928 lines
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928 lines
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<title> LG #37</title>
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<CENTER>
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<BR><IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss19Small2.jpg" HEIGHT=171 WIDTH=581>
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<P><FONT SIZE="+2">An Ode to Richard Stallman</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE="+1">(Or Minutes to the NYSIA/WWWAC Software Summit)</FONT>
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<P>By <a href="http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/~adler/adler">Stephen Adler</a>
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<P>
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I recently attended the New York Software Summit held at the Fashion
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Institute of Technology (FIT) in NYC. This was a joint conference sponsored
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by the New York Software Industry Association (
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<a href="http://www.nysia.org">www.nysia.org</a>) and the world
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Wide Web Artists Consortium (
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<a href="http://www.wwwac.org">www.wwwac.org</a>). I, being a
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subscriber to the LXNY mailing list (
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<a href="http://www.lxny.org">www.lxny.org</a>), was informed of
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this event by Jay Sulzberger, who was moderating a panel titled "The
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Free Software Movement, Open Source, and the Coming Free Market in
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OSes". I found the subject of this panel to be rather close to my
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heart, but being a 70 mile commute into NYC for me, I thought I would
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pass it up. I read the rest of Jay's announcing e-mail and saw two
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words which would eventually changed my mind. Richard Stallman. He
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was going to be on the panel and as it turned out, this was too much
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of an incentive for me to pass up. What follows is probably too much
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text to describe the event, but then, I'm drawn to the subject and I
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can't help myself. So please forgive my indulgence.
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<HR WIDTH="80%">
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/todays-mfhSmall.jpg" ALIGN=RIGHT hspace=10 vspace=10>
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Day -1) It was a busy day for me. Rather a busy week for that matter.
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I have just started working on this new experiment called
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<A HREF="http://www.phenix.bnl.gov">PHENIX</A>,
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which is supposed to take data in 6 months. The experiment is 5 million
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dollars short, and with the engineering run coming up in 6 months, things
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are rather hectic. I remembered Jay's email about the software summit and
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pulled it up. I was still in my debating phase as to whether I should go
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or not (event though I knew Richard Stallman was going to be there) and
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with my current work load, I was starting to lean towards not going. I
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read through Jay's latest announcement and realized that the closing date
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for registering for the conference was today, at noon. It was 11:50am!!!!
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Oh God, I had to make a decision NOW. This was hard. The arguments were
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flying around my head. "The timing system must be worked on." "Richard
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Stallman." "It's a critical component of this detector and rather late."
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"Richard Stallman." "I worked all day yesterday and this morning on the
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system with two engineers at my side and we made a lot of progress." "Richard
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Stallman." "I would get a lot done tomorrow by keeping up the momentum
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on this project." "Richard Stallman." "The run is only 6 months away."
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"Richard Stallman." "Well, the run is 180 days away, one day off is less
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than a 1% effect." "Richard Stallman." "Screw the timing system I'm going...."
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/PhInSchSmall.gif" align=left hspace=10 vspace=10>
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So I grabbed the phone, and called one of the two numbers. It was busy.
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I call the other number, I got a recording to leave a message. (It is now
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11:58am.) I left a message saying that I wanted to register. I then pulled
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up their registration web page. It was still active. I quickly filled it
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out, hit the submit button and some reassuring text appears saying that
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I have been registered. I know information technology better than that and
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decided to call again. (It's now 12:02pm.) I was able to get through and
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told the lady that I had just registered on the web and I wanted to get
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some kind of confirmation that my registration went through. She told me
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this could not be done for reasons which were too involved to go into
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now. Oh well, I did my best. I continued working on the timing system that
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afternoon.
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<P>
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By early evening I went back to my office and I got a phone call from
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a one Bruce Bernstein, who asks me if I'm his cousin. Bruce is the main
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organizer of this summit and his cousin is Stephen Adler, a particle physicist
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who works at the Institute of Advance Study in Princeton NJ. It turns out
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that there are two Stephen Adlers in High Energy and Nuclear Physics. This
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guy from Princeton and me. And Bruce is this other Stephen Adler's cousin.
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There are some cosmological forces going on here which confirm that I really
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should go to this summit. It was good that he called because I explained
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to him my rush to register for this conference at noon today. He say's
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"You registered on the web right?" "Correct," I reply. He say's "What?
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You don't trust the web?" I didn't want to reply to that. I did get what
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I wanted, verbal confirmation of sorts, from the summit organizer no less,
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that I was registered. I was ready to go.
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<HR WIDTH="80%">
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<P>
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss03Small.jpg" HEIGHT=152 WIDTH=259 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
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Day 0) Up at 5:20 am. I wanted to catch the 6:25am LIRR into Penn
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Station. My commuting routine is working better. (See my article on <A
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HREF="http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/~adler/fiw98/fiw98.html">Fall
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Internet World 98</A> for details.) I got to the train station with my
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new notebook in hand, with time to buy a bagel, coffee and catch a
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seat on the 6:25am express to Penn. My intent was to jot down some
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thoughts, as I was riding into the city, on my new notebook. But there
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was a problem. You can't type on your notebook, drink coffee and eat
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your bagel at the same time. I'll get this commuting thing right some
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day. The typing had to wait. I ate my bagel and drank my coffee, then
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fired up my notebook to jot down some notes. This was more of an
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experiment to see how well one can use a notebook on crowded
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trains. (The guy to my left decided to sleep in such a position as to
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pin my left elbow, making it rather challenging to type. I managed.)
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<P>
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<center>
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss05Small.jpg" HEIGHT=180 WIDTH=250 hspace=10 vspace=10>
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</center>
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss04Small.jpg" HEIGHT=300 WIDTH=202 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
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The train arrived on time. I got that NYC effect when I burst out onto
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7th avenue from Penn Station, on my way to the FIT. It was 7:30am, the
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air was clean and cool, and the city was waking up. Crowds were
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picking up on 7th avenue. That NYC hustle and bustle is something I
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can't get enough of. I headed for the Fashion Institute of Technology
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down 7th av. I have such a hard time with this Institute. I'm having a
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harder time trying to relate the software summit with
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Fashion. Hmmm... Maybe there will be some gorgeous models walking
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around in some high tech fashioned clothes. Think of this as your Ph.D
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thesis project. Cindy Crawford wrapped in a production batch of .8
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micron pitch Intel wafers. I would take a picture of that and try to
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explain it to my wife later.
