GPL Violations Related to Combining ZFS and Linux - <AUTHOR> https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/ <comment><USER2> Torvalds indirectly made a strong case for ZFS being a not-derived work all the way back in 2003: [http://www.gossamer- threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/401977#40...](http://www.gossamer- threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/401977#401977)

He states: "having been developed totally independently of Linux: they literally were developed before Linux even existed, by people who had zero knowledge of Linux. That tends to strengthen the argument that they clearly aren't derived."

He does continue to say that he believe it would be "hard to argue that any new driver or filesystem was developed without any thought of Linux", although in the specific case of ZFS (as opposed to, say, nvidia.ko), I think there would be a strong argument that the ZFS module was originally written in whole as a non-derived work.

(Obviously, Linus is not the only stakeholder here, and even his own opinion may have changed since then. Still, it's not a new conversation and the community hasn't been too ruffled by the status quo for the past 13 years)

<comment><USER3> For those of us that can read source code there are a couple of strong indications that the Linux copyright holders still believe that Linux kernel modules may not necessarily constitute derivative works:

1\. Every Linux kernel module can tell the kernel what license regulates its use, using the MODULE_LICENSE() macro. The Linux kernel keeps track of which modules are under GPLv2 (and a few other compatible licenses). When a module under a presumably "proprietary" license is loaded the kernel will mark itself as "tainted". (It could just as well refuse to load the module, but it doesn't.)

2\. There are two macros used to export Linux kernel symbols: EXPORT_SYMBOL and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL. The former will make the symbol available to all kernel modules, while the latter makes it available only to GPL-licensed kernel modules. The clear purpose and motivation is that a kernel module that needs access to a symbol exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL must be a derivative work, while a kernel module that only depends on symbols exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL is not necessarily a derivate work.

Also, IANAL, but from a purely legal perspective I think it would be difficult to get a court to agree that a user space program that talks to the Linux kernel through system calls is never a derivative work, while a kernel module (even one that accesses only symbols exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL) is always a derivative work. The system call versus dynamic loaded module distinction is simply not very relevant from a purely legal perspective.

<comment><USER4> What this kind of analysis, which is very common, misses is this: there's potentially two "works" that need talking about here, not just one.

One work is the module, considered in isolation. Is that a derivative of the kernel? Possibly, but that's a reasonably high bar to clear. If it's not, distributing the module by itself can be done entirely without reference to the Linux kernel's license.

The other potential work though is the module-and-Linux-kernel (and possibly many other bits too), delivered as one combined work. Is _that_ a separate work as per copyright law? If so, is that work a derivative (of both the kernel and the module)? This is a much lower bar, and means that the combined work can only be distributed in accordance with the licenses of both the kernel and the module.

<comment><USER3> > What this kind of analysis, which is very common, misses is this: there's > potentially two "works" that need talking about here, not just one.

I agree this is only one side of the analysis (does zfs.ko fall under the Linux kernel GPLv2?), but that's also the only question that the OP can credibly address (because SFC is a copyright holder in Linux, not in ZFS).

> The other potential work though is the module-and-Linux-kernel (and possibly > many other bits too), delivered as one combined work. Is that a separate > work as per copyright law? If so, is that work a derivative (of both the > kernel and the module)? This is a much lower bar, and means that the > combined work can only be distributed in accordance with the licenses of > both the kernel and the module.

That line of reasoning would upend pretty much all open source licensing as we know it. E.g., paragraph 9 of the OSI's Open Source Definition [1] clearly states that "The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software." The fact that the OSI has accepted the GPLv2 [2] as an open source license implies that they (for one) do not agree.

1\. [https://opensource.org/osd](https://opensource.org/osd)

2\. [https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical](https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical)

<comment><USER5> SFC isn't a copyright holder of Linux. They are just giving their opinion.

Also, as far as combined work, the OSD is not talking about that, but what the GPL calls "mere aggregation". The GPL is quite clear that "mere aggregation" is not under the scope of the GPL, thus OSD consider the GPL to be open source. A module linked to Linux and distributed along with Linux, however, is no longer "mere aggregation", but distributed as a single work.

<comment><USER4> Some Linux copyright holders have assigned their copyrights to the SFC.

[https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft- compliance/](https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/)

<comment><USER5> Oh, i wasn't aware. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think what's cute is the part where they point out why citing lawyer's (especially those employed by interested parties) opinions is not helpful because of the biases lawyers have to aggressively represent the interest of their parties, such that their opinions will generally reflect not the most likely correct view of the law but the view of the law most favorable to the interests of their clients -- and then, in the next paragraph, proceed to present their lawyers' opinion of the key and fundamental determining factor in the situation.

Which, of course -- as they've just telegraphed -- reflects SFConservancy's vested interests in a maximalist interpretation of what is a "derived work", since that is what maximizes the scope of works to which the necessity to adhere to a license (like the GPL) applies.

<comment><USER7> In the case of Linux, Linus has a public position [1] that:

* A kernel module is _run_ by the kernel, not _incorporated_ in it,

* A kernel module only uses _LGPL_ interfaces, so full GPL compliance shouldn't be necessary,

* Binary modules should be legal (though he doesn't like them), and

* Projects (like filesystems developed for other platforms) with their own life outside of Linux shouldn't be required to re-license if they clearly weren't based on Linux.

I know Linus doesn't represent all kernel developers, but his opinion should carry a lot of weight.

The SFConservancy is just practicing GPL overreach here, and is rattling a saber in hopes that Oracle blinks. Ubuntu has been distributing NVidia binary kernel modules for years and this hasn't resulted in a lawsuit, so it seems like an empty threat.

[1] [http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Kernel/proprietary-kernel- modules....](http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Kernel/proprietary-kernel-modules.html)

<comment><USER8> > his opinion should carry a lot of weight

That's nice, but it's only one side. What about the opinion of the developers who wrote the module and licensed it under CDDL?

The incompatibility between CDDL and GPL is well-known, and the authors at Sun made it that way deliberately.

It's not kosher to just say, "Well the authors of the GPL software are okay with it, so it's fine." You need to respect the wishes of the developers who contributed the CDDL code to begin with.

<comment><USER9> > > his opinion should carry a lot of weight

> That's nice, but it's only one side. What about the opinion of the > developers who wrote the module and licensed it under CDDL?

The developers' opinions don't matter. All contributors used to have to sign a CLA to give copyright to Sun. Then Sun was bought by Oracle. So you should care about what Oracle thinks about copyright infringement.

> The incompatibility between CDDL and GPL is well-known, and the authors at > Sun made it that way deliberately.

No, that's bullshit. CDDL (which is just the MPL) is a file-based copyleft because _that 's what license fitted their requirements_. It's not their fault that people have a completely fucked up interpretation of "derivative work" that includes any combination of two completely separately developed works.

