The word "free" can mean different things in English language. The distinction between free software and open source software is that open source software is the description of the development process while free software mean "no price". Free software is most often also open source software, open source software on the other hand is not always "no price" soft.
In recent years there have been made efforts to bring the open source software closer to the business world so that the open source projects could get a bigger user base and be applied to the business world. The initial founder of the GNU license does not approve this approach and does not want to make any compromises between commercial software and open source software - seeing the commercial software and IP principles to be rotten to the core.
I would support the approach where the open source software has commercial applications as well. The good example would be Wordpress.org blogging software where there are both "for price" and "no price" plugins available while Wordpress product itself is open source solution.
The world of open source and free software can also be kind of grey sometimes - such as in cases of "buy me a beer" donation Wordpress plugin software makers for example. It can also be argued that open source software products get the wider user base if the development is motivated by financial situmulus. For example - designing premium commercial Wordpress themes motivates the developer himself, it also increases the number of available themes/plugins for the Wordpress product and thereby increases the overall Wordpress market share.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Applicability of copying restrictions
The copying restrictions is the issue between the user and the producer. It is the free choise of a consumer these days whether or not he ties himself to some software producer because there are usually open source and free options available for any kind of software today. You can either use Microsoft Windows products or Mac and you can use either Microsoft Excel or Openoffice products.
The issue of copying restrictions is not therefore as critical as it used to be several years ago when internet was not around and the internet communities did not create open source software in such manner as they do it today.
The copying restrictions are not technically applicable in most cases today as cracked software is easy to make and use. It is more like an ethical issue - if you do not like that the product is licensed - then go and use some other companies open source software- however - if you like the capacity and features of the lienced product - then you need to allow to the terms attached to it.
The example of trust comes to mind when it was announced that Estonia´s biggest accounting software maker HansaRaama required from its clients the renewal of the software with the corresponding 2000 USD fee, otherwise they threatened to switch off the old versions ompletely. As scandal was coming to emerge they also played with reducing the prices ( initial 2000 USD changed to 500 USD in case of some clients who complained actively ). On the other hand the software maker warned their clients beforehand and on time that they do not intend use the old versions of their accounting software soon and therefore legally everything was correct from their part.
And it is difficult to imagine using open source software for accounting purposes these days - commercial versions are better and more suitable and they are updated often and the software is too country-specific and law-specific. Also it is easy to detect which accounting software is used for the companys balance sheet. You just need to choose the software product that can be trusted and the software producer who cares about you at the end of the day.
The issue of copying restrictions is not therefore as critical as it used to be several years ago when internet was not around and the internet communities did not create open source software in such manner as they do it today.
The copying restrictions are not technically applicable in most cases today as cracked software is easy to make and use. It is more like an ethical issue - if you do not like that the product is licensed - then go and use some other companies open source software- however - if you like the capacity and features of the lienced product - then you need to allow to the terms attached to it.
The example of trust comes to mind when it was announced that Estonia´s biggest accounting software maker HansaRaama required from its clients the renewal of the software with the corresponding 2000 USD fee, otherwise they threatened to switch off the old versions ompletely. As scandal was coming to emerge they also played with reducing the prices ( initial 2000 USD changed to 500 USD in case of some clients who complained actively ). On the other hand the software maker warned their clients beforehand and on time that they do not intend use the old versions of their accounting software soon and therefore legally everything was correct from their part.
And it is difficult to imagine using open source software for accounting purposes these days - commercial versions are better and more suitable and they are updated often and the software is too country-specific and law-specific. Also it is easy to detect which accounting software is used for the companys balance sheet. You just need to choose the software product that can be trusted and the software producer who cares about you at the end of the day.
Software licensing landscape in 2015
The software licensing landscape will the growth of open source software as it as happened in recent years.
The web software products like CMS will have couple of dominating open source CMS packages like Wordpress, Drupal and Typo3. Even today the White House uses Drupal web software for its home page and Estonia´s biggest energy produer Eesti Energia is using Typo3 for its web page engine. This means that the commercial CMS systems will loose the user base even more rapidly during the years 2010 - 2015 and the use of commercial web software becomes nonsense by 2015. The reason for this is mainly the fact that open source web software is improving and in many cases is better than commercial - largely due to the software developers commmunities who make new developments - plugins etc. Some plugins may have paid versions though.
The same applies to the other web software besides CMS - the web development tools, ftp tools, server software, development frameworks - open source will take over. For example - Dreamweaver which has been one of the leading web development tools until now will loose its market share and will have a minor user base by 2015 among the web development professionals.
On the other hand - the market of offline software remains basicly the same as it is today. For example the commercial closed source designers programs like Photoshop, CorelDraw or AutoCad will be also the major players in 2015 and they will also have the same market share. Thier products have become standard already and they are preferred by the niche profesionals. The price for this software is not so remarkable ( lets say 500 dollars ) if you compare the productivity of this software and the fact that it is a standard in the commercial field. Professionals will still pay the money for the good programs they have used for years and will start to use some new open source competitors if they arrive. For exmple the GIMP is the open source competitor to Photoshop but serious professionals still prefer Photoshop.
The web software products like CMS will have couple of dominating open source CMS packages like Wordpress, Drupal and Typo3. Even today the White House uses Drupal web software for its home page and Estonia´s biggest energy produer Eesti Energia is using Typo3 for its web page engine. This means that the commercial CMS systems will loose the user base even more rapidly during the years 2010 - 2015 and the use of commercial web software becomes nonsense by 2015. The reason for this is mainly the fact that open source web software is improving and in many cases is better than commercial - largely due to the software developers commmunities who make new developments - plugins etc. Some plugins may have paid versions though.
The same applies to the other web software besides CMS - the web development tools, ftp tools, server software, development frameworks - open source will take over. For example - Dreamweaver which has been one of the leading web development tools until now will loose its market share and will have a minor user base by 2015 among the web development professionals.
On the other hand - the market of offline software remains basicly the same as it is today. For example the commercial closed source designers programs like Photoshop, CorelDraw or AutoCad will be also the major players in 2015 and they will also have the same market share. Thier products have become standard already and they are preferred by the niche profesionals. The price for this software is not so remarkable ( lets say 500 dollars ) if you compare the productivity of this software and the fact that it is a standard in the commercial field. Professionals will still pay the money for the good programs they have used for years and will start to use some new open source competitors if they arrive. For exmple the GIMP is the open source competitor to Photoshop but serious professionals still prefer Photoshop.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Science Business and MIT OpenCourseWare
There has been an attempt made by the MIT to make their lectures available to the wider audience for free. The project is called MIT OpenCourseWare. It includes about 1900 course materials.
The site presents the core academic content–including lecture notes, syllabi, assignments and exams–from substantially all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate curriculum freely and openly to support formal and informal learning around the world.
Each course published on the MIT site require an average of 100 hours of effort to produce.
While the MIT faculty devote 5-10 hours of their own time for each course, it would be impossible for them to produce OCW courses alone. In order to publish materials from 200 courses each year while minimizing impact on MIT faculty time, OCW maintains a publication staff of twelve people who work directly with the faculty to collect and compile course materials, ensure proper licensing for open sharing, and format materials for our site. We also employ two intellectual property staff and four production staff who support our publication team.
The project is funded partly by the university itself and partly by the sponsors. The annual cost to make the courses available online is 3,5 million dollars.
Although it could be argued that this is MIT-s long range marketing trick to make their university name virally spread (its the degree that counts these days - not what you know - so you still need to attend to some university to get the degree ) , on the other hand it is a generous project that makes education available to the global audience and reduces the digital divide.
And there are contributions made by the faculty members to produce these materials. These lectures cost thousands of USD just some years ago, now they are available for free.
The site presents the core academic content–including lecture notes, syllabi, assignments and exams–from substantially all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate curriculum freely and openly to support formal and informal learning around the world.
Each course published on the MIT site require an average of 100 hours of effort to produce.
While the MIT faculty devote 5-10 hours of their own time for each course, it would be impossible for them to produce OCW courses alone. In order to publish materials from 200 courses each year while minimizing impact on MIT faculty time, OCW maintains a publication staff of twelve people who work directly with the faculty to collect and compile course materials, ensure proper licensing for open sharing, and format materials for our site. We also employ two intellectual property staff and four production staff who support our publication team.
The project is funded partly by the university itself and partly by the sponsors. The annual cost to make the courses available online is 3,5 million dollars.
Although it could be argued that this is MIT-s long range marketing trick to make their university name virally spread (its the degree that counts these days - not what you know - so you still need to attend to some university to get the degree ) , on the other hand it is a generous project that makes education available to the global audience and reduces the digital divide.
And there are contributions made by the faculty members to produce these materials. These lectures cost thousands of USD just some years ago, now they are available for free.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
GPL licence, compared to BSD
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project.
The GPL is the most popular of the strong copyleft license that requires derived works to be available under the same copyleft
GNU is used in about 70% of all free software projects. Although GPL licence is free it also strogly emphasises the initial authors rights to determine the faith of the created works - the pieces created by the GPL licence can be used, copied, distributed, modified for any purpose as long as the it is distributed under the same conditions - the next user of the piece can have the same rights and must obey these same GPL conditions. Therefore its not possible to make GPL licenced software into a proprietary piece.
Under this philosophy, the GPL grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the free software definition and uses copyleft to ensure the freedoms are preserved, even when the work is changed or added to. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD licenses are the standard examples. BSD licence allows to make commercial and business versions based on the BSD software.
The GPL requires any derivative work that is released to be released according to the GPL while the BSD licence does not. BSD´s only requirement is to acknowledge the original authors, and poses no restrictions on how the source code may be used.
The GPL is the most popular of the strong copyleft license that requires derived works to be available under the same copyleft
GNU is used in about 70% of all free software projects. Although GPL licence is free it also strogly emphasises the initial authors rights to determine the faith of the created works - the pieces created by the GPL licence can be used, copied, distributed, modified for any purpose as long as the it is distributed under the same conditions - the next user of the piece can have the same rights and must obey these same GPL conditions. Therefore its not possible to make GPL licenced software into a proprietary piece.
Under this philosophy, the GPL grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the free software definition and uses copyleft to ensure the freedoms are preserved, even when the work is changed or added to. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD licenses are the standard examples. BSD licence allows to make commercial and business versions based on the BSD software.
The GPL requires any derivative work that is released to be released according to the GPL while the BSD licence does not. BSD´s only requirement is to acknowledge the original authors, and poses no restrictions on how the source code may be used.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Two schools of IP rights
There are two different schools of intellectual property rights law. One is European system and the other is Anglo-American system. The Anglo-American system only covers the use of authors economic rights ( varalised õigused ) related to the intellectual property.
The European law system on the other hand differenciates the economic rights and the authors moral rights ( isiklikud õigused ). Moral rights are the aouthors right to be an author , the right to be called an author of the piece, the right to change or not to change the intellectual property item or its appendixes, it also involves the right to protect authors good name.
Moral rights also involve the authors right to say whether or not certain IP item should be published and distributed and made public or not so. Moral rights can not be separated from the person who created the piece and also they can not be transferred to anyone else.
The American system gives all these rights also to the owner of economic rights. This means that the owner of property rights also has the right to do whatever he or she wants with the protected piece.
European system of IP in general presumes that employees who are also authors must transfer their pieces economic rights to the employer.
In some countries it is done so automatically, some other countries ( Finland, France , Germany ) demand that the employer and employee must make a separate agreement on whether or not the employer has the right to economic rights of its employees pieces or not. But even in these countries there is exeption made which is related to the software industry - all the software related works economic rights belong to the empoyers by law also in these countries.
