What's life without a bit of randomness? Um. Nonstochastic?

Whatever. Stuff.

/dev/random

• GNU/Linux
  This is how I make my bread. It's also what I fly at home. Specifically Debian GNU/Linux (why?). (Debian rocks!).
  
  
• Rants (and essays).
  Occasionally I get worked up about something. Sometimes the results end up here.
  • 24 June 2003 Letter to Microsoft Chief Counsel Bradford Smith about Free Software in Microsoft software One of the issues arising from the little Caldera/SCO vs. IBM GNU/Linux lawsuit is FUD aimed at raising doubts over Free Software because, well, it's free. That is: anyone can write it, and it can end up anywhere. Funny thing is, there's a lot of Free Software which can be used, quite legally and as a full intent of the developers, in proprietary software. This is a key goal of such licenses as the BSD, MIT/X11, and Apache licenses, for example. Unsubstantiated sources put the amount of Free Software in Microsoft products as high as 40%. Mr. Smith has as yet failed to reply to my inquiry.
  • AntiVirus / Bounce spam: In the event it's not already painfully clear, many autoresponder systems, even those nominally RFC 2821 compliant, are harmful if not properly controlled. Best practices dictate modifying RFC recommendations in this case. Turn off your antivirus system autoresponder. Don't send delivery status notifications for spam or viral mail.
  • America Trans-Air sucks: Tales of a hellish Christmas flight home...and back. Yes, they screwed it up both ways.
  • Coffee: The perfect cup.
  • GPG Mail Signatures: Why my mail looks weird, and what you should do about it.
  • What's wrong with Javascript (old): OK, this is probably laughably ancient. It's extensible into a general essay on why client-side scripting is generally a bad idea.
  • Software "Piracy" myths debunked: or why software vendors encourage piracy for marketing goals while playing the sympathy card at the same time.
  
  
• Docs
  A collection of (mostly short) GNU/Linux documents, FAQs, and HOWTOs I've written. Note that I'm in the process of moving many of these to TWikIWeThey, in particular:
  
  • Browsers for GNU/Linux and other 'Nix platforms...andy why GNU/Linux browsing is better than That Other OS....
  • Why Debian Rocks...or a few words on my preferred GNU/Linux distribution.
  • Partitioning Recommendations for GNU/Linux...based on six years' experience.
  • Debian 'chroot' install...other GNU/Linux distributions aren't completely useless. Some of them make quite good Debian installers ;-)
  • Debian /var recovery...if you've destroyed your /var filesystem -- where Debian stores its packaging data -- you're not hosed.
  • SCO vs. IBM...March 6, 2003 lawsuit and related events.
  • Pirates of Penguinance..."I am the very model of a modern SCO executive..."
  