<comment><USER10> Oh please, even the author of the CDDL license states that this is so (Danese Cooper).

And it's not as if that admission was ever needed, were you even around back then ?

Solaris was being killed in the market by Linux, Sun decided to go open source in an effort to better compete with Linux, but there was NO way that they would give away their prized technology (ZFS, DTrace) under a license which would allow their main competitor to whom they were losing, to integrate said technology.

Hence CDDL, GPLv2 incompatible.

<comment><USER9> > Oh please, even the author of the CDDL license states that this is so > (Danese Cooper).

Wikipedia mentions several other authors. Maybe Wikipedia is wrong, but I am doubtful only one person wrote the CDDL.

> Solaris was being killed in the market by Linux, Sun decided to go open > source in an effort to better compete with Linux, but there was NO way that > they would give away their prized technology (ZFS, DTrace) under a license > which would allow their main competitor to whom they were losing, to > integrate said technology.

That is one telling of the story. Other Sun employees have different tellings. It's not as cut and dry as you claim.

CDDL is GPL incompatible in a very subtle way. The copyright of the CDDL licensed code isn't infringed, it's technically the copyright of the GPL code that's infringed. CDDL allows distribution of the binaries under a different license (provided the license doesn't restrict the users' rights, which the GPL doesn't), but the source files must always be under the same license. The GPL requires the source files for the "dervied work" be under the same license, which is where the incompatibility steps in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _in this context, Oracle could make everyone 's life easier by waving their magic relicensing wand._

Well, so could the linux developers by relicensing to MIT. That's not much of an argument.

Additionally, I'd still love to see an actual court case with regards to the GPL here. Licensing is always murky, because almost none of it has been tested directly in the courts. Thus the only legal opinions we have are from people who have a vested interest in the outcome one way or another. Let a court solve it once and for all please. In particular, I'd love to have a 100% lock on whether a binary module that links to the kernel is actually a derivative work or not.

<comment><USER12> On one hand a court decision would solve it once and for all on the other hand who the hell are we gonna find that A) is actually qualified to judge this sort of thing B) doesn't have a vested interest in one way or another.

On the gripping hand it wouldn't actually solve anything because lawyers will continually argue that _this_ case isn't covered by _that_ precedent.

<comment><USER13> I think the hard part would be to find someone with standing to sue. Finding a court would be easy.

Who really has standing in this case? Maybe Oracle could sue Canonical? Or perhaps a kernel developer could sue Canonical? (although that seems unlikely to me)

<comment><USER6> In the very article here, the SF Conservancy claims both to have a legal basis to sue _and_ willingness to do so, though the intention to do so only as a last resort.

<comment><USER13> I guess they would have standing here...

From: [https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft- compliance/](https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/)

 _In May 2012, Conservancy launched the GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers, which handles compliance and enforcement activities on behalf of more than a dozen Linux copyright holders.

The GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers is comprised of copyright holders in the kernel, Linux, who have contributed to Linux under its license, the GPLv2. These copyright holders have formally asked Conservancy to engage in compliance efforts for their copyrights in the Linux kernel. In addition, some developers have directly assigned their copyrights on Linux to Conservancy, so Conservancy also enforces the GPL on Linux via its own copyrights in Linux._

Although one wonders if copyright holders ever thought that they'd be suing a Linux company like Canonical...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is my understanding that Sun's lawyers originally created the CDDL to be GPL-incompatible, with the _specific desire_ that code under that license should _not_ be able to aid their then-competitor, Linux. How Canonical can suddenly decide that Sun's lawyers were wrong about this, I don't know. I suspect wishful thinking.

<comment><USER15> I believe that Bryan Cantrill has stated that it was surprising to the people at Sun when outside parties didn't start incorporating ZFS and other technologies into Linux, because the original intention when the CDDL was written was _not_ to be GPL-incompatible.

Edit: dwrensha posted a related comment ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11176361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11176361)) with a YouTube link of Bryan making the statement.

<comment><USER16> If that was the intent, is it not something that can be clarified and fix the problem? Or did they screw up too badly and it's unambiguously incompatible no matter what they say?

<comment><USER17> The problem is not the CDDL but the GPL in that case. That's the same reason GPL2 and GPL3 are incompatible.

<comment><USER18> That is easy to disprove. If CDDL did not care, then one could follow the conditions in GPLv2 and the two licenses would be compatible.

License incompatibility can _only_ occur if two license has _conditions_ which are _mutually_ exclusive. In this case, CDDL demands that source code must be distributed only under the terms of CDDL, and GPLv2 require that the distributed source code is made available under GPLv2. You can not comply with one without breaking the other, and thus we have license incompatibility.

<comment><USER17> > That is easy to disprove. If CDDL did not care, then one could follow the > conditions in GPLv2 and the two licenses would be compatible.

The entire point of the CDDL is that it's module local. The only way to achieve GPL compatibility is to become the GPL. That would be impossible for the CDDL to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Even if we ignore the ZFS license itself, the SF Conservancy appears to be arguing that _all_ proprietary kernel modules are GPL violations.

<comment><USER20> Exactly. They're arguing the combined work clause, which would automatically rule out all binary-only modules, such as nvidia.ko.

Most previous arguments about zfs.ko were about the derived work clause, which is much more grey. I belive that nvidia.ko would be more likely to be ruled a derived work than ZFS.ko, but that's hard to tell.

It does seem silly to argue about ZFS in this context. ZFS is open source and much less offensive to kernel developers than nvidia.ko.[1]

If nvidia.ko is fine, then so is zfs.ko. If nvidia.ko isn't fine, zfs.ko may or may not be fine. Ubuntu has been shipping nvidia.ko for years.

1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYWzMvlj2RQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYWzMvlj2RQ)

<comment><USER21> Of course the argument to be had here is OpenZFS lives completely independent of the Linux kernel, it runs on Illumos and FreeBSD and the availability of a Linux kernel module in no way makes or breaks the project. As such, is it a derived work since it is not dependent on the Linux kernel to exist?

This is the argument the Illumos developers make about including the GPL'ed KVM code, KVM does not depend on Illumos to exist, as such does loading the KVM module into an Illumos kernel constitute a derived work?

Conveniently, this is also precedent that could be set during the VMWare case the SFC is also perusing - we could either see ZFS relegated to being available anywhere but Linux and binary kernel modules totally banned (bad for nVidia, good for AMD), or a total change in the landscape of open source licensing (for better or worse).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article somehow implies a moral obligation on Oracle's behalf to either modify their licence or code to be gpl compliant. I sincerely hope they don't as the GPL brigade is getting louder in their intolerance of other licences.

<comment><USER23> > the GPL brigade is getting louder in their intolerance of other licences.

I really don't see much evidence of this, certainly not from the FSF/SFC, who specifically do _not_ discourage use of free licenses that are GPL-compatible, such as the BSD and MIT licenses[0]. The anti-GPL crowd is much more vocal about their distaste for the GPL, especially on forums like HN.

The issue at hand is the use of a license which is _not_ compatible with the GPL. No matter which way you slice it, that's a massive inconvenience to everyone, and pretty much nobody wins as a result.

(As for relicensing, it is literally impossible to change the license of Linux at this point, because the rights are held by thousands of contributors individually (some of whom are dead, and tracking copyright as it passes across estates is a notoriously difficult task[1]). If there's ever going to be a reconciliation between ZFS and Linux, it would require Oracle to relicense ZFS under any one of the many GPL-compatible licenses.)

[0] They _do_ , incidentally, discourage the use of the terms "BSD license" and "MIT license", arguing that those are ambiguous and should be deprecated in favor of "3-clause BSD license" and "X11 license", respectively. But that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, which is about the use of the actual licenses themselves and the terms they represent, not the names that people use to call them.

[1] Even figuring out if a given book can be reprinted is prohibitively difficult for publishers, and that's with works that only have _one single author_.

<comment><USER24> I think you got it backwards, the massive inconvenience for everyone is that Linux is using the GPL and people don't want to have to deal with all the re- licensing compatibility bullshit just to be able to distribute a binary of some other FOSS. seriously, CDDL is FSF/OSI approved.

Sure, Oracle could resolve it by switching to a GPL compatible license, but the problem is not oracle's clearly free software. The problem is GPL forcibly does not allow perfectly fine open source licensed software to be distributed in binary form due to it's copyleft.

<comment><USER25> GPL is "clearly free software" too, and FSF/OSI approved too. The problem is that the GPL and the CDDL _both_ have no-further-restrictions clauses, as mentioned in the article:

> 6\. …You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise > of the rights granted herein.

> 3.4 … You may not offer or impose any terms on any Covered Software in > Source Code form that alters or restricts the applicable version of this > License

The situation would be exactly the same if, say, Linux were under the CDDL and ZFS were under the 4-clause BSD license, or the OpenSSL license, or Creative Commons, or the MPL 1.0, or whatever. The GPL and the CDDL both have exactly the same "problem" here.

<comment><USER26> If both licenses only had no-further-restrictions clauses, they would be perfectly fine. The issue is the imposing of further restrictions, which only the GPL has in this case.

And if no-further-restrictions clauses are evil and have to go, well, then the GPL's no-further-restriction clause has to go as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is the kind of thing that could hurt Linux in the long term. If Linux bans non-GPL kernel modules, what of the NVidia drivers? I think most of the GPU compute code out in the world runs on NVidia GPUs. If NVidia starts pushing a BSD distro as the distro for high performance GPU computing so it would not have to deal with type of hassle, it might really change things.

Also, this is coming on the heels of the big glibc vulnerability. BSD with its greater emphasis on security and less ideologicallyy driven licensing might start to look more interesting to large corporations.

<comment><USER28> Distributing a binary version of the nvidia kernel module is a GPL violation, too.

<comment><USER29> According to whom?

More accurately, some people _think_ it is a GPL violation. There is no clear cut answer. You can get legal "opinions" either way.

My personal view is that it is NOT a GPL violation. This is implied for reading the Linux source code, which explicitly _allows for non GPL kernel modules_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> At this point, oracle can't wave their magic wand, as the SFC implies, and have the software be magically gpl-compatible. Since Oracle re-closed solaris, a lot of other entities have branched and forked and merged code into the openzfs codebase under the cddl. So you'd have to get in contact with all those entities to get it relicensed, unless you want to work on an ancient version of ZFS.

<comment><USER8> Not true. It doesn't matter who owns the copyright, because Sun has the keys to the kingdom and can publish a revision to the CDDL whenever they want. Forward compatibility is not something you opt-in to with the CDDL (unlike you have to do with the GPL).

This is, for example, how Mozilla has been relicensed to MPL 2.0 from earlier versions of the license—which the CDDL is based on, incidentally—even though there are no "any later version" notices anywhere in the headers or other files.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The amount of collective brainpower being burned on licensing issues for supposedly free (as in speech) software is astonishing.

I do symphatize with the sentiment that an author does not want his work to be a source of illicit gains for someone else, etc, neither do I, but at the same time find that the usefulness of a piece of code for other open source developers is (figuratively) inversely proportional to the length of the license, while the real abusers don't give a damn.

</comment><comment><USER32> "The CDDL cannot apply to the Linux kernel because zfs.ko is a self-contained file system module — the kernel itself is quite obviously not a derivative work of this new file system."

[https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/02/18/zfs-licensing-and- lin...](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/02/18/zfs-licensing-and-linux/)

</comment><comment><USER33> > _Sun released the Z File System (ZFS) code under the Common Development and > Distribution License, version 1 (CDDLv1) as part of OpenSolaris_

ZFS isn't an acronym. It _used_ to stand for Zettabyte File System (not Z File System as the article states), but like BP (formally British Petroleum), ZFS is no longer an acronym.

I wouldn't normally nitpick over something like this but that statement was the first sentence under the heading "The Basic Facts" and they didn't even get it's former name right.

<comment><USER34> It still stands for Zettabyte File System. That has never changed.

<comment><USER33> According to Jeff Bonwick, one of ZFS's lead developers, it did change. He discussed this point in detail ([https://blogs.oracle.com/bonwick/en_US/entry/you_say_zeta_i_...](https://blogs.oracle.com/bonwick/en_US/entry/you_say_zeta_i_say)), however I'll just quote the last couple of paragraphs for brevity:

" _But zettabyte wasn 't perfect, actually. We (we were a team by now) found that when you call it the zettabyte filesystem, you have to explain what a zettabyte is, and by then the elevator has reached the top floor and all people know is that you're doing large capacity. Which is true, but it's not the main point._

" _So we finally decided to unpimp the name back to ZFS, which doesn 't stand for anything. It's just a pseudo-acronym that vaguely suggests a way to store files that gets you a lot of points in Scrabble._"

<comment><USER34> I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why isn't Canonical using btrfs? (which is supposed to provide many or all of the features that one would want to use ZFS for, and is GPLed)

<comment><USER15> Because it still doesn't have the stability and maturity of ZFS (which has seen over a decade of production use)

<comment><USER36> OpenSUSE is using it for root, so I assume they think it is stable enough.

(Interestingly, they use XFS for /home)

<comment><USER15> Yeah, but is anybody using OpenSUSE? :P

Edit: Wow, I just checked DistroWatch and they've been #4 for some time now...

<comment><USER37> Most of Europe. At times it feels like there are almost parallel OSS ecosystems on the two sides of the Atlantic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Thank you Brian Behlendorf for your hard work on integrating ZFS into the Linux ecosystem! Mad props!

