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The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions
Your editor doesn't really know any more about what will happen this year
than anybody else. But he has never been one to let such a difficulty stop
him from embarrassing himself by posting predictions in front of thousands
of people. So, without further ado, here's a set of highly unlikely
prognostications for the coming year. As usual, no warranty applies.
Legal issuesThe GPLv3 process will dominate the news for the first half of the year. The FSF seems fully aware of the stakes involved in a new version of the GPL, and Eben Moglen is the ideal person to push this effort forward. But there is no way that changes to such a fundamental document could be anything but controversial. How the FSF handles the feedback it gets will determine whether the resulting license is widely respected - and used. The non-free kernel module issue will come to a head this year. Patience with these modules has been fading for years, while concern over the lack of free drivers for certain types of hardware is on the increase. This year, some developer or other is likely to force the issue and mount a more direct challenge to the legality of proprietary kernel modules. Others, meanwhile, will continue to make them harder to write and maintain. Either way, we may reach a point where the maintenance of, for example, proprietary drivers for video cards is no longer feasible. Whether the end result is the release of free drivers or the complete withdrawal of support remains to be seen. The broadcast flag will be back, and European software patents too. The interests behind this sort of legislation never give up, so we'll never be able to stop fighting. But if we keep up the battle, we stand a respectable chance of winning much of the time.
Development2006 will be the year of Linux on the desktop. Just like the last ten years. Don't expect any amazing advances, just slow, steady progress. The applications will get better, and people will slowly see more reasons to run Linux. Governmental mandates for open document formats - likely to proceed despite the tactics used in Massachusetts - will help in this regard. The world will begin to discover alternatives to OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice is great stuff, and it lets Office workers move over to free software without overly disrupting their world. But there is a great deal of interesting work being done on platforms like AbiWord, KOffice, Gnumeric, etc. Once people get past "looks like Office" and start to concern themselves with issues like memory footprint or innovative new features, they will become more open to alternatives. Luckily for us, the free software community is strong enough to be able to provide those alternatives. De-bloating will gain on new features as a development priority in many projects. This work will be driven partly by a general unease with the size of our systems, and partly by the increase in the number of developing-country hackers who are particularly motivated to make things run well on older, less capable hardware. Perl 6 will not be released; it may not even be completely specified by the end of the year. We will, however, start seeing Perl 5 releases with more backported Perl 6 features. The Fedora project will have to make changes to preserve developer and user interest in 2006. Fedora is still hard to contribute to, its decision process is relatively opaque, the promised Fedora Foundation is missing, the short support period keeps users on an upgrade treadmill, Fedora Legacy is not staffed at a level where it can be relied upon, and, crucially, other free, leading-edge distributions (OpenSUSE, Ubuntu) are increasingly competing for the same users. Fedora remains a top-quality distribution, but it risks losing some of the user and developer energy which makes it an important distribution. Debian 'etch' will be released in December, on schedule -- or, at least, very close to it. The Debian developers are tired of their reputation for unreliable release schedules and see an opportunity to improve the situation. Emacs 22 will be released. This prediction may seem like more of a stretch than even the Debian release, but the time is coming for the emacs hackers to show the world that they have not been idle all these years. The pace of kernel development will not slow. The increased emphasis placed on avoiding regressions and user-space breakage will continue, however, and the quality of kernel releases will continue to go up. The kernel available one year from now will be substantially different from the current 2.6.15 release - but it will be good stuff.
CommerceThere will be an increasing number of Linux-based gadgets available. Embedded Linux is finally reaching the potential it has shown for many years, and it will show up in no end of interesting new toys. Unfortunately, most of those toys will be locked down and not hackable. Novell will get its act together and become a truly successful Linux-based company. This result will be a combination of long experience in selling to large businesses, clueful people on staff, and a strong desire among customers to have more than one vendor to choose from. Ubuntu/Canonical will start to make some real money. At some point the company has to bring in some revenue if it is to be sustainable over the long term. But, more to the point, the Ubuntu folks seem to be doing many things right: generating interest in the user and developer communities while pursuing goals (such as application certification) which make large customers happy.
MiscellaneousiPod users will begin to notice two free operating systems for their toys, being iPodLinux and, toward the end of the year, Rockbox. The latter should be especially interesting to blind users, thanks to its voice menu feature. The advantages of free software for gadgets will become clear to more people - but so will the conflict with DRM schemes. A Firefox vulnerability will be used to compromise systems. Firefox is too big and complex to be without vulnerabilities, and it is becoming too popular to ignore. The SCO case will drag on, perhaps severely reduced by renewed motions from IBM and Novell. But few people will care anymore. The safest prediction of all, of course, is that Linux and free software will continue to improve. The development momentum behind the free software community is truly amazing, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Whatever else happens over the next year, our systems will be stronger and more fun to work with. Your editor is looking forward to it. (Log in to post comments)
Perl (and Canonical) Posted Jan 5, 2006 2:20 UTC (Thu) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link] Is there any real basis for the prediction of Perl 6 features beingbackported to Perl 5? I haven't really paid attention to Perl 6 since the first few Apocalypses, so I'm a bit out out touch there, but this possibility intrigues me. Meanwhile, wonderful as Ubuntu is, I still haven't figured out Canonical's plan for making money. Will they just drain Mark Shuttleworth's bank account sending out CDs? Will they become the next Mandrake?
Perl (and Canonical) Posted Jan 5, 2006 6:06 UTC (Thu) by cventers (subscriber, #31465) [Link] Yeah, it's already a work in progress. One example is P6 smartmatching(given/when). The features will be activated via a new pragma 'use features'.
