Fri, 30 Apr 2004
So, back in the mists of time (ie, slightly over a month ago), David Welton asked Do you think it’s possible for Debian to have a leader anymore?. I made a few comments in response, which in part might be summarised as Debian having an unreasonable culture of blame on its leadership, leading to people not being particularly interested in taking up the job which in turn results in the job not being done, and Debian essentially stagnating. One of the comments I made was:
[…] Let’s delve into this some more: I spent a fair bit of time advocating what I thought was the appropriate course of action on [the removal of] non-free. I prepared a resolution, and it even won the day. For my involvement in this debate, I’ve been called a hypocrite [0], told I’ve personally broken the fundamental compromises behind the social contract [1], and told that I deserve to have the absolute worst assumed of my motives [2].
Thomas Bushnell’s response (and followup) was:
[[0]] does not say you are a hypocrite.
[…It] is not, in fact, targeted at you specifically, and it has nothing to do with removing non-free, as Nathanael indicated.
Huh? Nathanael actually said that you *had* misunderepresented what he said, and now you are misrepresenting his correction. *Wonderful!*
Reading debian-devel I now get to see this:
The RM was being hypocritical, using a bogus interpretation of the Social Contract to convince himself that he wasn’t. After the amendment passed, he was unable to delude himself further. I don’t think the proponents of the amendment could have predicted his psychology.
Nathanael Nerode’s the guy with the hypocrisy fetish, and isn’t a developer, although we seem to be fortunate enough that he’s seriously considering applying now. Thomas Bushnell’s been a developer for a while now.
I find the above remarks highly offensive. They’re not something I’ve got any interest in putting up with, least of all from supposed colleagues. Should I have to? Are they a necessary part of developing a free software distribution? If causing offense in that manner is something that can and should be avoided, is the way Thomas dealt with the issue when I raised it a month ago appropriate or optimal? Is the complete lack of criticism Thomas received, and the complete lack of support I received indicative of the correct path to take on this topic?
Thu, 29 Apr 2004
The Planet Debian aggregator has confused me a bit –
it’s meant to be a “community” thing, and be about things that aren’t
directly Debian related, but on the other hand, I ramble on about boring
Australian political stuff that can be pretty boring. Up until now Planet
Debian has just snarfed my Debian section, but that means it misses out
on the not-Debian-specific but still relevant/interesting posts I put
up. So I got fed up tonight, and made up a new fake categories
plugin so I can say exactly what categories should be included. It’s
pretty cool, I think. It works by having a planetdebian.cat
file in your blosxom datadir that looks like:
copyright
debian
links
meta
travelblog
that just specifies the relevant categories. You access
it by asking for the planetdebian category, a la
http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/blog/planetdebian.
Flavours and such Just Work. Sweet.
Wed, 28 Apr 2004
Here’s the story:
Australia’s inflation rate lowest in 4 years
CANBERRA, April 28 (Xinhuanet) – Australia’s annual inflation rate slowed to 2 percent, the lowest since December 1999, official figures released on Wednesday show.
The news.com story’s headline is Living costs rise slowest in 4 years, the Herald Sun says Inflation at four-year low, Yahoo News’ take is Australia’s Costello Says Inflation Remains Low.
What’s the ABC’s headline?
Costello welcomes inflation rise
Heh. Advantage: Gnu Hunter.
Digital Agenda Review v the Free Trade Agreement
The Attorney-General’s department says this about the Digital Agenda report:
Current Status of the Government’s Review
Phillips Fox conducted their research and analysis independently of the Government. During the term of the consultancy the Government negotiated with the United States a Free Trade Agreement. The Government is now moving towards signing its Free Trade Agreement with the US and implementing its obligations. In some areas, the copyright provisions of the Free Trade Agreement supersede the recommendations made in the Phillips Fox report. Where relevant the Phillips Fox report is being used to inform the Government’s implementation of the Free Trade Agreement obligations.
Following the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement obligations, the Government will conclude its broader review of the Digital Agenda reforms. The broader review will include analysis of the Phillips Fox report in relation to issues that were not considered in the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement as well as other Digital Agenda reform issues that were raised during the review.
