Just found this short interview with Darl McBride (CEO and President of SCO). It's a couple of weeks old, but it is a follow-up to his "Open Letter to the Open Source Community" of September 9th.
Interesting reading -- he answers all the questions with a "peacemaking" tone, seeming to imply that the open source community is unwilling to make any efforts to compromise (despite open-letter replies from Linus Torvalds and from Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens, which state that SCO has not provided enough detail for there to be any sort of peaceful negotiation).
Here is my favorite excerpt from the interview:
"Q: How do you feel about apparently being reviled in the open-source community due to SCO's legal fight? Does it bother you?"
"A. It does and it doesn't. ...in this case we have one set of forces here that are pro-SCO, and I've characterized them as the silent majority."
Of course you have.
Related to my previous post about Mandrake Linux 9.1, I did get the chance to install one of the Linuxant drivers on my system last night.
The driver I installed was for the Riptide sound card functionality (they also have one for the modem, which I will try this weekend). The drivers are available in binary form (RPM) for Mandrake, SuSE, and Red Hat -- although source is available for other distributions. I selected the appropriate RPM for my Mandrake kernel (gratuitous linux tip: type uname -r at a shell prompt to see your kernel version) and it installed without a problem.
One reboot later, and "riptidelow" showed up in the init boot sequence. I fired up xmms (an open source media player) and let 'er rip.
Music, sweet music! For years I have lamented my inability to get my sound card and modem working under linux. Now that the sound is working, I am delighted -- even if the modem does not end up working I will still be 85% happy (I tend to use sound more than modem at home anyway).
Oh, and the inaugural MP3 file that was played? "Tha Crossroads" by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.
Homepage: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/
Summary: A very user-friendly linux distribution; up and running in under an hour.
I have been a fan of linux for some time, but have never kept it installed on my home PC for very long. Why? Well, I have an older PC with a fairly obscure modem/soundcard combo that (I have heard) is worse than the typical WinModem -- It's a Riptide/Conexant HCF combo of modem, soundcard, and game port. It works quite well under Windows 98 and 2000, but I have never had any success getting any functionality out of it under any type of linux or BSD.
For those who don't know, a WinModem is a lower-price internal modem designed to be used exclusively within a Windows environment. This is achieved by moving some of the functionality away from the hardware and onto the operating system. WinModems traditionally present difficulties for would-be linux users, since the OS code that adds complete functionality is proprietary and not available to the general public. Hence, it is near impossible to find a working device driver. The standard answer on usenet groups and web forums is, "Just spend the $50 and get a decent external serial modem!"
I happened across a website the other day by a group called Linuxant. They claim to have created drivers that allow these Conexant combo packages to function correctly under linux. The catch? They want a few bucks. They provide the sound card driver and a modem driver that is restricted to 14.4kbps for free (so you can verify hardware compatibility) -- but for the full 56k driver, they want $15.
Encouraged by this, I installed Mandrake on my home PC (it now triple boots Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Mandrake). Here are some quick impressions:
I have not yet had the chance to install the modem/soundcard drivers to test out, but overall I am quite impressed with Mandrake. I have previously used Caldera OpenLinux (no longer available), Red Hat, and Slackware, and I find Mandrake to be at least as good as those distributions for a workstation, if not better. I would likely not select it for a dedicated server, since some of the "configuration wizards" seem to use non-standard files (ex: I made changes to lilo.conf, but they did not show up on the LILO boot menu...) and I believe that a server should be a no-frills setup.
But Mandrake is definitely worth a download if you're looking to get a workstation up and running quickly.
Web developers take note; here are some website features that bother me:
Flash - I hate Flash animations. I hate animated GIFs. Heck, I even hate the now-obsolete <BLINK> HTML tag. I don't want my webpages to move. Please stop making them do so. Thank you.
long documents broken up page by page - If you're going to do this, at least have the decency to give me the option of one long HTML page. I find it enormously frustrating to have to keep clicking back and forth to "turn the page" in documentation. (The documentation for Mandrake Linux inspired this piece, though there have been numerous others.)
frames that hide the URL of the page - Yes, it's all neat and tidy that no matter which page of your site I'm looking at, the address bar just shows http://www.foo.bar/ -- however, it becomes a chore to try and bookmark useful content.
