Leading items

The Eldred Act - toward a restoration of the public domain

Changes to copyright law over the years have (in the U.S. and, increasingly, elsewhere) brought the growth of the public domain to a complete halt. In the U.S., no works have entered the public domain since 1930, with the tiny exception of those put there explicitly by their creators. The extension of copyright terms, with the approval of the Supreme Court, means that the public domain will remain frozen indefinitely.

But the public domain is the ultimate source of almost everything found in new creative works. Whether the subject is fiction, film, or free software, our culture depends on a common pool of ideas. The starvation of the public domain can only serve to dry up that pool. But attempts to cut back on absolute copyright protection via the court system have not been successful. The word from the courts is that this is a matter which must be decided by Congress.

Enter the Eldred Act (or "Public Domain Enhancement Act"). This act would not reduce the period of copyright protection available to anyone. What it would do is require that, after 50 years, copyrights be renewed through the payment of a (very) small fee. Renewal would be required every five years thereafter. The renewal burden would be negligible for anybody who is making any sort of commercial use of copyrighted material. Mickey Mouse would be preserved for generations of Disney stockholders yet unborn.

But the fact is that very little copyrighted material is still being commercially exploited after 50 years. Under current law, all those works remain protected, and almost all of them simply vanish from sight. The Eldred Act would release it all into the public domain, where it can become a common resource.

The proposed law makes a great deal of sense; why maintain copyright protection on works that the copyright holder cannot be bothered to renew? Yet the bill is apparently already being opposed by lobbyist activity in Washington. As part of an effort to show that the lobbyists do not speak for a lot of people, the bill's promoters (including Lawrence Lessig) have set up an online petition where people can show their support. Signing it is a small act, but one which might help restore a more rational direction to copyright law.

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A Look at Ximian Desktop 2

[This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

With the release of Ximian Desktop 2 right around the corner, I decided to ring up my contact with Ximian to see if I could get a test-drive. By the end of the day Monday I had XD2 installed on my Toshiba laptop running SuSE 8.2.

Before I start talking about the features and such that come with XD2, it's important to note Ximian's target audience. Ximian is not targeting the home user, nor are they targeting long-time Linux users. The Ximian desktop is primarily aimed at corporate desktops. There are a limited number of configuration options, and they're aimed at the needs of desktop workers migrating from Windows. That doesn't mean it's unsuitable for Linux gurus or for the average home user, but I'd say it's less suitable than some other desktop configurations for those users.

The Ximian folks gave me a Red Carpet Express account to test out XD2, so I used the Ximian Red Carpet download installer and went for the full install. The entire install, including the download time, took a little more than an hour over a broadband connection. The public servers might be a little slower, and I'm sure they'll be swamped next Monday for the official release. I wouldn't advise trying to do a download install over dial-up at any time unless you're a very patient person.

As usual, the Ximian Desktop looks fantastic. I realize this is a subjective thing, but I find XD2 to be one of the best-looking desktops on the market -- and that includes the Aqua desktop from Apple. It's not an overly-slick kind of look, that would probably turn off the corporate buyers that Ximian is trying to reach. It's just a nice, clean look that is pleasant to use without being distracting. If aesthetics alone were the deciding factor for corporate desktops, Microsoft would be in deep trouble. Then again, they'd never have gotten where they were in the first place if aesthetics were a big factor.

Speaking of Microsoft, Ximian takes a cue from the folks in Redmond with some desktop icons like "My Computer," "Trash" and a home folder that are all designed to be permanent fixtures. They can be removed, but it isn't as simple as right-clicking on the icon and hitting "Move to Trash." For the corporate desktop, this is a feature -- for the average Linux user, this is annoying. The "My Computer" folder contains the same kind of stuff you'd find on a Windows machine, a printer icon, settings icon, and so on. It's not an exact replica of the Windows setup, but it's probably close enough to be intuitive if you've been using Windows all your computing life.

I found that it's easy to browse to a Samba share using Nautilus, which is a good thing for companies who want to move some users from Windows to Linux. I'm guessing it would have been able to "see" a regular Windows box with file-sharing turned on as well.

XD2 also comes with a brand-new version of Evolution. Unfortunately, Evolution 1.4 is mostly a maintenance release -- there are no new features to speak of, just bug fixes, better integration with GNOME 2 and so on. While I don't want to minimize the importance of bug fixing and so forth, I was hoping for some new features for Evolution. Other than the splash screen, I didn't notice any difference between Evolution 1.4 and 1.2.

The folks at Ximian have done a nice job of sprucing up OpenOffice.org. They've added a whole new set of icons to the toolbars and so on, which isn't a big deal in terms of functionality, but it will probably do more to create a good first impression for former (or soon-to-be former) Microsoft Office users. They've also tweaked OOo to save files in Microsoft Office formats by default, rather than the standard OOo formats. This includes getting rid of the dialog box that warns that you might lose data by saving in other formats. Again, this is a feature that will be a big plus for users moving from Windows to Ximian, but possibly annoying for the average Linux user.

Ximian has also included "Windows metric compatible fonts" in XD2. Basically, this means that the fonts included are supposed to better mimic the default fonts you get with Windows -- making Web browsing and such more like the Windows experience. I don't really worry too much about Web pages looking different, but the XD2 fonts mean that MS Office documents look much more like they're supposed to when you open them in OpenOffice.org and that's a very good thing. Presumably, it will also mean that documents created in OpenOffice.org will look right when opened in Microsoft Office.

