See also: last week's Back page page.

Linux links of the week

Anyway, a couple of new ones worth checking out include Opensource IT which includes news and discussion areas, and JustLinux, which includes a hierarchical set of Linux links, news, etc.

The Question Exchange is an interesting attempt to create a market for Linux-related questions and solutions. A person with a question can post it, along with the amount they are willing to pay for an answer; somebody with the proper answer can - once certified by the exchange, post the answer and claim (most of) the reward.

Section Editor: Jon Corbet

Letters to the editor

To: editor@lwn.net, malda@slashdot.org
Subject: An open letter to the free software community
From: Gordon Matzigkeit <gord@trick.fig.org>
Date: 04 Apr 1999 00:49:59 -0600

I am writing in response to Eric S. Raymond's essay ``Take My Job,
Please!'' in which he explained why he feels trapped in his career as
de facto free software spokesperson
(http://www.netaxs.com/~esr/writings/take-my-job-please.html).

I'll take Eric's job, if he and the community will let me, but not
without first making something explicit.  Eric has never been a
``leader,'' merely a delegate.  Eric has never ``rallied the troops,''
only helped people to begin seeing eye-to-eye.

As I said to him privately, I respect Eric's work, and recognize that
he was the catalyst for many great things.  His passion and energy
were necessary to get things started, but now they are hurting him
because he throws too much of himself into the fray.  It's getting too
personal, and he deserves a holiday.

What is necessary now are delegates with the patience to talk about
the things that they love over and over and over again to people who
want to understand, but not bother with the people who want only to
drag them down.  I am one of those people, and I'm stepping forward,
whether anybody else comes with me or not.

[BTW, I will not live out of a backpack, because I care too much about
my family, and I love my home.  If people want to talk with me, they
can send me e-mail.  If somebody wants a face-to-face interview, they
can fly out to Regina and meet me for coffee.  The Canadian prairies
are unspeakably beautiful in the summertime, and more people should be
forced to enjoy them. ;)]

I truly enjoy being a delegate.  I'm a hard-core but peace-loving free
software advocate who also happens to be friends with a lot of people
who make their living exclusively from non-free software.

I have no bones to pick: not with the cathedral, not with the bazaar,
not with Microsoft, not with Linux, and definitely not with GNU.
Allow me to speak to the outside world, and I promise you I'll never
speak for you, only for myself.

I'll never tell you what programming language you should use, only
what I use, and why I use it.  I'll never tell you what thoughts to
think, only what I think, and why I think those thoughts.

But *far* more importantly, if you listen to me, I'll listen to you.

I'll start by giving you the benefit of the doubt, then we will begin
the dance of a dynamic relationship.  If you are pushy, then I will
push back.  If you are gentle, then I will be gentle.

If I ever hurt you, I expect you to say `ouch', and I will apologize,
because I don't want to hurt anybody.  I will say `ouch' if you hurt
me, because I refuse to live in silent resentment.  When we move past
this, we will discover new ways of relationship.


Since the masses listen to the media, I need their help to contact
you.  So, I have sent this message to the Linux Weekly News and
Slashdot.

I recognize that we are a meritocracy.  I need to prove to you that
I'm capable.  I've already committed six years of my life to free
software, but that isn't as important as my work-in-progress, the FIG
License:

 http://www.fig.org/fig/FIG

The language is scary if you take it too seriously, so don't.  Some of
you like allegory, others like essays, and still others like legalese.
I've tried to appeal to all audiences.

The FIG License (aka. _FIGL_, pronounced like the English word
_wiggle_) will change a lot over the next few months as you engage in
dialogue with me.  I'm releasing early and often so that you can help
me work on it.

What is the FIGL, and why does it matter?

The FIGL is the first serious attempt to unify copyright and copyleft.
Copyright's strength is that it gives Creators complete control over
both the Information they create, and the Products of that
information.  Copyleft's strength is that it prevents everybody from
asserting control over either the Information or the Products.

The FIGL will guarantee that Information is never controlled, but
control over the Products is left to the discretion of the
Information's Creator.  The FIGL allows Creators to relinquish some of
their control over the Products, but they are not allowed to increase
their control over the Information.  I like to call this
`copy-centeredness'.