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss09Small.jpg" HEIGHT=291 WIDTH=202 ALIGN=RIGHT hspace=10 vspace=10>
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Maybe /. needs to come up with a logo for fashion when the students
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from FIT post the latest gossip news on fashion technology? I should
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go easy on this institute. It is hosting this summit and Richard
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Stallman will grace its halls with his presence. Once I get there, my
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notion of what fashion technology is confirmed. I didn't see Cindy
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Crawford dressed up in .8 micron pitch wafers, but I did see displays
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of leading edge fashion. A true convergence of fashion with modern
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art. I'm not sure where the technology fits in, but what the heck, its
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NYC. There was a rather avant-garde display in the lobby of one
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building which I wanted to take a picture of, but a rather gruff guard
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wouldn't let me. So be it.
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<P>
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss08Small.jpg" HEIGHT=250 WIDTH=169 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
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I found the registration center which was in the lobby of building
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A. I went to look for my badge, and it was not there. They told me to
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go to the problem desk. The line at the problem desk was just as long
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as the line to get your badge. The lady at the problem desk looked
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and me and said "Sorry, I can't find your name anywhere. You must
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register with a personal check." "I have no check and I registered on
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your web site, check again" I demanded. Another shuffle through some
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hand written pages of "last minute" registrants and no Stephen
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Adler. Just then Bruce shows up. "Stephen Adler?", he looks at me. "I
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saw Stephen Adler on a list somewhere" he conjectures. "Just write him
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a badge" he orders the problem desk lady. And so it goes, the free
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software Gods implanted an image of my name on a list somewhere in
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Bruce's brain last night, and thus I get my hand written badge,
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reading "Stephen Adler, B .and. L". This is my ticket in, and I don't
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care if it should read, "Stephen Adler, BNL". That's BNL for <A
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HREF="http://www.bnl.gov">Brookhaven National Laboratory</A>. It has a
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rather Fortran look and I figure it must be a joke by the same free
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software Gods who got me to attend this meeting. (Physicists tend to
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write too much Fortran code anyway.)
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<P>
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<CENTER>
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss20Small.jpg" HEIGHT=88 WIDTH=400 hspace=10 vspace=10>
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</CENTER>
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<P>
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The summit was organized around the following format. Two parallel breakfast
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sessions, one for the NYSIA and one for the WWWAC. Two morning parallel
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tracks, a lunch with key note address, one afternoon parallel track, and
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a plenary with a keynote panel at the end. Stallman was going to be on
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the 11:15-12:30 panel on free software and the keynote plenary panel at
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3:30-4:45.
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<P>
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I took off up to the 6th floor to attend the NYSIA breakfast panel.
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The first of two keynote speakers was Steve Malanga. His topic was
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trying to analyze the city of New York and why it didn't have more of
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a software industry. The talk was rather boring and bureaucratic. Lots
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of charts showing job growth over time, how NYC was able to gain back
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the number of jobs it lost during the last recession, etc. He was
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trying to point out that there is a big software industry in NYC but
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under a different name. Wall Street. (i.e. Wall Street recent hires
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account for a large technology sector.) Around me were about 100
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people, and I had one of two notebooks there. An indication of the
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backward technology culture of NYC. The 6th floor, where they were
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having this panel, was the dining area of a cafeteria. There were
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long tables with white tablecloths and plastic chairs in the room. The
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architecture of the place gave it a bit of a 1970's look and
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feel. When I got there, the panel had started and I was proudly
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pulling out my notebook. The problem now was the tablecloth. I had set
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down my coffee cup on the table, and baglet to its side. (As in a
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little 2 inch bagel. Why not, applets, servlets, baglets, what's the
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difference.) The chairs were one against another so as I tried to get
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into my chair, the domino affect caused the two chairs to my right to
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push up against someone else's chair. I then sat down and as I pulled
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my notebook out of my bag, this shifted the table cloth around and
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almost spilled my coffee on my notebook, ugg....
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss39Small.jpg" ALIGN=RIGHT hspace=10 vspace=10>
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Food and notebooks in tight places don't mix. Eat your food and then
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deal with your notebook. Or get a firm table, firm chair, no table
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cloth and keep your coffee as far away from you notebook as you can
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reach. I have this recurring nightmare of spilling coffee all over my
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notebook. It's going to happen, it's just a matter of time. In any case,
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let me get back to the talk. It was boring, so I left to the Java
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breakfast. The Java breakfast was better. The speaker, David Gee,
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works for IBM and is passionate about Java. He said so in his
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talk. One interesting note from his talk was that he claimed that NT
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systems were up 97% of the time. I'm not sure if this was a good or a
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bad thing, but the number was clearly pasted on one of his .ppt
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pages. Then there were things which bothered me about his talk. He was
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over selling java. He kept talking about how he wanted to have all
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information accessible to him at all times, where ever he was in the
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world. And he kept using the airline industry as his best example. He
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wanted to know those important things like; What is the model of the
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plane he was going to fly on? What is the seating layout on the plane,
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so that he wouldn't get a seat where the window wasn't just so. What
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was the latest stock quote for e-bay? And he wanted to get all this
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information from his notebook plugged into the RJ45 outlet in his
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hotel bathroom. This type of over trivialization of information
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technology tends to kill the application you're trying to
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sell. This guy then pops up a .ppt page with a picture of a shrink
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wrapped java development package on the screen. He says "I am not
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plugging or selling this product...." and then rattles off a full
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list of the features of this software package. With that bit of
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hypocrasy, I packed up my notebook and headed out.