splash / intro pages - This is closely tied with my hatred of Flash, mentioned above. I really don't need to see the corporate logo assemble itself from a million pieces, then show a graphical representation of the company feeding data into the globe. Odds are that I'm just looking for a driver or something minor, not planning an enterprise-wide upgrade and looking for ideas.
registration - I know your marketing people have probably told you that making people register before accessing content on your website is a great way to build a database of sales leads. But you're going to get fake information from me, if you get any at all. I've found that the action attribute of the form tag generally specifies the page with the content, which I can then type into the address bar. Or if you're clever and perform some type of client-side javascript validation, I can get around that too. If you insist on e-mailing a custom link to download content or performing some sort of server-side validation, then you've just lost a potential customer. You are NOT entitled to valid contact information just because you offer a trial download of your product. Sorry.
non-lynx-friendly pages - From time to time, I use the lynx, links, or elinks text-mode web browsers. And while links and elinks do a decent job of rendering tables, colors, and other formatting, it is surprising just how many pages still have content missing. This especially applies to image links or imagemaps, which all offer the same unhelpful [IMG] rendering. Please, give your images proper alt descriptions, and provide an alternative to your well-planned-out huge imagemap for navigating your site.
And while I'm on the topic of site navigation...
sites without "site map" pages - I hate having to guess which of your broad, general categories my interest fits into. Today I spent about 15 minutes arguing with IBM's website, looking for troubleshooting tips for a particular monitor. I figured the Support & Downloads page might be a good place to start... but visit for yourself and see if you can locate information on monitors there.
fake site searches that use Google - If you have paid Google to do an index of your site, or have written your own local site search engine, I don't have a problem with that. If, however, you simply alias the "Search" button on your site to a Google query with "site:mysite.foo.bar" appended, don't bother. I'm quite capable of doing that myself, thanks.
links that open in a new window - I have become a fan of tabbed browsing. Until there is a setting that re-directs new browser windows into new tabs instead, I will hate links that open in their own window.
sponsored links in search engines - And don't even get me started on the whole topic of advertising on the web. I have continually gotten annoyed when trying to get some genuine information on a toner cartridge (say the page count or model number) and having to sift through a hundred e-businesses that want to do nothing more than satisfy my every toner need.
In poking and prodding the CD drive for my Mac, attempting to coerce it into powering up, I have noticed that it is one of the older CD drives -- the kind that uses a cartridge to hold the CD.
You are correct.
No cartridge.
So I apparently need to keep my eye out for one at the local flea market or thrift shop. Which should be fun, since the last time I strolled around a thrift shop looking for computer items, I ended up with a Commodore 64C computer and a plastic bag full of software.
I wonder if anyone's ever gotten BSD to run on a 64....
Went out on a bit of a limb fashion-wise today. I tend to favor the "collared shirt/khaki slacks/brown leather shoes and belt" look for work.
Today, however, I went with black leather shoes and a black leather belt instead.
Not sure if I pulled it off entirely, though it seems as though all my co-workers have done their best not to laugh or point within earshot.
Just happened to read a press release outlining a desktop software suite to be released by Sun Microsystems later this year. They are calling it the Java Desktop System, and it is designed to be an easy-to-implement and highly-compatible alternative to a Microsoft Windows desktop.
As listed on Sun's website, the Desktop System will include:
The Desktop System runs some flavor of linux/unix underneath it all, which may be a welcome solution to sysadmins and managers growing tired of Windows security issues. The minimum system requirements state that it will run on a Pentium II (266 MHz) with 128 MB of RAM -- allowing older workstations to remain in production and lessening the need to upgrade just to keep up with Windows.
What I found quite remarkable is that Sun plans to offer a Desktop Trade-Up Program, which allows customers to receive a 50% discount on the purchase of a new Java Desktop System if they trade in their proof of purchase and license for their existing Windows or Linux desktop installation. This may work out extremely well for businesses, since Sun reports that the purchase price for the Java Desktop System may be as low as $50 per user. Compare that to $300 for a Windows XP purchase and $500 for Office XP and you will see how quickly the savings can add up.
