For awhile, I've had this signature:

DRM? Trusted Computing? Fine, but not with my code.

I do start to feel like a hypocrite looking at that. After all, I'm now working as an HD-DVD developer, making quite a bit of money, enjoying what I do, and not at all close to wanting to quit in outrage about the DRM.

But while I don't have to deal with DRM every day, I do have to deal with it often enough. While I have not personally written any code that does DRM, all my code will eventually be DRM'd on-disc, and one of my co-workers has, in fact, written some utilities to manage AACS stuff.

And, in general, I still feel that DRM is useless and should not be done, but I also have seen it done in ways that aren't really that bad, and even seen some things which benefit the consumer. Steam, for example, allows me to download the same game (unless it's Bioshock) anywhere I want to, anytime, so long as I remember my password and only log in at one place at a time. (So that's one download and/or game being played at a time.)

Steam is actually an example of "not that bad", as everything they do which benefits the consumer, they could've done without DRM. No, an example of something which benefits the consumer are the "music rental" services. After you get to a certain amount of music, it just makes more sense, financially, to simply rent your music rather than buy it. If the service goes away, and the DRM isn't cracked, then yes, you lose a bunch of music -- so you join another service and download the same music again.

I prefer to own my music, but I'm a bit of a fanatic.

So, while most days I'd rather see DRM go away forever, this signature is starting to be a bit hypocritical. After all, DRM is being done with my code, and most of what I write is not GPL'd.

So why do I have it?

Simple: Since I started using this signature, I've seen almost none of the retarded arguments against GPLv3 -- the arguments which talk about the GPL being used to attack DRM, that it's overstepping its bounds as a software license and attacking hardware... Whatever.

Because this statement makes all of those arguments go away. Licensing software under the GPLv3 is not directly attacking DRM, it's not even saying that you hate DRM and want to abolish it. It's simply saying that you may not use it with this code.

People point to the TiVo as an example -- shouldn't I want to license my software such that people can make cool stuff like the TiVo? Well, why should I, unless I'm getting a cut? It's simple: TiVo can either have my code for free, on my terms, or they can go somewhere else. There's plenty of GPLv2 or even BSD-licensed stuff they could have for free, or they could buy some commercial software -- maybe even from me.

I don't see that as inconsistent with what I do for a living, but this whole essay doesn't exactly fit in a signature. So I am posting a consistent position here:

I don't like DRM, and I don't like closed software that I don't have access to. Therefore, software which I release for free will have no part in this. If you're willing to pay me a living wage to develop software, I will develop pretty much whatever you want, so long as it's not wholly unethical (I won't write Lotus Notes for your Killbot). But if I release something as free and open, it's probably because I intend for it to stay that way.

So, if you have a problem with me using the GPLv3, either hire me or use somebody else's code.

Keyboards seem to be the sort of thing many slashdotters are over emotional about (and why not? You do spend a significant amount of time using one). I'm in the market for a new keyboard (for a Mac, but I can scrape off the window key). On the mac side, the best keyboard seems to be either a Apple Extended Keyboard (or II) plus an ADB/USB adapter or a Matias tactile pro.

On the other side, Unicomp makes buckling spring (IBM Model M) USB keyboards, and Das Keyboard is supposed to be fairly high quality (I like markings for rarely used keys, however). There seem to be a lot of people still using old IBM Model Ms with a PS/2-USB adapter.

Are there any other keyboards that aren't lowest common denominator material?

I received a letter in response to a request by myself to Senator Ron Wyden (Oregon) on the topic of software radios. I pointed out that Open Source is often more secure than closed source, that a ban on open source would be a-priori restraint of trade that would probably be detrimental to the deployment and usefulness of such devices, and that the FCC's position on the matter did not appear to be justified by the facts. I tried to avoid the whole freedom argument, on the grounds that politicians are generally not elected by intellectuals. Over-priced, crippled technology that would probably be made elsewhere... that's an argument politicians can hear better.

(No insult intended to Senator Wyden, he may very well be extremely smart, but since I don't know him, the most logical thing for me to do is to insinuate all the areas that could dent his popularity and fund-raising potential.)

His response is interesting. Firstly, he agreed that Open Source can be more secure. A fair enough position to take, given the level of closed-source IT industry in Oregon, and far more generous than I'd have expected for that same reason.

His second comment - that many in the software industry have made identical - or near-identical - objections was fascinating. Politicians are extremely adept at saying what you want to hear - they have to be, it's their only way to survive in their line of work - but to the extent that IT industry leaders have complained, the Senate is apparently taking notice. They would appear to be aware now of Open Source - for good or bad - and are adjusting their thinking accordingly.

He goes on to say that he is not satisfied that the FCC's claims that closed-source will make the software more secure are correct and that banning open-source may be counter-productive to the FCC's objectives. Again, that's good. Whether he believes it or not, I don't know, but there's clearly enough doubt in his mind as to the wisdom of the FCC's course that he's willing to be in writing in saying that he believes Open Source could make for a more secure product and that the FCC's actions could backfire.

