hippo, birdie, two ewes...

to sbisson!! Have a good one!

Jeremy Allison resigns from Novell

From this post on Groklaw, we learn that Jeremy Allison of the Samba project has resigned from Novell over their patent deal with Microsoft. His statement is quoted in full in the Groklaw article, and includes a letter to management.

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 licence it violates the intent of the GPL licence the Samba code is released under, which is to treat all recipients of the code equally.

In case anyone might think I gave up too easily, here is a copy of a letter I recently sent to management on this matter.

---

I know you don't want to hear this, I know *nobody* wants to hear this but I'll not be able to live with this if I don't say it publicly at least once.

Whilst the Microsoft patent agreement is in place there is *nothing* we can do to fix community relations. And I really mean nothing.

As far as I know this is the first such departure, but it is unlikely to be the last.

Peculiarly Aristocratic Lemmings

What do you call a lemming with a title, anyway?

( Lord Lemming? )

Under the weather and through the woods...

Not a terribly productive day. I crashed early last night with a bit of a headache, mild muscle aches, and a slightly-scratchy throat. Hoping to head off an attack of the Martian Death Flu, I went to bed around 10:30. The last of the guests left around 11:00, I think. The flower_cat tells me she had trouble sleeping; I didn't, but got up at 6:30 to make coffee, rouse the chaoswolf, take her to work, make breakfast, and do the dishes.

The Cat got out of bed somewhere around 9:30, and we decided to go out for a drive about 10am. By that time it had started to drizzle, but it was a pleasant drive anyway. We stopped at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for some last-minute shopping, came home, and had leftovers for lunch.

I've been spending the afternoon reading and feeling slightly out of it, though not nearly as bad as last night. No walk, I'm afraid.

Gift packages arrived simultaneously from my Mom (a huge picnic basket full of yummies) and my brother (a country-cured ham). We've been exchanging food gifts for years -- always welcome, and you don't have to find a place to store them.

Virgin birth expected this Christmas

Virgin Birth Expected at Christmas -- By Komodo Dragon

A virgin birth is expected this Christmas, though this particular nativity scene will be set in a zoo instead of a stable.

That's because the virgin in question is Flora the Komodo dragon, a giant lizard at Chester Zoo in England that has laid fertile eggs despite never having had a mate.

So, let me get this straight: the Messiah is arriving six years late, and He's a lizard. OK, I can deal with that.

(Edit: s/She/He/ -- sex determination in reptiles works differently from the way it does in mammals. Too bad; it made a better story the other way.)

GIP: What's on my desktop

Blame allisona -- she asked "It's a classic, but always fun: What's on YOUR computer desktop right now? Any particular reason you decided to put that picture/photo/design there?"

So I just had to take a screenshot, which I turned into an icon. My answer was:

Right now my computer desktop is solid blue. I figure it's silly to put anything on a desktop that's almost entirely covered by windows, although I occasionally use phase-accurate Earth or Moon images.

At the moment there's a web browser, two editor windows, two terminals, a system monitor, two clocks, a load grapher, a mail indicator, my "console" terminal, and the desktop switcher. The manual browser and calendar are iconified (a Windows user would call them "minimized". So that's, um, 12 windows on this desktop. It's cheating a little, since all but the editors, terminals, and browser are small and shared with the other desktops. I have 5 other desktops (the desktop switcher I use on the Mac calls them "rooms") with from one to four terminal or application windows.

And the browser, Firefox, currently has 8 tabs active.

I've been using essentially the same desktop layout for 15 years now, both at home and at work.

Linux geeks will want to know that I use ctwm, which is still available as a Debian package. The browser and one of the Emacs windows are completely overlapped; I select them by moving the cursor into the appropriate tab. Focus follows mouse; most apps autoraise on focus. I use conditional compilation in .Xdefaults to adjust geometries for screensize.

Solstice presents from ThinkGeek

Today for Solstice I gave each of the kids a Bag of Holding from ThinkGeek, and gave the flower_cat a Cheshire Totoro Face T-shirt.

The next 50 years?

Delta Scan: The Future of Science and Technology, 2005-2055: Home

Welcome to the Delta Scan. This is a forum for scanning the science and technology horizon over the next 50 years. The forum contains a hundred outlook pages covering a wide range of scientific disciplines and technologies. These include topics associated with the future geography and structure of science.

WHAT IS AN OUTLOOK?
An outlook is an internally consistent, plausible view of the future based on the best expertise available. It is not a prediction. Rather it provides a perspective that takes into account current trends and their long-term potential--providing a context for planning and policy. It is not a statement of policy nor an indication of preference.

(From BoingBoing.) Some interesting extrapolations.