SunMink

Simon Phipps's other Weblog
(a WebMink in the Sun)

Link round-up for 26th & 27th February

• Music industry's Irish ISP shakedown letter leaked
  This is the way things work these days. The Irish music industry association IRMA is afraid to sue its customers as aggressively as RIAA has, so is trying to get others to do its dirty work through legal bullying. Time to see whether the Irish government is on the side of its citizens or the lobbyists for foreign interests. One day this music mafia will work out that promotion by fans grows the market; until then they are intent on driving us all away.
• Linux, Microsoft and Patents: It's Time to Get the FAT Out
  I don't agree with the assumption that it's just fine for a company to demand money from strangers with menaces (a.k.a. "monetise patents"), but I agree completely with the view that only crazies use FAT in embedded applications. It's an invitation to be shaken down.
• UN anti-blasphemy measures have sinister goals, observers say
  Given the UN's role it seems very odd indeed that they would pass a resolution that gives religious extremists a legal right to stifle free speech. Very worrying development.
• Apartment with Manhattan Views
  If you're interested in this apartment, let me know, I can get you a discount.
• Ryanair wants to charge for using the toilet in-flight
  "the prisonships of the sky" - Fortunately they don't infest the hubs near me so I don't get forced to use them, but they seem like a lab experiment in discovering just how badly you can treat your customers before price ceases to be an incentive to endure the experience.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 28 2009, 10:09:00 AM PST ) Permalink

See you at CeBIT?

Next week is CeBIT, the monster IT trade show that has outlived COMDEX and all the others. Held in Hannover in Germany, it is an exhibition of staggering proportions that every geek should attend at least once (my preference: only once).

This year for the first time they have an open source sub-conference hiding pretty much unadvertised inside the event and I'll be speaking there on Wednesday March 4th at 3:15pm. I'll also be presenting one of the open source awards on March 5th in the evening.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 27 2009, 12:48:34 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [7]

Link roundup to February 26

• 2009 Elections at OpenSolaris.org
  Take a good look at the dates, then consider if you should be a candidate. And please read the new, simplified Constitution and send in corrections ahead of the submission date on Friday.
• U.S. Supreme Court hands Rambus a win
  This is a very significant case in the world of open standards. While most standards bodies have updated their rules to avoid being gamed by the likes of Rambus again, this failure to tackle patent abuse head-on is bad news for everyone apart from the patent trolls and submariners. Strike another star from "open standards" as a useful validator.
• Government levels the playing field for Open Source
  The UK government's press release on their announcement is a bit disingenuous - the 2004 policy resulted in little government adoption because the procurement model is still broken, and their prime example - the NHS - is apparently Microsoft's biggest customer despite small patches of FOSS. This policy needs to drive real change or it's a bust. But it's a huge improvement and a very positive sign.
• HP and Sun Sign Solaris on ProLiant Distribution and Support Deal
  Solaris continues its come-back. This means the OpenSolaris community is now influencing all the main Unix hardware vendors.
• Microsoft sues TomTom over Linux and other patent claims
  This would explain the (now clearly hollow) charm offensive with the open source community.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 26 2009, 03:49:00 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [4]

Responding to Canada

It seems the Government Open Source Tipping Point (GOSTiP, as all government things need an acronym) is proceeding apace as national government after national government learns from the pioneers and dips a toe into the waters of software freedom.

Prior to the British government's announcement they would prefer to use open source and open formats, many of us also noticed the Canadian Government asking questions about "No-Charge Licensed Software" and using their "request for information" process to do so. Like many others we've taken a good, long look at their questions and written a suitably lengthy reply.

