Category: Linux

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OK, I haven’t written much on the SCO vs. Linux debacle in a while, mainly because others have done so much better and in much more detail than I possibly could, so here’s a summary of the situation as I see it.

SCO: Linux stole from us!
Linux: Uh, no. What did we steal?
SCO: Linux stole from us!
Linux: No, we didn’t. What are we supposed to have stolen!
SCO: Linux stole from us! They’re un-American commie terrorists!
Linux: Dude, what the heck? Tell us what we stole or stop accusing us!
SCO: Linux stole XYZ from us.
Linux: No, we got that legally from so-and-so.
SCO: Uh, never mind. We meant to say Linux stole ABC.
Linux: No, we got that legally from such-and-such.
SCO: No, we mean JFS and NUMA!
IBM: Hey, we invented those ourselves.
SCO: We have proof! We have millions of lines that Linux stole!
Linux: Such as?
* crickets *
SCO: We have millions of lines! Millions of them!
Linux: Shyeah, right.
SCO: But don’t worry, for a mere $699, you can assure yourself that we won’t sue you for this chunk of Linux that we haven’t actually proved we own yet!
Linux: $699? For a small piece of something you won’t even prove you own? What’s next, charging Windows users an extra $700 for Notepad because they can write code with it? [Looks up definition of “protection racket”]
SCO: Did I mention we own BSD, MacOS, and Windows too? They’re next! (Well, except Windows, ’cause Microsoft gave us money. For something else, I mean.)
BSD: You’re kidding, right? We went through this in court a decade ago.
SCO: Wait, we never said anything about BSD.
BSD: But in this interview right here —
SCO: Linux is evil! The GPL is unconstitutional! If you let people use software for free, then the terrorists have won!
Linux: What are you people smoking?

Then there are the lawsuits:
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A long-standing challenge for advocates of Free and Open Source Software (a.k.a. FOSS) has been explaining just what the term Free Software means, because in English,* the word “free” has several unrelated meanings. The classic explanation has been to compare “free speech” and “free beer.”

You see, when the average person hears the phrase “free software,” they generally assume it means the same kind of thing as “free beer.” But it’s really about the software being unencumbered – it’s about your ability to use, study, learn from, and improve the software. It’s not about the price tag.

The problem with the “free speech” label is that the phrase has its own very specific meaning and political overtones. As a result, people tend to focus on the ideas inherent in freedom of speech, dealing with software as a form of expression and focusing on issues like censorship. These are valid issues, but not the heart of what “free software” means.

Today I read a post on Groklaw describing it in terms of “free as in coffee” vs. “free as in liberty” – primarily because he didn’t like the association with beer – but I liked the use of liberty (edit: or just freedom if you want to keep the phrasing consistent) rather than speech, because it conveys the meaning without bringing in other issues.

(Ironically, the FSF page explaining the phrase links to a list of confusing words and phrases that are worth avoiding… that doesn’t include “free!” Update: These days it lists “for free,” “freely available” and “freeware”…but that still doesn’t solve the confusion of “free.”)

*In other languages, the meanings are more distinct. There’s no confusion between software libre and software gratis.

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It looks like it wasn’t quite the perfect time I thought to order a PowerBook. I received confirmation today from TerraSoft that the delay is due to the changes in the PowerBook line (which were half the reason I chose now to order it). It seems they’re still waiting for a shipment from Apple!

Presumably they had some in stock when they updated their store, in which case this is probably a good thing: it means not only are the new PowerBooks selling faster than expected, but they’re selling well through a Linux shop!

That said, if I have to wait too long I may just cancel this order and drive down to the Apple store. Of course, then I’d have to deal with repartitioning and trying to set up dual booting myself, and not only is it more complicated than dual-booting a PC*, there’s a lot less information available.

Ah, well.

* In particular, I don’t know of any utilities like Partition Magic or Parted that will allow you to resize an active Mac OS filesystem, so I would have to wipe the disk and reinstall Mac OS along with installing Linux.

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Last night’s mutual cyber-binge after only two days away from the keyboard was the kicker: If we’re going anywhere for two weeks, we’ll want to bring a computer along.

And so tonight I finally ordered a dual-boot PowerBook from TerraSoft. We’re splitting the cost as a combined wedding and belated/early birthday present to each other.

Sometime this weekend, we’ll have a new computer in the house!

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Sometime early last year I decided I’d like to get a PowerBook. Ideally, one dual-booting Mac OS and Linux. I spent several months saying “I don’t really need a laptop,” but I really started to like the idea after a while, and Katie started to like the idea too, and this January I went so far as to contact TerraSoft Solutions about pricing. TerraSoft maintains their own PPC Linux distribution, Yellow Dog Linux, and their stock in trade is selling Macs preconfigured to dual-boot Mac OS and Linux.

I decided not to buy one then for two reasons: We had the wedding coming up, and I figured Apple was likely to upgrade the line by summer.

Well, the wedding is next weekend, and Apple has just announced upgrades to the PowerBook line.

It may be time to start looking at PowerBooks again.

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I finally get around to downloading Mandrake Linux 10 Community Edition, and they release the “Official” edition.

(Mandrake has moved to a release model where they release a download-only “community” version, refine it and fix bugs for a couple of months, and then release the “official” version to put on CDs and sell in boxes. Essentially, it’s recognizing the fact that new bugs are always found shortly after release of any software, because the average user and average beta tester are not the same, and a lot more people will install the “final” version of a product than will beta test it.)