ru.linux

 
 - RU.LINUX ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 From : Sergey Lentsov                       2:4615/71.10   13 Aug 2001  17:10:20
 To : All
 Subject : URL: http://www.lwn.net/2001/0809/
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 

    [1][LWN Logo] 
    
                                [2]Click Here 
    [LWN.net]
    
              Bringing you the latest news from the Linux World.
    Dedicated to keeping Linux users up-to-date, with concise news for all
                                  interests
    
    Sections:
     Main page
     [3]Security
     [4]Kernel
     [5]Distributions
     [6]On the Desktop
     [7]Development
     [8]Commerce
     [9]Linux in the news
     [10]Announcements
     [11]Linux History
     [12]Letters
    [13]All in one big page
    
    Other LWN stuff:
     [14]Daily Updates
     [15]Calendar
     [16]Linux Stocks Page
     [17]Book reviews
     [18]Penguin Gallery
    
     [19]Archives/search
     [20]Use LWN headlines
     [21]Contact us
    
    TUCOWS.com:
     [22]linux.tucows.com
     [23]Ext2
     [24]Themes
    
    Recent features:
    - [25]OLS 2001
    - [26]Gael Duval
    - [27]Kernel Summit
    - [28]Singapore Linux Conference
    - [29]djbdns
    - [30]LinuxWorld NY
    - [31]Jason Haas
    - [32]Larry Wall
    - [33]Bruce Momjian
    - [34]2000 Timeline
    
    Here is the [35]permanent site for this page.
    
    See also: [36]last week's LWN.
    
 Leading items and editorials
 
    Lineo licenses the RTLinux patent. [37]Back in February, LWN took a
    detailed look at the real-time Linux patent held by Victor Yodaiken
    and its associated licensing terms. One concern at that time was
    whether the patent applied to those who were working with [38]RTAI, a
    real-time Linux extension which competes with [39]RTLinux.
    
    One company with an interest in this question is Lineo, which ships an
    RTAI-derived system. In February Lineo told us: "Lineo questions the
    validity of the patent, especially in the spirit of the open source
    community." Lineo might still wonder about the patent internally, but
    a press release entitled [40]Lineo and FSMLabs Collaborate on
    Real-Time Embedded Solutions makes it clear what Lineo has decided to
    do: the company has paid up and licensed the patent.
    
    Thus, Lineo is paying one company for the right to distribute a free
    software product developed by a different group - and, it must be
    said, some proprietary goodies as well. Why did the company give in?
    According to chief operating officer Matt Harris,
    
      It made sense to license it, given the concerns customers were
      expressing about potential patent litigation. We thought that, in
      the end, it would be better for Linux and better for the open
      source community to take this route.
      
    Many in the free software community have worried about just this sort
    of thing for years. Software patents are a minefield of potential
    problems for any company or group which is trying to work with free
    software. It will be increasingly hard to develop free software in any
    arena without encountering companies demanding licensing fees for
    patents they own.
    
    Thus, for example, there are fears that the [41]Mono project will run
    into patents owned by Microsoft as it sets out to create a free
    implementation of some .NET components.
    
    It will also be interesting to see what actions will come from the
    [42]recently awarded patent owned by McAfee. This one covers
    "...delivery and automatic execution of security, management, or
    optimization software over an Internet connection to a user computer
    responsive to a user request entered via a web browser on the user
    computer." Certainly, a number of free software update services could
    fall under an umbrella that broad. Will Linux-based update services
    have to avoid the use of web browsers in order to avoid a licensing
    demand from McAfee? (See [43]this week's Security page for more on
    this patent).
    
    Many free software companies remain strongly opposed to software
    patents. Few companies, however, can turn a deaf ear to the worries of
    their customers and hope to survive. As long as the U.S. software
    patent regime remains in place, we should expect to see more companies
    having to pay license fees to stay in business.
    
    Dmitry Sklyarov is out of jail - for now. He was released at a bail
    hearing on August 6 on a $50,000 bond put up by Elcomsoft. He will be
    restricted to northern California, and must follow no end of other
    pre-trial rules. But, at least, he is out of jail after what must have
    been three very long weeks. The next legal step is a pre-trial hearing
    on August 23.
    
    See [44]this bulletin from the EFF for details.
    
    While the immediate result is good, this story is far from over. It is
    always possible that, at the pre-trial hearing, the government will
    come to its senses and decide not to actually file any charges. There
    seems to be some determination within the U.S. Attorney's office to
    pursue this case, however, so one can not really hope for that
    outcome. More likely, we will be in for a long fight.
    
