The European Economic Community was created as a free trading grouop. Subsequent events, including the evolution of the EEC into the EU, have only proven that you can never trust a politician.
Joey, I intended to comment on your blog, except that comments aren't enabled, so I will post here.
The problem is one of communication. There has been no communication with the outside world about the recent security issues. Meaning that most users of Debian probably don't even know about the current security.debian.org problems.
IMHO, an announcement (and status updates) should have been posted to debian-devel-announce, and placed under 'news' on www.debian.org. Yet there's practicaly no information available, outside of what little is posted on Planet Debian, and debian-security. According to security.debian.org, everything is tickety-boo and a-okay. There hasn't even been a mention in Debian Weekly News. Was a response even sent to the Zdnet article to explain what was going on? I guess it was too much to expect Zdnet to contact Debian for comment--but then again, who would they ask?/intro/organization (two links away from the front page) lists Martin Schulze, whose blog they linked to in the story...
It irks me somewhat that DDs fail to provide any information about the security situation through official channels, and then get annoyed when the quasi-mainstream media misunderstand the situation. It's not entirely the fault of the media--they simply don't have much information to go on!
I have read over what little has been made available to the public, and I must admit that I'm not really sure what is going on. The only concrete information I have is that that Sarge was delayed for 18 months while security autobuilders were set up, which then failed shortly after Sarge's release. Since then, Some Stuff has happened, it turns out that most of the security team are actually inactive, and a few DSAs have been announced... but no one seems to be any closer to explaining what actually happened, or when security support will be fixed.:(
That was what would have happened today, in an ideal world.
Bad outcome: CIID passed as tabled by the Commission and their backers, Microsoft, Nokia, etc.
Good outcome: CIID amended to prohibit software patents (~367 majority required)
Neutral/okayish outcome: CIID defeated at second reading; patent situation remains as is (software patents prohibited by European Patent Convention, but individual countries allow them anyway)
Today, the good guys couldn't be sure of the 367 votes necessary to pass their ammendments. Therefore they chose the safe option, and voted to reject the CIID entirely.
Microsoft, Nokia et al will on no account allow a directive to be passed that prohibits pure software patents, so they had their MEPs likewise vote to reject the CIID, rather than risk having the ammendments of M. Rocard and co. be implemented.
But an engine uses these physical forces to cause a physical effect on the real world. Crap explanation, but I believe that is the gist of M. Rocard's proposed alterations to the CIID to draw the line between a computer-assisted patent, and a pure-software patent.
WARNING: you may have been duped by Tony and his Cronies.
"Software should not be patentable where there is no technological innovation, and technological innovations should not cease to be patentable merely because the innovation lies in software."
The emphasised phrase is legally and semantically meaningless in the context of deciding whether a patent should pass review. It is nothing more than a lawyerly weasel-phrase used to slip pure software patents under the radar.
The 2001 consultation was a complete sham, little more than a pro-pure-software-patent PR exercise. This has been widely discussed on anti-software-patent forums.
Everyone needs to be aware of these facts. Every news story about these events should make it clear that this is not a total victory for the anti-pure-software-patent crowd.
Microsoft, Nokia and co will try again, in a few years time. Except that they won't do anything as overt as trying to pass a pan-European directive. They'll work quitely, behind the scenes, on the ministers of individual European governments. Pure-software-patents will be legalised, once country at a time.
Once this process is complete, they may then go for another pan-European directive, that really would merely 'harmonise' the EU countries' patent laws. Only by then, it will be to late, since the damage will have already been done at the level of individual countries.
Don't let it get that far. Keep your ears open and stay on the lookout for any pro-pure-software-patent legislation that may reach your parliament.
As I remember, there were no other options anywhere for choosing other resolutions... but it was a long time ago. If I'm ever forced to work on that machine again I'll try it.
Then again I might burn down the building where it was set up, it really would be kinder to all parties concerned.
Tried this already; didn't work. In safe mode the only option that came up was 640x480. Since the monitor was already in this resolution, the Apply button was greyed out, and the OK button didn't make the change permanent when I rebooted normally (because no change had been made).
I have highlighted the outright lies with italics:
"Won't the introduction of the Directive on computer-implemented inventions stifle innovation in the software industry?"
"The proposed Directive does not introduce or extend the patentability of software. In the UK, patents have been granted for computer-implemented inventions for decades. This has not hindered the expansion of the Internet, the development of open source software, nor the continuing growth of the software industry."
"Why is the proposed Directive trying to extend the patentability of computer-implemented inventions?"
"The approach adopted by the UK Government and the European Commission in the proposed Directive is to clarify the current position on patentability of computer-implemented inventions and confirm that only those inventions that involve a technical contribution can be protected by patents."
Remember, the words "technical contribution" are lawyerly weasel-words that allow an otherwise invalid patent to be approved.
"Why is the Government ignoring the views of software developers?"
