Tech News » 'Bossie' Awards Crown FOSS' Best of Breed

"Where is Blender?" asked Slashdot blogger hairyfeet. "It is truly an incredibly powerful piece of software. "I had a client that was unhappy because the robot he is helping design for a NASA competition at the local college just doesn't have the level of lighting realism he wanted with Solidworks. So I just sent him to this link on the Blender wiki and voila!"

Well September is shaping up to be a banner month here in the world of free and open source software.

Not only did we recently learn the winners of this year's "Bossie" (Best of Open Source Software) awards, but we have Software Freedom Day coming up this Saturday! Nothing like awards and parties to make a person forget all about hack attacks and other unsavory aspects of the daily grind.

This year, in fact, it's more important than ever to celebrate Software Freedom Day, Linux Girl humbly suggests, what with all the patent to-do we've had in recent months. Make sure you get out there and whoop it up on the 17th!

LibreOffice, Android and Chrome

Meanwhile, just as Hollywood's Academy Awards tend to dominate conversation for weeks in advance in some social spheres, so the Bossies have a similar effect in the Linux blogosphere's bars and cafes.

Chosen by InfoWorld Test Center editors and reviewers, the annual Bossies recognize "the best and most innovative open source software products for end users, businesses and IT professionals," in the press release's own words.

Among this year's winners are Drupal, Sugar, WordPress, Apache Hadoop, Git, Jenkins, Hudson and OpenStack, along with LibreOffice, Android and Chrome.

As per usual, Linux bloggers haven't been shy about expressing their own opinions.

'It's Hard to Pick a Few'

"WordPress, Sugar CRM and Lucene are great pieces of software and they are FLOSS as well," blogger Robert Pogson told Linux Girl, for example.

"Tens of millions use WordPress for their blogs as I do, and Sugar may help me find a job soon," Pogson added. "I use Lucene as one of many options for desktop/file searching -- it's smooth and reliable.

"Out of hundreds of thousands of good FLOSS projects it's hard to pick a few that stand out, but on the basis of usage, these must be near the top," he added.

"I would have recommended Apache web server and GNU/Linux, too, although those are not so much projects but ecosystems," Pogson pointed out. "I think the Linux kernel is one of the all-time great software projects of any kind."

'I Stopped Reading'

Hyperlogos blogger Martin Espinoza took issue with the way the awards were assigned.

"My only complaint about the list is that they are giving awards to the winner and the runner-up," Espinoza explained. "For example, giving a 'best of' award to Drupal and Wordpress, which both do the same thing.

"I stopped reading there, as it was clear that it was nothing but a popularity contest designed to increase page views," Espinoza said. "Now they can give awards to lots of people to make them feel good about the contest, and make people care about it for next year. Pass."

'It's Still Pretty Much a Duopoly'

Similarly, "it's interesting that both Hudson and Jenkins were included, seeing as Jenkins is a fork of Oracle's (Nasdaq: ORCL) Hudson," noted Barbara Hudson, a blogger on Slashdot who goes by "Tom" on the site.

"I would also take issue with one sentence from the press release: 'The 2011 awards ... reflect the dominance of open source software on the desktop, in mobile technology, in business applications, in application development, and in the data center and the private cloud.'

"It's still pretty much an OSX/Windows duopoly for desktop operating systems, and closed-source applications still dominate many desktop software categories," Hudson noted. "Of course, the shellacking that closed-source software is taking in the mobile OS field, the data center, and Internet infrastructure and services helps balance things out."

'All Top-Notch'

Slashdot blogger hairyfeet had a different focus.

"Did you notice that nearly every bit of software on the list except for the cloud stuff has a Windows version?" he asked. "While that makes me as a Windows user happy, it really doesn't help Linux adoption any. What Linux needs is its own Visicalc, a 'killer app' that will help spur adoption just as Visicalc helped spur the original PC sales."

Those that are on the list, however, "are all top-notch," hairyfeet agreed.

'That Is What Makes Good Software'

"The only thing I would add is, where is Blender?" he told Linux Girl. "It is truly an incredibly powerful piece of software.

"I had a client that was unhappy because the robot he is helping design for a NASA competition at the local college just doesn't have the level of lighting realism he wanted with Solidworks," hairyfeet added. "So I just sent him to this link on the Blender wiki and voila! Thanks to FOSS and a volunteer that wrote the import scripts, he is happily having his robot rendering in photo realism by Blender."

That, in fact, "is what FOSS should be about -- not about politics or factions, or all the GPL vs. BSD flamewars, but 'can this software make someone's day easier and/or better?'" hairyfeet concluded. "If it does, that is what makes good software to me."

Tech News » That Tired Old Computer Could Be a Neat Media Streamer

Converting an unused PC to a media streamer could cost you nothing per month, as opposed to a cable bill of $90 or more a month. However, some Internet programming, including Fox's, is embargoed for a few days after regular broadcast. Also, keep in mind that the interface and hook-up can be more fiddly than that supplied by a classic cable box.

One antidote to escalating household budgets is to cut utility services. However, dropping trash pickup and dumping your garbage in neighbors' receptacles in the middle of the night probably wouldn't go down too well in the community.

Likewise, terminating your electricity supply won't play too well with the family after the novelty wears off -- possibly less than an hour if there's something good on TV, or it's cold.

One cost that can be cut, though, is your media bill -- and it's possible to do it, with little sacrifice, by moving to an a la carte, Internet-delivered model.

Step 1

Identify the latest-model redundant computer you have lying around. The nature of technology evolution means this should be a relatively easy step.

Connect the PC to a TV with an HDMI cable, if you can. Otherwise, use a DVI to HDMI adapter at the PC end, or use an old VGA monitor cable and connect the PC to the TV's "VGA PC In" jack.

Connect the green 3.5mm "Audio Out" jack on the PC to the 3.5mm "PC Audio In" jack on the TV if you're using anything other than HDMI to send the video signal.

Connect the PC to your Internet router with an Ethernet cable. If the router is nowhere near the TV, use a WiFi adapter. The simplest are the kind that insert into a USB port.