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 5, 2006 4:36 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] My bet is that proprietary kernel modules will come to a head, and the result will be that they get moved to userspace with clever ways to do a restricted set of kernel-level operations quickly from userspace. Then there will be a lot of contraversy over whether it makes sense for the kernel to have routines specifically to support non-free programs, and whether it makes sense to have a driver in the kernel for the nVidia "does video if you somehow figure out what calls to make" cards, and whether we really just wanted to make sure that the proprietary code wasn't messing up the system. Practical result: high-end video cards work perfectly for Linux, nobody knows what the drivers are doing, but the drivers are sufficiently sandboxed that only RMS actually cares.
Also, people will come up with really odd things you can do with an nVidia card, inspired by stracing the drivers and doing vaguely similar things.
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 5, 2006 10:04 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] ...and won't it be worth it!
the non-free kernel module issue will come to a head Posted Jan 5, 2006 22:08 UTC (Thu) by wilck (subscriber, #29844) [Link] I wish I could share you optimism. I know this issue is being discussed on LWN over and over, with a strong towards radically anti-prorietary people like Greg KH.
Yet, as I see things currently, "2006 will be the year of the linux desktop" and "the non-free kernel module issue will come to a head" are contradictory predictions to me.
In the worst case, a lot of important hardware will cease to work, or suffer from bad performance. That will scare away a lot of users and leave the open source community with significantly less momentum.
I'd also like to see the day where proprietary modules finally become obsolete, either because the free alternatives catch up or because the hardware vendors understand and release their specs.
I just don't believe that day is near, and I don't share the views of some who think the Linux developer community has the power to impose their will to both a bunch of really heavyweight companies and to the large group of pragmatic users who want their hardware to "just work" with all the features they have paid for.
the non-free kernel module issue will come to a head Posted Jan 5, 2006 22:12 UTC (Thu) by wilck (subscriber, #29844) [Link] I know this issue is being discussed on LWN over and over, with a strong towards radically anti-prorietary people like Greg KH. I meant to say "... with a bias towards ...". Sorry.
Hardware features Posted Jan 7, 2006 17:00 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I just don't believe that day is near, and I don't share the views of some who think the Linux developer community has the power to impose their will to both a bunch of really heavyweight companies and to the large group of pragmatic users who want their hardware to "just work" with all the features they have paid for.You are right. One alternative is to pay for less features -- e.g. just use the onboard video cards which come integrated on many motherboards these days. Many people don't really care about bleeding-edge 3d features. The result: less high-end customers for ATI and nVidia. But if Linux on the desktop has any significance, people will just want their damn 3d things to work right, binary modules or no binary modules. This is true today and hardware vendors know it, or they wouldn't be shipping binary Linux modules to begin with. So they will have no choice but to open their drivers.
Hardware features Posted Jan 12, 2006 21:54 UTC (Thu) by wilck (subscriber, #29844) [Link] So they will have no choice but to open their drivers. That's the part I don't believe. The closed source drivers cost the vendors no more than a few developers. I have no idea if it pays off for them sales-wise, but it's a relatively cheap thing to do. Opening up the source is an entirely different issue. They may have licenced other companies' patented code, and they fear the loss of competitive advantage like hell. Most probably the non-free driver is some sort of cross-platform code, and they are afraid of opening up portions being also part of the Windows driver. There are other devices out there, like cheap software RAID controllers, which need a proprietary driver top operate their disks in RAID mode. In this case, open-source RAID solutions being readily available, it makes no sense whatsoever to protect the code. Releasing binary drivers and keeping up to date with kernel development and different distributions, OTOH, causes their manufacturers big headaches. Yet they don't even think about opening up the source. And people buy their products (even OEMs who claim to support Linux) because they're a few cents cheaper than others. That's how it goes, I fear. Still being pessimistic.
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 5, 2006 6:21 UTC (Thu) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link] Some other obviously incorrect 2006 predictions:LWN will stop constantly writing negative things about fedora and find a way to write an article that doesn't give un-ending kudos to debian.
no. nevermind, it'll never happen.
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 5, 2006 10:17 UTC (Thu) by thomask (guest, #17985) [Link] Oh - how about this - Gentoo will get some decent coverage on LWN...
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 5, 2006 11:57 UTC (Thu) by henning (subscriber, #13406) [Link] Ok, for that matter - there will be a bit less bias toward Gnome in thecoverage, for example in the "Grumpy Editor Reviews".. ;-)
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 5, 2006 12:19 UTC (Thu) by duck (guest, #4444) [Link] I second that one, and wish for more opensuse covering ;-)
GNOME bias Posted Jan 5, 2006 14:36 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Bias toward GNOME? The applications which have done best in recent reviews have been things like amarok and kmymoney... If you see bias, could you point it out, please?
GNOME bias Posted Jan 5, 2006 15:45 UTC (Thu) by henning (subscriber, #13406) [Link] I didn't want to criticise, please take that comments with a grain ofsalt. :-) I know this is a very difficult topic. ;-) But if you read the mentionend articles, someone could come to the conclusion that the editor don't like it to admit that the best applications in this case don't come from GNOME.. If you add three gtk+ based music managers to the review, i think the addition of a second popular KDE based (for example JuK) would be "fair". And in one case, (i don' remember the exact article) you criticise the fact that the application need some KDE services to work, and so the app-startup was slower. And this is IMHO no valid point to critizise. But overall i really have no problem with the whole series. I like them very much, like the rest of LWN. Thanks a lot for your work!
GNOME bias Posted Jan 6, 2006 22:39 UTC (Fri) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] While I agree that covering another KDE application would be nice, I think it should be pointed out that not all GTK/GTK+ applications are GNOME applications. It's just a toolkit, like QT.
