I've killed off Apache here, for two reasons. First, I like keeping my machine up, and I'm only on a modem.:)
Second, and more importantly - with the information I had at the time, I honestly completely believed the Perl 6 thingy to be a joke. That's how it looked to me from the outside. It's not, and now I just look foolish.
If I'd been at Monterey, perhaps I'd have had a clearer understanding of what was going on - I was acting on a mixture of second-hand stories and emotion. Now Chip and Nat have explained it to me, the picture is slightly different.
I don't know what I'm going to do about Perl 6. Maybe I'll work on it, maybe I won't. At this stage, I'm not particularly happy with the way it's going, but the details haven't been decided yet.
Rewriting Perl 6 from scratch is an unbelievably Good Thing, and it's something I'm very, very eager to get my teeth into. But I'll have to watch what happens to the community; at the moment, I don't like the new development model. That's not a fault of the development model, or a fault of me. Different strokes for different folks.
I made the mistake of judging too early - try not to do that yourself.
universities don't have all that much money, especially for lawyers. Well, others have said that this is untrue.
The university owns the machines. Nope. This was a student's personal machine.
The students don't pay for their access. In this case, you're right, but in general students are charged a connection fee for access.
When you get your account, you sign an agreement saying that you give the university the right to your data Nope, not in this case.
It all depends what you find important. If all that's important is a quiet life, and you'll allow anyone with lawyers to trample your rights to protect it, then Oxford did the right thing. I don't find that terribly important.
I'm not a lawyer, but I've had my head in the Penal Code (ouch!) all afternoon and I've just written a brief analysis which I hope clears up some of the misunderstandings I'm seeing here.
You can get the full analysis in HTML format or in PDF format, but here's the summary:
In summary, the risks to Japanese webmasters arising from this case are considerably less than made out by the Internet press. Firstly, this case does not establish a binding precedent, since Japan operates a codified law system. It does not speak solely about web linking, but is encumbered by complicating factors. It does not create an action-at-a-distance problem, since the intent of the referrer must be established. Further, it is the opinion of this author that it does not suggest that linking to illegal material is illegal, since the link is a reference rather than an act of distribution, and is an invitation to investigate in the same way as a bibliographic reference. Finally, it is uncertain what implications, if any, this has on links to material stored on sites outside of Japan.
Well, this is already happening in some Universities. Mine certainly has full Linux support, a pretty large mirror, Linux CDs on sale at the Computing Services shop, a semi-official distribution, (RedHat+Updates+Bugfixes) and, best of all, a `Thin Linux' distribution - a centrally NFS-rooted service whereby I can stick my boot disk in any of the University's networked computers and reboot to a fully-featured Linux desktop. (And a nod and a wink to the one tireless and modest guy who's put the whole lot together.)
Universities and Linux have been together for a long time. I'm glad this is yet another area we're not going to see Microsoft squeezing us out of.
Well, you might think that. I don't. You see, not only is all the source code from the book GPL'ed and available from Wrox's web site, but the new contributors were allowed in their contracts to publish their chapters as part of their web sites. For what it's worth, here's the Perl chapter.
If individual authors don't release their work, that's their prerogative. But it isn't the publisher's fault.
And that doesn't just go for Wrox - O'Reilly authors are permitted to publish their work under whichever license they like. Most of them choose not to publish under open licenses because they know they will receive less royalties. (I don't get royalties for the Perl chapter, so I can say what I like.:) In both cases, the publishers have been committed to Open Source, and have allowed their authors the freedom to follow through their Open Source beliefs. I've done that with the Perl chapter. Look around on the web sites of the other contributors. I'm not saying you will find anything, only that you might.
Glad you liked it.:) I'm the guy who did the Perl chapter, so if that sort of thing is your style, look out for the forthcoming Beginning Perl where I do just that! Will be coming out in January.
I also talk about the book on www.perl.com where I explain why I think Perl is great for people who haven't programmed any other languages before.
Yeah, that's dead right - out here, people are used to alternatives; Apple got here first and made a big inpact, and Microsoft didn't get so much of a chance to monopolise. Hence, we're seeing a lot of `alternative' (from a US p.o.v.) OSes becoming really popular; Linux, of course, but FreeBSD is in in a very big way too. (It's quite nice to be able to walk into a newsagents in my town and have a wide choice of Linux and Unix magazines.:) In that sense, the Oracle announcement (I haven't looked at it yet, so I'm shooting from the hip here) doesn't really surprise me; there were once noises that Oracle US were going to be offering OS support for Linux - not just support for their own products on Linux. I'm not sure what happened to this. Still, this is all good publicity, and it's excellent ammunition for the guys like RedHat, TurboLinux, LASER5 and all the other distributors we've got over here. Someone else mentioned about code being sent back to the public: I'm not aware of any Oracle development that has been fed back to the Open Source Community, but if there is, I'd like to hear about it!