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<P>
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The first track of parallel sessions was going to begin soon, and I
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chose to attend the digital music one. One of my colleagues had told
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me about mp3.com a couple of days ago and I realized that the music
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industry was going to be turned on its head within a year. It turned
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out to be where the NYSIA breakfast panel was held. So back up the
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elevator I went to get an ear full of digital music talk.
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<P>
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<a href="./adler-digmusic.html">
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss22Small.jpg" HEIGHT=188 WIDTH=407 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
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</a>
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There were 4 panelists. Nick DiGiacomo, a consultant, Michael
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Robertson of mp3.com, Howard M. Singer a2b music, Dick Wingate, liquid
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audio. The discussion was good. I was planning on just attending this
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panel for a short while and then go off to other panels and talks, but
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the discussion was so good and of relevance to our life on the
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Internet that I stuck it out. The deal with digital music is the
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following. The bandwidth and compression algorithms have converged
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such as to allow the free availability of CD quality music over the
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Internet. This is very much to the tune of open sourced software about
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10 years ago, but now the general public is getting into the act. The
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problem; a large, powerful, wealthy establishment is fighting very
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hard to control its market and preserve the status quo. Three of the
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panelists, the guy from a2b music, the guy from liquid audio and the
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consultant are clearly trying to work with the industry. They talked
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on and on about how to restrict content. On the other hand, Mike
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Robertson from mp3.com made a very brave statement. He said that
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talking about security was like talking about morality. You cannot
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talk against it. But he continues to say that it is impossible to try
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to restrict the distribution of music. He then says that freedom over
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content will rule the market. Talk about security is nonsense and
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driven by the oligarchy protecting their business model which is music
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distribution via CD. The audience applauds. (The only applause during
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this session.) What I got from this session is clear. Battle lines are
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forming on the distribution of digital music over the Internet front.
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On one side you have you, me and the artist, on the other side you
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have the rich and powerful establishment. The establishment is working
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hard to introduce "security" into the distribution of music
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content. "Security" only deals with how one can restrict access to the
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content. It has nothing to do encrypting the music itself. (I'm not
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sure how you would restrict access without encrypting the music
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itself.) This was emphasized by the consultant. This will be done by
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adding restriction signatures to the music. For example, a two day
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license for a song would work such that you download the music, your
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hardware gizmo or software applet plays it for two days and then plays
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it no more. The control of who and for how long one can listen to the
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music is under control of the artist, or so says the industry
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consultant. Reading his lips, I hear, the music is controlled by those
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who sell it, those being the establishment. And it's clear that the
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establishment is starting to wake up to the fact that distribution of
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music over the Internet could very well destroy their whole business
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model, and them with it. MP3.com is on the road to changing this. It
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has a 50-50 deal with the artist for what ever is sold over their web
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site. And the artists keeps ownership of their work. Right now, when a
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band cuts a record, the music is then owned by the recording company
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and belongs to the band no more. The band then gets about a 20% cut of
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the sales. Also, a band must sell more than 250,000 CD's in order not
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to get dumped. These are very large obstacles for bands to overcome in
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order to get their music heard by the general public. And guess what,
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the new music I hear over the radio and on MTV all sounds the same. To
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me, this is a clear fallout of the restricted access musicians have to
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the general public, set up by the music industry. But the Internet and
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web sites like mp3.com will change all that. Another point made by the
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Mike Robertson from mp3.com, the record industry is not going broke
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with the current method of music distribution via CD. It is making
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lots of money. So to them, it is important to maintain this status
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quo. Clearly, the Internet has the power to change all that. Other
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side issues which were discussed were audio formats. a2b and liquid
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audio were all hot about their standards, those being closed ones. The
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guy from mp3.com commented that open standards win on the Internet and
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I'm sure time will bear this out. There was more to the discussion
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which I cannot remember and I failed to write down in my notes, but it
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was a good prelude to the next session I was going to attend, the free
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software panel.
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<P>
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<HR WIDTH="80%">
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<P>
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The free software panel was being held in building C and I was in building
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A. So down to the lobby I go in search of building C, somewhere on the
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campus of this Fashion Institute of Technology. In the lobby, I find Jay
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Sulzberger at the problem desk. It looks like web registration technology
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failed him as well. Jay is the moderator for the free software panel and
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who also invited me to be a panelist on another panel held last fall for
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one of the LXNY meetings. The subject of that panel was something like
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free software in your business. It was my first chance to talk about my
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work to a non-physicist audience and I jumped at the chance, even thought
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the subject was not physics. I figured I used enough free software in my
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work that I would be able to fit that topic in somehow, amongst my aerial
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photo transparencies of high energy physics laboratories across the nation
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and the world. So, as implied in what I just said, I have already met Jay.
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I waited for him as he finished up with his problem at the problem desk,
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(web based registration technologies, hmmm....) This gave me a chance to
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walk with him over to building C in search of the classroom where this
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free software panel was to take place. On the way we chatted about something,
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I can't remember if it was quantum computers, free software or his admitting
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to being a gun nut, as is someone else who is an acquaintance of ours.
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<P>
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<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss11Small.jpg" HEIGHT=152 WIDTH=250 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
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We found building C, we found the 3rd floor and room C324, the room
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where Richard Stallman was to grace us with his presence. Richard
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Stallman was not there when Jay and I showed up. The rest of the panel
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and about 20 people who made up the audience were there. The class
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room was wide and set up in such a way that the desks were close to
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where the speakers stood to address the class. The desks were these
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long tables with a black hard surface table top, no tablecloths. These
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tables were certified notebook friendly. The chairs were high and
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rather comfortable. They kept you at attention as you sat in them. I
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got a chair two rows back from where the speakers were to address the
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audience, centered in the room. I wanted to be in the center of this
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room in order to absorb all that was to transpire. I set up my
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notebook, popped open the netscape browser editor window, and Jay came
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over to continue his talk about quantum computers. I think this was
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just an excuse to come over and checkout what kind of software I was
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running on my notebook, since I noticed his subtle glance towards my
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notebook screen as he leaned over to tell me about NMR probes, coffee
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cups, statistical mechanics and how engineers can make work what
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physicists dream up. (Which is true, sometimes...)