GNOME bias Posted Jan 7, 2006 12:49 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link] i did like the review of the several music players... tough indeed, heforgot the default music player in KDE, juk. the nice thing about the article was that he clearly set of, trying to find a nice GTK audioplayer, but in the end, he had no choice but to admit they all sucked, and amarok was much better ;-)
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 5, 2006 13:55 UTC (Thu) by brugolsky (subscriber, #28) [Link] Seth, I understand your irritation, but please keep it in perspective. First off, Debian comes in for its share of criticism -- usually due to endless less-than-productive bickering. Criticism of Fedora is an indirect compliment; as Jon says, it's a leading top-quality distro.As for the Fedora Project, the remarks are not too far off:
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 5, 2006 14:09 UTC (Thu) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link] > its decision process is relatively opaque> True.
False. All the committee discussions take place in the open on irc. All the minutes are posted to the wiki afterward.
> the promised Fedora Foundation is missing,
False, the promised Fedora Foundation is still going through legal to get all the bits in a row. This has been explained, repeatedly, in various forums and mail.
> the short support period keeps users on an upgrade treadmill,
The support period is longer than it was for Red Hat Linux at the time it stopped existing.
> Fedora Legacy is not staffed at a level where it can be relied upon,
Fedora legacy staffing is not a function of what 'fedora' does, it's a function of what the community is willing to do. I don't know if you've ever tried it but getting people to do some of the painful work of doing security maintenance on aging programs is quite difficult.
So I'd be inclined to disagree with the claims.
Stop spinning Posted Jan 5, 2006 19:00 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] I use Fedora, it's a high-quality distro. But there's no reason to promote it with misleading spin.The Fedora Foundation is "missing". You say that it's "still going through legal". So why say "false" then? Fedora's support period is shorter than Red Hat's was in the past. Your claim that it is "longer than it was for Red Hat Linux at the time it stopped existing" is technically true, but it's spin; Red Hat drastically shortened its support period in the RH9 time frame. Fortunately, Fedora has slowed down a bit, but FC2 went from "new" to "completely unsupported" in what seemed like no time flat. Fedora Legacy has just failed. Blame it on the community if you want, but it has shown itself incapable of producing security updates at the rate required; the consequence is that when an FC release drops out of support, it needs to be considered insecure, for use in a heavily firewalled internal environment only, with no desktop users running browsers and the like. Fedora could make the upgrade train much easier if they increased the support window just a bit, to make it possible for people to upgrade to every second release. That's not safe now, because support for FC n is dropped (OK, "handed over to Legacy") before FC n+2 ships.
Stop spinning Posted Jan 6, 2006 23:43 UTC (Fri) by gregdek (guest, #35020) [Link] Yeah, spin is bad. So let's not spin.
"Fedora Foundation is missing." False from my perspective, as I'm one of its directors :) but painfully true from yours. We have a corporate entity, and we're working on 501(c)3 status, budget, fundraising, trademark and other legal issues. We haven't announced anything yet because we'd like to have all our ducks in a row, and it certainly won't be "missing" for long -- but it's a fair complaint. Perfect is the enemy of good, and maybe we're waiting a bit too long to announce some of the salient details. But we'll figure it out. (Hey, you guys in FF-land: row harder. Oh, wait... that's me. Dammit!)
"Fedora Legacy has just failed." Truer than I'd like to admit, and a good reason to get the details around the Foundation right -- to provide Legacy with a framework to succeed. But let's not declare the patient entirely dead yet.
"Decision-making process is opaque." I have to disagree here. I will admit that you need to join some IRC meetings and email lists, keep up with Thomas Chung's excellent Fedora news, and pay attention generally, as it's a process in motion. But Fedora Extras, Fedora Docs, Fedora Translations and Fedora Ambassadors are pretty transparent, really -- for the people who are making the effort to participate.
"Impossible to contribute." Still can be frustrating to get Fedora Core folks to pay attention to bugzilla tickets. We're working on that. But that comment aside, cf. "Fedora Extras," "Fedora Docs," "Fedora Translations," "Fedora Ambassadors." Go to fedoraproject.org -- there's plenty of pretty simple ways to contribute.
Hey, sometimes a kick in the ass from LWN is a needed tonic. It's all good, baby.
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 7, 2006 17:27 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I don't know if you've ever tried it but getting people to do some of the painful work of doing security maintenance on aging programs is quite difficult.Really? Other communities (Debian, Gentoo) are doing their homework and thriving. Maybe you should focus on what people see there and cannot find in Fedora.
Extra, Extra! Preview of Emacs 22 on FC4 available this year Posted Jan 5, 2006 6:40 UTC (Thu) by nicku (subscriber, #777) [Link] Just to add some weight to our famously Grumpy Editor's prediction about Emacs 22 being released in the coming year, here are some RPM packages of Emacs 22 from CVS compiled with GTK support that I have been happily using on FC4 for the last three weeks. I built them starting with the Red Hat FC4 spec file, and there is no reason to stop them being updated with newer CVS versions as time goes by.Happy New Year, you lovely bunch of Grumps!
Extra, Extra! Preview of Emacs 22 on FC4 available this year Posted Jan 5, 2006 10:01 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] And for users of Debian unstable, there's an emacs-snapshot package. From occasional reading of the mailing-list, it seems they are on the verge of entering a testing phase.
Extra, Extra! Preview of Emacs 22 on FC4 available this year Posted Jan 5, 2006 14:20 UTC (Thu) by mmarkov (guest, #4978) [Link] Any chance to have Emacs that is fully Unicode-based? I mean, no MULE and so on.
If so, I will convert to Emacs. XEmacs has been my choice for several years, but its development is slowing down... at least my impression is that. I was hoping that somehow Emacs would merge with XEmacs for the benefit of all, but it did not happen.
Extra, Extra! Preview of Emacs 22 on FC4 available this year Posted Jan 5, 2006 15:04 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] I'm not sure of all the details. I know there is a "unicode-2" branch which will be merged just after the 22 release. I don't think there's been a decision yet on whether to make the 23 release cycle a short one or not.
But I also know that I can use emacs in Chinese without having to modify anything (viewing and inputting Chinese characters).
