Devices Lacking Linux Support Needed

October 26, 2007 Leave a comment

Greg KH recently announced that Novell was letting him work on the Linux Driver Project full time. The response was huge, with over 300 developers answering the call. Lack of Linux drivers is usually pretty high up on the list of Linux shortcomings. But a follow up post by Greg indicates that there’s not enough work to keep all the developers busy:

There was a lot of very good press coverage over my last announcement of the restart of the Linux Driver Project and my involvement in it now full time. It’s been a few weeks since that announcement, and we now have over 300 different developers signed up to help create, and maintain Linux drivers!

I’ve also posted a short status report about the current projects, and what is going on with them. Since then, one more project has started, and there are a handful still in the planning stage.

What we need now is more companies participating in the project, we have the developers, but not enough work to keep them busy.

So how do we change this? I’m thinking that possibly, there really isn’t a large number of different devices out there that need Linux support written for them.

As proof of this, I give you the Linux Foundation’s Vendor Advisory Board. This group of companies publish a list of priorities that they feel need to be worked on in order to help Linux succeed.

Coming in at number 3 is “Device Driver Support”. So, I approached this group and asked them specifically what devices did they see in common use that are not supported by Linux (the obvious 2 video cards being a known exception.) Despite this being such a high priority for this group, they had no examples to provide.

And neither do I. I don’t currently know of any common piece of hardware in use today that is not supported on Linux. And since these vendors do not know, and I don’t, I’m asking the world to help out.

So, please, let me know what specific type of device you know of that is not properly supported on Linux. If you want, please mark up the wiki page at:

http://linuxdriverproject.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DriversNeeded

Is the lack of Linux device drivers an issue that is a bit overblown by a couple of high profile examples? Is it a stigma held over from previous days when some areas, such as wireless networking, were poor? Visit the Linux Driver Project wiki if you have hardware that doesn’t work in Linux, and let them know.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Novell, Open Source

Mozilla Prism

October 26, 2007 1 Comment

It looks like Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight are going to get some competition from Mozilla. From the announcement:

Mozilla Labs is launching a series of experiments to bridge the divide in the user experience between web applications and desktop apps and to explore new usability models as the line between traditional desktop and new web applications continues to blur.

Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we’re not building a proprietary platform to replace the web. We think the web is a powerful and open platform for this sort of innovation, so our goal is to identify and facilitate the development of enhancements that bring the advantages of desktop apps to the web platform.

The first of these experiments is based on Webrunner, which we’ve moved into the Mozilla Labs code repository and renamed to Prism.

Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.

refracting.png

At least for now, this doesn’t look quite as robust as Adobe AIR (and I’ve not looked at Silverlight too closely) but it does seem like a natural progression for Firefox. You have to wonder how many of these environments developers are going to embrace. I’d guess there will be a small number of players that remain standing after a shakeout. AIR and Prism both plan to support Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

–jeremy

Filed under Adobe, Firefox, Open Source

Sun Sues NetApp: Says "You Cannot Unfree What Is Free"

October 26, 2007 1 Comment

Dave Hitz, Founder and EVP at NetApp, has responded to a post made by Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Here’s his conclusion:

Jonathan’s claim that “you cannot unfree what is free” sets a very dangerous precedent. It says that you can steal anything, as long as you open source it afterwards. That can’t be right! I do understand that many open source proponents argue there should be no legal protection at all for information. “Information wants to be free.” But even if Jonathan believes that, he ought to wait until the law changes before taking Sun down that path.

One of the most important rules of open source is that you must only give away things that belong to you. If protected information does leak into open source, it will probably live forever in the web, but that isn’t the issue. To me, the issue is that large corporations should stop making a profit on protected information that doesn’t belong to them. That’s what we’re asking here.

Now, I’m not a lawyer and I don’t even play one on TV. I find it hard to believe that Sun ripped off code from someone and then Open Sourced the product so everyone could see the violation. Anything is possible I guess, but that doesn’t seem rationale. What’s interesting to me here is that both CEO’s are discussing this issue on their respective blog, in very a human tone and with comments enabled.

–jeremy

Filed under Open Source, Sun

Acacia's Latest Target: NetFlix

October 25, 2007 Leave a comment

It’s not just Red Hat and Novell. From TechDirt

Acacia has become one of the most hated firms by technology companies that actually do stuff. That’s because Acacia is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) firms out there in the business of buying up patents solely to sue companies. Acacia learned a while ago, though, that it was best to keep its name out of many of these suits, so it apparently tries to set up subsidiaries for many of the patents it buys (sometimes giving them silly names to make people think the companies actually do something). Now, one of those subsidiaries, named Refined Recommendation Corporation is suing Netflix over a patent it holds on optimizing interest potential. It’s a patent on the idea of making recommendations or presenting specific information based on user actions. I can recall both individuals and companies working on similar things well before this patent was applied for in 2000, but that’s a different issue altogether. Does anyone believe that Netflix (and plenty of other companies) wouldn’t be doing content recommendations for people without this particular “breakthrough”?