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<P>
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|
Things start to settle down in the classroom. I notice that most of
|
|
the people who made up the audience for this panel discussion are guys
|
|
like you and me. We don't wear formal clothes. We have a solidity and
|
|
ruggedness in our manner. Jay definitely is heavy on the ruggedness
|
|
side. We have thoughts to be shared and passion in our hearts about
|
|
the work we pursue in our daily lives. But to counter balance this
|
|
atmosphere of technology pioneers, there were about 3 or 4 guys who
|
|
sat together towards my right in the back corner of the class
|
|
room. These guys stood out. They were formally dressed, each one. They
|
|
have a fragility to their manner. It's different with these guys. They
|
|
obviously have thoughts to be shared, I can't really account for the
|
|
passion in the heart, but they do have something the rest of us
|
|
don't. Money in the wallet. Lots of money in the wallet. These guys
|
|
are "the establishment" and will play a very interesting role in the
|
|
events to unfold.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<a href="./adler-ibmguys.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss12Small.jpg" ALIGN=RIGHT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
So there I sit, waiting for the panel discussion to start, Jay is outside
|
|
trying to give away free software to anyone who walks by the classroom
|
|
door, and we are all waiting for Richard Stallman to show up, so that we
|
|
can start this damn thing. Jay has now scared off half a dozen people who
|
|
were unfortunate enough to have walked by the door, and has given up waiting
|
|
for Richard. Jay begins. He tells us a story about how the free software
|
|
movement started with Richard. Back some time ago at the MIT software labs,
|
|
Richard was trying to print to some ding dong printer and couldn't. There
|
|
was a software bug which stood between him and his printout. Richard wanted
|
|
to solve the problem by getting the source code and fixing it. He couldn't,
|
|
the source code was not available and more important, could not be made
|
|
available because the company who sold MIT the printer would not hand over
|
|
the code. The code was locked up behind legal doors and Stallman was not
|
|
going to be able to solve this problem. Thus the beginning of the free
|
|
software movement which has evolved into what we know today. With that
|
|
story told, he introduced the panelers who were present. Jesse
|
|
Erlbaum, a man who wrote or uses object oriented perl extensions,
|
|
Elliotte Rusty Harold who is an XML expert, Jim Russell from IBM, who
|
|
is "a herder of serious cats", and Dave Shields, also from IBM who
|
|
would talk a bit about Jikes. Jesse, the perl guy and the XML guy went
|
|
first in introducing themselves. The first one talked about how he
|
|
couldn't do his work without source code available software. The
|
|
second guy talked about how XML will be a replacement for a lot of
|
|
file formats including RTF. One of the big problems with word
|
|
processing is that for all practical purposes, file formats are not convertible
|
|
thus forcing you to buy the software in order to read the file. An MS business
|
|
model no doubt. XML will fix all that. Then went the two guys from IBM.
|
|
The first one talks about Jikes, how IBM was able to release the source
|
|
code to the Internet (but under a restricted license agreement which I'll
|
|
go into later), and the /. effect. Once Jikes was released, there was a
|
|
post to slashdot about it and the Jikes upload site experienced that /.
|
|
effect. The Jikes project went from #5 on the IBM upload list to #2 in
|
|
two weeks. He showed a nice plot of the integrated number of downloads
|
|
of Jikes for different platforms. It looks like the windows version was
|
|
released first. 15 days later, the linux one was released and about 5 days
|
|
after that, it over took the windows binary upload count. IBM now has hard
|
|
concrete data to show the linux does count! The second IBM guy, Jim Russell,
|
|
talked about how it was not so difficult to convince higher management
|
|
at IBM, that it made good business sense to release the source code to
|
|
something like Jikes, and thus earning Jay's title of "herder of serious
|
|
cats".
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<a href="./adler-JayAndRichard.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss13Small.jpg" HEIGHT=255 WIDTH=250 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
At some point during these introduction talks, Richard Stallman walks
|
|
into the room. I get to see the man for the first time in flesh and
|
|
blood. He stands about 5 foot 5 inches, has long black hair and a
|
|
beard. He carries a cloth bag in which, as I later learned, he keeps a
|
|
notebook, amongst other personal objects. He would melt right into any
|
|
university setting, (or high energy physics laboratory for that
|
|
matter). He starts to clown around with Jay. He starts making horn
|
|
signs above his head from behind, as Jay continues to read his
|
|
introductory remarks for the next panelist.
|
|
|
|
<a href="./adler-JayAndRichard.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss14Small.jpg" HEIGHT=300 WIDTH=261 ALIGN=RIGHT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
|
|
This goes on for a bit and the audience is getting a real kick out of
|
|
it. Finally, Jay turns to see Richard, he freaks and this kidding
|
|
around ends. Jay continues with his introduction and Richard starts
|
|
to make himself at home in the classroom. Off go his shoes, out comes
|
|
his notebook, and he finds a quiet place under one of the tables where
|
|
he fires up his notebook and begins hacking at some code or other. Jay
|
|
continues with the introductions, the panelist continue with their
|
|
opening remarks and Richard is oblivious to all this. He gets up from
|
|
under the table, paces back and forth around the entrance to the class
|
|
room, (in his socks,) getting ready to address his audience. It's like
|
|
he is doing mental laps, warming up for the upcoming discussion on
|
|
free software. (Don't forget, we have the establishment sitting in the
|
|
back right corner of the room. It's going to be Richard vs the
|
|
establishment.) Jay finally gets around to re-introducing
|
|
Stallman. Stallman starts by saying that he is the president of the
|
|
Free Software Foundation. He continues by saying that he is not
|
|
speaking about the "open source" movement, and he does not care about
|
|
making computers easier to use. At this point, I sort of lose the
|
|
specifics of what he has said, (since my notes are rather jumbled) and
|
|
I will try and paraphrase what he said. Basically, his concern is on a
|
|
global social historical scale. The free software effort is about
|
|
freedom, not software which costs nothing. A freedom which goes beyond
|
|
source code and into the way we interact as a community. Free software
|
|
is a manifestation of this freedom and is an example of it.
