Leading items and editorials

SE Linux does not correct any flaws in Linux, but rather serves as an example of how mandatory access controls, including superuser access, can be added to Linux.

MAP_COPY
mmap()
MAP_COPY
MAP_COPY
MAP_COPY
MAP_DENYWRITE
utmp
MAP_DENYWRITE
   Michael J. Hammel

From:	 Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@canada.com>
To:	 lwn@lwn.net
Subject: Disinformation Campaigns
Date:	 04 Oct 2001 11:28:38 -0400

I'm a little disappointed here: 

  "Last week, the Gartner Group suggested that businesses should
  consider moving away from IIS toward other, more secure web
  servers. The latest Netcraft survey suggests that a number of
  businesses are doing exactly that - tens of thousands of IIS-based
  web sites have disappeared from the net recently. ..."

This is disinformation, at minimum misleading; a quick trip to that
Netcraft survey turns up

  "It has been a very mixed month for Microsoft. Although the top line
  figures appear to present steady growth in adoption of
  Microsoft-IIS, this masks some significant events.

  "The impact of Code Red has resulted in around 150,000 Microsoft-IIS
  sites on 80,000 ip addresses disappearing from the internet, one of
  the most visible proponents of Microsoft technology for mass hosting
  has closed down, and Gartner Group has issued a strongly worded
  advisory, recommending that people presently running Microsoft-IIS
  should replace it as quickly as possible.

  "On the plus side, receipt of a site list from homestead.com which
  has over a million small sites based on NT, has more than offset the
  losses from Webjump, and from the empirical evidence to date it
  appears that people are not yet inclined to act on Gartner's advice.

  ...

  "However, the implications for Microsoft are better than one might
  initially expect. Of the 80,000 ip addresses no longer running
  Microsoft-IIS, only around 2,000 are now running a competing web
  server. Notwithstanding the fact that when a web server is replaced,
  the replacement will not necessarily be on the same ip address, it
  does seem that in most cases sites have been taken down, or port
  filtered as part of a general tightening of security in the wake of
  Code Red, rather than the Windows disks being formatted and replaced
  with Linux/Apache."

Thus, what the Netcraft survey really reports is that MSIIS use is up
dramatically in September, and that it's Active Host growth rate is 3x
the growth rate of Apache, but more importantly than this, what the
survey _really_ says is that statistics on their own mean _nothing_
without context.

I've used both, and I will never again willingly use a Microsoft
server, but that's no excuse for trying to pump up opposition by
twisting reports and inflating statistics.  Lying about it only opens
ourselves up to attack ("(ahem) about those stats you gave us at the
last meeting ..."). Where Opensource is better for the task, and I
believe that covers most server cases, it will succeed on its own
merits.

My $0.02

-- 
Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@teledyn.com> TeleDynamics Communications Inc
Business Innovations Through Open Source Systems: http://www.teledyn.com
"Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers."(Pablo Picasso)

From:	 "Sujal Shah" <sshah@progress.com>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: Your editorial re: RAND licensing and the W3C
Date:	 05 Oct 2001 14:08:52 -0400

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to express my disagreement with both the Patent Policy and
the reporting of this activity.  After reading much of the emails,
public comments, and reporting of the W3C's implementation of a new
patent policy, I've been appalled at the misunderstandings that have
been perpetrated by many folks, including, respectfully, LWN.

	From my understanding of the W3C's action, and reading through much of
the W3C's patent policy draft
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-patent-policy-20010816/), I would like to
express my opinion that the policy could be a step in the right
direction.  Characterizing the W3 as attempting to create a "proprietary
web" is not reasonable or productive.  It's important that we realize
that a new policy is necessary, and that certain aspects of the proposal
are actually beneficial to an open web.

	Specifically, the W3C proposal imposes, for the first time by my
understanding, a full-disclosure policy for all members regarding
patents that may apply to standards being considered by the W3C.  This
is indeed a good thing.  A policy would go a long way in assuring those
of us that work on Free software that our work is indeed clear of
intellectual property concerns.

