svn commit: samba-web r1071 - in trunk/news/articles/low_point: .

[deryck at samba.org]

Author: deryck
Date: 2007-01-17 20:23:44 +0000 (Wed, 17 Jan 2007)
New Revision: 1071

WebSVN: http://websvn.samba.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi?view=rev&root=samba-web&rev=1071

Log:

Adding new columns to Jeremy's Low Point archives.

deryck

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   trunk/news/articles/low_point/column18.html
   trunk/news/articles/low_point/column19.html
   trunk/news/articles/low_point/column20.html
   trunk/news/articles/low_point/column21.html
   trunk/news/articles/low_point/column22.html
   trunk/news/articles/low_point/column23.html
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   trunk/news/articles/low_point/index.html


Changeset:
Added: trunk/news/articles/low_point/column17.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/column17.html	2007-01-08 16:58:47 UTC (rev 1070)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/column17.html	2007-01-17 20:23:44 UTC (rev 1071)
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+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/header.html" -->
+  <title>The Low Point -- Jeremy Allison Column Archive -- Column 17</title>
+<!--#include virtual="jra_header2.html" -->
+
+<h3>Jeremy Allison Column Archives</h3>
+
+<h2>The Low Point &mdash; a View from the Valley &mdash; Column 17</h2>
+
+<h3>Reliability Rules</h3>
+
+<p>One of the most interesting parts of my job is reviewing previously proprietary software on behalf of my employer to decide if it's worth it to “Open Source” the code, and if so under what license it should be released. This isn't as easy as you might think. On the one hand, my Sheffield “Independent Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire” roots (sadly now long since deceased under “New” Labour, as far as I can tell from the distant view of California's Silicon Valley) push me into recommending the GPL for everything. The GNU General Public License forces all redistribution to include the full source code, thus satisfying my “share and share alike” socialist principles. </p>
+
+<p>On the other, to do a decent job for my employer (evil capitalists that all corporations are :-), I sometimes have to recognize that the GPL isn't always the correct license to use. When the desire is that certain software technology become ubiquitous for example it's much better to recommend a BSD (Berkley Software Distribution, one of the original UNIX authors) style of license, which essentially allows the software to be used as you wish except for claiming that you wrote it. </p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately sometimes the right answer is not to Open Source some code at all. There's no use “throwing source code over the corporate wall” as it's sometimes described, without an ecosystem of motivated programmers ready and interested in working with, maintaining, and extending it. The original release of Netscape's “Mozilla” browser code almost fell into that category: which would have been a catastrophe for the freedom and diversity of computing platforms on the Web. That source code release was widely derided as a failure for the first few years, and only the hard work of the dedicated group of programmers at the Mozilla foundation have preserved the ability to see <em>any</em> Web pages without first having to install a version of Windows in order to use Internet Explorer. The currently successful Firefox browser had a lonely and difficult childhood. Source code out on its own is a fragile thing, and like fine silk it rots with disuse. Having to say “no” to a well meaning and keen group of engineers who want to release some source code that has <strong>no</strong> chance of making it out there as a separate project is the hardest thing I ever have to do. </p>
+
+<p>It's a nasty job but someone has to do it, and at least it's something I have experience in, having done something similar at many previous companies. It also turns out it's a common task in many different software companies wrestling with the Open Source/Free Software phenomenon, as I have found out over the years talking with people doing the same job elsewhere. Engineers love to gossip, especially about other engineers and projects, which is how I learned something new about Open Source development recently. I'm not naming names in order to protect the parties I'm describing and I'm obscuring the details enough that hopefully no one will recognize themselves in the story I'm describing: the point I'm trying to make will hopefully still survive. </p>
+
+<p>A group of engineers wanted to release a large and incredibly useful piece of source code comprising a library. This wasn't source code without a history, a version of this library had been widely used within the company in question for many years, yet strangely, despite its usefulness, it had fallen into disuse and was no longer integrated into the projects that once had eagerly used it. In fact the other projects had forked off a version of the code and were maintaining it themselves. The latest version of the library was not being used in the company, and so the engineers wished to release it to the world in order that it not be lost in some dusty archive tape vault, never to be seen again. </p>
+
+<p>Let me be honest; this is the <em>worst</em> reason in the world to release source code and had I been on that companies review board I would have instantly recommended not releasing it. The reason is simple. If no one is using a library, just making it Open Source/Free Software isn't going to instantly generate a new set of eager programmers willing to embrace it. It's going to languish in obscurity and be left unused as another lesson for corporations in how not to engage the Open Source/Free Software community. But then according to my informant something unexpected happened. </p>
+
+<p>The internal projects who had been using earlier versions of the library and who had rejected the later version stepped forward and said “of course if this library is going to be Open Source things would be different”, and committed to use the Open Source version in their projects going forward. When I inquired what made the difference I was told they had felt that if it was Open Source then it was more reliable and they could assume it would be maintained for longer. This was unprecedented in my experience, and when I heard about it I started to wonder what it was that made then think that, and how it had happened ? </p>
+
+<p>The answer I came up with was based on my own experience developing proprietary software in the past. I have created software similar to this library, only to have it languish unused in the corporate vault of abandoned projects. Sometimes this was through no fault of my own, I had been moved to a different project, the company priorities had changed and the software just decayed in place, as does all unmaintained software. The engineers developing the internal projects must also have had such experiences, they're common to anyone working in proprietary software. In short, <em>they didn't trust their own corporate engineering process</em> to maintain the libraries they depended on. But they did trust the Open Source/Free Software development process to do so. </p>
+
+<p>Why is this ? Over the years I've worked with both proprietary and Open Source/Free Software I have seen the difference and it's mainly a difference in quality and accountability. No, this doesn't mean all Open Source software is superior to proprietary software, but on average I find that Open Source software is higher quality, and thus safer to commit to be used in other projects. The recent comparison of bugs per-line-of-code between proprietary and Open Source code done by the (ironically) proprietary software company Coverity have shown hard evidence for this, with Open Source code being proven measurably superior. This argument is nothing new, and misses the Freedom part of Free Software, something that Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation often point out. The accountability comes with knowing the actual names of the engineers who wrote and tested the code, and being able to communicate with them directly, as peers. It's the difference between the claim that “washing power brand X washes clothes <em>better</em>” with the implied “just trust us” and a peer-reviewed scientific study of detergents, at a more basic level the difference between science and “alchemy”. </p>
+
+<p>Open Source/Free Software is more <strong>reliable</strong>, in every use of the term, and it seems that more than just the people who develop it are starting to understand that.</p>
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0">
+<li>Jeremy Allison,</li>
+<li>Samba Team.</li>
+<li>San Jose, California.</li>
+<li>23rd May 2006.</li>
+</ul>
\ No newline at end of file

