Reclusive Linux founder opens up

Friday, May 19, 2006 Posted: 0954 GMT (1754 HKT)

(CNN) -- Portland, Oregon is the unlikely capital of a global software revolution. The revolution is called Open Source. And its leader? Linus Torvalds, the reclusive founder of Linux.




Friday, May 19, 2006 Posted: 0954 GMT (1754 HKT)
Linux founder Linus Torvalds now makes his base in Portland, Oregon.

Linux is the free software code developed by a global community of programmers. It's also the world's fastest growing operating system and number two behind Microsoft.

Torvalds works full time overseeing the development of Linux which he created back in 1991 while at university in Helsinki.

Usually media shy, the 36-year-old Finn invited Kristie Lu Stout and the Global Office team into his home for an insight into life at the helm of the operating system that is giving Microsoft some serious headaches.

Kristie Lu Stout: What role do you play in the development of Linux today?

Linus Torvalds: Well today what I do mostly is actually communication. I started out as the main developer but these days what I do is act as the central point for other people who do a lot of development and I gather it all together and basically communicate with people what needs to be done and so on.

KLS: What's your ballpark figure in terms of how many Linux developers there are out there?

LT: I actually only work with a few handfuls so I tend to directly interact with maybe 10 - 20 people and they in turn interact with other people. So depending on how you count, if you count just the core people, 20 -50 people. If you count everybody who's involved; five thousand people -- and you can really put the number anywhere in between... Almost, pretty much all, real work is done over e-mail so it doesn't matter where people are.

KLS: So you have the core people, you have the developers and you have the testers. What do you think motivates everyone, drives everyone to create the best work possible to create a good product?

LT: A lot of the core people just feel excited about the technology. And that's why a lot of people just start; that's where I started from, it was just the excitement of doing something yourself. It's kind of like a hobby. You can tinker with cars, you can tinker with computers. There are a lot of technical issues that are just very exciting if you're that kind of person...At least from the developers' standpoint, nobody does it because they hate Microsoft. None of the people I work with do it for that reason. They do it because they love doing what they do.

Tremendous growth

KLS: In the last year we've seen tremendous growth in Linux usage especially on desktop computers, especially with stuff out there like Open Office, especially the Firefox browser. Do you think we're nearing a tipping point where Linux is becoming mainstream?

LT: Well as far as I'm concerned it's actually been pretty mainstream. Already I've been doing this for 15 years and you have to realize that I've got a slightly different viewpoint on the whole thing.

KLS: I understand, but let's say your mom or my mom, they're surfing the Internet but maybe they're not surfing with Firefox just yet or they don't really know what Linux is just yet.

LT: Open source is definitely getting to the point where a lot of people who don't actually know about the technology start to know about the notion of open source and start to use the products. Not just Linux, I mean Firefox is certainly the one that a lot of people will have seen because they prefer it, because it's better or because it's more secure or for any other number of reasons.

KLS: Another reason, because it's an alternative to Microsoft?

LT: Well that is, I think, played up more than it necessarily needs to be. Because there is a very vocal side to this which is the whole anti Microsoft thing. I think it makes a better story than is necessarily true in real life.

KLS: Now let's go back to the beginnings when Linux first started in the early 1990s. What motivated you to give away the source code?

LT: I didn't start thinking I want to give out the source code. What I started doing, already at that point I was 21, I was at Helsinki University and for half my life I'd been doing programming. All the projects I'd ever done had been projects for my own enjoyment -- technical challenges, but also to just solve issues that I had. And Linux really was nothing different from that. So open source was not really a conscious decision of "I want to make this open source." To a large degree open source was just a way to allow others to look at this and say, "Hey, this is what I've done -- I'm proud of this."

KLS: Do you think there was a little bit of bragging involved?

LT: Absolutely. There was a bit of bragging, there was also a bit of, hey, I still, the way I do my work is I sit these days downstairs in my basement alone. And it's nice to just talk to people and a lot of it was probably just social, just saying, hey this is a way to interact with other geeks who are probably also socially inadequate in many ways.

KLS: And you have a mascot for all this which is the penguin. How did that happen?

LT: I felt that Linux wanted and needed a very nice kind of friendly mascot to kind of offset some of the geekiness and the hard technology. So selecting an animal was a pretty obvious thing to do. And at the same time you want something that is exotic; you don't want a dog or a cat because that's just too everyday. And everybody likes penguins, so I actually decided I want a penguin as my mascot. I want it to be cuddly, I want it to be a plush toy kind of penguin and I could do that myself. So we actually farmed out that design too and we just had a small competition for who could make the nicest penguin. Now you can see the winning end result everywhere on the web.

KLS: Did you ever think about getting into the money game, getting insanely rich from the operating system, which is now the fastest growing operating system in the world that you created?

LT: Well I got rich enough. This isn't bad. It wasn't what I was interested in. In many ways I am very happy about the whole Linux commercial market because the commercial market is doing all these things that I have absolutely zero interest in doing myself. The commercial market is how I actually get a pay check every month. And I get it for doing what I want to do and that is the technical side. I don't want to have anything to do with the commercial marketing stuff. I think everybody is actually quite happy about this arrangement, that people can do what they specialize in, not just on the technical side but overall.

KLS: Over the years, Linux has spawned other open technologies and even an open source spirit or open source philosophy. It has engendered stuff like Wikipedia, the online open source encyclopedia or even, some could argue, citizen journalism. What are your thoughts about that?

LT: We shouldn't give credit to Linux per se. There were open source projects and free software before Linux was there. Linux in many ways is one of the more visible and one of the bigger technical projects in this area and it changed how people looked at it because Linux took both the practical and ideological approach. At the same time I don't think this whole "openness" notion is new. In fact I often compare open source to science. To where science took this whole notion of developing ideas in the open and improving on other peoples' ideas and making it into what science is today, and the incredible advances that we have had. And I compare that to witchcraft and alchemy, where openness was something you didn't do. So openness is not something new, it is something that actually has worked for a long time.

KLS: What is your favorite offshoot of the open source philosophy?

LT: That is an unexpected question. I don't even know. I think the nicest part of it is not really the open source side but the whole community side which was to me not really expected at all. But it is really what keeps me motivated these days.

KLS: Now you are something of a rock star in tech circles...

LT: I don't notice that in normal life. I don't actually go to that many conferences. I do that a couple of times a year. Normally I am not recognized, people don't throw their panties at me. I'm a perfectly normal person sitting in my den just doing my job.

KLS: How often do you get the chance to see your fellow Linux contributors face to face?