–jeremy

Filed under Novell, Open Source, Red Hat

Microsoft and the EU anti-trust battle

October 25, 2007 Leave a comment

Earlier this week, Microsoft agreed with the EU Commission’s 2004 ruling that it was abusing its dominance in the market in the workgroup server market and would not appeal against a further EU court ruling, which upheld the Commission’s initial findings. Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for competition policy, called this “a victory for the consumer”, but noted her concern about how long it took for Microsoft to comply. Initial reactions in the blogosphere seemed to indicate that this “capitulation” was a win for Open Source. It appears this reaction may have been a little premature. From the article:

Perhaps I was a little quick to congratulate Neelie Kroes on a job well done forcing Microsoft to extend its interoperability protocols to open source software vendors and developers. It now appears that the terms of the agreement mean that it is incompatible with the GPL.

“I told Microsoft that it had to make interoperability information available to open source developers. Microsoft will now do so, with licensing terms that allow every recipient of the resulting software to copy, modify and redistribute it in accordance with the open source business model,” noted Kroes.

Glynn Moody points to the FAQ, which tells a different story, however:

“Can open source software developers implement patented interoperability information?
Open source software developers use various “open source” licences to distribute their software. Some of these licences are incompatible with the patent licence offered by Microsoft. It is up to the commercial open source distributors to ensure that their software products do not infringe upon Microsoft’s patents. If they consider that one or more of Microsoft’s patents would apply to their software product, they can either design around these patents, challenge their validity or take a patent licence from Microsoft.”

As Moody notes: the incompatible licenses include “the GNU GPL, as used by Samba, the only program that really cares about Microsoft’s damn protocols? And let’s not forget that this “patented interoperability information” isn’t even valid in Europe, because you can’t patent software or business methods or whatever you want to call this stuff. And yet the EU has just passed a quick benedictus on the whole bloody thing.”

Indeed, hardly seems like any kind of victory at all. This is no real remedy for the years of abuse, and the spectre of software patents still looms its ugly head. Mark Webbink puts it well:

“I, for one, just wish the Commission had gone a bit easier on the open source rhetoric. It is misleading from the standpoint that the settlement does not resolve all or even the biggest issues that open source will have with implementing these protocols.”

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Open Source

ZFS Puts Net App Viability at Risk?

October 25, 2007 1 Comment

It’s good to see a tech company acting sanely when it comes to litigation. A few excerpts from Jonathan Schwartz’s Weblog:

About a month ago, Network Appliance sued Sun to try to stop the competitive impact of ZFS on their business.

I can understand why they’re upset – when Linux first came on the scene in Sun’s core market, there were some here who responded the same way, asking “who can we sue?” But seeing the future, we didn’t file an injunction to stop competition – instead, we joined the free software community and innovated.

One of the ways we innovated was to create a magical file system called ZFS – which enables expensive, proprietary storage to be replaced with commodity disks and general purpose servers. Customers save a ton of money – and administrators save a ton of time. The economic impact is staggering – and understandably threatening to Net App and other proprietary companies. As is all free innovation, at some level. So last week, I reached out to their CEO to see how we could avoid litigation. I have no interest whatever in suing them. None whatever.

Their objectives were clear – number one, they’d like us to unfree ZFS, to retract it from the free software community. Which reflects a common misconception among proprietary companies – that you can unfree, free. You cannot.

Second, they want us to limit ZFS’s allowable field of use to computers – and to forbid its use in storage devices. Which is quizzical to say the least – in our view, computers are storage devices, and vice versa (in the picture on the right – where’s the storage? Answer: everywhere). So that, too, is an impractical solution.

We’re left with the following: we’re unwilling to retract innovation from the free software community, and we can’t tolerate an encumbrance that limits ZFS’s value – to our customers, the community at large, or Sun’s shareholders.

So now it looks like we can’t avoid responding to their litigation, as frustrated as I am by that (as I said, we have zero interest in suing them). I wanted to outline our response (even if it tips off the folks at Net App), and for everyone to know where we’re headed.

So we have a CEO that, even faced with being sued is trying to personally reach out and avoid litigation. Kudos. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t work out, but it’s great to see how much Jonathan groks Open Source. So where are things headed?