The FIGL matters because when it is finished, there will be no reason
why we, the free software *authors* (not just distributors or
consultants) cannot make a lot of money.  There will also be no reason
why megalithic software companies cannot release *truly* free software
(not just Open Source(tm)), that we can use for your own benefit.

I am serving you with this work because it scratches my own itch.  I
want to thrive as a free software author, and I hope that you can do
the same.

I'm sick of sitting by and watching people argue about how everybody
else is wrong.  It's about time somebody stepped forward and patiently
helped show people how it is that all anybody on the planet wants is
fulfillment, and so we might as well start cooperating.

I'm doing that with this e-mail.  Do I have your support?

-- 
 Gordon Matzigkeit <gord@fig.org>  //\ I'm a FIG (http://www.fig.org/)
Committed to freedom and diversity \// I use GNU (http://www.gnu.org/)

Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 13:27:17 +0100
From: Derek <derek at fortstar dot demon dot co dot uk>
To: editor@lwn.net
Subject: The GNOME disaster?

I've just spent the long Easter weekend installing and trying out
GNOME-1.0, and I suppose my findings are pretty much the same as most
other people's. I won't go over what I achieved and the hassles it took
to get there, but basically, it's a bitch to install, it falls over a
lot and it uses huge amounts of memory and resources. It may look
pretty, and it may be based on sound technical underpinnings, but on the
stability issue alone, this code has no business being called Version
1.0.

Linux advocates have recently been telling people that Linux is no more
difficult to install than the likes of NT, but any average user (or
writer) who tries to install GNOME will come away with a very bitter
taste in their mouth. We've also been saying that Linux has such low
resource overheads it can revitalise old hardware. This is no longer
true with a desktop that requires a top end Pentium and at least 64MB to
get going. Above all, we have a proud boast that Linux runs for months
without stopping. With GNOME on top, my experience is that Linux is much
less stable than Windows '95, and no one will be impressed when we tell
them that it's only the windowing system that's gone down.

The release of GNOME-1.0 seems to have been motivated by all the things
which motivate companies like Microsoft, and the result has been more of
the same: buggy, bloated software, which will hopefully get better as
new versions roll out. GNOME was undoubtedly feeling the pressure from
KDE, but trying to steal users with a premature V1.0 just devalues the
whole effort. A high profile trade show may have been a very tempting
launch vehicle, but not for something that wasn't ready. The spotlight
is an embarrassing place if you're ugly.

GNOME-1.0 has the potential to do untold damage to Linux. I know users
don't have to use it, but many of them don't know that. For good or bad,
Red Hat is the usable face of Linux, and GNOME will be the usable face
of Red Hat. While I understand the political position, Linux has
undoubtedly suffered over the last year due to Red Hat's refusal to use
KDE as it's default GUI. New users and reviewers think we are still in
the GUI dark ages, which is not true. After seeing GNOME-1.0 they will
think we're not up to writing a stable GUI, which is not true either.

I will continue to use KDE on my Linux desktop, and like most KDE users,
I have no axe to grind with GNOME. I want the choice of desktops, and
the GNOME development team is clearly doing a superb job. This letter
has not been a FUD mission; it's been a call to be realistic before
serious damage is done. Steps need to be taken to somehow withdraw the
V1.0 status from GNOME, and to push Red Hat and the other distributors
towards offering KDE by default until GNOME is a desktop capable of
world domination.

Derek Fountain
Southampton, England.

Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 17:40:07 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dave Finton <surazal@nerp.net>
To: editor@lwn.net
Subject: ESR and JWZ (long)


In the past couple of weeks we saw something rather unsettling.  Two
prominent open source figures have either quit their jobs or expressed
their desire to pass on the buck.  The more paranoid (or righteously
indignant) among us might conclude that open source in of itself isn't
self-sustainable.  People are dropping out of the movement like flies!

This is, obviously, the wrong way to look at things.

Open source has moved beyond its roots.  In fact it had done so quite
some time ago, but only now are we seeing the ramifications.  ESR and
JWZ are moving on because they are burnt out.  They can't carry the
torch any longer because <I>Open Source has moved beyond what any one
person can carry him- or herself</I>.  Look at these factors:

1)  The Linux community has exploded and fragmented.  So many people use
the software now it's impossible to gain a consensus on any issue. 
People will agree with you.  Others will disagree with you.  And yet
others will curse your name from here until infinity because you dare
express an opinion they don't agree with.  A simple read-through on
Slashdot will show all three (and other) segments fighting with each
other on a daily basis.  There is no longer a singular Linux (or open
source) community.  There are now several, or even dozens.  And none of
them seem to like each other very much.