</comment><comment><USER39> This raises a whole bunch of questions, and none of the answers are good:

\- What's the difference between zfs and nvidia as binary blobs in the kernel? Either they are both incompatible on principle or they are not.

\- If the file system just uses standard kernel file system APIs then isn't it LGPL rather than GPL as per the exported symbols?

\- Given that relicencing either ZFS or Linux are prohibitively impractical what exactly is the point of assuming that may happen?

\- Who exactly complained about this? AFAIK the software conservancy doesn't have code themselves in the two products

\- If it goes to court the GPL may be harmed due to courts not understanding the difference between static and dynamic linking; who wins then?

It seems like the beginning of the mother of nobody wins, and very little upside in any case.

</comment><comment><USER40> For reference, here's a previous HN post with Canonicals stand on the issue: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11133676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11133676)

</comment><comment><USER41> If I understand the issue correctly, it's not ok to distribute a Linux with a zfs binary bundled, but it is ok to distribute a Linux with the zfs sources that builds the zfs binary at install time?

<comment><USER20> A rules-lawyering engineer might see one as a combined work and the other as separate works, but I highly doubt that any judge would find any difference between those two cases. IANAL.

<comment><USER42> The GPL makes an explicit distinction between source distribution and binary distribution. Are you saying a judge would reject that distinction? Would the judge find that simply having the source code to both the Linux kernel and ZFS on the same machine at the same time was a violation?

<comment><USER20> Yes, I forgot about that clause.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I was not aware of the subtleties regarding the ZFS license.

Would it be possible (read: legal) for someone to modify the ZFS source to be more easily buildable into the Linux kernel, but then distribute it as source code only, such that an end user can build a ZFS-enabled Linux kernel on their own?

Surely as long as the end user didn't distribute the resulting kernel, that would be OK?

Edit: I see that this has been done. Thanks. :)

<comment><USER43> > Would it be possible (read: legal) for someone to modify the ZFS source to > be more easily buildable into the Linux kernel, but then distribute it as > source code only

Yes and that has been done. The ZFS on Linux[0] distributes a DKMS source package that each user of ZoL uses to build a binary kernel module. DKMS automatically builds the module without manual interaction from the user, similarly to installing a regular binary package.

This is legal but the resulting kernel/zfs module is non-redistributable.

[0] [http://zfsonlinux.org/](http://zfsonlinux.org/)

<comment><USER44> Indeed, it's possible and even mostly-supported (at least on Gentoo) to compile the code into the kernel; i.e., not as a module. I have a zfs system without kmod support (reduces a huge attack surface and just seems cleaner).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> GPLv2 contains the line

>This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

So couldn't the FSF fix this by releasing a later version of the GPL that allows for this combination?

[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why- gplv3.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html) seems to imply that that wouldn't work, but I don't understand why. Can someone with more experience with the GPLs enlighten me?

<comment><USER21> Linus removed that line from the kernel license because he disagreed with the tivoization clause in GPLv3, so the Linux kernel will forever remain GPLv2.

<comment><USER20> Linus removed that line before GPLv3 was created because he didn't want to give the FSF the ability to arbitrarily relicense his work to a license that he didn't have a chance to vet.

If he liked the GPLv3 he may have added the line back in, but he hasn't done so for the reason you mentioned.

<comment><USER46> The FSF couldn't arbitrarily relicense his work or the work of any of the other contributors to the Linux kernel that they don't hold the copyright to.

The GPLv3 had a long and comprehensive consultation phase. Linux contributors were involved in that.

And there's more than just dislike preventing relicensing - it would require contacting all the current Linux copyright holders and getting their agreement (or removing their code if they decline).

On balance I'd rather Linux remained GPLv2 than relicensed to Apache 2, so this is a good example of the definition of a compromise. :-)

<comment><USER20> That's exactly what happened to Samba. It was originally licensed with "GPLv2 or later", and now it's "GPLv3 or later". The main contributors to Samba were leading the switch, but they didn't get explicit permission from every single copyright holder, nor did they have to.

<comment><USER47> They didn't need to contact the contributors because of that "or later" clause. The license explicitly lets anyone relicense to GPLv3 without asking anybody first.

Linux's license doesn't have that clause, so you're not automatically allowed to relicense. Switching to GPLv3 would require the copyright holders to explicitly do so. Since Linux doesn't require contributors to assign copyright to some central organization, "the copyright holders" means all contributors, past and present.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I find it interesting that the SFConservancy argues 'Oracle has a magic wand to make this all go away' by re-licensing ZFS but completely ignores that just as much they could re-license the kernel under a CDDL compatible license. Given that Linux (in the broader sense) is asking for something it'd sound more reasonable for them to accomodate the other parties demands.

What they do is like saying "Hey I want to buy your house, what you don't want to sell it? How about you make it cheaper then so I can afford it!"

<comment><USER49> Um... re-licensing the kernel at this point has been deemed completely impossible [0].

0\. [https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/1774/why- does...](https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/1774/why-does-linux- still-use-the-gplv2)

<comment><USER50> Um... If they really cared about making a quality product they would fix their existing problems, including their (apparently) poor choice of a license. Just because it is hard doesn't mean their shouldn't fix it.

<comment><USER49> It's not that it is hard, it is that there are literally thousands of contributors that have contributed code under a gplv2 license that would have to be hunted down and consulted about any license change. I'm sure if you're up for it they would be happy to have someone give it a shot so that if a re- license was needed in the future they could do it, but right now there is simply no way to legally re-license the code without spending thousands of hours getting people to sign little pieces of paper that could be used improving the kernel (zfs or no).

<comment><USER50> Right. So hard? Its a lot of work that is unplesant and nobody wants to do, I think that qualifies as "hard". I do agree its impractical, but it seems that for something as important as a function, working file system (and don't suggest that butterface fs is a production ready alternative) that somebody would put in the work to make it happen. After all the file system is everything, if you can't safely store your data, whats the point?

<comment><USER50> As an addition to the above, clearly ZFS is better than the common alternative: raid cards running some unknown firmware (that is most definitely open).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Why is Canonical bothering with the distribution of a binary ZFS module when building it via DKMS at install-time is already very simple (although, admittedly, time-consuming)? Their minimum system requirements, which gives the live environment plenty of resources to support compiling a kernel module, already weed out systems incapable of running ZFS. I just don't understand why Canonical's willing to take the risk of a successful copyright infringement suit involving the next Ubuntu release.

<comment><USER52> Because canonical wants to be the os of light weight vm images and docker images. You can't do that if the first step in distribution is always "boot into a separate filesystem, compile a kernel module, then reboot", and then if you want to distribute your image to anyone outside your organization, be sure to first remove that kernel module, and have them do the same process again.