    It could be a very interesting fight. This case will certainly bring
    out important free speech and fair use issues; it could be the
    beginning of the end for the DMCA. Or it could be a judicial farce
    that ends with an innocent young Russian programmer back in jail. As
    nice as it would be to open another front on the fight against the
    DMCA, for the sake of Dmitry and his family we have to hope that the
    government chooses not to file charges.
    
    (See also: [45]the EFF's letter-writing campaign to get the charges
    dropped).
    
    Speaking of fair use and electronic texts, have a look at [46]this
    page on the MetaText site and weep. MetaText specializes in college
    textbooks; they see some great advantages in electronic texts:
    
      In addition to saving all the costs of printing, shipping and
      warehousing that a print edition incurs, the adoption of MetaText
      editions reduces sales of used books. With a MetaText edition,
      there is nothing to sell back and every student must purchase their
      own copy in order to participate in online assignments and
      communications.
      
    Copyright law, of course, makes no provisions for this kind of
    restriction on copyrighted materials. Instead, under the "first sale"
    doctrine, those who purchase copyrighted material get to make their
    own choices - within limits - on what they do with that material
    thereafter. Thus, for example, many of us still have our college texts
    on our shelves, and still even refer to them occasionally. Others
    chose to sell their texts and get some of their money back. That is
    fair use, and that is what MetaText would deny to you.
    
    It's fun to dig through their catalog; one can get, for example,
    [47]All's Well That Ends Well by Shakespeare. For 180 days. Oh, yes,
    they got it from [48]Project Gutenberg. At least the price is right
    for your 180 days.
    
    All's well that ends well indeed. It is not clear that the copyright
    and fair use rights are going to end all that well, however.
    
    Matthew Pavlovich to stand trial in California. Dmitry may be the hot
    topic at the moment, but the DVD case is far from over. The latest
    development is that a California appeals court has ruled that LiViD
    developer Matthew Pavlovich may be forced to stand trial in California
    for his role in publishing the DeCSS code. Never mind that none of his
    alleged illegal acts were done in California. The fact that the
    Internet reaches into California is sufficient to allow California law
    to reach beyond California's borders.
    
    This, of course, is a scary idea. Taken literally, this ruling says
    that acts carried out on the Internet are simultaneously subject to
    laws in every place the net goes. This reasoning is not new; it's
    essentially the same pattern of thought that got Dmitry Sklyarov
    arrested. The world does not lack for bad laws, but a world where all
    laws are global greatly magnifies the effect of those laws. Since free
    software hackers are increasingly running afoul of such laws, we would
    appear to have some very interesting times ahead.
    
    On the astroturfing of Linux Today. For the last few weeks, LWN has
    been under considerable pressure, from a number of sources, to cover
    the whole Linux Today "astroturfing" issue. The accusations have been
    flying for a while that executive editor Keven Reichard has been
    posting talkbacks to Linux Today articles under the name "George
    Tirebiter," and perhaps others. There are other complaints as well;
    see [49]Paul Ferris's article on the Linux Journal site if you want
    the whole catalog.
    
    The "astroturfing" allegations were confirmed on August 8 when Mr.
    Reichard posted [50]an acknowledgement and apology on the site. One
    would hope that this little affair would end here, but it's not clear
    that will be the case. Quite a few people are highly upset and,
    seemingly, out for blood.
    
    It is interesting to ponder why that might be. Any site that allows
    the posting of comments tends to get quite a bit of "interesting"
    material posted under clearly pseudonymous, if not completely
    anonymous names. All such postings should be taken with a substantial
    grain of salt, and one would hope that most readers would know that by
    now. The fact that a Linux Today editor felt the need to stuff the
    comment area is sad and unfortunate, but, in the end, it's just
    comments. The news reported by Linux Today remains separate from those
    comments.
    
    So, when Wired News [51]reports that:
    
      But today penguins are hanging their heads in shame: One of their
      own stands accused of breaking the unwritten code of conduct, of
      attacking fellow Linux community members under the cover of
      anonymity.
      
    One might be forgiven for thinking that things have gone too far. LWN
    has encountered very few "penguins" hanging their heads in shame over
    the actions of one internet.com editor.
    
    So what's the real issue? Certainly numerous people are not happy with
    the direction Linux Today has taken since its acquisition by
    internet.com. Some think that a site which was once seen as deeply
    rooted in the Linux community has moved out of that community. People
    who post Linux Today talkbacks may feel that their own credibility has
    been undermined by this event. It's hard to say, but the feelings
    appear to run strong.
    