2)  Linus Torvalds was right when he said that any revolution that goes
on for too long is by definition a failure (I believe he said that at
the LinuxWorld Expo).  Revolutions need their George Washingtons and
Thomas Jeffersons to succeed.  But after the American Revolution even
George Washington needed to get back to his regular life after serving 8
years in office.  ESR needs to move on, and so does JWZ.  That doesn't
mean that Open Source will die; The United States didn't die after
Washington and Jefferson retired.  All it shows is that the revolution
is over, and it's time to get down to business in making this thing
work.

3)  Some people think that Mozilla was the litmus test for commercial
open software development.  Maybe so, but Mozilla's "failure" is hardly
a beacon proclaiming the failure of open source in general.  There are
too many other success stories out there proving otherwise.  Take, for
example, Red Hat, Cygnus, O'Rielly, Caldera, Suse, and so on.  Mozilla's
difficulties stem from the fact that a commercial software company
(Netscape) tried to move to a new development model in the hopes that
they don't become another Atari or Amiga or Apple.  Their relative
failure in doing so only illustrates the fact that <I>commercial
software companies' days are numbered</I> if open source proves to be
the paradigm shift it hopes to be (and that looks more and more likely
every day).  If a relatively young and nimble company like Netscape
couldn't cope with the new paradigm, how can the Adobe's and the
Microsoft's in the world ever going to survive in the next 10 years?

Of all the opinions on the possible ramifications of these recent
developments, I think that Bruce Perens is pretty much the only one who
got it right.  The "one charismatic leader" idea only works for so
long.  After that, the bazaar takes over.  Smaller leaders (Richard
Stallman, Mark Ewing, Tim O'Rielly) are going to take up the torch.  In
addition to those, smaller companies and organizations will do their own
bits to evangelize themselves (and by extension Open Source).

Things are moving quickly now, and they will only snowball into
something so huge that nobody, not Microsoft, Eric Raymond, nor Richard
Stallman, will know the true final outcome of this.

                          - Dave Finton

---------------------------------------------------------
| If an infinite number of monkeys typed randomly at    |
|   an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite   |
|   amount of time, they would eventually type out      |
|   this sentencdfjg sd84wUUlksaWQE~kd ::.              |
| ----------------------------------------------------- |
|      Name:      Dave Finton                           |
|      E-mail:    surazal@nerp.net                      |
|      Web Page:  http://surazal.nerp.net/              |
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 17:03:24 +0200
From: Arnaud LAPREVOTE <laprevoa@easynet.fr>
To: lwn@lwn.net
Subject: Eric Raymond support.

Dear Sir,

I suppose that M. Raymond will be burried under encouragements of all
sorts, so I do not forward him directly this mail. Instead I answer to
your editorial concerning his possible resignation of the "virtual" PR
jobs he holds for the free software community.

I fully agree with your article. M.Raymond will NEVER pleases
everybody in the community. And in my case, all people that are
orbiting around the free software movement do not please me. But most
do.

The very first thing about M.Raymond, is his "Cathedral and bazar"
article. I understood a lot reading it. It is just an excellent
article and it provided me a lot of arguments to explain why "free
software" just work and why closed sources software meet so much
problem.

I think that the high profile that he choses to have to represent free
software effectively helped a lot. After all he was instrumental in
the move of Netscape toward free software and this move was the very
first coming from big actors in the software area.

Last (well in fact first), he wrote fetchmail, and we rely on this
software to get our mail every days as well as some of our customers.

These 3 achievements are enough to qualify M. Raymond to his role. I
hope that he will continue to clarify the free software movement for
the mass.

Please, if you have some occasions to express him support, let him
know that he has a lot of support in the community.