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 5, 2006 7:39 UTC (Thu) by phython (subscriber, #3278) [Link] Last years predictions weren't too bad, Debian did do a release.http://lwn.net/Articles/117606/#Comments
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 5, 2006 9:03 UTC (Thu) by pointwood (guest, #2814) [Link] Thanks for that link - last years predictions were actually quite accurate!
I also find this years Firefox prediction to be pretty likely, it's only a matter of time before a critical security issue surfaces. Fortunately with Firefox 1.5, the update mechanism is much improved (people don't have to update it themselves).
Grumpy New Years everyone :)
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 6, 2006 11:24 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] My "safe" prediction is that LWN will /continue/ to advocate FLOSS in nameonly, while it remains closed source itself. I'd very much love to be wrong on this, but I see no indication that I will be, and every indication that I'll be right. =8^( Maybe this year will be the year I decide I can no longer support LWN with my subscription dollars, no matter /how/ much I support the message it /claims/ to support, when its actions demonstrate otherwise. (Subscription renewal coming up, and I'd renew without hesitation were it not for that mixed message, given I HIGHLY support everything else I've seen from LWN. I'd been thinking about upgrading, too, so it'll probably be renew but won't upgrade, and might downgrade and/or reduce renewal term. Yes, tho I won't personally get anything out of the code release as I'm not a site developer, I do believe in the principles, one of the reasons I've justified supporting LWN and it's contribution to the community to date. Unfortunately, this has been "coming soon" for far too long, and it's failure to appear is beginning to make a difference in my LWN support decisions.) The three legal predictions would appear almost self-evident, or at least the first and the last. GPLv3 is slated for community evaluation this year, and how could that /not/ dominate the news in a Linux context? About the only way I could see it /not/ dominating the news for at least six months would be if it changes say two words from the present v2, and even /that/ would be big news for a couple weeks, anyway, after the lead-up we've had, and I'm sure would cause some to propose a fork, which of course would generate news for a few weeks of its own, whether it succeeded or not. Likewise with the broadcast flag and software patents. Now, a really BOLD prediction, yet not all /that/ bold given the proposed SonyBMG settlement, would be that the momentum swings the other way -- that yes, the issues are back, but that the best case the anti-freedom forces can hope for is that what results does /not/ pass. Anyway, a BOLD and OPTIMISTS prediction here, is that SonyBMG will actually go no-DRM AND make that a marketed selling point! Clearly, there are hints that such /may/ happen, if the EFF and the like are signing on to the settlement. If it does, SonyBMG would be nuts not to try to turn dross into gold and market their new no-DRM stance. If we get them on our side... (One probable personal result of getting them on our side is that I might actually buy the multi-hundred-slot Sony jukebox style CD player I might have otherwise bought this Christmas, when I upgraded my stereo, if I hadn't been actively boycotting Sony! I've had my eyes on it for awhile, and it'd be one way to nicely house all those CDs after I rip them to more portable formats. I've had my eyes on something like that for awhile, and would very likely have bought one, if I'd not been boycotting Sony this Christmas. That's several hundred $$ they lost, on this single former customer alone.) The kernel module thing has been building, but while I'm not as in tune with the kernel as Corbet is, I wouldn't have predicted it would come to a head this year. Rather, I would have predicted it would build to become a rather noisy (noiser) debate this year, but actually come to a head next year. Of course, the two closest things to that that Corbet predicted last year that I wouldn't have agreed with, the Debian release, and no 2.7 kernel (if one looks to the comments on last year's predictions, I thought it might happen 9-12 months out, tho I agreed for six), Corbet turned out to be correct. We'll see! In the other areas, I've less of an opinion. Linux (or OOo anyway) on the (office, particularly government) desktop sounds like a reasonable prediction of current trends. OOo alternatives discovered would be nice. Some of us get tired of reading about OOo and not the others, all the time, but I don't have much of an opinion other than that. De-bloating -- that'll be one I'll be watching. 3rd world developers coming online as a driving force is reasonable, but there's the Gnome type debloating, which seems to be a dumbing down as well, and the KDE type debloating, faster and more usable with each release in the 3.x series, while retaining user choice. Obviously, I'm a KDE style proponent. Anyway, debloating has IMO all too often been a watchword for depowering the user choice, so it's something I'll be watching with interest and caution, if indeed it does get big this year. I think the trend prediction is right, particularly with the third-world developers coming online, but I'm not sure it will be this year, and how that debloating occurs is my biggest worry, in any case. Perl-6, no opinion. I'm more interested in python, these days. EMACs, no opinion. I can do VIM if needed, but I prefer mcedit or kwrite for most things, and nano (the Gentoo default) as a small minimally linked emergency editor. Debian, no opinion. Fedora, interesting. It does seem Ubuntu and OpenSuSE/Novell have stolen the limelight, but Fedora/RH is big enough to keep going on momentum alone for quite sometime, as it seems to have done so far. Thus, I think the prediction is accurate, from my limited knowledge on the subject. Likewise the Ubuntu/Canonical and Novell predictions. Interesting and I agree, alto I've limited knowledge on which to form an opinion. "The pace of kernel development will not slow" is a comfortable and comforting prediction, as it means things on the kernel side continuing much as we've known them. It does remind me of the Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens quote "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." People, even as high as Andrew Morton, continue to predict that the kernel is maturing and the pace of change /has/ to slow down at some point, but then end up wryly pointing out how wrong they were predicting that the point was "now", a few months later, looking at the kernel statistics. Thus, the prediction that development will not slow is only predicting more of the same, while at the same time being a gentle prod at those that keep predicting it /will/ slow, only to be proven wrong when it doesn't. The Linux gadgets and iPod alt-OS predictions appear to be on track. Interesting times we live in. A bad vuln in Firefox must occur eventually, and given its profile, it would seem this would be the year, so that prediction is only realistic. What will be more interesting will be the reaction, both from users and of the devs. So far, the relatively small problems FF has had have been handled decently well, so here's hoping they prove helpful drills for the big one which must ultimately come. (Maybe this year I'll actually merge FF and see what all the hubbub is about -- said as a KDE user who has seen little reason to switch from Konqueror, to date, particularly as a libre software supporter and AMD64 user for whom compatibility on pages expecting proprietary flash or Java and the like doesn't mean a lot.) Duncan
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 6, 2006 13:03 UTC (Fri) by evgeny (guest, #774) [Link] > My "safe" prediction is that LWN will /continue/ to advocate FLOSS in name only, while it remains closed source itself.