Step 2

Turn the computer and TV on, and press the "Input" or "Source" button on the TV's remote control until the PC's desktop displays on the TV.

Step 3

Connect the mouse and keyboard, and clean the PC. It's likely that one reason the PC was retired was due to an accumulation of junk, including spyware, orphaned DLL files, and so on.

If you have the OEM discs that came with the computer, perform a reformat of the drive and reload the operating system and drivers.

If you don't have the OEM discs, download a free cleaning program like Advanced System Care, or similar, and run all of the deep cleaning tools like "Registry Fix" and so on. Follow any on-screen prompts to update the operating system and browser.

Step 4

Test the PC's functionality in relation to the TV. Right-click on the Desktop and choose "Properties" and then the "Settings" tab. Adjust the "Screen Resolution" settings until the desktop image displays properly. Test the audio connection.

Step 5

Download a PC-streaming application like the free Boxee, which will aggregate media-streaming services like TV-oriented Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) and music-oriented Pandora.

The Boxee PC application replicates a cable-like user experience, with a sit-back type of user interface with larger labels and text than you'd get from a regular browser. Follow the prompts to download and install the Boxee software, then choose streaming services. Many services will be free.

Or, simply use the PC's existing Web browser to browse to the individual streaming service's website. Look for TV-streaming services such as Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, Hulu and Walmart's Vudu.

Look for music streaming from Pandora. Be aware that Hulu's browser-based service is free, but the service called "Hulu Plus" that's included in the aggregators has a monthly fee.

Step 6

Weigh the pros and cons, based on cost and convenience. This solution could cost you nothing per month, as opposed to a cable bill of US$90 or more a month.

However, some Internet programming, including Fox's, is embargoed for a few days after regular broadcast. Also, keep in mind that the interface and hook-up can be more fiddly than that supplied by a classic cable box.

If you're confident this a la carte model will work for you, call your service provider to disconnect your TV service, thus slashing your monthly bill. Don't forget to retain your Internet service, though.

Want to Ask a Tech Question?

Is there a piece of tech equipment you'd like to know to operate properly? Is there a gadget that's got you confounded?

Please send your tech questions to me, and I'll try to answer as many as possible in this column.

And use the Talkback feature below to add your comments!

News » How NOT to Push a New Open Source License, Part 1

Bruce Perens wrote several times that he had to check with the lawyers to see what the various terms of his open source covenant really mean. If this license is so complicated that he doesn't understand it, shouldn't it be fixed? And why would he be publicly advocating others use a license he doesn't fully understand? This doesn't inspire confidence.

Bruce Perens recently introduced what he calls a "Covenant" open source license on behalf of Lexis-Nexis, owned by Reed Elsevier (readers may know them better as "the scientific journal paywall people"), for one of Lexis-Nexis' internal projects.

It didn't take long for readers on both slashdot and lwn to rip it apart. Of particular concern was the requirement that contributors assign their copyrights to Lexis-Nexis so that Lexis-Nexis would gain the exclusive right to commercialize the code. Contributors would only be able to use their own code under an AGPL license.

When I proposed that it would protect the authors' rights more if the author

• kept his or her copyright, or
• granted a dual license right to the company that terminates if the conditions are not respected,

Perens claimed,

"In general, companies want to be able to enforce the copyright of the entire product," and "the risk and legal load for the company are appreciably higher than what I have proposed."

The Heavy Burden of Licensing

I pointed out to him that this simply isn't true. Most commercial software companies don't own the copyrights to all the components in the products they sell. For everything from software written in Java or using Windows libraries to media players using h.264 decoders, quicktime libraries, or other code licensed from third parties, licensing -- not copyright assignment -- is the norm.

Businesses that take out a license instead of getting copyright assigned to them also have legal recourse against the licensor if any of the licensed code is found to be infringing. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has gone to court many times, and paid plenty of judgments, to protect its users and licensees. Perens' arguments are ill-informed at best.

In a follow-up, he also claimed that

"the added burden on L-N to try to manage all the licenses would probably make it easier to forgo open sourcing their codebase."

My first thought was "Wow, maybe the BSA (Business Software Alliance) should knock on their doors to see if all their Windows software is properly licensed." Instead, I pointed out that parent company Reed Elsevier is a US$9 billion dollar business that derives the bulk of its earnings from managing data, copyrights and licenses. It can certainly manage a few more license grants from contributors.

Checking With the Lawyers

Readers were also concerned that the whole "covenant" was too vague on many points, as well as being lopsided in favor of Lexis-Nexis. Perens' response to lwn reader lutchann revealed why:

"When you are working with a company as large as that (LN is a big division of huge Elsevier) with as many separate stake-holders in legal, management, etc., it's always a negotiation. That's what I could get."

Sad.

It didn't help his case that Perens was also telling two different stories about the effects of copyright assignment -- one to readers of lwn, another to slashdot. Two hours after he wrote lwn poster iabervon to say

"this isn't a problem because of a key feature of copyright law: A developer is always free to grant their own work to others under his/her own terms. The covenant doesn't make you promise not to do so,"

... he wrote on slashdot,

"I agree that licensing your contribution back to you is desirable. I'll include that in the feedback I'm sending them."

Perens is apparently a bit confused as to whether developers would need a license back. The answer is yes, because copyright doesn't work the way he pretended it does. Original developers are not free to continue to grant rights to their work after they've assigned their rights to someone else. That's the key point of a copyright assignment.

This probably explains why Perens wrote several times that he had to check with the lawyers to see what the various terms of the covenant really mean. It's becoming painfully obvious that he doesn't really understand "his own" license.

If this license is so complicated that he doesn't understand it, shouldn't it be fixed? And why would he be publicly advocating others use a license he doesn't fully understand? This doesn't inspire confidence.