They’re also still accepting submissions:
If you have concerns in relation to the Digital Agenda or the Computer Programs amendments to the Copyright Act that were not covered in the issues papers, or on which you have not already made a submission to Phillips Fox, make a submission on that matter directly to the Attorney-General’s Department (attention of Copyright Law Branch, Robert Garran Offices, National Circuit Barton ACT 2600). Such concerns will be considered by the Government as part of its broader review of the reforms.
Recommendation seventeen is choice:
That the definition of TPM in section 10 of the Act be amended so as to accord with the interpretation favoured by Sackville J in Stevens, at first instance.
That the permitted purposes in section 116A (3) be amended so as to clearly allow any supply or use of a circumvention device or service for any use or exception allowed under the Act, including fair dealing and access to a legitimately acquired non-pirated product.
That section 116A(1) be amended so as to prohibit the use, including commercial and personal use, of a circumvention device or service to circumvent a TPM, other than for a permitted purpose.
That section 135ANA be amended so as to prohibit the personal use of a broadcast decoding device other than for a permitted purpose, being the same permitted purposes listed in section 116A(3).
What the hell does that mean, I hear you ask. AIUI, the first paragraph says PlayStation 2 region coding isn’t a valid TPM, and thus that mod chipping isn’t circumventing a protection measure. ie, if you want to protect from copyright infringement, don’t make a tool that prevents parallel imports instead. The second paragraph means that supplying circumvention devices even ones that circumvent real protection measures is okay as long as you’re doing it to let people do sensible things – like watch DVDs they’ve bought. The third and fourth paragraphs increase the penalties if you’re pirating stuff.
Here’s another one: recommendation nineteen.
That the integrity of the permitted purposes in section 116A(3) be retained by preventing a copyright owner from making it a condition of access to or use of a copyright work or other subject matter that a user will not use a circumvention device or service for the purpose of making a fair dealing of the work or other subject matter.
That this amendment is made irrespective of whether the recommendation to include fair dealing as a permitted purpose is accepted. However, in those circumstances, a new subsection may need to be introduced in order to give effect to the recommendation.
It’s, like, the way laws should be made: consultation, and carefully balancing various interests.
Also of interest is recommendation fifteen, which suggests getting rid of the “communication” requirement in making transient copies of stuff – so that if you make a transient copy of a webpage while you’re trying to get it between your modem and screen that’s okay, even though you’re not communicating to anyone else. Recommendations thirteen and fourteen discuss a “limited subpoena process” for takedown notices that actually involves independent judicial bodies, rather than just hoping copyright onwers and ISPs do the right thing dealing with takedown notices. Other recommendations are interesting and sensible too, as are many of the things which are covered by “no change seems necessary or justified here”, such as the decompilation provisions.
Sweet.
Now let’s hope we can apply as many of these recommendations in the context of the FTA as we can.
Watch Kim Weatherall for further analysis.
Little sooner said than done: more analysis for your enjoyment. The conclusion bears repeating:
One more thing I'm thinking. My friend Peter Eckersley pointed out to me last night that getting depressed about aspects of the copyright law is not the only thing we can do. I think he's right. Perhaps the reality (if it ends up being a reality) of a move to more protectionist, US-style laws means 2 key things for us into the future.
First, it means that we need to make a genuine, concerted effort to ensure that exceptions to copyright are broadened in Australia. To the extent that exceptions like US-style fair use are broader - or potentially broader - than Australian-style fair dealing, we need a shift. Soon. And we need to think about things like private copying. Because the possibility of lots and lots of Australians infringing copying all the time just makes no sense.
Second, it makes things like Creative Commons more important. Build alternative systems. That work.
Mon, 26 Apr 2004
…news at 11.
Welcome to the 11 O'clock news. Our lead story tonight: Debian Release Manager doesn't know how to spell "effect".
Good lord. Challenged with this massive redesign, incorporating a near 100% decrease in oh-so-lameness, all I can come up with are a few minor tweaks (mostly: titles are permalinks and you can hover over the title to see the section. woo. excitement). Oh well, there was a reason I chose to name my blog as I have.
