See also: last week's Back page page.

Linux links of the week

Creative Linux is a site aimed at those wishing to create multimedia content with Linux. Applications like the Gimp are obviously of interest to these folks, but they look at a lot more obscure stuff as well.

Section Editor: Jon Corbet

Letters to the editor

Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 06:10:55 -0600
From: Paul Hawkins <paul.hawkins@tivoli.com>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: IBM moves toward Linux

I work for a company owned by IBM (so I work for IBM), and I have been
to seminars by IBM on Linux, and read their internal Web pages on Linux.

IBM is a big company, so they move slow.

Also,  everyone involved in Linux at IBM is making the point that the
OSS movement is different than anything IBM is use to.  And that IBM
needs to move slowly to ensure we work with the community, and not
appear as if we are giving it a big Blue bear hug.

IBM would like nothing better then to make the OS a commodity.  IBM has
earned more on its services then its' hardware & OS for awhile now. 
Linux will only help them.  This is a good thing for all.

These opinions are my own, and not IBM's.

-- 
Paul Hawkins - Software Engineer - Tivoli Systems, Inc.
email: paul.hawkins@tivoli.com 
"Chase the dream, not the competition"

From: davep@uk.ibm.com
To: lwn@lwn.net
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 11:03:10 +0000
Subject: IBMs presence in the Linux community.

Hi all,

Just a few comments...

Since IBMs big announcement of getting more behind Linux, they have been
slated as touting/talking more than actually doing, indeed your article
dated 13/01/2000 had a slight negative tone regarding substance from IBM.

I feel this is unfair, IBM released DB2 for Linux long ago, and numerous
other projects.  Most recently of course, they have ported Linux to the
S/390 mainframe! How many other companies can claim that they have "single
handedly" (for want of a better expression) ported the kernel to a major
piece of hardware, and then released it OSS/GPL back to the community?

The community needs to back off from slating IBM, and appreciate what they
have done.

Dave Peacock - davep@uk.ibm.com

Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 10:12:35 GMT
From: kevinmcd@linuxsolutions.demon.co.uk
Subject: Shrink Wrap Licenses in the EU

> You might like to know that under UK law, accoridng to various
> genuine lawyers, all the "by openning this envelope oyu
> agree to the licence" stuff is illegal and therefore void. I suspect
> the sales of goods and services act (and similar legislation elsewhere)
> makes many of the disclamimers illegal as well. The EU gives me an
> inalienable right to reverse-engineer for any purpose other than cloning
> a product, which would make a successful procession for this hard work
> (can you *prove* I was intending to cloen your product?).

> It would be interesting to know how much of these contracts is actually
> valid under various different juristictions. The UCITA is something
> that is unlikely to apply anyware outside the US (and would contravene
> EU law even if anyone was sufficiently bribed to propose it)

This is not true, the genuine Lawyers you have consulted obviously haven't
read their case law...

The Case of Beta Computers vs. Adobe Systems, proved very interesting,
rightly or wrongly, the Sheriff has ruled the the Shrink Wrap license is
enforceable, curiously in this case, the benefit was in favour of the
defendant, since under the provision of the license the software was
returnable.

An interesting view of this is presented
here...http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/JILT/cases/98_2rob/robertsn.htm.

This applies to Scots Law, a very different animal to English Law, and of
course obviously quite different to the mythical UK Law that our learned
correspondent quotes.

This case is a very interesting read...

Kevin McDermott

From: David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: UCITA
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 10:28:56 +0000

I was quite surprised at your claim on the front page of this week's LWN:

> One needs look no further than the current DVD case for a graphic
> example of what could happen here. The DeCSS code was not written to
> make illegal copies of DVDs (it's not needed for that); it was written 
> so that people could play DVDs on Linux systems. UCITA would criminalize
> this sort of activity. 

I think you partly miss the point. The DVD code was reverse-engineered in the
Free World, not in the United States. The situation in the USA was already too
bad for residents to risk persecution.

Cryptography code, and the DVD code, was written outside the USA because the 
USA _already_ has insane laws on such matters.

I agree that UCITA would make matters even worse, but it wouldn't have made 
the DVD reverse-engineering illegal, because the DVD reverse-engineering 
wasn't done under US jurisdiction.