Do take a look; if you'd like to re-use any of it, there's also an ODF version. You'll note that we think lumping open source in with shareware, trialware and bait-and-switchware is a mistake; it's not about saving money on licenses, it's about securing key freedoms.  More inside.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 25 2009, 12:41:00 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [1]

UK Government Endorses Open Source and ODF

Late today (UK time), the British Government issued a bold new strategy for use of open source software - and open standards - in Great Britain. In Open Source, Open Standards and Re-Use, the government's Minister for Digital Engagement (yes, really, and he's on Twitter too) significantly revised the brave but toothless policy of 2004 "that it should seek to use Open Source where it gave the best value for money to the taxpayer in delivering public services". This is fantastic news - the digital tipping point is at hand. (The publication is also progressive in having nominated use of the tag "#ukgovOSS" in comment and coverage so it can be found and aggregated).

Like other fine policies before it, the core of the document asserts that the government

• will actively and fairly consider open source solutions alongside proprietary ones;
• will consider exit and transition costs as well as the total lifetime cost of ownership;
• will pick open source where it doesn't cost more;
• will insist proprietary vendors explain exit, rebid and rebuild costs;
• will expect proprietary licenses to be transferable throughout government;
• will expect public sector solutions to be re-usable

• develop clear and open guidance for ensuring that open source and proprietary products are considered equally (action 1);
• keep and share records of approval and use of open source (action 3)
• support the use of Open Document Format (action 8);
• work to ensure that government information is available in open formats, and it will make this a required standard for government websites (action 8);
• general purpose software developed by or for government will be released on an open source basis (action 9).

This is all to be warmly welcomed and encouraged, and I congratulate the government on this progressive step. The endorsement of ODF is especially welcome, and would have seemed no more than an impossible dream to those of us associated with OpenOffice.org and involved in it at the start of the decade.

I will be very pleased to support and assist in any way that appropriate. In particular, I encourage the CIO Council to consider switching from an assumption of a procurement-driven approach to software acquisition to an adoption-led approach. Doing so does not favour open source; rather, it levels the playing field so that open source solutions can been seen alongside existing approaches. Sadly, if we stick with procurement-driven approaches and try to force-fit open source into them, we will be gamed.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 24 2009, 01:00:26 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [6]

Hear Me Speak - Free

In the unlikely circumstance that you are longing to hear me speak about the adoption-led market and the emerging new business reality it is driving, and on the assumption you can get to New York on Wednesday March 18, you'll be delighted to hear that I'm on the agenda for CommunityOne East along with friends Tim Bray and Geir Magnusson among many others who you almost certainly will find compelling even if I'm not. CommunityOne is free to attend, unless you want some deep training on March 19 on MySQL for an extra $200.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 24 2009, 12:18:00 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [1]

"Because our copyrights are worth more than your human rights"

Monday is the last day of the internet blackout campaign organised and in support of it I have blacked out my avatars on Twitter and Facebook as well as on this page. Why? It's to appeal a very badly thought-out law that's been passed in New Zealand, one that the media lobby would love to see introduced in Europe too - it's already been introduced by threats in Ireland and we had a near-miss in the UK and in Germany. We need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the kiwis. If the media lobby gets away with it over there, the rest of us will be picked off one-by-one via the global reach of the WTO and WIPO.

Bad Law

What's wrong with this law? It's not just that companies who built their business by using the commons now want to strangle it (although they hypocritically do want that). It's not that those same companies want their faltering business models shored-up by chilling effects, framing the celebration by their customers of the culture they are trying to create as akin to murder, rape and theft ("piracy"). It's not even that the new law in New Zealand gives a bunch of businesses who have shown themselves to have severely asymmetric morals the power to simply accuse without proof to get results.

Cultural Conduit

No, as I said when I was in Wellington, the problem is much deeper than the campaign against "Guilt Upon Accusation" in New Zealand would suggest. Our society has changed fundamentally in the last decade. The emergence of the world-wide web pushed the Internet from research curiosity into endemic facility, present in every office, then every home and now every pocket.

It is now the medium for culture, for education, for finance, for politics, for engagement with government services. Just this weekend we've seen RyanAir announce that the only way you can fly with them will be if you have an internet connection to check-in as well as to buy the ticket - no more check-in desks. We will increasingly see the Internet be the only way things can be done. Access to the Internet is no longer the casual frippery that this law believes. It is already integral to modern life. It will become a fundamental part of every aspect of our lives, as basic as electricity, telephones or pavements/sidewalks, the primary conduit for democracy, commerce, culture and social interaction.