Third, we file patents defensively. Like MySQL or Red Hat, companies similarly competing in the free software marketplace, we file patents to protect the communities from which innovation and opportunity spring. Unlike smaller free software companies, we have one of the largest patent arsenals on the internet, numbering more than 14,000 issued and pending globally. Our portfolio touches nearly every aspect of network computing, from multi-core silicon and opto-electronics, to search and of course, a huge array of patents across storage systems and software – to which Network Appliance has decided to expose themselves.

And to be clear, once again, we have no interest whatever in suing NetApps – we didn’t before this case, and we don’t now. But given the impracticality of what they’re seeking as resolution, to take back an innovation that helps their customers as much as ours, we have no choice but to respond in court.

So later this week, we’re going to use our defensive portfolio to respond to Network Appliance, filing a comprehensive reciprocal suit. As a part of this suit, we are requesting a permanent injunction to remove all of their filer products from the marketplace, and are examining the original NFS license – on which Network Appliance was started. By opting to litigate vs. innovate, they are disrupting their customers and employees across the world.

In addition to seeking the removal of their products from the marketplace, we will be going after sizable monetary damages. And I am committing that Sun will donate half of those proceeds to the leading institutions promoting free software and patent reform (in specific, The Software Freedom Law Center and the Peer to Patent initiative), and to the legal defense of free software innovators. We will continue to fund the aggressive reexamination of spurious patents used against the community (which we’ve been doing behind the scenes on behalf of several open source innovators). Whatever’s left over will fuel a venture fund fostering innovation in the free software community.

NTAP is down about 3% so far today. It should be interesting to watch how this unfold, not only for NetApp clients but also for its ramification for Open Source.

–jeremy

Filed under Open Source, Sun

SCO still hanging on

October 25, 2007 Leave a comment

After filing for Chapter 11, SCO may have found a buyer for its UNIX operations. From the article:

While still fighting in the courts and fresh from filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month, The SCO Group could soon be selling its steadily-declining Unix business.

In a filing in US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, the Lindon, Utah-based company said it had received a “potential” $US36 million offer for its Unix business from JGD Management, an umbrella business of New York-based investment firm, York Capital Management. The filing has been posted on the Groklaw.com website, which has been tracking the legal records of the ongoing lawsuits between SCO, IBM, Novell and others. In it, SCO reports that the offer includes money for its Unix business, litigation claims and for litigation expenses.

The bid is subject to approval by the bankruptcy court, according to the filing, and competitive bids could still be accepted from other potential buyers.

SCO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization last month as it began seeking ways to stay in business amid mounting expenses and several legal rulings that have hurt its legal fights with IBM and Novell.

If SCO gets out of the Unix business, it would continue solely as a mobile application platform vendor, which it has been working to become over the last several years.

York is a large hedge fund-like capital management company, so at first I didn’t think there was anything odd about this. It was probably an LBO in which the company thought it could squeeze some value out of a product that had been neglicted. Fairly popular stuff these days. But, it gets odd from here. As noted on Groklaw:

JGD Management Corporation has its principal executive offices at 1118 East Green Street Pasadena, California 91106 (http://www.secinfo.com/d12TC3.v51a.htm)

If you google the address the first match is a reference to a page on Edgar which provides the Form 4 (any of you US business types know what that is?) for a company known as Arrowhead Research Corp which has one R Bruce Stewart as its
CEO and Chairman of the Board.
(http://edgar.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EDGARpro.dll?FetchFilingHTML1?SessionID=T-hII2bI2EHwHrP&ID=3669175)

R Bruce Stewart founded Acacia Research Corporation in March 1991.
(http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/personinfo/FromPersonIdPersonTearsheet.jhtml?passedPersonId=927443).

Yes, that would be the same Acacia that is currently suing Red Hat and Novell. Quite some coincidence. I haven’t had a chance to personally verify all the information from the Groklaw post, but the links are all there for you to do so. If you’d like to do some additional research:

http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.u4d4r.htm
http://sec.edgar-online.com/2004/05/17/0001015402-04-002107/Section7.asp

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Open Source, SCO

Sun Open Source "summit"

October 20, 2007 Leave a comment

Sun continues to be less schizo about Open Source and recently gathered media and employees at their main campus for an Open Source “summit” briefing.

Cited were improvements like a binary release of OpenSolaris and plans for dynamic scripting support in Sun’s Java Virtual Machine. Executives from throughout the company met with the media at Sun’s Santa Clara, Calif. headquarters campus for an open-source “summit” briefing.