Hand Over Those Assets

In reality, it is obvious that the covenant is not a meeting of the minds between equals, but a deal drafted by Lexis-Nexis to take as much and give back as little as possible. The "snatch-and-grab" was revealed in a follow-up to slashdot poster Roger W Moore, who wrote:

"I fail to understand the need to assign copyright. Surely the developer can just give HPCC a license to the code which includes the right to relicense the code under any commercial license they wish so long as they continue to support and release an open source version. Call this the HPCC Turkish Delight license and then just say that you are releasing your code under this license instead of GPL/.... By assigning copyright HPCC could use the code in a different, closed source product without compensating the developer in anyway." (emphasis added)

Perens pretty much admitted it when he replied,

"In building a balance that will motivate multiple parties to participate, you have to consider all of their needs. In the case of HPCC's needs, this allows them to continue to own their entire product, and to list their entire product as an asset." (emphasis added)

The real reason for demanding copyright assignment instead of a license is to add to its copyright portfolio so it can list those additional copyrights as business assets, and also open up the ability to license the assigned copyrights individually outside of the project.

Think of it -- how would you react if your neighbor asked for your blender for a party?

Neighbor: I'm having a party. I need your blender.
You: Sure, you can borrow it.
Neighbor: No, you don't understand -- I want you to give it to me permanently.
You: Why would I do that?
Neighbor: Because I'm having a big party and I'm going to make lots of $$$.
You: So just borrow it. You don't need to keep it forever.
Neighbor: But if I don't own it outright, it will prevent me from having lots of parties and making lots of money!
You: ???
Neighbor: Don't worry -- I'll let you borrow it back...
You: Gee, you're so generous.
Neighbor: -- but only for your own personal use. You can't use it with guests or to throw parties or make money with it.
You: Enough! You're giving me a headache. Just. Go. Away.

Open Source Magic

Does Perens really believe this is a great deal? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, so I made him the same offer that his "covenant" provides:

"assign ME your copyrights and I'll give you a grant-back to use all the copyrights in the pool under the AGPLv3. I'll go one further than Loopy-Noopy -- I'll even give you a grant-back to use them under a separate GPLv2 or later license, so you can contribute to projects like Linux, which is GPLv2 only. What could possibly go wrong?"

He hasn't yet taken me up on my oh-so-generous offer. I guess when the shoe is on the other foot, it doesn't fit so well...

There are still some people who think that slapping "open source" on something will magically attract coders as sure as manure attracts flies. It doesn't, but freetards won't accept that. Coders that work on the sort of projects that Perens is proposing cost six figures a head. A one-sided "covenant" won't interest them, and it just inflames everyone else.

This whole "covenant" shows disrespect for both the work and the rights of authors. Add to that the way that each iteration of the GPL adds more restrictions, and maybe it's time for yet another license -- but Bruce Perens' covenant isn't it.

And now for something completely different...

Internet » Facebook Rips a Page From Google+

Facebook may be way ahead in terms of membership, but it's been lagging in usability. Its latest design tweak is the ability to organize friends into lists -- a lot like Google+'s vaunted Circles. Actually, the list feature isn't new, but Facebook is now kickstarting the process, automatically organizing friends according to a few basic criteria, and enabling separate news feeds for each list.

Facebook has been rolling out a slew of changes and new options, one of the latest being its so-called smart friend lists. This feature creates lists of a user's friends, automatically based on such criteria as work, school, family and city. Users do have some control -- they can opt out entirely. Or they can use the automatically generated lists to add friends -- without, Facebook promises, a lot of effort.

Each of the lists has its own News Feed, where the user can see photos, status updates and other posts from the people on the list. Facebook has placed the Lists section on the left side of the homepage.

Users can also share items with their specific lists, leaving out the wider audience. This is done by clicking on the dropdown audience selector in the sharing tool and selecting a list.

Other niceties: Users can continue using lists they may already have created. Also, no one is able to see list titles.

Facebook did not respond to TechNewsWorld's request to comment for this story.

Sincerest Form of Flattery

If this sounds awfully like the functionality in Google+, that's because it is. Facebook is widely acknowledged to finally have met a competitor in the social networking space in the form of Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) social networking product rolled out earlier this summer.

"Facebook's new smart lists are a shot across the bow of Google+'s Circles -- make no mistake about that," Ron Schott, a strategist at Spring Creek Group, told TechNewsWorld.

"Ever since Google has introduced Plus, it is obvious that it was a wake-up call to Facebook in the context of usability design," said Hyun-Yeul Lee, an assistant professor at Boston University.

"Certainly, Facebook's recent add-on features are copying design or user interface features from Plus that they missed out on," she told TechNewsWorld.

The Bigger Picture

However, to boil the new feature down to merely competitive fear on the part of Facebook would be too simplistic.

"What Facebook seems to be doing here is creating opportunities for average users to share more content," Schott said.

Facebook's Heavy Hand

One possible drawback to smart friends is the automatic creation of the lists. Facebook has gotten a reputation for having a tyrannical attitude toward its user base -- implementing changes with little or no notice, and rarely requesting feedback. It has been lambasted repeatedly for playing fast and loose with users' privacy.

Some of this was just clumsiness on Facebook's part, according to Schott.

"Facebook does seem to come with a 'better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission' way of doing things on almost all fronts -- and that's by design," he said. "When you're dealing with 700 million users, it's not plausible to make everyone happy, so Facebook has pushed updates that simplify the user experience for the majority of its users."

Also, there is something to the argument Facebook is making with its introduction of smart lists, Jonathan Kopp, partner and global director at Ketchum Digital.

"Facebook used to enable users to sort their friends into lists, but adoption hovered at about 5 percent or less. The simple reason is, it was a tedious chore to manually sort your contacts," he told TechNewsWorld.

Already Behind?

With Facebook inching closer to the Google+ model, it is fair to ask if newbie Google+ has already seen its day.

Not hardly, said Lee. While Facebook's strength is its massive user base, it still needs to think bigger in terms of how social connectivity will look in the near future.

"Facebook is giving an aesthetic facelift to usability," she said, "but lacks the long-term vision that Plus has."

IT Management » Windows 8 May Have Devs Reaching for Painkillers

Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system will arrive on both tablets and traditional PCs when it debuts, and when it does, developers may have a lot of work ahead of them if they want their apps to run on both kinds of systems. Different kinds of processors and different types of user interfaces may make for a complicated learning curve.