Disproportionate Punishment

What crime do you have to commit in your country to be forbidden use of electricity (not just disconnected)? To be forbidden use of a phone? To be forbidden to walk on the streets? Yes, the lack of due process in this bad New Zealand law is a worry, but much more of a concern is its calculation that the infringement of a copyright justifies the removal of the main conduit of social engagement from a citizen. This cannot be allowed to stand.

This is not a matter for a "voluntary code of conduct" either. As use of the Internet becomes more complex and more fundamental, it's becoming clear in the UK that the Internet Watch Foundation - a group set up by ISPs so they wouldn't be regulated over every politician's excuse for bad legislation, "protecting children" - is harmful to us all, cracking small nuts with pile drivers and lacking transparency and accountability. It's great New Zealand has a temporary stay on the new law, but the reason - development of a voluntary code of conduct so citizens rights can be repeatably infringed in support of media business models - is still unacceptable, still agrees that citizen access to the internet is worth less than media business models.

It Shall Not Stand If We Stand Together

That's why S92A has to be struck down in New Zealand, why similar laws have to be resisted worldwide and why the media lobby needs to wise up and pipe down. We may not have reached a point where Internet access is an essential right, but it's too close now for us to tolerate its abridgment for any reason or set a precedent we then have to argue to undo. Infringing copyright is not something to be condoned, but there is no sense in which anyone's copyrights are more valuable than our 21st century human rights.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 23 2009, 12:14:11 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [4]

Spot On

Best summary of the New Zealand Blackout that I've seen:

Posted by webmink ( Feb 22 2009, 12:24:31 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [2]

Sunday's Link Roundup

• Bill proposes ISPs, Wi-Fi keep logs for police
  US Republicans declare war on DHCP (not sure they realise that, mind you). What's with all these attempts to outlaw normal use of the internet? Where are they coming from? I never hear anyone complaining about normal internet use in my social or business circles. I have to assume this is another surfacing of a global campaign by the copyright/patent lobby.
• Novelist Pratchett becomes a Sir
  Bravo, sir!
• Al-Qaeda founder launches fierce attack on Osama bin Laden
  "Twenty years ago, Dr Fadl became al-Qaeda's intellectual figurehead with a crucial book setting out the rationale for global jihad against the West. Today, however, he believes the murder of innocent people is both contrary to Islam and a strategic error."
• An Important Message From The Global Entertainment Industry
  "That's why we need the power to ban you from the Internet - because our copyrights are worth more than your human rights." Extreme? About to happen in New Zealand, you're next. S92A Copyright Blackout Day, Monday.
• Britain's no-photographing-cops law: even the cops hate it
  Just remind me one more time, who was it that actually wanted this law that's just a license to harass dissenters and investigators?
• Quick argument summary
  Neil Gaiman's argument about why the Kindle reading-aloud function should not be a problem (unless you are a rights-obsessed control freak who resents anyone having any freedoms they've not paid you for).

Posted by webmink ( Feb 22 2009, 03:19:00 AM PST ) Permalink

Link Roundup for February 18

• Why the UK Directory Enquiries Deregulation Failed
  "In particular, with limits on information and rationality, it may sometimes be better to limit choice but increase competition to supply that choice." Once again it seems a free market with boundaries is better than an unbounded "free market".
• Universal charger for phones plan
  Despite some corporate mouthpiece from EICTA declaring the idea "impossible and illegal", it seems the industry has caved - maybe power-plug lock-in wasn't working? Let's hope it's open and future-proof.
• Technical aspects of the censoring of archive.org
  More evidence that the IWF is a cancer on the web rather than a cure for what ails it. In the name of censoring paedo-porn they instead create repeated breakages. High time this shady group became accountable.
• Eight 'plotted to blow up flights with liquid bombs'
  The irony is that they didn't need to detonate anything or harm anyone in order to achieve their objective of causing society so much pain that they'd take the radical Islamists seriously. Every day of the trial is more success for their cause. The solution is far from the problem...
• Finally: Anti Aliasing is done for OOo 3.1!
  Very very welcome news that this is finally fixed.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 18 2009, 03:58:00 PM PST ) Permalink