Si it can be said that these two schools of IP laws are not that much different in case of software industry - usually the economic rights belong to the employer. If it werent so I would assume that it would bring and endless flow of court cases where the bitter ex-employees of software companies claim their rights to the software businesses and it would take very long time for the courts to analyse and prove who invented what and who can sell what. In that case a software-lawyers-industry would have beem created - and that court battle industry would produce no good at all to anyone.
So the exception made in the European software industry - that employers get all the economic rights to the software that is produced by the employees - was a wis thing to do. May be Americans are even wiser - as they dont bother with the authors moral rights at all.
The European law system on the other hand differenciates the economic rights and the authors moral rights ( isiklikud õigused ). Moral rights are the aouthors right to be an author , the right to be called an author of the piece, the right to change or not to change the intellectual property item or its appendixes, it also involves the right to protect authors good name.
Moral rights also involve the authors right to say whether or not certain IP item should be published and distributed and made public or not so. Moral rights can not be separated from the person who created the piece and also they can not be transferred to anyone else.
The American system gives all these rights also to the owner of economic rights. This means that the owner of property rights also has the right to do whatever he or she wants with the protected piece.
European system of IP in general presumes that employees who are also authors must transfer their pieces economic rights to the employer.
In some countries it is done so automatically, some other countries ( Finland, France , Germany ) demand that the employer and employee must make a separate agreement on whether or not the employer has the right to economic rights of its employees pieces or not. But even in these countries there is exeption made which is related to the software industry - all the software related works economic rights belong to the empoyers by law also in these countries.
Si it can be said that these two schools of IP laws are not that much different in case of software industry - usually the economic rights belong to the employer. If it werent so I would assume that it would bring and endless flow of court cases where the bitter ex-employees of software companies claim their rights to the software businesses and it would take very long time for the courts to analyse and prove who invented what and who can sell what. In that case a software-lawyers-industry would have beem created - and that court battle industry would produce no good at all to anyone.
So the exception made in the European software industry - that employers get all the economic rights to the software that is produced by the employees - was a wis thing to do. May be Americans are even wiser - as they dont bother with the authors moral rights at all.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Against intellectual property - Brian Martin
Brian Martin makes a case against intellectual property in his books Chapter 3 "Against Intellectual Property".
He argues that intellectual property rights often slow down innovation and exploits Third World countries. He argues that most of the common arguments for intellectual property do not hold up if examined more carefully. He also claims that big part of the products prices these days comes from the IP rights and these costs are hidden usually - consumers dont know actually how much they pay for IP rights - in case of medicine drugs etc.
One of the common arguments for IP is that the authors depend on the royalties. Martin claims that only a few individuals make money for living from royalties - probably only a coupld of hundred writers who could live from royalties in the USA for example. Most of the rewards go to big companies instead. He proposes that the authors should receive some kind of salary instead of royalties, like most scientists do these days.
The other argument for IP rights is usually the argument that protecting authors would stimulate the creativity in the society as a whole. Martin argues that this is not true because most scientists and other creators are creators because of intrinsic motivatiors - the inner drive and natural tendency to be creative, not because it is financially stimulated in any way. Some research even suggests that financial rewards actually slow down the creativity and production in sme cases.
Martin proposes that the whole economic system and the way of thinking needs to be changed along with the IP law and the system to support the creators must be worked out.
Martin proposes several strategies to move from the old system to the new IP system in the world: 1) Change thinking - the awareness of the pluses and minuses of the IP rights in societies 2) Expose the costs - people must be aware of the indirect costs related to the IP rights - such as lawyers etc. This would change the attitudes towards the IP system 3) Reproduce protected works - to copy the protected materials and exploite them as much as possible. It is not possible to change the whole system if all people obey loyally the old IP law system, he argues 4) Promote non-owned information. This means promoting all the information and materials such as freeware software for example. This software distribution usually involves the obligation not to protect the software in any ways and most often also it is prohibitted to re-sell the open source software packages for a price. 5) Develope principles to give credit for outstanding creative innovations. This means that the scientists or other creatoes who have invented something should be credited as the initial innovators - even if the initial ideas and solutions would be distributed freely afterwwards. It could be argued that this is important also because most often the initial innovators get more exposure and have better possibilities to a wealthy life after the initial invention.
I would take the example of the Ruby on Rails programming framework here. The programming language is currently one of the most popular and fastest growing web programming languages because of its ease of use. On the other hand the guy who invented the language - David Heinemeier Hansson - developed it for his company for the project 37signals.com - this was the first case ever where the Ruby on Rails was used for a web project and this is widely known fact in the world. This is a project management software company where the guy works and where he is one of the owners. Although the language itself is an open source framework - Hansson and his company receive much publicity because of the Ruby on Rails. And this helps to sell the product quite well, in fact 37signals is a multi-million dollar company. If you want to get rich also - you might want to watch how Heinemeier teaches the secret of web business.
He argues that intellectual property rights often slow down innovation and exploits Third World countries. He argues that most of the common arguments for intellectual property do not hold up if examined more carefully. He also claims that big part of the products prices these days comes from the IP rights and these costs are hidden usually - consumers dont know actually how much they pay for IP rights - in case of medicine drugs etc.
One of the common arguments for IP is that the authors depend on the royalties. Martin claims that only a few individuals make money for living from royalties - probably only a coupld of hundred writers who could live from royalties in the USA for example. Most of the rewards go to big companies instead. He proposes that the authors should receive some kind of salary instead of royalties, like most scientists do these days.
The other argument for IP rights is usually the argument that protecting authors would stimulate the creativity in the society as a whole. Martin argues that this is not true because most scientists and other creators are creators because of intrinsic motivatiors - the inner drive and natural tendency to be creative, not because it is financially stimulated in any way. Some research even suggests that financial rewards actually slow down the creativity and production in sme cases.
Martin proposes that the whole economic system and the way of thinking needs to be changed along with the IP law and the system to support the creators must be worked out.
Martin proposes several strategies to move from the old system to the new IP system in the world: 1) Change thinking - the awareness of the pluses and minuses of the IP rights in societies 2) Expose the costs - people must be aware of the indirect costs related to the IP rights - such as lawyers etc. This would change the attitudes towards the IP system 3) Reproduce protected works - to copy the protected materials and exploite them as much as possible. It is not possible to change the whole system if all people obey loyally the old IP law system, he argues 4) Promote non-owned information. This means promoting all the information and materials such as freeware software for example. This software distribution usually involves the obligation not to protect the software in any ways and most often also it is prohibitted to re-sell the open source software packages for a price. 5) Develope principles to give credit for outstanding creative innovations. This means that the scientists or other creatoes who have invented something should be credited as the initial innovators - even if the initial ideas and solutions would be distributed freely afterwwards. It could be argued that this is important also because most often the initial innovators get more exposure and have better possibilities to a wealthy life after the initial invention.
I would take the example of the Ruby on Rails programming framework here. The programming language is currently one of the most popular and fastest growing web programming languages because of its ease of use. On the other hand the guy who invented the language - David Heinemeier Hansson - developed it for his company for the project 37signals.com - this was the first case ever where the Ruby on Rails was used for a web project and this is widely known fact in the world. This is a project management software company where the guy works and where he is one of the owners. Although the language itself is an open source framework - Hansson and his company receive much publicity because of the Ruby on Rails. And this helps to sell the product quite well, in fact 37signals is a multi-million dollar company. If you want to get rich also - you might want to watch how Heinemeier teaches the secret of web business.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Twitter used for hactivism
A good example of hactivism would be the use of Twitter for DDOS attacks against Iran in the summer of 2009. Twitter was used for passing the instructions for the attacks and for spreading the message. There were political demonstrations on the streets in Teheran during that time and the government was arresting people. Twitter´s mainly English-speaking users were organizing the attacks at the same time.
One of the responsers asks on the website though - what is the end goal because the targets of the attacks were the government sites : http://www.leader.ir/
http://president.ir/
http://www.irib.ir/
http://www.iribnews.ir/
One participant asks on the blog site - what is the end goal as he thought that these DDOS attacks prevented the Iranian people also to get access to the correct information and pass information about the events in Iran to the outer world.
One participant praized Twitter for spreading the message - the Twitter messages are short and straight to the point.
This case is similar to Estonia in 2007. In Estonia there were also political mass protests on the streets and the Estonian government sites and other important websites were DDOS attacked furing the mass demonstrations from the opposing country Russia. Although Russian government denied any involvement in the cyber attacks and said that the attacks were carried out by the grassroots movement, it is still widely believed that this Estonian case was one of the first cases of cyber war in the world.
In case of Iran it is believed that no other geovernment was involved in any way in attacking Iranian websites furing the political mass demonstrations. Because it is politically correct to think so.
One of the responsers asks on the website though - what is the end goal because the targets of the attacks were the government sites : http://www.leader.ir/
http://president.ir/
http://www.irib.ir/
http://www.iribnews.ir/
One participant asks on the blog site - what is the end goal as he thought that these DDOS attacks prevented the Iranian people also to get access to the correct information and pass information about the events in Iran to the outer world.
One participant praized Twitter for spreading the message - the Twitter messages are short and straight to the point.
This case is similar to Estonia in 2007. In Estonia there were also political mass protests on the streets and the Estonian government sites and other important websites were DDOS attacked furing the mass demonstrations from the opposing country Russia. Although Russian government denied any involvement in the cyber attacks and said that the attacks were carried out by the grassroots movement, it is still widely believed that this Estonian case was one of the first cases of cyber war in the world.
In case of Iran it is believed that no other geovernment was involved in any way in attacking Iranian websites furing the political mass demonstrations. Because it is politically correct to think so.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Is Google bombing hactivism ?
Hactivism is defined on Wikipedia web site as following: Hacktivism (a portmanteau of hack and activism) is "the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends. These tools include web site defacements, redirects, denial-of-service attacks, information theft, web site parodies, virtual sit-ins, virtual sabotage, and software development."
As there are many clear cases of hactivism I would like to propose a somewhat unique case of political campaign , just to try to figure out whether or not this case falls into hacktivism category.
On Sunday 7, 2003 BBC News reported that Google search for the term "miserable failure" gives the president of the United States George W. Bush as the first search result. That was the year when the Iraq war started, lets remember.
Web users entering the words "miserable failure" into the popular search engine were directed to the biography of the president on the White House website. The trick was possible because Google searches more than just the contents of web pages - it also counts how often a site is linked to, and with what words. Thereby the online community or activists can affect the results of Google searches - called "Google bombing" - by linking their sites to a chosen one.
This trick they pulled got worldwide coverage and could be seen some kind of a political protest.
The term hactivism presumes that some illegal activity is carried out or some legally ambigious activity goes on. While this could not be the case - no laws where broken by anyone and no machines were directly hacked, it can be argued that the Google robots were manipulated in a certain way, so that the search engines algorithm needed to be changed eventually.
This W. Bush Google bombing case became the most famous case and remained so until Google changed its engine algorithm so that the Google bombing cases, such as this one organized by George Johnston on the Old Fashion Patriot blog, are harder to organize these days.
As there are many clear cases of hactivism I would like to propose a somewhat unique case of political campaign , just to try to figure out whether or not this case falls into hacktivism category.
On Sunday 7, 2003 BBC News reported that Google search for the term "miserable failure" gives the president of the United States George W. Bush as the first search result. That was the year when the Iraq war started, lets remember.