	In addition, full disclosure would allow pressure to be applied when
the standards are being created.  I believe, quite strongly, that there
will be strong voices in favor of RF licensing for W3C recommendations. 
As each standard comes up for review and public comments, the general
public, as well as W3C members facing the prospect of accounting for and
managing royalty requirements, will lean in favor of RF standards.

	This being said, I do disagree with the selection of RAND as the
minimum requirement for a standard.  My personal opinion is that if a
member is not willing to relinquish royalty payments for a particular
technology, we as a development community don't need it as a standard. 
To be honest, do we really need "standard" at all costs?  If a company
is unwilling to part with royalties, then they should bear the costs of
creating their own market penetration.

	I hope that LWN and others try to clarify the need for the PPF and
problems with this specific writing of it.  Specifically, if the W3C
pushed the minimum requirement from RAND to RF, most everyone should be
happy.  If a member is not willing to allow for a RF license, then that
technology should not be part of teh standard, or the standard shouldn't
be a standard.

Thanks,

Sujal

-- 
---- Sujal Shah --- sujal@sujal.net ---

        http://www.sujal.net

Now Playing: Rage Against the Machine - Mic Check

From:	 Bob Goates <bob.goates@echostar.com>
To:	 www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Subject: W3C Patent Policy Framework working draft
Date:	 Mon, 08 Oct 2001 14:39:25 -0600
Cc:	 letters@lwn.net

WWW Patent Policy Working Group

Sirs:

I have a comment regarding the Working Draft of 16 August 2001 of the
W3C Patent Policy Framework.

In section 4.(a)2 it is stated that Essential Claims will not include
"claims which would be infringed only by ... enabling technologies that
may be necessary to make or use any product or portion thereof that
complies with the Recommendation but are not themselves expressly set
forth in the Recommendation (e.g., semiconductor manufacturing
technology, compiler technology, object-oriented technology, basic
operating system technology, and the like)."

I am concerned that this limitation on the definition of "Essential
Claims" will allow a standard to be adopted, without appropriate
licensing requirements, that depends on the proprietary API (Application
Programming Interface) of a proprietary operating system.  In other
words, the standard would require users to purchase a specific
proprietary operating system in order to use products based on the
standard.  I believe such a situation would be unacceptable and contrary
to the tradition of World Wide Web usage.

A similar problem might crop up with the implied exclusion of other
software interfaces from the definition of "Essential Claims".

A possible solution to this problem is to remove the wording "compiler
technology, object-oriented technology, basic operating system
technology" from section 4.(a)2 and add to the definition of "Essential
Claims" the statement:  "Any claim regarding a software interface, which
interface is required by a standard, will be considered an Essential
Claim."

Thank you.

Bob Goates
r.goates@ieee.org

From:	 Wesley Felter <wesley@felter.org>
To:	 <letters@lwn.net>
Subject: Blame Apple? Blame Sorenson?
Date:	 Wed, 3 Oct 2001 23:10:52 -0500 (CDT)

LWN editors,

As you noted, Apple blames Sorenson for not releasing a Linux version of
their codec, but Sorenson claims to have an exclusive contract with Apple
preventing them from releasing anything except Mac and Windows versions. I
stopped caring a long time ago about who's lying to us.

Meanwhile, there may be an alternative. On2 recently open-sourced their
VP3 codec, which is supposed to be comparable in quality to Sorenson
Video. While VP3 won't help you watch the movie trailers from Apple's
site, it does provide open source tools to encode video that can be played
on Mac, Windows, and Linux. All that's needed is for someone to plug the
VP3 code into OpenQuicktime.

http://www.vp3.com/
http://openquicktime.sourceforge.net/

Wesley Felter - wesley@felter.org - http://felter.org/wesley/

From:	 John George <jgeorg109@yahoo.com>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: Making Money in Linux Web Distribution
Date:	 Sat, 6 Oct 2001 09:06:56 -0700 (PDT)

I am a download customer of my favorite Linux
distribution.  I have used both DSL and Cable Modems. 
My favorite distro is largely distributed by mirrors
on the internet which actuall slow down when new
releases come out.  

I used to buy boxed sets, but it gets expensive to
order several competing versions of Linux to find
which one works best for your particular equipment.  