Over half a million copies of the developer preview of Windows 8 have been downloaded, according to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), giving app makers around the world a sample of the software maker's upcoming operating system.

Those developers, though, may have to go through a learning curve if they want to build Windows 8 tablet apps.

The tablet versions of Windows 8 apps will be built for the OS's Metro user interface, and the Metro version of the Internet Explorer browser will not include Flash or other plug-ins. Further, they will run on devices powered by ARM (Nasdaq: ARMHY) processors, while the desktop version of Windows 8 will run on x86 PCs.

That means developers will have to create two versions of Windows 8 apps if they want them to run across the two different platforms.

"Developers will have to choose whether their apps need to be touch-enabled, in which case they should choose Metro, or whether the app requires a mouse interface for precision tasks such as computer-aided design and pixel manipulation, in which case they should choose the desktop version of Windows 8," Al Hilwa, a program director at IDC, told TechNewsWorld.

However, the lack of Flash support in Metro will not be a problem because "Windows apps today do not use Flash; they're written in native languages on Windows," Hilwa said.

Microsoft spokesperson Annie Truong declined TechNewsWorld's request for further comment.

The Perils of Win 8 App Development

Appdevs will have to go through a learning curve in order to create mobile Win 8 apps, IDC's Hilwa said.

"Apps targeting a touch interface require special style guidelines and rules that are different from those for desktop apps," Hilwa explained.

For example, Windows 8's Metro UI does not support overlapping windows, and it doesn't have all the interfaces for supporting these, Hilwa pointed out. "This means there are different ways of doing things that will require Windows UI developers to learn new tricks," he added.

The additional learning curve weighed on the minds of Windows devs, who raised their concerns after Microsoft previewed Windows 8 at the D9 conference in June.

Their fear was that they'd have to abandon Visual Basic, .NET, Silverlight and other languages with which they'd learned to create apps in for Windows.

Further, they were concerned that they'd have to compete with Web-based developers rushing into the market.

Failure to Communicate?

The question of whether or not applications created for the x86 platform can run on ARM devices led to a row between Microsoft and Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) back in May.

Renee James, head of Intel's software business, had suggested that Microsoft might create multiple versions of Windows 8, four of which would work on ARM processors and wouldn't run legacy applications.

Microsoft blasted that comment as inaccurate and misleading, and Intel said that the number four was arbitrary.

Microsoft's statements at the BUILD conference Tuesday may not have done much to clarify the matter.

Announcing Windows 8 Tuesday, Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows Division, had stated that apps developed for Windows 8 would run on both x86 and ARM platforms, and demonstrated that it was easy to convert desktop apps to Metro apps.

Microsoft's subsequent press release further strengthened that impression. It stated that the Metro style user interface is equally at home on touchscreens and with a mouse and keyboard and that Windows 8 would support ARM-based and x86 devices.

Sinofsky also stated that Microsoft app devs can leverage their existing skills in C# and other development languages they already know to create Windows 8 apps.

However, he told financial analysts Wednesday that x86 apps will not run on ARM devices and that cross-compatibility for Win 8 apps will not be practical, Information Week reported.

Internet » Flash's World Gets a Little Lonelier

When Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 appears on tablet devices, the Metro version of its browser won't be doing so in the company of plug-ins -- not even Flash, one of the most popular browser plug-ins ever. While Flash will still have a home in other parts of the OS, Metro IE's shunning follows moves from companies like Apple, which has also banished Flash from its mobile platform.

Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) is putting on a brave face in the wake of Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) announcement Tuesday that the Metro version of Internet Explorer in Windows 8 -- the one intended for tablets -- will eschew plug-ins like Flash and instead use HTML 5.

"We are excited about the innovation and opportunities that are available to our customers and Adobe as the Web and platforms evolve across devices, including Windows 8 and Metro," Adobe's Danny Winokur, vice president and general manager for platform, told TechNewsWorld.

"We expect Windows desktop to continue to be extremely popular for years to come and that it will support Flash just fine, including rich Web-based games and premium videos that require Flash," Winokur said.

"In addition, we expect Flash-based apps will come to Metro via Adobe AIR, much the way they are on Android, iOS and BlackBerry Tablet OS today," Winokur added.

However, "with mobile form factors now exceeding sales of desktops and laptops and Flash not being widely embraced within mobile, it certainly doesn't paint a rosy picture for the future of Flash," remarked Mike Ricci, vice president of mobile at Webtrends.

"I just don't see a viable scenario whereby Flash survives in the long run," Ricci told TechNewsWorld.

"Flash is trending out," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, said. "Apple doesn't like it, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) doesn't like it, and now Microsoft doesn't like it."

The problem with Flash, as Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has discovered, is that it makes too many demands on both processor power and battery power to work well on mobile devices, said Carl Howe, a research director at the Yankee Group.

"Using Flash on a mobile device is a bit like putting a snowplow on your Prius. It's good in theory, but without a more powerful platform, you spend all your time spinning your wheels," Howe told TechNewsWorld.

So what will happen to existing websites and Web apps? Will their developers have to scramble to make changes?

The Race Goes to the Swift

"Standards-based Web developers have for years been telling commercial sites using Flash that they were breaking the Internet," the Yankee Group's Howe pointed out.

"Flash violates many of the fundamental principles of today's open Web, including searchability, structuring of content, and the ability to bookmark where you are," Howe added.

In other words, the move toward Web 2.0 is at least partly to blame for Flash's troubles.

Developers, at least in the mobile area, have apparently heeded the warning signs.

"Mobile developers have largely stayed away from Flash, so they are likely feeling validated by what's happened recently," Webtrends' Ricci said.

Microsoft's move away from Flash toward HTML 5 in Windows 8 should not have surprised Windows devs either.

Back in August, Microsoft indicated it would move away from browser plug-ins and toward HTML 5, and it named Adobe Flash as one of the most common plug-ins.