LT: Not very often. There are a few of them that are local. I meet with them very occasionally. We go out for beer or breakfast or something. We have two conferences a year that people go to and those are largely social. I mean sometimes you also work out issues face to face during the conferences. Maybe it is easier to agree, but most of it really is about the social side when you go to conferences and you will find people sitting at the same table with laptops and they will send each other emails, because it is often a better way to communicate when you have a technical issue; you can write it down more, you can point to the code.

KLS: So the face to face thing is a little bit overrated?

LT: I think so. For example I long ago decided I will never go to meetings again because I think face to face meetings are the biggest waste of time you can ever have. I think most people who work at offices must share my opinion on meetings. Nothing ever gets done. When things get done, you usually have someone come into your office to talk about it. But a lot of the time the real work gets done by people sitting, especially in programming, alone in front of their computers doing what they do best.

KLS: What are your thoughts about the future of Linux and whether or not it can continue to survive without you?

LT: It has grown so much bigger than me. Ten years ago it needed me, both personally and as a figurehead. These days, there are tons of companies, there are lots of people who know the technology. I end up being the central gathering point but it's because people know me, people trust me. I am neutral. I really like doing Linux. I like the technical challenges, I like the interaction and as long as I am the best person for it I want to do it.

KLS: So it sounds like, going forward you are still going to do the job, be the as you put it, the central focus point of the Linux development process?

LT: Right. At the same time I will also try to farm out as much as possible. I still want to be the central point, but I don't want to be the bottleneck for anything and that does require that you trust a lot of other people and you just say, "hey, you make the decision, I am not going to micro-manage," because that really doesn't work. That drives people wild and when you don't even pay them they won't accept it, so I can't afford to be that type of bottleneck either.

KLS: Is there anything else you want to accomplish going forward?

LT: No, but on the other hand I am not the kind of person that really plans ahead a lot. When I started Linux it wasn't because I wanted to be where I am today. I am more of an "everyday as it comes" type of person. I am very happy that I feel like I do something meaningful, that has made a difference, that actually a lot of people use. But at the same time I don't have and I never have had any big visionary goals.

FreeBSD 5.5-RC1 Available

Ken Smith kensmith at cse.Buffalo.EDU
Tue May 16 17:11:33 UTC 2006


FreeBSD 5.5-RC1 is now available for testing. Things had been going
well with the 5.5 BETAs up to the point we suspended making them so we
could focus on the balance of the 6.1 release so we think 5.5 is pretty
much ready to go. Unless big problems are reported with this RC we will
start the 5.5 release builds this coming weekend and do the release
early next week.

The ISOs and FTP install bits for pc98 and sparc64 were loaded on
ftp-master shortly before I posted this message so it may take a little
time for them to propagate to the FTP mirror sites. The other
architectures had been there for a while now so they should be available
on all the FTP mirror sites by now.

If you find problems while testing please submit a PR or post a message
to this list.

Thanks.

Checksums:

MD5 (5.5-RC1-alpha-bootonly.iso) = caf1d3d28d77e20fdda428d324ec17e2
MD5 (5.5-RC1-alpha-disc1.iso) = 40a4f2126292e858a76f8f492e6475bb

MD5 (5.5-RC1-amd64-bootonly.iso) = 32ae3ff6f6e02d5bb678f283f26c716e
MD5 (5.5-RC1-amd64-disc1.iso) = 89bb2f990478f10c1bbd45fda7162f34
MD5 (5.5-RC1-amd64-disc2.iso) = b99774504be6a8ac806cc8ea486c969a

MD5 (5.5-RC1-i386-bootonly.iso) = 8104d1b291d0f6d63457eec28d35919f
MD5 (5.5-RC1-i386-disc1.iso) = caf16c0dc8739fa262e82b6f13feae2d
MD5 (5.5-RC1-i386-disc2.iso) = cbfdfc71879177040263cf7f8dd25a2b

MD5 (5.5-RC1-pc98-disc1.iso) = 64f282ad2b715ca0748576b0cb70b939

MD5 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-bootonly.iso) = b378e59df11540773c68092e7d7cc63a
MD5 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-disc1.iso) = 76c28110dba53b6173dc602f4b988d8d
MD5 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-disc2.iso) = 66eda6b1de93e20d82c6fcfaaf957d85

SHA256 (5.5-RC1-amd64-bootonly.iso) = 0e3f533b44698c1786360379ad03b9845dc31db37de65d39455735e6a8a5907c
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-amd64-disc1.iso) = adda63a1fbec183b9c29e3a00486718163f1371a3c5d914062fc258e6449f080
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-amd64-disc2.iso) = 69a24872f6ca41800b3137c0064bfb1a8d0d71e7f3aa18d3cdca1b74167370f0

SHA256 (5.5-RC1-i386-bootonly.iso) = d682cb4b10f4cfe18175a21798d98a57be3f38f64772940bda2cc679e7848ba0
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-i386-disc1.iso) = c258782b0967924762e5d623febe90ab269f36babc0f76a663704baf625bb0c6
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-i386-disc2.iso) = 8ee6a26013f567b78c81300930d130f200e2f4b105cf1ef9ffff34ea2e15d582

SHA256 (5.5-RC1-pc98-disc1.iso) = 780ae906de6858da2df6481ec8869fa42171977d8fc59d26ad1b6537a30bb12b

SHA256 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-bootonly.iso) = 22f46ff799f5d473e319f6be838fba834d9408838b68170cc637990082e0df5a
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-disc1.iso) = 72c334d0a44c76735c51c91fe545b39e5ad199fc52ad92b5ba20e25666dc5c05
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-disc2.iso) = afcedf692bfeab13442a262b6cbdc2db1e1fc986e8a1c7247b16efa6fcb402c0

My Profile

Author: Ehrwin C. Mina
Date: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Topic: Linux/Unix

My name is Ehrwin C. Mina. I was born on the 16th of April in 1975, at the Medical Centre in Las Pinas City, Philippines. Currently I live in Makati City, one of the City Business District of Philippines Republic. I've finished B. S. in Computer Engineering at the Saint Francis of Assisi College System in Las Pinas City (birthplace of the famous BAMBOO ORGAN CHURCH).

My interest in computers started in 1990, when my parents bought their first computer (a 80286). After that we had several computers. Currently I own a fine selection of machines; two x86 (network), an IBM Laptop and HP compaq nx9010 (service unit from my current employer). I also have a O2 XDA 2 - PDA. My primary operating system is a Debian OS and dual boot with OpenBSD, the second computer runs CENTOS Linux and dual boot with Solaris 10 (this changes every once in a while).

