Author: JT Smith
Category:
- Open Source
Author: JT Smith
Category:
Author: JT Smith
Category:
Author: JT Smith
Late August is the time for the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, the west coast edition, and it’s supposed to be when all companies interested in Linux showcase their interest. This fall, LinuxWorld had its share of press releases and product announcements, but observers said the conference seemed more subdued than in years past.
Sure, you could see IBM’s peace, love and Linux advertisements on San Francisco city buses and on billboards on Highway 101 between San Francisco and San Jose. But several reporters at the conference noted things just weren’t the same as in the past. NewsForge’s own conference veteran Robin Miller noted there was less swag, fewer exhibitors and fewer attendees this year, although there were some cool products being pitched. LinuxWorld.com’s Joe Barr suggested the show was “downsized” because of the general economic condition.
Of couse, there were still dozens of companies releasing new products at the show, as NewsForge’s Dan Berkes wrote. And if you get tired of all the corporate spin, the people at the .org pavillion keep showing up and winning awards.
Other LinuxWorld stories worth mentioning:
Torvalds: Hailstorm not a threat
Speaking of Microsoft, a story that got a lot of attention this week was Linux creator Linus Torvalds’ comments on Microsoft’s plans for its centralized Internet product Hailstorm. Torvalds says Internet users shouldn’t worry because governments won’t let Microsoft take over the Internet.
Criminalizing programming, part 1,396?
Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov and his employer pleaded not guilty this week to violating U.S. copyright law. Earlier, Sklyarov and employer Elcomsoft were indicted on charges of trafficking and conspiracy to traffic in a copyright circumvention device, alleged violating the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a law that itself could very well violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Signs of the times
CNet Networks is shutting down AppWatch.com, a directory of Open Source distributions and applications, less than a year after acquiring it.
Corel sold its Linux distribution to a U.S. startup, meaning the sometimes Microsoft partner looks to be leaving Linux behind.
New in NewsForge
Stories that appeared first in NewsForge this week:
Author: JT Smith
Category:
Author: JT Smith
Author: JT Smith
2.4.9-ac6
o Update compiler requirements doc (me)
o Fix module count leak (I hope)
in cs46xx (me)
o Fix sx.c warnings (Christoph Hellwig)
o Fix seagate.c prototypes (Christoph Hellwig)
o Remove non-modular stuff from mod builds
and fix warnings (Christoph Hellwig)
o Fix missing return value on xirc2ps (Christoph Hellwig)
o Fix atmtcp MODULE_LICENSE (Christoph Hellwig)
o Remove various unused code (Christoph Hellwig)
o Switch drivers/fc4 to use module_init (Christoph Hellwig)
o Config file fixes (Christoph Hellwig)
o Fix AX.25 digipeat crash (Thomas Osterried)
o DECNET update (Steven Whitehouse)
o Fix UNUSUAL_DEV entry for eUSB SmartMedia (Andries Brouwer)
o Remove spare maxinefb setup (Paul Mundt)
o Add USB MODULE_LICENSE tags (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o Update the irq fix for the i810 audio based
on further analysis by Doug Ledford (me)
o make rpm target bug-fixes (Eli Carter)
o Fix missing export-objs in acpi (Keith Owens)
o VIA ide update (support 82c576, other small (Vojtech Pavlik)
fixes)
o Fix tulip bug when using MWI experimental bits (Jeff Garzik)
o Add MODULE_LICENSE tags to telephony (Robert Love)
o Add MODULE_LICENSE tags to drivers/video (Robert Love)
o Fix z2ram tag (Robert Love)
o Ask for 255 bytes of header on scsi pages (Matt Dharm)
| Lots of USB crap can’t even get truncating right
o Fix ver_linux for e2fsprogs 1.23 (Albert Cranford)
o Add MODULE_LICENSE tags to zorro (Robert Love)
o Make __module_license static (Keith Owens)
o Merge some of the PPC64 submission (Peter Bergner, Anton Blanchard,
Mike Corrigan, Dave Engebretsen,
Tom Gall, Todd Inglett, Paul Mackerras,
Pat McCarthy, Steve Munroe, Don Reed,
and Al Trautman)
| I dropped some config bits to keep stuff simpler
| and a few files that definitely didnt follow CodingStyle
o Merge updated gdth scsi raid driver (Achim Leubner)
o Remove escaped debug code from ni5010 (Frank Davies)
2.4.9-ac5
o Make pae i386 compile again (Russell King)
o Add MODULE_LICENSE tagging (me)
o Clean up aztcd (phase 1)
(me)
o Fix aztcd subchannel error reporting bug (me)
o Reformat cdu31a pending cleanups (me)
o Reformat cm206 pending cleanups (me)
o Reformat gscd pending cleanups (me)
o Reformat isp16 pending cleanups (me)
o Reformat sjcd pending cleanups (me)
o Reformat tpqic02 pending cleanups (me)
o Add tags in drivers upto and including drivers/char/*
| lots more to add yet…
o pl2303 oops fix (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o Sony clie updates for clie OS 4.0 (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o Fix elf loader for prelink binaries (Jakub Jelinek)
o Make xconfig fix (Robert Love)
o Add reparent_to_init, fix pnp and 8139 zombies (Andrew Morton)
o Update Configure.help (Steven Cole)
Author: JT Smith
Note that this is not an LXNY event, but rather the seventh of a series
of
rallies, whose Lead Organizer and First Contact is
Leonid Gorkin
lgorkin@excite.com or lgorkin1@nyc.rr.com.