The last part is the part that unnerves me slightly. He says that if legislation comes before the Senate, he will keep my views in mind. He did NOT say he would oppose legislation that would ban Open Source software radios, only that he would keep in mind that I - and others - oppose such a ban. Nor did he say that he would make any effort to bring forward any legislation requiring the FCC to re-examine the issue or explain themselves.

Why is that unnerving? Because although he expresses disquiet, he won't commit himself to any actual action over it. Maybe I'm being too hard on him, but it bothers me intensely that he acknowledges my concerns are widespread in the industry but promises nothing. Not even so much as to ask the FCC why they're being so shirty on the issue. The letter is good, I appreciate his taking the time to, well, ask his secretary to probably print out a standard form letter, but that's not going to achieve results. Why should the FCC care how many form letters have been printed? Well, unless they have shares in the company making the envelopes.

A response that shows some sympathy is better than no response at all, but only if it is accompanied by action. I hope it does. I hope my mail to him made some useful contribution to the debate. I also hope that someday I'll win the lottery. I am curious as to which has the greater odds of success.

I live in a small town in Iowa. An ISP here is offering fiber to the home for $60/mo, free installation. That's 100 mbits, and they do support net neutrality -- meaning that if they can't build enough bandwidth to support everyone on YouTube (or BitTorrent), they'll simply move to a metered model, but apparently they don't have to yet.

We spend enough time talking about the ISPs we hate -- which ones do we love? Anywhere else with fast, cheap, neutral Internet?

A person I designed an online store for didn't want to pay for it. That happens. They also turned out to be a gun and knife fanatic. No big deal, right? That depends on how you interpret the phrase "you'd better watch your back, if I were you". May this be a lesson to you all - never do software consulting work for a latent psychotic.

One thing that has often puzzled me, when working in places that use Open Source software, is how many people know of Slashdot (I'd say 75% or more read it daily) but how few were even aware Freshmeat existed. The same was true of an announcement service that tracked Open Source and shareware products. Yet those projects I track on Freshmeat (I own something like 150 records and am subscribed to something like twice that) show hundreds - sometimes thousands - of accesses after a new release. If the corporate sector is totally blind to Freshmeat, who is doing the accessing?

Looking at the numbers, I think I can hazard some guesses. Educational and Government places probably rank high in the user charts, as clustering and scientific software are often moderately or highly subscribed and show moderate to high activity after an update. The stats are also skewed towards servers and other administrative or maintenance software, so I'm guessing it's more used by admins than users, which is somewhat foolish as users should be the ones driving updates as they're the ones who know what functions they need and what bugs they experience.

The popularity of MPlayer is an odd one, as most users will get this from their distro and it's unlikely to be used for system maintenance. Nonetheless, it is more popular than any other package, including the Linux kernel. Even the Linux kernel is oddly placed, at second, as this is announced in so many different places, from LWN and Slashdot to the Linux Kernel Mailing List and LinuxHQ. Most software is only ever announced on its homepage and on Freshmeat only if someone has made a record for it and is keeping it up-to-date. The dilution of the Linux kernel announcements is so staggering that it is amazing that a single service would get so much attention.

I guess if we assume a heavy Government/Educational userbase, it's more understandable. Those are going to be places where heavy-duty mailing lists are not going to be an option, and where surfing websites on the off-chance of an announcement would be frowned upon.

If I'm correct, how do we interpret the numbers? The usage won't be a random sample of a complete cross-section of the population, it'll be a self-selecting group with relatively narrow interests that is largely built up from a relatively small segment of the Open Source userbase.

Well, why should we interpret the numbers? That's an easy one. Corporations resist software they consider "unpopular" or "unused", no matter how useful or productive it would be. They are staggeringly blind to reality. If you can produce meaningful usage estimates, and can defend them, it sometimes (not always) weakens resistance to vitally-needed updates and changes. If you can show that some project has been downloaded by tens of thousands of probable competitors, you can be damn sure that project will be on the server by the next morning, come hell or high water.

Some would argue that it doesn't matter - we get paid to do what we're told to do and to make the managers look good. That entire discussion could - and does - fill vast volumes, with no real answer. I've got my own thoughts, but that';s not really this discussion and I'd probably run Slashdot's servers out of disk space if I were to put them all down here.

Here, I am far more interested in knowing why the userbase for any announcement service should be self-limiting. I've seen places be utterly ignorant of what software exists or where it can be found. I've had people ask me how to search for programs or how I know about updates before the distros push the packages out. On the flip-side, as I've already pointed out, there are packages whose records show far greater levels of access than you would expect, given the availability of the same (or better) information elsewhere, sometimes much sooner.

Based on what I've seen, I am going to say that the records for "mission-critical" software and software of specific interest to one of the niches inhabiting Freshmeat will be relatively close to the actual levels of active interest. Passive interest (eg: users of a desktop Linux system are probably not actively interested in new kernel or glibc releases, but still use those updates) is probably a lot higher, but I don't think it's easily calculable. I'm going to guess that the number of people who actually download the source code is somewhere between two and five times the number who visit the site via Freshmeat.