|
|
|
|
<a href="./adler-JayAndRichard.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss16Small.jpg" HEIGHT=215 WIDTH=250 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
|
|
I think it's best to see this in the opposite sense. When you are
|
|
encumbered with software which you cannot change, even if you have
|
|
the source code in front of you but are not allowed legally to change
|
|
and distribute the changes, then your personal, inherent freedom has
|
|
been taken from you. That same freedom the US constitution gives you
|
|
which is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Some
|
|
other important points which Stallman says during this discussion is
|
|
that people confuse Linux with GNU. Linux is only the kernel, and
|
|
works in conjunction with all the software on your PC. I would
|
|
describe Linux has being the conductor of a symphony. The musicians are
|
|
all the apps we run, and GNU being the concert hall itself, which with
|
|
out one cannot have a concert. (This is my metaphor, not Stallman's,
|
|
but I think Stallman was trying to get this point across.) He does not
|
|
like web sites which are set up for the public good which run add
|
|
banners. (I think he is talking about sites like /., linux.org, etc.)
|
|
And he pointed out that he runs debian GNU/Linux on his
|
|
notebook. (Which fits right in with his persona.)
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<a href="./adler-RMS.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss17Small.jpg" HEIGHT=263 WIDTH=300 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
Stallman's introductory remarks never really end. The more he talks
|
|
about the freedom of software development, very much on the same plane
|
|
as freedom of expression, the more the intensity of the room
|
|
discussion heats up. The best word to describe the rising level of the
|
|
intensity of the discussion is passion. And there was lots of it. The
|
|
passion level took a step function when the "establishment" chimed
|
|
in. The elder of this group asked the question, what if MS opened up
|
|
windows 98 source code under the GPL? At this point in time Jay was
|
|
out in the hallway offering free software to some innocent person passing
|
|
by, hears this, jumps back into the classroom and
|
|
exclaims, "What? Open Source Windows!", and just about collapses on
|
|
the floor. The question needed to be answered, the room goes silent
|
|
and Jay takes the floor to answer the question. The question being
|
|
more broadly if MS would continue to make money if Bill Gates GPL'ed the
|
|
source code to windows '98. Jay's answer is no. There is a free market
|
|
economy which you must deal with and in such an environment, Microsoft
|
|
would perish if it GPL'ed its OS source. He continues by emphasizing
|
|
that justice would be served and the company would die a rightful
|
|
death. (Jay also holds this sentiment for Apple.) Stallman forces his
|
|
way into the discussion; No, MS would be redeemed if it GPL's its
|
|
source code. Jay has a fit. Jay exclaims that MS and Apple should both
|
|
die. MS would have to live through a million cockroaches lives before
|
|
it could be considered for a redeemed life! But Stallman is
|
|
adamant. MS would be redeemed if it fully GPL's its source. But
|
|
Stallman if firm, MS cannot take half steps and do something like IBM
|
|
did with Jikes and just release the source under a restricted
|
|
license. Its full GPL or it's worthless. In the meantime, the guys in
|
|
the establishment corner are trying to force the issue that one cannot
|
|
make money on software if you release the source code. The back and
|
|
forth on this subject goes on, issues such as opening up file formats
|
|
to help free up the software industry rise and are batted around. Jay
|
|
finally ends the discussion since we have run out of time.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<CENTER>
|
|
<a href="./adler-fspostpanel.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss42Small.jpg" HEIGHT=179 WIDTH=400 hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
</CENTER>
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
As the session ended, people broke up into smaller discussion groups.
|
|
I packed up my notebook and headed over to the group which surrounded
|
|
Richard. There was one female who had his attention at the time. (I
|
|
think there were 3 in the room.) She was a reporter of sorts, from
|
|
England, trying to get some private time with Richard for an
|
|
interview. He was all booked up and really wouldn't give her the time
|
|
of day. I don't know why, she was all in a tizzy to get time with
|
|
Stallman, and she was full of spunk too. (I think she would have given
|
|
Stallman a better writeup than I'm doing now...) Somehow the
|
|
discussion started on Linux vs GNU and the confusion thereof. This
|
|
gave me a chance to butt in and I asked Richard about his
|
|
kernel. "Yes, I have a kernel project called the GNU/Hurd". I knew
|
|
about this project already, but I just wanted to get a word in. "So
|
|
what happened to it?", I asked. He starts to tell me about some of the
|
|
key architectural features of his kernel and clearly it was a big
|
|
complicated implementation of a distributed kernel. I guess any type
|
|
of distributed kernel would be complicated and thus it seems to have
|
|
not made much progress. He made a comment that he did find one guy who
|
|
has actually tried to run it. One of the "establishment" guys was
|
|
there listening in on this discussion. The conversation then turned to
|
|
patents. I made a comment
|
|
that patents are there to protect the "investors" and not really the
|
|
inventor. Richard agreed with me. The guy from the "establishment"
|
|
tried to argue that patents are there to protect the inventor and to
|
|
help market the inventions so that the general public can benefit from
|
|
them. He continued, "if you could write software which would cure
|
|
cancer, then a patent on it would get the cure out to the masses."