I don't understand your criticism. The term "open" or "closed" source in the FLOSS definition has no meaning unless the said software is distributed. Otherwise, one is free (and it's one of the basic GPL freedoms) to use any mixture of GPL and closed sotware "in-house". Do you know for a fact that LWN sells the software that runs behind this site under a FLOSS-incompatible license terms? If not, please respect the others' rights and freedoms.
> Yes, tho I won't personally get anything out of the code release as I'm not a site developer
Then why on Earth are you demanding it? Think of several valid reasons it hasn't been released yet, e.g. security considerations. "Release early" is fine for a new user-level application, but NOT for a complex software that runs an existing live site with many thousands of users and doing many thousands of credit-card transactions a year, among them yours and mine, BTW. I'm certainly confident in the LWN coders' decision whether to publish the site code or not.
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 6, 2006 15:50 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] From http://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#siteIs the LWN site code open source? Not yet. We do intend to release our code once it gets a bit more "ready," has had one more security audit, and when we are in a position to support it as an open source project. It has said the same or close to it since well before LWN was a subscription site. That's been a year and a half-ish. When I originally subscribed, it had been there awhile, as I'd been visiting the site for awhile and it had been there at least that long. I thought perhaps a bit more time was needed when I originally subscribed, and besides, I wasn't as concerned about my money supporting closed source, even if it was on Linux, back then. That was some time ago, LWN has had the time, and the code has not been forthcoming. Meanwhile, I've become more acutely aware of how my choice of where I spend my money, along with the similar choices of others, affects the world we all live in. I don't make choices for others, but I DO make choices for myself, and I don't purchase NVidia for a reason, and passed up on a Sony just this Christmas for a reason. LWN knows all about open source, and promotes the practice daily in its words. However, for over two years now, it has said "soon" when it came to walking the walk. Well, "soon" I will find I am no longer able to support them with my money, if something doesn't change, and /my/ "soon" isn't two years or longer! As I said, I'm not a site designer, so it's not that the code will be of any practical use to me. It's the principle. The $60-120 I'd pay LWN isn't much, materially, either, but it counts for me. How many others might not speak up, but don't subscribe, either, or would subscribe at a higher level if LWN put its actions where its words are? Likely not many, but it's likely not just me, either. This could come into even sharper focus if the proposed GPL3 includes the possible web code clause. (The idea being, not all GPL3 code would be subject to it, but if a site had a code download button and someone made use of it, they'd likewise have to have that or a similar button on their own site where the use was. That has been how the idea has been described, anyway.) Actually, what I'll likely do is resubscribe for 6 months rather than a year, with an email to the effect that with regrets, I will find it impossible to justify resubscribing after that, if the code hasn't been made available. IIRC, my sub currently ends the end of February, so that would give LWN until the end of August, more than two years after they went subscription, and I believe well more than three after the "soon" promise was originally posted onsite. I'm not demanding what hasn't been already promised, and then only demanding it in that I am choosing not to have my money supporting a site that supports open code in words but has refused to do so in action. Yes, it DOES mean that much to me! Duncan
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 6, 2006 17:01 UTC (Fri) by evgeny (guest, #774) [Link] > From http://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#site> > Is the LWN site code open source? > Not yet. We do intend to release our code once it gets a bit more > "ready," has had one more security audit, and when we are in a position to > support it as an open source project.
So that must be the reasons (see also below the comment by J.Corbet). What's wrong with this?
> [...] and I don't purchase NVidia for a reason, and
These are different. They _force_ you to run a non-free software on _your_ computer, while the LWN site doesn't. Or, if you want to be consistent, please don't use electricity since the software that controls the generators on the power plant is obviously closed, never bring you car for the yearly service since the computerized test system runs on a closed OS (or maybe just get rid of your car as the motor's electronic distributor has a closed-source firmware in it), never visit a doctor and don't even consider calling for police when get ripped, all for the same reason. Relax.
Source availability Posted Jan 6, 2006 15:37 UTC (Fri) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] "My "safe" prediction is that LWN will /continue/ to advocate FLOSS in name only, while it remains closed source itself." I have to say I resent this somewhat. I don't believe I need to defend my free software credentials - beyond the occasional kernel patch, I put an entire book under a free license last year. "In name only" indeed. The LWN source remains unreleased because I've never found the time to do the security audit, put together the (non-trivial) build instructions, deal with the obvious screwups, create a distribution, put together a mailing list, and get it together to accept bug reports and patches. I want to put the source out there - it's not like we derive any particular advantage from keeping it to ourselves. But when it is put next to keeping the content flowing and figuring out out how to keep LWN alive, spending a week getting a source distribution together just hasn't risen toward the top of the list yet.
