Digital Control

am not always a pessimist, but I do believe that in order to make positive progress we must concentrare on the illnesses and try to cure them. This is why most of my work at present revolves around advancing collaborative platforms like GNU/Linux (no tyranny on people’s desktops and servers). Sure, companies like Google and IBM make a lot of money out of the platform, but it does not take away from anyone else’s ability to use the same code. Overall, it leads to solidarity. Just watch how many companies jointly develop Linux (kernel space), including giants like AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA, which must play nice with the free graphics stack. A decade ago it was hardly conceivable, but here we are today with some truly powerful applications for GNU/Linux (some are still proprietary, especially games). It is exciting to see desktop environments like the K Desktop Environment (KDE SC) and GNOME desktop becoming highly competitive with whatever else is out there, proprietary included. LXDE and Xfce continue to serve an important role, especially in less capable PCs that rely on light-weight distributions. New releases of GNU/Linux come at a pace of about one per day and diversity continues to exist, with popular branches like the Mandrake/Mandriva family (with several derivatives), the Red Hat family (including Fedora), and the Debian family, which notably includes Ubuntu for the desktops (it has a huge number of variants).

The devices/embedded space is an area of considerable strength for Linux and sometimes GNU too. Phones are increasingly running Linux (with the industry’s leader, Nokia, among its biggest embracers, but Google’s Android is getting a lot more attention). Then we have sub-notebooks and tablets, many of which run Linux/Android. This is a triumph that almost nobody talks about. It also helped eliminate Microsoft’s margins in this area and got Apple so nervous that it decided to pathetically sue with software patents.

Sharing, Not Hoarding

Free software/Open Source is an even broader area where companies like Mozilla and projects like the Apache Web server show that technical merit is found in licences that encourage sharing. SaaS is increasingly a threat to software freedom, but it relies heavily on this software (databases, CMSs, etc.). Businesses increasingly adopt Free software, even though they typically call it “open source” (they are just allergic to the notion of “free”, perhaps still not realising that it’s about freedom, not cost). Funding for Free software continues to come as projects prove their worth to the market (MySQL for example) and BSD continues to evolve nicely along with GNU/Linux. Establishments like FSF/FSFE/SFLC provide a centre of power that is not driven by shareholders and GNU accommodates many important projects that are used by many millions (e.g. GRUB). Governments increasingly realise the importance of Free software licensing and openness of their data, which prevents perceptions of secrecy and thus corruption. Programmers increasingly teach themselves how to use languages and frameworks that put them in control, rather than put them in the hands of some ‘masters’ of a platform and an SDK/IDE. Applications that are free make up the ‘network effect’ that’s so crucial to the success of GNU/Linux and BSD. Almost anyone can now use a Free desktop without trouble (except for re-learning). Standards are promoted and made more prevalent as a result of Free software proliferation.

Addressing the Negatives

The revolution of Free software has wide-ranging effects on many other aspects of our lives. Science is enriched by it (increased sharing speeds up development), security is improved and surveillance gets reduced, the environment benefits from increased reuse of hardware components, and the financial market becomes more honest and transparent (e.g. for scrutiny before disaster strikes). The culture of AstroTurfing/lobbying is impeded by this culture of honesty and ethics; also, censorship is reduced, privacy honoured, and civil rights held up as more important and simpler to defend (no secrecy or conspiracy like ACTA or the Digital Economy Bill). The Internet becomes a more valuable resource (Wikipedia and Google are examples of valuable services), net neutrality is easier to defend (wireless meshes come to mind), and DRM becomes a relic from the past, much to the regret of the intellectual monopolies and copyrights cartel (which should not be allowed to exist in the first place).

I’ve given Sun a lot of pain because of their attempt to steal Linux’s thunder, but let’s never forget all the wonderful things they have given us — from OpenOffice.org to Java, which is now Free as in “free speech”.

HERE is an increasing number of companies which try to play the “source code” card when it fact they give nothing but binaries. This trend is worrisome. It is also disturbing because it adds ‘noise’ and makes it difficult to identify projects that are truly about collaborative development.

Here are some projects that thrives in Open Source status that is not truly deserved:

• Coverity – brags detection of defects in Open Source code, but proprietary nonetheless.
• Krugle – searches and indexes Open Source code, but if you talk the talk, you ought to walk the walk.
• Google – Thrives in the use of Open Source software, but lacks transparency (APIs are no code).
• Black Duck – verifies license compliance in open source projects, but still proprietary.

What does it all come down to? It’s nice when you speak about opening and sharing, but if your company only exploits this “Open Source” aura, then you can do more harm than good. Software opens up because it makes it better and development is sped up. Companies whose focus are other open source projects ought to realise this.

Earlier today, a mini milstone for Google Groups left its stingy mark . The beta version of the new interface, which acts as a gateway to UseNet (and beyond), has just gone live as a stable service. The old presenatation, which was simpler, is sadly no longer available. I am not too happy about this ‘facelift’, yet no options that I navigated through could take me back to the minimalist and familiar interface. This transition — a questionable ‘upgrade’ — may be even worse than the last one, which discoraged proper netiquette and earned Google Groups users some bad reputation. It sometimes led them to killfiles and filters, quite collectively and prejudicely.

In any event, my main concern with the new interface is one which cost me between 15 minutes to half an hour. The new Google Groups interface conflicts with AdBlock (Firefox plugin). Something in the naming of the divs has apparently changed. Looking at userContent.css (under /chrome) and removing some of the prominent selectors with “ad” as a substring resolved the issue. They are located at the top, but I am not sure whose removal resolved the problem.

So, in case someone is having the same trouble as me, I decided to post this as a blog item that’ll prove redundant to most readers. Let’s make something more useful of this ramble. Are you reading and /or using Digg? If so, why not strip all the ads off the site?

If Windows is so genuine and innovative, then how can Microsoft explain the following?

Gates: “And through Windows NT, you can see it throughout the design. In a weak sense, it is a form of Unix. There are so many of the design decisions that have been influenced by that environment. And that’s no accident.”

[...]

In light of the recent saber rattling about Linux and patents, the “There are so many of the design decisions that have been influenced by that environment” sentence is particularly interesting if these patent threats include things that are prior Unix art. “In a weak sense, it is a form of Unix” is also telling. I said before that I don’t think that’s the case; I think the patent stuff is talking about things like Samba and Mono, but even there the “influenced by that environment” could be important in the court of public opinion if not in actual law.

This is definitely a noteworthy observation, which has just been posted by Anthony Lawrence.

It has already been argued that Novell’s Mono had evolved to become a legal minefield. Unsurprisingly, Red Hat excludes Mono from RHEL 5.

There are a lot of great new programs and innovations expected in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Novell-led Mono project isn’t one of them.

Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET framework. It recently hit version 1.2 offering the promise of improved Windows-to-Linux .NET portability.

A KDE pager containing eight virtual desktops

URPRISE, surprise! It turns out that I am only one among several. Several (former) Manchester University CS students who contribute to Linux, that is. Purely by coincidence (a newly-published feed item), I have just spotted an old University mate on the KDE Web site. It turns out that he followed an educational route similar to mine and is now maintaining KSysGuard, which I use on occasions. Keep up the good work, John.