They are not yet explicitly targeting this solution at home users, though I will be sure to keep my eyes on it once it is released. If it does well initially, it would not be surprising to see a home-use version released sometime next year.
It's pronounced "crew'-shun", and it refers to someone or something from the island of St. Croix (one of the three US Virgin Islands).
Cruzan Rum has a long and distinguished history in St. Croix, with the first distillery being built in 1760. As you might expect, they've had plenty of time to perfect their craft.
They offer standard light and dark blends (about $3.00 a bottle in the islands), aged and single-barrel blends, and flavored rums and creams. The standard and estate rums are 80 proof, while the flavored and creams are lighter weight (25-40 proof if I recall correctly). They used to offer a 151 proof rum, though I have not seen it for some time.
If you like rum, this is good stuff. It is smooth enough to sip over ice, and it mixes very well. You will pay a bit more for it outside of the islands -- but it is worth it.
I have registered for my first email account that uses the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP). If you have not heard of IMAP, it is a method of creating local copies of messages stored on a central server -- thereby allowing you to use a normal MUA (such as Eudora) and access the same set of messages from work, home, or wherever.
I am used to POP3 mail, which is downloaded once and deleted from the server. This makes it handy for reading messages while offline, but trying to synch messages between multiple workstations can be very difficult.
This has been interesting, but there apparently are facets of IMAP with which I need to become more familiar before I start giving the address out. So far, I have managed to do the following without intending to:
Fortunately, there is a web-based interface for the email account -- in case IMAP proves to be too fancy for me.
Homepage: http://www.openoffice.org/
Summary: A full-featured office suite, compatible with MS Office.
OpenOffice.org (OOo) is a high-performance suite of office utilities. It includes:
In short, this is a professional grade suite of applications, and should be considered by anyone who is looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office. Files may be saved in their native XML-based format, but they are fully compatible with the MS Office file formats of the respective applications. Additionally, there is OOo Basic, which is an API allowing power-users to customize their applications.
This shouldn't be considered a complete replacement for MS Office, however. Notably absent from the above lineup are a database program and a personal information management program (so you will still need Access and Outlook if you use those programs).
OOo is a spin-off project from Sun's StarOffice Suite. StarOffice is a paid-for suite of programs that includes Base, which is a database/data management application.
I have been using OOo for some months now and have had a very good experience overall. I would caution, though, that some MS Office documents do not render 100% identically (particularly documents with nonstandard margins or extended MS Office features). I don't believe it is ready to completely replace MS Office in the workplace, but it is a viable contender for home or small business use.
Where were you on September 11, 2001?
I remember like it was yesterday.
I had arrived for work at Parkvale Bank in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. It was a few minutes before 9:00 am, and on my way in I happened to pass by a television set. The news was on, and it was covering a freak accident -- an airplane had run into one of the World Trade Center towers. I remember thinking that I'd have to catch the news when I got home to see what happened.
Work began like normal. I worked with the "IT Posse" in the data center, and we were handling our routine tech operations. About 10:15, one of my co-workers came in and said, "Hey, did you guys hear about a plane crash at the World Trade Center?" I replied that I had seen something about it on the news as I came in, but I hadn't heard anything else. By the time we realized what was going on, the floor we worked on was abuzz with radios and people conversing in utter disbelief.
My wife called me around noon, sobbing. I did what I could to try to calm her down. I also called my parents -- as it so happens, my father's birthday is September 11th.
About 1:00 in the afternoon, we noticed that several vehicles had arrived in the parking lot of the bank. The bank is located at the intersection of two major highways, one of which will take you out to Somerset County. Many rescue teams had chosen our parking lot as a meeting point.
Downtown Pittsburgh was given an evacuation order, and our downtown branches called us to let us know they were closing. My mother-in-law worked downtown; I called her at home, to make sure she had arrived safely.
We spent the remainder of the day sitting in one small vacant office, crowded around a radio tuned to KDKA, the local news/talk radio station. We had tried to find news websites to read, but even the big ones were unreachable. I managed to find the news page on the BBC website, which would just barely load. We all shared details and rumors as we heard them.
When I left work, I went straight to my in-laws' house. We sat there most of the evening with some of the family, just watching the news. I remember we had fish sandwiches for dinner.
All these things I remember, and much more. I could not give you that much detail for perhaps any but one or two other days of my life.
