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 From : Sergey Lentsov                       2:4615/71.10   20 Dec 2001  17:11:03
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 Subject : URL: http://www.lwn.net/2001/1220/
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    Here is the [31]permanent site for this page.
    
    See also: [32]last week's LWN.
    
 Leading items and editorials
 
    Dmitry is going home. Thursday the 13th was Dmitry Sklyarov's lucky
    day. He has been released from the constraints of his bail agreement,
    and will be able to return to his home in Russia for the holidays.
    Technically, the prosecution against him for violation of the DMCA has
    been "deferred." If he keeps the U.S. Department of Justice happy by
    testifying in the trial of ElcomSoft (which continues as before) and
    by not "violating any laws" for a year, the charges will be dropped.
    
    Is this outcome a victory? In some ways it certainly is. A Russian
    programmer is no longer threatened with decades in a U.S. prison, and
    that is largely a result of the attention and protests that this case
    has drawn. Richard Stallman has [33]presented this result as a victory
    for the government:
    
      The dropping of charges against Sklyarov is a good thing, but we
      must not think of it as our victory, because we did not win it.
      Rather, it is largesse from powers that feel completely triumphant.
      They believe that their successes in court, together with the
      example presented by Sklyarov's treatment so far, make their
      dominion so strong that nothing can challenge it.
      
    One could argue, instead, that we did indeed win this victory. The
    U.S. was faced with worldwide opposition and the prospect of a strong
    constitutional challenge. Rather than run that gauntlet, they backed
    down. It is, indeed, a win.
    
    But we have won a small battle, at the cost, perhaps, of a setback in
    the conflict as a whole. With ElcomSoft, the government has as its
    victim a corporation which demonstrably sold the Advanced eBook
    Processor software in the U.S. There is no doubt that this program can
    be legitimately used by eBook customers to exercise their fair use
    rights. But that use may well not be enough to sway a court in these
    times, and a proprietary software company may well draw less support
    than Dmitry did. The chances are good that the government will get a
    DMCA conviction out of this case.
    
    So the end result could well be a strengthening of the DMCA; the fight
    is far from over. Programmers who can be seen as violating the DMCA
    are no safer in the U.S. than they were before. The situation remains
    scary, and opposition to bad laws must continue.
    
    The end of the Sklyarov prosecution is the loss of, perhaps, the best
    opportunity to mount a powerful constitutional challenge to the DMCA.
    Some have criticized Dmitry for having accepted the agreement, saying
    it was his duty to resist to the end. That criticism does not stand
    up, however. Mr. Sklyarov was a Russian citizen facing 25 years of
    imprisonment in the U.S. To say that his duty to help the American
    people in fighting one of their bad laws overrides his duty to his
    family, or, indeed, to himself, is inappropriate. He did not choose
    this fight, and nobody has the right to tell him that he can not
    withdraw from it.
    
    The 2001 Timeline and a look back. Be careful what traditions you
    start - people have a tendency to expect you to live up to them. Thus,
    LWN continues to produce its year-end Linux timeline, and the
    [34]alpha version of the 2001 LWN Linux Timeline is now available. The
    usual drill applies: we'll put out a revision toward the end of the
    year with the obvious omissions filled in, with a final release
    shortly after the new year. In practice, though, the Timeline changes
    little from its initial version; [35]have a look and let us know what
    you think.
    