Other than computers, my biggest hobbies are my family, friends and my two dogs (fhuray and bhulak). I'm also a huge music-lover, having a large collection of (legal) CDs and LPs. My taste in music is very diverse, ranging from The Beatles, Eagles to Bruce Springsteen, to Garbage and Roxette, all the way up to Frank Sinatra and Oasis (suck). And much, much more. I'm currently a Network Operation Center Manager of company here in Makati, and I have a side-job of teaching linux and other IT stuff.

Im a task oriented leader that often creates guidelines to get the job done in time,also let the members to know what i decided and always inform them exactly how the job will be accomplish.

Im a concerned leader that keeps people on track by facilitating their work, but not monitoring every detail. Conduct a regular meeting, monthly General Assembly report that ensure have the tools they need to get a job done.

Act as a well-balance leader that cultivates their awareness of inclinations toward one orientation of becoming more skilled and to adjust their behavior to suit both the situation needs of the group members, also doing what comes naturally needs to yield to more conscious decision-making in order to lead most effectively.

Generally I administers heteregenous network consisting of mixed flavors of OPEN SOURCE and Microsoft in developing and designing NETWORK and SERVERS. Im responsible for the maintenance and the 24/7 monitoring of all mission critical servers, leased line, CISCO routers, local directors, ORACLE and other Database server, and all the SMSC connection from both carriers (smart, globe). Handles server installation/upgrade (In-depth knowledge of installing and modifying UNIX OS and kernels) and maintenance, assisting programmers to their application programs (testing, troubleshooting and make programs/ scripting if needed. I also handles cisco routers setup, planning and designing, local director for network designing and firewall. Administers the server with Perl and shell scripting (
for backup, maintenance), and responsible for the administration of MAIL server, NETWORK SECURITY( system security management, vulnerability assessment and maintenance, implementation of security policies, breach prevention and intervention).

Kernel Panic: Defining System Inconsistencies

Author: Puru Govind
Date: Wednesday, 03 May 2006
Topic: Linux/Unix

(Review) - Kernel panic is a web comic started and maintained by Christopher Wright. The main characters of this comic are a group of UNIX and Linux server administrators ordered to change the server farm over Nifty Doorways. It’s a humorous way of looking at otherwise complicated, mundane and dry topics, especially for those of you who deal with such scenarios constantly.

Kernel panic, in this article, however, will refer to a message displayed by an operating system after detecting a system inconsistency from which it cannot recover completely (Linux displays the Kernel Panic, while Windows displays the Blue Screen of Death - soon to become Red in Vista). These errors occur in kernel space and not in user space. These kernel messages are often too cryptic to comprehend rationally, but they clearly provide enough information that’s important for developers in order to resolve a particular problem. Generally, these messages aid developers by recording all information that appeared during the Kernel Panic, for example recording the status of each process and hardware.

The Kernel panic message is there since early versions of UNIX. Multics developer Tom van Vleck recalls a discussion of this change with UNIX developer Dennis Ritchie:

"I remarked to Dennis that easily half the code I was writing in Multics was error recovery code. He said, 'We left all that stuff out. If there's an error, we have this routine called panic, and when it is called, the machine crashes, and you holler down the hall, 'Hey, reboot it.' ‘"

Kernel panic can occur due to various reasons.

1.
Kernel panic occurs whenever the operating system attempts to read an invalid address or addresses that are not permitted for access.
2.
A panic may also occur if the hardware settings are changed considerably.
3.
As a result of a hardware failure.
4.
Panics can also occur during the boot sequence, if the processes needed are not running properly or conditions for a successful boot are not met.
5.
File system errors. Most of these errors can be done with by running file system error recovery programs like fsck for Linux and ScanDisk for Windows. These error results in panic when these errors are unrecoverable.
6.
Failure of memory allocation.
7.
Task exit during an interrupt handler.
8.
When the whole memory is exhausted.
9.
Unexpected destruction of kernel structures like struct task_struct.
10.
Failure to load essential drivers.

Linux kernel defines the mechanism for a panic in function panic() in kernel/panic.c file. Actually, the panic() function call of the Linux kernel is prone to a buffer overflow vulnerability.

The vulnerability is reported when an unbounded vsprintf() call within panic() copies user supplied data into a fixed buffer. But some reports say this vulnerability is not exploitable to any means.

You can gather, save, and analyze information about the kernel when the system dies due to software failure using few utilities. One such utility is LKCD (Linux Kernel Crash Dump). We’ll delve into these utilities in the near future.

The only thing you can do after a kernel panic is to restart your machine.

The "GNU/Linux" and "Linux" Controversy

(Column) - This famous controversy is there ever since I became aware of operating systems known as GNU/Linux. The GNU General Public License (GPL), which is used by Linux as well as most GNU software, armors both characters.

GNU/Linux is the term coined by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Richard Stallman (FSF founder) and people who support FSF, for operating systems composed of the FSF's GNU software and the Linux kernel; such systems are generally called "Linux." In 1985, Stallman published the GNU Manifesto, which outlined his motivation for creating a free operating system called GNU, which would be compatible with UNIX. The name GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU is Not Unix." Soon after, he incorporated the non-profit Free Software Foundation (FSF) to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software community.According to Wikipedia.org, the main argument for "GNU/Linux" is that Linus Torvalds' kernel was only a small, albeit final part of an otherwise complete system, GNU, written and assembled over many years with the explicit goal of creating an integrated free operating system.

This is what Richard Stallman said, "Actually no, that is not what we say. What we say is that this system is basically the GNU operating system, with Linux added."

In fact, one of Richard Stallman’s criteria for giving an interview to a journalist was that the journalist agrees to use his terminology throughout his article. Sometimes he even makes sure that the journalist has read the GNU philosophy before interviewing him, for "efficiency's sake." He has been known to turn down speaking requests over some terminology issues.

He says that the interconnection or coexistence between the GNU project's philosophy and its software is broken when people refer to the combination as merely "Linux." This practice is described as "just ridiculous" by Linus Torvalds (more about this later) in the documentary Revolution OS. Nevertheless, Torvalds is also quoted as saying: "Think of Richard Stallman as the great philosopher and think of me as the engineer."

Now let us see the other side of the coin, i.e. people who say that Linux is more than enough for a name. Linux is by far the most widespread name, and most people therefore simply adopt this usage, while references to the naming controversy appear only infrequently in mainstream sources. "Linux" has the most historical momentum because it is the name Torvalds has used for the combined system since 1991, while Stallman only began asking people to call the system "GNU/Linux" in the mid 1990s, some time after the "Linux" name had already become popular. "Linux" is shorter and easier to say than "GNU/Linux," particularly given Stallman's suggested pronunciation Guh-NÜ-slash-Linux or Guh-NÜ-plus-Linux.