<comment><USER51> The engineering problems are tractable even in those cases: Don't put the root file system on ZFS. Develop some kind of first-boot initrd that includes enough of a toolchain to build zfs.ko. I'm sure there are other, better ways to solve shipping ZFS in a virtual machine image, especially compared that to the legal and business risks of having a LTS release deemed a copyright infringement: Court costs, legal fees, fines, re-releasing Ubuntu, etc.

<comment><USER52> I don't think they are tractable. They break the requirements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Am I missing something obvious here?

Is it a GPL violation to create a separate .deb which includes only the binary kernel module for zfs which can be simply apt-get'd?

Or are canonical planning on including the zfs code in the base 'kernel- blabla' package?

If the latter, why not just have a sep package for the module? I imagine you'll need to install some 'zfs' package to get the userland tools anyway ?

<comment><USER42> The single "zfs.ko" file that contains the ZFS kernel module is derived from both the ZFS sources and the Linux kernel sources, because you need the Linux kernel sources to link a module with the Linux kernel.

(Actually I think you just need the headers, but those are GPLv2 anyway, so the distinction is irrelevant.)

<comment><USER54> Actually they are LGPL, according to other posts in this thread. Which would make it perfectly OK.

I'm not well enough traversed in the kernel source to find a direct reference but you see commits like this every now and then:

[https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux....](https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=09a77a885233e2a20dac2635a79c83ccf50a26a1)

Having parts of the kernel LGPLed doesn't seem like an unusual or odd thing, from what I can tell:

[https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux....](https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?qt=grep&q=lgpl)

<comment><USER55> Of the 9 commits listed there, 2 are removing LGPL headers, 2 are adding LGPL headers to scripts which aren't linked into the kernel, 1 is relicensing a header file so it can be used outside the kernel, 1 is changing from linking against an external GPL3 library to an LGPL2 library without changing the licence of the tool that's in the kernel tree, 1 is an author noting that he's bringing in some external LGPL code which he wrote and is relicensing, 1 is a commit removing a driver and noting that an LGPLed userspace replacement exists, and 1 is noting an external LGPL userspace tool in the MAINTAINERS file.

So of all of those, literally 1 is changing the licence _to_ LGPL.

A better search is [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%2...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%22Lesser+General+Public+License%22), which reveals 147 results in the code.

This is still _tiny_ , given that the kernel is a ~20 million LOC codebase, so yes, I would call LGPL code in the kernel an unusual thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I ask having no idea...

Does Linux allow for a file system to be invoked at run-time using a general- purpose interface? (If not, could one be added?)

If ZFS could be modified to use the general-purpose interface, people who wanted to use it could download it and install it.

<comment><USER33> Yup. It's called FUSE and ZFS is available that way as well. The problem with running file systems in the user space is that they're generally really slow since you're chucking lots more data backwards and forwards between the user space and kernel space. So kernel drivers are much preferred in this instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> So the only people that could sue based on this supposed GPL violation are the copyright holders of the Linux kernel, right? I doubt that they have the intention to do that.

<comment><USER58> Several copyright holders have assigned their copyright to SFC, so SFC can act on their behalf. There is also at least one copyright holder that is unhappy about Canonical distributing ZFS with the kernel:

[https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700074164435091456](https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700074164435091456)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Docker Docker Docker , who cares its Ubuntu Linux

</comment><comment><USER60> perhaps people should've stopped messing about with ZFS a long time ago. it's always been known that licensing problems exist, yet people toil away as if they'll magically disappear - all they do is make Oracle product offerings stronger. if Oracle is happy to attack Google, they're sure as hell fine with the much smaller Canonical.

</comment><comment><USER61> First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.</comment>


Groklaw dissects Apple's trial brief on trade dress claims - <AUTHOR> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120805030730169

<comment><USER2> PJ: _"It does seem to be a deliberate Apple strategy, to just knock out as much of Samsung's ability to tell its story as it can, and in fact, that's what lawyers are supposed to do, if it's all true and fair. But forgive me if at least one eyewitness, me, concludes that this indicates that Apple is pretty sure it can't win _unless_ it excludes a great deal of Samsung's evidence, both for its defense and for supporting its counterclaims. If I am right about that, it means it feels it can't win fair and square."_

This paralegal's idea of billion dollar boxing matches is that you should keep your hands down and offer your opponent your chin, just to give them a sporting chance? That if you keep your hands up, it must mean you feel you can't win? What happened to "float like a butterfly"?

Pardon me, miss, your bias is showing.

<comment><USER3> I am not sure how you are reading that statement, but it seems to me that she is very clearly recognizing that what they are doing is the correct decision, from a practice of the law standpoint. She is not saying that they should do otherwise.

schraeds: You have been hellbanned for 126 days. Nobody can see your posts unless they opt-in to seeing 'dead' posts.

Regardless, you would have to ask her to clarify her reasoning. The way I see it though is that she is speculating on _why_ that happens to be the correct thing to do in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "If you are Samsung, looking at this list {Samsung motions denied more then Apple's}, what are you thinking? I'm thinking it too."

Right it's a conspiracy PJ! The judges are in on it! Maybe we can tie it into the Korean fencer who got robbed in London? idk

It couldn't possibly be that Samsung has a weak case because, well let's acknowledge the 500 pound gorilla in the room -- nobody really doubts for a second that Samsung intentionally copied the iphone and ipad closer than every other non-KIRF competitor.

It's a neat trick to simultaneously claim that our IP laws are hopelessly oppressive (to which I mostly agree) and that no one involved in open source ever violates them. Bravo!

</comment><comment><USER5> I enjoy reading Groklaw's coverage. It gets a bit over the top at times but I see that as passion more than prejudice. I find the stuff where pj and Florian go after each other a bit soap opera like and tend to skip over much of that stuff.

<comment><USER6> From what I recall, groklaw.net (by Pamela Jones) is based on donations, and PJ works as a paralegal. Florian Mueller is a paid consultant on patent issues, and uses FossPatents.com to get consulting/expert witness clients and this sometimes shows through in his blog. He also consults for Oracle and Microsoft.

<comment><USER7> True. But we don't know the source of those donations.

And seriously PJ's bias shows through on her blog pretty loud and clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In case anyone else wonders what "trade dress" means:

Trade dress is a legal term of art that generally refers to characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging (or even the design of a building) that signify the source of the product to consumers.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress>

</comment><comment><USER9> For anyone who loves to get an insight into the intellectual intricacies how another industry (in this case, law) works, this is a fantastic read.

</comment><comment><USER10> I find this stuff fascinating.

But, are the jurors not as clueless about why a given line of questioning as we were?

They don't get to see this doc, do they?

<comment><USER11> I would bet most of that comes up in opening and closing arguments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Groklaw would be awesome as a summary that average people can read and understand... if it wasn't for the spin.

