Schemas and Tin Foil

COMMUNITY Community Notes SCHEMASCommunity Notes AND TIN FOIL

has tainted the UN World Summit on In- formation that Microsoft has published formation Society. under unacceptably restrictive licenses. It may surprise some readers to learn Open Microsoft Office? that Microsoft is a leading publisher of Microsoft has hinted that it might release certain important technical documenta- its proprietary document formats to an tion produced by various committees. international standards body such as the They publish several important pieces of ECMA International (the European asso- information concerning the ACPI stan- Jon Masters is a UK-based ciation for standardizing information dard, which has in the past lead to the embedded Linux developer, and communications systems) or even removal of some patches during kernel push for full ISO certification for their development, lest the information upon writer, and consultant. He has Office product’s XML Schemas. Such a which they were based taint the kernel. move has potential to be positive for Just this past week, several developers been actively involved with the Free Software if the Office formats are to argued over the right to use some Micro- Linux community since starting truly be made open. In such cases, it soft documentation to enhance support would no longer be necessary to actively for the latest PC systems based around his first degree at age 13. Jon is dissuade people from using Microsoft modern BIOS implementations. They’ll format attachments, for example, which take a little more convincing now that currently a member of more could make it easier for Free Software Microsoft is genuinely seeking to mend than 50 Linux User Groups applications to interoperate with Micro- its ways. soft’s office products. around the world. However, the timing of this move fol- Richard Stallman’s Tin Foil lows the decision by the US State of Mas- Hat sachusetts to mandate the use of the The second phase of the UN World Sum- OpenDocument format in government mit on Information Society (WSIS) took ovember proved to be an inter- and is likely to be related – Microsoft place in Tunis from November 16-18, esting month in the Linux and doubtless does’t want to lose out at the 2005. At the conference, representatives NFree Software communities. hands of Open Office when it comes to from 175 countries debated many of the Things started out pretty normally, with lucrative government another successful Ubuntu release and contracts. the accompanying “Ubuntu Below Zero” The community hacker gathering in Montreal. We also will take some con- saw a new distribution from RedHat vincing if it is to be- (their Enterprise Directory distribution) lieve that Microsoft is and some turbulent times for a couple of truly seeking to re- other vendors. lease open standards By the middle of the month, Microsoft to make the world a was hinting that it might finally stan- better place for in- dardize the Microsoft Office file formats teroperability. Only under an international body, leading this past month, some to wonder if they were trying to we’ve witnessed sev- turn over a new leaf. But alas, it didn’t eral conversation last. As the month came to an end, Mi- threads concerning crosoft drew fire from the Free Software kernel hackers who Foundation Europe (FSFE) in a scandal are seeking alterna- Figure 1: I met Richard Stallman for tea the last time he was in that many Free Software enthusiasts feel tive ways to get at in- London. We chatted about hardware patents and digital security.