I would be willing to pay for "high bandwidth"
downloads of my favorite distros.  It seems to me that
getting downloads quickly "by subscription" or "fill
out a web form with your credit card" would be a way
to make money from the bandwidth that modern internet
companies currently offer for free even though it is
an expense to them. 

I am sure that there is some price between "free, but
slow and flakey" and "expensive boxed set, even
slower" that would work for someone like myself.  I
find it hard to go back to my distro website and
donate after spending up to a week to get a download
completed.  I usually buy my ticket to the movie
before I go in, not the other way around.  

Perhaps there is a multiple of the raw bandwidth cost
that would work.  I know there is at least one
customer asking for this service, me.  I am sure there
are many more, especially if this service was included
in "exclusive club" membership or as a side benefit of
on-line stock purchases.  

Come on, Linux Distros, get your marketing hats on! 
Make money off of the internet.   

Thanks. 

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1

From:	 "Kim J. Brand" <kim@kimbrand.com>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: a new message: LINUX LASTS LONGER
Date:	 Mon, 08 Oct 2001 06:24:29 -0500

it seems to me that the 'costs less/works better' message of linux 
marketing messages has been ineffective.  microsoft's campaign advertising 
99999 reliability will simply be believed through the magic of 
repetition.  consumer awareness of microsoft's products sells most of them 
before they are advertised; the rest get sold due to the success of 
microsoft's FUD campaign.

i would like to suggest a new PR theme for linux which can be used to 
communicate an idea that consumers will understand and which microsoft 
can't defend: microsoft's new 2 year licensing strategy for their Office 
and OS products.  i propose that all vendors of linux simply use the 
service mark: LINUX LASTS LONGER on their products.  this will establish a 
'brand' that is identified with performance, economy, and simplicity 
unencumbered by complicated licensing restrictions.  the fact that multiple 
vendors use it will help to create an awareness of linux and start moving 
it from off-beat to main stream.

i've received many benefits from open-source in general and linux in 
particular.  i hope this 'gift' to the linux community begins to repay my debt.

kim

From:	 James Cameron <quozl@us.netrek.org>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: The Venerable Netrek
Date:	 Tue, 9 Oct 2001 12:31:27 +1000

G'day from outback Australia,

Thanks for the mention of the venerable Netrek in LWN, October 4th.
I'm the OSS project leader for the Netrek server.

Our problem in the Netrek project is lack of packaging.  It is
difficult to install Netrek, so we fail to compete.  Netrek evolved in
a community of technical expertise, and has not changed with the
times.

We need help.  We need to improve the GUI; it is too venerable.  We
need to package the game on the popular Linux distributions.  We need
a SETUP.EXE style installer for Windows users.  If anybody is
interested, please contact me.

An update on LWN, April 2000: http://lwn.net/2000/0406/backpage.php3

Netrek was played at the two computer camps in the past year.  Other
games that were popular were BZFlag and StarCraft.  The open source
games (Netrek, BZFlag) were easier for us to use because of licensing.

I commend the BZFlag development team, it is quite an improvement on the
venerable xtank!

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl@us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/

Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions On the Desktop Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Linux History Letters See also: last week's Development page.	Development projects News and Editorials Larry Wall's Apocalypse 3 for Perl 6 Larry Wall recently published Apocalypse 3, with a long list of changes to the Perl 6 operators. To me, one of the most agonizing aspects of language design is coming up with a useful system of operators. To other language designers, this may seem like a silly thing to agonize over. After all, you can view all operators as mere syntactic sugar -- operators are just funny looking function calls. Some languages make a feature of leveling all function calls into one syntax. As a result, the so-called functional languages tend to wear out your parenthesis keys, while OO languages tend to wear out your dot key. In all, sixteen new RFCs covering a wide variety of changes were included in this Apocalypse. Meanwhile, Damian Conway followed up on Larry's post with Exegesis 3, a lengthy explanation Apocalypse 3. As with all the Apocalypses, only the new and different are presented -- just remember that the vast majority of operator-related syntax and semantics will stay precisely as they are in Perl 5. If you don't feel like wading through the many pages of detailed information, Damian has given a quick summary of the changes at the end of Exegesis 3. Audio Editing Sound Under Linux (O'Reilly). Linux audio guru Dave Philips has written an article about the Snd audio editor on the O'Reilly network. "Sound workers migrating from Windows or the Mac will look for tools similar to what they have enjoyed using on their previous platforms, and one of their most frequently asked questions is 'What Linux audio editor will most completely take the place of Cool Edit?'" CORBA Recent CORBA developments. Several CORBA projects have released new versions of their code: A new version of ACE+TAO 5.2+1.2 is available, see the announcement for details. Also, omniNotify 1.1 has been announced. See the omniNotify home page for more information. (Thanks to Cristof Merrwald) Databases Pointrel Data Repository System. A new version of the Pointrel Data Repository System has been announced. "The Pointrel Data Repository System is a variant of an Entity-Relationship model database. The Pointrel system provides a way to easily handle loosely structured data stored on disk, like for INI files, version control systems, bug tracking systems, or simple AI type applications." Desktop Software AbiWord Weekly News. Volumes 63 and 64 of the AbiWord Weekly News are now available. With these updates, the AWN is now caught back up to real time. Embedded Systems Embedded Linux Newsletter for Oct. 4, 2001. This week's Embedded Linux Newsletter has been published. News includes Espial's DeviceTop offering, OSDL benchmarking tool, and Transmeta's move into the embedded market. An overview of Linux for embedded developers (LinuxDevices). Greg Haerr, CEO of Century Software and founder of the Microwindows and ViewML projects, presents a whitepaper introduction to embedded Linux. "The X Window System is overkill, especially when running a dedicated graphics application. For this reason, the Microwindows Project was created. Microwindows is an open source project aimed at producing desktop-quality graphics functionality for small devices. The architecture allows for ease in adding different display, mouse, touchscreen and keyboard devices, as explained below. Starting with Linux version 2.2, the kernel contains code to allow user applications to access graphical display memory as a framebuffer, which ends up being a memory-mapped region in a user process space that, when written to, controls the display appearance." Interoperability Wine Snapshot for October 4, 2001. A new version of Wine was released on October 4, 2001. Changes include improved typelib support, the beginnings of shared window handles, new code in the quartz dll, and lots of bug fixes. Printing Systems Omni 0.5.0 released. Version 0.5.0 of the Omni printer driver package has been released. This version adds the ability to query job property keys from the Omni driver, and it now supports more media types. New devices supported include numerous printers from Epson and OkiData. Paper Tray Selection for PCL Laser Printers. The Linux Printing Site has a discussion on using Foomatic to select printer input trays. "One big problem of free operating systems was that on most non-PostScript laser printers one could not select from which input tray the paper to be printed on should be taken. Most of these printers are PCL printers and nearly all GhostScript drivers for PCL printers lack an option to select the input tray. Now I (Till) have solved this problem with the help of Foomatic." System Administration PAM Modules (O'Reilly). Jennifer Vesperman covers a wide variety of PAM modules in an O'Reilly article. "PAM was designed for authentication, and it remains the most common function of PAM modules. Programmers being programmers, there are now PAM modules to do much more than authentication. A variety of security tasks can be done through modules, and there are utilities for session management." Web-site Development Zope Members News. The latest Zope News from Zope.org members includes an announcement for a new French language Zope site, a discussion on ZOQL, the Zope Object Query Language, an initial release of XPath Methods, and more. Web services networks (IBM developerWorks). Kelly Truelove gives an overview of of web services networks on IBM's developerWorks. "In the physical world, enterprises use many intermediaries in the course of conducting business with one another. For example, the Federal Express package delivery network greatly simplifies the transport of goods and communications between organizations that, in lieu of substitutes, would have to establish custom point-to-point delivery systems. A Web services network performs analogous intermediary duties by facilitating communications between Web services operated by different enterprises. As in the physical case, the intermediary adds tremendous value by solving a number of hard problems that businesses would otherwise be left on their own to address." Redfoot 1.0 released (xmlhack.com). Version 1.0 of the Redfoot RDF Application Framework has been released. "It can be used to develop personal or workgroup information environments, community web sites or any kind of web application that involves managing the relationships between different information objects in a consistent yet extensible manner." Redfoot is licensed with a BSD style license. If the term is new to you, an RDF is a Resource Description Framework that uses XML for integrating catalogs, directories, news, and other data across the net. Quixote 0.4.1. Several new versions of the Quixote Python based Web Applications Framework have been released recently. Version 0.4.0 featured lots of new features as well as a reorganization of the software. Version 0.4.1 just came out and fixes a few new bugs. Miscellaneous Gnumeric 0.71. Gnumeric 0.71 has been released. This version is considered to be a major release; among other things, graphs are now a standard feature. Gnumeric now goes into feature freeze in preparation for a stable release. Twisted, an event-based framework for internet applications. A new release of Twisted, an event-based framework for Internet applications, has been announced. This version adds support for Jython, a new DNS system, better SSL support, security enhancements, and more. Section Editor: Forrest Cook	October 11, 2001 Application Links GIMP Mozilla Galeon High Availability ht://Dig mnoGoSearch MagicPoint Wine Worldforge Zope Open Source Code Collections Berlios Freshmeat OpenSourceDirectory Savannah Le Serveur Libre SourceForge Sweetcode

