Meeting 2008-04-23
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Information
- Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2008
- Time: 8:30PM
- Place: Torgerson 3180
News
KML is approved by OGC
From the Google open source blog: "We've got great news for you from the geo world: KML, originally created as a file format for overlaying content in Google Earth, is now an international standard. The Open Geospatial Consortium has announced its acceptance of KML 2.2 as an official OGC Standard, and they will now take the responsibility for maintaining and expanding it."
- KML is really kind of cool (for an XML format). I have a script that I wrote that generates a KML file from a GPS track log and a set of digital photos and matches the times of the two and both geo tags the pictures and creates a KML file that you can then look at in Google Earth and see your pictures in reference to where they were taken.
Patrik 15:13, 16 April 2008 (EDT)
Purdue launches p2p network
- You kids and your peer-to-peer networks. When I was a kid, we had these things called "floppy disks" that we had to give to each other in the physical world if we wanted to share a file. And on those days only one person could have the disk at a time. I also had to walk up a hill, in the snow, both ways, just to exchange that floppy disk with another person. Lousy youth these days have it so much easier. --Matt 15:10, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
Psystar Makes Apple Clone: Apple may not be able to sue (for much)
Apple has always seen itself as a hardware company and as such view their OS as a selling point of their hardware. They promise stability and reliability that is hard to maintain when you use a diverse set of hardware. Clones present 2 problems for Apple: 1) a dent in hardware sales (obvious) and 2) dilution of a brand/selling point: if OSX starts running on 3rd party hardware it would not be guaranteed the same Q&A process and thus people would be come more accustomed to a crappy-fied OSX and hurt the "IT JUST WORKS" selling point. Point 2 is extremely debateable as *nix/BSD systems have mostly enjoyed stability even on a diverse set of hardware, but it's the sort of thing that VPs lose sleep over.
The article mainly focuses on the prospects of litigation which are limited. Violating Apple's only install on "Apple Brand Hardware" is a breach of contract and is in no way a copyright or patent violation. In most places breach of contract are limited to damages which would be the cost of a Leopard DVD. On top of that, Apple might be required to go after the distributor for knowingly selling software to someone who was installing on 3rd party hardware, because the distributor signs a contract with Apple, but the EULA is not considered a signed contract and thus has little litigation power. The article mentions a few other routes of litigation such as divulging trade secrets or patents on the simulator required to make it run, but these sound unlikely.
Finally the article mentions Apple's first foray into copyright law: Apple v. Franklin where Franklin copied parts of Apple II software to make their system compatible with Apple
In the end Apple, may be required to prevent 3rd party systems by making patches to detect the emulation method used to currently trick Leopard into thinking a system is Apple branded. This would leave Psystar as the ever lumbering cat in a game of cat and mouse.
- I forgot that it was Apple that reaffirmed software's ability to be convered under copyright. Remind me to rub this in Ashton's face the next time I see him. --Matt 00:42, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
- Gizmodo says it's a hoax: Pystar Exposed: Looks Like a Hoax --Matt 21:51, 18 April 2008 (EDT)
Sun to begin close sourcing MySQL
Slashdot summary: "From the MySQL User's Conference, Sun has announced, and former CEO Marten Mickos has confirmed, that Sun will be close sourcing sections of the MySQL code base. Sun will begin with close sourcing the backup solutions to MySQL, and will continue with more advanced features. With Oracle owning Innodb, and it being GPL, does this mean that MySQL will be removing it to introduce these features? Sun has had a very poor history of actually open sourcing anything."