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issues that affect the modern information age. Among those present at the conference were Bruce Perens, Richard Stall- man, and Mark Shuttleworth. Bruce doc- umented much of the event in his blog (perens. sourcelabs. com), which includes one rather amusing incident involving tin-foil hats. It turns out that the security arrangements for the preceding “phase one” of the summit in 2003 had included the issuance of RFID cards to all those in attendance. Richard Stallman (RMS) was among those who had objected to this, which led to an agreement not to use RFID technology at the phase two meet- ing. Unfortunately, this promise was not kept, and it became obvious to RMS that his card had the user tracking technology implanted during its production. Ever the melodramatic type, Richard decided to make a point out of this use Figure 2: FSFE hopes the outrage over Microsoft's apparent clout with the UN will help rally of what he deems intrusive and danger- support for the FSFE fellowship program. ous technology by procuring an entire roll of aluminum foil and producing a Perens notes in his blog that they had at almost no cost, but by offering ser- shield to wear around his pass. He some limited diplomatic protection as vices on top of them. The success of the would remove it to pass through the UN delegates, which would have lead to free software model is one example.” Mi- scanners placed around the building, but amusing headlines had Richard actually crosoft was unhappy at the references to was unwilling to accept the potential been detained for any period of time. Free Software and has since admitted that people might be reading the RFID Bruce reminded Richard that he had lim- that it had references to Free Software without his knowledge and tracking him ited immunity while at the conference. removed from the final version of the around the grounds. To this, Richard wittily remarked that he document. During his keynote speech, he even should have used the opportunity to Such ability for Microsoft to demand gave a talk about the RFID issue and shoot one of the paid lobbyists against semantic changes to UN documents has passed the tin foil around for others to Free Software who had been bugging raised more than a few eyebrows. The construct their very own pass protectors. him again. Perens doubted that the im- FSFE is now attempting to draw atten- Incidentally, RFID shields are likely to munity was that extensive, but there’s tion to this practice and to encourage become more commonplace over time as now little doubt UN security will be those in positions of authority to prevent more and more governments and organi- watching RMS even more closely from it from happening in future. To this end, zations begin to use the technology. Fu- now on. the FSFE has provided a website www. ture US passports will apparently be is- fsfe.org/ fellows/greve/ freedom_bits/ sued with RFID embedded information, Vienna Manipulations fellow_me_say_no_to_vienna_manipula- but will likely have a layer of foil added The president of the Free Software Foun- tions, in which you can let everyone within the outer binding covers to pre- dation Europe (FSFE), Georg Greve re- know what you think about Microsoft’s vent them from being surreptitiously cently drew attention to a document pre- actions by pressing a button that says read without the owner’s knowledge. sented at the UN World Summit on In- “Fellow Me: No more Vienna Manipula- Unfortunately for Stallman, UN secu- formation Society (WSIS). The docu- tions.” (The “Fellow Me” is a reference rity officials apparently weren’t so inter- ment, known as the Vienna Conclusions, to the FSFE’s fellowship program.) ested in the wider privacy debate sur- made reference to Free Software as part For its part, Microsoft claims that it rounding RFID, or in issuing protectors, of a wider analysis of issues affecting IT asked for the section to be deleted from and they were somewhat unimpressed and creativity. the Vienna Conclusions because “it con- by Stallman’s peaceful protest in Tunis. An original draft version of the docu- tains only a one-sided perspective of the They decided not to allow him to leave ment discussed how the Free Software ICT industry.” They continue, “The ra- the room where he had been speaking, model is changing the way people do tionale for this is that the aim of free and then they wouldn’t allow him to business. According to the FSFE, the software is not to enable a healthy busi- enter into the next room, where he was document originally had included the ness on software but rather to make it due to speak, until the whole thing was wording “Increasingly, revenue is gener- even impossible to make any income on cleared up with some high enough rank- ated not by selling content and digital software as a commercial product.” ing official behind the scenes. works, as they can be freely distributed More than a few groups successfully

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stating that they will continue to support KDE for the time being. If Novell does truly switch to Gnome, that will leave few major Linux desktop contenders based on KDE, which is all the more rea- son for the recent growth in Kubuntu as a first-class alternative to the regular Ubuntu for those seeking a distribution based on KDE. I branched out over the last month by hanging out with some of the Linux geeks at the London PHP hackers meet- ing. Although I’m no stranger to an oc- casional “perlmongers” (PM) event, I admit to being genuinely surprised to meet such an extremely knowledgeable bunch of skilled Open Source developers and enthusiasts. PHP is often viewed as a suped-up scripting language, but the reality remains that it is extremely easy to learn and to use. When I switched my Figure 3: Users tune in to Breezy at Ubuntu Below Zero. blog software from one PHP content management system to another, the en- making money out of Free Software were multi-desktop discussion on what the tire process took a couple of hours with rightfully shocked by that last statement. current state of play is and where things a bit of scripting magic – and that in- should be headed. Novell used the op- cluded relearning PHP from scratch. The On the wire portunity to remind those present that latest 5.x releases have overhauled the Following the release of Breezy Badger, they’re sponsoring some pretty interest- PHP language, which now allows for the Ubuntu folks have continued their ing usability research that aims to under- many more high-level language con- campaign for world domination. Firstly stand how people adjust to Linux for the structs. with yet another successful conference – first time. The results from that survey The PHP hackers – like their Perl Ubuntu Below Zero, Montreal – and are available at the website http:// www. counterparts – hold regular monthly secondly, with a series of talks around betterdesktop. org. meetups with speakers on a variety of the Northern Hemisphere by Jeff Waugh, Novell itself made headlines with the topics. This month’s speaker runs a pop- Ubuntu hacker extrodinaire and one of announcement that it would lay off hun- ular music website called magnatune. the leaders of the Gnome Desktop dreds of workers and switch the default com. He discussed the need for intelli- project. Novell Linux Desktop to Gnome (from gent caching solutions when running Jeff has been travelling for the last KDE). They later backpeddled a little by large websites on PHP. I month or so, visiting various Linux User Groups and other communities on his travels as part of the Badger Badger tour promoting Breezy in all its easy-to-use Debianesque glory. He wound up in Portland (Oregon) for the final “The Last Badger” leg of the whirlwind tour, just in time for the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) invite-only Desktop Archi- tect’s gathering (perhaps a secret travel motivation, Jeff?). Oregon has become quite the Open Source hub over the last few years. Not only is the OSDL based there, but also the OSL (Open Source Lab), and several other key Open Source and Free Software groups, not to men- tion a rapidly expanding developer community. At the Desktop Architect gathering in Portland, several of the core Linux desktop people engaged in a multi-vendor, Figure 4: A crowded conference room in Montreal awaits the next speaker.

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