The Impact on Flash Fans

Companies that adopted Flash "will have to rebuild their sites in different ways or buy Adobe tools that convert them to a more Web-friendly environment," Howe remarked.

There's "a pretty good installed base of websites out there that use Flash, and they're going to move to HTML 5," William Stofega, a program director at IDC, told TechNewsWorld. "They're not going to switch overnight, but they will switch."

Adobe has introduced tools that provide a workaround to this problem.

For example, last week, Adobe announced Flash Media Server 4.5, which lets publishers create HTTP content with Flash Media Server 4.5 and push it to iDevices.

Flash Media Server 4.5 renders the stream instead of relying on a device's processor to do this work, reducing demands on battery and processor power.

Back in July, Adobe released Adobe Edge in preview. Edge is a Web motion and interaction design tool that lets designers bring animated content to websites using HTML 5, JavaScript and CSS3.

Further, the company is working closely with Microsoft, Google, Apple and others to drive innovation in HTML 5, Adobe's Winokur said.

Keeping the Hope Alive

That cooperation is essential if Adobe is to remain a player.

"Flash is looking like a legacy technology, and unless it gets support from Google, Apple and Microsoft, it's hard to see how they'll hold the line," Enderle told TechNewsWorld.

"Adobe's premise is based on the fact that they own and control Flash, but they don't own and control HTML 5," Enderle added.

Computing » Apple Could Deliver a September Surprise With New MBPs

It was only last February that Apple rolled out its current line of MacBook Pros, but a recent report suggests it's getting ready for another refresh as soon as this month. The notebook bump would allegedly be relatively minor, adding slightly faster processors and not much else. But it could be just enough to give Apple yet another blowout holiday sales season.

Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) MacBook Pro laptop was upgraded with new Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) processors a little more than six months ago, but another refresh may be in the works that will bring revamped models to the shelves within the next two weeks.

The move is believed to be necessary to keep Apple's laptop up to date with Intel's latest Sandy Bridge quad-core processors.

Citing anonymous sources, AppleInsider reported Tuesday that the refresh will deliver marginal speed bumps to the laptop's performance. Other than that, no material changes over existing models will be ushered in with the update, according to the report.

The existing lineup of Intel processors in the MacBook Pro, which run at 2.0, 2.2 and 2.3 GHz, will be replaced with new Core i7 chips running at 2.4, 2.5 and 2.7 GHz, it stated.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment by MacNewsWorld on the rumored introduction.

Avoiding Consumer Regret

Hours after the AppleInsider report appeared, Decide.com -- a price-watching service that uses a number of data-mining and predictive technologies to make recommendations to consumers so they can make better purchasing decisions -- posted a "wait" warning for the MacBook Pro.

To arrive at a purchasing recommendation, Decide gathers news and rumors from thousands of sources across the Web and analyzes them with proprietary algorithms, explained the company's CEO Mike Fridgen.

"As those rumors for a particular product hit a critical mass, our editors will see that and change our recommendations from buys to waits," he told MacNewsWorld. "In the case of the MacBook Pro, we've just hit that point. It's gotten to a point where we believe now that a consumer would have regrets if they purchased a current version of the product."

Predictable Introductions

How much regret, however, may be debatable.

For most consumers, the difference between 2.2 and 2.4 GHz isn't going to be noticeable, asserted Carl Howe, research director for the Yankee Group in Boston. "It just makes people feel like they're not buying last year's technology," he told MacNewsWorld.

Although a jump from 2.0 to 2.4 gigahertz is significant, he conceded, "most people won't really pay very much attention to it."

"These machines are fast enough that most consumers don't tax them," he added.

Howe, who has studied Apple's introduction patterns over time, wouldn't be surprised if the company did a late-fall refresh of the line. "Apple introductions are remarkably predictable because of the sheer pacing of the market," he argued. "So, for instance, they very rarely do a Pro refresh in Q4 because they're refreshing all their consumer products just before Q4."

However, "Every now again they break the rule," he conceded, "and this sounds like it might be one of those. Although if they're going to break the rule, they usually do it as a minor update.

"Faster processor, yes," he added. "New case and design, no."

Blowout Holiday Numbers

The speed at which this latest refresh may be taking place could reflect Apple feeling market heat to push out new products faster. While six months between refreshes may seem fast in the Apple world, it isn't in the PC world, where the average refresh is three times a year, observed Stephen Baker, an analyst for the NPD Group.

"Apple hasn't had that fast a cadence, but clearly there's demand from the markeplace to turn over products faster than Apple has traditionally done," he told MacNewsWorld.

He contended that now is good time as any for a MacBook Pro refresh. "You're after back-to-school and you're ahead of the holiday season," he said.

In addition, because Apple had such outstanding fourth quarter sales last year, it will be difficult to surpass that performance this year, he continued. A refresh, even a small one, of a major product line may be just what it needs to keep pace with last year's numbers.

"They'd like to have some blowout holiday numbers this season, and upgrading and refreshing on the Mac, because it doesn't happen all that often, tends to be a great driver of volume for them," he said.

Tech News » How NOT to Push a New Open Source License, Part 2

To those who whine "I don't want Google/Microsoft/Apple/whoever to use my code!" -- why not? Really, if you think they're evil because they close off code, how are you any better by doing the same to them? (plus, whining is for kids). "But it conflicts with our anti-copyright anti-business agenda." Put down the bong, grab a bar of soap, and stop acting like a freetard. You're giving the rest of us a bad name.

How NOT to Push a New Open Source License, Part 1

Maybe it's time for yet another open source license -- but Bruce Perens' covenant isn't it. Instead, consider this:

The Respect The Programmer License (RPL) Version 0.3

This file copyright (c) [year] [your name] [your email address]

All rights reserved.

1. You may use, create verbatim copies, and/or distribute this file, but you are not required to. You shall not modify this file or any copies.

2. If the file is written in a scripting language that runs in an interpreter, you may use this file, unmodified, in your program, and distribute it with your program.

3. If the file is a source code file that is normally used to generate a compiled program, you may use this file, unmodified, as part of the source for your program. You may distribute the compiled program with or without this file.