The media coverage and memorials will eventually fade into the background, and children who were born after 9/11/01 will grow up and read about that day in history books and magazine articles.
But I was here. And I will never forget.
Yes indeed.
Got an email message Wednesday afternoon from those wacky folks in Redmond, with this subject line: "Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-039: Buffer Overrun In RPCSS Service Could Allow Code Execution(824146)"
Not unlike MS03-026, except that this particular bulletin covers three separate vulnerabilities in RPC, instead of just one. As a public service, though, Microsoft has included the code to correct MS03-026 in the patch for this one (for people who have been living in caves, apparently).
I read an interesting article on Yahoo (from The Washington Post), suggesting holding Microsoft liable for it's buggy code and the expense companies undertake to patch every two weeks. My favorite quote from the article: "They've got the best programmers on the planet, so why does it seem to be so buggy?" (Although I would suggest that the best programmers on the planet probably stay away from anything that even rhymes with "microsoft". Perhaps they have the best programmers that money can buy.)
Darl McBride, CEO of The SCO Group, today posted an "Open Letter to the Open Source Community" on his company's website. I have some thoughts on a few of his comments.
"...another series of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on SCO, which took place two weeks ago.... Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that “he’s one of us.” To Mr. Raymond’s partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done."
I don't believe it's up to Eric Raymond to bring the DoS-ers to justice. DoS attacks are traditionally difficult to quench from the source, particularly if they are distributed and come from many points across the globe. I simply see this as a way to cast a negative light on Raymond.
"...an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn’t be there. Mr. Perens stated that there is “an error in the Linux developer’s process” which allowed UNIX System V code that “didn’t belong in Linux” to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 26, 2003)."
Here is the text of the ComputerWire article McBride refers to, and here is Perens' page discussing the issue. This is the statement in context from Perens' site (emphasis added): "In this case, there was an error in the Linux developer's process (at SGI), and we lucked out that it wasn't worse. It turns out that we have a legal right to use the code in question, but it doesn't belong in Linux and has been removed."
Funny how those two clauses didn't make it into McBride's letter.
"...this issue goes to the very heart of whether Open Source can be trusted as a development model for enterprise computing software."
Throughout this letter, McBride is attempting to lump together the open source development community with technology companies who incorporate open source software into their business solutions. The following sentence shows this clearly: "If they fail to do so it casts a shadow over the entire Open Source movement and raises questions about whether Open Source is ready to take a central role in business computing."
The heart of the open source movement is not about a business strategy or return on investment; it's about men and women who love computers and technology enough to want to contribute something to a community of people like themselves without worrying about getting an explicit benefit in return. Knowing they've helped the community grow is more than enough.
"To date, we claim that more than one million lines of UNIX System V protected code have been contributed to Linux through this model."
That's a lot, but what they have been willing to share publicly has been trivial. Perens' site (mentioned previously) gives an analysis of the code they have made public. Linus Torvalds has said that if SCO would simply go public with all the copyrighted code, he would make every effort to remove it from linux. Additionally, he said that the offending malloc() code presented by SCO has already been removed in the latest revision (2.5) of the kernel; it was removed simply because better functionality has been coded, not because of SCO's claims. (These statements are taken from an interview which I can't find at the moment, but will post a link to when I do. Googling for "torvalds interview sco" turns up a lot of hits...)
"“Fair use” applies to educational, public service and related applications and does not justify commercial misappropriation. Books and Internet sites intended and authorized for the purpose of teaching and other non-commercial use cannot be copied for commercial use."
This is what the GPL FAQ says about fair use (emphasis added):
"[Q.] Do I have "fair use" rights in using the source code of a GPL-covered program?
[A.] Yes, you do. "Fair use" is use that is allowed without any special permission. Since you don't need the developers' permission for such use, you can do it regardless of what the developers said about it--in the license or elsewhere, whether that license be the GNU GPL or any other free software license."
"Some have claimed that, because SCO software code was present in software distributed under the GPL, SCO has forfeited its rights to this code. Not so – SCO never gave permission, or granted rights, for this to happen."
Say, didn't you guys read the GPL at all before deciding to use it? You don't mind adopting GPL'ed code for yourselves, but you have a problem with other people using code that you have released under that same license?