Thu, 22 Apr 2004
One of the things I like about blogging is that there’s no requirement to do a good job – it’s just my ramblings, on my website, covering whatever my fancies might run to. That’s particularly nice in that it gives me somewhere to just whine or ponder about whatever I might like – I’m not obliged to censor myself because my friends or colleagues mightn’t be interested, or because I don’t have any clue what I’m talking about. Blogs are meant to be the ignorant rambling of the proletariat.
On the other hand, various folks do read my blog now. Which means there are people to potentially annoy or offend if I say something stupid, and things I express poorly might end up having an effect instead of disappearing into the ether.
I’ve not been using my debian section very consistently for much this reason, I think: it isn’t a really natural fit with the rest of my blog. Blogging does seem a good fit to hacking, though. Maybe I should try some “changelog blogging” as I hack on debootstrap; though perhaps it’d be a good idea to get a public arch repository for that setup first to avoid being too much of a tease. Might be a good idea to get my “working copy” to actually work again too.
Newsforge reports that Clay Claiborne is quiting as President of the Los Angeles Linux Users Group. Why? Because he’s unhappy about Iraq, of course:
Claiborne: I’m glad they’re starting a LUG in Baghdad and I’m glad Hussein is gone. I just don’t think it had to cost maybe 20K Iraqi lives and how many Americans’ so far.
Obligatory, isn’t it? Let’s contrast that with this report that says “The [Human Rights Centre in Kadhimiya] have found that if the invasion had not happened, Saddam would have killed 70,000 people in the past year. Not sanctions: Saddam’s tyranny alone.”. IraqBodyCount says there’s a maximum of a little under 11,000 civilians dead, and released a press release last week describing the past twelve months as “a year of slaughter”.
One of the Iraqi LUGgers, Hasanen Nawfal seems to be the author of QV, an image viewing program. The screenshot gallery includes a pretty picture of a barbie made out of an old computer case too.
Back to Clay.
I think the question of military use of Linux needs a vigorous debate in the Linux community. It is just now happening. I don’t think that Linux should be used for killing and I don’t really trust the Pentagon to abide by the GPL.
This debate’s already happened. It happened years ago; and the conclusion is at the core of the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and hence the Open Source Definition:
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of
persons.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in
a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the
program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic
research.
See for example this post by Marcus Brinkmann from 1999:
On Mon, Aug 02, 1999 at 01:23:22AM -0400, Mike Goldman wrote: > To take a somewhat more concrete example: suppose I write a program which can be > used to design explosive devices. Such devices have many appropriate uses, in > mining, construction, and so forth. Perhaps it is unnecessary that I explicitly > restrict use by terrorists, since terrorism is illegal. (However, if I did so > anyhow, would that make my license DFSG-non-free?) Yes. > On the other hand, perhaps I > do not wish for my software to be used by certain governments for "military" > purposes - which are by definition "legal", yet just as clearly destructive. > Must an author permit such military use for a license to be DFSG-free? Yes.
But hey, we’ve got to find some way to kick Bush or Howard or whoever, don’t we? And as technologists, what better way than technology?
The question of politics and technology always comes up because that is where the rubber meets the road. Some people think technology is pure and not related to the end use, and those people will be our doom.
You know, having the power of life and death over folks like Clay could become addictive.
Sun, 18 Apr 2004
The Advanced Algorithms class I took never looked like this. I wanna be a lawyer.
Sat, 17 Apr 2004
Firmware, the GPL and Debian, oh my
Norbert Tretkowski’s unhappy, apparently:
Most of our users don’t care if this firmware is loaded by the Linux kernel, or by the hardware itself. They don’t care if this firmware is part of the Linux kernel, or if it’s sitting on-board on that hardware. It makes no difference, they just want to use their fucking hardware. I agree with Marco, this whole discussion is just ridiculous.
[…] I thought this issue will be fixed for a while with the next release, but looks like I was wrong…
Marco d’Itri seems to be unhappy too. I’m not really sure why; when you ask a question, you really should be prepared to accept whatever answer you get, as far as I can see. Follow that link if you don’t know what any of this is about.