Added: trunk/news/articles/low_point/column18.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/column18.html	2007-01-08 16:58:47 UTC (rev 1070)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/column18.html	2007-01-17 20:23:44 UTC (rev 1071)
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/header.html" -->
+  <title>The Low Point -- Jeremy Allison Column Archive -- Column 18</title>
+<!--#include virtual="jra_header2.html" -->
+
+<h3>Jeremy Allison Column Archives</h3>
+
+<h2>The Low Point &mdash; a View from the Valley &mdash; Column 18</h2>
+
+<h3>Broadband Benefits</h3>
+
+<p>I've been traveling again this month, Seoul, South Korea this time. When I go to a place I've never been before I always try and look into how “technical” the place is (mainly so I can tell if I'll be able to check email from the hotel). Let's just say in Seoul my expectations were exceeded. Seoul is a very interesting city, with an incredibly dense population crowded together, but with areas of serene beauty like the Buddhist temple across the road from my hotel, whose tolling bell and flower-strewn paths were a peaceful refuge of calm in the frenzied activity surrounding me. </p>
+
+<p>It turns out South Korea has the largest broadband penetration of any Internet-enabled nation, at 78 percent of households with broadband. What's more, many of these connections are fiber-optic, meaning the amount of data they can transfer is staggering to those of us stuck on a wimpy six mega-bit per second DSL line. I didn't have to wait long when checking my email (even though the Internet charges at the hotel were, as usual, a complete rip-off). </p>
+
+<p>Interesting things can happen when data-rates change this much. The precedent for this is in the birth of the Free Software/Open Source movement itself. In the late 1980's, when Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation, he funded its activities by selling tapes of the source code for the software he wrote. I remember receiving such a tape when at Manchester University. That was a time where I was personally able to keep track of every single Free Software (no such thing as Open Source then) project in the world. Try and imagine a world where Free Software programmers had to communicate by sending each other batches of tapes, or uploading patches in the small number of kilobytes to isolated bulletin boards with no central connections, and that's the world where Free Software had its slow birth. </p>
+
+<p>What changed things was the Internet, and ubiquitous cheap communications bandwidth allowing programmers to quickly send source code changes to each other. The Usenet news groups were the first instance of this. Groups such as comp.sources.unix were some of first places that Free Software was exchanged. I remember seeing Linus's announcement of the start of the Linux project (“just a hobby, won't be big and professional, like GNU” he wrote) in the comp.os.minux news group. I do remember thinking “good luck, no one will bother with that”, just going to show how cloudy my own crystal ball is (so read all these columns with the appropriate grain of salt). Free Software/Open Source is now changing the face of software development, and it was only possible due to the ready availability of cheap communications bandwidth. </p>
+
+<p>So what will be the result of the availability of not just a few mega-bits per second of bandwidth, but up to 20 mega-bits per second or more available to everyone ? I know what the “content” industry would like to see: that is the new high-speed Internet as a new kind of television. Masses of passive consumers blindly downloading pay-per-view content packaged with Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to control their every viewing. I'm sure there'll be some of that, the lure of Hollywood movies and Cable television-like services are too strong to resist. But just like the Free Software/Open Source movements were unexpected beneficiaries of the new bandwidth availability I'm guessing there will be other collaborative endeavors that will be created from a high-bandwidth world. </p>
+
+<p>What can you do with high-bandwidth that you can't do with low ? The answer, as hinted at in the previous paragraph, is <em>video</em>. Collaborative video, impossible in a dial-up world, becomes intriguingly possible with a fiber-optic connected world. The first Open Source animated movie, “Elephants Dream”, has already been released, and if the history of Open Source software is any guide this is only going to be the first of many to come. The rise of the “mash-up”, where creative people take existing video art and re-mix and re-release it in an infinite variety of entertaining ways is another hint of what is in store. If you haven't already seen it I'd recommend downloading the re-mix of the movie trailer for Stanly Kubrick's horror movie “the Shining”, re-packaged as a trailer for a schmaltzy Hollywood comedy for a delightful view of the new kind of art that can come from this creativity. Web sites like www.youtube.com are becoming the new contact points for mass video collaboration. </p>
+
+<p>I'm going to stick my predictive neck out (hey, that's part of the fun of doing a column, looking back after a few years and being amazed at how wrong and naive you could be) and say I expect in the next year or two to see a smash-hit Open Source (or Creative Commons content, which is like the Open Source license for art instead of code) television show or movie become available over the Internet, bypassing the normal TV distribution channels. The science fiction fan-boys as usual are leading the way, with the absolutely awful “Star Trek: New Voyages” project (not the special effects or stories, the acting is awful of course) and the special effects obsessed “Star Wars: IMPS the Relentless” movie which spends a good fifteen minutes of its twenty or so minute running time on slow panning around CGI models of Star Wars ships to show how cool the Star Wars universe is. Heaven if you're a fan I suppose. Eventually some adult supervision will arrive and something genuinely new is going to bubble up from this sub-culture of Open Source art. There is precedent for it, the hit television show “South Park” started as an animated Christmas card emailed over the Internet.  </p>
+
+<p>Quite possibly it's going to happen in Korea first (or maybe Japan, which also has cheap and ubiquitous high-bandwidth connections to the home). The sad thing is it's less likely to happen in Europe or the USA due to the incredibly grasping and short sighted nature of our telecommunications monopolies, who are too busy trying to work out how to make people pay premium rates for “fast” traffic like voice and video on the common Internet to be interested in making high-bandwidth available to all with no restrictions on use. That's a subject for a future column. Still, as all our physical goods are now made in China maybe it's the future that all our video art, movies and television will come from collaborative artists working in Korea or Japan. As my brother always says, “No problem, in the future we'll just all earn a living selling each other haircuts over the Internet :-)”.</p>
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0">
+<li>Jeremy Allison,</li>
+<li>Samba Team.</li>
+<li>San Jose, California.</li>
+<li>25th June 2006.</li>
+</ul>
\ No newline at end of file