|
|
(I'm paraphrasing here...) My comment was that in principle, this is
|
|
what you would argue, but in practice, the inventor gets a very small
|
|
piece of it. Its the large corporations and those who run them, who
|
|
end up owning patents and who get the profits from such patented
|
|
inventions. I continued by telling Richard that I, working for the
|
|
Department of Energy, signed a work contract which had a clause in it
|
|
that said that all my ideas would belong to the government. The
|
|
federal government now owns all the intellectual properly which comes
|
|
out of my brain. And if there are some kind of patent rights given to
|
|
me, the lab makes no effort in telling me what they are, since I have
|
|
no idea if I have any such rights. This must be the case with a lot of
|
|
research firms across the world; Lucent, IBM, etc. The discussion
|
|
continued further in terms of how we can try to protect ourselves from
|
|
the "establishment" abusing the patent system. Finally I stuck out my
|
|
hand and introduced myself to Richard and told him I wanted to thank
|
|
him for all the good he has done for the software community. He shook
|
|
my hand and then turned to this "establishment" guy who was leaving
|
|
and said that he was going to work as hard as he had to, to defeat
|
|
him. He said this in a raised, angry and attacking voice. I was taken
|
|
back by the strength in his conviction. It was genuine though. I then
|
|
wandered off to another small group, and talked to Jim Russell. I
|
|
introduced myself and asked the question, "Why do we get so passionate
|
|
about software?". The idea being that, those who write software and
|
|
publish it on the Internet should do so and that's it. What's all the
|
|
fuss about? We talked a bit more about distributing source code. I
|
|
stuck around a bit after that, but finally decided that I better get
|
|
back over to building A and get lunch. Lunch was included in the
|
|
registration fee and I was not about to miss out.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss43Small.jpg" HEIGHT=124 WIDTH=250 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
I got to the cafeteria where lunch was being served. Not bad, they had
|
|
real plates and silverware, unlike the BNL cafeteria which now serves
|
|
everything on paper plates or plastic containers, with plastic
|
|
utensils. As I got there, everyone had already eaten and the keynote
|
|
speaker was starting to deliberate. He is NYC Comptroller Alan Hevesi, talking
|
|
about the woes of the software industry in NYC. The city is in 9th
|
|
place across the country when you measure the software industry on a
|
|
per-capita scale. Some of the comments which stuck in my mind are the
|
|
following. (I didn't take notes on my notebook since I wasn't about to
|
|
open it next to my chicken lunch. There was the remainder of a large
|
|
coffee spill on the table cloth next to me. That could have been on
|
|
the key board of my notebook. Ahhhh....) NYC had to pay out
|
|
$900,000,000 to the new york stock exchange in tax exemptions to keep
|
|
it from moving to NJ. The speaker blamed that on those attending the
|
|
summit since the attendees had made it is so easy for anyone to set up
|
|
an information system anywhere to do their business. The EZpass system
|
|
is a wonderful piece of technology which allows traffic to flow past
|
|
the toll booths surrounding Manhattan. But, this means that the toll
|
|
collectors are out of a job. The speaker was quite sensitive to the
|
|
dangers of high tech information systems. In a few years, there will
|
|
be no more phone operators.
|
|
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss38Small.jpg" ALIGN=RIGHT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
|
|
There will be one recording serving all business and those who worked
|
|
at those jobs answering phones will be looking for other work. Another
|
|
comment he made was that a new tax break was being put on the
|
|
books. Anyone in NYC who uses hardware to write software, does not
|
|
have to pay taxes when they purchase that hardware. This statement
|
|
caused a great round of applause. Another comment the speaker said
|
|
which I want to share is this. (It is taken out of context but it
|
|
stands on its own.) When the phone system was being installed in
|
|
Russia, Stalin gave orders not to install phones in every home in
|
|
Moscow. Stalin was afraid that he would loose control over the
|
|
exchange of information amongst the citizens, if they had access to
|
|
phones, and thus his control over the citizenry and his hold on
|
|
power. To me, this was a very insightful comment about the power of
|
|
information technology and ties right in with another
|
|
<a href="http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/~adler/OSS/OSS.html">article</a>
|
|
I wrote a couple of months ago.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss37Small.jpg" ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
And so the talk went. I had my fill of a tasty chicken dish, listened
|
|
to this guy go on about the lack of a recognized software industry in
|
|
NYC, and had a very nice view of some 1920's looking architecture
|
|
outside the window I was facing. One last note on lunch. To my right,
|
|
I overheard some guy mention slashdot. As I looked over, I saw this
|
|
young guy, who was wearing a netscape pin on his blue sports
|
|
jacket. He was talking to an old guy, (60's or so, "establishment"
|
|
looking guy) and told him that he checked out slashdot about 4 times a
|
|
day. This older guy, who had his back to me, was writing something
|
|
down on a business card. The URL of /. is my guess. So there you have
|
|
it, the young teaching the old on how to survive in this Internet
|
|
world...
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<HR WIDTH="80%">
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
After lunch was the 3rd parallel track. I went to the talk on CORBA.
|
|
I did so since I've just signed up to the ORBit mailing list and I'm in
|
|
the process of learning how to develop distributed objects using IONA's
|
|
implementation of the CORBA standard. The talk was given by an IBM'er Jason
|
|
Woodward. He was excited about CORBA technology and how IBM was using it
|
|
in conjunction with Java. The talk was laced with comments plugging IBM's
|
|
e-business solutions, but if you ignored that, you got a rather general
|
|
overview of distributed object computing. He talked about the battle lines
|
|
being drawn between MS version of this application named COM and CORBA/Java.
|
|
The talk was given at such an abstract level that it never answered my
|
|
perennial question, where's the ORB in CORBA? (Being that I'm new to this
|
|
distributed object thing, knowing which software component does the ORBing
|
|
is important to me. It all seems to be hidden in "the implementation".)
|
|
In any case, I asked a question at the end, (a rather loaded one) which
|
|
was, "Is COM a strict open standard and how will the open source movement,
|
|
implementing the CORBA standard, play out in the future of CORBA?" He
|
|
answered by saying COM is not an open standard, and open source will
|
|
do good things to CORBA. Just what I wanted the audience to hear,
|
|
especially since during his talk he gave the well worn example of
|
|
betamax vs VHS. Betamax being the proprietary standard and VHS the
|
|
open one. Thus the answer to my questions were seen in a more
|
|
compelling light. CORBA would win, MS would loose.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<CENTER>
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss40Small.jpg" HEIGHT=119 WIDTH=350 hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</CENTER>
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
The day was winding down, the 3rd set of parallel sessions was over
|
|
and now it was time for the grand finale. The keynote panel on the future
|
|
of the Internet/software industry in the next 5 years. Richard was going
|
|
to grace this panel. Needless to say, the panel discussion turned into
|
|
a passioned debate over free software. What do you expect with Richard
|
|
Stallman on the panel. The panel took place in some big auditorium in building
|
|
C. There was room for about 500 people and I would say there were about
|
|
200 people there. I got there about 10 minutes before it began. I spotted
|
|
Richard Stallman pacing around, getting ready to take us on. Later, I saw
|
|
him sitting alone behind the panelist table typing away on his notebook.