In any event, it’s true that most of our users don’t care whether their firmware’s free or not; I know I certainly don’t. And it’s also true that most of our users care about having working drivers for the latest video and network cards, thanks to a recent purchase, I happen to share that concern. Unfortunately, the other thing our users care about, and that we care about ourselves, is respecting upstream author’s wishes, sometimes to a greater extent than even they care about. We’ve done this in the past by refusing to distribute KDE binaries, as the KDE license, that is, the GPL, was considered to forbid distribution of binaries that link with non-GPL-compatible libraries, which Qt was for quite some time. We’re doing the same thing with GPLed apps that want to use OpenSSL.
It’s highly unlikely that anyone’s going to sue anyone over any of these things: the free software community doesn’t care much for lawsuits in the first place, can often not afford them in the second place, and generally shares goals that are better achieved by putting up with the annoyance instead of suing.
On the other hand, that means that if we want to ensure that things like the GPL get taken seriously, we have to find some other way of making sure that happens than lawsuits and threats. Debian’s policy has long been to have a serious look for problems, and once they’ve been found, and thought about for a while, to put up with the inevitable pain that results from making a stand, and getting it solved.
Norbert suggests as a solution:
I think it’s time to activate nonfree.org to provide non-castrated kernel-images, an installer which supports the same hardware like the Linux kernel itself does, and other software which is affected.
We’ve just had a vote that says we’re going to keep distributing non-free software ourselves; and I thought I’d made it pretty clear that firmware wouldn’t need to go into non-free for sarge. That leaves only one reason to move to a non-Debian site: as an excuse to link non-free drivers into the kernel proper, rather than distributing them separately. That’s not necessary, since there’s an easy API for fixing the firmware problem; and it seems undesirable since it’s either the case that compiling in firmware is a GPL violation and no one should be doing it, or it’s not a GPL violation and there’s no reason for Debian not to be doing it. Setting up a new archive, and having users have to worry about whether they need to get the official installer or an unofficial installer for their hardware isn’t a win, and it’s not even a win compared to the effort required to either fix the problem for good, or to demonstrate that there isn’t a (legal) problem at all.
Hopefully Norbert and his supporters are as willing to spend some time doing some productive kernel and X hacking as they are to debate.
(Homework question: for those folks who think I’m, uh, verbose, consider ways of effectively dealing with issues like this that don’t involve repeated long explanations (ie, like this), that are at least equally effective, and that ideally don’t result in folks calling me arrogant the next day.)
(Oh: and if you’re Australian, sign the petition – thanks to slashdot, we’re a fifth of the way to where we’d like to be. If you’re not Australian, but you know some Aussies make them sign it, or do something similarly useful.)
Gah. Contrary to what DWN implies, nothing in the above is meant to have said that violating the GPL by including firmware in a Linux driver isn't a release critical issue for sarge. I've updated the sarge RC issues page to include a summary of the situation. Maybe it's just too nuanced. :(
Thu, 15 Apr 2004
From my email today:
Thank you for your interest in the Committee’s inquiry into the Australia USA Free Trade Agreement your comments are appreciated and will be formally acknowledged in due course.
Fran Wilson
Office Administrator
Joint Standing Committee on Treaties
Sweet.
In other news, the JSCT public hearings start their Oz tour on Monday, so if you didn’t get a mail like the above today, you might like to make sure you go to one of those to help ensure Australian has decent IP law.
Wed, 14 Apr 2004
The Daily Ablution complained to the BBC about a poll they ran that concluded US is bigger threat than terror. Well, that was the headline, anyway; the real conclusion was that the US and globalisation combined were a bigger threat than terror, at least given the online poll they did. Apart from being an online poll, there were other methodology problems that were worth criticising and that make the conclusion fairly tenuous. But whatever. The BBC guys who did the the survey were kind enough to respond to his complaints, not just once by email, but again in the comments of that blog entry:
While it is interesting to speculate on methodological issues - most of which are irrelevant - wouldn’t it be more useful to consider the meaning of the results. […]
The fact is, people from around the world - including a large number from North America - were more likely to list the power of the USA and global corporations as among the world’s biggest problems than global warming, wars or terrorism, communicable diseases such as AIDS, or hunger, or lack of sanitation. Isn’t that interesting. But what does this mean? Where has it come from? What do people who disagree feel would be an appropriate response?
The responses tended to be like:
Jeremy. No, it’s not worth addressing. To paraphrase: a fatuous survey has ludicrous results, but the results are so interesting (ie they confirm all my prejudices) that as to how they were actually compiled and whether they are remotely worthwhile… well that’s just nit-picking, isn’t it?
