[wplug-announce] The Open Pitt, Issue 20

[Vance Kochenderfer]

PDF version: <http://www.wplug.org/top/wplug-top020.pdf>

                               THE OPEN PITT
      What's cooking in Linux and Open Source in Western Pennsylvania

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Issue 20                        January 2006                  www.wplug.org
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In this issue:
  Third Time's a Charm?
  December Roundup
  Links of the Month
  Looking Forward to 2006

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                               Coming Events

Jan. 21: General User Meeting, Topic: Pearl the Robot.  10am to 2pm, 1507
         Newell-Simon Hall, CMU
Feb. 4:  General User Meeting, Topic: Linux Demo Day.  10am to 2pm, 3002
         Newell-Simon Hall, CMU
Feb. 11: Linux Basics Tutorial.  10am to 2pm, 3002 Newell-Simon Hall, CMU

                    The public is welcome at all events
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Third Time's a Charm?

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has just released the draft of a new
version of the GNU General Public License (GPL).  Version 3 will be the
first change to this license since 1991.

Hard numbers can be difficult to get, but the GPL is almost certainly the
most popular license for Open Source and Free Software.  The FSF has
suggested that authors using the GPL specify that their code is released
under "version 2...or any later version."  Once version 3 of the license is
done, that software will be available under the terms of either version.
So this change will have a broad impact immediately, and new projects are
likely to adopt it from the start.

Ah-one, and ah-two...
Version 1 of the GPL came out in 1989, a somewhat unsettled time for issues
of software law in the U.S.  Although it had been firmly established that
both source code and object code could be copyrighted, the exact scope of
protection was unclear.  Patents were shakier; it would take another five
years before legal precedent clearly upholding them was issued.

A second version of the GPL was released in 1991.  For the most part,
changes related to style were made and some parts were clarified.  Newly
added was a section on patents (section 7) which made it explicit that they
could not be used to restrict a user's rights under the GPL.

What's new
So what has happened in the last 15 years?  The number of software patents
issued in the U.S. has skyrocketed.  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
and the rise of Digital Rights Management (DRM, also called Digital
Restrictions Management by some) have altered the balance of power between
copyright owners and the users of software and electronic items.

At the same time, the GPL and its terms have been widely accepted.  The new
draft builds on the foundation laid by version 2 instead of making radical
changes.

The greatest change targets DRM.  The new draft states that DRM cannot be
used to place additional restrictions on GPL-covered code.  It also
provides that the software cannot be used as a restriction mechanism to
protect other content.  For example, if a music publisher tried to use GPL
software to copy-protect files, users would be free to circumvent this
without fear of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Patents also get significant attention.  The basic stance is the same, but
some refinements have been made.  The draft explicitly says that anyone
distributing GPL software also grants a license to any patents they hold
that apply to the program.  It also removes the right to run and privately
modify software from anyone bringing a patent lawsuit that affects the
software.  In addition, authors are allowed to impose even stronger "patent
retaliation" terms if they choose, but this is not part of the basic
license.

Another change is best described by example.  Imagine a web site which lets
users upload a word processor document, converts it to PDF, then charges
them a fee to download the PDF copy.  If a GPL program does the conversion,
the author of that program may (at his option) require the web site to
offer the converter program for download.  Since "web services" have not
yet proved popular, this area is being left open for experimentation.

Next steps
The draft is not yet final.  You can read it and the rationale behind it at
<http://gplv3.fsf.org/>.  This site allows you to make comments, and a
worldwide series of meetings will be held to discuss the draft.  And plenty
of articles are sure to appear on tech news sites dissecting each clause.
So it will still be some time before the last word is spoken.

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December Roundup

Dec. 3 General User Meeting: Vance Kochenderfer gave an overview of the
Mandriva Linux distribution.  After explaining its origins and reviewing
the Mandriva product line, he gave a demonstration of its administration
tools and distinguishing features.