In reply to Stallman, Linus Torvalds stated: "Well, I think it's justified, but it's justified if you actually make a GNU distribution of Linux ... the same way that I think that "Red Hat Linux" is fine, or "SuSE Linux" or "Debian Linux," because if you actually make your own distribution of Linux, you get to name the thing, but calling Linux in general "GNU Linux" I think is just ridiculous."

A person on this side thinks that RMS is taking this controversy to new heights because he is frustrated that he did not get the same recognition as Linus Torvalds.

When I wrote my first article on "Is Linux-like Environment for Windows Really Required?," I received an e-mail from David Kastrup and we had a small discussion. Then he told me that there are few places where GNU/Linux name isn’t applicable. There are actually Linux systems that are not GNU: embedded systems using the Linux kernel, but basically none of the GNU libraries and utilities. Some rescue disks and systems, too.

But the problem is that much of what people have come to associate with "Linux" is in reality rather "GNU" or third-party associations. All this needs maintenance, work, funds, and a lot of work in that area is done, organized and paid for by the FSF. It’s not easy for the FSF to raise funds for that kind of work, since public perception is that they are just leeches on Linux fame and have never been able to come up with a system of their own even though they are, in fact, responsible for keeping much of the services running that people call "Linux."

How-To: Compile a Linux Kernel

Author: Puru Govind
Date: Monday, 08 May 2006
Topic: Featured Story

(Review) - According to Wikipedia.org, "the kernel is the core piece of most operating systems. It is a piece of software responsible for the communication between hardware and software components. As a basic component of an operating system, a kernel provides abstraction layers for hardware, especially for memory, processors and communication between hardware and software. It also provides software facilities such as process abstractions and makes interprocess communication easier."

Now that I have written so much about Linux kernel, I realize that many people reading those articles do not even know how to compile them. There are obviously many reasons why you need to compile your Linux kernel, such as:

- To patch your kernel.
- You have a university assignment.
- You are doing a course "Linux Kernel" as an undergraduate.
- You have coded your own device driver a device that isn’t supported yet.
- You think that there is some better way of process scheduling or memory management technique and you want to implement it.
- To try a new version of Linux kernel.

To start, you should have kernel code to compile (a fairly logical step). You can download it or copy it from /usr/src directory, make modifications and save it back to some directory.

Then, if you have ncurses installed on your system and working on normal console, type in "make menuconfig," or "make xconfig" if you are using X server.

Whatever you type in, you will be presented with a box with numerous yeses, so to speak, but no options. It asks the user to input a number of options. If he chooses yes, then that functionality would be compiled right into the kernel. This makes its execution quite faster. If you choose module as your option, then that functionality will be compiled as a module. For example: you can make your sound card or printer drivers as modules, but you can’t make your memory manager or file system a module. These things must be compiled into the compiler. After you get over with this, save the configuration and run make dep. These will resolve all dependencies needed to compile the Linux kernel. According to James Andrews in one of his articles, make dep builds the tree of interdependencies in the kernel sources. These dependencies may have been affected by the options you have chosen in the configuration step.

After make dep, you need to type in ‘make clean.’ This will remove all old object files and will take little time compared to other steps.

After this, you need to do make bzImage. This will rename your kernel to bzImage and gets stored in /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage. The current kernel is generally /boot/vmlinuz. You must copy your new kernel to the /boot directory and give it a new name. For example, you can put the following:

cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.xx

Make bzImage will take lot of time compared to other steps. On my AMD 2100+ system with 256MB of RAM, it took 18 minutes.

You are coming near the final destination. You now need to "make module" and "make module_install" after this. This statement will install all modules in directory /lib/modules. Next, edit /etc/lilo.conf to add a section:

image = /boot/ vmlinuz-2.6.xx

label =MyKernel

read-only

Run LILO after this. This will update your LILO boot loader. At the next reboot, select the kernel ''MyKernel" from the LILO list; and it will load your new kernel.

So, isn’t it easy to recompile your kernel? I advice you to make a boot disk before you do anything silly with your kernel. And also remember to never modify or recompile kernel at /usr/src/linux kernel version.

Linux gains enhanced WiFi stack

May 01, 2006

The day when WiFi cards "just work" under Linux may be fast approaching. WiFi software stack specialist Devicescape has released its "Advanced Datapath" 802.11 driver stack to the open source community under the GPL, and the Linux kernel developer community appears to be working to adapt it for mainline inclusion.

The Devicescape WiFi stack was previously only available to device vendors, under license.

WiFi card support is currently spotty in Linux, at best. Bright spots include Intel's Pro/Wireless or "Centrino" radios, and lots of essentially obsolete, difficult-to-find cards such as those based on Prism chipsets. Meanwhile, cards widely available at major retail outlets typically do not work at all, or do not work fully under Linux.

Devicescape specializes in selling WiFi stacks to device vendors, and it says that Linux's poor WiFi card support is limiting Linux uptake in wireless multimedia devices. It hopes its contribution will help developers quickly adopt the latest WiFi silicon technology into their wireless product designs, without having to wait for silicon vendors to release Linux drivers.

Additionally, Devicescape says its WiFi stack enables the Linux kernel to distinguish and properly handle different media streams, such as voice and video. It hopes these new capabilities will encourage open source developers to create new multimedia devices, such as voice-over-WiFi phones, streaming video clients, and devices that interact with Web-based services.

If merged into the mainline Linux tree, Devicescape's driver could provide native kernel implementations of a variety of things that currently make it challenging for companies and community developers to write WiFi device drivers. The driver includes an 802.11 stack with software MAC (media access controller), hostapd, wep, wpa, wme, a "link-layer bridging module," and a QoS (quality of service) implementation. Marketing VP Glenn Flinchbaugh comments, "[Our driver] makes it easier for someone to add a WiFi driver, because they only have to write a thin, low-level driver that maps to the API, in order to enable the latest and greatest WiFi chipsets."

Flinchbaugh says the Datapath driver stack was written largely by Simon Barber, chief scientist at Devicescape, along with Jouni Malinen, a Devicescape engineer well known for maintaining the open source HostAP/hostapd/wpa_supplicant code.

Will the driver be accepted? Flinchbaugh says the driver has been well-received in the kernel community, and acceptance appears likely.

Jonathan Corbett, of LinuxWeeklyNews, appears to concur; he attended the 2006 Wireless Networking Summit earlier this month, and wrote, "[The Devicescape driver] is regarded by many as being the best of the available free stacks," adding, "Nobody at the summit was heard to argue against merging Devicescape."