    Looking back, what is one to think of 2001? Certainly some themes jump
    out readily:
      * It was a difficult year for Linux companies. Turbolinux, Lineo,
        and LynuxWorks all gave up on their initial public offering plans.
        EBIZ and Loki Software filed for bankruptcy, and SuSE came very
        close. Planned mergers (Turbolinux/Linuxcare, EBIZ/Linux NetworX)
        were called off. Eazel, Stormix, Great Bridge, and Atipa are no
        longer operating at all. And almost every Linux company was
        constrained to lay off staff.
      * That said, consolidation of Linux companies did not reach the
        level that some had expected. All of the major distributors are
        still in existence, as are most of the long-time Linux companies.
        It remains to be seen whether that situation can persist for
        another year. Many of the fundamental business problems remain
        unresolved.
      * Big companies are moving in. IBM has invested massive amounts into
        Linux, and now employs a large number of developers. HP and SGI
        are doing their best to move into this space; HP's new "blade
        servers" came out running Linux, not HP-UX or Windows. Linux seems
        to be bringing in some real revenue for some of these companies.
      * Linux development remains strong despite the commercial
        challenges. Numerous ambitious projects have reached major
        milestones over the past year. The 2.4 kernel is out and stable,
        powerful free web browsers are available and stable, and the Linux
        desktop has never looked better. Some projects have, beyond doubt,
        been slowed by the economic difficulties, but Linux and free
        software retain their momentum.
      * Free software development has shown some stress, however. The 2.4
        kernel took longer than any other to stabilize, and that happened
        at the cost of some severe divisions in the developer community.
        Free software development does some things well, but we have seen
        that it is not immune to code quality and release management
        issues.
      * Linux continues to gain respect. High-profile deployments are
        continuing, and companies are seeing that it really can help them.
        Linux systems, while not free of security incidents, had no part
        in the numerous widespread security problems that plagued certain
        proprietary systems. Even the analysts are figuring it out.
      * Legal issues continue to force themselves upon the community,
        whether we want to deal with them or not. The arrest of Dmitry
        Sklyarov demonstrated, in a most clear manner, the hazards that
        await those who write the wrong code. Kernel changelogs have been
        censored out of fear of U.S. laws. Proposed legislation, such as
        the SSSCA, threatens to outlaw free software altogether. If we
        wish to continue to develop and use our free operating systems, we
        will have to fight for them.
        
    2001 saw the tenth anniversary of the first Linux release. While it is
    not a year that many of us would choose to repeat, it was, in many
    ways, not a bad one. Free software is still a strong and growing
    force, and, most importantly, it is still fun.
    
    The LWN.net Weekly Edition will not be published next week so that we
    can celebrate the holidays with our families. The [36]daily updates
    page will be updated, however. The Weekly Edition will return on
    January 3, 2002. We wish all of our readers a great holiday season and
    an outstanding new year.
    
    Inside this LWN.net weekly edition:
      * [37]Security: Closed source rumor vulnerability; the FBI at work;
        security resources, reports and updates
      * [38]Kernel: 2.4 fixes in 2.5; kill() semantics; memory pool
        design.
      * [39]Distributions: Distributions in Review - Part 1; Dettu[Xx].
      * [40]Development: MayaVi data visualizer, LPRng 3.8.3, GNOME 2.0
        API, 3D Game Apps, GStreamer 0.3.0, AbiWord 0.9.6, Python 2.2c1,
        XML Schema languages.
      * [41]Commerce: The Open K-12 petition drive; DaimlerChrysler's new
        Linux cluster; IBM's iSeries test drive.
      * [42]History: GNOME 0.99.0 was released; software patents strike
        again; The Art of Unix Programming.
      * [43]Letters: RMS and Dmitry; Microsoft; mutt and large folders.
        
    ...plus the usual array of reports, updates, and announcements.
    
    This Week's LWN was brought to you by:
      * [44]Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor
        
    December 20, 2001
    
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    [48]Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright Л 2001 [49]Eklektix, Inc.,
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    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/2001/1220/security.php3
    4. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/kernel.php3
    5. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/dists.php3
    6. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/devel.php3
    7. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/commerce.php3
    8. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/press.php3
    9. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/announce.php3
   10. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/history.php3
   11. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/letters.php3
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   13. http://lwn.net/daily/
   14. http://linuxcalendar.com/
   15. http://lwn.net/stocks/
   16. http://lwn.net/Reviews/
   17. http://lwn.net/Gallery/
   18. http://lwn.net/archives/
   19. http://lwn.net/op/headlines.phtml
   20. http://lwn.net/op/Contact.html
   21. http://linux.tucows.com/
   22. http://news.tucows.com/ext2/
   23. http://unixthemes.tucows.com/
   24. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Timeline/
   25. http://lwn.net/2001/features/oreilly2001/
   26. http://lwn.net/2001/features/OLS/
   27. http://lwn.net/2001/features/MandrakeSoft.php3
   28. http://lwn.net/2001/features/KernelSummit/
   29. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Singapore
   30. http://lwn.net/2001/features/djbdns.php3
   31. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/
   32. http://lwn.net/2001/1213/
   33. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/a/rms-dmitry.php3
   34. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Timeline/
   35. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Timeline/
   36. http://lwn.net/daily/
   37. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/security.php3
   38. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/kernel.php3
   39. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/dists.php3
   40. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/devel.php3
   41. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/commerce.php3
   42. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/history.php3
   43. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/letters.php3
   44. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   45. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/buttonpos=lwnbutton125top
   46. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/buttonpos=125-001-016
   47. http://lwn.net/2001/1220/security.php3
   48. http://www.eklektix.com/
   49. http://www.eklektix.com/
 
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