Source availability Posted Jan 6, 2006 16:37 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] I understand all you've said, and agree to some extent or I wouldn't havebeen able to subscribe and continue my subscription to this point. However, with all due respect, how long has the code been promised? For comparison, how long has the SCO case been dragging on and on and on? In the simple case, you wouldn't /have/ to do /all/ the things you list. Doing some sort of a security audit is of course a very good idea, as it /is/ after all running your site. However, that's a good idea in /any/ case, as I'm sure you know better than I all the arguments about security thru obscurity, having (I'm sure) mentioned them many times in your articles over the years, so it's NOT something that should be directly related to releasing the site source. Talking about which... one hopes that at least the code handling the personal info and CC transactions for the subscriptions is audited. That's MY info you got in there! =8^| The build-instructions as well would be nice. However, the mailing list thing and the like aren't absolute necessities. Good thing to have, sure, but the deal is, once the source is out there, others can use it if desired, supported or not. Source without support isn't perfect, but if the lack of support is obstructing the availability of source, the perfect is the enemy of the good, and that shouldn't be. If you are lucky, someone might get interested and take up maintainership, easing the burden of support even for this site on you. If not, the source is at least out there to be used if someone finds it interesting or useful. Whether they do or not is then their problem, not yours. What about something on sourceforge or the like? They make it easy to setup most of the infrastructure, and then you can simply point a link from the LWN FAQ there. I'm not technical enough to be a very good coder, but am a regular on a couple lists already (including the PAN newsreader user and dev lists, look them up on gmane), with the intent of handling the mundane questions that get asked and re-asked, answering the simple stuff, and otherwise doing what I can to coordinate the lists such that the primary developer has time to do more of that and less replying to questions on the list. Perhaps the same could happen here? Again, it'd certainly be better to get someone with more site dev and/or python qualifications, but whatever. I can commit the time, and python's on my list to learn already, if it helps. Can you lookup my info to mail me or would you prefer I mail you (assuming I'd be of help at all)? Anyway, know that it /does/ bother some of us, that a site that's a flagship, perhaps /the/ flagship, of the Linux news community, doesn't consider open code worthwhile enough to have made it available, years after making the promise. It's a bit of inconsistency and a conflicting double message, which we wish wasn't the case. Also know that this inconsistency bothers at least a few of us enough that it will eventually interfere with continued subscriptions, very regrettably, as we really /do/ believe in the message LWN otherwise spreads to the world -- enough to actually back it up with money. (I don't like to talk about it, but if you saw my budget, you'd see what a sacrifice... but it's not the money, it's the principles, and it's a sacrifice well worth it... save for one inconsistency.) Honestly bothered, because I /do/ care. Duncan
Source availability Posted Jan 6, 2006 17:44 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] The thing that stands out to me (based on the length of your posts) is that Jon is busy and you're not. Don't you think your time would be better spent working on something yourself, instead of trying to get someone else who is already busy to do something you want done? Get you some perspective, man!
Source availability Posted Jan 6, 2006 18:00 UTC (Fri) by evgeny (guest, #774) [Link] > Also know that this inconsistency bothers at least a few of us enough that it will eventually interfere with continued subscriptions,
Please learn to live in a democratic society. Given the poll
I'm damn sure the majority of the LWN subscribers would choose 2). Do you stop paying taxes or even leave the country only because the candidate you voted for didn't get the chair? Yes, as whoever said it (Churchill?) democracy is bad, but there is nothing better.
_I_ personally pay for the superb LWN content, and would object if part of my money goes to cover the burden of releasing the code instead of writing a new "Grumpy" article. There are literally thousands coders out there who are capable of doing the LWN machinery in a very reasonable amount of time, while there are very, very few and far between who can deliver the Linux coverage like the LWN staff does.
Source availability Posted Jan 7, 2006 16:21 UTC (Sat) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link] Get up and stand on your own Duncan, use 'I' instead of 'we'. Fluffing your feathers to make yourself appear bigger is lame. Please don't include me in your "group".
Corbet has a mountain of work behind him that shows his committment to freedom.
P.S. Please put more content and less filler in your posts.
Source availability Posted Jan 9, 2006 22:02 UTC (Mon) by sbishop (guest, #33061) [Link] This rubbish made me so mad that I bumped up my subscription level... Corbet doesn't owe us anything!
Seconded Posted Jan 11, 2006 6:13 UTC (Wed) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] Same here, though I haven't *extended* my subscription just yet(Christmas cc bills...). If only I actually *was* a project leader... that would involve pulling out my own finger. Duncan, your threat of withdrawing your subscription is childish in the extreme. You subscribe to the content of the LWN publication; if you want the site code published that is completely separate work and you should offer Jon professional rates to do the job properly rather than having a tantrum. On the other hand, Jon, Duncan is right to point out that the site code was promised long ago and is still 'coming soon'. Three years ago it might have been cutting-edge and gathered a significant developer community; at this point (while it is still a delightfully clean interface) there are blog servers galore out there which have somewhat stolen the limelight from a developer's perspective. Rather than challenging you to put Duncan's money where his mouth is, I'll simply request that you conduct a straw poll on a timetable for eventual release of the site code. I'll tempt fate by suggesting an initial 'all rights reserved' subscriber-only release to assist in the security audit phase. It will be no surprise if you prefer not to do such a thing. Incidentally, there appears to be no licence granted by Eklektix for copying of LWN content. Is LWN content published on an 'all rights reserved' basis or have I missed a licence somewhere?