Added: trunk/news/articles/low_point/column19.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/column19.html	2007-01-08 16:58:47 UTC (rev 1070)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/column19.html	2007-01-17 20:23:44 UTC (rev 1071)
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/header.html" -->
+  <title>The Low Point -- Jeremy Allison Column Archive -- Column 19</title>
+<!--#include virtual="jra_header2.html" -->
+
+<h3>Jeremy Allison Column Archives</h3>
+
+<h2>The Low Point &mdash; a View from the Valley &mdash; Column 19</h2>
+
+<h3>In Search of Google</h3>
+
+<p>Since I've started working at home I don't get out to see people much, so an invitation to lunch at Google is always welcome. I know quite a few people there, as Google has sucked up much of the free-floating talent in the valley, and that includes many ex-colleagues from places like VA Linux and Silicon Graphics (SGI). Going to lunch at Google is always a strange experience for me, as the center of the Google campus is one of SGI's old buildings at Shoreline in Mountain View. As I walk across the courtyard I see the ghosts of old Friday afternoon SGI beer and barbecue parties where Google's volleyball court now stands. There are five on-campus restaurants each with its own five-star chef. The food of course is free.</p>
+
+<p>No one could accuse Google of being parsimonious with their employees. Driving onto the site I commonly see a van offering “Instant oil change” or “Internet haircuts” or other personal services camped out in the parking lot, which is always so full it's like trying to find a parking space at a busy shopping mall on Christmas Eve. As you get on-site, the generosity begins to seem ludicrous, such as the little motor powered scooters available for Googlers to get between buildings; heaven forbid they should have to walk anywhere. I suppose I should just be grateful they're not Segway tricycles, America's answer to the Sinclair C5, although I'd imagine class-conscious Californians would rather crawl on hands and knees than be seen balancing on the vehicle Steve Jobs declared would be “bigger than the Internet”.</p>
+
+<p>Money just drips out of the pores of the place. It's everywhere: in the larger than life technology displays, or the multiple flat screen hi-resolution monitors everyone uses, or even the small touches like the extra laptop power supplies generously provided in every conference room; permanently connected so you don't have to stoop down to plug into a power point below the desk. Who knew Internet advertising could be so profitable ? To give them some credit though, their Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is one of the easiest to refuse when you sign in, you just have to hit the “Escape” key after signing your name to get a “visitor” badge. Things like that are important to a Free Software developer who doesn't want to be accused of stealing any of Google's secrets. </p>
+
+<p>It reminds me of the glory days of the Dot-Com technology bubble, where how many different kinds of soda you provided free to your employees was more important than the company business plan. After all – the Venture Capitalists would give money to everyone. I do worry about how things will be at Google when the money gets tight. And the money <em>always</em> gets tight. I've played the role of Banquo's ghost at enough Silicon Valley startup feasts to know how these stories can end. </p>
+
+<p>People often compare Google to “the next Microsoft”, and in some ways that's very true, especially in the appalling way they treat any of the press who are impudent enough to criticize them. But I visited a little up at Microsoft, back in the early 1990's and they never treated their employees this well. There was always an innate meanness at Microsoft, a sense that although things were good “this couldn't last”, and money had to be saved, just in case. I have since read, and easily believe, that Bill Gates had a gnawing fear that Microsoft had to be able to survive for a year without any revenue. Not just without profit, but without actual revenue. There was palpable hostility between different development teams on the Microsoft campus. You always got the feeling that the Microsoft Word team didn't care about beating WordPerfect (their once mighty competitor), they just wanted to get one over on the Microsoft Excel team by grabbing more market share in their field than Excel did. The company was a group of warring tribes only held together by the force of will of the Great Khan Gates. </p>
+
+<p>Google employees just don't seem have this level of aggression. People there are, well, nice. The campus is nice, the food is better than nice, the weather is nice (hey, it's California). Many employees still use Windows on their desktop. In contrast, one thing Microsoft never does is underestimate the competition. Google don't seem to have learned yet that a dollar spent on a Windows license is a dollar being reinvested in destroying them. Maybe there's a hidden Google SWAT Team training somewhere for the fight to come but you don't see them conducting field exercises on the Volleyball court. </p>
+
+<p>Some Googlers get it. The Open Source people, the smart ones, the ones you can thank for the Linux versions of Google Earth, and the graphical software Picasa, and of course for the Google sponsored “Summer of Code” program. Summer of Code is a program designed to encourage vacationing Computer Science students to spend that time writing more Open Source software instead of lounging on the beach in Cabos San Lucas. It's one of the most far-sighted and efficient ways to spend money on improving Open Source code I've ever seen. Donating money on Open Source projects is usually counter productive, but this is a way of dumping source code on them instead, which is what they actually need. A big thanks to Google's Chris DiBona for that. Google runs on Linux, but they don't see the need to evangelize it to their own customers. I think that's a big mistake. </p>
+
+<p>I once asked some Google people what they would do when Microsoft Vista, the next version of Windows, was released upon which people would strangely find it difficult to get to google.com anymore. In my naïveté I thought Microsoft would have to use some technical obfuscation to prevent people from getting to google.com. It turns out all they had to do was to change the default search page to point at their own search engine, MSN search, and people wouldn't know how to change the default. Microsoft never lost money underestimating the intelligence of their users. I didn't get a good answer from the Googlers, and now I know what they had decided to do about it. Google recently complained to the USA Department of Justice about Microsoft's actions in Windows Vista, and their complaints were summarily dismissed. These is the same Department of Justice which snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the Microsoft vs. the USA anti-trust case, so it wasn't a surprise. I did think Google might have something a little smarter up their sleeve though. Maybe they only hire technical, not legal PhDs. </p>
+
+<p>But it's very hard to compete with a series of warring tribes, who consider violations of anti-trust law just one of the trivial costs of doing business, who have a war chest large enough to go a year without revenue, and who donate far more to the US Republican party than Google does. </p>
+
+<p>I really hope Google makes it though, and they don't turn out to be a one-trick Internet Advertising pony. The people there are so nice they deserve better than that. And where will I get a decent free lunch without them ?</p>
+
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0">
+<li>Jeremy Allison,</li>
+<li>Samba Team.</li>
+<li>San Jose, California.</li>
+<li>20th July 2006.</li>
+</ul>
\ No newline at end of file