|
|
Taking advantage of some quiet time to hack at his hurd kernel maybe? It
|
|
was a calm before the storm.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<a href="./adler-BruceB.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss34Small.jpg" ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
Bruce Bernstein took the mike, called on every one to sit down so that
|
|
the panel could begin. He then introduced himself and continued with
|
|
an award presentation to Sheldon Silver, a speaker of the New York
|
|
State Assembly. Speaker Silver had the flu, so Robin Schimminger,
|
|
Chairman of the Assembly Commerce on Economic Development took the
|
|
award for him.
|
|
|
|
<a href="./adler-AwardRecip.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss33Small.jpg" HEIGHT=180 WIDTH=250 ALIGN=RIGHT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
|
|
The plaque was to thank Sheldon Sliver for making it possible to get this new
|
|
hardware tax break onto the books. Bruce was very proud of his award. It
|
|
was a nice big shiny plaque. Robin, who took the award, made some remarks
|
|
which I can't remember and left. Bruce then introduced two moderators,
|
|
who would lead the discussion, Tom Watson and Jason Chervokas, co-founders
|
|
of @NY.
|
|
|
|
<a href="./adler-AtNY.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss30Small.jpg" HEIGHT=335 WIDTH=211 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
|
|
The first one introduced the panel, Stallman, Jim Russell, the same
|
|
IBM'er who was also on the Free Software panel, John Borthwick, someone
|
|
associated with AOL and the development of ICQ and finally Gerry
|
|
Cohen, CEO of IBI, an "establishment" guy. (I'll explain later.) The
|
|
second guy from @NY, starts the discussion by asking a question to
|
|
Richard. Richard ignores the question and makes a comment criticizing
|
|
the award given to speaker Silver for the tax break. "Tax breaks are
|
|
bad" and goes down some tangent about how local and state governments
|
|
screw the poor in order to offer corporate welfare to the rich
|
|
"establishment". I guess you had to be there to feel the embarrassment
|
|
of the situation. Stallman had no quandaries ripping apart this
|
|
shining moment which Bruce had polished up by giving away this plaque
|
|
with great fan fare. I have to give it to Richard. To him, there is no
|
|
difference in the phrases, "freedom in software" and "freedom of
|
|
speech". At some point during this panel discussion, he comes right
|
|
out and says that he is a social activist, pursuing any avenue to
|
|
advance social justice and freedom. The gloves are off. The moderator
|
|
takes control over the discussion by asking questions to the other
|
|
panelist. The guy from IBM made a small speech in which he thanked
|
|
Richard Stallman for the work he has done in fostering the GNU
|
|
movement and all the good software which has come from it. My hat goes
|
|
off to IBM! He then continued to say that what IBM cares about is
|
|
delivering technology to its customers in a form that the customers
|
|
want. If this includes source code solutions, then that's what they
|
|
will deliver. He mentioned that IBM had joined the Appache effort,
|
|
providing AFS support for linux (although I don't think AFS is open
|
|
sourced.), the development of Jikes in a pseudo source code
|
|
distribution strategy etc. When it comes to the plumbing of
|
|
information technology systems, IBM does not care how it gets built,
|
|
fixed or distributed. Their goal is to provide systems, service and
|
|
solutions to those who ask for it. The guy from AOL/ICQ during his
|
|
open remarks talked about this ICQ product which I've never heard of
|
|
before. Its some kind of Internet communication tool, a GUI version of
|
|
the unix talk application maybe? It relies on a server and freely
|
|
distributed clients. The amazing thing about this product is how
|
|
widely it is used. At one point they released a new version of their
|
|
client and they got 1e6 downloads of the client in 3 weeks. 6e6 people
|
|
are currently using it. The guy talked about how they watch their
|
|
xferlog files and see the correlated accesses to their upload site. A
|
|
whole city will suddenly start to download the software, a whole
|
|
country would follow. To me, this is a glimpse of future (current?)
|
|
software distribution for all companies doing business over the
|
|
net. The last guy to speak, Gerry of IBI, the "establishment" guy, was
|
|
a real piece. He controlled a very large company in NYC. The
|
|
unfortunate thing is that he really was not up to speed on what is
|
|
going on right now software-wise over the Internet. He made one
|
|
classic mistake. He talked about what he didn't know about. First off,
|
|
he did make a good point that besides new software efforts, there was
|
|
the whole backlog of old software systems which need to be kept in
|
|
place. Somewhere in the city of New York there is a system which is in
|
|
charge of cutting all the checks for NYC workers. It's old, and has to
|
|
be maintained. This is obviously a big job. But this was about the
|
|
only useful comment he made to the discussion. While the discussion
|
|
raged about free software and tax breaks, he made a comment that linux
|
|
has only been around for 6 months. Richard and the audience jumped all
|
|
over him for that. He then asked the rhetorical question as to which
|
|
of the two web servers, Apache or Netscape, was better? (He asked
|
|
this question with a tone which implied that Netscape was the better
|
|
server.) The audience quickly jumped in and told him that Appache was
|
|
faster and more reliable. He then made the statement that customers
|
|
want value from their software. "When was the last time you heard a
|
|
customer walk into a software store asking for freedom?". Clearly
|
|
getting back at Richards statement that free software stands for
|
|
freedom not $0 cost software. Finally he made the comment, "All this
|
|
software is so GNU! GNU, new, get it?..." Richard got pissed and
|
|
attacked him rightly so. Then there was this question from the
|
|
audience. "Who do you sue?" Richard fires back, "Do you sue someone if
|
|
the plumbing breaks in your build? No, you get it fixed." The guy who
|
|
asked the question replied that he would fix the plumbing and then sue
|
|
someone for damages. To me, there is something wrong with this type
|
|
"free market economy". The final comment which I want to write which
|
|
Richard Stallman said was that he was appalled at states going around
|
|
trying to under cut each other by offering tax breaks to large
|
|
corporations to induce them to leave one state and settle in
|
|
another. A comment from an "establishment" guy in the audience was,
|
|
"What's wrong with that? Its a free market." Richard exclaims, "A free
|
|
market in tax breaks? Oh GOD!" He then says that states should form a
|
|
union, go to the federal government and get it to pass some laws
|
|
forbidding this activity. He concludes this chain of thought by
|
|
saying, "The name of this union is called, the United States of
|
|
America." That to me, Stallman is true patriot.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<a href="./adler-RMS2.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss29Small.jpg" HEIGHT=253 WIDTH=300 ALIGN=LEFT hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
The discussion went over time by about 20 minutes. And it was
|
|
passionate. Poor Bruce hand to get up in the middle of it to defend
|
|
his award given to the city assembly speaker declaring that the tax
|
|
break was not new, but a "straighting out of the rules", since all
|
|
manufacturing equipment bought in NYC pays no tax. Those well worn
|
|
issues of how one make money with open source technology were batted
|
|
back and forth and Richard always won the argument. Gerry, IBI's CEO,
|
|
said at one point that SAP, the second largest software company in the
|
|
world, does not give away its software for free, and it never will.