Thing like excusing being late to file "Do you know how late Samsung was in the three instances I found? Two days late on two occasions, and one month late on another". Meanwhile if you are late by even one day paying a fee for a vehicle offense your license is suspended (at least in my state). Or try being just 1 hour late for jury duty and see how forgiving the judge is. Nobody else can get away with missing a court date.

There must be something not quite right about the case because the judge is following the rules. What?!</comment>


Good Old Excel is the Ultimate Data Visualization Tool - <AUTHOR> http://insights.qunb.com/good-ol-excel-is-the-ultimate-data-visualization-tool-in-most-cases

<comment><USER2> They succeeded in demonstrating their alternate thesis that Excel can be made to look less bad than default Excel. However, that is a lot of clicking for some cookie cutter visualizations.

I would posit that an "ultimate" visualization tool would allow me to exploratorily map aspects of my data to various aesthetic properties of the plot, such as size, color, shape, and transparency. I'd also expect to be able to get something reasonably close to publication quality straight out of the software without a whole bunch of tweaks.

I was hoping that this post would show me something about visualization workflow or extensions they'd written to ease some of the old pain points. As it is, they lead with a statement that is pretty laughable if we compare to ggplot2 or Tableau.

<comment><AUTHOR> ggplot2 and Tableau are high-end tools, meant for experts. My intent here is to show that an average organization can do a pretty good job with the tools they _already_ have. The data discovery tech we're baking will actually totally simplify the way people visualize / discover their data. But until it's shipped, I'm just claiming people can use excel. Thanks anyway for your comment.

<comment><USER2> And I can appreciate that, though you can see why the sensational title might confuse someone on the intent.

Also, I'd argue that Tableau doesn't require any particular expertise beyond what is required for Excel. Though Tableau isn't my preferred tool, I've seen great results come from total novices. It has the side benefit of sneakily training people to "think beyond the canned" and to develop novel visualizations that may better get to the heart of the relationships present in the data.

I get it that ggplot2 requires some minimal coding ability, however I've also seen good (i.e. superior to stock excel) results come out of never-before- coded grad students in an only nominally quantitative discipline. Certainly the business people who power our economy and command great sums of wealth are capable of such modest feats?

<comment><AUTHOR> "Certainly the business people who power our economy and command great sums of wealth are capable of such modest feats?" => unfortunately no, IMHO. I used to be a consultant, and I can tell from experience that there's no chance that any tool like R could possibly penetrate an audience of business people... Though, I share that dream with you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The problem with Excel is not visualization, it's sharing and updating. If you want to compete in visualization, look at Power Point, not Excel.

I really look forward the day somebody tackles the issue of sharing/updating spreadsheets across many users that speak different languages, are in different countries, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's our vision at qunb! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lighting everything is a fashion which will disappear. People need to BE ABLE to read as FAST as they can. Light fonts are that perk which makes things 'look' great but convey little information.

Otherwise, great and clear ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that using gray scales actually focuses the user on more valuable assets on the data visualization. But you're right, it's also a fashion. Thanks for your comment.

<comment><USER4> Oh, I intended to say "gray color for text" (which makes it less readable) and got confused, sorry :)

I liked your post a lot, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Excel is not at all a bad visualization tool...it's just that the lowest- common denominator of white-collar types use it, hence, the seemingly many terrible examples. By the time you're skilled enough to figure out R or D3, you're less likely to do something completely ugly...often because it's _hard_ to add flair. However, D3 is starting to see way too many people who think adding force-directed balls is a good visualization, when such an interface is worse than what most Excel visualizations end up being.

I was hoping the OP would focus on the beauty of the table as a visualization, something I wish was used more often despite its simplicity.

Tufte's small multiples is a kind of table, and a very effective one. This was one of my favorite examples he uses in his books, and helped to get Gotti acquitted:

[http://www.thejuryexpert.com/wp- content/uploads/gotti.jpg](http://www.thejuryexpert.com/wp- content/uploads/gotti.jpg)

Here's a modern take by the NYTimes:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/24/sports/top- fin...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/24/sports/top-finishers-of- the-tour-de-france-tainted-by-doping.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER4> Despite not liking the NYT example (too much clutter to my sight and using faces conveys little information because they are difficult to match and to distinguish), I really look forward to an age in which data analysts treat readers as intelligent and show data as data, not as nice plots.

The problem with charts is twofold:

a) They are very very easily turned into ideological tools.

b) They are very very easily turned into 'kitsch' pastiches made by uninformed people trying to make beautiful-looking summaries.

Look at the charts here (population density [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density)): is it good or bad to have a population density of >500? Is it even good or bad to have it at 41-500? What would you have thought if the colors were reversed? Compare with this one (deforestation [http://www.cryonie.com/en/world/images/map- deforestation.jpg](http://www.cryonie.com/en/world/images/map- deforestation.jpg)): is it good or bad to have forests?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Less is more" : love the spirit :) Nice tips.</comment>


Should Apple buy a phone company? - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/05/22/what-should-apple-buy-with-their-billions-their-own-carrier/

<comment><USER2> I can't find the article that originally referenced this... but the idea that Apple would buy a phone company was made obsolete with the AT&T service issues that were present in the United States. By commercially separating the Network from the Phone - a new concept for the carrier-lock in situation in the states - it removed a large segment of risk from the user experience. How many times have you heard "the iPhone is great, but AT&T has terrible service" or something else along those lines? It's a common argument.

People don't understand the difficulties of having lots of data on a large- scale network across thousands of miles of cities, countrysides, and elevation differences. They do understand if a computer or phone is slow, though. This way, there are problems, but it's not because of Apple and their immaculate product. Why tarnish your brand with something people won't understand?

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the iPod Touch is a sleeper product here. First gen was pretty much just an iPod. Apple added a speaker, then a mic and now front/rear cameras and facetime. The current $200, own outright, no contract iPod is already a feature packed video phone (y'know, from the future) with one catch: it requires wireless connectivity, something that's only going to become more ubiquitous.

All Apple needs to do is switch off video on facetime, find a way to add voip style phone numbers (like Skype et al) and then sell it as $200 phone, no plan required.

<comment><USER4> yup, I'm already doing exactly that. I use my iPod Touch (4th gen) as a phone with a voip app and a voip subscription.

I'm always near wifi except when I'm in my car, and I have a pay-as-you-go cell for those times.

<comment><USER5> If you're in your car (which implies you're driving, since it's YOUR car), you shouldn't be using a phone.

<comment><USER3> not sure about the rules where you or pagekalisedown are, but in Western Australia (rules vary state by state) it's legal to phone whilst driving provided you're using a hands free kit

<comment><USER5> I wasn't going for the legality of the issue, I was going for it's overall more dangerous to drive while using the phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> By the same logic, Microsoft should have bought AOL in 1998. There were millions of people using AOL's network on Windows machines -- obvious synergy, right?