Web users entering the words "miserable failure" into the popular search engine were directed to the biography of the president on the White House website. The trick was possible because Google searches more than just the contents of web pages - it also counts how often a site is linked to, and with what words. Thereby the online community or activists can affect the results of Google searches - called "Google bombing" - by linking their sites to a chosen one.
This trick they pulled got worldwide coverage and could be seen some kind of a political protest.
The term hactivism presumes that some illegal activity is carried out or some legally ambigious activity goes on. While this could not be the case - no laws where broken by anyone and no machines were directly hacked, it can be argued that the Google robots were manipulated in a certain way, so that the search engines algorithm needed to be changed eventually.
This W. Bush Google bombing case became the most famous case and remained so until Google changed its engine algorithm so that the Google bombing cases, such as this one organized by George Johnston on the Old Fashion Patriot blog, are harder to organize these days.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Hackers Ethics in todays world - mistrust authority
There most intriguing point in the hackers ethics would be - "Mistrust authority - promote decentralization." As internet usage is becoming more widely used every day and thereby more and more free information is available , the hackers culture spreads all over the world. It can be argued that the greater availability of the free information in the also creates the plurality of opinions and views. It also moves the centre of political discussion away from the old parliament builgings to the social networks and web forums. This is also understood by the servicemen of authority - such as the CIA in the United States. Recently it was announced that they would start monitoring social networks with their special software - to check what is being discussed, organized etc.
It also means that there is a lot more work to do for the government institutions due to the unpredictability of the public discourse. And this can be quite painful for the old establishment. It reminds me the speech of US senator from the well- known American bankng and oil dynasty Jay Rockefeller. He recently made a speech where he illustrated the terrible dangers of the internet - security threats among others, and asked whether or not it was a good idea to invent the internet after all. See here . It could be therefore a sign that the internet, free information and hackers culture is already shaking the foundations of the old establishment and new rules for the competition are being set.
So hackers work should be concentrated now on preserving the already achieved improvements and not letting the authorities taking their power back. The issues like internet privacy, net neutrality and the Big Brother should be the concern of every hacker these days as there are signs that not everyone likes the hackers culture.
It also means that there is a lot more work to do for the government institutions due to the unpredictability of the public discourse. And this can be quite painful for the old establishment. It reminds me the speech of US senator from the well- known American bankng and oil dynasty Jay Rockefeller. He recently made a speech where he illustrated the terrible dangers of the internet - security threats among others, and asked whether or not it was a good idea to invent the internet after all. See here . It could be therefore a sign that the internet, free information and hackers culture is already shaking the foundations of the old establishment and new rules for the competition are being set.
So hackers work should be concentrated now on preserving the already achieved improvements and not letting the authorities taking their power back. The issues like internet privacy, net neutrality and the Big Brother should be the concern of every hacker these days as there are signs that not everyone likes the hackers culture.
Jargon File and the "back door"
The term that I found most intriguing on the Jargon File dictionary was the simple term "back door". The term itself is defined as following:
"Back door - a hole in the security of a system deliberately left in place by designers or maintainers. The motivation for such holes is not always sinister; some operating systems, for example, come out of the box with privileged accounts intended for use by field service technicians or the vendor's maintenance programmers. Syn. trap door; may also be called a wormhole. See also iron box, cracker, worm, logic bomb."
The term is intriguing in several ways. At first I did not think that the term was invented by hackers and I thought the term was invented by the mainstream IT industry as it is so commonly used. On the other hand - after thinking about it - who else could have coined the term better than the hackers themselves. The term is also intruiging in the sense that is directly related to the main topic of the course - ethics and law as in fact the whole IT ethics and law is in big part related to back doors. Is it ethical to create back doors , what to do if you have discovered the back door in someones system ? I would be interested to study this field more thoroughly - the ethics and law of "back doors".
"Back door - a hole in the security of a system deliberately left in place by designers or maintainers. The motivation for such holes is not always sinister; some operating systems, for example, come out of the box with privileged accounts intended for use by field service technicians or the vendor's maintenance programmers. Syn. trap door; may also be called a wormhole. See also iron box, cracker, worm, logic bomb."
The term is intriguing in several ways. At first I did not think that the term was invented by hackers and I thought the term was invented by the mainstream IT industry as it is so commonly used. On the other hand - after thinking about it - who else could have coined the term better than the hackers themselves. The term is also intruiging in the sense that is directly related to the main topic of the course - ethics and law as in fact the whole IT ethics and law is in big part related to back doors. Is it ethical to create back doors , what to do if you have discovered the back door in someones system ? I would be interested to study this field more thoroughly - the ethics and law of "back doors".
Monday, October 26, 2009
CyberPatrol software and how it filters
I tried the web filter software CyberPatrol which is supposed to be a market leader in the field in the U.S.
During the installation I chose "Home" user category ( Other being "School" , "Business" etc. ) and also chose the "Child" level filtering which is supposed to be the most intense filtering ( "Late teens" and other such categories are also available ). You can also restrict the users Web access by time of day and set the daily and weekly browse limits. All web activity will be recorded.
After installing it needed to reset the browser and start again. As I conducted the test late in the evening the program initially blocked all websites, by saying the following:
"
Access Restricted
User Profile:
Reason: Access to websites is denied at this time of day.
Category: None
Instant Override: Click here - Password Required
To change any of the filter settings please speak to your CyberPatrol Headquarters’ Administrator."
Then I customized my filter settings and took the Time Monitoring off from the Headquarters, using the user password.
After that I tried to read the website seks.ee and the following message came up:
Access Restricted
User Profile:
Reason: The website is inappropriate.
Category: Hacking & Spyware
Instant Override: Click here - Password Required
To change any of the filter settings please speak to your CyberPatrol Headquarters’ Administrator.
After that the rate.ee portal was tried. I entered the word "seks" into the user searc field and many users with photoes came out. The soft did not block the website although the
page had the word "seks" repeated more than ten times as well as the photos were displayed. As this is not a sex related site in essense but a dating site, it could be normal that the site was
not completely shut off. Then I went to the www.date.ee which also opened nicely while this is also a dating site.
Also tried Google. The regular web search with the word "seks" opened up nicely
http://www.google.ee/search?q=seks&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:et:official&client=firefox-a and the results were displayed but if I tried to search the Google images with the word "seks" - the Google site was blocked as well. Also - the regular search with the word "sex" in English language was blocked righ away. Go figure.
Estonias biggest portal delfi.ee is also considered not appropriate for children to see, the Cyberpatrol said that Delfi portal has some "bad links" on their site.
During the installation I chose "Home" user category ( Other being "School" , "Business" etc. ) and also chose the "Child" level filtering which is supposed to be the most intense filtering ( "Late teens" and other such categories are also available ). You can also restrict the users Web access by time of day and set the daily and weekly browse limits. All web activity will be recorded.
After installing it needed to reset the browser and start again. As I conducted the test late in the evening the program initially blocked all websites, by saying the following:
"
Access Restricted
User Profile:
Reason: Access to websites is denied at this time of day.
Category: None
Instant Override: Click here - Password Required
To change any of the filter settings please speak to your CyberPatrol Headquarters’ Administrator."
Then I customized my filter settings and took the Time Monitoring off from the Headquarters, using the user password.
After that I tried to read the website seks.ee and the following message came up:
Access Restricted
User Profile:
Reason: The website is inappropriate.
Category: Hacking & Spyware
Instant Override: Click here - Password Required
To change any of the filter settings please speak to your CyberPatrol Headquarters’ Administrator.
After that the rate.ee portal was tried. I entered the word "seks" into the user searc field and many users with photoes came out. The soft did not block the website although the
page had the word "seks" repeated more than ten times as well as the photos were displayed. As this is not a sex related site in essense but a dating site, it could be normal that the site was
not completely shut off. Then I went to the www.date.ee which also opened nicely while this is also a dating site.
Also tried Google. The regular web search with the word "seks" opened up nicely
http://www.google.ee/search?q=seks&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:et:official&client=firefox-a and the results were displayed but if I tried to search the Google images with the word "seks" - the Google site was blocked as well. Also - the regular search with the word "sex" in English language was blocked righ away. Go figure.
Estonias biggest portal delfi.ee is also considered not appropriate for children to see, the Cyberpatrol said that Delfi portal has some "bad links" on their site.
Digital Divide in Estonia
About the digital divide in Estonia.
The most cited research on the internet is the 2002 research paper conducted by EMOR and Praxis research organizations. The groups that use internet less are the older people, people with the lower education and people who live in Southern part of Estonia or North-Eastern part of Estonia, also ethnically Estonians are more active internet users than Russians in general.
Two years later a similar research was conducted by Factum. The western part of Estonia improved significantly in two years since then , while the regions that are populated with Russians did not improve significantly in time. The biggest growth in internet usage in two years came from the biggest cities which can be a result of the more severe competition between ISP-s.
In the biggest cities about 2/3 of the population used internet while in Southern Estonia and North-Eastern regions only slightly over 50% were internet users. This is probably not a big problem in terms of digital divide as there are “enough” connections in the rural areas and the higher net penetration is normal in the biggest cities.
These days there are also online services like Kõu – (www.kou.ee) that enable wireless internet connection basically in every location in Estonia. So the divide is more visible in terms of users age in Estonia and less regionally and there is not much that can be done about it. The initial Praxis research found that the non-users could start using the internet if they would have some financial benefit from it but the potential of financial benefit is also difficult to see among for the elderly.
The most cited research on the internet is the 2002 research paper conducted by EMOR and Praxis research organizations. The groups that use internet less are the older people, people with the lower education and people who live in Southern part of Estonia or North-Eastern part of Estonia, also ethnically Estonians are more active internet users than Russians in general.
Two years later a similar research was conducted by Factum. The western part of Estonia improved significantly in two years since then , while the regions that are populated with Russians did not improve significantly in time. The biggest growth in internet usage in two years came from the biggest cities which can be a result of the more severe competition between ISP-s.
In the biggest cities about 2/3 of the population used internet while in Southern Estonia and North-Eastern regions only slightly over 50% were internet users. This is probably not a big problem in terms of digital divide as there are “enough” connections in the rural areas and the higher net penetration is normal in the biggest cities.
These days there are also online services like Kõu – (www.kou.ee) that enable wireless internet connection basically in every location in Estonia. So the divide is more visible in terms of users age in Estonia and less regionally and there is not much that can be done about it. The initial Praxis research found that the non-users could start using the internet if they would have some financial benefit from it but the potential of financial benefit is also difficult to see among for the elderly.
Ubiquitous internet usage and Estonia , the 4 scenarios
The initial 4 scenarios that were proposed for Estonia for the year 2010 were the following:
1) "Militaristic information oasis" - "little angry country" (like the one in Middle East) with good technological progress but little openness and overall freedom. "Military Estonia".
2) "South Finland" - soft-spoken, well integrated into Europe (and decisively distanced from Russia), but with low innovation capacity. "Subcontractor Estonia" - perhaps the closest to current reality.
3) "The Ferryman" - well-developed, but fully transit-based economy. Innovation and ICT are only to serve the main goal and thus of inferior importance. "Merchant Estonia", which is quite alike to the 'Singapore' scenario of Himanen seen in a previous lecture.
4) "Grand Slam" - the best realisation of both geographical location (transit) and innovative and educational potential. "Innovation/ICT Estonia".
It can be said that “The Ferryman” scenario was cut off by the Russian government , the oil transit has mostly stopped and Russian government does not encourage the transit through Estonia in any way. It changed dramatically for the worse in 2007 when the notorious bronze soldier statue was removed from the center of Tallinn, angering many of the Russian population and the Russian government as well. Or was it vice versa – the anger of the local Russians created the need to remove the statue from the city center. Who knows.