|
|
SAP customers pay lots of money to buy their software and don't want
|
|
it to be free. Richard responds by saying that he is going to write a
|
|
GPL'ed version of the software SAP sells. It will take time, but there
|
|
will be a freely, source code distributeable version available
|
|
sometime in the future. How can you argue with that. As for the ICQ
|
|
developer, Richard was going to write an ICQ server equivalent and GPL
|
|
it. This made John Borthwick sit back in his chair and exhale. The
|
|
fact is, Richard stands on the moral high ground with his GNU Public
|
|
License. And no one, mind you, no one, can stand higher than him on
|
|
this issue. He has taken the freedom of source code distribution via
|
|
GPL and has turned it into a powerful venue to advance social
|
|
justice. And the power behind Richard's morality is nothing other than
|
|
the unhindered flow of ideas over the Internet. Richard knows this, he
|
|
mentioned something about working together to make sure the
|
|
commercialization of the Internet does not hinder this freedom of
|
|
information exchange. This also ties in with the comment made at lunch
|
|
about how Stalin, who was the mid 20th centry Russian one man
|
|
establishment, was afraid of losing control over his citizens by the
|
|
installation of phones in Moscow.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<CENTER>
|
|
<a href="./adler-iboceo.html">
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss28Small.jpg" HEIGHT=148 WIDTH=400 hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</a>
|
|
</CENTER>
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
The discussion finally ended. I went up on stage to see if I could get
|
|
in on some of the post panel discussion groups. I noticed Richard was
|
|
being sought after by another female journalist, this time working for
|
|
Wired. He was in the process of giving his card to her and it seemed
|
|
like this time he was going to grant an interview. I had a hard time
|
|
trying to get into any of the conversations and figured that it was
|
|
time to go home, which is what I did. The rain awaited me, as I left
|
|
building C of the Fashion Institute of Technology. I quickly walked up
|
|
7th avenue to catch the express back out to Ronkonkoma, my Long Island
|
|
destination. As I was on my way home, I stood in a crowed train cabin,
|
|
the windows fogging up due to the human density, as the train rocked
|
|
back and forth on its way east. This quiet time gave me a chance to go
|
|
over the day's events. On thing is for certain. The trip was well
|
|
worth it. I thanked the free software gods for tearing me away from
|
|
the PHENIX timing system for one day. The final panel discussion ended
|
|
with the same question put to each of the panelists. "Where do you see
|
|
the Internet in 5 years?" To me, this is the unanswerable
|
|
question. No one knows. At the beginning of this century, when new
|
|
models of the atom were being developed by Rutherford, Bohr and
|
|
others, no one knew that their work would lead to something as
|
|
powerful and destructive as the nuclear weapon. In the case of the
|
|
forecasting "the Internet", looking back will not tell you where we
|
|
are going or will end up. The only thing we can do, is stay informed
|
|
of what is going on now and work with the new ideas which are
|
|
presented to us by our peers. Those who do this, will be the "Internet
|
|
pioneers". And what strikes me most, by the discussions during the
|
|
day, is that time and time again, the "establishment" were not
|
|
adapting to new ideas. IBM being the one
|
|
<a href="./adler-IBMExeption.html">exception</a>. The recording
|
|
industry is one example. Gerry, the CEO of IBI, who mocked Stallman
|
|
with his new/GNU joke and the suits in the audience who wanted to know
|
|
who they were going to sue, are all in for a big fall. On the other
|
|
hand, those who understand what it means to have the freedom of
|
|
modifying the source, have the future in their hands and the Internet
|
|
will be theirs for the taking.
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<CENTER>
|
|
<IMG SRC="./gx/adler/ss49Small.jpg" HEIGHT=123 WIDTH=333 hspace=10 vspace=10>
|
|
</CENTER>
|
|
|
|
<P>
|
|
<HR WIDTH="80%">
|
|
|
|
<center>
|
|
<b>prologue</b>
|
|
</center>
|
|
<p>
|
|
This e-mail is from Richard Stallman himself. He wants to clarify
|
|
some points I wrote in my article. <a href="./adler-rms.txt">
|
|
Click here for further details.</a>
|
|
<P>
|
|
Original article can be found at <A
|
|
HREF="http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/~adler/Stallman/Stallman.html">
|
|
http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/~adler/Stallman/Stallman.html</A>
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<center><H5>Copyright © 1999, Stephen Adler <BR>
|
|
Published in Issue 37 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, February 1999</H5></center>
|
|
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