For commercial and industrial software, I'm going to guess that Freshmeat numbers are way too low, that people discover packages by accident or media rumor, or outsource the updates to some group that use a commercial tracking/monitoring service. For this type of software, I'm guessing that the actual number of people impacted by announcements might be anywhere from five to fifty times the number given in the stats. There is no simple way of finding out who knows what, though, because there is nowhere to look.

However, when giving a presentation to managers on why product A is the one to go for, you can't be vague, you can't be hesitant and you absolutely can't be technical. That's why having a bit more certainty would be a good thing. Lacking any means of being certain, though, anyone in that position has to give some number that managers can use. I would take the URL access value from Freshmeat (the number who actually visited the site, not just the record) and scale it by the midpoint of the numbers I've suggested. It's not perfect, but it's almost certainly the best number you are going to be able to get as things stand.

Yeah, yeah, GIGO. But managers don't generally care about GIGO. They care that they have plausible and defendable numbers to work with. That is what they are getting. If you wait to give them something precise and accurate, you'll certainly be waiting until long after any decision has been made, and probably be waiting forever in many cases.

What if you're a home user? Plenty of those exist. Well, to home users, I would argue that updates from distros are typically slow in coming, that library version clashes are far too frequent, that permutations of configuration that may be interesting or useful usually won't be provided, and that even distros that build locally (Gentoo, for example) have massive problems with keeping current and avoiding unnecessary collisions.

If you're not specifically the sort of user served by the distro of your choice, you WILL find yourself building your own binaries, and you would be very strongly advised to be aware of all updates to those packages when they happen.

What do Albus Dumbledore and slashdotters have in common?

Homosexuality, so says J.K. Rowling. There were no details on whether he tops or bottoms, but I hope we can all provide support and encouragement during this difficult time.

With plans for low power x86 cpus to be used in mobile internet devices (their vision of awkwardly large internet capable cell phones), Intel may be trying to dethrone ARM. As someone who appreciates the elegance of the ARM instruction set, (and someone afraid of an intel heater anywhere near my nads), I was a little troubled by this announcement, but let the best processor win.

Intel has in interesting history with ARM: they received DEC's StrongARM as part of a lawsuit settlement, which was later replaced with the XScale. XScale was sold to Marvell last year, but intel still manufacturers their chips.

Earlier today, Apple announced an upgrade (and price cut) for Logic Studio nee Logic Pro. Logic Express has also been updated. Although it doesn't get nearly the attention of the iPod, the new release of Logic should be welcome news for professional and semi-pro musicians.

Apple, Inc. issued a press release with their side of the iTunes/NBC disagreement.

In short: iTunes will not sell any episodes for this season (they could sell new episodes through the end of the year). Additionally, NBC wanted $4.99 per episode, rather than the current $1.99. That's more than twice as expensive as buying a season on DVD.

I've decided to get a tattoo. I'd like for it to be open source, or as close to that as possible. I'm using a modified version of Tux (He'll be grabbing his crotch with one hand and flipping the bird with the other) and the banner "Don't fuck wid da penguin!" above him. Are there any open source directions for giving yourself a tattoo?

Also, I work in a windows shop (gotta pay the bills). Will this adversely affect my career potential?

GCC 4.2.1 was released 4 days ago. Although this minor update would otherwise be insignificant, it will be the final GPL v2 release; all future releases will be GPL v3. Some key contributors are grumbling over this change and have privately discussed a fork to stay as GPL v2. The last time GCC forked (EGCS), the FSF conceded defeat. How will the FSF/GNU handle the GPL 3 revolt?

Like many GNU/Linux users, I value my freedom. That's why it is important than GNU/Linux users only use GPL v3 licensed code to prevent companies from denying us our fundamental rights. Unfortunately, Linux Torvadles does not believe in this fundamental right. He has refusedt o relicense the Linux kernel with the GPL v3. Our only recourse is to create a new GPL v3 licensed kernel.

Current contenders are HURD and OpenSolaris. Both have drawbacks; HURD is, for all intents and purposes, vaporware. OpenSolaris is licensed under the CDDL, a non-GNU license. Sun has suggested they might relicense it as GPL v3, though this is not a given.

I have a better suggestion: Fork a copy of the FreeBSD kernel. This would give access to cool features like jail and ZFS which are not supported in linux.

The Drudge Report is reporting that Universal Music Group (the largest record company) will not be renewing their contract with iTMS. Universal, you may remember, is being paid a license fee for every Zune sold and was widely rumored to be demanding the same concession from Apple.

Assume you'd like a reasonably modern, reasonably fast, reasonably priced non x86 computer (for use with *BSD, linux, etc). Maybe you're a contrarian. Maybe you're sick of the errata. Maybe your job at intel got outsourced and your just a little resentful. What are the options? There are inexpensive used Sun Sparc machines. PPC macintoshes are still available, and the XBox 360/PS3 are a possibility. Are there any general purpose ARM computers which don't include the word "dev board" in their title? Any others?