Speaking of Web pages. Ximian defaults to Galeon as its Web browser, rather than Mozilla. Since I usually use Mozilla, I wasn't sure I'd like the switch, but I really didn't notice much difference. One nice thing is that Ximian pre-installs the regular suspects when it comes to plugins, so you'd have Java, Flash and the rest from the beginning rather than having to download them separately. This is in the Professional edition of XD2 -- so if you're doing the free download, you're still going to have to go hunting for some of the plugins, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and you won't get the Agfa fonts.

Though I think XD2 is a great desktop, there are some areas for improvement. For example, one of the first things I do when I do a fresh install is to set the resident window manager or desktop environment to move windows transparently. I couldn't find a way to do this using any of the apps in XD2's Personal Settings panel. I'm also puzzled because Ximian installs a "Format a Floppy" icon by default under the "System Tools" menu -- despite the fact that the machine has no floppy drive.

Overall, though, I think that Ximian has delivered a great desktop for their target audience. Whether corporations take it up or not is another story, but here's hoping.

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The end of the NIC

The "New Internet Computer" (NIC) was another one of Larry Ellison's Big Ideas: a low-price, hassle-free Linux-based computer which limited itself to Internet activity. It was essentially a browser with a bit of accompanying hardware. There was no hard disk; Linux would boot off a CDROM and what little data needed to be stored went into flash memory. At $200, it seemed like a cheap and easy way to get Linux onto desktops - and counter tops - where it had previously failed to go. LWN covered the NIC release back in July, 2000.

So much for that idea; three years later, as reported by ZDNet, the New Internet Computer Company is shutting down. Sales have been scarce, and the company was unable to come up with another round of financing. When you have a company that is not making money, there are really only a couple of choices: find an excuse to sue IBM, or shut down gracefully. NIC chose the latter path.

The Linux-based thin client (or "Internet appliance") product once looked like a good idea. Many people just want to play around on the net, and don't want to hassle with computers, software installations, drive failures, viruses, etc. Why not provide them with a simple box which handles this basic task and doesn't ask for any care and feeding?

The answer would seem to be that, when people want a computer, they want a real, general purpose computer. For the price of a NIC, it is possible to find real systems which can be customized, enhanced with additional software, and generally made more useful. People naturally shy away from a system which appears to offer reduced functionality or to be, in some way, crippled. This is, perhaps, especially true when people are looking at Linux systems, which ordinarily offer a greater degree of control than proprietary alternatives.

There may yet come a time when everything one might want is available as a web service, and users want little more than a display with a browser and a "buy" button. But, for now, it appears that the general purpose computer has not yet completed its run.

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A few SCO notes

Things have been relatively quiet on the SCO front this week. The world is waiting for SCO to put up some evidence, and SCO management has not come up with any new ways to upset the Linux community. Still, a few things are worth mentioning.

SCO held a conference call on May 30 to explain its position. Executive summary: they claim to own the Unix copyrights, but it doesn't matter because the IBM suit is based on contracts. For more information see LWN's quick writeup or the complete transcript posted by Karsten Self.

LWN has decided not to request access to SCO's evidence under their non-disclosure agreement (which has been posted by the Linux Journal). Our ability to write about important topics, along with our continued ability to contribute to projects like the kernel, is more important than early access to SCO's exhibits. Besides, SCO's oft-repeated statements about the useful value of contracts as a vehicle for lawsuits suggests that they might be a good company to not sign contracts with.

LinuxTag's complaint against SCO in Germany, mentioned briefly here last week, has had some success: rather than put up its proof as demanded, SCO chose to shut down its German web site. The links to its "letter to Linux users" have also been removed from the SCOsource web page. It is a temporary situation, but, for now, SCO has chosen silence over backing up its claims.

News.com has tracked down a copy of the 1995 contract between SCO and Novell - the one which transferred (or didn't) Unix to SCO. Reading the contract seemingly does not make the situation any clearer; the contract looks like a muddy mess. Resolving who really owns the Unix copyrights looks like a job for the courts.

Finally, for some amusement, see Modern SCO Executive, an extreme exercise in fair use by Moen, Self, Gilbert, and Sullivan.

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A quick LWN update

It's been a while since we've run one of these update articles, which is generally a good thing. We'd rather be talking about what is going on in the Linux community than ourselves. But every now and then somebody asks for an update, so here goes...

The subscription count remains, more or less, level. We went through the expiration of all the six-month subscriptions that people took out back at the beginning in reasonably good form, which is a good thing. But the rate of growth at this point is very low. We've begun to increase traffic with some careful, targetted advertising (mostly on Google for the moment) with some results. More needs to be done, however. The subscription level is still not at the level it needs to reach for LWN to be a long-term stable operation.

Advertising on the LWN site has been a little higher through the last few months. We would like to encourage everybody to remember the LWN text ad system, however. It is an effective and inexpensive way to get your message out to the Linux community and support LWN at the same time.

It is worth noting that it has now been one year since LWN switched over to the new site code and format. There were a lot of complaints at the time, but our readers appear to have gotten used to the new way of doing things. The new code has significantly reduced the effort it takes to put LWN together every week, has enabled the formation of a strong (and opinionated) community of commenters, and, of course, has let us set up the whole subscription system. We believe it was worth it, even if there are still a lot of rough edges in need of smoothing.

Thanks, as always, for supporting LWN.

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