    We sincerely hope that LWN will have no further words to say on this
    matter. It is not for us to involve ourselves in how another site
    relates with its readers. It does seem, though, that nobody is likely
    to benefit from more public accusations or stories of ashamed
    penguins.
    
    Inside this LWN.net weekly edition:
      * [52]Security: Silly (McAfee) patents, flawed 802.11, and
        executables in PDFs.
      * [53]Kernel: Buried in VMAs; the VM battle continues; synchronous
        directory operations.
      * [54]Distributions: Linux for IBM eServer iSeries, Roswell from Red
        Hat, ELinOS from SYSGO.
      * [55]On the Desktop: Calendaring on Linux, Dell vs. Dell, and the
        Evolution draws closer.
      * [56]Development: OpenML 1.0 spec, BusyBox 0.60.0, State of
        Midgard, Roundup issue tracker, DBI abstraction layer in C.
      * [57]Commerce: Partnerships: Lineo and MP3, MontaVista and
        Concurrent, IBM and U.K. Computing and Data Grid.
      * [58]History: TurboLinux 1.0; OSI; Journaling Flash Filesystem in
        2.4 kernel.
      * [59]Letters: LinuxToday, ssh, Dmitry, active responses to attacks.
        
    ...plus the usual array of reports, updates, and announcements.
    
    This Week's LWN was brought to you by:
      * [60]Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor
      * [61]Elizabeth O. Coolbaugh, Managing Editor
      * [62]Michael J. Hammel, Senior Editor
        
    August 9, 2001
    
                               [63]Click Here 
    
                               [64]Click Here 
    
    
                                                        [65]Next: Security
    
    [66]Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright Л 2001 [67]Eklektix, Inc.,
    all rights reserved
    Linux (R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
 
 References
 
    1. http://lwn.net/
    2. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/pageid=001-012-132-000-000-001-000-000-012
    3. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/security.php3
    4. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/kernel.php3
    5. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/dists.php3
    6. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/desktop.php3
    7. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/devel.php3
    8. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/commerce.php3
    9. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/press.php3
   10. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/announce.php3
   11. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/history.php3
   12. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/letters.php3
   13. http://lwn.net//2001/0809/bigpage.php3
   14. http://lwn.net/daily/
   15. http://linuxcalendar.com/
   16. http://lwn.net/stocks/
   17. http://lwn.net/Reviews/
   18. http://lwn.net/Gallery/
   19. http://lwn.net/archives/
   20. http://lwn.net/op/headlines.phtml
   21. http://lwn.net/op/Contact.html
   22. http://linux.tucows.com/
   23. http://news.tucows.com/ext2/
   24. http://unixthemes.tucows.com/
   25. http://lwn.net/2001/features/OLS/
   26. http://lwn.net/2001/features/MandrakeSoft.php3
   27. http://lwn.net/2001/features/KernelSummit/
   28. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Singapore
   29. http://lwn.net/2001/features/djbdns.php3
   30. http://lwn.net/2001/features/linuxworldny/
   31. http://lwn.net/2001/features/JHaas/
   32. http://lwn.net/2001/features/LarryWall/
   33. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Momjian/
   34. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Timeline/
   35. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/
   36. http://lwn.net/2001/0802/
   37. http://lwn.net/2001/0215/
   38. http://www.aero.polimi.it/projects/rtai
   39. http://www.rtlinux.org/
   40.
 http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-06-200
 1/0001549164&EDATE=
   41. http://www.go-mono.org/
   42. http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US06266774__
   43. http://lwn.net//2001/0809/security.php3
   44. http://www.eff.org/temp/20010806_eff_sklylarov_annouce.html
   45. http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010808_eff_sklyarov_alert.html
   46. http://www.metatext.com/publishers/index.htm
   47. http://www.metatext.com/servlet/tileBlurb?tileId=33729
   48. http://www.gutenberg.org/
   49. http://noframes.linuxjournal.com/articles/conversations/0030.html
   50. http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-08-08-007-20-OP
   51. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45872,00.html
   52. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/security.php3
   53. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/kernel.php3
   54. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/dists.php3
   55. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/desktop.php3
   56. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/devel.php3
   57. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/commerce.php3
   58. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/history.php3
   59. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/letters.php3
   60. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   61. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   62. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   63. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/buttonpos=lwnbutton125top
   64. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/buttonpos=125-001-016
   65. http://lwn.net/2001/0809/security.php3
   66. http://www.eklektix.com/
   67. http://www.eklektix.com/
 
 --- ifmail v.2.14.os7-aks1
  * Origin: Unknown (2:4615/71.10@fidonet)
 
 

Вернуться к списку тем, сортированных по: возрастание даты  уменьшение даты  тема  автор