Friendly yours,

Arnaud LAPREVOTE
-- 
Arnaud LAPREVOTE
Free&ALter Soft - Free software support for all unix.
77, rue de Pont-à-Mousson
57950 MONTIGNY-LES-METZ
tel : 03 87 50 83 01 - 06 11 36 15 30
E-mail : laprevoa@easynet.fr
Web : www.freealter.com

Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 18:11:45 +0200
From: Raphael Hertzog <rhertzog@hrnet.fr>
To: editor@lwn.net
Subject: Registry and configuration management

Hello,

I've just read many mails about the configuration database that
may be very useful for Linux systems. I'd like to say that this
is certainly a good idea and that Debian has already (many months ago)
started to write specs for such a configuration system. It's
currently beeing discussed by gnome developers too so that it may be
used by a large set of applications.

You can take a look at http://www.debian.org/~wakkerma/config6/
and if you're willing to participate/comment, you should subscribe
to debian-admintool which is the list where it has been discussed. A new
list may be created one day so that the project won't suffer from 
the Debian-specific aspect.

There are still many issues to be discussed though.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog >> 0C4CABF1 >> http://prope.insa-lyon.fr/~rhertzog/

Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 21:32:30 +0200
To: editor@lwn.net
From: Andrew McGill <NOJUNKesauwood@geocities.com>
Subject: The windows registry is (just) a file system

Thinking about the windows registry as a file system puts things in
perspective (IMHO).

The windows registry supports directories ("keys"), and files
("values") which contain data (binary, string or 4 byte words and
other types...).  It has features found in competing operating
systems, such as mount points (with fixed names)
(e.g. "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT"), although these have fixed names, and some
kind of hard and soft linking.  And it comes with a cute regedit
program, which has a dialog box (sub) grep interface.

It has some features which are 'unique' - "strict" typing for files
(although whether this is necessary is not entirely clear).  And as a
quirk, each directory contains at least one file, called "(Default)",
which is usually empty.

The thing that totally kills the registry concept (for MS, at least)
is that programs don't access the registry with standard file API
calls.  There are 25 different function calls that are *dedicated* to
using the registry.  Why would ANYONE want to get past this learning
curve if the configuration information can be stored in a file, with a
well known, simpler set of functions to access it?  MS would have done
a lot better to have made it a pluggable file system, except that
would not be original.  I say it's a a case of those who don't
understand unix are condemned to reinvent it - badly.  And whoever
suggested a name like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE in preference to /etc should
be dragged out into the street and shot.

Something which *is* (I think) remarkable about the windows registry,
is that it is a file system which does not have a fixed size.  I would
like this for ext2fs ... :) ... please can someone tell me it's
already been done?

Here's what I thing linux could make do with:

* A file system for small files with big names (I think ext2fs is
okay) (but can it resize?)
* Some way to mount the win95/95/NT registry as a file system -- just
for kicks
* I really want some way to scribble notes about, and descriptions of
file system objects.  But it mustn't be hard :) (and it has nothing to
do with the rest of this e-mail)

&:-)


----
esau wood saw a wood-saw saw wood as no wood-saw wood saw saw wood would
saw wood - of all wood-saws wood saw saw wood, no wood-saw wood saw saw
wood would saw wood like the wood-saw wood saw saw wood would

ps. Flames to esauwood@

From: schwarzma@mschwarz@ANTIsherbSPAMtel.net (Michael Schwarz)
Subject: Registry
To: editor@lwn.net
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 12:56:39 -0600 (CST)

Perhaps this point has beaten as long as LWN might want 
to beat it, but I have one and only criticism of the
registry idea:

It creates a meta-filesystem that is (as I have seen
it implemented) interdependent with the real filesystem
and yet is updated *idependently* of the file system.

Basically, the registry can associate the name and
LOCATION of a file with a keyed tag.  The file may then
be moved, deleted, or renamed.  Unless the registry
is *automatically* kept in synch with such changes,
I would argue the registry is useless.

Try moving a folder that contains a program from one
drive to another in Windows.  The file manager lets you
do this, but the program will never work again.
Also, since applications do not usualy bother to
document ANYTHING they put in the registry, you don't
know until you try it that you are going to destroy
the installation.

I'm not saying that separate config files do not have
a similar problem, but that is the fault and responsibility
of the application developer/maintainer/documentor.
I would hate to see such chaos made a part of the system.

Michael Schwarz
mschwarz@ANTIsherbSPAMtel.net