As Ferryman did not work out at all – the Grand Slam is out of the question also. Grand Slam scenario seems to be possible with social cohesion and with the states active participation but as the prevailing political policy has been the ultra-liberal market economy the free-market forces have not turned out to be grand slam for the economy as a whole.
The current situation in Estonia is closest to the “South Finland” scenario – the country has distanced from Russia quite effectively , while the rest of the Europe and NATO are moving closer and closer to Russia and try to cooperate with Russian in any way possible ;) Germans even thought about selling their industrial giant Opel to Russians. The innovation capacity is really low compared to the Scandinavian countries , in terms of registered patents per person for example. This leaves out only simple sub-contracting work ( mostly to Scandinavia ) as the main trend in the society.
1) "Militaristic information oasis" - "little angry country" (like the one in Middle East) with good technological progress but little openness and overall freedom. "Military Estonia".
2) "South Finland" - soft-spoken, well integrated into Europe (and decisively distanced from Russia), but with low innovation capacity. "Subcontractor Estonia" - perhaps the closest to current reality.
3) "The Ferryman" - well-developed, but fully transit-based economy. Innovation and ICT are only to serve the main goal and thus of inferior importance. "Merchant Estonia", which is quite alike to the 'Singapore' scenario of Himanen seen in a previous lecture.
4) "Grand Slam" - the best realisation of both geographical location (transit) and innovative and educational potential. "Innovation/ICT Estonia".
It can be said that “The Ferryman” scenario was cut off by the Russian government , the oil transit has mostly stopped and Russian government does not encourage the transit through Estonia in any way. It changed dramatically for the worse in 2007 when the notorious bronze soldier statue was removed from the center of Tallinn, angering many of the Russian population and the Russian government as well. Or was it vice versa – the anger of the local Russians created the need to remove the statue from the city center. Who knows.
As Ferryman did not work out at all – the Grand Slam is out of the question also. Grand Slam scenario seems to be possible with social cohesion and with the states active participation but as the prevailing political policy has been the ultra-liberal market economy the free-market forces have not turned out to be grand slam for the economy as a whole.
The current situation in Estonia is closest to the “South Finland” scenario – the country has distanced from Russia quite effectively , while the rest of the Europe and NATO are moving closer and closer to Russia and try to cooperate with Russian in any way possible ;) Germans even thought about selling their industrial giant Opel to Russians. The innovation capacity is really low compared to the Scandinavian countries , in terms of registered patents per person for example. This leaves out only simple sub-contracting work ( mostly to Scandinavia ) as the main trend in the society.
Inside Echelon
Duncan Campbell has written an overview of the secret surveillance system Echelon. He writes how the system was created for the interception of international communications and what are the technical capabilities of the system in modern times and how it is used today.
The first reports about Echelon in Europe reported that it can intercept in Europe all e-mail, telephone, and fax communications. The system is not that capable yet though. Also - Echelon is not capable to recognise the content of every speech message and telephone call. But the American and British-run network can access and process most of the worlds satellite communications.
The creation of Echelon also created some ethical issues related to the secrecy of th information and related to how much information should be collected about citizens after all. They collected information on over 40 countries, including the allies in the 1960-s. They also monitored the American celebrities who wer against the Vietnam war.
In 1991 one employee who worked for the system went public and told off the record that the British partner of the Echelon collects basically everything they are capable to intercept - every single telex ( actually illegally). Also they intercepted the embassies, all business deals and even birthday greetings.
"Commercial and economic intelligence is now a major part of the international sigint activity. Under a 1993 policy colloquially known as "levelling the playing field", the United States government under President Clinton established new trade and economic committees and told the NSA and CIA to act in support of US businesses in seeking contracts abroad. In the UK, GCHQ's enabling legislation from 1994 openly identifies one of its purposes as to promote "the economic well-being of the United Kingdom in relation to the actions or intentions of persons outside the British Islands".
This means that they can intercept the business communication all over the world for the benefit of their local corporations. So much about the free market economy, fair trade and information stealing...
Recently there have been reports that CIA has invested in a software company that is monitoring the social networks. In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA , invested in the fall of 2009 in Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement on using ”open source intelligence” — information that is publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of all the other media - blogs, radio, tv. The software program provides real-time feeds of what’s being said on social networks, based on a series of keywords. Then Visible “scores” each post as positive or nagative, mixed or neutral. It also finds out how influential a conversation or a portal user is. Finally, Visible gives users a chance to tag posts, forward them to colleagues and allow them to response through a web interface.
If one could understand why it was necessary to start a project like Echelon in the cold war era - for national secutiry issues then it is more difficult to understand why they need to be monitoring the social networks. The other reason could be that CIA thinks that we have entered the era of information warfare where social networks can be used to influence the public opinion and to organize mass demonstrations. CIA being on the social network sites is not a secret interception any more - this is more like standing next to you all the time.
The first reports about Echelon in Europe reported that it can intercept in Europe all e-mail, telephone, and fax communications. The system is not that capable yet though. Also - Echelon is not capable to recognise the content of every speech message and telephone call. But the American and British-run network can access and process most of the worlds satellite communications.
The creation of Echelon also created some ethical issues related to the secrecy of th information and related to how much information should be collected about citizens after all. They collected information on over 40 countries, including the allies in the 1960-s. They also monitored the American celebrities who wer against the Vietnam war.
In 1991 one employee who worked for the system went public and told off the record that the British partner of the Echelon collects basically everything they are capable to intercept - every single telex ( actually illegally). Also they intercepted the embassies, all business deals and even birthday greetings.
"Commercial and economic intelligence is now a major part of the international sigint activity. Under a 1993 policy colloquially known as "levelling the playing field", the United States government under President Clinton established new trade and economic committees and told the NSA and CIA to act in support of US businesses in seeking contracts abroad. In the UK, GCHQ's enabling legislation from 1994 openly identifies one of its purposes as to promote "the economic well-being of the United Kingdom in relation to the actions or intentions of persons outside the British Islands".
This means that they can intercept the business communication all over the world for the benefit of their local corporations. So much about the free market economy, fair trade and information stealing...
Recently there have been reports that CIA has invested in a software company that is monitoring the social networks. In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA , invested in the fall of 2009 in Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement on using ”open source intelligence” — information that is publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of all the other media - blogs, radio, tv. The software program provides real-time feeds of what’s being said on social networks, based on a series of keywords. Then Visible “scores” each post as positive or nagative, mixed or neutral. It also finds out how influential a conversation or a portal user is. Finally, Visible gives users a chance to tag posts, forward them to colleagues and allow them to response through a web interface.
If one could understand why it was necessary to start a project like Echelon in the cold war era - for national secutiry issues then it is more difficult to understand why they need to be monitoring the social networks. The other reason could be that CIA thinks that we have entered the era of information warfare where social networks can be used to influence the public opinion and to organize mass demonstrations. CIA being on the social network sites is not a secret interception any more - this is more like standing next to you all the time.
Applicability of nonmarket production and related strategies
Right next to the definition of econodfarf on everything2.com is the argument that Mozarts operas are not necessarily produced so that Mozart was financially motivated. On the other hand there are many famous composers who are creating operas "as a service" or because they got a client who proposed money for creating operas. So it can be said that it works both ways - sometimes the operas are created
by the composers because "they need money" and sometimes they create them for fun or because being a composer is their lifelong hobby, in addition to being a job.
I tend to think that same apllies to the online web services and industry as well, something that related to my occupations. Sometimes people do not know what they are creating in the beginning and what is the final features of the product that they are working on. The products in the web industry are sometimes so innovative that it is quite difficult to predict the market volume of the service or predict how "the creature" can be monetized later on. Latest example of such web products could be Twitter.com, also there I kind of remember that the first big search Youtube.com is trying to figure out even few years after the launch - how to monetize the beast.
Yahoo.com - also started for fun but later on turned out to be useful. Some day also Youtube and Twitter become profitable and find the ways to monetize their businesses.
The point is - sometimes they try to do someting for fun or for charity and later on it may turn out to be a big business. Usually someone else copies the initial idea with the more concrete business oriented intentions. Like Google made a better search engine than Yahoo, and added some additional features and innovative paid services to it ( Adwords, Adsense, Google Analytics for portals with millions of users is also a paid service, at least it was so couple of years ago ).
There are also business models that use both ways - they are open-source products and on the other hand they are aimed at financial benefit - either consultancy, installation services or software services related to open source products ( like selling Wordpress themes or providing Wordpress sites set up as a paid service ).
There are blogs that have been started for fun and later on they earn a lot of money with the blogs. Many experienced and well-paid programmers like to make programs as a hobby, some of these later on can turn out to be great commercial products. 37signals.com was one of such services, 37signals.com was also the first web portal that used Ruby on Rails programming language as the programming languages was invented by one of their founders.
So the non-market production and the commercial production are mixed and they can also support each other in the web services industry.
by the composers because "they need money" and sometimes they create them for fun or because being a composer is their lifelong hobby, in addition to being a job.
I tend to think that same apllies to the online web services and industry as well, something that related to my occupations. Sometimes people do not know what they are creating in the beginning and what is the final features of the product that they are working on. The products in the web industry are sometimes so innovative that it is quite difficult to predict the market volume of the service or predict how "the creature" can be monetized later on. Latest example of such web products could be Twitter.com, also there I kind of remember that the first big search Youtube.com is trying to figure out even few years after the launch - how to monetize the beast.
Yahoo.com - also started for fun but later on turned out to be useful. Some day also Youtube and Twitter become profitable and find the ways to monetize their businesses.
The point is - sometimes they try to do someting for fun or for charity and later on it may turn out to be a big business. Usually someone else copies the initial idea with the more concrete business oriented intentions. Like Google made a better search engine than Yahoo, and added some additional features and innovative paid services to it ( Adwords, Adsense, Google Analytics for portals with millions of users is also a paid service, at least it was so couple of years ago ).
There are also business models that use both ways - they are open-source products and on the other hand they are aimed at financial benefit - either consultancy, installation services or software services related to open source products ( like selling Wordpress themes or providing Wordpress sites set up as a paid service ).
There are blogs that have been started for fun and later on they earn a lot of money with the blogs. Many experienced and well-paid programmers like to make programs as a hobby, some of these later on can turn out to be great commercial products. 37signals.com was one of such services, 37signals.com was also the first web portal that used Ruby on Rails programming language as the programming languages was invented by one of their founders.
So the non-market production and the commercial production are mixed and they can also support each other in the web services industry.
Pekka Himanen's "Challenges to the Global Information Society"
Pekka Himanen has written a paper for the Finnish parlament in 2004 , called "Challenges to the Global Information Society". He writes about the challenges of the changing world and the challenges for the developed countries as they need to compete with the rising developing nations such as China and India.
He also proposed that his paper should be used by the European Union for planning the economic policies and innovation policies. European Union is behind the United States in terms of innovation and in terms of attracting new talent from around the world.
He sees 3 main societal models in terms of innovation currently in the world:
1. The “Silicon Valley model”, i.e. the American
neo-liberalist model. Best example of this model is the United States itself.
2. The “Singapore model”, i.e. the Asian state-run model in which the governments objective is to attract big companies to the region, this is also encouraged by China and India.
3. The “Finnish model” - which is a European combination of the information society and the welfare state, which is best represented according to Himmanen in his native country Finland. The other Scandinavian countries belong to this group also.
Himmanen sees that the developed countries and European Union have the only main chance to survive and to maintain the current higher living standard by creating and maintaining an "innovative welfare state" where all groups of people have equal opportunities and the innovation and higher productivity comes from the cooperation of different groups. The cooperation of all parts of the society is something that makes this model different from the market-driven Valley model and the Singapore model. He discusses the pre-requirements for the innovation to happen - education system and education priorities, having enough rest, keeping people mentally and physically fit. I would say that the main argument that he makes in the paper is the following:
"In the information society, where learning continues throughout our lives, schools
should not only distribute information but also, and equally importantly, build self -confidence and social skills, as well as help pupils to fulfil themselves by identifying their talents and creative passions." He says that people must "learn to learn" - become able to identify problems, generate ideas and apply source criticism, and cooperate with other people.
He sees that government and private sectors both can create the conditions for fullfilling the peoples self-actualization potential by creating the environment that encourages creativity and productivity. For example - government should encourage that citizens have FREE access to as much scientific information as possible ( museums, other means ). He also proposes that the higher education should be available to all talented people in the society, regardless of their financial status.
He says that European Union in general is doing well in terms of production innovation and engineering but business innovation lags behind the United States in terms of branding for example.
I would say that the article can be concluded shortly that he describes what are the critical success factors of an innovative and productive society in general , in a welfare state.
He also proposed that his paper should be used by the European Union for planning the economic policies and innovation policies. European Union is behind the United States in terms of innovation and in terms of attracting new talent from around the world.
He sees 3 main societal models in terms of innovation currently in the world:
1. The “Silicon Valley model”, i.e. the American
neo-liberalist model. Best example of this model is the United States itself.
2. The “Singapore model”, i.e. the Asian state-run model in which the governments objective is to attract big companies to the region, this is also encouraged by China and India.
3. The “Finnish model” - which is a European combination of the information society and the welfare state, which is best represented according to Himmanen in his native country Finland. The other Scandinavian countries belong to this group also.
Himmanen sees that the developed countries and European Union have the only main chance to survive and to maintain the current higher living standard by creating and maintaining an "innovative welfare state" where all groups of people have equal opportunities and the innovation and higher productivity comes from the cooperation of different groups. The cooperation of all parts of the society is something that makes this model different from the market-driven Valley model and the Singapore model. He discusses the pre-requirements for the innovation to happen - education system and education priorities, having enough rest, keeping people mentally and physically fit. I would say that the main argument that he makes in the paper is the following:
"In the information society, where learning continues throughout our lives, schools
should not only distribute information but also, and equally importantly, build self -confidence and social skills, as well as help pupils to fulfil themselves by identifying their talents and creative passions." He says that people must "learn to learn" - become able to identify problems, generate ideas and apply source criticism, and cooperate with other people.
He sees that government and private sectors both can create the conditions for fullfilling the peoples self-actualization potential by creating the environment that encourages creativity and productivity. For example - government should encourage that citizens have FREE access to as much scientific information as possible ( museums, other means ). He also proposes that the higher education should be available to all talented people in the society, regardless of their financial status.
He says that European Union in general is doing well in terms of production innovation and engineering but business innovation lags behind the United States in terms of branding for example.
I would say that the article can be concluded shortly that he describes what are the critical success factors of an innovative and productive society in general , in a welfare state.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Mis vahe on BSD ja GPL vabavara litsentsidel
BSD litsents on vabavara versioon, kus kasutajal on õigus teha tarkvaraga mida iganes soovib, kaasa arvatud muuta selle tarkvara suletuks või seda müüa. Seejuures on tarkvarale tavaliselt koodis 3 peamist tingimust mis lisatakse litsentsi kirjeks tarkvarale juurde ning need litsentsi kirjed peavad sinna ka igal juhul kääma. Seejuures tarkvara ennast võib piiramatult levitada igal eesmärgil. Lisaks keelab BSD litsents kasutada tarkvara loomisse panustanud isikute kasutamist lõpp-toote tarkvara versiooni promomiseks ilma selleks luba küsimata.
BSD lubab tarkvara kasutada kommertslikus kasutuses, samuti lubab see integreerida tarkvara kommertstarkvara toodetes ( proprietary commercial products ). Projekti kus osana kasutatakse ka BSD litsentsi alla käivat tarkvara, võib levitada ka selliselt, et muuta see suletud koodiga tarkvaraks ( closed source software ).
Internetis võib saada ka näiteks vaba tarkvara template´i mis on omamoodi universaalne ning templates lünkadesse oma tarkvara projekti nime pannes võib selle enda BSD litsentsiks teha. Selline litsentsi põhi on näiteks aadressil
BSD litsentsi template - http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php
Sellise litsentsi all on näiteks Yahoo User Interface Library , kus Yahoo programmeerimise meeskonna poolt loodud tarkvara on lubatud kasutada teistes veebiprojektides BSD litsentsi all. Yahoo Library on sisuliselt erinevad koodijupid, millega saab hõlbustada veebiarendaja tööd, pakkudes võimalust integreerida neid koodi osasid veebiarendajate poolt arendatavate projektidega. BSD-ga on võimalik ka see et lisaks on tarkvara veel levitatav mingi teise litsentsi tüübi all.
GPL puhul on erinevuseks see, et vabadus tähendab eelkõige tarkvara vabadust. Kui sellist tarkvara levitada siis peab olema kindel see et kood jääb avatuks – open source - ka neile kellele seda tarkvara levitatakse. Seejuures võib selline vabavara olla levitatav raha eest või ka tasuta. Kood peab olema ja jääma open source koodiks igakordsele kasutajale, ka juhul kui keegi midagi juurde arendab ja edasi levitab. http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.php – GPL litsents.
GPL litsentsi kasutab näiteks maailma üks populaarsemaid blogi ja cms süsteeme Wordpress. Wordpress põhineb PHP ja MySQL rakendusel ning blogi tarkvara kasutamine on tasuta.
Wordpressi kasutaja võib levitada seda tarkvara ja muuta , samuti teha sellele täiendusi (plug-ins). Juhul kui selliseid arendusi on tehtud, peab ära märkima millal ja kelle poolt on täiendused tehtud ning samuti PEAB jätma koodi avatuks (open source) teistele kasutajatele - neile omakorda koos levitamise ja koodi muutmise õigusega.
Wordpressi arendatakse oma vabatahtlike kogukonna poolt, samas on enamik peamisi arendajaid tööl firmas Automatic. Lisaks arendajatele on ka vabatahtlike testijate kogukond, kellel on olemas esmane ligipääs Beta versioonidele tarkvarast. Vigade avastades naad saavad saata teateid leitud vigadest Trac keskkonda.
BSD lubab tarkvara kasutada kommertslikus kasutuses, samuti lubab see integreerida tarkvara kommertstarkvara toodetes ( proprietary commercial products ). Projekti kus osana kasutatakse ka BSD litsentsi alla käivat tarkvara, võib levitada ka selliselt, et muuta see suletud koodiga tarkvaraks ( closed source software ).
Internetis võib saada ka näiteks vaba tarkvara template´i mis on omamoodi universaalne ning templates lünkadesse oma tarkvara projekti nime pannes võib selle enda BSD litsentsiks teha. Selline litsentsi põhi on näiteks aadressil
BSD litsentsi template - http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php
Sellise litsentsi all on näiteks Yahoo User Interface Library , kus Yahoo programmeerimise meeskonna poolt loodud tarkvara on lubatud kasutada teistes veebiprojektides BSD litsentsi all. Yahoo Library on sisuliselt erinevad koodijupid, millega saab hõlbustada veebiarendaja tööd, pakkudes võimalust integreerida neid koodi osasid veebiarendajate poolt arendatavate projektidega. BSD-ga on võimalik ka see et lisaks on tarkvara veel levitatav mingi teise litsentsi tüübi all.
GPL puhul on erinevuseks see, et vabadus tähendab eelkõige tarkvara vabadust. Kui sellist tarkvara levitada siis peab olema kindel see et kood jääb avatuks – open source - ka neile kellele seda tarkvara levitatakse. Seejuures võib selline vabavara olla levitatav raha eest või ka tasuta. Kood peab olema ja jääma open source koodiks igakordsele kasutajale, ka juhul kui keegi midagi juurde arendab ja edasi levitab. http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.php – GPL litsents.
GPL litsentsi kasutab näiteks maailma üks populaarsemaid blogi ja cms süsteeme Wordpress. Wordpress põhineb PHP ja MySQL rakendusel ning blogi tarkvara kasutamine on tasuta.
Wordpressi kasutaja võib levitada seda tarkvara ja muuta , samuti teha sellele täiendusi (plug-ins). Juhul kui selliseid arendusi on tehtud, peab ära märkima millal ja kelle poolt on täiendused tehtud ning samuti PEAB jätma koodi avatuks (open source) teistele kasutajatele - neile omakorda koos levitamise ja koodi muutmise õigusega.
Wordpressi arendatakse oma vabatahtlike kogukonna poolt, samas on enamik peamisi arendajaid tööl firmas Automatic. Lisaks arendajatele on ka vabatahtlike testijate kogukond, kellel on olemas esmane ligipääs Beta versioonidele tarkvarast. Vigade avastades naad saavad saata teateid leitud vigadest Trac keskkonda.
Kuidas saada häkkeriks
Vaba tarkvara kogukonna täht Eric S. Raymond on kirjutanud kokkuvõtva artikli "Kuidas saada häkkeriks." Ta kirjutab sellest, kuidas saaks ühest inimesest häkker ja mis ühte ehtsat häkkerit üldse iseloomustada võiks.
Häkkerid kuuluvad kogukonda , mis koosneb tipp-programmeerijatest ja võrguässadest kes jagavad teatud kultuurilisi ühisväärtusi ja on moodustanud selle baasil omalaadse kogukonna. Häkkeriks saad sa siis kui sa oled osa sellest kultuurist, oled sellesse andnud oma panuse ning teised selles olijad tunnevad sind ja nimetavad sind häkkeriks.
Häkkerite mõtteviis ei pea olema piiratud tarkvaraga ja arvutitega. Seda mõtteviisi võib kohata mistahes teaduse või kunsti kõige kõrgematel tasemetel. Tarkvarahäkkerid tunnustavad neid mujal leiduvaid sugulashingi ja võivad ka neid häkkeriteks kutsuda. Mõned häkkerid koguni väitvat et
häkkeri loomus ei sõltu sellest keskkonnast kus ja millega häkker töötab. Raymond kirjutab oma kirjatükis tarkvarahäkkeritest ja häkkeriks saamisest.
Jargon File annab häkkeri kohta erinevaid definitsioone kuid enamik nendest on seotud tehniliste oskustega ja armastusega probleemide lahendamise vastu ja piiride ületamise vastu.
Raymond annab mõned asjad, mis tuleks selgeks õppida selleks, et häkkeriks saada:
1. Õpi programmeerima
2. Hangi üks avatud lähtekoodiga Unixitest ja õpi seda kasutama
3. Õpi kasutama veebi ja kirjutama HTMLi
4. Kui sa ei oska piisaval määral inglise keelt, õpi see ära
Esimesel kohal selles loetelus on programmeerimise selgeks õppimine. Selle all peetakse siin silmas eelkõige eksperdi taseme saavutamist sel alal. Huvitav tähelepanek, mida mainib Raymond , on see, et inimesel kulub valdavalt mistahes elu valdkonnas tipp-eksperdiks saamisele 10 aastat – malemängust kuni maalimise ja ujumiseni. Isegi Mozart olevat 10 aastat enne muusikat teinud, enne kui 14 aastaselt oma heliloominguga välja tulema hakkas. Seda teemat on uurinud näiteks Bloom (1985), Bryan ja Harter (1989), Hayes (1989). Simmon ja Chase (1973). See reegel tundub ka minu arvates kehtivat. Kui vaadata kasvõi profipalluriteks minevaid 18-19 aastasi sportlasi, siis valdavalt on neil taga 10 aastane mängukogemus. Ei esine ju sellist asja , et eelmisel aastal hakkas noormees mängima ja järgmisel aastal valiti profikorvpalluriks miljonise palgaga.
Selle 10 aasta reegli puhul Raymond tundub, et vaikib sellisest asjast nagu talent ja ei räägi sellest ka Norvig. Samas tundub nii, et saa igast inimesest profikorvpallurit ja ei saa ka igast inimesest 10 aastaga tipp-programmeerijat ehk häkkerit.
Õppima alustamiseks soovitab Google häkker Peter Norvig , et tuleks leida endas huvi programmeerimise vastu ja tunda asjast lõbu. Lõbu peaks olema alguses nii laialt , et sellest jätkuks siis järgmiseks 10-ks aastaks. Õppimise käigus on oluline suhelda palju teiste programmeerijatega ja lugeda teiste programmeerijate kirjutatud koodi. See on olulisem Norvigi arvates kui õpikute lugemine ja koolis käimine. Kõvemad tegijad olevat valdavalt iseõppijad ja tuuakse näide ka ühest häkkerist , kes kirjutanud edukalt koodi, kuid on piirdunud keskharidusega.
Kõige parem viis programmeerimist õppida on nende meeste arvates ise koodi kirjutada - õppimine läbi tegemise. Teaduslikult kõlaks see selliselt, et isikute maksimum tase ei tulene mitte kogemuste pagasi suurenemisest,vaid taset on võimalik parandada pideva pingutusega ja kordustega. Umbes nagu vabaviske harjutamine spordis – kogemusi ja oskusi võib olla , aga kogu aeg peab harjutama ja kordama – siis säilib tase kõrge.
Üks asi, mida Raymondi kirjatükist ei oleks osanud oodata on see, et programmeerimise õppimise alustamiseks ta soovitab mitte alustada Java programmeerimise keelest. Samas on Java koolides üle maailma õppekavades, kus objekt-orienteeritud programmeerimise algkursus antakse tihti just Javas. Java olevat tema väitel küll hea selleks, et anda algajatele kiiresti võimalus teha mõned töötavad graafika rakendused , kuid ei ole hea selleks et õppida selgeks programmeerimise teised olulised põhialused.
Raymond soovitab alustada programmeerimist mitte Javaga, vaid Pythoni programmeerimise keelega.
Lisaks muidugi on vajalik teha endale selgeks HTML ja alustada seda näiteks aadressiltHTMLdog.com
On olemas ka veel häkkeritele sarnase nimega seltskond, keda nimetatakse “kräkkeriteks”. Need on peamiselt noorukid, kes tunnevad lõbu arvutitesse sissemurdmisest. Pärishäkkerid ei taha nendega midagi tegemist teha. Ma siis samuti nendest ei kirjuta. Veel vähem sooviks kirjutada sellest , kuidas saada kräkkeriks. Kui häkkeriks saab ennast pidada siis kui teised sind nimetavad häkkeriks, siis sama võiks kehtida ka kräkkerite puhul. Kuid siis on arvatavasti kräkkeri nime saamiseks vaja sooritada ühine kuritegu.
Raymong kirjutab ka mõned juhtnöörid häkkeritele, mis käivad häkkerite kultuuri juurde ja millest võiks joonduda:
1. Kirjuta avatud lähtekoodiga tarkvara
2. Aita teiste poolt kirjutatud tarkvara testida ja siluda
3. Avalda tasuta kasulikku teavet
4. Aita vabatahtlikult hooldada infrastruktuuri
5. Teeni häkkerikultuuri
Lisaks annab Raymond oma kirjatöös ka rida täiendavaid stiilipunkte häkkeritele. Need on lisa-oskused või harjutused , mida paljud häkkerid peavad oma mõtteviisi ja filosoofiat arendavateks tegevusteks. Ta soovitab kirjutada korrektselt emakeeles ja arendada sõnamänge ja sõnakilde. Samuti toob ta ära ka muid tegevusi, millega võiks üks häkker tegeleda. Nendeks on idamaiste meditatsiooni tehnikate õppimine (eelkõige zen) ja võitluskunstide õppimine, samuti muusika kuulamise oskuse arendamine.
Kõige häkkerlikumad võitluskunstid olevat need, mis rõhutavad vaimset distsipliini, lõdvestunud valmisoleku seisundit ja olukordade kontrollimist, mitte niivõrd toorest jõudu.
Samuti soovitab Raymond millegipärast lugeda just ulmekirjandust, see olevat samuti häkkeritele omane. Miks mitte lugeda ka ajakirjandust ja luuletusi ?
Raymondilt tahaks lõpetuseks küsida , et millisel kohal on naised häkkerite kultuuris, kui palju neid on häkkerite hulgas ja kräkkerite hulgas ning kas naised peaksid samuti karated õppima ja näiteks küünarnukiga telliskivi pooleks lööma kui soovivad stiilsed häkkerid olla.
Häkkerid kuuluvad kogukonda , mis koosneb tipp-programmeerijatest ja võrguässadest kes jagavad teatud kultuurilisi ühisväärtusi ja on moodustanud selle baasil omalaadse kogukonna. Häkkeriks saad sa siis kui sa oled osa sellest kultuurist, oled sellesse andnud oma panuse ning teised selles olijad tunnevad sind ja nimetavad sind häkkeriks.
Häkkerite mõtteviis ei pea olema piiratud tarkvaraga ja arvutitega. Seda mõtteviisi võib kohata mistahes teaduse või kunsti kõige kõrgematel tasemetel. Tarkvarahäkkerid tunnustavad neid mujal leiduvaid sugulashingi ja võivad ka neid häkkeriteks kutsuda. Mõned häkkerid koguni väitvat et
häkkeri loomus ei sõltu sellest keskkonnast kus ja millega häkker töötab. Raymond kirjutab oma kirjatükis tarkvarahäkkeritest ja häkkeriks saamisest.
Jargon File annab häkkeri kohta erinevaid definitsioone kuid enamik nendest on seotud tehniliste oskustega ja armastusega probleemide lahendamise vastu ja piiride ületamise vastu.
Raymond annab mõned asjad, mis tuleks selgeks õppida selleks, et häkkeriks saada:
1. Õpi programmeerima
2. Hangi üks avatud lähtekoodiga Unixitest ja õpi seda kasutama
3. Õpi kasutama veebi ja kirjutama HTMLi
4. Kui sa ei oska piisaval määral inglise keelt, õpi see ära
Esimesel kohal selles loetelus on programmeerimise selgeks õppimine. Selle all peetakse siin silmas eelkõige eksperdi taseme saavutamist sel alal. Huvitav tähelepanek, mida mainib Raymond , on see, et inimesel kulub valdavalt mistahes elu valdkonnas tipp-eksperdiks saamisele 10 aastat – malemängust kuni maalimise ja ujumiseni. Isegi Mozart olevat 10 aastat enne muusikat teinud, enne kui 14 aastaselt oma heliloominguga välja tulema hakkas. Seda teemat on uurinud näiteks Bloom (1985), Bryan ja Harter (1989), Hayes (1989). Simmon ja Chase (1973). See reegel tundub ka minu arvates kehtivat. Kui vaadata kasvõi profipalluriteks minevaid 18-19 aastasi sportlasi, siis valdavalt on neil taga 10 aastane mängukogemus. Ei esine ju sellist asja , et eelmisel aastal hakkas noormees mängima ja järgmisel aastal valiti profikorvpalluriks miljonise palgaga.
Selle 10 aasta reegli puhul Raymond tundub, et vaikib sellisest asjast nagu talent ja ei räägi sellest ka Norvig. Samas tundub nii, et saa igast inimesest profikorvpallurit ja ei saa ka igast inimesest 10 aastaga tipp-programmeerijat ehk häkkerit.
Õppima alustamiseks soovitab Google häkker Peter Norvig , et tuleks leida endas huvi programmeerimise vastu ja tunda asjast lõbu. Lõbu peaks olema alguses nii laialt , et sellest jätkuks siis järgmiseks 10-ks aastaks. Õppimise käigus on oluline suhelda palju teiste programmeerijatega ja lugeda teiste programmeerijate kirjutatud koodi. See on olulisem Norvigi arvates kui õpikute lugemine ja koolis käimine. Kõvemad tegijad olevat valdavalt iseõppijad ja tuuakse näide ka ühest häkkerist , kes kirjutanud edukalt koodi, kuid on piirdunud keskharidusega.
Kõige parem viis programmeerimist õppida on nende meeste arvates ise koodi kirjutada - õppimine läbi tegemise. Teaduslikult kõlaks see selliselt, et isikute maksimum tase ei tulene mitte kogemuste pagasi suurenemisest,vaid taset on võimalik parandada pideva pingutusega ja kordustega. Umbes nagu vabaviske harjutamine spordis – kogemusi ja oskusi võib olla , aga kogu aeg peab harjutama ja kordama – siis säilib tase kõrge.
Üks asi, mida Raymondi kirjatükist ei oleks osanud oodata on see, et programmeerimise õppimise alustamiseks ta soovitab mitte alustada Java programmeerimise keelest. Samas on Java koolides üle maailma õppekavades, kus objekt-orienteeritud programmeerimise algkursus antakse tihti just Javas. Java olevat tema väitel küll hea selleks, et anda algajatele kiiresti võimalus teha mõned töötavad graafika rakendused , kuid ei ole hea selleks et õppida selgeks programmeerimise teised olulised põhialused.
Raymond soovitab alustada programmeerimist mitte Javaga, vaid Pythoni programmeerimise keelega.
Lisaks muidugi on vajalik teha endale selgeks HTML ja alustada seda näiteks aadressiltHTMLdog.com
On olemas ka veel häkkeritele sarnase nimega seltskond, keda nimetatakse “kräkkeriteks”. Need on peamiselt noorukid, kes tunnevad lõbu arvutitesse sissemurdmisest. Pärishäkkerid ei taha nendega midagi tegemist teha. Ma siis samuti nendest ei kirjuta. Veel vähem sooviks kirjutada sellest , kuidas saada kräkkeriks. Kui häkkeriks saab ennast pidada siis kui teised sind nimetavad häkkeriks, siis sama võiks kehtida ka kräkkerite puhul. Kuid siis on arvatavasti kräkkeri nime saamiseks vaja sooritada ühine kuritegu.
Raymong kirjutab ka mõned juhtnöörid häkkeritele, mis käivad häkkerite kultuuri juurde ja millest võiks joonduda:
1. Kirjuta avatud lähtekoodiga tarkvara
2. Aita teiste poolt kirjutatud tarkvara testida ja siluda
3. Avalda tasuta kasulikku teavet
4. Aita vabatahtlikult hooldada infrastruktuuri
5. Teeni häkkerikultuuri
Lisaks annab Raymond oma kirjatöös ka rida täiendavaid stiilipunkte häkkeritele. Need on lisa-oskused või harjutused , mida paljud häkkerid peavad oma mõtteviisi ja filosoofiat arendavateks tegevusteks. Ta soovitab kirjutada korrektselt emakeeles ja arendada sõnamänge ja sõnakilde. Samuti toob ta ära ka muid tegevusi, millega võiks üks häkker tegeleda. Nendeks on idamaiste meditatsiooni tehnikate õppimine (eelkõige zen) ja võitluskunstide õppimine, samuti muusika kuulamise oskuse arendamine.
Kõige häkkerlikumad võitluskunstid olevat need, mis rõhutavad vaimset distsipliini, lõdvestunud valmisoleku seisundit ja olukordade kontrollimist, mitte niivõrd toorest jõudu.
Samuti soovitab Raymond millegipärast lugeda just ulmekirjandust, see olevat samuti häkkeritele omane. Miks mitte lugeda ka ajakirjandust ja luuletusi ?
Raymondilt tahaks lõpetuseks küsida , et millisel kohal on naised häkkerite kultuuris, kui palju neid on häkkerite hulgas ja kräkkerite hulgas ning kas naised peaksid samuti karated õppima ja näiteks küünarnukiga telliskivi pooleks lööma kui soovivad stiilsed häkkerid olla.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
OpenOffice.org ja Firefox vabavara projekti arendusest
OpenOffice.org ja Firefox arendused.
Mis on OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org , mida tuntakse ka lihtsalt OpenOffice nime all , on kontoritarkvara , mis sobib erinevatele operatsiooni süsteemidele. Teda levitatakse vabavarana. See tarkvara toetab formaati OpenDocument Format (ODF) andmete vahetuseks erinevate faili formaatide vahel, muuhulgas toetab ka Microsoft Office formaate. Alates 2009 aasta märtsist toetab OpenOffice 80 keelest.
OpenOffice.org arendus sai alguse StarOffice tarkvarast, mis on kontoritarkvara pakett, mida alguses arendas StarDivision ja mille omandas arvutifirma Sun 1999. aastal. 2000. aasta juulis tehti lähtekood avalikuks. Tänaseks on Suni StarOffice enda arhitektuur põhinev OpenOffice.org algsel koodil, millele on lisatud teatud autoriõigusega kaitstud komponendid.
OpenOffice nimi ise on registreeritud kaubamärk, mida omab üks Hollandi firma ja lisaks on see kasutusel firmal Orange Suurbritannias. Seetõttu on õige ja korrektne toote nimetus OpenOffice.org
The OpenOffice.org API plugin for NetBeans lihtsustab OpenOffice.org lisamoodulite (extensions) arendust. Seda saab kasutada OpenOffice.org programmeerimiseks, samamoodi laiendada OpenOffice´t et anda sellele täiesti uut funktsionaalsust. The OpenOffice.org API plugin lihtsustab uute arendusprojektide tegemist. ( http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/OpenOffice_NetBeans_Integration )
Sun Microsystems teatas, et StarOffice lähtekood on tehtud avalikuks LGPL litsentsi alusel ja Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL) kavatsusega luua avatud lähekoodiga arendusmudel sellele tarkvara projektile. 2005. aastal loobuti SISSL litsentsist ja jäeti tarkvara ainult LGPL litsents kasutusse.
Algseteks eesmärkideks oli kohandumine Microsoft Office tarkvaraga, parem ja kiirem jõudlus ning väiksem mälu kasutus, parem integreerimine teiste platformidega ( eriti GNOME-ga), parem front-end selleks et luua raporteid, forme ja päringuid. Samuti integreeriti süsteemiga SQL andmebaas ning sooviti luua programmile parem kasutajamugavus ( usability ). Beeta versioon sellest tarkvarast tehti avalikuks 2007 aasta märtsis.
Sun subsideerib OpenOffice arendamist kuna soovib kommertsalustel pakkuda oma klientidele StarOffice kontori paketti. StarOffice on Suni enda kommertsalustel töötav toode, millega nad pakuvad OpenOffice juurde lisaks erinevaid lisavõimalusi: 1) lisa fondid ( eriti Ida-Aasia kirjatüübid) 2) Adabas andmebaas 3) Lisa templated dokumentide jaoks 4) Clip art asjad 5) Sorteerimise funktsionaalsus Aasia versioonidele 6) Lisa võimalused failide filtreerimiseks 6) Konfiguratsioonide manageerimise võimalused 7) migratsiooni hindamise tööriist ja macro migratsiooni tööriist.
Vastavalt OpenOffice missiooni kirjeldusele on OpenOffice.org projekti missiooniks “Luua kogukonnaga juhtiv rahvusvaheline kontoritarkvara toode, mis töötaks kõigil peamistel tarkvara platformidel ja tagaks ligipääsu funktsionaalsusele ja andmetele läbi vabavara komponentide API-de ja XML-il baseeruvale formaadile.” OpenOffice.org eesmärgiks on konkureerida Microsoft Office´ga ja sellega saab avada kõiki faili formaate, mida saab ka avada Microsoft Office programmis.
OpenOffice.org lehelt saab lisaks ka nimekirja programmi lisa komponentidest ja laiendustest, mis osaliselt on tasulised, näiteks rakendus millega saab andmebaasi raporteid koostada või rakendus EuroOffice, mis on mitmekeelne rakendus eurooplaste jaoks ning tasuta. EuroOffice Professional näiteks on juba eraldi rakendus ja see on tasuline. http://www.multiracio.com/eurooffice
Kui vaadata OpenOffice.org viimaseid tarkvara versioone, siis nad toovad uue versiooni turule keskmiselt iga 3 kuu järel. Eelmine versioon tuli turule Jaanuari lõpus 2009. aastal ja see sisaldas peamiselt bugide parandusi. Sellele eelnes versioon Oktoobris 2008, kus olid juba uued arendused ja lisafunktsionaalsus. Oktoobri lõpus anti välja ka versioon turvaaukude parandamiseks ja bugide parandamiseks.
OpenOfficel on ka oma turvameeskond. Alates 2008 aasta juunist ei ole turvafirma Secunia leidnud OpenOffices turvaauke. Kaspersky on näidanud ära võimalikud turvariskid , kuid teadaolevalt ei ole avalikkuses ringlevaid turvariske hetkel olemas. Prantsusmaa kaitseministriga kohtumisel olevat tulnud teemaks suuremad võimalikud turvariskid programmis, kuid arendajad ise väidavad et tegemist ei ole mingi kriitilise turvariskiga. Sarnaselt Microsoft Word´ile ka OpenOffice dokumendid sisaldavad meta andmeid selle kohta, mida dokumendis viimati muudeti ja kelle poolt.
OpenOffice.org puuduseks on see et ta on seotud Java Runtime Environment´iga, mis ei ole vaba tarkvara ja mis samuti kuulub Sunile. Seda sõltuvust püütakse hetkel vähendada ja panna tarkvara jooksma GNU Classpath platformi peale. Osa OpenOffice funktsionaalsusest on senini sõltuvuses JRE tehnoloogiast , kuid kuna Java on plaanis viia samuti GNU litsentsi peale, siis selline sõltuvus pikas perspektiivis ei ole määrav.
OpenOffice on levitatav vabavarana nii erakasutuses kui firmade jaoks. Samas müüakse programmi ka internetis – koos lisateenustega nagu näiteks 24 tunnine tehnilise toe teenus või programmi saatmine kasutajale CD-kettal.
OpenOfficel on ka oma arendajate manual, kus on ära näidatud OpenOffice arendamise võimalused ja moodulid.
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/OpenOffice.org_Developers_Guide
Mis on Firefox
Mozilla Firefox on veebibrowseri projekt, millel on maailmas 22,48%-line osakaal browserite turul, jäädes alla ainult Microsofti Internet Explorerile. Firefoxi omaduste hulka kuulub tabi-dega lehitsemise võimalus, keelekorrektor, bookmarkimise võimalus, download manager ja integreeritud otsimootori võimalus ( tavaliselt on sisse integreeritud Google ). Firefoxil on ka palju lisamooduleid, mida arendavad kolmandad osapooled. On palju erinevaid lisamooduleid, millest populaarsemad on NoScript Javascripti blokeerimise moodul, FoxyTunes meedia player, reklaamide blokeerimist võimaldav Adblock Plus, Stumble Upon mis võimaldab veebilehti leida ning Xmark bookmarkide märkimise rakendus.
Firefox töötab erinevate Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows platformide peal ja paljude teiste Unixi laadsete operatsiooni süsteemide peal. Viimane stabiilne versioon 3.0.10 anti välja 2009 aasta aprillis. Lähtekood on avatud ja litsentseeritud kolmik-litsentsina – GNU, GPL/GNU , LGPL / MPL . Need litsentsid lubavad igaühel vaadata, muuta ja levitada lähtekoodi ja mitmed avalikult kätte saadavad rakendused on ka selle peale ehitatud. Ametlikud lõppkasutaja versioonid programmist on aga litsentsitud Mozilla End User License Agreement ( EULA ) all, kaasa arvatud Firefoxi nimi, kujundus. Kuna Microsofti operatsiooni süsteemides on lisaks ka clickwrap kasutajaleping, mis määrab ära kasutustingimused , siis Free Software Foundation ei pea neid programmi versioone vabavaraks.
Mozilla kasutab seetõttu kolmik-litsentsi. Arendajad saavad vabalt valida millise litsentsi versiooni alt nad programmi alla laadivad , kui nad soovivad näiteks piiratud kasutusega lisarakendusi luua Firefoxile , siis võivad näiteks MPL litsentsi all toimetada.
Nii nagu on OpenOfficel nii on ka Firefoxil väga suur extension´ite valik avalikkuses kasutusel. Need võib leida kodulehelt https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
Firefoxi arendus ise on jagatud moodulitesse ja igal moodulil on oma pealik (owner) , kes vastutab selle mooduli arenduse eest. Omanik võib valida omale ka järeltulija (inglise k. - peer), keda omanik on volitanud abistama mooduli valmimisel. Igal moodulil on lisaks ühele omanikule mitu järeltulijat. http://www.mozilla.org/owners.html
Lisaks on kogukonnal ka oma kogukonna portaal, kus kirjas arendusega seonduv info https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozillaWiki:Community_Portal , viimased uudised ning ka lingid viimastele koodi versioonidele ja parandustele - https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Releases&curid=22471&diff=142215&oldid=142096 ,
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Special:RecentChangesLinked/Help:Contents
Üleval on portaalis ka pikemaajalised eesmärgid, näiteks accessibility plaanid on 2009 aastaks ette , aadressil https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/2009-Accessibility-Goals
Internetis on levinud ka kriitikat firefoxi arendamise teemadel, kus on varasemalt puudusena välja toodud seda, et ainult 6 inimest vaatavad koodi üle ja üks kirjutab laisalt ülevaateid teistele. Selline kriitika esines aastal 2005 Slashdotis http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/05/03/06/2232211.shtml?tid=154&tid=8
OpenOfficet arendab hetkel üle 100 programmeerija. Versioonide uuendamiseks kasutatakse cvs Verson Control süsteemi. http://tools.openoffice.org/dev_docs/OOo_cws.html . Peamised programmi osad on jagatud erinevatesse cvs harudesse niiöelda puuna. Igas harus on tavaliselt vähemalt kord nädalas püstitatud uus milestone.
Nii nagu on Firefoxil oma kogukonna veebiportaal, on sama asi ka OpenOfficel. Selles on samuti oma arenduste roadmap http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Features , koht kust saab alla laadida Subversionist viimaseid versioone koodist
Arenduse protsess ise on sarnane Firefoxiga – iga mooduli eest vastutab vabatahtlik või moderaator, kes vaatab üle vabatahtlike poolt saadetud koodijupi ning kommenteerib või muudab seda. Isik , kes soovib uue arenduse lisada, saab Subversionist viimase versiooni vastavalt milestonile alla laadida ning oma koodijupi sinna lisada, seejärel ta vaatab kuidas tema koodijupp võiks ühilduda teiste moodulitega, testib seda ning saadab üle vaatamiseks oma haru moderaatorile. http://tools.openoffice.org/background.html OpenOffice.org puhul on erilaadne veel see, et kuna Suni teine toode OfficeStar baseerub OpenOffice peal siis arendatakse mõlemat toodet sisuliselt koos.
Mis on OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org , mida tuntakse ka lihtsalt OpenOffice nime all , on kontoritarkvara , mis sobib erinevatele operatsiooni süsteemidele. Teda levitatakse vabavarana. See tarkvara toetab formaati OpenDocument Format (ODF) andmete vahetuseks erinevate faili formaatide vahel, muuhulgas toetab ka Microsoft Office formaate. Alates 2009 aasta märtsist toetab OpenOffice 80 keelest.
OpenOffice.org arendus sai alguse StarOffice tarkvarast, mis on kontoritarkvara pakett, mida alguses arendas StarDivision ja mille omandas arvutifirma Sun 1999. aastal. 2000. aasta juulis tehti lähtekood avalikuks. Tänaseks on Suni StarOffice enda arhitektuur põhinev OpenOffice.org algsel koodil, millele on lisatud teatud autoriõigusega kaitstud komponendid.
OpenOffice nimi ise on registreeritud kaubamärk, mida omab üks Hollandi firma ja lisaks on see kasutusel firmal Orange Suurbritannias. Seetõttu on õige ja korrektne toote nimetus OpenOffice.org
The OpenOffice.org API plugin for NetBeans lihtsustab OpenOffice.org lisamoodulite (extensions) arendust. Seda saab kasutada OpenOffice.org programmeerimiseks, samamoodi laiendada OpenOffice´t et anda sellele täiesti uut funktsionaalsust. The OpenOffice.org API plugin lihtsustab uute arendusprojektide tegemist. ( http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/OpenOffice_NetBeans_Integration )
Sun Microsystems teatas, et StarOffice lähtekood on tehtud avalikuks LGPL litsentsi alusel ja Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL) kavatsusega luua avatud lähekoodiga arendusmudel sellele tarkvara projektile. 2005. aastal loobuti SISSL litsentsist ja jäeti tarkvara ainult LGPL litsents kasutusse.
Algseteks eesmärkideks oli kohandumine Microsoft Office tarkvaraga, parem ja kiirem jõudlus ning väiksem mälu kasutus, parem integreerimine teiste platformidega ( eriti GNOME-ga), parem front-end selleks et luua raporteid, forme ja päringuid. Samuti integreeriti süsteemiga SQL andmebaas ning sooviti luua programmile parem kasutajamugavus ( usability ). Beeta versioon sellest tarkvarast tehti avalikuks 2007 aasta märtsis.
Sun subsideerib OpenOffice arendamist kuna soovib kommertsalustel pakkuda oma klientidele StarOffice kontori paketti. StarOffice on Suni enda kommertsalustel töötav toode, millega nad pakuvad OpenOffice juurde lisaks erinevaid lisavõimalusi: 1) lisa fondid ( eriti Ida-Aasia kirjatüübid) 2) Adabas andmebaas 3) Lisa templated dokumentide jaoks 4) Clip art asjad 5) Sorteerimise funktsionaalsus Aasia versioonidele 6) Lisa võimalused failide filtreerimiseks 6) Konfiguratsioonide manageerimise võimalused 7) migratsiooni hindamise tööriist ja macro migratsiooni tööriist.
Vastavalt OpenOffice missiooni kirjeldusele on OpenOffice.org projekti missiooniks “Luua kogukonnaga juhtiv rahvusvaheline kontoritarkvara toode, mis töötaks kõigil peamistel tarkvara platformidel ja tagaks ligipääsu funktsionaalsusele ja andmetele läbi vabavara komponentide API-de ja XML-il baseeruvale formaadile.” OpenOffice.org eesmärgiks on konkureerida Microsoft Office´ga ja sellega saab avada kõiki faili formaate, mida saab ka avada Microsoft Office programmis.
OpenOffice.org lehelt saab lisaks ka nimekirja programmi lisa komponentidest ja laiendustest, mis osaliselt on tasulised, näiteks rakendus millega saab andmebaasi raporteid koostada või rakendus EuroOffice, mis on mitmekeelne rakendus eurooplaste jaoks ning tasuta. EuroOffice Professional näiteks on juba eraldi rakendus ja see on tasuline. http://www.multiracio.com/eurooffice
Kui vaadata OpenOffice.org viimaseid tarkvara versioone, siis nad toovad uue versiooni turule keskmiselt iga 3 kuu järel. Eelmine versioon tuli turule Jaanuari lõpus 2009. aastal ja see sisaldas peamiselt bugide parandusi. Sellele eelnes versioon Oktoobris 2008, kus olid juba uued arendused ja lisafunktsionaalsus. Oktoobri lõpus anti välja ka versioon turvaaukude parandamiseks ja bugide parandamiseks.
OpenOfficel on ka oma turvameeskond. Alates 2008 aasta juunist ei ole turvafirma Secunia leidnud OpenOffices turvaauke. Kaspersky on näidanud ära võimalikud turvariskid , kuid teadaolevalt ei ole avalikkuses ringlevaid turvariske hetkel olemas. Prantsusmaa kaitseministriga kohtumisel olevat tulnud teemaks suuremad võimalikud turvariskid programmis, kuid arendajad ise väidavad et tegemist ei ole mingi kriitilise turvariskiga. Sarnaselt Microsoft Word´ile ka OpenOffice dokumendid sisaldavad meta andmeid selle kohta, mida dokumendis viimati muudeti ja kelle poolt.
OpenOffice.org puuduseks on see et ta on seotud Java Runtime Environment´iga, mis ei ole vaba tarkvara ja mis samuti kuulub Sunile. Seda sõltuvust püütakse hetkel vähendada ja panna tarkvara jooksma GNU Classpath platformi peale. Osa OpenOffice funktsionaalsusest on senini sõltuvuses JRE tehnoloogiast , kuid kuna Java on plaanis viia samuti GNU litsentsi peale, siis selline sõltuvus pikas perspektiivis ei ole määrav.
OpenOffice on levitatav vabavarana nii erakasutuses kui firmade jaoks. Samas müüakse programmi ka internetis – koos lisateenustega nagu näiteks 24 tunnine tehnilise toe teenus või programmi saatmine kasutajale CD-kettal.
OpenOfficel on ka oma arendajate manual, kus on ära näidatud OpenOffice arendamise võimalused ja moodulid.
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/OpenOffice.org_Developers_Guide
Mis on Firefox
Mozilla Firefox on veebibrowseri projekt, millel on maailmas 22,48%-line osakaal browserite turul, jäädes alla ainult Microsofti Internet Explorerile. Firefoxi omaduste hulka kuulub tabi-dega lehitsemise võimalus, keelekorrektor, bookmarkimise võimalus, download manager ja integreeritud otsimootori võimalus ( tavaliselt on sisse integreeritud Google ). Firefoxil on ka palju lisamooduleid, mida arendavad kolmandad osapooled. On palju erinevaid lisamooduleid, millest populaarsemad on NoScript Javascripti blokeerimise moodul, FoxyTunes meedia player, reklaamide blokeerimist võimaldav Adblock Plus, Stumble Upon mis võimaldab veebilehti leida ning Xmark bookmarkide märkimise rakendus.
Firefox töötab erinevate Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows platformide peal ja paljude teiste Unixi laadsete operatsiooni süsteemide peal. Viimane stabiilne versioon 3.0.10 anti välja 2009 aasta aprillis. Lähtekood on avatud ja litsentseeritud kolmik-litsentsina – GNU, GPL/GNU , LGPL / MPL . Need litsentsid lubavad igaühel vaadata, muuta ja levitada lähtekoodi ja mitmed avalikult kätte saadavad rakendused on ka selle peale ehitatud. Ametlikud lõppkasutaja versioonid programmist on aga litsentsitud Mozilla End User License Agreement ( EULA ) all, kaasa arvatud Firefoxi nimi, kujundus. Kuna Microsofti operatsiooni süsteemides on lisaks ka clickwrap kasutajaleping, mis määrab ära kasutustingimused , siis Free Software Foundation ei pea neid programmi versioone vabavaraks.
Mozilla kasutab seetõttu kolmik-litsentsi. Arendajad saavad vabalt valida millise litsentsi versiooni alt nad programmi alla laadivad , kui nad soovivad näiteks piiratud kasutusega lisarakendusi luua Firefoxile , siis võivad näiteks MPL litsentsi all toimetada.
Nii nagu on OpenOfficel nii on ka Firefoxil väga suur extension´ite valik avalikkuses kasutusel. Need võib leida kodulehelt https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
Firefoxi arendus ise on jagatud moodulitesse ja igal moodulil on oma pealik (owner) , kes vastutab selle mooduli arenduse eest. Omanik võib valida omale ka järeltulija (inglise k. - peer), keda omanik on volitanud abistama mooduli valmimisel. Igal moodulil on lisaks ühele omanikule mitu järeltulijat. http://www.mozilla.org/owners.html
Lisaks on kogukonnal ka oma kogukonna portaal, kus kirjas arendusega seonduv info https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozillaWiki:Community_Portal , viimased uudised ning ka lingid viimastele koodi versioonidele ja parandustele - https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Releases&curid=22471&diff=142215&oldid=142096 ,
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Special:RecentChangesLinked/Help:Contents
Üleval on portaalis ka pikemaajalised eesmärgid, näiteks accessibility plaanid on 2009 aastaks ette , aadressil https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/2009-Accessibility-Goals
Internetis on levinud ka kriitikat firefoxi arendamise teemadel, kus on varasemalt puudusena välja toodud seda, et ainult 6 inimest vaatavad koodi üle ja üks kirjutab laisalt ülevaateid teistele. Selline kriitika esines aastal 2005 Slashdotis http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/05/03/06/2232211.shtml?tid=154&tid=8
OpenOfficet arendab hetkel üle 100 programmeerija. Versioonide uuendamiseks kasutatakse cvs Verson Control süsteemi. http://tools.openoffice.org/dev_docs/OOo_cws.html . Peamised programmi osad on jagatud erinevatesse cvs harudesse niiöelda puuna. Igas harus on tavaliselt vähemalt kord nädalas püstitatud uus milestone.
Nii nagu on Firefoxil oma kogukonna veebiportaal, on sama asi ka OpenOfficel. Selles on samuti oma arenduste roadmap http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Features , koht kust saab alla laadida Subversionist viimaseid versioone koodist
Arenduse protsess ise on sarnane Firefoxiga – iga mooduli eest vastutab vabatahtlik või moderaator, kes vaatab üle vabatahtlike poolt saadetud koodijupi ning kommenteerib või muudab seda. Isik , kes soovib uue arenduse lisada, saab Subversionist viimase versiooni vastavalt milestonile alla laadida ning oma koodijupi sinna lisada, seejärel ta vaatab kuidas tema koodijupp võiks ühilduda teiste moodulitega, testib seda ning saadab üle vaatamiseks oma haru moderaatorile. http://tools.openoffice.org/background.html OpenOffice.org puhul on erilaadne veel see, et kuna Suni teine toode OfficeStar baseerub OpenOffice peal siis arendatakse mõlemat toodet sisuliselt koos.
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