--
dwmw2

Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 03:42:50 -0800 (PST)
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=E9r=F4me_Loisel?= <jloisel@excite.com>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: Nikolai Bezroukov's "papers"


Dear LWN editors,


I have a rather long comment on Nikolai Bezroukov and his articles which I
would like to share with you. But first, some (related) personal thoughts.

Many of us do not have the chance to encounter true intellectuals. By
intellectuals, I do not mean "highly intelligent people," -- as the word is
often used --, but "highly cultured, aware and articulate people," which is
a competing, IMHO preferable definition.

I have personnally met very few in person, and certainly do not claim to be
one. (Much as most coder do not claim to be a Richard Stallman.) But I now
tend to know one when I read one's texts... More than that, I think I have
grown to recognize the arrogant and untalented wannabes. And it is my belief
that Mr. Bezroukov is one such.

I have tried to read Mr. Bezroukov's texts... But they are not
mind-expanding, simply mind-numbing. The man believes that peppering his
text with quotes from George Orwell, Mark Twain and Albert Einstein will
make him look intelligent, whether or not the quotes have any relevance
(most of them don't). The most painful part is the fact he uses the most
oft-heard ones, those very ones we are all deathly tired of reading in sigs.

Nikolai Bezroukov also cannot understand plain English. He quotes Eric
Raymond as having written: "[...] if Brooks's Law were the whole picture,
Linux would be impossible," yet his *first* *main* point resumes itself to:
"One of the most indefensible ideas of CatB is that Brooks' Law is
non-applicable in the Internet-based distributed development environment
[...]" Can't he see that this precisely the opposite of what Raymond is
contending? One would think that the word "truism" would give him a clue. In
the end, Mr. Bezroukov simply does not have the elementary finesse to
understand the distinction between "is true but is only one of many
factors," (which Raymond is saying) and "is false in such case" (which he is
certainly not in the quote!).
 
His "paper" (hey, at least he did not call it a "research paper") is
chock-full of inane comments that he does not even try to establish on firm
factual or logical ground. A few gems: "To be fair, 'the average quality of
software' for the Windows community [...] is also exceptionally high despite
weaknesses of the underlying OS." Of course! Whenever I am forced to use a
Windows machine, I am thrilled as well by the overall quality of the
applications. "Even superficial analysis of the Bugtrack archive confirms
that most developers prefer making their own bugs, not fixing bugs of
others." Whatever that means... But he goes on: "For accidental
contributions to the kernel, the situation can be even worse." Yes... don't
you just hate it when people accidentally contributes to the kernel?

Some flaws which I will not elaborate further on: the only facts appearing
in this "paper" belong to the "anecdotal evidence" category; Mr. Bezroukov
demonstrates very little respect for standard practices such as providing
references for quotes; large portions of his "paper" simply elaborate on his
opinions (as though we deeply care) without attempting to establish
anything; and finally, my dog writes better prose. Proving all of those
statements is left as an exercice for the extremely bored reader.

What can I say? Arrogance from the untalented and uninsightful drives me
nuts. Link to him if you must, but please do not try to be more
complimentary than needed: that text is bottom-of-the-barrel quality,
intellectually speaking, and deserves no praise.

Jerome Loisel

Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 14:04:01 -0600
From: "Chris Browne" <Chris_Browne@amrcorp.com>
To: <letters@lwn.net>
Subject:  Kermit

The January 13th issue indicates the "freer Kermit license," and
comments that due to it not going quite far enough, "As a result,
C-Kermit is not likely to meet the Debian Free Software Guidelines
anytime soon."

It is true that the license may not qualify C-Kermit to be considered
"free" software by Debian rules.  Nonetheless, the licensing changes permit
its inclusion in things like the Debian nonfree tree, which was previously
forbidden.

The license changes permit Kermit's inclusion with Linux distributions in
general, which was previously forbidden by the documentation inclusion
requirements.  (In brief, in order to redistribute Kermit, you used to
be required to include the full Kermit book.)

This is extremely encouraging; Kermit has a long history of being
an exceptionally good data transfer system.  It used to be the one of
the best interoperability systems to transfer data between UNIX, DOS,
VMS, and mainframe systems.  The popularity of TCP/IP and decline of
widespread mainframe use has diminished the value somewhat (who uses
non-TCP/IP networking anymore?), but I'm pleased to see it able to be
used with Linux.
--
"It is the user who should parameterize procedures, not their
creators." -- Alan Perlis
cbbrowne@hex.net - <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>