Link roundup from the weekend 14-15 February

• What a CEO SHOULD Be
  Fascinating insight into JAL's CEO reveals an attitude all too lacking in western leadership - what in wartime is called "leading from the front" (and not just appearing at the front while making out like a bandit at the back).
• 10 Ways Microsoft's Retail Stores Will Differ From Apple Stores
  Perfect.
• Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline pledges cheap medicine for world's poor
  Wow. At face value this is a huge, positive step as well as a radical change of direction. All the pharma companies face a challenge to their business practices; Glaxo appears to have decided to sieze the challenge as an opportunity. This is just the sort of response to disruption that's needed now we're in the meshed society, I hope other industries are taking note (looking at you, software and media industries).
• Stimulus Watch: Keeping an Eye on Economic Recovery Spending
  Fantastic grass-roots effort doing something good with all the data coming out of the US Congress on the stimulus bill. Transparency-with-privacy is the key to progress in the meshed society. The only problem is that it will lead to plenty of dings against Obama as well as plenty of plaudits - there's always bad stuff in any mix (check out the doorbells...)
• blog(FOSDEM, 2009);
  Comprehensive description of the Free Java devroom at FOSDEM from Dalibor.
• Obama's BlackBerry brings personal safety risks
  Fascinating article documents the way your cellphone can put you at risk. Article doesn't mention the problem of archiving all the messages Obama writes and how non-PC they might be, of course.
• Ray Lamontagne - BBC4 Sessions
  Totally wonderful music, can't stop listening. Pity the BBC doesn't host these itself.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 16 2009, 04:38:00 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [2]

OpenSolaris - Changing The World Another Way

A rather unusual project just started in the OpenSolaris community. It's the OpenSolaris Lending Project. Instead of directly working on the code for OpenSolaris, the new project provides a venue for OpenSolaris community members who want to contribute to the OpenSolaris Lending Team at Kiva.org

If you're not familiar with Kiva, it is a scheme that acts as a marketplace and aggregator for microfinance loans. It allows ordinary people to make small loans to other people keen to lift themselves out of poverty around the world. The loans are aggregated by Kiva, sent via a local organisation that Kiva has vetted and used as start-up capital (or growth capital) by an entrepreneur who would otherwise be unable to get finance. The sums are small - $25 sums from lenders are aggregated into loans around $500 for borrowers - but the impact can be enormous.

The idea of the OpenSolaris community is to allow OpenSolaris community members who also share in the vision for microfinance to gather together and make a difference. By forming the team at OpenSolaris, we also hope that advocacy activities will choose to work with Kiva when they are looking for a gift or incentive for user groups and marketing activities. Not everyone would prefer a Kiva gift certificate to an iPod, but it's a gift that lasts longer and has a better effect on the world!

To get things moving, we've also opened an OpenSolaris Bookstore. If you order your copy of The OpenSolaris Bible through there, Amazon will give us a 5% commission that we'll use to fund Kiva gift certificates for use by the OpenSolaris Advocacy community. You can also bookmark this link and use it when you visit Amazon.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 15 2009, 12:01:00 AM PST ) Permalink

Link roundup for the week ending February 14

• OpenOffice.org Conference 2009
  Registered OO.o members get to pick the location for the annual conference, and this year there are some absolutely fantastic choices. The Library of Alexandria? Iceland and its Gullfoss? Budapest? Just can't decide.
• Bespin: A new Mozilla Labs experimental extensible code editor using Canvas
  This looks an excellent idea that could quickly become the EMACS of its time.
• Vatican buries the hatchet with Charles Darwin
  Happy 200th birthday, Charles. Looks like evolution is the only intelligent design choice after all.
• Russian and US satellites collide
  There was a time when this would have started a war. Now all it starts is the decline into earth being ringed in small fragments of junk that destroy everything instead of big lumps of junk you can hope to avoid.