The UK position is based on a wide-ranging consultation carried out in 2000/2001 that supported the clarification of the current law and continued restrictions on the patentability of business methods.
I believe that claims that the consultation was wide-ranging and balanced have been debunked elsewhere. It was done with about the same fairness as the survey the Home Office put out, that shows that most people are in favour of ID cards.;)
"Won't Europe end up with the system that now exists in the United States?"
The Government believes that we should aim to avoid the width of patentability now allowed in the United States: this is why it pressed the European Commission for a Directive following its consultation.
This shows that, at best, the UK Patent Office is hopelessly naive.
"Doesn't the European Commission's proposal extend rather than clarify patentability?"
"The proposals originally put forward by the European Commission reflect to a great extent the responses that the DTI received in an extensive consultation on this issue in 2000/2001, and aim to clarify the situation. The Government believes that the proposals will in fact be good for the UK software industry, in clarifying a contentious area of intellectual property law, and for the UK and Europe as a whole by reinforcing a system which will counter the ever-increasing trend towards the wider granting of patents seen in the USA.
Note that the specific question asked here is deftly avoided.
The page goes on in this way; further analysis can be found here, here, and here.
Of course I'm not saying what writing in C++ is 'wrong'--don't put words in my mouth!
What I said was that if you use C++, you can forget about being able to create portable binaries. This will remain so until the lords of Kobol descend and grant unto us a standard C++ ABI, and everyone changes their distributions to match.
Well, I'm going on UK Patent Office position statements that state that, since software patents are already permitted over here, the CIID doesn't change anything.
I think the idea is that you sould include private copies of any libraries you need outside of those that the LSB specifies.
Admittedly LSB is hairy, but no one who wants to create portable binaries should be using C++ in the first place. Once the almighty C++ arbiters decide on a standard ABI, this will change, I hope.
An admirable goal, but one that is not compatible with the goal of disallowing pure software patents. Software is already patentable in the UK*. If the amended directive doesn't pass, then we're still fucked, meanwhile the same people behind the EU legislation will quietly lobby the remaining governments of Europe, so that each nation passits its own swpat-enabling laws.
The combined citizenship of the EU is barely able to stave off the CIID. Once the sponsors of the legislation work behind the scenes on individual governments, we'll have no hope.
My point is that packaging for Linux is actually no worse than Windows in this regard. You have to include private copies of all the libraries you use on both systems.
I don't see why you need to supply a different set of libraries for every distribution you want your program to run on. The lowest common denominator is Glibc, and xlibs. Use the system supplied copy of those libraries, and supply private copies of everything else in your application's package.
In fact if you consult the LSB you can see that there are a few other libraries that every distribution includes... bundle everything else into your RPM and bingo, you have one package that works on every distribution.
Great article. This is what we should be seeing as the subject of/. stories, not endless whining from third rate journalists on ZDnet, etc, about how "Linux is not ready for the desktop"
Slashdot Mirror
Simple Menu Editor for Gnome.
The European Economic Community was created as a free trading grouop. Subsequent events, including the evolution of the EEC into the EU, have only proven that you can never trust a politician.
Shouldn't bank.com be using SSL?
Hey! That's my ISDN line's number! (And also my briefcase combination...)
Agrippa.
Don't worry; as soon as the Tories decide who'd they'd like to lose the next election to, I'll think up a similar name for him and his stooges. :)
Joey, I intended to comment on your blog, except that comments aren't enabled, so I will post here.
/intro/organization (two links away from the front page) lists Martin Schulze, whose blog they linked to in the story...
:(
The problem is one of communication. There has been no communication with the outside world about the recent security issues. Meaning that most users of Debian probably don't even know about the current security.debian.org problems.
IMHO, an announcement (and status updates) should have been posted to debian-devel-announce, and placed under 'news' on www.debian.org. Yet there's practicaly no information available, outside of what little is posted on Planet Debian, and debian-security. According to security.debian.org, everything is tickety-boo and a-okay. There hasn't even been a mention in Debian Weekly News. Was a response even sent to the Zdnet article to explain what was going on? I guess it was too much to expect Zdnet to contact Debian for comment--but then again, who would they ask?
It irks me somewhat that DDs fail to provide any information about the security situation through official channels, and then get annoyed when the quasi-mainstream media misunderstand the situation. It's not entirely the fault of the media--they simply don't have much information to go on!
I have read over what little has been made available to the public, and I must admit that I'm not really sure what is going on. The only concrete information I have is that that Sarge was delayed for 18 months while security autobuilders were set up, which then failed shortly after Sarge's release. Since then, Some Stuff has happened, it turns out that most of the security team are actually inactive, and a few DSAs have been announced... but no one seems to be any closer to explaining what actually happened, or when security support will be fixed.
That was what would have happened today, in an ideal world.
Bad outcome: CIID passed as tabled by the Commission and their backers, Microsoft, Nokia, etc.