Added: trunk/news/articles/low_point/column20.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/column20.html	2007-01-08 16:58:47 UTC (rev 1070)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/column20.html	2007-01-17 20:23:44 UTC (rev 1071)
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/header.html" -->
+  <title>The Low Point -- Jeremy Allison Column Archive -- Column 20</title>
+<!--#include virtual="jra_header2.html" -->
+
+<h3>Jeremy Allison Column Archives</h3>
+
+<h2>The Low Point &mdash; a View from the Valley &mdash; Column 20</h2>
+
+<h3>Fear and Loathing in Cupertino</h3>
+
+<p><em>“We were somewhere outside Silicon Valley, when the marketing message began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive..." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge lawyers in black turtlenecks, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Cupertino.”</em></p>
+
+<p>I get invited to give lots of talks at conferences; it's part of the job really. I tend to turn down most of them: unless it's something that has a clear connection with Samba, or it's a place I've never been before, or it's somewhere I have to go anyway. This is why I almost always speak at Linux World London in order to get a free trip to see the Sheffield relatives. </p>
+
+<p>So I wasn't too surprised when I got an invitation to speak at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco. The timing was a little inconvenient. Linux World, which was also in San Francisco, was scheduled for the week after. Due to being the host of the Golden Penguin Bowl quiz show, this is the most stressful part of my year. Creating the costumes and questions is <em>hard</em>. But because it was Apple, and I was asked by an engineering manager there I get on with very well, I decided to do it. </p>
+
+<p>Historically I've had a “love-hate” relationship with Apple. They love themselves and I hate them. But since they've adopted FreeBSD, a Free Software operating system, for the basis of MacOS X and also started to ship Samba as part of their basic software packages, I've had a lot more time for them. I even try and make sure they get notified of any Samba security problems ahead of time so they don't get blindsided if we have to release a security patch. </p>
+
+<p>I negotiated with the manager which one of my current technical talks I was going to give, and he seemed happy enough with the content; even though it was the same talk I was planning to use at Linux World the next week. I was pretty sure I could get away with it as the attendees at an Apple show wouldn't be seen dead slumming it at a Linux conference. All seemed well until I got a strange email message asking me to turn up for a “rehearsal” meeting in Cupertino the next week. </p>
+
+<p>Rehearsals in the technical trade show talk circuit are unheard of. Normally you just turn up on the day, give your talk and then hang out eating the free food in the speaker room. I don't even get a rehearsal slot for the Golden Penguin show, which is another reason it's so damn stressful. I don't get a chance to try out the scripted jokes before I have to do them in front of a live audience (don't tell me you thought I <em>improvised</em> that stuff). Still I try to be cooperative so I agreed to spend the afternoon at the Apple Campus in Cupertino. </p>
+
+<p>I showed up on a beautiful sunny California afternoon, with my laptop in hand. I was feeling quite pleased with myself as I'd just got the new SuSE 3-D OpenGL Linux desktop working on it, and was looking forward to showing off to the Apple engineers with the spinning cube, wobbly windows, built-in zoom function and other pointless eye-candy effects. It's a nice change to have the most attractive looking desktop on a Linux box; previously us poor Linux users used to look hungrily at the feast of Apple desktop effects on display on a Mac. </p>
+
+<p>After introductions I went along to the presentation room where I met the other Apple engineers speaking in the “Network Improvements” section of the show. It was an impressive line up with Brent Callaghan (one of the designers of NFSv3) and Guy Harris, who is also one of the main coders working on the Ethereal network sniffer. They both liked the flashy new OpenGL desktop. But there was a guy sat at the back of the room I wasn't immediately introduced to. He didn't say much, and I soon forgot he was there. Until the presentations began. </p>
+
+<p>I was scheduled last, so got to watch Brent, Guy, and others do their stuff. But they didn't get five minutes into their slides before the chap at the back chimed up. He criticized <em>everything</em>. No detail was too small for him to bring up and request changes, from the font sizes to the exact meanings of the words they'd used on their slides. He was from Apple <em>Marketing</em>. I waited my turn, then stood up, connected my Linux Laptop to the projector and gave my usual spiel. There was a short pause as I awaited the response. </p>
+
+<p>“Very nice, very nice” he cooed. “You've obviously done this before. What does everyone else think ?”. </p>
+
+<p>“Well we like it, that's why we asked him”, said Brent. Thank you, thank you, I worded silently to myself. </p>
+
+<p>“But you'll have to change all your slides, and run the presentation on a Mac, of course.” finished Mr. Marketing. </p>
+
+<p>“I don't think so”, I replied. </p>
+
+<p>The temperature in the room dropped several degrees. He fixed me with a glassy-eyed stare. Apple and I were at war. </p>
+
+<p>“Then you won't be allowed to present at our show”. </p>
+
+<p>I suddenly realized. He thought they were doing me a favor by <em>allowing</em> me to present there. “So this is what they mean by 'faith-based' marketing”, I thought. And with that, the meeting was over. </p>
+
+<p>I should explain that I commonly add bits of movie stills or posters, or photos I've found (and sometimes modified) on the Internet to my slides in order to liven them up for the audience. Technical talks are deadly dull without something to amuse. In my opinion this falls under the “fair use” of Copyright law. Apple had other ideas about that, but then again this is the company that promotes the widest use of “Digital Restrictions Management” (DRM) in the world. Apple revenues depend on copyright lock-down and removal of fair use rights from customers. What else is their iTunes Internet music store but a perfect example of this. </p>
+
+<p>One of the downsides of being invited to give lots of talks at conferences, is that if you're not careful you might start thinking of yourself as someone who has the <em>right</em> to present at conferences, someone who is <em>important</em>. Or as my wife likes to tell me, “you arrogant pig!”. I know too many Open Source project leaders who are very smart, but have horrible personality problems (arrogance being one of the most obvious faults). People in this line of work should remember that we're really plumbers, whose work is appreciated best when it's not noticed at all. Because it just works. No one thinks about inviting a plumber until the toilet overflows. </p>
+
+<p>So in that spirit I called the engineering manager at Apple and compromised. “I'll remove the material your marketing people are worried about from the slides, and I'll replace it with something I'll create instead”. Sometimes it's handy to be able to use the Gimp (the Gnu Image Manipulation Program). But I didn't want to compromise on running the presentation on my Linux laptop. “It's like this”, I explained, “Novell paid for the work I'm talking about, they sponsored all of it by paying me. It doesn't seem right for Apple, who are just using this work for free after all, to require I advertise an Apple product when I present it. Plus, my desktop is much cooler”. </p>
+
+<p>“No problem”, he said. “I'm sure we'll get this sorted out before the conference. I'll talk to marketing”. </p>
+
+<p>It wasn't enough. I ended up going on a customer trip to St. Louis instead, to fix some problems with the Samba integration on the desktop. Good honest plumbing work, the kind I get paid for. </p>
+
+<p>It wasn't until later, giving the same presentation at Linux World that I'd missed giving at the Apple show, that I realized that Apple were <em>scared</em> of the SuSE Linux desktop I was using. They didn't want customers to see anything other than Apple-badged everything at their show. Especially if it was something better. They were scared of their customers even seeing a choice. </p>
+
+<p>There are other companies who behave like this, and thinking about it I understood. Apple is a <em>record</em> company. Just look at iTunes and the iPod and it becomes obvious. They'll be much happier when they can get rid of all this troublesome computer stuff and get down to the core business of record companies, which is suing their own customers. </p>
+
+<p>Now if you'll excuse me I've got to empty the trunk of my car. I never did get to the ether.</p>
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0">
+<li>Jeremy Allison,</li>
+<li>Samba Team.</li>
+<li>San Jose, California.</li>
+<li>26th August 2006.</li>
+</ul>

