store. At the time, we'd just started selling telephones in competition with the phone company. One day, a woman came to my counter in the store and told me that I was taking food out of her children's mouths by selling those phones, because her husband worked for the phone company! She thought I should really be ashamed of myself.
I didn't argue, she just seemed too silly. She never considered that I had just as much right to compete with her husband's business as her husband had to compete with mine.
I have already written a GPL'ed chapter and have had it published. The book made #12 on Amazon's list. I only made $1500 from that chapter, but I got invited to speak in Iceland as a result of the chapter (the conference paid for the trip and a week's tourism) and a number of other fun things have happened. I was compensated fairly.
If you can't stand the competition, too darn bad. We're not going away.
Bruce Perens
Every publisher I've been talking with lately says they'd be willing to use an OSD-compliant license on their book as long as the license applies on the day that printed copies get to stores and not before. That sounds fair to me. It gives the publisher lead-time over the other publishers who did not pay for the work, and we get free documentation.
The down-side is that you might make less royalties on the book. Many of us can live with that, and if the author makes it clear to potential purchasers which publishers pay him a royalty and which do not, he might make a good lot of money anyway.
Thanks
Bruce
Wishing just won't make it true. Faith doesn't make the theory work if you have a bad theory.
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Sure, there was a campaign to suppress the little gadget that turned water into gasoline, we heard all about that 20 years ago.
We can't suppress real things, like atomic bombs. Although there is a lot of applied science to do, the basics are understandable by every high-school science student.
I think slashdot editors need to switch from reading Popular Science Magazine to something a bit more sophisticated.
Bruce
For example, back when I worked at Pixar, someone who had physical access to a Mac in Payroll mailed everybody's salaries to everybody else. That's the basis of the IBM "hacker" commercial. It got a lot of people at Pixar very rightfully annoyed.
It's ,i>your personal data, though. The usual argument against it is the "slippery slope" one, first salary data, then medical data, then even more personal stuff. Then you're Winston Smith.
Bruce
The best way to control this sort of thing is to take away the money. How about a class-action suit against companies that sell your data to recover profits that should be rightfully yours.
Bruce