Good outcome: CIID amended to prohibit software patents (~367 majority required)
Neutral/okayish outcome: CIID defeated at second reading; patent situation remains as is (software patents prohibited by European Patent Convention, but individual countries allow them anyway)
Today, the good guys couldn't be sure of the 367 votes necessary to pass their ammendments. Therefore they chose the safe option, and voted to reject the CIID entirely.
Microsoft, Nokia et al will on no account allow a directive to be passed that prohibits pure software patents, so they had their MEPs likewise vote to reject the CIID, rather than risk having the ammendments of M. Rocard and co. be implemented.
But an engine uses these physical forces to cause a physical effect on the real world. Crap explanation, but I believe that is the gist of M. Rocard's proposed alterations to the CIID to draw the line between a computer-assisted patent, and a pure-software patent.
Maths != arithmetic
TRIPS vs EU Patent Convention. Prace bets now!!
The emphasised phrase is legally and semantically meaningless in the context of deciding whether a patent should pass review. It is nothing more than a lawyerly weasel-phrase used to slip pure software patents under the radar.
The 2001 consultation was a complete sham, little more than a pro-pure-software-patent PR exercise. This has been widely discussed on anti-software-patent forums.
See http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=154904&cid=12
Everyone needs to be aware of these facts. Every news story about these events should make it clear that this is not a total victory for the anti-pure-software-patent crowd.
Microsoft, Nokia and co will try again, in a few years time. Except that they won't do anything as overt as trying to pass a pan-European directive. They'll work quitely, behind the scenes, on the ministers of individual European governments. Pure-software-patents will be legalised, once country at a time.
Once this process is complete, they may then go for another pan-European directive, that really would merely 'harmonise' the EU countries' patent laws. Only by then, it will be to late, since the damage will have already been done at the level of individual countries.
Don't let it get that far. Keep your ears open and stay on the lookout for any pro-pure-software-patent legislation that may reach your parliament.
#include
As I remember, there were no other options anywhere for choosing other resolutions... but it was a long time ago. If I'm ever forced to work on that machine again I'll try it.
Then again I might burn down the building where it was set up, it really would be kinder to all parties concerned.
Tried this already; didn't work. In safe mode the only option that came up was 640x480. Since the monitor was already in this resolution, the Apply button was greyed out, and the OK button didn't make the change permanent when I rebooted normally (because no change had been made).
http://newraff.debian.org/~joeyh/stable-security.h tml is an incomplete list of issues currently affecting stable. It's not 100% correct; in addition to the provisos at the top of the page, it doesn't seem to know about recent updates such as this morning's Gaim update.
It would be "apt-get install security-office" anyway.
I have highlighted the outright lies with italics:
Remember, the words "technical contribution" are lawyerly weasel-words that allow an otherwise invalid patent to be approved.
I believe that claims that the consultation was wide-ranging and balanced have been debunked elsewhere. It was done with about the same fairness as the survey the Home Office put out, that shows that most people are in favour of ID cards.
The page goes on in this way; further analysis can be found here, here, and here.
Of course I'm not saying what writing in C++ is 'wrong'--don't put words in my mouth!
What I said was that if you use C++, you can forget about being able to create portable binaries. This will remain so until the lords of Kobol descend and grant unto us a standard C++ ABI, and everyone changes their distributions to match.
Well, I'm going on UK Patent Office position statements that state that, since software patents are already permitted over here, the CIID doesn't change anything.
I think the idea is that you sould include private copies of any libraries you need outside of those that the LSB specifies.
Admittedly LSB is hairy, but no one who wants to create portable binaries should be using C++ in the first place. Once the almighty C++ arbiters decide on a standard ABI, this will change, I hope.
An admirable goal, but one that is not compatible with the goal of disallowing pure software patents. Software is already patentable in the UK*. If the amended directive doesn't pass, then we're still fucked, meanwhile the same people behind the EU legislation will quietly lobby the remaining governments of Europe, so that each nation passits its own swpat-enabling laws.
The combined citizenship of the EU is barely able to stave off the CIID. Once the sponsors of the legislation work behind the scenes on individual governments, we'll have no hope.
* possibly making an ASS out of U and ME here
My point is that packaging for Linux is actually no worse than Windows in this regard. You have to include private copies of all the libraries you use on both systems.
I don't see why you need to supply a different set of libraries for every distribution you want your program to run on. The lowest common denominator is Glibc, and xlibs. Use the system supplied copy of those libraries, and supply private copies of everything else in your application's package.
In fact if you consult the LSB you can see that there are a few other libraries that every distribution includes... bundle everything else into your RPM and bingo, you have one package that works on every distribution.
No need. You can package up all the shared library files you need, and set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your launch script so that they are used at runtime.
You can even statically link to everything except glibc, if you are careful about it.
There you have it, a one-size-fits-all, generic package for any Linux system.
Great article. This is what we should be seeing as the subject of /. stories, not endless whining from third rate journalists on ZDnet, etc, about how "Linux is not ready for the desktop"