	Programming Languages Caml The latest from the Caml Hump. The Caml Hump features an article entitled "Practical hints for using OCaml", as well as discussions on OCamldoc, and OCamlCVS. Java JSci: An open-source alternative for Java 2D graphing (IBM developerWorks). John Carr examines the graphics capabilities of JSci, a.k.a. Java Objects for Science, on IBM's developerWorks. Stateful Session EJBs: Beasts of Burden (O'Reilly). Tyler Jewell talks about the use and misuse of Stateful Session EJBs in an O'Reilly OnJava article. "SFSBs have a very limited use in development and should rarely be seen. But somehow, these infiltrating creatures have wormed their way into designs where they do not belong. This article discusses the true purpose of SFSBs, where they belong in a J2EE design, and the situations where they should not be used." Lisp LISA 1.1 released. Version 1.1 of LISA, (Lisp-based Intelligent Software Agents) has been released. "The most significant new feature in this release is support for dynamic rule definition; that is, it is now possible to create new rules from the RHS of existing rules at runtime." Perl Perl 5 Porters for October 10, 2001. The October 10, 2001 edition of Perl 5 Porters includes a call for known PerlIO bugs, discussion of a problem with attributes, dealing with side effects of multiple FETCH operations, and more. Asymmetric Cryptography in Perl (Perl.com). Vipul Ved Prakash and Benjamin Trott discuss the use of Perl for asymmetric cryptography on perl.com. "In the early days of public networks, Witfield Diffie & Martin Hellman, then researchers at Stanford's mathematics department, were battling against this fundamental problem - how to enable two complete strangers to bootstrap secure communications over an insecure network. Their work culminated in a seminal paper, titled ``New Directions In Cryptography,'' that laid down the foundations of what has come to be known as asymmetric cryptography." Python The latest Python-URL. Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for October 9, 2001 is out, with the latest from the Python development community. Covered topics include HTML serving options, Zope vs. PHP, and the upcoming 2.2 release. Last week's Python-URL. In case that wasn't enough Python news, the Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for October 4 also came out after the previous LWN was published. Topics include interfaces and signature oriented polymorphism, regular expressions, setattr differences between Python 2.2 and earlier versions, and lots more. Developing Games with Python (O'Reilly). Stephen Figgins looks at SDL, PyGame and PyUI in the context of Python based gaming software on O'Reilly's OnLamp site. Pyro 2.1 available. A new version of Pyro, PYthon Remote Objects, is available. "With this, it closely resembles Java's Remote Method Invocation (RMI). It has less similarity to CORBA - which is a system- and language independent Distributed Object Technology and has much more to offer than Pyro or RMI. But Pyro is small, simple and free!" Pyro features an LGPL license. Roundup Issue Tracking System. A preview release of the Roundup Issue Tracking System has been announced. "The system will facilitate communication among the participants by managing discussions and notifying interested parties when issues are edited. One of the major design goals for Roundup that it be simple to get going." Final Draft of Online Python Book. Boudewijn Rempt has announced the final draft of his book GUI Programming with Python and Qt. An online version of the book is available. Ruby The latest from the Ruby Garden. This week the Ruby Garden has discussions on Socket#gethostbyname, Hash#keys, subclassing array, chaining relational operators, Regexp#options #lang, and more. Tcl/Tk The Tcl-URL for October 10, 2001. Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL for October 10, 2001 is out; covered topics include the changes in Tcl Wiki, embedded Tcl, object-oriented Tcl extensions, and more. The Tcl-URL for October 6, 2001. Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL for October 6, 2001 is also available. Topics include a generic Tcl interface for various SQL databases, Tk::MDI, a Multiple Document Interface, and lots more. XML SMILGen 0.9.9 released. Version 0.9.9 of SMILGen, a Python based XML authoring tool is available. "SMILGen is a SMIL (and XML) authoring tool designed to ease the process of XML content creation. SMILGen understands XML syntax and handles the nesting and formatting XML." Integrated Development Environments The eclipse project as a universal tool platform. The eclipse project is being developed at IBM. Eclipse aims to be a common component that is to be used for developing a wide variety of IDEs. "The Eclipse platform itself is a sort of universal tool platform - it is an IDE for anything and nothing in particular. It can deal with any type of resource (Java files, C files, Word files, HTML files, JSP files, etc) in a generic manner but doesn't know how to do anything that is specific to a particular file type. The Eclipse platform, by itself, doesn't provide a great deal of end-user functionality - it is what it enables that is interesting. The real value comes from tool plug-ins for eclipse that 'teach' the platform how to work with these different kinds of resources. This pluggable architecture allows a more seamless experience for the end user when moving between different tools than ever before possible." Section Editor: Forrest Cook	Language Links Caml Caml Hump Tiny COBOL Erlang g95 Fortran Gnu Compiler Collection (GCC) Gnu Compiler for the Java Language (GCJ) Guile Haskell IBM Java Zone Jython Free the X3J Thirteen (Lisp) Use Perl O'Reilly's perl.com Dr. Dobbs' Perl PHP PHP Weekly Summary Daily Python-URL Python.org Python.faqts Python Eggs Ruby Ruby Garden MIT Scheme Schemers Squeak Smalltalk Why Smalltalk Tcl Developer Xchange Tcl-tk.net O'Reilly's XML.com Regular Expressions

Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions On the Desktop Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Linux History Letters See also: last week's Letters page.	Letters to the editor Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lwn.net. Preference will be given to letters which are short, to the point, and well written. If you want your email address "anti-spammed" in some way please be sure to let us know. We do not have a policy against anonymous letters, but we will be reluctant to include them.	October 11, 2001

From: Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@canada.com> To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: Disinformation Campaigns Date: 04 Oct 2001 11:28:38 -0400 I'm a little disappointed here: "Last week, the Gartner Group suggested that businesses should consider moving away from IIS toward other, more secure web servers. The latest Netcraft survey suggests that a number of businesses are doing exactly that - tens of thousands of IIS-based web sites have disappeared from the net recently. ..." This is disinformation, at minimum misleading; a quick trip to that Netcraft survey turns up "It has been a very mixed month for Microsoft. Although the top line figures appear to present steady growth in adoption of Microsoft-IIS, this masks some significant events. "The impact of Code Red has resulted in around 150,000 Microsoft-IIS sites on 80,000 ip addresses disappearing from the internet, one of the most visible proponents of Microsoft technology for mass hosting has closed down, and Gartner Group has issued a strongly worded advisory, recommending that people presently running Microsoft-IIS should replace it as quickly as possible. "On the plus side, receipt of a site list from homestead.com which has over a million small sites based on NT, has more than offset the losses from Webjump, and from the empirical evidence to date it appears that people are not yet inclined to act on Gartner's advice. ... "However, the implications for Microsoft are better than one might initially expect. Of the 80,000 ip addresses no longer running Microsoft-IIS, only around 2,000 are now running a competing web server. Notwithstanding the fact that when a web server is replaced, the replacement will not necessarily be on the same ip address, it does seem that in most cases sites have been taken down, or port filtered as part of a general tightening of security in the wake of Code Red, rather than the Windows disks being formatted and replaced with Linux/Apache." Thus, what the Netcraft survey really reports is that MSIIS use is up dramatically in September, and that it's Active Host growth rate is 3x the growth rate of Apache, but more importantly than this, what the survey _really_ says is that statistics on their own mean _nothing_ without context. I've used both, and I will never again willingly use a Microsoft server, but that's no excuse for trying to pump up opposition by twisting reports and inflating statistics. Lying about it only opens ourselves up to attack ("(ahem) about those stats you gave us at the last meeting ..."). Where Opensource is better for the task, and I believe that covers most server cases, it will succeed on its own merits. My $0.02 -- Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@teledyn.com> TeleDynamics Communications Inc Business Innovations Through Open Source Systems: http://www.teledyn.com "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."(Pablo Picasso)