Currently, a version of the Devicescape stack "fixed up for the kernel" by Jiri Benc has been merged into an experimental tree maintained by John Linville, who was recently appointed maintainer of Linux's wireless networking stack, Corbett reports. Several WiFi chipset drivers, including those for Broadcom chipsets requiring a software MAC, have been backported to this experimental stack, and Linville "seems poised to merge this stack for a future kernel release," Corbett writes.

According to Flinchbaugh, a merged Devicescape driver would also immediately offer full support for Atheros chipsets, something long hoped-for by many in the Linux community.

Still, the merger would cause some redundancy with other parts of the kernel, Corbett notes, and additional work needs to be done to bring the driver into compliance with current kernel coding standards. At the same time, the driver's clever handling of QoS could be generalized for use with other types of networking, Corbett reports.

Flinchbaugh comments, "Devicescape is committed to unlocking the full potential of Wi-Fi. We view Devicescape as a quintessential open source company: our company and product heritage are based on open source; we leverage code from the community to develop product; and we regularly donate code back. We have dedicated resources that support open source projects, and we look forward to additional contributions that will drive service-enabled devices."

VDC Analyst Chris Lanfear stated, "This contribution provides the open source community with tested and proven Wi-Fi technology that can be leveraged in the development of Linux-based converged smartphones, wireless personal media players, and digital media adapters, among other multimedia devices. With this contribution, Devicescape aims to expand Linux as a core technology foundation for next generation devices."

Additional details about the 2006 Linux Wireless Summit can be found in Corbett's report at LinuxWeeklyNews.

In other news, Devicescape on May 1 added standards-based self-configuration capabilities to its commercial WiFi stacks for consumer electronic devices and wireless infrastructure products, including those based on Linux. The "Easy Access" capabilities are based on Wi-Fi Alliance standards, and make setting up secure, WPA2-encrypted wireless networking trivial, the company claims.

Devicescape, formerly Instant802.11, sells WiFi client and access point stacks for a variety of platforms, including Linux, Windows CE, and Windows Mobile embedded operating systems.

Open source specialists offered tech support bounty

Open source specialists offered tech support bounty
Ingrid Marson
ZDNet UK
May 09, 2006, 11:10 BST

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OpenLogic will pay developers to provide high-level support for scores of open source products, but not everyone is convinced by the idea




OpenLogic, an open source software and services provider, has launched a programme to offer commercial support for more than 150 open source products, including the Apache Web server, the PostgreSQL database and the Python programming language, the company announced on Monday.

The company already offers first and second-line support for these products, but plans to work with the open source community to get help with more complex issues.

Steven Grandchamp, the chief executive of OpenLogic, claimed the initiative will help companies that want to get support for multiple open source products from one provider.

"We have heard loud and clear from our larger enterprise customers, some of whom are using more than 400 open source products, that they want one throat to choke for open source support," said Grandchamp in a statement.

"OpenLogic's Expert Community programme is being launched to help address this need in a new, creative way. Enterprises get the support they require and open source committers and contributors can earn money to support the work they love to do," he said.

Developers joining the scheme will be paid for each issue they resolve, and can choose whether they want to be paid in cash or through prizes such as a Microsoft XBox console. Alternatively, they can have the money donated to an open source organisation.

James Governor, an analyst at RedMonk, said the programme is an interesting idea that could encourage participation in open source communities.

"Vibrant communities are far more important to technology adoption than cool tools or technologies," he said. "Combining community efforts with getting paid can effectively act as a double-whammy incentive. 'You mean I get paid for this too? Awesome!'"

Open source service providers have often hired open source developers to provide support to customers, but OpenLogic claims to be the first company to reward community members directly for their support efforts without requiring them to switch jobs.

Simon Riggs, a developer on the open source database PostgreSQL, was not convinced by OpenLogic's proposal. Riggs claimed that it is difficult to get third-line support from the open source community in a timely manner, and that payment in game consoles was unlikely to help.

"I don't know anyone who knows anything worthwhile about third-level enterprise support who would be interested in being paid in XBoxes," said Riggs. "My view is if you want reliable support, you need to arrange that in advance from dedicated staff with dependable service level agreements. Open source communities are very good at providing basic support, but in general, trusted, timely, high-quality support isn't available when you need it from that route."

OpenLogic will not have service level agreements with community developers, but claimed that it has built-in redundancy for each project to assure timely responses.

More information on OpenLogic's Expert Community programme can be found on the company's Web site.

Don't pirate MS-Office: use ours, says OpenOffice.org

Don't pirate MS-Office: use ours, says OpenOffice.org
Ingrid Marson
ZDNet UK
May 04, 2006, 12:35 BST

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'Get legal -- Get OpenOffice.org' is the tagline of a new campaign taking advantage of the recent clampdown against unlicensed software by Microsoft and the BSA



OpenOffice.org has launched a campaign to persuade companies worried about software compliance to move to its open source productivity application.

The project has launched a Web site for the 'Get Legal -- get OpenOffice.org' campaign, and hopes to drive traffic to the site by encouraging Webmasters and bloggers to display the campaign banner on their sites.

The Web site highlights the recent drive by Microsoft and the Business Software Alliance to clamp down on unlicensed software, including Microsoft's purchase of asset-tracking company AssetMatrix and the expansion of its Genuine Advantage program, as well as the the BSA's decision to offer a £20,000 reward for anyone informing against the use of unlicensed software in UK organisations.

"If you have a copy of MS-Office at work, at school, at home -- are you sure where it came from?" asks the campaign Web site. "Fortunately, there is a completely legal and free alternative. OpenOffice.org 2 is a fully featured office suite, similar in functionality to MS-Office. OpenOffice.org 2 does everything you need: word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and much more."

The success of the campaign is likely to depend on how much support the project gets from its user community. The Mozilla Foundation achieved considerable success with its SpreadFirefox campaign, which helped drive more than 100 million downloads of the Firefox browser in its first year.

Linux kernel 'getting buggier'

Linux kernel 'getting buggier'
Ingrid Marson
ZDNet UK
May 05, 2006, 16:35 BST

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Linux kernel maintainer Andrew Morton may force developers to devote one kernel cycle to fix long-standing bugs in the Linux kernel




Andrew Morton, the lead maintainer of the Linux production kernel, is worried that an increasing number of defects are appearing in the 2.6 kernel and is considering drastic action to resolve it.

"I believe the 2.6 kernel is slowly getting buggier. It seems we're adding bugs at a higher rate than we're fixing them," Morton said, in a talk at the LinuxTag conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, on Friday.