4. This file is provided "as is" and without any express or implied warranties, including, without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

5. The RPL is copyright (c) 2011 Barbara Hudson. Permission is granted to use the unmodified RPL to license your software. The canonical copy of this license, the release notes, FAQ, etc., can be consulted at http://milsecure.org.

End of license

For further information, contact Barbara Hudson at barbara.hudson@milsecure.org.

Interpretation/Deployment Notes

A. The RPL addresses one problem prevalent in most licenses, including the BSD, MIT, and GPL -- it's easier to just edit the file in front of you to fix a bug or add a feature than it is to contact the author and make sure everyone benefits. The RPL should eventually result in less duplication of effort and more, not less, sharing.

B. In the case of namespace conflicts (such as java or c++), please check to see if a similar file with namespaces is available from the author. The author will probably be happy to provide one, since you may not be the only person asking.

C. In the case of line ending conflicts, please check the author's website to see if there are Apple/Mac, DOS/Windows, or Linux/*NIX versions available. The author will probably be happy to provide one, since you may not be the only person asking.

D. If you need a modified version of the file, please ask the author. She or he may already be working on a new version with the changes you want. Alternatively, the author may be willing to write a custom version for you. Licensing terms for any such custom version are entirely at the author's discretion, and are not governed by this license.

E. This is an open source license -- you are free to view the code in this file and use it, intact, in any program you wish. This is not a copyleft license -- you are not required to distribute this source file with your program. This license grants you the freedom NOT to redistribute the source if you so choose.

F. You may charge any price you wish to distribute this file, and/or any program you create using it.

Remarks on the RPL

If code is written properly, it should be easy enough to integrate source files without changes. Worst-case scenario, those who use code licensed like this may have to create a "wedge" or "shim" file to interface between their code and the licensed code -- but that's good practice because it means that when an update is issued, the shim should mean that the new source won't have to be modified.

Not being copyleft means that it's more likely your code gets used. Some people will distribute it (in the case of run-time scripts, they really don't have a choice, right? :-) and this way you get credit for your work -- maybe not from the general public, but at least from your peers, which is what counts. People also know whom to contact for fixes and enhancements, leading to less waste and duplication of effort.

To those who whine "I don't want Google/Microsoft/Apple/whoever to use my code!" -- why not? Really, if you think they're evil because they close off code, how are you any better by doing the same to them? (plus, whining is for kids).

"But it conflicts with our anti-copyright anti-business agenda." Put down the bong, grab a bar of soap, and stop acting like a freetard. You're giving the rest of us a bad name.

Not being able to modify the source -- I can hear some of you going OMG THAT IS AWFUL! Hey, this is about respecting the programmer's copyrights, same as you can't modify that last book you bought. Since you can't modify or fork the file, maybe you'll collaborate with the author for a change, hmmm? Make sure bug fixes and enhancements get upstream. Or maybe even *gasp* pay them for some custom code -- or send a gift certificate for chocolate or a bottle of booze or something.

This isn't inspired by Borland's "Just Like a Book" license for its compilers (you could order the source libraries to examine, but not modify or share), but it has similarities. It's an improvement in that you can distribute the source if you want, and you can have multiple copies. But like Borland's license, you are not free to modify the code itself. Most projects should be able to accommodate that sort of limitation.

Security » FTC: Mobile Apps Not Exempt From Children's Privacy Regs

"App publishers that disregard COPPA, regardless of the communication methodology, do so at their own risk, and W3 makes it clear -- though it should have already been so -- that apps that interact with the World Wide Web or use Internet Protocol are without question covered," said Alan Friel, a partner with Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon.

Federal regulations designed to protect children's privacy cover the burgeoning mobile apps business as well as other online vehicles accessible through laptops or desktops. In fact, providers of mobile apps need to pay attention to the privacy impact not only of services offered specifically to children, but also those targeting the broader community that are nevertheless accessible to children.

In an enforcement case it revealed on Aug. 12, the Federal Trade Commission asserted that the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) covers mobile app offerings.

The enforcement action involved a complaint against a publisher of electronic games. The FTC alleged that W3 Innovations, through its Broken Thumbs Apps unit, developed and distributed mobile apps for the iPhone and iPod touch that allowed users to play games and share information online.

Several of the apps were directed to children and were listed in the Games-Kids section of Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) App Store. There were more than 50,000 downloads of those apps, the FTC said. They allowed children to play classic games, such as "Cootie Catcher" and "Truth or Dare," and to create virtual models and design outfits.

In the W3 Innovations case, the apps developed by the company encouraged children to email their comments and submit blogs to a company-generated site via email, such as "shout-outs" to friends and requests for advice.

The publisher collected and maintained more than 30,000 email addresses, the FTC alleged.

In addition, the defendants allowed children to publicly post comments, including personal information, on message boards, according to the agency.

Impact Goes Beyond Kids' Apps

Because the company's interactive apps send and receive information via the Internet, they are online services covered by COPPA, the FTC said.

"The FTC's COPPA rule requires parental notice and consent before collecting children's personal information online, whether through a website or a mobile app," said agency chairman Jon Leibowitz.

The rule also requires that website operators post a privacy policy that is clear, understandable and complete, but the company did not provide notice of its information collection practices and did not obtain the required parental consent, the FTC charged.

"Companies must give parents the opportunity to make smart choices when it comes to their children's sharing of information on smartphones," said Leibowitz.

"W3 is the first FTC case directly applying COPPA to mobile apps," Alan Friel, a partner with Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon, told TechNewsWorld.

There is still a question about the scope of COPPA in terms of private mobile app networks versus public networks, although private channels are relatively small in terms of use by the general public, including children, Friel observed.

"That said, app publishers that disregard COPPA, regardless of the communication methodology, do so at their own risk, and W3 makes it clear -- though it should have already been so -- that apps that interact with the World Wide Web or use Internet Protocol are without question covered," Friel said.