Added: trunk/news/articles/low_point/column21.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/column21.html	2007-01-08 16:58:47 UTC (rev 1070)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/column21.html	2007-01-17 20:23:44 UTC (rev 1071)
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/header.html" -->
+  <title>The Low Point -- Jeremy Allison Column Archive -- Column 21</title>
+<!--#include virtual="jra_header2.html" -->
+
+<h3>Jeremy Allison Column Archives</h3>
+
+<h2>The Low Point &mdash; a View from the Valley &mdash; Column 21</h2>
+
+<h3>That was the year that was</h3>
+
+<p>Back in the last century, the Nineteen Eighties if any other readers can remember that far back, the UK was full of a wide assortment of computer magazines. They became so popular many of them even published weekly editions. I must have purchased and read all of them, feeding my nascent but rapidly growing computer addiction. One of their favorite questions which I remember them asking every few months are so, was “Is this year going to be the year of the LAN ?” (that's “Local Area Network” for you youngsters). Statistics were given about the number of computers sold with and without network cards, and how many it was estimated were connected up to a local file and print server, and if this would grow over the years. </p>
+
+<p>Looking back this has to be the most ridiculous computer question imaginable. Recently I had to go visit the corporate offices of my employer Novell, in Provo, Utah. The hotel I usually stay in has free wireless as part of the service, but not this time. The local network was down. “We've called someone in India” was all the staff could tell me about the estimated fix date. They didn't get it fixed during the week I was there. During the evenings I didn't even bother to turn my Linux laptop on. A computer without a network connection has now become a useless paperweight, not even worth powering up. “Is this the year of the LAN” now makes as much sense as “Is this the year of the telephone”. </p>
+
+<p>All computer magazines are now available over the Internet of course. I can't remember the last time I picked up a print copy (excepting the esteemed journal you're holding in your hands, gentle reader :-). They still love asking questions, the latest flavor of which is “Is this year going to be the year of the Linux Desktop ?”. I predict in ten or so years this will be just as stupid a question as the year of the LAN. </p>
+
+<p>I'm not one of these mad street prophets of the Open Source/Free Software world who will tell you that Microsoft Windows will have disappeared in a magical act of rationality by all its current users. That's about as likely as all of the users in the Matrix waking up at the same time and deciding that being used as a power source for malignant software was a bad management decision. Monopolies that are so entrenched are almost impossible to dislodge, even as they start to eat all the other occupants of their ecosystem.  </p>
+
+<p>Look at the current Anti-trust complaints about Microsoft adding competing security features in Windows Vista from their current Security software partners. Nothing has changed from the Netscape or Borland days (there are too many Microsoft ex-competitors to list more than a few here). Microsoft is still using the same methods to remove the competition they used in the last century, poaching their competitors employees and denying access to Windows internal API's. Despite all of this Microsoft's competitors on the Windows platform still find it easier to go out of business than they do to take the radical step of writing software for a different platform. </p>
+
+<p>I think the Linux vendors are going to try their hardest to move into the current Windows desktop space; it's just that it's a really hard place to enter. Without trying to turn this column into an advertisement for my employer, Novell probably has the best Linux desktop offering right now. I know this as part of my job is to help to create technologies within Samba to enable integration with Windows, such as single sign-on with Microsoft's Active Directory. This code goes directly into Novell's Linux desktop product, Active Directory integration is essential for a modern business desktop. Don't worry, I haven't lost my principles: everything I write is Free Software and I fully expect other Linux desktop vendors to pick up and use this code as soon as they do their own QA testing and integration. </p>
+
+<p>But even given the best integration technologies in the world, the business desktop is heavily locked into Microsoft. To give an example, one company I know of (who shall remain nameless) has an essential business application that not only requires Microsoft Internet Explorer to function, but actually requires a (now obsolete) specific version of Microsoft's Java Virtual machine in order to work. Try replacing that with a Linux desktop client without having to rewrite everything. The promise of the open Internet betrayed by thousands of Win32/ActiveX/Microsoft Java developers (all technologies locked into Windows desktops if you're not familiar with the acronyms) who just didn't care about interoperability. </p>
+
+<p>I don't expect Linux to get more than maybe ten percent of the desktops in the developed business world. That number will probably be higher in the developing countries, as World Trade Organization (WTO) rules start forcing places like China to pretend to get serious about unlicensed software. Microsoft are too smart to start forcing the issue however. They know full well the alternative to unlicensed copies of Windows is fully legal copies of Linux, and they'd much prefer the stolen copies of Windows on developing country desktops than their nightmare of a developing country with no possibility of paying their software “dues” to Microsoft. </p>
+
+<p>The reason I think “The year of the Linux Desktop” will be a silly question in ten years is that by that time most of our interaction with computers won't be via the increasingly antiquated desktop metaphor. Embedded devices, starting with mobile phones and spreading out to include cars, televisions, multi-media games, presentations and uses I can't even imagine yet, will become the dominant method of accessing data and information online. Embedded devices with the capability to become information kiosks, phones, “internet terminals” (whatever that will mean in ten years) will reduce the idea of a multifunction business “desktop” to the same quaint idea that everyone would need their own personal secretary. It's a luxury, and one that most businesses won't be able to afford for any but their most expensive employees. The desktop computer simply is too flexible, and does too much for it to be a useful interface device in a world where a disconnected device is an expensive paperweight. </p>
+
+<p>Windows won't become a monopoly in this space. Microsoft's prices are too high, and the overhead of the increasingly bloated Windows operating system will prevent it. Even if Windows can be cut down, Microsoft keep such tight control of it that they won't allow their external programming community the flexibility to change it in the ways it would need to be changed to succeed. Doomed devices like the “Windows Media Center” only go to show how little like a television the desktop computer really is. </p>
+
+<p>But standards are still needed in programming interfaces in order to achieve the economies of scale needed for ubiquitous embedded computing. The only other possibility in this embedded space is Linux. The GNU GPL licensing keeps it from being hijacked by a dominant vendor, as could happen to a similar system such as FreeBSD, and ensures that the base system is a standard platform all can build upon. Once a manufacturer such as Nokia adopts Linux for mobile phones, the number of Linux devices will dwarf any other platform. </p>
+
+<p>I can imagine the guides in the computer history museum in Mountain View showing the crowd of tomorrow around with the introduction “and now we're going to see a computer so primitive it needed to take up your whole desk !”. </p>
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0">
+<li>Jeremy Allison,</li>
+<li>Samba Team.</li>
+<li>San Jose, California.</li>
+<li>30th September 2006.</li>
+</ul>
+