  
• Quotes & Cites
  Mentions in the press or elsewhere of things I've said and/or done.
  • Barbarians at the Digital Gate, Timothy L. O'Brien and Saul Hansell, Sep 19, 2004. Article on the plague of spyware and adware infesting Microsoft PCs.
  • Chairman Bill's 'magic spam cure' - a revenue opportunity? The Register, Andrew Orlowski, Jan 28, 2004. On Microsoft's spam-payment scheme. "Micropayments don't scale - and Bill Gates knows this".
  • Email: to sign or not to sign? , NewsForge, Joe Barr, Jan 20, 2004. Interview on merits of GPG signed email.
  • FSF eases Microsoft schema patent fears, The Register, Andrew Orlowski, Nov 18, 2003. Commenting on Microsoft's announcement of an XML patent. If there's going to be trouble from Microsoft regards free software, it's likely to be patents.
  • Debian Weekly News, Jan 20, 2004. Credit for assisting in a remote Debian-over-Red Hat install based on my Debian Chroot Install method.
  • Red Hat complaint in text format, Linux Weekly News, Aug 5, 2003. More Caldera/SCO legal document transcripts.
  • All SCO, all the time, Linux Weekly News, Jun 19, 2003. Announcement of the SCO vs. IBM TWiki.
  • SCO Teleconference transcript , NewsForge, Jun 1, 2003. Text transcript of a Caldera/SCO teleconference by yours truly. Before Groklaw outclassed me in this task(for which I'm eternally grateful).
  • SCO's 10K report, NewsForge, May 29, 2003. Close reading suggests Novell owns copyright (which Caldera/SCO denies, naturally).
  • Text of SCO's complaint, Linux Weekly News, Mar 10, 2003. My annotated notes on the original Caldera/SCO complaint against IBM.
  • A look at the MS-SQL worm, Linux Weekly News, 29 Jan, 2003. Some comments and musings on the Slammer (MS SQL engine) "Warhol" worm and implications for both patch-based security and GNU/Linux.
  • A few SCO notes, Linux Weekly News, Jun 5, 2003. One of many mentions of the Modern SCO Executive G&S parody by Rick Moen and myself.
  • Debian Weekly News, Feb 25, 2003. Created an introductory Knoppix FAQ and burned a spool of disks for distribution.
  • Debian Weekly News, April 10, 2002. Suggestion for 'local-foo' in Debian SysV init scripts.
  • Microsoft aims 'shared source' spoiler at Java, The Register, Andrew Orlowski, 28 Mar 2002. Those Microsofties, they're such teases.... On licensing shenanigans from Microsoft.
  • Open Source Mono Project un-GPLs class libraries to court major tech companies, NewsForge, Tina Gasperson, Jan 28, 2002. Commenting on the strategic significance of a software project relicensing.
  • Borland demands users pay for license audit, The Register, Andrew Orlowski, Jan 14, 2002. "Borland's the three-ounce gorilla," in trying to shove licensing terms down users' throats. Borland relented a few days later.
  • Open Channel Software removes "Open Source" claim, NewsForge, Tina Gasperson, Nov 1, 2001. Licensing and use of "Open Source" on a non-OSI certified license.
  • IBM risks billion dollar GNU/Linux strategy with W3C RAND demands, The Register, Andrew Orlowsi, Oct 4, 2001. You see, IBM's got this interesting conflict between its billion-dollar patent business, and its billion-dollar GNU/Linux business.... Bar none.
  • W3C defends RAND license, The Register, Andrew Orlowski, Oct 2, 2001. "Yes, but the IETF isn't advancing toward the rear" -- followup on W3C patent policy story.
  • The free Web's over, as W3C blesses Net patent taxes, The Register, Andrew Orlowski, Oct 10, 2001. Note of my timeline of public feedback to the W3C's "RAND" (fee-based discriminatory) patent policy proposal. "I'm afraid what we've got here is a failure to communicate".
  • DVD Open Forum Minus the Forum, Wired, Jeff Howe, Feb 4, 2000. I moderated a forum on the DeCSS DVD technology and DMCA at LinuxWorld Expo NYC. The article neglects to mention that the whole thing came together in about 24 hours when the last of third Microsoft representative for a GNU/Linux vs. Microsoft shootout failed to materialize. And we still got Barry Steinhardt (associate director, ACLU), Eric S. Raymond (OpenSource Initiative), Allon Levy (EFF / Huber Samuelson lawyer, who flew out from San Jose overnight -- the man is crazy I tell you), and Mark Traphagen (DC attorney for recording industry). Though we could have had another dozen highly qualified panelists from the EFF and elsewhere. Thanks in large part to ESR and Chris DiBona, among others, after I pitched the idea.
    

• Where to find me online These are a few of my hideouts -- discussion boards typically revolving around issues of GNU/Linux, free software, and/or technology. These are also examples of collaborative discussion sites, another area of interest.

  • TWikIWeThey, the latest extension of the IWeThey ILM, local fortes tend to be technology, particularly FreeSoftware, but the range covers a lot of ground. We're actively soliciting contributions and analysis to our GNU/Linux FUD Fighters library.
  • linux-elitists, a not-quite tongue in cheek list hosted by Don Marti, all around nice bastard (Editor in Chief, Linux Journal, SVLUG president, and hacktivist extraordinaire. Discussion of GNU/Linux and free-software related esoterica.
  • debian-user, the Debian support list. It's way too easy to spend most of a day there....
  • Kuro5hin.org, a collaboratively written and edited discussion site, with feedback. That's pronounced "corrosion", a little joke of the site's creator, Rusty Foster. I had some input in the moderation and mojo systems.
  • Advogato is another discussion site, created by Raph Levien, of Gimp fame. The distinctive feature of Advogato is its trust metric, a mechanism for encouraging high-signal, low-noise, discussion.
  
  
• Masters Swimming
  Man does not live by bread alone. Sometimes you have to dunk it.
  
  
• The Big Room
  Things that really matter.
  
  
• UCDavis
• UCSB
  Two places which helped make me what I am today, but which really can't be held accountable for the results.
  
  
• Dilcue
  An online community...in a library catalog? Stranger things have happened....
  
  
• SAS
  This is how I used make my bread.
  
  
• Just plain cool stuff
  Obviously, this is a stretch for me at the moment.