Dec. 17 Tutorial: Mark Dalrymple discussed the Objective-C programming
language, an object-oriented layer on top of C about as old as C++ but less
commonly used.  Its design makes it easy to extend, and extensions can
typically be reused without further modification. Objective-C saw early use
on the NeXT workstation and is now actively employed in the Cocoa
environment for Mac OS X and the GNUstep environment for Linux, BSD, and
Windows.  Mark gave a thumbnail sketch of the basic principles of the
language including examples.  The topic is covered in much greater detail
in his forthcoming book _Learn Objective-C on the Macintosh_
<http://spiderworks.com/books/learnobjc.php>.

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Links of the Month
by Michael P. O'Connor

Welcome to the first installment of a new regular feature.  In this column
I hope to bring our readers interesting links from around the Internet.

Starting here at home this month, I will look at some technology-related
sites in the Pittsburgh region.  So let's get going!

Beginning in the weblog world, <http://www.pghbloggers.org/> is a site that
aggregates many of the blogs of people living in the area.  Also included
are some blogs of Pittsburgh natives living in exile in different areas. 
If you have a blog and are a Pittsburgher you can have your site listed
there as well.

Next is the Pittsburgh Technology Council <http://www.pghtech.org/>.  This
alliance seeks to promote and strengthen technology-related companies in
southwest Pennsylvania, and attract new ones here.

For you system administrators out there, the Pittsburgh chapter of the
System Administrators Guild <http://www.pghsage.org/> covers topics of
particular interest to you.

Last but not least, we have our own <http://www.wplug.org/>.  It is your
source to find out about upcoming and past WPLUG events.  You can also read
through the mailing list archives and, of course, back issues of The Open
Pitt.

I'd like to close by asking you to send in any suggestions of themes or
links you may have for a future column.  You can just e-mail me at
<wplug at mikeoconnor.net> and I will see about including your ideas.

Till next month, enjoy these links!

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Did You Know...

That the Bruce Perens' Open Source Series of books from Prentice Hall are
published under the Open Publication License?  This allows electronic
versions of each book to be made available free of charge.

You can download titles on many Open Source subjects, such as _Linux Quick
Fix Notebook_ and _PHP 5 Power Programming_.  If you prefer printed copies,
these are available for purchase also.  Details on all books in the series
can be found on their web site at <http://www.phptr.com/perens>.

                                          --contributed by Beth Lynn Eicher

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Looking Forward to 2006
by Bill Moran

2005 was a big year for WPLUG.  After many months of hard work, the bylaws
committee finally finished a new set of bylaws.  And the first elected
board took office.

On the surface, this may not seem to have made much of a change to WPLUG.
Previous boards have generally had the interest of Pittsburgh's open source
community in mind, and the new board is no different.  The real change is
likely to occur in how this will be accomplished.  With the new board/
committee structure in place, WPLUG's government is designed specifically
to distribute the workload of running the group over many people.

This is a two-pronged improvement, in my opinion.  First off, it should
help to keep any one person from having to shoulder all the work.  I'm
excited to see Beth Lynn take the Vice-Chair's spot and become the "voice
of WPLUG," as I feel that helping WPLUG become a more important part of the
larger Linux community is something she's particularly good at.

The second prong is a structure that encourages others to get involved and
help out.  WPLUG has always been about openness and serving as broad an
audience as possible, and we now have a structure to encourage wider
participation.

That's what government is *supposed* to be about, in my opinion.  It's not
about political rallies or corruption.  Government is about giving the
community, of whatever type, a framework to accomplish the goals that are
common to the members of that community.

Personally, I think this year will be even more exciting than last year.
Sure, we changed the government, but this year we have to make that
government work.  The best days--and the most challenging--are yet to come.

Bill Moran is WPLUG's Chair.

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The Open Pitt is published by the Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group
<http://www.wplug.org/top/>

Editors: Elwin Green, Vance Kochenderfer

Copyright 2006 Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group.  Any article in
this newsletter may be reprinted elsewhere in any medium, provided it is
not changed and attribution is given to the author and WPLUG.