Added: trunk/news/articles/low_point/column22.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/column22.html	2007-01-08 16:58:47 UTC (rev 1070)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/column22.html	2007-01-17 20:23:44 UTC (rev 1071)
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/header.html" -->
+  <title>The Low Point -- Jeremy Allison Column Archive -- Column 22</title>
+<!--#include virtual="jra_header2.html" -->
+
+<h3>Jeremy Allison Column Archives</h3>
+
+<h2>The Low Point &mdash; a View from the Valley &mdash; Column 22</h2>
+
+<h3>Signs and Portents</h3>
+
+<p>I go on one small trip to LinuxWorld London, and the whole Open Source/Free Software business landscape changes whilst I'm away. It's very disconcerting and a lot of change to keep track of, especially whilst being on the road. I'm talking about the Oracle announcement about Red Hat, and the Microsoft/Novell partnership deal. </p>
+
+<p>Let's talk about the Oracle announcement first. In case you have been living under a rock for the past month (or like me, at your brother's house in Sheffield) Oracle announced they would directly compete with Red Hat in the Linux support businesses. The wrinkle is, they are going to do it using Red Hat's <em>own</em> Linux software, not by creating “Oracle Linux”. They're planning to undercut the price Red Hat charges for Enterprise support by fifty percent. What allows them to do this without legal issues of course is the GNU GPL license that much of a Linux distribution is distributed under. The GNU GPL gives Oracle the <em>same</em> distribution rights to the software that Red Hat has. </p>
+
+<p>People used to claim that the GNU GPL license was anti-competitive. I think for the first time we're beginning to see what a truly free market in software might look like. It looks pretty good for the customers actually. Here we have two global companies, admittedly one much larger than the other, competing to support the same software. Imagine if you had an option in where you could buy support for bugs in Microsoft software. I think the prices for Windows Vista and other new offerings might be significantly lower for the customers, instead of an effective price rise by releasing six new versions of Winodws, only the most expensive of which will be useful for many customers. </p>
+
+<p>The nasty part of the Oracle announcement however, is that Red Hat <em>created</em> the software distribution that Oracle is offering to support. Note that Red Hat didn't write all of it, but they are the people who integrated it and did the testing to make sure it all works together. Some would say that Oracle is leaching off Red Hat's work, and is merely trying to damage Red Hat enough to make them an easy take-over target. </p>
+
+<p>Business in Silicon Valley can be pretty brutal. Red Hat recently bought the JBoss company, that rumor had it Oracle was interested in. Rumor also has it that this latest announcement from Oracle is a form of payback for Red Hat snatching Oracle's prize from its jaws. Larry Ellison (the founder of Oracle) isn't known for his polite businesses tactics. This should be a lot of fun to watch going forward. </p>
+
+<p>To be honest I don't really fear for Red Hat. They created their own distribution, and have been successfully supporting it for a long time. If Oracle thinks they can do better they are welcome to try, but if they're doing this just as a strategy to punish Red Hat for some previous slight they suffered then I think they won't have the commitment needed to follow this though. As another Open Source evangelist working at a large company here in the Valley said of Oracle's plan; “Sometimes intent <em>matters</em>”. If they're doing it just to screw over Red Hat rather than truly moving into the Linux business then I think they'll fail. </p>
+
+<p>The other change that occurred is more difficult for me to discuss. Being completely honest, this is the first time that my job has seriously interfered with me expressing my opinions freely in this column or elsewhere. In case you didn't know Novell is my employer, and so although I need to talk about this important event, I am going to be very clear that everything I say here is my own opinion and not that of Novell. As I like to say when talking about Samba and working for Novell, Novell don't speak for Samba, so I don't speak for them. </p>
+
+<p>Novell signed a co-operation agreement with Microsoft around interoperability, virtualization, and also a patent covenant with Microsoft to protect Novell's customers from any lawsuits from Microsoft, and to protect Microsoft's customers from lawsuits from Novell. I am extremely happy with some aspects of the agreement, mainly in that it shows that Microsoft has finally turned a corner and has stopped calling Linux a “cancer” and “communism” but has finally begun to try and make money from it. I have actually argued with them that they should do that for years, and have tried to suggest ways to Microsoft executives that they can start sharing in the same advantages that Open Source/Free Software brings that other software companies have achieved. </p>
+
+<p>But they have to do it on the terms of Free Software/Open Source, not enforced terms. In other words, they have to learn to share and agree on the terms of the GNU GPL licensing. Something that all other companies benefiting from Free Software/Open Source have learned and agreed to do. Without going in to too much detail I'm not sure that they've done that in the patent covenant part of the agreement. </p>
+
+<p>Happily the Samba Team has no such prohibitions on expressing our opinions, and so the join opinion of the Samba Team may be read online here : </p>
+
+<p><a href="http://news.samba.org/announcements/team_to_novell/">http://news.samba.org/announcements/team_to_novell/</a></p>
+
+<p>Just to give you an idea of the opinion from the title, it's “Samba Team Asks Novell to Reconsider”. </p>
+
+<p>Finally I'll regain my geek credentials by reminding readers of an episode of the wonderful Sci-Fi series “Babylon 5”. It's strangely appropriate to this situation. Microsoft's Mr. Morden asks Ambassador Londo Mollari of the Centauri an interesting question. I'll repeat the exchange here : </p>
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none">
+<li><strong>Morden</strong>: “But what do you want?”</li>
+<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0432867/">Ambassador Londo Mollari</a>: “Do you really want to know what I want? Do you really want to know the truth? I want my people to reclaim their rightful place in the galaxy. I want to see the Centauri stretch forth their hand again and command the stars. I want a rebirth of glory, a renaissance of power! I want to stop running through my life like a man late for an appointment, afraid to look back or look forward. I want us to be what we used to be! I want... I want it all back the way it was. Does that answer your question?”</li>
+<li>Morden: “Yes. Yes it does.” </li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>All Babylon 5 fans know how that turned out for the Centauri. If you don't, I enthusiastically suggest you check out the DvDs of the show. Many hours happy TV watching, and you'll polish your own geek credentials too.</p>
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0">
+<li>Jeremy Allison,</li>
+<li>Samba Team.</li>
+<li>San Jose, California.</li>
+<li>12th November 2006.</li>
+</ul>