From: "Sujal Shah" <sshah@progress.com> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Your editorial re: RAND licensing and the W3C Date: 05 Oct 2001 14:08:52 -0400 To whom it may concern: I am writing to express my disagreement with both the Patent Policy and the reporting of this activity. After reading much of the emails, public comments, and reporting of the W3C's implementation of a new patent policy, I've been appalled at the misunderstandings that have been perpetrated by many folks, including, respectfully, LWN. From my understanding of the W3C's action, and reading through much of the W3C's patent policy draft (http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-patent-policy-20010816/), I would like to express my opinion that the policy could be a step in the right direction. Characterizing the W3 as attempting to create a "proprietary web" is not reasonable or productive. It's important that we realize that a new policy is necessary, and that certain aspects of the proposal are actually beneficial to an open web. Specifically, the W3C proposal imposes, for the first time by my understanding, a full-disclosure policy for all members regarding patents that may apply to standards being considered by the W3C. This is indeed a good thing. A policy would go a long way in assuring those of us that work on Free software that our work is indeed clear of intellectual property concerns. In addition, full disclosure would allow pressure to be applied when the standards are being created. I believe, quite strongly, that there will be strong voices in favor of RF licensing for W3C recommendations. As each standard comes up for review and public comments, the general public, as well as W3C members facing the prospect of accounting for and managing royalty requirements, will lean in favor of RF standards. This being said, I do disagree with the selection of RAND as the minimum requirement for a standard. My personal opinion is that if a member is not willing to relinquish royalty payments for a particular technology, we as a development community don't need it as a standard. To be honest, do we really need "standard" at all costs? If a company is unwilling to part with royalties, then they should bear the costs of creating their own market penetration. I hope that LWN and others try to clarify the need for the PPF and problems with this specific writing of it. Specifically, if the W3C pushed the minimum requirement from RAND to RF, most everyone should be happy. If a member is not willing to allow for a RF license, then that technology should not be part of teh standard, or the standard shouldn't be a standard. Thanks, Sujal -- ---- Sujal Shah --- sujal@sujal.net --- http://www.sujal.net Now Playing: Rage Against the Machine - Mic Check

From: Bob Goates <bob.goates@echostar.com> To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org Subject: W3C Patent Policy Framework working draft Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 14:39:25 -0600 Cc: letters@lwn.net WWW Patent Policy Working Group Sirs: I have a comment regarding the Working Draft of 16 August 2001 of the W3C Patent Policy Framework. In section 4.(a)2 it is stated that Essential Claims will not include "claims which would be infringed only by ... enabling technologies that may be necessary to make or use any product or portion thereof that complies with the Recommendation but are not themselves expressly set forth in the Recommendation (e.g., semiconductor manufacturing technology, compiler technology, object-oriented technology, basic operating system technology, and the like)." I am concerned that this limitation on the definition of "Essential Claims" will allow a standard to be adopted, without appropriate licensing requirements, that depends on the proprietary API (Application Programming Interface) of a proprietary operating system. In other words, the standard would require users to purchase a specific proprietary operating system in order to use products based on the standard. I believe such a situation would be unacceptable and contrary to the tradition of World Wide Web usage. A similar problem might crop up with the implied exclusion of other software interfaces from the definition of "Essential Claims". A possible solution to this problem is to remove the wording "compiler technology, object-oriented technology, basic operating system technology" from section 4.(a)2 and add to the definition of "Essential Claims" the statement: "Any claim regarding a software interface, which interface is required by a standard, will be considered an Essential Claim." Thank you. Bob Goates r.goates@ieee.org