These just for US people since Amazon UK doesn't do free stuff:

• Elijah Drop Your Gun: Mieka Pauley
  I'm hooked. Absolutely excellent album, and it's free this week for US customers on Amazon MP3.
• Let's Get It On: Marvin Gaye
  Valentine's Day only freebie from Amazon USA.
• One Little Indian Amazon Label Sampler 09
  Nice mix of indie tracks from Amazon US, worth the download.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 14 2009, 02:00:00 AM PST ) Permalink

Old Code and Old Licenses

I was in Brussels at the weekend to attend FOSDEM, one of the handful of "real" Free software developer conferences I attend each year (another is LCA which I went to in Hobart two weeks ago). I was once again honoured to be able to briefly speak to the assembled audience as I did two years ago. This time I announced a small license change to some obscure code, written before the GPL was finalised, to fix a problem for Linux.

Why would that interest anyone? Well, the code in question is the original implementation of Sun RPC, which went on to become RFC 1057 and today is a core part of every UNIX-family operating system. Including Debian GNU/Linux.

The way the code was originally licensed was exceptionally liberal. Written in 1984 or earlier (before the GPL existed), it allowed unfettered use of the Sun RPC implementation in any program for any purpose. The only significant restriction imposed, entirely reasonable to most eyes then, was to say that the module itself could not be sold as-is, only as part of a larger work.

What was liberal is now conservative

Times change. During the 80s, Richard Stallman's Free Software movement established the four freedoms. During the 90s (1994-7), the Debian Free Software Guidelines established a need for the code in their distribution of GNU/Linux to be fully Free software. By the beginning of this decade, Debian maintainers were making a serious effort to audit the millions of lines of code in Debian for true DFSG compliance. And in 2002, they found the old Sun RPC code in core Linux files glibc and portmap.

Reading the history for Debian bug 181493 tells the next part of the story. Inside Sun, the challenge of finding the code in question was Just Too Hard, and the things reached an uneasy impasse.

The issue came back to life last year when the bug was re-asserted as part of the run-up to the Lenny release. I was contacted both by folk at Debian - notably my friend Ean Schuessler - and at Fedora asking if there was anything I could do to accelerate licensing of the old code. Both projects had decided to take a hard line and removing the code from glibc and portmap was going to be a real headache, especially for the stability of glibc.

Challenging

The task of relicensing old code can be pretty time consuming and involves people who are already much in demand.

• First, the old code is often very old. The people who wrote it are no longer with the company, it is no longer part of a current product, we sometimes can't even be sure it ever came from Sun. We have to find the original code if we're to make any progress at all. Doing so might mean retrieving crates of paper from long-term storage and crawling through them.
• Second, once the code is located, a legal expert has to look at the origins of the code and maybe once again crawl through retrieved paperwork to find the contracts behind the code. Their job is to determine if Sun actually has the right to change the license at all.
• Third, someone has to believe it is their job with respect to the code in question to act on Sun's behalf to evaluate the change, authorise it and bind the company officially.

With help both from Ean and friends at Debian and from the Fedora team at Red Hat, we managed to identify some modern OpenSolaris code that matched the code in Linux. This was a key step. It meant we could trace ownership through the comprehensive records for OpenSolaris and start the process moving. By last week, we finally reached the point where we felt comfortable to relicense the Sun code involved.

Relicensed

On Saturday I was able to tell Europe's Free Software developers that the licenses on the RPC code are no longer a barrier to Free software - we'll change the license to Sun's copyrights in the RPC code to a standard 3-clause BSD license, allowing inheritance of that licensing by both Debian and Fedora. I'm delighted to have been able to fix this problem, which arose not because of failure but because of the success of software freedom over many years and becuase of Sun's early commitment to it.

Posted by webmink ( Feb 13 2009, 12:08:09 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [6]