"...the SCO Group is open to ideas of working with the Open Source community to monetize software technology and its underlying intellectual property for all contributors, not just SCO."
Again, until you realize that the heart of open source is not about "monetizing software technology", I doubt that the open source community will be willing to work with you. In the same way that a true artist paints a picture for the sake of the picture itself, open source developers do what they do because they love it. To suggest a profit motive is tantamount to insulting their artwork, and I believe will never be forgiven or forgotten.
Site URL: http://www.webattack.com/freeware/freeware.html
Summary: Collection of freeware Windows apps/utilities.
I'm tired of download sites that purport "Free Download", when what you really get is a demo or shareware version of some programs. WebAttack.com offers an extensive listing of freeware programs and utilities that are genuinely free. In addition, they are nicely sorted into categories and sub-categories.
These are high-quality programs, each complete with a description, a site rating (by the site admins), and a user rating. Most have screenshots, and all have direct download links (I hate sites that make you "register" first).
WebAttack.com also has a similarly laid-out shareware site, if that floats your boat. I have, however, found that if I am looking for a program to perform a particular task, the freeware page is a good start.
I had thought that attempting to set up a clone of my machine on a Mac emulator (such as Basilisk ][) might be a good starting point, since I could tinker around there and not get my system into an unrecoverable state.
However, I found a thread on a NetBSD newsgroup started by someone else who had this same idea about two months ago.
Original posting is here.
Thread is here for now, though it seems to update the pages and move older posts back.
In short, looks like it's not gonna work. Glad someone else did the leg work before I spent any time on it!
If I get one more Microsoft Security Bulletin that contains the words "buffer overrun" or "unchecked buffer", I am going to have a nervous breakdown.
Although this one changes it up a bit -- it's a vulnerability discovered in VBA (i.e. Office), not in Windows OS code.
Note to self: If I am ever in a position to make such a decision within a company, I will pursue alternative desktop and server solutions.
Site URL: http://mail.yahoo.com
Summary: Free webmail site that offers outstanding spam filtering.
My wife has a Yahoo! Mail free email account, which I check for her periodically (she is a non-techie). Some months ago, they added spam filtering to incoming messages.
For about a month now, my wife's account has not received ONE piece of unsolicited commercial email in her inbox. I find this to be an impressive record, and would highly recommend Yahoo! Mail for anyone looking for a free webmail account.
Of course, I haven't checked the "Bulk Email" folder to see if any legitimate messages are being filtered by mistake. But hey, if someone is sending a message that looks like spam, I don't want it anyway.
I purchased three pairs of new khakis the other night.
They are quite comfortable.
Got the chance to do some more poking around on the Mac last night. Found out that the HD has around 250 MB (should be good for a base install), and I got some useful reports out of Norton Utilities.
Biggest problem I have now is that I can't seem to turn the CD-ROM on. There doesn't appear to be a power switch. There are, however, dip switches and an odd "SCSI selector" switch. I have a feeling that I need to find the right balance between the dip switches, the SCSI switch, and the SCSI port (there are 2) in order to get it to work.
Also printed out the extensive mac68k install notes, which do indicate that there is a way I can install NetBSD without keeping any of the MacOS.
I'll keep ya posted...
A friend donated an older Macintosh PC (Quadra 650, Motorola 68k series processor), which I have decided to turn into a new project. I have downloaded the NetBSD mac68k port, and my goal is to get it up and running. I will use this blog category (tech.macBSD) to keep a journal of my experience for posterity.
Unless it goes terribly wrong, in which case I'll likely delete all the postings.
Anyway, I'm brand new to Mac use, so this should be an interesting effort. I have so far managed to get it up and running, and here is what I can tell about the system specs:
- 128 meg hard drive (unless it's partitioned somehow)
- 32 meg RAM (actually 16 -- but there's something called RAM Doubler running)
- 256 color video display
- 3x external SCSI CD-ROM (so the NetBSD install will be pretty s..l..o..w..)
Also seems to have a bunch of Adobe software installed, as well as 2 different antivirus programs (??). First order of business is to figure out how to uninstall software. I keep looking for the "Add/Remove Programs" applet, but so far I have yet to find one....