Apache: Not content with distributing GPL’d software, Microsoft are now taking another step into the open-source world by shipping Apache-licensed code.
Not quite as big a deal as the GPL — but still, another interesting milestone.
Tags: apache, apache-licensed, code, content, deal, gpl, microsoft, milestone, software, step, world
GNU: Let’s all be very nice and friendly for our latest convert to the GPL club, Microsoft. Hi, MS!
Ben forwards a link to this Byte article, SCO: All your base are belong to us. His commentary:
One day I’ll have a blogtastic dalymount.com, but for the moment, have you seen this priceless interview, in which SCO goes over the edge into complete barking insanity?
‘We believe that UNIX System V provided the basic building blocks for all subsequent computer operating systems, and that they all tend to be derived from UNIX System V (and therefore are claimed as SCO’s intellectual property).’
His emphasis. But let’s face it, he’s emphasising the right part ;)
So they now think they are owed money by every modern OS: that includes FreeBSD, Windows, Apple, presumably QNX, etc. etc. Linux was just the easiest one to start with, since the source is available and IBM (with their deep pockets) are closely allied with it. MS have already paid up for a SCO license, although many commentators see this as a means to support SCO in their anti-UNIX lawsuits.
In more detail, SCO claim to have full IP rights to several major components of any high-spec OS:
Let’s pick one there: RCU in Linux seems to have originated (at a glance) from code developed by Sequent for their DYNIX/ptx UNIX, which was an AT&T UNIX System V-based OS. Sequent ran into trouble, and were bought out by IBM. Later, patches to implement RCU were submitted by IBM from Sequent’s code.
SCO now owns the AT&T UNIX System V IP; therefore SCO owns the RCU code in Linux — even though Sequent developed it independently, on top of the System V base, as far as I can see. Hey, that’s even more ‘viral’ than the GPL — at least the GPL tells you in advance what mistakes you’d have to make for this to happen! ;)
In other words, it seems their POV is that, if any code came anywhere near other code that may have been part of the original AT&T codebase, it’s now tainted with SCO’s own ‘viral license’. Absolutely insane.
It’s unclear exactly how ‘all subsequent computer operating systems’ also infringe this viral license, but SCO reckon they do.
In the meantime, they don’t seem to have realized that these kinds of over-broad claims are not looked on favourably under EU law; while they make cartooney threats in the US, they open themselves up to all sorts of anti-trust-type claims elsewhere in the world. But then, at this stage I don’t think they plan to actually offer any products, or operate as a software company, so they probably don’t really care about that.
To really muddy the waters, an ex-SCO employee has recently made allegations that SCO copied code from the GPL’d Linux kernel into their UnixWare product.
Ah, fireworks. Anyway.
For a kinder, gentler form of total insanity, check out the guidelines for forming ‘inexplicable mobs’ in Manhattan — via bb. Totally cool.
Tags: base, code, gpl, ibm, linux, rcu, sco, sequent, system, unix
Tim Bray is opening my eyes to lots of the itty bitty details of i18n with Unicode. I had very vague ideas about so many things he’s writing here, so it’s an educational read, especially this:
In Java, characters are represented by the char data type, which is claimed to be a ‘16-bit Unicode character’. Unfortunately, as I pointed out recently, there really is no such thing. To be precise, a Java char represents a UTF-16 code point, which may represent a character or may, via the surrogate mechanism, represent only half a character. The consequence of this is that the following methods of the String class can produce results that are incorrect: charAt, getChars, indexOf, lastIndexOf, length, and substring. Of course, if you are really sure that you will never have to deal with an ‘astral-plane’ character, to the point of being willing to accept that your software will break messily if one shows up, you can pretend that these errors can’t happen.
To me, this feels just like deciding that you’ll hever have to deal with more than 64K of memory, or a database bigger than 32 bits in size, or a date after December 31, 1999. What Hunter S. Thompson would call ‘bad craziness.’ I’ll settle for ’shortsighted.’
Wow, and there was I thinking Java had that sorted. If you ever plan to deal with 21st-century-style i18n (ie. using Unicode), you’d better read these articles.
Spam: via BoingBoing, how to extract 500 bucks, painlessly, from telemarketers, under the TCPA. Not yet applicable to spam — but who knows, maybe in a few month’s time…
Open Source: Colm MacCarthaigh caught Dell out a few months ago; turns out they were distributing a wireless AP, the Dell Truemobile 1184, which contained a modified Linux distro — but were not distributing the source to the GPL’ed parts.
Well, all credit to Dell. They’ve admitted their slip-up, resolved the problem admirably, and openly, and have shipped Colm a CD-ROM with all the GPL’ed source on it , which Colm has made available here . Mistakes happen, but it was nicely resolved.
Tags: char, character, colm, gpl, java, point, read, source, spam, unicode
The weblog of Justin Mason; incoherent ramblings about Apache SpamAssassin, anti-spam, perl, software development, and the web, from an Irish software developer.
The opinions expressed on this web site are my personal opinions, and do not in any way represent those of my employer.