- I've always been a little bit more of a Postgres fan anyway... Cov
- Me too. Poo on you Sun. --Conley 11:11, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
- So, does this mean that "LAMP" will become "LAPP"? --Matt 21:46, 21 April 2008 (EDT)
- It will be GLAPP --Conley 21:58, 21 April 2008 (EDT)
- I have been a fan of MySQL not for technical reasons, but ease of use and accessibility... That being said Posgres is/has been more advanced (can we say transactions?) and I think generally better thought of. In my experience though, MySQL has been used a lot in medium/small business apps and when people need more they just spend the $20+k for Oracle, so if this goes to far then it will push PostgesSQL way up in usage. Patrik 21:47, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
- FYI, the article says that Sun is just going to work exclusively on MySQL Enterprise. The Slashdot summary was poorly written. --Matt 08:41, 23 April 2008 (EDT)
Linus announces Linux 2.6.25
- I was expecting that the domain "Kernel Newbies" would imply that there isn't any technical jargon. Somebody translate all of this for the kernel-jargon impaired. --Matt 13:54, 19 April 2008 (EDT)
Part of the Copyright Act ruled unconstitutional
The Copyright Remedy Clarification Act removed sovereign immunity for state workers from infringement during official duties. Critics believe that this can become a problem because universities may become potentially liable for infringement by faculty members. A US Southern California District Court has ruled that the 14th Amendment did not give Congress the power to enact these provisions against state workers, thus making this part of the act unconstitutional.
- District Court Invalidates Portion of Copyright Act as Unconstitutional; Holds State University and Employee Immune From Claim for Copyright Infringement - Fairly Used
- University Liability for Faculty Infringements
- Slashdot | Court Finds Part of Copyright Act Unconstitutional
- Do not ask me about this. I can't make much sense out of it either. --Matt 22:33, 20 April 2008 (EDT)
Microsoft Office 2007 does not implement OOXML
Right now, it's pretty safe to say that the most notable office suite that uses the now-standardized Office Open XML is Microsoft Office 2007. Well, Groklaw reports that the leader of ISO's OOXML committee, Alex Brown, has confirmed that Microsoft Word 2007 fails at implementing the draft OOXML specification. The two tests resulted in about 122,000 errors in Microsoft's implementation. In a nutshell: any Word 2007 documents you have ever created or received are not OOXML, or at least not ISO 29500 OOXML.
- Groklaw - Microsoft Office 2007 Fails OOXML Conformance Tests, Alex Brown Admits, Hopes For the Best
- Slashdot | Office 2007 Fails OOXML Test With 122,000 Errors
2 new albums from Josh Woodward
The Simple Life is available for download under CC by-nc-sa
Nelson's Speech
How did it go?
- I'm sure we'll know by the time the meeting starts. --Matt 20:04, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
Birthday Present
Nelson sent us a care package.
- Those yellow and white paper things look like the stickers RMS was handing out. --Matt 15:14, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
Good Copy Bad Copy
We are going to watch the third 15 minutes of Good Copy Bad Copy and discuss.
Show and tell
MythTV, Conley said he wanted to see it and how it works, so I'll bring in my box and show some of the features. Patrik 01:13, 21 April 2008 (EDT)
Open floor
Sarah is free
Turns out that Sarah is not getting sued by the RIAA.
- Good thing too. They just sued a homeless man --Matt 23:04, 18 April 2008 (EDT)
2600
................................ ........ 0 1 0 ........ .... 0 0 1 .... .. 1 1 1 .. . . . .--. .-'. .--. . :::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::: ' `--' `.-' `--'' ' 2 6 0 0 ' '' M e e t i n g'' '''' '''' ''''''''of the N R V'''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Meetings are the first Friday of every month, but May 2nd will be our first. We'll be planning a jolly old time for this fall. We hope to provide a useful forum for talking security and scratching that itch for knowledge of how stuff works (and under what conditions it fails to). Squires lobby at 19:00.
^ What is this? --Matt 21:46, 18 April 2008 (EDT)
Matt's guitar controller isn't working
Looks like we'll need two keybaords again for FoF, which is a shame because I'm much better at FoF with the controller. :( --Matt 20:01, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
- I returned it to GameStop for a new one. The new one works. --Matt 17:12, 23 April 2008 (EDT)
Free Film
Check out a list of free films.
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