AOL was a previous-generation network infrastructure company. Current mobile phone operators are in a similar position. Any IT company should stay away from making long-term bets on them: just play nice to get what you need from the operators now, and let these dinosaurs go extinct when the market eventually changes.

<comment><USER7> Bad analogy. AOL didn't own anything essential like the spectrum owned by the mobile operators. I don't see WiFi as being a replacement for this spectrum and note that WiMax relies on it.

<comment><USER6> The spectrum is immensely valuable, but it's fundamentally owned and controlled by governments who have the power to decrease its value by imposing more regulation on current operators and/or opening up new spectrum bands to new competitors.

Current operators appear to me as not unlike the railroad monopolies of the late 19th century. Immensely powerful and seemingly irreplaceable, but on the brink of being disrupted to irrelevance.

<comment><USER7> All the US auctions I know of, Verizon and ATT have bought most of the spectrum -- probably because few can afford to outbid them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article is light on factual research and chock full of daydreaming. Could apple buy up another piece of the mobile communication puzzle? Sure. But I'm certainly not holding my breath for this to happen. Apple is a product company, not a service one. And I see no factual indication in the article they're eager to change this by running around installing antennas in Starbucks. Google on the other hand...

</comment><comment><USER9> Seriously? A company that takes pride in only having a handful of different products, buying huge amounts of infrastructure? Also, how likely is it, that this infrastructure is worth a dime in decade? Quite, likely I guess, but it would still be risky bet.

On top, as Swannie has pointed out, Apple has an international market.

<comment><USER10> _Also, how likely is it, that this infrastructure is worth a dime in decade?_

If they buy Clear, they're possibly going to face obsolescence. Many folks think Wimax will lose out to technology like HSPDA+ and LTE in a few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes, they could charge $35/mo and still make the subsidyback... provided it costs nothing to provide the phone service.

Back in the real world, why would anyone want to own a phone company? Even the phone companies don't want to be phone companies anymore.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think it is unlikely that Apple would buy Sprint. It is an extremely US centric option, and whilst Apple's home is the USA, they are a global company.

Clearwire is a little more likely, but WiMax is just not matching the performance:power ratio that LTE is offering.

As the article points out, the expense of a network build is mostly in the land for towers (and the backhaul from tower site to network point-of-presence - sometimes 100s of miles of fiber/microwave links). Buying Clearwire still lands it with a lot of cruft that they don't need.

So the third way, unmentioned by the article, is that Apple goes into a joint venture with a cell co. Joint ventures for infrastructure sharing (site, tower, power on site, security, etc.) have long been established in the UK and other EU countries (site sharing is used everywhere, but often only on a site by site basis, with tower sharing not always happening).

Also in the UK market we've seen consolidation on the radio access network front. Everything Everywhere is the network operator for two UK cell co's. At the moment they still operate their own backend networks, but roaming between the two is free.

If Apple were to go to Sprint/Clearwire with a proposal to create a infrastructure or radio access network sharing operating company, this is a win for all - reduced costs for the existing service provider (giving a competative advantage) and access to Apple to build out their own iNetwork.

</comment><comment><USER12> Jobs drives towards elegant, uncluttered solutions. Much of his "vision" stems from his ability to say "No." to crappy stuff ([http://blogs.forbes.com/carminegallo/2011/05/16/steve- jobs-g...](http://blogs.forbes.com/carminegallo/2011/05/16/steve-jobs-get-rid- of-the-crappy-stuff/)).

This being the case, if I were Jobs - and if I wanted to own and operate a network - I'd want to build my own. But licenses for bandwidth are scare resources, and building a mobile network from scratch takes a long time. The most apparent way around this is to buy a carrier, as the author points out.

So, if Apple were to buy a carrier, yes, it'd be under very specific conditions. Basically, the Apple M&A team would be using a due diligence period to slice and dice the deal (and the carrier) in such a way to make sure Apple skims the cream, and is able to slough off the rest to someone else, and recuperate money off the divestiture, in the process. They would know how they were going to get this done, before they sign any contract, or there wouldn't be any deal.

The problem is, it's hard to see why another carrier would buy the legacy mobile infrastructure from Apple, w/o all the shiny new bits. Also, it's not clear that Apple would want to have to operate, manage, and upgrade a wireless network. I can't see Apple wanting to own a utility company.

So, on a different track, I think the author discounts the "soft carrier" approach too easily. In addition to saying "No." to crappy stuff, Jobs wants to enter markets where Apple can change the game. So, how would one change the game as a wireless carrier, not just as a mobile device manufacturer?

If I were Apple, I'd license spectrum from multiple carriers, depending on who has the strongest coverage in a particular geographic area.

Apple is already using the chips/antennas in the iPhones that support both the CMDA & GSM standards across all freqs. With licenses to operate AppleNet over multiple carriers, Apple would be uniquely situated to create smartphones and other mobile devices that could seamless operate over a multi-spectrum/multi- protocol virtual wireless network. Ultimately, Apple could license spectrum from multiple carriers in the same market, and have their iOS devices automagically switch from one to another without the customer noticing the handoffs. Plus, Apple can do the same in different markets, scaling AppleNet globally. Customers would have _one_ AppleNet account, with "local" billing, regardless of where in the world they are.

Now, _that_ would be a mobile market game changer. Again.

Of course, this multiple-licensee "soft carrier" approach to an AppleNet is probably a pipe dream, as well. The roadblock to innovation in the wireless industry, as always, are the wireless carriers. While stupid and slow, the carriers are cunning operators. They would likely see this move by Apple as being against their long-term interests, and resist Apple treating them as the utilities that they really are. Apple may be able to overcome their concerns by appealing to their short-term profit interests (a weakness of any publicly traded company), just like they did with AT&T and the original iPhone. But this time, if Apple were to make it happen, the short-term bait wouldn't be a shiney iPhone. It'd be good, old-fashioned, cold, hard CA$H monies.

</comment><comment><USER13> Not gonna happen. Service companies are the whipping boy of every muttered complaint under a user's breath. Not to mention the antitrust issues that would inevitably come up.

</comment><comment><USER14> "We cannot allow your website on our AppleNet, because it doesn't follow our AppleNet rules". _insert Yao Ming laughing rage face here_

</comment><comment><USER15> Bizarre thinking to say "Apple would charge $35/month for unlimited usage". When has Apple ever gone the route of price competition? They'd charge $99/month or more and people would gladly pay it.

<comment><USER16> Incidentally, did folks know that Virgin Mobile is now offering prepaid unlimited data + text + 300 voice minutes for $25 a month on a prepaid plan? It's an insanely good deal.

Anyway, the days of $99 a month phone plans are presumably coming to an end.

<comment><USER17> Not in Canada. I pay about $80/m for 350 minutes, free evenings and weekends, 1GB of data, and "My 5 Nationwide". We need some more competition up here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't see Apple buying a phone company. Maybe they will buy a competitor. Amazon is "only" worth $90 billion, which means Apple could pay out of pocket with cash very soon!