Seconded Posted Jan 11, 2006 9:34 UTC (Wed) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] > Duncan, your threat of withdrawing your> subscription is childish in the extreme. > [I]f you want the site code published that > is completely separate work and you should > offer Jon professional rates to do the job > properly rather than having a tantrum. That's a reasonable argument, but it doesn't account for personal beliefs, childish or not. OK, I've trimmed this a bit but it's still long. Oh, well... I left MS after a decade for my beliefs in Freedom. I choose to run Linux, not one of BSDs, for those beliefs. I've had exchanges with people who demanded I stop calling proprietaryware slaveryware, for my beliefs in freedom. It came out that the folks requesting that believed in "Open Source" rather than "Free Software", as the argument goes. They said it wasn't worth sacrificing for, it was just a choice. I, OTOH, can't honestly say that I'd be willing to give my life for it as yet, as many of the US founding fathers gave their lives or those of their family and friends, but I equate it with the same principles, and think I /should/ be at that point -- it's FREEDOM at stake, after all, and I'm not at all sure that a life without that freedom to express myself would be worth living. I /have/ actually contemplated the possibility that acting in accordance with my beliefs may one day mean I have to choose between physical freedom, and freedom of mind and spirit. IOW, there may be a time when I'm imprisoned for my belief in Freedom, software or otherwise, and I've faced that possibility That's what I BELIEVE. If it's "childish" or "radical", so be it. However, a good portion of the reason I subscribed to LWN was because I believe in the message and service it does and can present to this community that for myriad personal reasons (not all directly parallel to mine, certainly) has happened to be supporting freedom in their actions, if not always their full beliefs. I've been rather more active onsite this year, but last year, there were several months I didn't get to LWN hardly at all. Still, I considered my subscription worth every penny, despite my not visiting at all that month, because of the message and service LWN provides to the community. Would that I /could/ provide those professional services you mention. I'd donate them in a heartbeat, no charge, because I /believe/ in the message. Meanwhile, LWN isn't presenting the clear clarion call of Freedom that it /could/ be presenting, because while the /words/ are there, the /actions/ have been partially missing for more than two years. If the promise hadn't been made, it would be one thing, but it /was/ made, and two years later, this representative of our community looks like it says one thing, but can't 100% support what it /says/ in actions. When I was last shopping for a mobo, I visited the sites of the front-runners. One had everything in what appeared to be sfx-exe slaveryware format. The docs, exes. The BIOS updates, exes. Everything, exes. They got an email saying exactly why they lost out on the sale, and, I'm told, now at least have the standard format documentation and BIOS update packages, not proprietaryware executables (altho their Linux support still sucks). Maybe my email had a part in that, maybe it didn't, but I sent it. The other (Tyan) not only provided standard PDF docs and zip file bios update packages, but they had Linux FAQ pages for most of their products, and provided lmsensors config files (plus slaveryware Linux drivers for some onboard chips, unfortunately, but you can't win them all). The choice was obvious. Same story with the last hard drives I bought. Of course SATA hard drives are pretty much standardized and "just work" in Linux. Still, one choice listed only MSWormOS releases as supported, the other listed a number of alternatives including Linux. You /know/ which one I ended up buying. When I switched to Linux, I ended up with Mandrake. About a year and a half later, I ended up switching to Gentoo, in part because I could no longer in good conscience support Mandrake with my money OR time and personal investment, because part of my investment would be going to support the slaveryware they licensed for their paid product. Given the above, it should be no surprise that I'm unable to in good conscience continue supporting LWN. Would that it were not so! Stating I can't, however, isn't a threat, it's a statement of fact, of belief, of following thru on that belief, as a man of principle doing his best to be a man of personal integrity. For those who can continue to support LWN and even up their subscriptions, more power too them and good for LWN! The service to the community, mixed message tho it may be, is still there. I'm glad someone can support them in it. Unfortunately, I cannot. For me personally, just as I had to jump ship from MS, just as I now cannot support NVidia, just as I had to switch from Mandrake, I have to, with regrets, pull my support for LWN, until its actions are once again in 100% agreement with the message it's promoting with its speech, a message I 100% believe in. It's not a choice for me. It has become a matter of acting in accordance with MY beliefs. If I were to fail to do so, LWN's actions wouldn't matter to me any more as I'd be the one whose words failed to agree with his actions, a man whose actions betrayed his belief. If being a man of belief, of personal integrity, is childish, then I'll gladly be childish, or radical, or whatever other label you choose. That's external, your choice, something I don't control. It doesn't change my internal beliefs or integrity, nor can it. I don't mean to offend, and in no way am I condemning others for not holding the same principles, as these are mine, others have their own, and I acknowledge that. This is, however, something I must do, or it'll be a failure of my integrity. That, BTW, is why it doesn't much concern me how cleaned up the code is, or what continuing support there may be, altho I agree a security audit is probably necessary for practical reasons. Clean code is good, but available code is better than unavailable code, clean or not. If it's unavailable, there's one person that can clean it. Once it's available, in whatever form, others at least have the /option/ of using it, cleaning it if necessary first, an option not available if the code isn't available. The promise was made, someone in the FLOSS community's word was given. It hasn't been delivered upon, and because that someone is held up as a representative of that community, the failure to deliver on that promise is a failure for the entire community. If I continue to support that representative as a spokesperson and beacon of that community, I too am at fault. It's my integrity called into question as well, the more so due to my continued support. Back to your post, however. I don't have the talent to donate to help the job get done, but that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to help, even tho I don't expect to ever make use of the code myself except as a website visitor. Admittedly, what I can provide is little more than a token amount, but this is something I believe in enough to do so. Jon has my personal contact info available, if he's interested, and I'll throw what I can in to help, meager tho it may be. I'm not asking for the code to appear immediately, as I recognize that's demanding the impossible, but some visible movement this year would be nice, and I think entirely reasonable. Duncan
Passion -- without understanding? Posted Jan 16, 2006 0:18 UTC (Mon) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] OK, I think everyone 'gets it' that you're passionate about software anddata freedom. But do you 'get it' that the LWN site code does not restrict your freedom in *any* way? If you used the LWN site code on your own machine, it would be perfectly understandable for you to want it to be Free Software. But you don't, the software is unreleased. Before the site code can safely be published it requires a thorough security audit -- anything less and it is not only the site's integrity and the publishers' servers which may be compromised but also (potentially) subscribers' financial details. I don't understand why you seem to think the release of the site software is a 'freedom' issue. It's not. Can you really be so worked up about a vague release timetable not adhered to?