Added: trunk/news/articles/low_point/column23.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/column23.html	2007-01-08 16:58:47 UTC (rev 1070)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/column23.html	2007-01-17 20:23:44 UTC (rev 1071)
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/news/header.html" -->
+  <title>The Low Point -- Jeremy Allison Column Archive -- Column XXX</title>
+<!--#include virtual="jra_header2.html" -->
+
+<h3>Jeremy Allison Column Archives</h3>
+
+<h2>The Low Point &mdash; a View from the Valley &mdash; Column XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>There is a light that never goes out</h3>
+
+<p class="credit">“..as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.”-- Benjamin Franklin. </p>
+
+<p>Microsoft has been in the Linux news again, with their Tony Soprano-like CEO Steve Ballmer claiming “the fact that Linux uses our intellectual property is a problem for our shareholders”. Problem indeed, as if this were true then Microsoft is not getting paid for their “Intellectual Property” by all those millions of infringing Linux users out there. That means you, especially if you're reading this magazine. It definitely includes me. I don't remember sending my tribute to “Capo” Ballmer for all my Linux installs, and he thinks I owe him. </p>
+
+<p>But “Intellectual Property” is a weasel phrase. It covers several different things, each of which is treated very differently in terms of property rights. For software this can mean trade secrets, copyright or patents. Let's look at each in turn and see how Microsoft accounting can get creative and determine how much we all owe them for being presumptuous enough to be using Free Software not developed by them. </p>
+
+<p>Trade secrets first. These are the most simple to cover, they mean things like the “secret” formula for Coca-Cola, or the “secret” blend of herbs and spices in Kentucky Fried Chicken (mostly flour and grease if you ask me). The main thing to remember about trade secrets is that they're <em>secret</em>. If they get published then they're not “intellectual property” any more because they're not secret. There are many ways for these to get published. One way can be seen in the way my own software project Samba reveals the trade secrets of the Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol we use to communicate with Microsoft servers and clients. The parts we work out and publish in our code aren't trade secrets any more, and there's nothing Microsoft can do about it. </p>
+
+<p>Copyright next. The actual author of any piece of software code owns the copyright on it – literally the rights to copy that piece of code. Most employees of a corporation assign that copyright to their employer, who commissioned it as a “work for hire”. For proprietary software the users of it have to take it on trust that the corporation selling them the software actually has the right to make copies of it. Many lawsuits between proprietary software companies have ensued over proving this very fact. With Free Software the history of the code is much easier to see, as most projects keep excellent historical source code control. The name of every submitter is known (and usually their corporate address). Many projects (the GNU Projects for example) keep much better records than that. So the only way Microsoft could claim ownership of any parts of the Linux kernel or any other parts of a Linux distribution is if actual Microsoft code had been maliciously copied into Linux. This is exactly the claim that SCO made about IBM (that they'd copied SCO copyright code into Linux) which is finally being laughed out of court as SCO have <strong>no</strong> evidence for this. </p>
+
+<p>Once you examine the code, copyright infringement is very easy to see and prove. Of course Free Software is very easy for anyone to examine, the code being published. If Microsoft had any actual evidence that Linux had used any Microsoft copyright code they wouldn't be making idle threats about it, they'd be breaking out the champagne up in Redmond and toasting the demise of their only competition. So I think we can rule this out. </p>
+
+<p>Finally, and the real meat of the argument, is software patents. The original intent of the patent system was to encourage inventors to reveal their trade secrets and thus encourage the sharing of knowledge for the benefit of all humanity. How do you get people to reveal trade secrets without being forced to ? Simple, the government (on behalf of the people of course) offers them a deal. The person (and this also includes “natural persons” in US law, ie. Corporations) is granted a time-limited monopoly to license for a fee whatever trade secret they reveal <em>no matter if anyone else came up with the same idea independently</em>. </p>
+
+<p>On the surface this seems very reasonable. Of course you'd want to make sure that the trade secret ideas being revealed really were secret and valuable, so that people couldn't claim patents on “obvious” things. That's the job of the patent office. Initially software-based inventions were not allowed as patentable, but after a particularly confusing US Supreme Court judgment in the 1980's the patent office was forced to allow “computer based inventions”. Not having any experience in software the patent office started allowing some extremely obvious ideas to be granted the status of a patented monopoly. One of the most egregious caused AutoDesk, creator of the “AutoCAD” design software to have to pay $25,000 to license a patent covering a mathematical operation used to display a cursor on a screen that essentially can be described as “one or the other but not both” (the XOR operation). </p>
+
+<p>Why is software different from a physical “widget” like a new car component that can be patented ? As usual, Richard Stallman the creator of the GNU GPL license explains it best :  </p>
+
+<blockquote><em>“When we programmers put a while statement inside an if statement, we don't have to worry about whether the while statement will run such a long time that it will burn out the if statement, or that it will rub against the if statement and wear it out. We don't have to worry that it will vibrate at the wrong speed and the if statement will resonate and crack. We don't have to worry about physical replacement of the broken if statement. We don't have to worry about whether the if statement can deliver enough current to the while statement without a voltage drop. There are many problems of hardware design that we don't have to worry about.”</em></blockquote>
+
+<p>It's this freedom from physical constraints that allows programmers to create software of almost unimaginable complexity compared to objects in the physical world. With the number of bad software patents now in existence any program performing any non-trivial operation probably infringes on tens if not hundreds of existing software patents, the Linux kernel certainly must. Even if every part of that program is a wholly original work by the authors of that code this is no defense against infringing a patent. And patents are granted for a <strong>twenty year</strong> term. Little software lasts for that long, it's usually obsolete long before that, making software patents a lifetime monopoly to control and destroy any competitors to the patent holder. Good for the sharing of human knowledge indeed. </p>
+
+<p>Microsoft over recent years have become one of the strongest proponents of software patents, using their lobbying muscle to try and extend the US concept that software can be patented to the European Union and all other places in the world that currently disallow patents on software. Steve Ballmer's demand for “money with menaces” from Linux users is connected to Microsoft's patent portfolio, and the use they hope to make of it to scare Linux users into paying up. </p>
+
+<p>So what to do ? Certainly don't pay up, for one thing. Don't be scared into changing your current Linux distribution for one that claims to offer patent “protection” from Microsoft. Currently Microsoft is making much of the patent threat by not being specific about what patents they think Linux distributions are violating. There's a reason for that. As soon as they reveal the actual patents they claim are being violated those patents will come under intense legal scrutiny. Most software patents are completely invalid, being covered by “prior art” (previous, non-patented use of the same technique) or simply just by being completely obvious and non-innovative in their claims. In addition to this it may be easy to avoid violating any given patent by changing any infringing code to use a different, non-patented technique. </p>
+
+<p>As soon as Microsoft reveals it's hand a host of Free Software programmers and supporting companies and lawyers will be swarming over the claims to disprove, dismiss or simply code around the problem. You might as well let them do the work for you (just like you do with the software). I would encourage any US Linux users to make a donation to either the Free Software Foundation or the Software Freedom Law Center though, as these foundations will be the ones leading any defense you might end up needing. </p>
+
+<p>It's a funny situation, but it seems that Microsoft's patent portfolio is only valuable so long as their claims are surrounded by fear, doubt, and secrecy. Which is a little odd when dealing with ideas that are supposed to help share and increase the sum of human knowledge isn't it ? </p>
+
+<p class="credit">"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it."-- Margaret Fuller</p>
+
+<ul style="list-style-type:none;margin:0;padding:0">
+<li>Jeremy Allison,</li>
+<li>Samba Team.</li>
+<li>San Jose, California.</li>
+<li>3rd December 2006.</li>
+</ul>
\ No newline at end of file

