Brian W. Carver -- Share Alike

First Week of Law School

People apparently keep asking my wife if I am enjoying law school. (I haven't spent much time on the phone myself.) She doesn't know how to answer, and perhaps I don't either yet, because what I've mainly been saying is that I am surprised at just how time-consuming it is thus far. I haven't yet found the work to be difficult conceptually or intellectually brain-bending in some way that makes your head hurt, but I have found there to be A LOT of work. I wonder when it is a 1L is intended to sleep? Perhaps the enjoyment will come once a couple things fall into place: 1) I get a better idea of how much preparation of the material is necessary to constitute an adequate understanding (and maybe even mastery!) of it for class discussions and the exams. 2) My classmates and I get to know each other better and develop firmer friendships. I think if either of these things occur, it will turn into downright enjoyment. Right now survival seems more pressing... [Note: a previous entry about how screwed up patent laws are seems to have been lost. When I get over the frustration of lost labor, perhaps I'll post it again.]

SCO's Code Revelation Smashed by Slashdotters

Check this out. The Slashdot Discussion of SCO's peek at the allegedly offending code is an amazing illustration of the power of the internet. SCO claims some of their copyrighted code has been stolen and put into Linux. When they finally offer up a public view of the allegedly offending code, it takes only a matter of hours before thousands of geeks worldwide have shown that the code is actually over 30 years old and either in the public domain or already licensed under a free software license. In fact, the prior incarnations of SCO even gave away this code for free on their own website! All the links are in the discussion, but it is a strong first glimpse at how pathetic the chances are that SCO can sustain their case against IBM, et al. This army of Linux defenders will dissect every piece of evidence they can get their hands on, and IF their is found to be some truly stolen code, the predictions that it will be mere hours or weeks before kernel developers write suitable replacements also seems extraordinarily certain. The power of a motivated internet-organized community to do distributed research projects is greater than most people (and apparently SCO) realize... Update: 8/19 Bruce Perens has a great summary of the history of this code.

Know about Sherman Austin?

If you don't know what your government is doing in your name, then read this interview with Sherman Austin who is going to spend a year in Federal Prison because he hosted a web site the FBI (and his judge) didn't like. Somehow they read his mind and discovered evil intentions. Judge for yourself whether this is the guy you want in prison. Keep in mind that those Enron Execs that helped trash the economy remain unindicted...

FSF GNU GPL Conference

Friday I attended the Free Software Licensing and the GNU GPL conference at Stanford's Law School (mentioned in my previous post.) It was a very good conference. It struck just the balance I had hoped in that it was not just on the obvious basics of the GPL and it was also not in the stratosphere of legal mumbo-jumbo. I learned several things I didn't expect to and Prof. Lessig's lunch time speech was inspiring, of course. I got a free Creative Commons T-Shirt. It says, "Some Rights Reserved" on the back. Nice.

One thing I was struck by were the number of attorneys there from the big software companies. IBM, Oracle, Sun, etc. sent lawyers there. You get the impression from all of these people that they are deadly serious about Linux. This is not some garage-based geek project that will whimper out of existence any day now. Billions of dollars are on the line so far as these folks are concerned and they are behind it 100%. The FSF guys realize this too. They aren't going to compromise their principles one jot, but they also know if push comes to shove they have more than one 800-lb gorilla in their corner. Speaking of which, Microsoft sent people too. They paid their fees, sat dutifully and quietly, and kept tabs on the enemy. The guy I knew was from MS seemed to take the most notes during the LGPL segment of the day.

Overall, I'd say most of the participants were pleased with the day, but some were irked that they couldn't get more detailed information about when the FSF would consider them/their clients to be violating the GPL and when not. Since the FSF has never had to go to court to get people to comply with the GPL the lawyers have no cases to cite and this really tweaks their noses. The FSF is not really apologetic about not going to court. They say they just want compliance with the GPL and if they can get that without court costs, then they're thrilled. So far, they're batting 1000.

Wireless Debian Works!

I'm overjoyed. I've got my LinkSys WPC11 Ver 3 Wireless PCMCIA card working with Debian. It's the first time I've gotten this card to work with any distribution. The weird thing was that the wireless card has a little green light indicating a connection when solid and none when blinking. Well, I couldn't get it to stop blinking, even though it is one foot from the access point. What made it work, strangely, was plugging in my wired card (it then went solid). Nothing else seemed to help. I was then able to do: pump -i wlan0 and it got an IP address via DHCP. I then unplugged the wired card (because I was suspicious the wireless card wasn't really doing the work!) and the green light stayed solid and I got the net! Whew. It shouldn't be as hard as it was.