"The W3 case was focused on information about children and is generally applicable to all mobile app providers insofar as they collect information about children," Mark MacCarthy, vice president of public policy at the Software and Information Industry Association, told TechNewsWorld.

"W3 is important not just for kid's app publishers," noted Friel. "Websites that target adults, not children, have ended up paying seven-figure settlements for violating COPPA where they knowingly collected personal information from children under 13 without verified parental consent."

A common mistake occurs when age is collected at registration but those indicating they are under 13 are still allowed to register.

"All app publishers, particularly those that allow users to create profiles, need to take heed of W3," said Friel.

Congress Aware of Issue

The W3 case caught the attention of key lawmakers.

"Mobile apps can be great tools for kids to learn and have fun, but parents should never have to worry that their child's personal information is being collected or violated," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

"As the House author of COPPA," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., "I am pleased that the FTC pursued and brought charges against a mobile applications developer that was collecting and disclosing personal information about children under 13 in apparent violation of COPPA. Since COPPA was signed into law in 1998, children increasingly connect to the Internet on the go, using an array of mobile apps and new services that did not exist when the law was enacted."

While the FTC's action was based on existing law, Markey and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, jointly introduced legislation last May that would provide a specific statutory basis for including mobile apps under COPPA. The bill would amend COPPA to include the term "mobile applications" within the definition of "operator."

The bill, titled the "Do Not Track Kids Act of 2011," emphasizes protection associated with geo-location information but also says that within COPPA such terms as "online," "online service," "online application," "mobile application," and "directed to children" shall have the meanings given them by the FTC.

Without admitting to the allegations, W3 settled the case with the FTC, consenting to pay a US$50,000 penalty. The settlement also bars the company from future violations of the COPPA rule and requires the publisher to delete all personal information collected in violation of the FTC's rules.

W3's Broken Thumbs unit was "very surprised" by the FTC's action. Broken Thumbs "provided users with a means of interacting with one another and with our customer service department, which required the collection and retention of users' email addresses," the company explained in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by Barry Reingold, an attorney with Perkins Coie.

Broken Thumbs "did not ask for or collect information about the age of our users because there was no technical or functional need for this information," and its "sole purpose in collecting email data was to improve the user experience with our apps," it said. The company contended that no email address was ever used for marketing purposes or sold to another firm.

"As soon as the FTC informed us of its specific concerns -- and long before entry of the settlement order -- we took corrective action," the company said. "Any violations were inadvertent."

Tech News » Snoozing Technique Could Help Keep Smartphone Batteries Fresh

Smartphones have notoriously short battery life, but a new approach to power management could help address that problem -- at least, while they're being used on WiFi networks. The ingenious technique could also keep tablets, laptops and other mobile devices running longer without a charge. "It's a clever little discovery," said Carl Howe, a director of research at the Yankee Group.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have come up with a way to extend the battery life of tablets, smartphones and other devices that use WiFi.

Kang Shin, a professor of computer science and engineering, and Xinyu Zhang, a doctoral student, have developed E-MiLi, a power management method that could cut energy consumption by about 44 percent for up to 92 percent of users in WiFi zones.

E-MiLi, or Energy-Minimizing Idle Listening, involves slowing down the rate at which the WiFi receiver retrieves packets, along with filtering out unnecessary packets.

That filtering is done by creating special headers that include the destination address of each packet, and then applying an algorithm developed by Shin and Zhang that detects packets addressed specifically to a particular receiver and wakes up the receiver only then.

"It's a clever little discovery," Carl Howe, a director of research at the Yankee Group, told TechNewsWorld.

E-MiLi works for "all WiFi-equipped mobile devices, including mobile phones, tablets and laptops, and can also be used by WiFi networks such as ZigBee," said Zhang.

"It significantly improves the energy efficiency of WiFi devices," he told TechNewsWorld. "For example, it extends battery life by 54 percent for smartphones."

The E-MiLi Art of Selective Snoozing

Since it's not possible to predict when packets will arrive at a WiFi receiver, Shin and Zhang decided to reduce the clock rate of the receiver during its IL period and have it wake up and respond to incoming packets as they arrive.

However, receiving packets at a lower clock rate is a problem, because the Nyquist rate requires that the receiver's sampling clock rate must be at least twice the bandwidth of the transmitted signal.

So, E-MiLi uses a new approach called "Sampling Rate Invariant Detection," or SRID.

This adds a special preamble or header to each packet of data and incorporates a linear-time algorithm that can accurately detect the preamble even if the receiver's clock rate is much lower than that of the transmitter.

SRID embeds the destination address into the preamble so that a receiver will only respond to packets destined for it.

On detecting the preamble, the WiFi receiver rockets into full clock rate and recovers the data packet.

"Everybody forgets WiFi is based on Ethernet, and there never was any attention paid to this preamble and power-saving stuff because it was designed for a world of desktop and server computers," the Yankee Group's Howe pointed out.

"When they made it wireless, they probably should have spent more time on this," he added.

Why We Need E-MiLi or Something Similar

WiFi's power-saving mode doesn't help much, because it can't reduce the idle listening (IL) time associated with carrier sensing and configuration, Shin and Zhang found.

IL consumes as much energy as active transmission and reception, and WiFi clients spend lots of time in IL because of technical issues such as media access control (MAC)-level contention and network-level delays, noted Shin and Zhang.

Even with PSM enabled, IL accounts for more than 80 percent of energy consumption for clients in a busy network and 60 percent in a relatively idle network.

WiFi receivers must constantly be in IL mode because packets arrive unpredictably, and also because WiFi receivers must find a clear receiving channel.

That's true for all wireless radio receivers -- for example, Bluetooth hops among 79 channels in order to minimize receiving errors, according to a dissertation by Texas A&M University student Ahmed Ahmed Emira. Each Bluetooth packet has to arrive within a 625-microsecond slot.

Where E-MiLi Might Go

E-MiLi lets SRID be integrated into existing MAC or sleep-scheduling protocols by adding a downclocked IL mode into the receiver's state machine through Opportunistic Downclocking (ODoc).

ODoc takes a smart approach to downclocking, assessing the potential benefit of doing so before letting the receiver downclock.