Yes, I know there's no Perl chapter in this one, although there will be at least one chapter on Perl in the next edition. I know, I've just finished writing it.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Second, and more importantly - with the information I had at the time, I honestly completely believed the Perl 6 thingy to be a joke. That's how it looked to me from the outside. It's not, and now I just look foolish.
If I'd been at Monterey, perhaps I'd have had a clearer understanding of what was going on - I was acting on a mixture of second-hand stories and emotion. Now Chip and Nat have explained it to me, the picture is slightly different.
I don't know what I'm going to do about Perl 6. Maybe I'll work on it, maybe I won't. At this stage, I'm not particularly happy with the way it's going, but the details haven't been decided yet.
Rewriting Perl 6 from scratch is an unbelievably Good Thing, and it's something I'm very, very eager to get my teeth into. But I'll have to watch what happens to the community; at the moment, I don't like the new development model. That's not a fault of the development model, or a fault of me. Different strokes for different folks.
I made the mistake of judging too early - try not to do that yourself.
Well, others have said that this is untrue.
The university owns the machines.
Nope. This was a student's personal machine.
The students don't pay for their access.
In this case, you're right, but in general students are charged a connection fee for access.
When you get your account, you sign an agreement saying that you give the university the right to your data
Nope, not in this case.
It all depends what you find important. If all that's important is a quiet life, and you'll allow anyone with lawyers to trample your rights to protect it, then Oxford did the right thing.
I don't find that terribly important.
Actually, there is one, and it is open source. It's called Sphinx from Carnegie Mellon University, and it's on Sourceforge.
I'm not a lawyer, but I've had my head in the Penal Code (ouch!) all afternoon and I've just written a brief analysis which I hope clears up some of the misunderstandings I'm seeing here.
You can get the full analysis in HTML format or in PDF format, but here's the summary:
In summary, the risks to Japanese webmasters arising from this case
are considerably less than made out by the Internet press. Firstly,
this case does not establish a binding precedent, since Japan operates
a codified law system. It does not speak solely about web linking, but
is encumbered by complicating factors. It does not create an
action-at-a-distance problem, since the intent of the referrer must be
established. Further, it is the opinion of this author that it does not
suggest that linking to illegal material is illegal, since the link
is a reference rather than an act of distribution, and is an invitation
to investigate in the same way as a bibliographic reference. Finally,
it is uncertain what implications, if any, this has on links to material
stored on sites outside of Japan.
Well, this is already happening in some Universities. Mine certainly has
full Linux support, a pretty large mirror, Linux CDs on sale at the
Computing Services shop, a semi-official distribution,
(RedHat+Updates+Bugfixes) and, best of all, a `Thin Linux' distribution
- a centrally NFS-rooted service whereby I can stick my boot disk in any
of the University's networked computers and reboot to a fully-featured
Linux desktop. (And a nod and a wink to the one tireless and modest
guy who's put the whole lot together.)
Universities and Linux have been together for a long time. I'm glad this
is yet another area we're not going to see Microsoft squeezing us out of.
Don't forget also his strong and vocal opposition to software parents.
As Michael Caine would say, not a lot of people know that.
You see, not only is all the source code from the book GPL'ed and available from Wrox's web site, but the new contributors were allowed in their contracts to publish their chapters as part of their web sites. For what it's worth, here's the Perl chapter.
If individual authors don't release their work, that's their prerogative. But it isn't the publisher's fault.
And that doesn't just go for Wrox - O'Reilly authors are permitted to publish their work under whichever license they like. Most of them choose not to publish under open licenses because they know they will receive less royalties. :)
(I don't get royalties for the Perl chapter, so I can say what I like.
In both cases, the publishers have been committed to Open Source, and have allowed their authors the freedom to follow through their Open Source beliefs. I've done that with the Perl chapter. Look around on the web sites of the other contributors. I'm not saying you will find anything, only that you might.
But don't blame the publishers.
I also talk about the book on www.perl.com where I explain why I think Perl is great for people who haven't programmed any other languages before.
Simon
Yeah, that's dead right - out here, people are used to alternatives; Apple got here first and made a big inpact, and Microsoft didn't get so much of a chance to monopolise. Hence, we're seeing a lot of `alternative' (from a US p.o.v.) OSes becoming really popular; Linux, of course, but FreeBSD is in in a very big way too. (It's quite nice to be able to walk into a newsagents in my town and have a wide choice of Linux and Unix magazines. :)
In that sense, the Oracle announcement (I haven't looked at it yet, so I'm shooting from the hip here) doesn't really surprise me; there were once noises that Oracle US were going to be offering OS support for Linux - not just support for their own products on Linux. I'm not sure what happened to this.
Still, this is all good publicity, and it's excellent ammunition for the guys like RedHat, TurboLinux, LASER5 and all the other distributors we've got over here.
Someone else mentioned about code being sent back to the public: I'm not aware of any Oracle development that has been fed back to the Open Source Community, but if there is, I'd like to hear about it!
Yes, I know there's no Perl chapter in this one, :)
although there will be at least one chapter on
Perl in the next edition. I know, I've just
finished writing it.