Personally, I think that’s stupid. A large number of people really do think the US and globalisation are serious dangers, and unless those of us who disagree are planning on exterminating all of them (did I miss a memo?) working out how to understand how they tick, and ideally work out a way of convincing them that they’re wrong is surely valuable. Maybe the poll’s wrong or it draws to broad a conclusion. So what? It was a sincere attempt, and the people who ran it seem to be interested in listening to people’s thoughts (although apparently they’re not so interested in criticism of the methodology. tsk).
Anyway, I think the real issue is that unlike the other threats – war, terrorism, hunger, climate change, corruption – the US and globalisation aren’t harmful in and of themselves; they’re not dangers, so much as powers. It’s a similar thing to saying “science” is a threat. It’s not naturally a danger, but you might feel threatened by it anyway because it gives more power to people you don’t trust, whether by providing dangerous weapons that might be used to kill you or your friends, or persuasive arguments that you worry might be used to trick you into doing things that are dangerous.
There are a reasonable similarities between this treatment of “science” and “globalisation”: both have been decried as unqualified boogeymen at the same time as people are reaping their benefits by being better fed, better entertained, better educated, and generally leading fuller and richer lives. Maybe Nike, Microsoft and McDonalds are evil, but the Internet, Greenpeace, and Linux are equal beneficiaries of globalisation. Maybe you’re not happy that globalisation means you get to watch crap Hollywood movies all around the world, but it’s also what lets you watch Bollywood movies. You might be sick of pop-trash like Britney, but without globalisation there wouldn’t be a “world music” genre, by definition.
You don’t have to go back many decades to find people seriously concerned about the horrible things science can create; and people’s hearts still flutter when thinking about things like cloning and genetic modifications. But that’s kind-of the point: it’s not science itself you should be worrying about; it might make various catastrophes possible, but it also provides the tools to understand, predict and prevent catastrophes. Thinking about the risks and minimising them is the correct approach; not giving up and wishing we didn’t know anything about anything, or have to have anything to do with people who live over the horizon. Sure globalisation provides lots of possibilities to do harm, but it also provides the possibilities to avoid or diminish the risks it creates. McDonalds might put your favourite hometown restaurant out of business, but the Internet lets you email the chef to get a copy of one of his recipes from the other side of the world, so his meals can live on. Fluid labour markets might mean you have to leave your family and friends in order to work at the job your best at, but global markets also make it at least affordable if not outright cheap to visit them back at home, or to keep in touch with them.
Which is to say, I think the people responding to the poll are making the same mistake about globalisation that luddites have made about science. It’s something to talk about and think about, but the soundbite itself doesn’t have any real truth to it, that I can see.
Sat, 10 Apr 2004
The world’s an odd place. In this year’s State of the Union, and as one of his election platforms, President Bush has supported the push to reserve marriage in the US for straight folk. Various sensible folks were naturally outraged at this, just as other various sensible folks have been concerned to various degrees by some of Prime Minister Howard’s thoughts on the same subject.
I find it pretty interesting to contrast these sorts of takes with this little bit of banter I noticed the other day:
President Bush opened his 10-minute remarks to the gathering with a reference to what he referred to as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s “favorite show” on television. Those anticipating an “Apprentice” punch line – the Donald, after all, was only a few yards away – guessed wrong.
“Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” Bush said, generating a roomful of laughter. “My Cabinet could take some pointers from watching that show. In fact, I’m going to have the Fab Five do a makeover on [Attorney General John] Ashcroft.”
When even the folks you think of as your most dangerous enemies think you have something of great value to offer them, and can find joy and pleasure when talking about you, you can’t be far off winning.
Submissions to Parliamentary Commissions
So, Mary Gardiner, civic-minded lady she is, mentioned that she was going to have a go at making a submission to the senate on the FTA and it’s effect on Linux and free software and that she’d probably put whatever she came up with online.
Michael Davies replied that
You aren’t allowed to make your submission to either the lower house or senate committees public at all. The committee will make submissions public later at their own discretion.