Modified: trunk/news/articles/low_point/index.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/news/articles/low_point/index.html	2007-01-08 16:58:47 UTC (rev 1070)
+++ trunk/news/articles/low_point/index.html	2007-01-17 20:23:44 UTC (rev 1071)
@@ -26,6 +26,13 @@
   <li><a href="column14.html">Column 14 &mdash; Why we fight</a></li>  
   <li><a href="column15.html">Column 15 &mdash; Embedded in a hospital</a></li>  
   <li><a href="column16.html">Column 16 &mdash; "Trusted" Computing</a></li>  
+  <li><a href="column17.html">Column 17 &mdash; Reliability Rules</a></li>
+  <li><a href="column18.html">Column 18 &mdash; Broadband Benefits</a></li>  
+  <li><a href="column19.html">Column 19 &mdash; In Search of Google</a></li>  
+  <li><a href="column20.html">Column 20 &mdash; Fear and Loathing in Cupertino</a></li>  
+  <li><a href="column21.html">Column 21 &mdash; That was the year that was</a></li>  
+  <li><a href="column22.html">Column 22 &mdash; Signs and Portents</a></li>  
+  <li><a href="column23.html">Column 23 &mdash; There is a light that never goes out</a></li>  
 </ul>
 
 <p>The following article was rewritten for publication in