“We have so many people who work on open source inside Sun,” that they must be brought together for an annual conference, said Simon Phipps, chief open-source officer at the company.

Project Indiana is something I find particularly interesting. Where Sun goes with it is something I’ll be watching closely. The implications of having two solid Open Source operating systems with real traction are significant. That’s not to say that the BSD’s for instance aren’t solid (in fact, they’re rock solid), just that none of them have seen wide mainstream adoption. It’s also good to see that 96 percent of Java code has been cleared for Open Source use. That should mean that a public release is well on its way.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Open Source, Sun

OSI Approves Microsoft License Submissions

October 18, 2007 Leave a comment

A few moths ago, Microsoft submitted the Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL) and the Microsoft Community License (Ms-CL) to the OSI for approval. Both have been approved, albeit with some modifications, including name changes for both. From the official announcement:

Acting on the advice of the License Approval Chair, the OSI Board today approved the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) and the Microsoft Reciprocal License (Ms-RL). The decision to approve was informed by the overwhelming (though not unanimous) consensus from the open source community that these licenses satisfied the 10 criteria of the Open Source definition, and should therefore be approved.

The formal evaluation of these licenses began in August and the discussion of these licenses was vigourous and thorough. The community raised questions that Microsoft (and others) answered; they raised issues that, when germane to the licenses in question, Microsoft addressed. Microsoft came to the OSI and submitted their licenses according to the published policies and procedures that dozens of other parties have followed over the years. Microsoft didn’t ask for special treatment, and didn’t receive any. In spite of recent negative interactions between Microsoft and the open source community, the spirit of the dialog was constructive and we hope that carries forward to a constructive outcome as well.

Some in the community wanted these licenses to be rejected solely on the fact that it was Microsoft that submitted them. While it’s easy to be mistrusting of MSFT, that would have been being petty for the sake of being petty and not at all in the spirit of the Open Source community. If you truly believe in choice and these licenses meet the OSD (and the OSI thinks they do), then it’s reasonable that they should be legitimate options, regardless of who came up with them. Russ has more to say in this blog post:

Of course, Microsoft is not widely trusted in the Open Source world, and their motives have been called into question during the approval discussions. How can they be attacking Open Source projects on one hand, and seeking not only to use open source methods, but use of the OSI Approved Open Source trademark? Nobody knows for sure except for Microsoft. But if you are confident that Open Source is the best way to develop software (as we at the Open Source Initiative are), then you can see why Microsoft would both attack Open Source and seek to use it at the same time. It is both their salvation and their enemy.

It should be interesting to see where Microsoft goes from here. This isn’t carte blanche for them to start claiming Open Source after all, as only code licensed under one of these two licenses qualifies as Open Source.

Additional coverage:
Matt Asay
Matthew Aslett

–jeremy

Filed under Microsoft, Open Source, OSI

Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat & Novell III

October 18, 2007 2 Comments

(coverage continues)

Via 451 CAOS Theory: It looks like the Acacia lawsuit may indeed have little to do with Open Source and be just another general patent troll case. From the article:

The nation’s first Linux patent suit currently facing Red Hat and Novell isn’t about open source at all. Or so the plaintiff says.

IP Innovation last week filed the patent lawsuit against Linux in Texas, alleging that both Red Hat and Novell infringe on U.S. Patent No. 5,072,412, “User Interface with Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects.”

Neither IP Innovation nor its parent company Acacia Research responded to request for comment at the time the patent suit first came to light. But today, in a statement sent to InternetNews.com, Acacia Chairman and CEO Paul Ryan defended the firm’s actions and argued that there is no conspiracy against open source coming from his firm.

“IP Innovation is not attempting to inject itself in the ongoing philosophical debate of whether products or services which utilize open source are subject to the same intellectual property laws/behaviors as non-open source offerings,” Ryan said in the statement. “Acacia and its subsidiaries do not philosophically differentiate any company, but rather seek to consistently and fairly monetize patent rights from those companies which incorporate patented technology.”

The company also dismissed allegations that Microsoft somehow is using Acacia as a kind of proxy to fight a patent battle against Linux. A pair of key Acacia employees recently joined the patent-holding firm from Microsoft.

Additionally, Groklaw notes that the patent involved is scheduled to expire on December 10, 2008. That could explain why Microsoft, who could easily afford to ensure that the case lasts longer than that, has not been made a target. It’s strangely reassuring to see that this probably doesn’t have anything to do with Open Source. That’s a sad indication of the state of the current situation.

–jeremy

Filed under Microsoft, Novell, Open Source, Red Hat

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