Fun at LinuxWorld 2003 Expo

So,

First a tip: when the expo floor opens at 10 AM, walk straight ahead and to the left a little bit towards the gigantic Red Hat display to get your free red hat. They only give away these good-looking caps at certain times of the day. I missed it at first because I went directly to the Free Software Foundation booth. Without them, there would never have been any such thing as a LinuxWorld conference, so I began at the beginning.

EFF was there selling good bumper stickers. I bought "Fair Use Has a Posse". The guys from React OS were interesting. They have their own operating system (not based on Linux) that is attempting to be compatible with Windows NT/2000. I got to see the whole OS install in about 2 minutes and then it booted up and ran Minesweeper in a window. Windows was not running. React OS was running. This was cool.

There were a lot of other cool things that I may go into later, but let me sum up the main part of the day. The Debian folks were supposed to have a booth. Somehow the bureaucratic necessities didn't get taken care of and so there was no Debian booth. Instead, a number of Debian developers, users, and other interested parties sat down in the floor in a spot where some exhibitor had failed to show. There were several open WiFi networks available from this location and electricity outlets. So, in an impromptu fashion, Debian people spent the whole day in the floor burning Debian CDs for passersby and hacking around on their laptops. I had some guys help me try to get my wireless card working in my laptop. (Unfortunately still a work in progress.) Efforts were also made to acquire a legitimate booth, but nearly $300 is/was needed, and so a real Debian booth may materialize tomorrow or the next day, or perhaps they'll be back in the floor. I had a lot of fun. Pictures soon.

Also, someone put a poster on the Microsoft booth. Not just any poster. It was a raging picture of Tux trampling the Redmond HQ that reads, "Good Evening, Mr. Gates, I'll be your server today!" (Popular from the '99 San Jose Expo.) This stayed there for the last half of the day without the Microsofties noticing. Pictures of this too very soon!

Free Software Licensing and the GNU GPL

On Friday I'm heading over to Stanford's Law School (you can tell Boalt Hall hasn't indoctrinated me yet!) for a Free Software Foundation Conference entitled: Free Software Licensing and the GNU GPL It was covered on Slashdot recently. The virtual flyer for the day says,

This program is designed to offer lawyers and businesspeople, working in software licensing, a complete introduction to the legal issues surrounding the development and distribution of free software, such as the GNU operating system, the Linux operating system kernel, etc.

During lunch, we will hear a presentation by Professor Lawrence Lessig, noted author and law professor at Stanford University. Professor Lessig's presentation, titled "Free Software: On What Side Should the Law Be?", will address how and why the law is not netural with respect to free software.

I'm not a lawyer yet, but they said I could come, so I'm looking forward to learning something. I'm afraid that information will be either at one of two extremes.

1. So basic as regards the nature of Free Software that I already know it. or
2. So detailed as regards the law, that I won't have a clue what they are talking about.

I'll keep hoping there's some stuff in the middle that I both don't know and can grasp and will update this location once we find out if those hopes are realized.

LinuxWorld Expo Tomorrow!

I've been sort of out of the news loop lately with all this moving and unpacking, and I just realized that I can go to the LinuxWorld Expo tomorrow (and Wednesday and Thursday if I like!) It's in San Francisco, so it's a simple BART ride for me! Woohoo! (Ok. I realize it's geeky to be excited about going to a geeky conference, but from what I understand the exhibitors at these things have lots of free stuff to give away, so that's ... well, no, that's still geeky. Ahh well, I'll tell you about it tomorrow.)

Ugh. Moving.

Moving recently was probably the worst experience of my life. Perhaps this means I've lived a charmed life, but you haven't heard yet how bad the move was. I'm currently fussing with U-Haul to try to get the price I paid for this fiasco reduced. A truck with no A/C, broken speedometer, broken odometer, no instrument panel light, broken gate that had to be repaired until 2 AM, etc., etc., made an already difficult time even more miserable.

But I have made it to the Bay Area and am enjoying the cooler weather and the countless opportunities that it is providing. I'm sure I haven't discovered 10% of what is out there.

I've also learned that I never want to drive to the City again. Good luck making a left turn in that place! (Or finding a parking place.) I've learned my lesson and will be on the BART or not going from now on!

Classes at Boalt Hall begin on August 18th (my wife's birthday!) Do you think skipping your first day of classes at law school is a good idea? Yeah, probably not. I think so long as I get home for dinner a compromise will have been found.

More as things calm down.