From: Wesley Felter <wesley@felter.org> To: <letters@lwn.net> Subject: Blame Apple? Blame Sorenson? Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 23:10:52 -0500 (CDT) LWN editors, As you noted, Apple blames Sorenson for not releasing a Linux version of their codec, but Sorenson claims to have an exclusive contract with Apple preventing them from releasing anything except Mac and Windows versions. I stopped caring a long time ago about who's lying to us. Meanwhile, there may be an alternative. On2 recently open-sourced their VP3 codec, which is supposed to be comparable in quality to Sorenson Video. While VP3 won't help you watch the movie trailers from Apple's site, it does provide open source tools to encode video that can be played on Mac, Windows, and Linux. All that's needed is for someone to plug the VP3 code into OpenQuicktime. http://www.vp3.com/ http://openquicktime.sourceforge.net/ Wesley Felter - wesley@felter.org - http://felter.org/wesley/

From: John George <jgeorg109@yahoo.com> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Making Money in Linux Web Distribution Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 09:06:56 -0700 (PDT) I am a download customer of my favorite Linux distribution. I have used both DSL and Cable Modems. My favorite distro is largely distributed by mirrors on the internet which actuall slow down when new releases come out. I used to buy boxed sets, but it gets expensive to order several competing versions of Linux to find which one works best for your particular equipment. I would be willing to pay for "high bandwidth" downloads of my favorite distros. It seems to me that getting downloads quickly "by subscription" or "fill out a web form with your credit card" would be a way to make money from the bandwidth that modern internet companies currently offer for free even though it is an expense to them. I am sure that there is some price between "free, but slow and flakey" and "expensive boxed set, even slower" that would work for someone like myself. I find it hard to go back to my distro website and donate after spending up to a week to get a download completed. I usually buy my ticket to the movie before I go in, not the other way around. Perhaps there is a multiple of the raw bandwidth cost that would work. I know there is at least one customer asking for this service, me. I am sure there are many more, especially if this service was included in "exclusive club" membership or as a side benefit of on-line stock purchases. Come on, Linux Distros, get your marketing hats on! Make money off of the internet. Thanks. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1

From: "Kim J. Brand" <kim@kimbrand.com> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: a new message: LINUX LASTS LONGER Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 06:24:29 -0500 it seems to me that the 'costs less/works better' message of linux marketing messages has been ineffective. microsoft's campaign advertising 99999 reliability will simply be believed through the magic of repetition. consumer awareness of microsoft's products sells most of them before they are advertised; the rest get sold due to the success of microsoft's FUD campaign. i would like to suggest a new PR theme for linux which can be used to communicate an idea that consumers will understand and which microsoft can't defend: microsoft's new 2 year licensing strategy for their Office and OS products. i propose that all vendors of linux simply use the service mark: LINUX LASTS LONGER on their products. this will establish a 'brand' that is identified with performance, economy, and simplicity unencumbered by complicated licensing restrictions. the fact that multiple vendors use it will help to create an awareness of linux and start moving it from off-beat to main stream. i've received many benefits from open-source in general and linux in particular. i hope this 'gift' to the linux community begins to repay my debt. kim

From: James Cameron <quozl@us.netrek.org> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: The Venerable Netrek Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 12:31:27 +1000 G'day from outback Australia, Thanks for the mention of the venerable Netrek in LWN, October 4th. I'm the OSS project leader for the Netrek server. Our problem in the Netrek project is lack of packaging. It is difficult to install Netrek, so we fail to compete. Netrek evolved in a community of technical expertise, and has not changed with the times. We need help. We need to improve the GUI; it is too venerable. We need to package the game on the popular Linux distributions. We need a SETUP.EXE style installer for Windows users. If anybody is interested, please contact me. An update on LWN, April 2000: http://lwn.net/2000/0406/backpage.php3 Netrek was played at the two computer camps in the past year. Other games that were popular were BZFlag and StarCraft. The open source games (Netrek, BZFlag) were easier for us to use because of licensing. I commend the BZFlag development team, it is quite an improvement on the venerable xtank! -- James Cameron mailto:quozl@us.netrek.org http://quozl.netrek.org/

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