This struck me as pretty unbelievable, but no, the Parliament House’s FAQ on Preparing a submission to a Parliamentary Committee Inquiry says:
Once a submission is received by a committee, it cannot be withdrawn or altered without the committee’s permission, nor can it be published or disclosed to any other person unless or until the committee has authorised its publication.
Pretty fascist, hey? But hey, you know the saying: don’t ascribe to maliciousness that which can be explained by stupidity. Here’s another one: don’t ascribe to stupidity that which can be explained by misinterpretation. Looking for more detail, specifically an explanation of where the heck that restriction comes from, leads to a page about Senate enquiries, which in turn gives you a pointer to more information about contributing to committee enquiries, which has a PDF about submissions to senate committee enquiries. That says:
5. A submission to a committee becomes a committee document, and must not be disclosed to any other person until it has been released (‘published’) by the committee. Unless you have requested that the submission remain confidential, it is normally published after the committee has received and examined it and authorised its publication. Once a committee has authorised the release of a submission, subsequent publication of it is protected by parliamentary privilege (see below). The content of a submission may be published in another form or for another purpose before the submission is released by the committee, but this publication will not be protected by parliamentary privilege.
…
8. Making a submission is protected by parliamentary privilege. It is an offence for anyone to try to stop you from making a submission by threats or intimidation. It is an offence for anyone to harass you or discriminate against you because you have made a submission. The content of the submission is also protected but only after the committee has accepted it. This means that what you say in the submission, once the committee has accepted it, cannot be used in court against you or anyone else. More information is available in another brochure, entitled ‘Procedures to be observed by Senate committees for the protection of witnesses’.
Three things to note:
One: Aside from some terminology, you can publish your submission yourself, but you might be better of not doing so.
Two: If you don’t publish it, you get to be protected by parliamentary privilege! How cool is that? Anyone you want to libel? Now’s your chance!
Three: While it’s forbidden to harass people for submitting, it doesn’t say anything about harassing people for not submitting. Ha! Consider yourself forewarned!
Fri, 09 Apr 2004
The Creative Commons has come down under. They’re developing some new licenses to address Australian law a little better, and make folks doing free works just that little bit better protected.
Wed, 07 Apr 2004
If we’re ever going to do anything about the problems various copyright laws and patents cause us, we have to start sometime. Linux Australia is starting now, and focussing on the Australia/United States Free Trade Agreement. They have a page full of information up at http://www.linux.org.au/fta/. If you’re an Australian, you’ll be affected by these changes, so go read that page, and then follow up on it.
The easiest way to follow up on it is by signing the petition that’s been setup by the Linux Australia committee. We’ve tried to make it something that’s strong, but that can be supported by all sorts of folks who develop, admin, use, or otherwise support or rely on free software. If your parents, or boss, or clients get value from open source, please point them at the petition, explain what and why the concerns are, and ask them if they’ll consider supporting it. By some estimates we might need as many as ten thousand signatures to get results, so every single one is important.
If you’re not confident just signing a petition will do any good, there’s lots of other things you can do recommended at the Linux Aus FTA site. Every little bit helps.
Tue, 06 Apr 2004
Someone complained that my last entry wasn’t recent enough to “count” as an updated blog entry. Maybe that someone will be more pleased with an entry about stuff that at least happened this year.
As mentioned previously on this blog, this year’s l.c.a was in Adelaide, and was hosted by Michael Davies and his crew. It was huge and very well done, so much so that there’s not really much to say beyond that.
For those of you who attended the Debian miniconf, I’m hoping that you’ll apply the “a picture is worth a thousand words” rule in judging this post in order to meet certain expectations.
Mon, 05 Apr 2004
So since I’m not in the mood to write much, I thought, hey why not put up some pretty piccies. And then I thought, why I have all those skiing photos I took last year; I haven’t put any of them up. And then I thought, mmmm, skiing.
Anyway, I was priveleged enough to take two ski trips last year; one to The Remarkables in Queenstown, New Zealand; the other to Mt Buller in Victoria. NZ had a crap year, with really crap snow cover; Oz had a great year, and the heavens gifted us with something like thirty centimetres of fresh powder for, literally, the weekend we were at Mt Buller. Mmmm.
Skiing.
The view on on the right is out the car window on the way back to Queenstown from the Remarkables.
More photos below.