Morton admitted he hasn't yet proved this statistically, but has noticed that he is getting more emails with bug reports. If he is able to confirm the increasing defect rate, he may temporarily halt the kernel development process to spend time resolving bugs.

"A little action item I've given myself is to confirm that this increasing defect rate is really happening. If it is, we need to do something about it." he said. "Kernel developers will need to reapportion their time and spend more time fixing bugs. We may possibly have a bug-fix only kernel cycle, which is purely for fixing up long-standing bugs."

One problem is that few developers are motivated to work on bugs, according to Morton. This is particularly a problem for bugs that affect old computers or peripherals, as kernel developers working for corporations don't tend to care about out-of-date hardware, he said. Nowadays, many kernel developers are employed by IT companies, such as hardware manufacturers, which can cause problems as they can mainly be motivated by self-interest.

"If you're a company that employs a kernel maintainer, you don't have an interest in working on a five-year-old peripheral that no one is selling any more. I can understand that, but it is a problem as people are still using that hardware. The presence of that bug affects the whole kernel process, and can hold up the kernel — as there are bugs, but no one is fixing them," said Morton.

During his talk, Morton discussed the 2.6 kernel development process, explaining that if people want to get their code into the kernel they should send it to him, not Linus Torvalds, who maintains the development kernel. Morton manages the "-mm" code branch, which is where patches are tested before being added to the development kernel.

"The way an individual can get their code into the kernel is by sending it to me. I will buffer it in my [mm] tree and send it to Linus. It's fairly rare for a person to send patch to Linus and get it in. In fact Linus is fairly random at patches at the best of times. Generally, Linus will cc: it to me because he knows I'll pick it up," said Morton.

"The mm tree is what Linus' tree is going to look like in three months time. A lot of stupid bugs get in. I wish people would send me code that compiles — probably about 75 percent do," he said. "Without mm all of these problems wouldn't be discovered until hit they hit the mainline tree and would impact everyone's ongoing development."

The LinuxTag conference goes on until Saturday. Talks that take place in the main conference room can be watched online via a free Webcast (instructions in German).

If Linus snubs new GPL, is that it for 'open source'?

Torvalds doesn't care. Trouble looms...

By Andrew Orlowski
Published Monday 6th February 2006 23:52 GMT

Analysis Linus Torvalds doesn't want to change the Linux kernel's software license, and he said so again last week. For good measure this time, he threw in some inflammatory remarks.

"I literally feel," wrote Torvalds, "that we do not, as software developers, have the moral right to enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. We are not crusaders, trying to force people to bow to our superior God."

Since the crusades were a foreign adventure responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, that's not the most diplomatic response, and FSF counsel Eben Moglen refused to be drawn into retaliation when we contacted him for comment.

Moglen did say that as part of the lengthy, worldwide consultation process for GPL v3.0 he'd be issuing further clarification on the two most controversial parts of the new license, Sections three and seven. We'll examine the particulars in a moment.

But stressing that he was speaking in general terms, Moglen told us this -

"Freedom is not about what works well. It's about what defends freedom when it can be given an intellectually rigorous and internally rigorous conception. We want to have a conversation on whether we are drafting it in a way to achieve this," he said.

"The question presented by DRM is not whether it can have good purposes, or whether it serves socially useful ends sometimes. It's whether user disempowerment - at a time when technology is moving to embrace the users' whole life - is a risk we can run to gain some particular benefit."

Don't let the means dictate the ends, he seems to be saying.

Torvalds remarks have uncomfortable echoes of last year's BitKeeper episode, when Torvalds dimissed the concerns of his kernel developers and mocked the ethical dimension of software development.

But if Linux isn't about ethics, then what is its purpose? And if open source simply means 'free' (as in beer) code at the end of the day, and it's not about changing the world, then why is it different to a BSD?

Let's examine how we got here.

How GPL got Linux out of the lab

The Linux kernel which Torvalds controls (Torvalds also owns the Linux trademark) is the best known and most popular piece of software libre in the world, and owes its popularity and respect in no small part to the freedoms guaranteed by the FSF General Public License. This license gives the recipient the right to modify and distribute the code, but more importantly, ensures a downstream recipient fulfills the same obligations.

The FSF doesn't update this GPL very often. It last did so with version 2.0 in 1991, with a minor addendum (the LGPL) appearing a few years later, and version 3.0 has been racing our way with all the speed of a continental plate stuck in a tectonic traffic jam for several years now. Its ratification looks some way away too. As it turns out, this is quite deliberate, as Linux is big business now, and the FSF is engaging on a massive consensus building project to make sure everyone's on board.

The FSF also has an additional issue to deal with that it didn't have in 1991, which is that the words "free" and "open" are today often used as broad-brush term, with the implication that they're synonymous and interchangeable. They're not, but when Linux looked set to conquer all before it, and was finding its way into computer systems ranging from phones to mainframes, and world domination was only a matter of time, the difference could be blamed on semantic nit-picking. Didn't open and freedom just mean the same thing?

Something else happened, too. The phrase "open source" became an invitation for any opportunistic wanker to hitch a free ride, hoping some of this magic would rub off, and turn into a lucrative pay day.

We saw the influential, Blair-ite think tank Demos team up with Douglas Rushkoff to suggest "open source democracy", which amounted to little more than a catchphrase. A rag bag, free-for-all trivia website morphed into "Wikipedia", which laid claim to be the world's greatest encyclopedia (that's turning out to be exactly what you'd expect it to be). Some sophists claim to have created "open source" cookies - the baked, not coded kind. And even the GPL has been disastrously misapplied, to things that can be, but primarily don't need to be "modified" to be successful, such as works of art.

But while all this opportunism and sloppy thinking took place in public, the gears were slowing. Something was halting the momentum of this great project.

Microsoft began to apply its deep pockets to buy off litigious rivals. And nervous corporate and public sector customers, who'd been looking at Linux with great interest, began to waver. Maybe they got nervous about the fall-out from the SCO suit. Maybe Linux advocates failed to prove the total cost of ownership case, which had looked a slam dunk at one time. Maybe the notorious factionalism of the technical community (eg GNOME vs KDE) proved to be a turn off. Maybe Linux, and software libre, failed to generate big ideas of its own. Big ideas, even if they're nebulous and entirely without substance - and Web 2.0 is a great example of a load of nothing going nowhere, as you so eloquently point out - seem to be necessary to attract the glaze-eyed attention of the corporate media, if only for a few weeks. Or maybe too many nutballs climbed on board, hoping to catch a bit of the "New Open Thing".

We don't know, but in the end it wasn't Microsoft that fomented today's dispute about GPL 3.0, but of all things, a small consumer electronics company.

Enter TiVo.