Shin and Zhang's tests show that E-MiLi can detect packets with close to 100 percent accuracy even if the receiver operates at one-sixteenth the normal clock rate.

E-MiLi reduces energy consumption consistently across different traffic patterns without any noticeable performance degradation, Shin and Zhang found.

Device manufacturers will likely show the most interest in E-MiLi, said Zhang, because it runs in the hardware, firmware and device drivers of WiFi cards.

Security » FTC: Mobile Apps Privacy Protection Not Just for Kids

The legal basis for FTC action on privacy leans heavily on the agency's mandate to regulate deceptive practices. "FTC actions to date with regard to adult consumer data privacy and security have dealt with companies that do not follow their own policies, or have misleading policies or no notice of their policies at all," said Alan Friel, a partner with Wildman Harrold. Such deficiencies are considered deceptive practices.

Providers of apps for mobile devices are just as responsible as other electronic commerce vendors in terms of protecting the privacy of customers. In a recent enforcement action, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) signaled that mobile apps fall within the agency's jurisdiction, and that it will not hesitate to investigate potential privacy violations associated with mobile apps.

The enforcement action involved a complaint against a publisher of electronic games, and it marked the first time the FTC initiated a privacy case involving apps for mobile devices.

W3 Innovations, through its Broken Thumbs Apps unit, developed and distributed mobile apps for the iPhone and iPod touch that allowed users to play games and share information online. Several of the apps were directed to children and were listed in the Games-Kids section of Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) App Store. There were more than 50,000 downloads of those apps, according to the FTC.

While the W3 Innovations case was largely based on provisions related to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a key element in the case was FTC's determination that mobile apps are subject to its jurisdiction regarding privacy protection for all users, regardless of age.

Not Just for Kids

"The case represents the FTC's first enforcement action against a mobile app developer, and it seems to send a clear message that mobile app developers should follow the same rules as more traditional websites when it comes to consumer privacy issues and privacy policies, especially when marketing to children," states Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon in an analysis of the case posted online.

"There is no doubt that the evolution of consumer data privacy we are currently experiencing includes mobile," Alan Friel, a partner with Wildman Harrold, told TechNewsWorld.

The FTC has more than just hinted that mobile apps of all types are on its regulatory radar screen. The W3 Innovations case arose "because we have been paying attention to that area," Claudia Farrell, a spokesperson for the agency, told TechNewsWorld. Additional mobile app inquiries are in the pipeline at the FTC.

"Although the FTC does not enforce any special laws applicable to mobile marketing, the FTC's core consumer protection law -- Section 5 of the FTC Act -- prohibits unfair or deceptive practices in the mobile arena," David Vladeck, director of FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said at a Senate hearing last May.

The FTC "is making a concerted effort to ensure that it has the necessary technical expertise, understanding of the marketplace, and tools needed to monitor, investigate, and prosecute deceptive and unfair practices in the mobile arena," Vladeck added.

The legal basis for FTC action on privacy leans heavily on the agency's mandate to regulate deceptive practices -- rather than a standard that relates to invasion of privacy per se.

"FTC actions to date with regard to adult consumer data privacy and security have dealt with companies that do not follow their own policies, or have misleading policies or no notice of their policies at all," Friel said. Such deficiencies are considered deceptive practices.

Industry Active on Mobile Front

The issue of mobile apps privacy has suddenly become significant for online businesses. In early September, for example, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) joined the Future of Privacy Forum's Application Privacy Working Group and became a sponsor of FPF's Application Privacy project.

SIIA's participation with FPF is aimed at helping to develop voluntary privacy principles and best practices for mobile software applications. The goal is to lessen the likelihood of burdensome government regulation.

"Mobile app developers have a responsibility to create and disclose their privacy policies when they collect and use personal information. We are joining this effort out of the conviction that the industry does not need government regulation to move us in the direction of providing a trusted environment for our users," said Mark MacCarthy, vice president of public policy at SIIA.

While the W3 Innovations case highlighted the mobile apps privacy issue, SIIA's involvement with the FPF project was not solely based on the FTC's action.

"The W3 case was focused on information about children and is generally applicable to all mobile app providers insofar as they collect information about children. The need for good privacy practices is broader than that, and it was this broader concern for good data protection practices that motivated SIIA to affiliate with the Future of Privacy Forum," MacCarthy told TechNewsWorld.

"Continued growth and innovation in the vibrant mobile marketplace is dependent on consumer confidence in the privacy protections provided by mobile application providers. While many mobile application developers are transparent about their collection, use, and protection of consumer data, recent reports have indicated that this is not always the case," MacCarthy said.

Mobile apps providers will need to keep a sharp eye on how privacy eventually is regulated.

Self-Regulation Questioned

"FTC leadership has been fairly vocal in expressing its dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of current self-regulatory efforts. Congress too has grown inpatient, and a half dozen bills are under consideration that may result in greater regulatory authority for the FTC and requirements for greater transparency, choice, and security for consumers regarding their data, particularly regarding behavioral advertising, which tracks and targets consumer behavior and mobile," Friel said.

The class action bar has brought more than 50 lawsuits this year dealing with online and mobile tracking or targeting, he noted. "The issue is not going away soon."

In the W3 Innovations case, the apps developed by the company encouraged children to email their comments -- such as "shout-outs" to friends and requests for advice -- to a company-generated site. The FTC alleged that the publisher collected and maintained more than 30,000 email addresses in violation of federal regulations, including parental notice.

In addition, the FTC alleged that the defendants allowed children to publicly post comments, including personal information, on message boards.

Without admitting to the allegations, the company settled the case with the FTC on August 12. The firm consented to pay a US$50,000 penalty. The settlement also bars the company from future violations of the COPPA rule and requires the publisher to delete all personal information collected in violation of the FTC's rules.

W3 "did not ask for or collect information about the age of our users because there was no technical or functional need for this information," the company said in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by Barry Reingold, an attorney with Perkins Coie.

W3 Innovations maintained that "any violations were inadvertent."