Robert Pogson

One man, closing all the windows.

Daily Archives / Monday, September 3, 2012

  • Sep 03 / 2012
  • 21
technology

Torvalds Shoots From the Hip

“Shooting from the hip” refers to the practice of pointing a firearm roughly in the direction of an enemy so close that careful aim is unnecessary. Linus does that verbally from time to time but he does really blast the opposition with his armour-piercing ammunition.

On recent pronouncements by a GNOME guy that GNU/Linux has serious problems preventing success on the desktop:

“One of the core kernel rules has always been that we never ever break any external interfaces. That rule has been there since day one, although it’s gotten much more explicit only in the last few years. The fact that we break internal interfaces that are not visible to userland is totally irrelevant, and a total red herring.”

“In fact, Linux pretty much did what I envisioned back in 1991 when I first released it. Pretty much all subsequent development was driven by outside ideas of what other people needed or wanted to do. Not by some internal vision of where things ‘should’ go.”

“That’s exactly the reverse of the gnome ‘we know better’ mentality, and “We will force Corba/.NET down your throat whether you like it or not, and if you complain, you’re against progress, and cannot handle the change’.

“Some gnome people seem to be in total denial about what their problem really is. They’ll wildly blame everybody except themselves. This article seems to be a perfect example of that.”

See Torvalds pours scorn on De Icaza's desktop claims.

or other related blasts at Google+

There are times when Linus is a bit crude but this is not one of them. He’s on target and scoring big hits.

  • Sep 03 / 2012
  • 4
technology

Bruce Willis Dying Harder or Killing EULAs

The legal basis for an EULA (End User Licensing Agreement) is that an owner of a copyright work has the sole right to permit distribution. An owner can set any conditions he wants for giving permission to obtain a copy of the work or doing any particular thing with it such as copying. A legal contract can be the basis for obtaining permission to make or to receive a copy. It is not clear that owning a copyright allows one to prevent transfer (moving a copy around) rather than copying (increasing the number of copies in existence). Some laws do allow a copyright owner preventing transfer across regions or borders. However, some EULAs do insist the copy attaches to a particular PC or a particular user etc. If that PC or user dies, the copy permission dies with them.

Bruce Willis has copies of iTunes stuff he legally acquired and wants to bequeath to his heirs. iTunes EULA prevents that. If Willis wins the battle to force iTunes to change EULAs, will a precedent be set for M$’s EULA to be trimmed back? Things like number of PCs that can be connected together and phoning home and installation of malware etc. come to mind. This battle could be significant in the war of the operating systems/platforms of IT.

I don’t know any details of Willis’ legal argument but if it’s about not extending copyright protection it’s relevant to software in IT.

see Bruce Willis To Fight Apple Over His iTunes Collection Rights | TheTechJournal.

I would like to see EULAs for software limited to yes/no permission to have/make a copy/performance rather than attaching conditions to restrain competition. GPL would not be affected because it is not a contract but a licence. EULAs with undue restrictions on use of a copyrighted work should be considered unconscionable invalid contracts. That is a contract must be for a legal purpose and restraint of competition is not a legal purpose. One can argue that copyright law is restraint of competition but it should be narrowly interpreted for the encouragement of content-generators not to create global monopolies extending into every aspect of IT.

  • Sep 03 / 2012
  • 7
technology

Lintel? Aintel? LAIntel? What do you call the Platform of an Atom Smart Phone?

“To highlight the potential of its handset CPUs, Intel has showcased a number of Atom-based smartphones designed by its partners at IFA. The models include ZTE’s Grand X IN, Orange’s San Diego, Lenovo’s K800 and Lava’s Xolo X900.”

“Motorola, the first major handset vendor to tie up with Intel, is scheduled to unveil its first Atom-based smartphone in London in September, the sources noted.”

Hint: They all run Android/Linux… This is not Wintel but something else. It’s also a gateway to the desktop for Android/Linux since the software runs on Intel. It should be able to run on Intel PCs of all kinds, perhaps with modifications for the phone stuff. Wintel is fragmenting even before M$ gets onto ARM. Isn’t it cute that Intel and friends are releasing these gadgets in September more than a month before “8″? It’s all good.

Intel is getting price/power/performance competitive on smart phones in order to be able to do this. That was inevitable but Intel is still handicapped by single core operation to be in the game. That puts them into the low end of smart phones but that’s still a huge market. In a year or two they will be competitive even in multi-core thanks to Moore’s Law. Soon neither ARM nor Intel will demand much power to run. The display will be the limiting factor.

See Digitimes – More vendors to launch Atom-based smartphones, but market acceptance remains to be seen.

OTOH, some makers of netbooks intend to get out of the market reducing some use of Atoms. Strangely, one of the triggers for this is higher licensing fees for “8″. Instead of opting for GNU/Linux on netbooks, OEMs are abandoning the netbook altogether in favour of tablets and smart phones. Whatever small cheap computer works, I guess.

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