Enter TiVo

The GPL always distinguished itself from other licenses by stressing a peculiar symmetry: the freedom to modify or distribute the source code would be passed to the end user in the form the upstream benefactor had intended. A perpetuity of sorts was established. You didn't have to tinker, but if you did, and made your tinkering available, you'd have to obey the terms on which you received the code.

This distinguished the GPL from BSD-style licensees, which were "open" in the sense you could look at the code, and "free" in the sense you didn't pay for it, but weren't, as in the now famous phrase, "free as freedom". And then a product was introduced that broke this social contract, while obeying the letter of the GPL version 2.0. This was TiVo.

When TiVo introduced its PVR time-shifting set top box, it did so using a Linux PC with a proprietary front-end. You could only tinker on the terms set by TiVo. This didn't deter a wave of enthusiasts, a small portion of the technical community (we'll unfairly, for convenience, call them the "O'Reilly crowd") who latch onto anything that demands your attention because it's "hackable", without quite seeing whether there are strings attached or where these strings might lead.

Linus Torvalds professed himself delighted, and naturally he's proud to see his kernel instantiated into real products. As you'd expect, he feels it's a validation of his adult life's work.

But GPL supporters who flocked to the cause because of "freedom" don't quite see it this way. What's the point of GPL, if it only turns out to be a rebranding of BSD? A sort of BSD with added, 21st century street cred? And a fat, drunken-looking Penguin as its mascot?

And doubly painfully, what's the point of a GPL product that ushers in a world of artificial technical restrictions on copyright material, DRM?

Linus actually had something to say on this, but we need to dive into the psychodrama that is Modern Copyright Discourse first, before we can understand why this debate looks so peculiarly lopsy, and so very heated.

Will the Matrix kill free software?

There are two sides to this argument, which we'll call "free" and "open", and both have good claims to make. But both sides like to throw off wild, metaphorical flares that light up the news pages, but are of no use to anyone. Let's separate the flames and see what lies behind their rationale.

If what I'm told by the GPL 3.0 advocates is true, then the world is about to end fairly shortly.

One proponent told me that the difference between now, 2006, and 2009, is that the value of your home in 2009 will be determined by the "freedom" your gadgets exhibit. This is a startling idea, one I'm sure today's real estate agents haven't yet pencilled in as a pre-printed tick-box on their forms. I'm paraphrasing, but the argument is that if the property owner didn't have "control" over all the technology in their home, then the home would have no value, or a lesser value than a comparable home on offer.

"I don't want to use the phrase 'Matrix'," said one, who went on to use the phrase Martrix - by saying, fairly emphatically, "it would be like living in the Matrix".

Utter nonsense, of course.

Your average property owner wants to get home, flick a switch, and find that "stuff" comes out - the stuff being, for example, light, heat or cooling if (s)he flicks a switch, or entertainment if (s)he flicks on the remote. Homes that don't fulfill these basic obligations have a tendancy not to get sold - they're probably car parks. In fact, you'd have to coral prospective home buyers in at gunpoint, and keep them there, to accept such a lousy proposition.

But Torvalds' solution is equally obtuse.

Faced with the moral problems posed by DRM, Torvalds opts for the 'stuckist' approach, of splendid isolation. Meaning he'd never watch The Sopranos, or anything worth watching except for a giggle, ever again.

Torvalds tells dissenters to go and build their own chips.

"Vote with your feet," he urges. "Join the OpenCores groups. Make your own FPGA's."

I'm right behind you with my soldering iron, Mr Torvalds.

Then he added the now notorious sign-off about the crusades.

" ... we do not - as software developers - have the moral right to enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. We are not crusaders, trying to force people to bow to our superior God."

[Emphasis added, but hardly necessary].

As you can imagine, this accusation of moral laxity aimed at the developers who actually do the work on the Linux kernel, and many other projects across GPL land, has not been well received.

What appears to be moral, in Torvalds' own book, appears to be contingent on whatever Torvalds is feeling that day, and that's contingent on the market penetration of his kernel. Issues of morality are best left to genocidal "crusaders", who Torvalds feels are someone else entirely.

But if software libre isn't a moral crusade, what the heck is it? A 30 year old operating system, passing off as new one? A lifetime of dependency conflicts? A charity? The public can be cruel, and horribly judgmental, when it flicks the switch, and "stuff" doesn't come out. Torvalds may not imply that morality has no place in the Linux kernel, but the invitation to infer this doesn't really need our bold HTML markup. It's obvious.

A Linux without a moral element is a puzzling thing indeed. How would you or I begin to explain its value. Without "freedom" all one is left with is "free".

I don't think many Linux advocates would settle for this as the last line of defence. But in a swoop, Torvalds appears to have deprived "open source" advocates of arguing from a moral position.

Perhaps, by the time the long consultation process for GPL 3.0 reaches a conclusion, it will be clear that the word "open" was never really a substitute for "free". Until then, there's trouble ahead. ®

No GPL 3.0 for Linux - Torvalds

By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco

Published Thursday 26th January 2006 21:00 GMT

The Linux kernel is not moving to the next version of General Public License (GPL), following objections from Linus Torvalds to the license's stance on digital rights management (DRM).

Torvalds told a mailing list (http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0601.3/0559.html) on Wednesday the Linux kernel would remain under GPL 2.0, despite work underway at the Free Software Foundation for GPL 3.0. The sticking point is DRM.

According to the first draft (http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft) of GPL 3.0, published last week, the software it covers will "neither be subject to, nor subject other works to, digital restrictions from which escape is forbidden".

The license adds: "DRM is fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of the GPL, which is to protect users' freedom."

But Torvalds says it is "insane" to require people to make their private signing keys available. Such keys are typically used by individuals to generate a digital signature, or to decrypt messages and files. The creator of Linux won't make his own keys available.

"I don't think the GPL v3 conversation is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my code," he says.

While some Linux kernel files can be licensed under GPL 3.0, Torvalds notes, the kernel in general is - and will - remain under GPL 2.0.

Joining a debate on the mailing list about the feasibility of conversion from GPL 2.0 to GPL 3.0, he says: "The default is to not allow conversion. Conversion isn't going to happen."

Torvald's stance will further dismay Linux diehards who are convinced the only good source is open source, and follows the controversy that followed last year’s revelation that Torvalds used the proprietary, closed-source Bitkeeper for Linux kernel development. ®

GPL v3.0: Linus replies

Linus Torvalds has replied to our analysis (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/06/torvalds_gpl_analysis/) of his rejection of GPL 3.0. Here it is.

Since you seem to be following the kernel mailing list, you could have picked a better email to comment on.