Copying content Posted Jan 11, 2006 15:05 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] "Incidentally, there appears to be no licence granted by Eklektix for copying of LWN content. Is LWN content published on an 'all rights reserved' basis or have I missed a licence somewhere?" Another one of those "on the list" items. What we want to do is to put all non-subscription text under something like the CC attribution license. In this case, it's mostly a matter of sorting out copyright notices with guest author content (which they continue to own), stuff taken from the net, etc. Certainly, in every case where somebody has asked to republish content, we've let them - and we've not bugged those who just did it without asking. If I have my way, we'll be making some moves over the coming months to push some things forward and stop just running in place. Stay tuned.
Source availability Posted Jan 7, 2006 4:14 UTC (Sat) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link] Fearless leader wrote: But when it is put next to keeping the content flowing and figuring out out how to keep LWN alive, spending a week getting a source distribution together just hasn't risen toward the top of the list yet. Hear hear! As a reasonably long term subscriber I've got to say that I'd much much much rather see you devote your time to keeping LWN afloat & assuring its future than creating Yet Another CMS, it's not like we're short of choice already. The whole open source thing doesn't mean that anything you write has to automatically be open sourced, it merely says that if you distribute something it should be open source.
Source availability Posted Jan 7, 2006 22:08 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] Suffice it to say that you have done a fantastic and admirably unbiased job (to the extent that any of us are really unbiased). You've kept the ship afloat when it would have been easier to just let it sink. And, in my view, you have sacrificed to be able to do something that you believe in.
Thank You.
Source availability Posted Jan 8, 2006 18:42 UTC (Sun) by barbara (guest, #3014) [Link] Jon and LWN certainly does walk the walk (and not just talk) with regardsto FLOSS. As a long-term subscriber and reader of LWN, I have found the articles, reviews, and news *always* supportive of FLOSS. How many Linux news sites publish announcements of new FLOSS software release announcements? In the old days of Linux (when it was the new kid on the block) many sites did. Not now, though. How many do detailed comparative reviews (Grumpy Editor Series); how many cover the kernel in such detail?; how many do thoughtful pieces on the political problems facing FLOSS and Linux (aka DRM, IP (Internet Piracy), etc.)?? Zippo. LWN stands out above them all. It takes time to be the best and I would far rather have this outstanding content continue rather than have LWN staff spend lots of their time on releasing the code. Jon has said it will be released and I'm sure this will be done. In the meanwhile, I'm looking forward to another outstanding year from LWN.
Source availability Posted Jan 12, 2006 6:57 UTC (Thu) by larryr (guest, #4030) [Link] The reason I am not a subscriber any more is the site continues to not have what I consider to be minimum necessary features such as user profiles and comment moderation/filtering-- basic features of readily available software which could be used for LWN. Larry
Source availability Posted Jan 12, 2006 15:31 UTC (Thu) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] I second that, and I'll add something else that's sorely missing to the list: the ability to get email notifications for comment replies even when you're not subscribed as a "professional hacker".
Locking down GPLed software? Posted Jan 6, 2006 14:35 UTC (Fri) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] There will be an increasing number of Linux-based gadgets available. [....] Unfortunately, most of those toys will be locked down and not hackable.Is locking down GPL software in such a device compatible with the GPL? It certainly violates the spirit of the license, if not the letter. I bet GPLv3 will address this situation.
Non-free kernel modules Posted Jan 7, 2006 4:36 UTC (Sat) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link] Whether the end result is the release of free drivers or the complete withdrawal of support remains to be seen. My 2p worth is that (for graphics at least) it's likely to be that in the majority of cases vendors will drop support rather than open up. They'll do a CBA and figure out that their possible extra sales from Linux support will be a fraction of the possible costs from legal issues from using Other Peoples IP, etc, and it'll be a no brainer for the accountants and lawyers - Linux doesn't even rate a mention in nVidia's quarterly filings with the SEC for instance.
Non-free kernel modules Posted Jan 7, 2006 18:16 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] As I argued above, if Linux users were not relevant to nVidia or ATI, they wouldn't be shipping binary modules now. It's not like they do it out of the kindness in their hearts; if they were motivated by kindness they would just release graphic card specs.My prediction: graphic chip makers will figure out that companies don't make money angering a small but significant fraction of their customers. Lawyers will find out that possible costs are not so important; after all, we don't see network adapter makers worried about Linux drivers. So we will have free drivers after all.
Free java Posted Jan 12, 2006 8:42 UTC (Thu) by mvirkkil (guest, #28737) [Link] My prediction for 2006 is free java. Sun won't go to a (dfsg-/gnu-)free license, but instead gnuclasspath will be ready for all practical uses. This means both 1.4 and 1.5 parity (generics branch).
Jikes, kaffe and/or gcj will become default parts of several linux distributions. The webplugin will see some interest or possibly a completely new version based on some other vm instead of gcj.
JamVM will gather more interest from embedded developers, and at least one commercial physical product will include or the company will distribute it.
By the end of 2006 java will be Free, and deployed in large numbers.
Reasons:
The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions Posted Jan 12, 2006 14:24 UTC (Thu) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] [The broadcast flag will be back, and European software patents too. The interests behind this sort of legislation never give up, so we'll never be able to stop fighting. But if we keep up the battle, we stand a respectable chance of winning much of the time.]
One problem is that we only have to lose once to lose big time, but we have to win everytime just to stand still in the muck we are already in.
Unless....
We find a way to go one the offensive with some winable battles.
One the copyright front, one idea I would like to see considered and discussed is this:
Right now everyone gets automatic "standard" copyright on anything that is copyrightable once they "fix" it, even if they do not put on a copyright notice.
I would like to see us push for a change which grants an automatic copyleft in the absence of a notice. You can still get the standard copyright simply by putting on a notice, but if you don't you get a copyleft copyright. (Right now, the closest I am aware of is the GPL for code and the CC BY-SA for other stuff. Does anyone know of better copyleft licenses for other stuff?)
First, is anyone willing to discuss possible benefits and drawbacks to such a plan?
Second, is anyone willing to discuss thoughts on how to get this change made if it looks like a good one?
all the best,
drew
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