Do not bring any sticks to this rally. There is a New York City regulation forbidding sticks at gatherings.
The New York City police officers who told us of this regulation were
parfit gentle in their courtesy.
There have been and will be rallies in about twenty cities.
http://freesklyarov.org/calendar.
Much of the organizing of New York City Rallies to Free Dmitry take
place
on the fairuse mailing list of NYFairUse, which list may be joined at
http://www.nyfairuse.org.
To download a flyer go to:
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/dmitry-links.
Upcoming Meeting:
Thursday 6 September 2001 there will be an organizational meeting to
help
free Dmitry Sklyarov and put down the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
of
1984^W1998 under which Dmitry was arrested. The meeting starts at 7:30
pm
on the second floor of the Killarney Rose at 82 Beaver Street, near
Wall
and Pearl Streets, on the Island of the Manahattoes. This meeting is
free
and open to the public. Artists, writers, students, parents, teachers,
librarians, publishers, booksellers, bankers, lawyers, economists,
cryptologists, Net folk, and all who have ever borrowed a book from the
public library are particularly invited.
Sunday 9 September 2001 the Campaign to Repeal the DMCA kicks off with
door to
door canvassing in Brooklyn. Come to the Thursday meeting if you want
to
help repeal the DMCA!
Personal from Jay Sulzberger, corresponding secretary of LXNY:
Last week Dmitry Sklyarov was indicted. If convicted on all counts he
faces 25 years in prison. He is accused of distributing a tool to
manipulate files in certain Adobe formats. All manipulation occurs
inside
a single computer. The tool checks as best it can that the file it
operates on is owned by the person running the tool. Under the DMCA
distribution of such a tool is a felony. If traditional copyright law
were
like the DMCA, then distribution of paper, pencils, ink, pens, and
cameras
would also be a felony. Today computers for home and business use
contain
no spy hardware nor any spy software, except for certain Trojans which
may
have slipped past the owner’s defenses. Under the DMCA and proposed
legislation all personal computers will be required to contain over one
megabyte of spy firmware which will monitor every single read and write
of
the hard disk. Under the proposed legislation the operating system
will
report back to Infotainment Central any “suspicious use” of the hard
disk.
Law enforcement agencies will easily get secret writs of computer
tapping
and be able to watch everything you do at home on what once was your
own
machine. Infotainment Central will be able to disable your computer
without permission from you.
Indictment:
http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/08/31/technology/31HACK.html
http://cryptome.org/dmitry-indict.htm
http://cryptome.org/dmitry-burton.htm
Proposed legislation:
http://currents.net/news/01/08/28/news2.html
Our rallies and all the work of propaganda and education have been
important in alerting the world to the threat facing not only Dmitry,
but
everyone who uses computers and everyone who uses the Great Commons of
the
Net. Despite our alert, the government of the United States has chosen
to
prosecute Dmitry. Our response must be clear, forceful, and effective.
Why do we rally at the New York Public Library? Because the
Association of
American Publishers has declared that they plan to close down all free
public libraries. Their chosen tool is the Digital Millennium
Copyright
Act. As demonstrated by the indictment of Dmitry Sklyarov, the DMCA
does
indeed outlaw fair use of books that you, or the library, have bought
and
paid for:
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36584-2001Feb7.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201-6545588-0.html
http://www.visi.com/~tneu/pro-book.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/23/pirate/index.html
http://www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/index.html
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/reports/studies/dmca/comments
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/boucher_ashcroft_dmca.html
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/July01/ginsparg.archive.ws.html
http://arXiv.org/blurb/pg01unesco.html
http://xxx.lanl.gov
http://front.math.ucdavis.edu
http://www.baen.com/library/home.htm
http://www.lightandmatter.com/article/article.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/30/opinion/30LESS.html
http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2001/08/07/lessig.html
http://www.immaterial.net/page.php3?id=44
http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/articles/issue12/LU12-ebenmoglen.html
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu
http://cryptome.org
http://www.ala.org
We need marchers and leafleteers and copiers of leaflets and designers
of
leaflets and propagandizers and lobbyists and lawyers and coders and
water
carriers and publicists and diplomats. Come to the Rally and help!
Come
to the Rally and meet allies!
Dmitry Sklyarov today faces twenty-five years in prison for
distributing a
program which allows you to make fair use of books you have bought and
paid
for. Come to the Rally and help get Dmitry free! Free to go home and
free
to do his work.
Author: JT Smith
Author: JT Smith
Very few things can’t be had for less than they costed 2 years ago. This applies to video cards, sound cards, network cards and even dvd-rom drives. Fueling this drive to lower price points has been, at least here
in the US, a competitive and cut-throat industry for parts. Places like http://www.pricewatch.com let you see what the real deal is. And you take your business there.
So what would we define as a monster machine?” Find out at Machine of the Month.
Category:
Author: JT Smith
Category: