January 1, 2007
by sjvn01
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The Linux Foundation: The Right Idea at the Right Time

Linux is growing by leaps and bounds, and it only makes sense that the organizations that track and guide its growth are finally getting together. So, if all goes well, sometime this February the Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group will be merging to form the Linux Foundation. It really is the right idea at the right time.

The OSDL, based in Beaverton, Ore., has long supported Linux and other open-source programs. Its membership includes almost every significant Linux organization and company. After its reorganization in December in advance of this merger, the nonprofit organization clarified its goals.

The OSDL began shifting its resources to focus on four main areas. First, it will continue to employ key developers, such as Linus Torvalds and Andrew Morton, the organization said. It will also increase its funding of legal support for Linux and open source, and in particular, it will address licensing and patent issues. This expansion will complement current OSDL initiatives such as the Patent Commons, Osapa.org and the Linux Legal Defense Fund.

The group will also support ongoing regional activities such as the Japanese Linux Symposium, and will work to foster closer collaboration among community developers, OSDL members and users to produce more code to advance open-source projects.

A prime example of the OSDL’s actions to foster collaboration among developers, organizations and companies is the Portland Project and its efforts to bring rhyme and reason to the various Linux desktop projects. The Portland Project, which was sponsored by the OSDL’s Desktop Linux Working Group, has brought together KDE and GNOME developers, open-source programmers and software vendors to create the foundations for a standards-based Linux desktop.

The FSG’s membership list looks a great deal like OSDL’s. There’s a reason for that. Both nonprofits have almost identical goals. The main difference between them is more a matter of where they spend their energies rather than any philosophical differences.

A quick look at the FSG’s three major areas makes this clear. While the FSG doesn’t employ developers, its main focus is on the LSB (Linux Standard Base) and its test suite. The LSB is a set of standards meant to enable application portability across all LSB-compliant Linux distributions. The test suite ensures that all LSB Certified distributions and applications comply with the LSB standard.

This is supported in turn by the Linux world’s answer to the MSDN (Microsoft Software Developer Network): the LSB Developer Network. Like the MSDN, this site provides a central place for information, tools and support for developers building applications deployable on multiple Linux distributions.

Finally, the FSG maintains an “LSB Certified” trademark and product directory: a brand and marketplace that enable users who are looking for portable, standards-compliant solutions to find certified Linux applications and distributions. The brand is licensed to products that pass the LSB test suite and represents interoperability for the Linux platform.

Besides these major pushes, the FSG also supports such efforts as an initiative to improve Linux software installation and OpenPrinting that work hand-in-glove with the OSDL’s Portland Project.

When you look at what both groups do, at what both want to do and who supports them, the real question isn’t why the FSG and the OSDL are getting together to form the Linux Foundation, it’s what took them so long.

Be that as it may, they are getting together now under the leadership of Jim Zemlin, the former executive director of the FSG. With Zemlin at the helm, the new organization will continue to operate in all of its current locations with all its present employees. The real change, the change that matters, is that some of Linux’s leading developers and consensus builders will be working together. I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing what some of open source’s best and brightest can do together.

January 1, 2007
by sjvn01
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Prominent Samba developer says why he left Novell

Now that noted Samba developer Jeremy Allison has left Novell, but before he starts work at Google, he’s letting the world know why he feels he had to leave his job over the Microsoft/Novell patent deal.

Allison recently spoke in detail with ace Microsoft blogger Mary Jo Foley, and since then he’s gone on the record with the editors of the Boycott Novell website. Of course, the broad outlines of the reasons why he left Novell were drawn when the Samba Group announced its opposition to the patent partnership. Anyone who knew Allison well also knew he was very unhappy that Novell was “Using patents as competitive tools in the free software world.”

He’s now coloring in this sketch.

“When I first heard that Microsoft was going to take Linux seriously by doing an agreement with Novell I was delighted,” Allison said in an interview on Foley’s blog. “But the more I looked at the details the more unhappy I got with the patent part. I tried to raise the alarm internally but was too timid with my criticisms until it was too late and the deal was signed (I heard about it about 5 days before it was signed). A nagging doubt is that if I had just spoken out louder against the deal I might have been able to change something, but I was too quiet until too late. It’s *hard* to be the one saying the emperor has no clothes, especially whilst listening to others praising the finery of the silk stitching :-).”

According to Allison, the patent agreement was Microsoft’s idea, and was forced on Novell. That said, he finds it difficult to forgive Novell for going along with it.

“I don’t know exactly why Novell signed it. I don’t think Ron Hovsepian is clueless or malevolent,” Allison continued, in the interview on Foley’s blog. “I’ve met him and think he is a really nice guy. My guess is that the negotiations for the useful parts of the agreement (the virtualization part and the federated directory interoperability part) had, as Ron says, been going on for months and just before Novell wanted to seal the deal Microsoft turned up with “there’s just this one more thing we want you to sign…” and in desperation to get the other parts of the deal done they rushed it through.”

Allison then told Foley that “It was carefully prepared by Microsoft legal to try and bypass the GPLv2, and I think to their shame Novell helped them do this. I’ve spoken with Novell executives since I came out internally against the deal and their position on it has been ‘if it doesn’t violate the GPLv2 what is your problem?’ The problem is I do think it violates the intent of the GPLv2 if not the letter, as we explained in the Samba Team statement on this.”

“The intent *matters*,” Allison reportedly continued. “As I tried to explain in my resignation letter, if you’re screwing over some of your major suppliers by following what your lawyers see as the *letter* of a license, not the good faith intent of the license, then you can’t expect those suppliers to say ‘well done, you really tricked us on that one….'”

“The GPLv3 will fix any possible hole in the letter of the license (and Samba will hopefully move to it once the copyright contributors are happy with it).”

The Samba leadership has already announced its intention to switch the popular Windows/Linux file/print server software to the GPLv3 in 2007.

“But in the meantime I don’t want to give my efforts to a company that is willing to try and trick their way out of their license obligations on my software. When I talked to the Novell executives we just had to agree to disagree,” Allison reportedly said.

Looking ahead to his new job at Google, Allison told the Boycott Novell editors, that “I’m not going to comment much on why Google is interested in Samba, I’m hoping that will become apparent over time. Samba is becoming a more complete solution for integrating Windows and UNIX/Linux and we’re filling out our implementations of CIFS (Common Internet File System) and AD (Active Directory) and (soon) SMB2 (Server Message Block).”

A version of this story first appeared in Linux-Watch.

December 28, 2006
by sjvn01
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Anatomy of a Blogger Bribe

Microsoft’s latest attempt to curry public favor apparently began on its community-site, The Hive. This time, the company is giving bloggers free, expensive laptops preloaded with Vista.

The Hive was launched by Microsoft in the summer of 2005. At the time, Microsoft said the site was aimed at online leaders who specialize in consumer-oriented applications of Windows and other Microsoft technologies, such as digital photography, gaming, multimedia, home finance, and the like.

Microsoft officials also said they wanted The Hive to be a community run by third parties, not by Microsoft. “We want to get peers to interact with each other in a safe environment,” explained Josh Levine, group product manager with Microsoft’s Windows Client communities. “We (Microsoft) will provide the server space and prizes (for forum participation, etc.). We’ll also provide some content. The community members will be the (forum) moderators.”

The Hive, Levine said, was not meant to be a marketing initiative. “If you’re going to buy a new Acura, you go to Consumer Reports, not the car vendors’ Web sites,” Levine said, in explaining Microsoft’s goal of keeping the site independent.

Then, this month, Microsoft and AMD, via the Edelman public relations company, began offering free, loaded laptops to best-beloved bloggers.

An email sent to these bloggers, which was obtained from a blogger who got one, read:

“You remember that on The Hive Aaron had some good news for the Featured Communities – well, that package is almost ready to be sent. We’d love to send you a loaded system courtesy of Windows Vista and AMD, but need your mailing address and phone to get this rolling.”

“Aaron” refers to Aaron Coldiron, a Microsoft product manager. In the past, Coldiron ran Microsoft’s Mindshare user group support program. He is also, as one Hive member put it, “the face of the hive.”

The note went on, “This would be a review machine — we’d love to hear your opinion on [the] machine and the OS (Windows Vista Ultimate). Full disclosure: while we hope you’ll blog about your experience with the PC, you don’t have to. Also, you are welcome to send the machine back to us after you are done playing with it, or you can give it away to your community, or you can keep it. My recommendation is that you give it away on your site, but it’s your call. Just do us the courtesy of letting us know your opinion of Windows Vista and what you plan to do with the system when the time comes.”

According to Microsoft blogger Long Zheng, his Ferrari 5000 came with an AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core 2GHz CPU, 2GB of DDR2-667 RAM, AMD-ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics, and a 15.4-inch widescreen LCD; it also has a 160GB SATA drive, HD-DVD reader and burner, and a 1.3 megapixel camera. That system would retail for approximately $2,299. Vista Ultimate, the top of the Vista line, is expected to sell for $399 full retail, with an upgrade price of $259.

The note concluded, “Just confirm you are game by sending me your mailing address and phone, and I’ll do the rest. Aaron is going to send out systems next week, so if you will be traveling on the 22nd let me know where you’ll be, and we’ll send it there.”

This was not, however, the first time that Microsoft has offered free, high-end hardware to bloggers. Microsoft blogger and Microsoft Expert Zone columnist Barb Bowman recently told her readers that, “On 12/13. Microsoft and AMD asked if I wanted a custom built Vista Media Center from Velocity Micro. An eval I could use, talk about and then later either return to MS, give away, or keep. I checked the email for spoofed headers because I just don’t get emails like that every day. It’s the nicest desktop I’ve ever seen by far. The proc is X2 5000, ASUS mobo, SATA all the way, ATI x1950, ATI Theater Pro 660 tuner, and of course Windows Vista Ultimate. I also discovered that a full copy of Office 2007 was also pre-installed. And a 64 bit version of CA eTrust AV.”

Subsequently, Bowman reported that, “I’ve never seen a computer this slick and fast. And did I mention that Vista ROCKS?”

One blogger, Marshall Kirkpatrick, is reporting that, since the free hardware story has been exposed to the light of day, Microsoft now wants the laptops back.

Specifically, a note from Coldiron reportedly read: “No good deed goes unpunished, right? You may have seen that other bloggers got review machines as well. Some of that coverage was not factual. As you write your review I just wanted to emphasize that this is a review pc. I strongly recommend you disclose that we sent you this machine for review, and I hope you give your honest opinions. Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding of our intentions I’m going to ask that you either give the pc away or send it back when you no longer need it for product reviews.”

Kirkpatrick, however, doesn’t see what the fuss is all about. Kirkpatrick writes, “Microsoft and AMD sent out a pile of very expensive (yet trashy looking) laptops to a number of bloggers over the past week. We were told we could keep them – now after a day of minor outrage by some people they are emailing us back with the following request that we not keep them after all! And to think, I almost smashed mine in the middle of the street 10 minutes into trying to use it! I did figure out some of the basics after awhile, but it’s still nothing life changing. Ok, so obviously I’m being a bit snotty here and am in a position of ridiculous privilege to get one of these things for free. I just don’t think it’s anything to get your knickers in a twist about given the state of the world.”

Well-known Microsoft blogger, Robert Scoble, doesn’t see what the trouble is, either. He thinks that giving away the laptops is: “a GREAT idea. After all, how can anyone have a decent conversation about Windows Vista without having put a bunch of time on one of the machines?”

However, Scoble adds, “Regarding blogger ethics. Did you disclose? If you did, you have ethics. If you didn’t, you don’t. It’s that black and white with me.”

Other bloggers, like Joel Spolsky, see the free laptops in an entirely different light. “The theory here is that if a blogger admits to receiving a gift, the reader can make up their mind as to whether that blogger has any credibility on this topic.”

“Effectively Microsoft has bought publicity and goodwill. And even though the blogger has fully disclosed what happened, their message is corrupting the medium.” Thus, for Spoksky, “The only conclusion I can come to is that this is ethically indistinguishable from bribery.”

When we asked Microsoft’s public relations about the matter, they referred us to Edelman. The PR company had not replied to our inquiry by publication time.

December 27, 2006
by sjvn01
0 comments

A medical open-source legal hell-hole

To open-source or not to open-source was never in question as far as Steve Shreeve, founding CEO and largest shareholder of Medsphere Systems Corp., was concerned. So, this summer, Steve, self-proclaimed open-source software leader, and his twin-brother Scott, released the company’s matured code on SourceForge under the GPL.

Their reward? They were then sued for $50 million by their company.

To be exact, they were hit by a $50 million, 12-count lawsuit charging them with misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, breach of duty of loyalty, violations of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) Act, commission of computer crimes, intentional interference with contract relations, unfair competition, and still more complaints by their company.

The core of the dispute is software that has been built on “VistA” (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture), the US Veterans Administration’s public domain EHR (Electronic Health Record) system. VistA has become the foundation for several proprietary and open-source medical record software suites.

One of these suites is Medsphere’s OpenVista. This program has no relationship to Microsoft’s Vista.

An OpenVista stack is made up of a minimum of Linux, GT.M (an open-source implementation of the MUMPS (Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System) language, EsiObjects (a MUMPs objects extension), and VistA. The base OpenVista code, under the name WorldVista, is on SourceForge.

Scott Shreeve, a former emergency-room doctor, and his twin-brother Steve decided to build an open-source business around this code. They then created Medsphere.

In the beginning the plan was, according to Steve Shreeve, to “provide VistA configuration, deployment, support, and maintenance for domestic and international healthcare organizations. … We offer the system in either a hosted or in-house model and charge a monthly subscription for support and maintenance.”

In addition, when they founded the company in 2002, the brothers had said, “Medsphere is also the first healthcare information technology company to commit to open-source at the enterprise level — the code is freely available for enhancement, improvement, and modification.”

Then, through the spring of 2003, the brothers, in collaboration with the team called the “Hui 7” worked on and released OpenVista on SourceForge. This project was funded by the Pacific Telehealth and Technology Hui. The project was managed through Medsphere.

The result of this project was a version of the VA’s VistA software that successfully ran on GT.M on Linux. Once complete, this work was released under the GNU GPL (General Public License) and became known as Hui OpenVista version 2.5.

Steve Shreeve said that, “During 2004, Medsphere deployed VistA to seven hospitals in the State of Oklahoma, in conjunction with our friends at Hewlett-Packard. That project gave Medsphere the opportunity to develop a series of tools for rapidly deploying VistA systems. Those tools were part of Medsphere’s special tool chain that allowed us to rapidly and successfully deploy new customers. Those tools were not to be released as open source.”

Then, according to Steve, “During 2005, Medsphere began work on a new graphical user interface based on completely open source tools. We used Gtk# and Mono to build a truly cross-platform and internationalized graphical user interface for VistA, to replace the VA’s CPRS program. We chose this tool chain specifically because it would allow us to release the final product as open source. Any proprietary technologies that could be embedded were rejected, specifically so that the overall product could be released as open source software.”

By the 12th VistA community meeting in April of 2005, George Timson, one of VistA’s first architects and by 2005 a Medsphere developer, was ready to release a major upgrade to the FileMan DBMS used within VistA.

Steve then reports that Medsphere’s then CEO, Larry Augustin, the well-known open-source businessman, “was really pushing hard for us to release the OpenVista Client (internally known as “Kickstand”) on August 15, 2005.”

By this time, the company was taking flack from some open-source advocates that it wasn’t really an open-source company. In particular, Fred Trotter, a leading figure in open-source medical IT, was accusing Medsphere of being too proprietary with its code.

In a talk-back to an article about the company, Trotter wrote, “The larger VistA community (other than Medsphere) seems to be moving more and more towards fully GPL-libre software. It is possible that Medsphere will create a rift in the community and that the community will create incompatible code with the Medsphere version of VistA. If this happens then there could be a ‘code fork’ which, depending on the circumstance could be very problematic for both the community and Medsphere.”

Medsphere was well aware of these concerns. So, even though the “Kickstand” code was still not ready to go by mid-August 2005, the company released Timson’s Fileman improvements under the GPL with the name MSC FileMan (Medsphere Systems Corp. FileMan).

Trotter, though, in 2006 had been led by news reports to believe that Medsphere had, “in fact closed the source on [their] implementation of VistA.” Steve replied to Trotter’s email and assured him that the reporter had gotten it wrong and that “The new work that we have done on the graphical user interface is slated to be released once we have completed our testing work. There are at least two other major projects that we will also be releasing that will fundamentally change the way developers work with VistA and the way that new development can take place. We’re working to release a fully-cross platform and completely open source stack, from top-to-bottom towards the latter part of this year.”

Steve’s reply to Trotter was CC’d to Medsphere then- and current-CEO Ken Kizer. Afterwards, the Kizer explained to the Subcommittee on Health of the House Committee on Ways and Means that open-source was the best path for government IT spending. Kizer said, “Even in the absence of federal funding per se, I believe that the federal government’s policy should be to support and utilize open source software as the preferred option whenever possible because of its many advantages over proprietary software.”

When another article appeared that confused the matter of whether Medsphere was an open-source company or not, Timson replied,”For those interested, I just want to note that Medsphere’s product is NOT proprietary. (‘OpenVista’ would not be a very appropriate name for a proprietary product!) We’ve installed CUSTOMIZED versions of Vista at several hospitals, and these customized suites of software include proprietary components from a few third-party vendors like Sea Island Systems and Informatix Laboratories Corporation. The basic CPS/VistA product we install and support is open source.”

So, in the late spring of 2006, the company’s founders declared that Medsphere would continue to open-source its products, the CEO told Congress that he favored open-source software, and perhaps Medsphere’s most well known VistA developer assured the public that Medsphere’s chief product was open source.

The Shreeve brothers subsequently released the next two programs’ source code, Jumps, which enabled Java developers to work with OpenVista, and Kickstand, an OpenVistA client, on SourceForge on June 9 under the GPL.

Then, the roof fell in.

Kizer claimed that the code release had come as an “unwelcome and startling surprise.” On June 26, the company, led by Kizer, sued the co-founders for $50 million in the Orange County Superior Court of California. The core of these lawsuits is that the Shreeves did not inform Kizer that they were releasing the source code.

It certainly appeared that Medsphere was, if not already there, well on its way toward open-sourcing its software. That, at least, is what the Shreeves thought when they went ahead. According to Kizer, in an open letter to Medsphere employees, the company’s “general stance on open source has been consistent over time.”

Why would the Shreeve brothers go against the wishes of their own CEO? According to one anonymous source, “Steve intentionally posted the source code to sabotage the company.” No reason was given, though, as to how this release could have hurt Medsphere, or why Steve Shreeve would have wanted to hurt his own company.

More to the point, the Shreeves argue that the CEO did know. According to email transcripts published by Trotter, Steve Shreeve had expressly told both Trotter and Kizer that “The new work that we have done on the graphical user interface [presumably Kickstand] is slated to be released once we have completed our testing work. There are at least two other major projects that we will also be releasing that will fundamentally change the way developers work with VistA and the way that new development can take place. We’re working to release a fully-cross platform and completely open source stack, from top-to-bottom towards the latter part of this year.”

Kizer replied to this note detailing the company’s open-source plans with an email message with an attachment of his Congressional testimony supporting open-source. Thus, Trotter reasons, Kizer clearly knew that the Shreeve were going to be releasing the code.

Other sources close to the matter have suggested that when Kizer became CEO, he and the brothers disagreed on what path the company should take. This sounds plausible, but Scott Shreeve said of Kizer, while Kizer was the Medsphere board chairman, that, “Ken is one of my personal heroes and mentors. As we learned about VistA and the VA, it became apparent that he was the visionary and thought leader behind their intelligent use of healthcare IT as the enabler of massive quality improvement initiatives.”

In mid-August, at LinuxWorld, the Shreeve twins tried to speak with Augustin and other open-source figures to find a way out of the lawsuit. In addition, Trotter now stepped forward with open-source luminary, Eric S. Raymond, “to see if together we could approach Medsphere and attempt to broker a peaceful resolution.”

According to Kizer in an Oct. 10 email note, “Medsphere, in cooperation with the Shreeve brothers and their legal counsel, jointly retained the services of a professional mediator more than two months ago.”

So far, all these efforts to mediate a solution have come to nothing.

Additionally, Raymond has found Medsphere’s apparent about-face on open-sourcing the code more than a little distressing. In a note to Kizer, Raymond wrote, “Fred is correct that Medsphere’s renegation of an open-source release performed by its officers in conformance with public previous promises could become a dangerous precedent. If allowed to stand, it would mean that the open-source community could never trust a corporate partner again.”

“Accordingly, the open-source community needs, and deserves, a detailed explanation of the reasons behind this extraordinary maneuver. On behalf of the community, I am now requiring that explanation.”

To date, there has been no such explanation.

The war of words has only grown hotter. Trotter now accuses Medsphere of betraying the open-source community. Steve Shreeve in his blog argues that Augustin isn’t really pro-open-source. How can Augustin be, Steve said, while he’s defending the GPL on one hand and “concurrently filing a $50 million dollar lawsuit against his own company for releasing code under the very GPL license that he is espousing?”

Augustin simply replies that Medsphere mess is “an internal matter that, unfortunately, may need to be handled by the courts.”

The Shreeves filed a cross-complaint against Medsphere in the Orange County Superior Court of California on Nov. 8. In this counter-suit by the brothers, they name not only Medsphere, but Kizer, Augustin, and Dave Crowder, a financial backer of Medsphere and a member of the Medsphere board.

The main case itself is now slowly moving through the court system. On Dec. 20, Judge Charles Margines denied a motion< by Medsphere to find Steve Shreeve in contempt of court concerning his return to Medsphere of company equipment and documents.

The judge dryly noted that “The parties have a choice — they can ‘run up their client’s tabs’ by seeking judicial intervention in this dispute, or they can meet and confer and reach another stipulation.”

At this point, it appears that the court costs will continue to run up for both Medsphere and the Shreeve brothers. Medsphere continues to insist that the Shreeves had no right to open-source the code without the express, informed permission of the CEO, while the brothers continue to claim that they did have the right to do so and that everyone, including the CEO, had been kept in the loop.

In any case, the once open-source code is no longer available, and there’s no telling when, if ever, it will be re-released.

A version of this story was first published on Linux-Watch.

December 21, 2006
by sjvn01
0 comments

Key developer quits Novell over Microsoft patent pact

Jeremy Allison, a leading Samba developer and well-known open-source speaker, has decided to leave Novell Inc. because of his objections to the Microsoft/Novell patent agreement.

In his public letter of resignation, Allison said, “This has been a very difficult decision, but one I feel I have no choice but to make.”

“As many of you will guess, this is due to the Microsoft/Novell patent agreement, which I believe is a mistake and will be damaging to Novell’s success in the future. But my main issue with this deal is I believe that even if it does not violate the letter of the license it violates the intent of the GPL license the Samba code is released under, which is to treat all recipients of the code equally.”

Allison had been terribly conflicted about the Microsoft/Novell patent deal since its announcement. Those who knew him well were not surprised by his decision to leave Novell.

While Richard M. Stallman, the founder and leader of the Free Software Foundation has said that the Microsoft/Novell doesn’t appear to violate the letter of the GPLv2, many open-source supporters believe, as Allison does, that it violates the GPL’s spirit.

The Samba Project leadership, which includes Allison, denounced the deal only days after it was announced, asking Novell to “undo the patent agreement and acknowledge its obligations as a beneficiary of the Free Software community.”

Stallman also said that the Microsoft/Novell agreement would have been illegal under the proposed GPLv3. In advance of the GPLv3’s approval, which is expected in early 2007, the Samba Project has already declared that it will license Samba, the popular CIFS (Common Internet File System) client and server, under the new license.

In his letter to management Allison said, “Whilst the Microsoft patent agreement is in place there is nothing we can do to fix community relations. And I really mean nothing.”

“We can pledge patents all we wish, we can talk to the press and ‘community leaders’, we can do all the right things [with respect to] all our other interactions, but we will still be known as GPL violators and that’s the end of it.”

As for the argument that Novell hasn’t technically violated the GPLv2, Allison said, “Do you think that if we’d have found what we legally considered a clever way around the Microsoft EULA (End User License Agreement) so we didn’t have to pay for Microsoft licenses and had decided to ship, oh let’s say, ‘Exchange Server’ under this ‘legal hack’ that Microsoft would be silent about it — or we should act aggr[i]eved when they change the EULA to stop us doing this?”

From where Allison sits, he sees the Microsoft patent agreement as having put Novell “outside the [free software] community, and there is no positive aspect to that fact, and no way to make it so. Until the patent provision is revoked, we are pariahs.”

Allison had hoped that Novell would change its way, but “Unfortunately the time I am willing to wait for this agreement to be changed to remedy the GPL violation has passed, and so I must say goodbye.”

“SuSE Linux is technically one of the most advanced Linux distributions, and I am proud to have been a small part of the Team that helped create it. Working at Novell has been a great deal of fun for me, and I will miss many of the great people I have worked with here,” Allison concluded.

Bruce Lowery, Novell’s PR head, said, “We aren’t going to comment on his motivations or his decision.” He then added, “We remain firmly committed to Samba. We still have 2 members of the Samba project on staff as paid, full-time engineers & Novell employees. And Samba is an important, core component of our SLE platform, and we have no plans to change that.”

Before coming to Novell in April 2005, Allison had worked at Hewlett-Packard Co. At both companies, he continued his work with Samba.

A version of this story first appeared in Linux-Watch.

December 18, 2006
by sjvn01
0 comments

Disgruntled Debian developers delay Etch

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0, codenamed Etch, had been due to arrive by December 4, 2006, but it’s been delayed because some developers have deliberately slowed down their work.

According to a blog note by Andreas Barth, Debian developer and release manager, the delay has resulted because “Some people who used to do good work reduced their involvement drastically. There was nothing I could do about, and that happened way before I started full-time on release, but on the global picture that still counts.”

It appears that these developers have pulled back from working on Debian because of their objections to Barth and fellow release manager, Steve Langasek, being paid to work on Debian by the Dunc-Tank.org.

Dunc-Tank.org is a group of Debian developers that set about raising funds to be used for “financially supporting the volunteers working on managing the release process, allowing them to devote their full attention to that task.” Specifically, the group’s goal was to raise enough funds to pay “both release managers enough to work exclusively on the release of etch for a month each, having Steve Langasek available full-time during October and Andreas Barth available full-time during November, with the release expected to follow soon after in the first week of December.”

The group wanted to do this because Debian has a long history of being late. That, in fact, is one reason why the Debian-based Ubuntu distribution was started.

Dunc-Tank’s membership includes Anthony Towns, the Debian Leader, Steve McIntyre, the assistant to the Debian Leader, prominent Debian developers Raphael Hertzog and Joey Hess, and well-known Debian and Linux kernel developer Ted Ts’o.

Many Debian developers denounced the Dunc-Tank proposal. Some even demanded that Towns be removed as leader because he supported Dunc-Tank. Their objection was that by financially supporting developers, Debian would become a two-class system and that, in turn, would be destructive to the Debian community.

When the matters came up for a vote in October, the Dunc-Tank plan won approval and the attempt to remove Towns failed.

That, however, did not turn out to be the end of the matter. Many developers, led by Joerg Jaspert, a well-known Debian maintainer and programmer, issued a position statement on October 26. In this statement, which was published on the Debian developers’ announcement list, the developers spelled out why they objected to the Dunc-Tank initiative.

Jaspert also said that Dunc-Tank “has demotivated a lot of people who now either resigned, simply stopped doing (parts of their) Debian work or are doing a lot less than they did before DT was started. The freeze got delayed and getting the release out on schedule has become nearly impossible. We are unable to see any good virtue in this ‘experiment.’ “

“The heated discussion DT has consumed an incredible amount of time and energy that could also have been used in a much more productive way,” Jaspert added. “This was probably expected from the DT initiators but didn’t keep them from setting off this discussion at such an important time — shortly before the release. Why they didn’t introduce DT *after* the release, or much earlier in this release cycle, when there is/was time and a lengthy discussion would not have taken otherwise needed time is not understandable.”

It’s turned out that Jaspert was correct. The next release of Debian has been delayed because developers have stayed away from working on Debian because of their objections to two of the developers being paid.

As Barth wrote, “So, looking at the status changes during the time I spent full-time on release issues I think it worked well. Of course, not everything is perfect, but there is a clear improvement. On the other hand, there was a large disadvantage of the whole experiment.”

Barth also announced that Etch is now fully frozen. He did not say, however, when Etch will finally be released.

A version of this story was first published at Linux-Watch.

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