Anyway, look for the one that talks about "reciprocity" to get an idea for why I like the GPLv2, and not the GPLv3 (I don't know how you read the mailing list, but you can search for it at least on lkml.org).

It's not about "freedom". It's about "fairness".

Which, btw, is a lot more fundamental concept. "Do unto others.." and all that, you know.

Linus

Many more of your emails - and there are quite a few - tomorrow. ®

Will Open Source Come to the Rescue?

Over the past months we have heard about how free and open source software (FOSS) is becoming more and more acceptable in the business community. There has also been a movement to have governments adopt policies that open the door to FOSS. However, it appears that the open source community has overlooked one vital area of the community that would most likely embrace FOSS with open arms, and that is the area of emergency services (Police, Fire and Emergency Medical Services). .

Like any government agency, emergency service agencies need the basic office software, but they also need 'specialized' software, such as Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems, 9-1-1 Call Taking systems, incident reporting systems, etc. Today, almost without exception, every agency is forced to use a proprietary, closed source Windows program. Far too often it is purchased from a company that is no longer in business five years after the purchase, resulting in the need to purchase a replacement product from another vendor. Lastly, because the software is proprietary, the agencies that are able to purchase it cannot do everything they want or need the software to do, nor can they modify it to meet their needs.

The current availability of FOSS for emergency services is extremely limited. As part of a very quick, non-scientific study, we did a search on the Sourceforge web site for software that is geared towards emergency services. We chose Sourceforge as they host 78,324 projects (as of 25 March 2004), all of them open source (They also host our recently started open source project, PAD Program Management). We did a search under four terms; "ambulance," "emergency," "fire," and "police." We only found 20 projects (<>

As an EMT/Paramedic for over 20 years, I have seen computers make their way into the field, frequently with mixed results. The current proprietary software options are often very limited and very expensive, making it inaccessible to many small and volunteer departments (which serve the majority of the country). This relative high cost has a very real effect on the communities served.

Consider the dilemma faced by a small EMS agency that has five ambulances, of which two are staffed by paramedics. As a medical director, do I purchase a high dollar software program to allow my medics to electronically enter an incident report, or do I purchase a new EKG monitor-defibrillator (a machine that looks at the heart's rhythm and can deliver an electrical charge to a quivering heart)? You can almost be assured that the defibrillator will be purchased each and every time.

The problem is by not having a low cost software option, billing accuracy will likely suffer resulting in loss of income. I can't easily look at the response data that will tell me where and how my units are being used, so I can't go to the local town council to lobby for an additional ambulance or funding for training. I can't easily tell where my medics are having deficiencies in their ability to provide care. I can't do a simple query to have all chest pain charts reviewed, instead I have to review every paper report to first see if it is a chest pain incident, then set those on the side to be reviewed later. All of this is a long, tedious, labor intensive effort.

The emergency service community is currently at the mercy of the proprietary software firms. This has an impact far more reaching than the limited scenario outlined above. Another impact area is the inability of emergency service agencies to share data. Let me offer an insight into this problem by sharing my experiences with a program I am working on.

Currently I am assisting another paramedic who is tracking Public Access to Defibrillation (PAD) programs for a large metropolitan area. In a PAD program, an office building, school, work place, or other public area has had Automated Defibrillators (AEDs) installed. AEDs are used by the lay public to help victims of sudden cardiac arrest, prior to the arrival of EMS. Because of their ease of use and rapid accessibility, areas that have installed AEDs and have used them within 5 minutes of collapse of the victim have seen successful resuscitation rates as high as 50% (AHA "Heartsaver AED for the Lay Rescuer and First Responder," page 1-8). They are a probably the single greatest improvement in emergency health care since the advent of EMS.

AEDs have an onboard computer that is able to analyze the victims EKG, and provide the electrical shock if needed. The computer provides voice prompts to the user on when to start and stop CPR. It also records the EKG, the time an analyzation was performed and what rhythm was recognized by the computer, the times of the voice prompts, etc. Also, it keeps a record of each time the unit performed its own internal diagnostic check, the time the machine was turned on, as well as turned off, and more. All of this information is available to the oversight agency by simply downloading the information from the AED's internal memory into a software program/database.

As part of a community PAD program, there is usually legislation that mandates a specific government agency provide oversight to the program. This agency will typically have to track where AEDS are located, how often they are used, and how well they are working. This oversight agency typically cannot dictate to the individual purchaser which vendor they must utilize when buying the AED. In an area such as the one I work in, you may have well over a dozen vendors selling their machines to schools, businesses, public transportation authorities, local and federal government agencies, etc.

Here is where the problem comes in. Each of these vendors has their own proprietary software. None of the software is compatible with any other vendor's software. Further there are no common standards to export the data. If you are responsible for monitoring a PAD program in your community, you may have six, eight, ten or more software programs in which to download AED information, of which none can exchange information. The result is the inability to tell just how well your PAD program is working. You have plenty of data, but you can't use it the way the you want.

The FOSS community has been very good at developing open standards for other items of hardware and software. There is no doubt that the same could be done here, if the FOSS community were to get involved.

I firmly believe that the FOSS community is missing a golden opportunity by not getting involved with the emergency service community. Imagine a FOSS distribution geared towards EMS, Fire or Police Departments. In addition to the typical programs such as KDE, Gnome, Open Office, MySQL, and Apache, there would be a Departmental Database that tracked personnel and equipment within the agency, a Fire Incident Reporting System based on the National Fire Service Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) standard, an EMS incident and billing system, a training database, etc. Is this really that much different from many of the business distributions that it cannot be accomplished?

In conclusion, by working with the emergency service community, the FOSS community would provide a service that is truly valuable to their local community. Open standards would allow efficient data collection and sharing, resulting in improved responses to the local community. Money saved from high priced, proprietary software could then be used to purchase protective equipment for those who provide the front line service, and life saving equipment for paramedics to use could be purchased. This would be an area that the FOSS community could publicize as a true, tangible benefit to using Open Source Software in the local community. There is little to nothing the closed source, proprietary software companies could say in rebuttal.

My hope is that soon there will be the start a dialog of the 'movers and shakers' in the FOSS community who see the value in working with emergency services community. Will open source come to the rescue of emergency services? Only time will tell.

About the Author
Robert W. Austin is a Nationally Registered Paramedic and has been serving in the District of Columbia Fire and EMS Department for 16 years, and has nearly 25 years of fire and EMS experience. He current works as a Paramedic Evaluator in the Continuous Quality Improvement unit, and has been involved in many technology and research projects conducted by the department. He has been involved in developing computer programs since he developed his first program for the Surfside Beach Fire Department on a Commodore 64.