</comment><comment><USER19> No, but Google should.

</comment><comment><USER20> No, a phone company doesn't scale. A national phone company doesn't help Apple globally.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can anyone imagine Apple operating, supporting, maintaining, and upgrading a national or global commodity telecommunications grid? Strikes me a small distraction from Jobs' vision - create great products.

The idea is completely contrary to what Apple is good at and what they want to do.

</comment><comment><USER22> No.</comment>


Prescribed Painkillers Didn't Cause the Opioid Crisis - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3z98b/big-pharma-didnt-cause-the-opioid-crisis-most-pain-patients-dont-get-addicted <comment><USER2> About time we start that conversation.

I just went through some ugly dental work. I would rate post op pain high, 8, maybe 9.

Doubling up on tylenol and advil was pretty miserable.

The thing is, only a day or two, maybe few is ugly. After that, it becomes tolerable.

Sure would have been nice to deal with that pain like an adult, rather than suffer politics.</comment>


Introducing OpenPetFoodFacts, the Wikipedia for Pet Food (for iOS,Android and Web) - <AUTHOR> https://en.blog.openfoodfacts.org/news/goodbye-open-food-facts-and-open-beauty-facts-welcome-to-open-pet-food-facts <comment><AUTHOR> The android app is now live: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.openpetfoo...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.openpetfoodfacts.scanner)

As is the website: [https://world.openpetfoodfacts.org](https://world.openpetfoodfacts.org)

lthough Open Food Facts went from 100k to 300k products in just a few months, indexing all the food in the world proves to be a sizeable challenge: there are still millions of products not yet indexed all over the world.

As a result, we decided to focus on a task easier to achieve: Pet Food. And while we love all pets equally, in order to make our objective reachable, we have to focus only on one kind of pet: dogs, or cats or birds, etc.

But the good news is that you get to decide which pet that is, by participating in our worldwide competition:

1 New Pet Food uploaded to Open Pet Food Facts = 1 Vote for the Pet Food type of your choice</comment>


Netflix Chaos Monkey Upgraded - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.netflix.com/2016/10/netflix-chaos-monkey-upgraded.html <comment><USER2> I wonder what the reasoning was for having version 2 only terminate instances (vs burning up CPU, taking disks offline, etc.)? I assume it's something to do with what Chaos Monkey is NOT trying to solve (ie. eating up CPU is caught elsewhere by another system and out of scope for Chaos Monkey now). Just trying to think it through...

<comment><USER3> I would assume that terminating is easy via the AWS API, whereas some of the other things need a process on the instance. You shouldn't really be connecting to boxes directly over SSH if you do DevOps correctly, so maybe they blocked port 22 to enforce this.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean by "do devops correctly" to avoid SSH on boxes? (I'm a developer, not devops.)

<comment><USER5> "Devops" has bazillions of meanings, but avoiding (human) ssh to production boxes is a generally sound principle these days because our infrastructures are becoming harder to understand by poking at boxes one or two at a time now even for forensic analysis.

<comment><USER6> So logging in to a server to check a logfile (assuming i dont or cant do centralized logging) is considered anti-devops ?

Edit: Sorry responded to wrong parent, sigh.

<comment><USER7> At this scale, you basically have to have centralized logging. When you have thousands of parallel instances of a single application, searching logs box- by-box just isn't practical.

Consider also that if you're elastically scaling EC2 instances and you need logs off an instance that's since been terminated, too late! That disk is gone. So again, you need a central log service.

<comment><USER8> Parsing logs isn't the only way to troubleshoot.

<comment><USER9> It's not even the best way, just sometimes it's the only way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I posted this piece of news to my team Slack at work, and a colleague of mine wrote: "we don't need chaos monkey, we have developers for that".

While being funny, it also holds a lot of truth. I guess that Netflix can hire really top-notch devs who do not accidentally force downtime to their software.

<comment><USER11> The difference is scale. Only a handful of companies run at Netflix scale.

I wouldn't trust developers to do what Chaos Monkey does at such a scale, no matter how good you think they are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another useful tool is [https://github.com/gaia- adm/pumba](https://github.com/gaia-adm/pumba) \- like ChaosMonkey, but just for Docker containers. The coolest part for us was emulating networking problems between containers (packet loss, unavailability etc).

<comment><USER13> What do you use for high availability with Docker?

<comment><USER12> HA containers for us means smart orchestration tools. We did not want to lock ourselves into Docker-only infrastructure (even now rkt is a very compelling alternative), and wanted an orchestrator/scheduler that is focused entirely on that job. Outside of Swarm, Mesos & co appeared too intrusive, and Nomad is quite narrow in what it does. So we picked Kubernetes and are very happy with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> First, a shameless plug for an alternative implementation: [https://github.com/BBC/chaos-lambda](https://github.com/BBC/chaos-lambda)

Seems unfortunate that it requires the coupling with spinnaker - although i can see how it helps with the cluster definition features.

Edit: I'll add that we've been using the original chaos monkey and chaos lambda extensively in production for some time with very few problems.

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting that all of the resource burning features have been removed, I wish they had expanded on the reasons why. I always found those to be the most differentiating features of Chaos Monkey. Did they just not get a lot of use internally at Netflix?

<comment><USER16> Resource exhaustion manifests as latency or failure. We inject latency and failure using FIT, so we can limit the "blast radius". When you are testing these failure modes, you are more testing the interaction between micro services, and this requires a bit more precision and sophistication.

Source: I'm on the Chaos team here at Netflix.

<comment><USER17> For reference, FIT: [http://techblog.netflix.com/2014/10/fit-failure- injection-te...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2014/10/fit-failure-injection- testing.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is awesome. Since Chaos Monkey now leverages spinnaker you can run it against clouddriver provider. Looking forward to trying this out with kubernetes. I believe spinnaker treats namespaces as regions. Eventually it would be cool to simulate masters or other entire federated clusters going down to test kubernetes scheduling resilience

</comment><comment><USER19> Every time this is in the news I get a feeling of awe for operations teams having confidence enough to deploy this. I've usually been in small teams with the feature mill factor turned up way too high.

<comment><USER16> If you don't use a tool like this, entropy will take care of taking your machines down for you. Only then, it won't be a regularly rehearsed part of "normal operations" so you might find yourself up creek without a paddle.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, sure, but then it won't be the fault of whoever (me?) thought using Chaos Monkey in production was a good idea.

Is it good for the organization? Yes. Good for the guy pushing it? Very possibly very not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Beyond external termination services like Chaos Monkey, what are good examples of software that purposely increase internal nondeterminism or failure injection in production?

Go has race detector mode, but it is an optional debug feature with a performance cost. The Linux kernel's jiffy clock starts counting from -5 minutes so drivers must handle clock rollover correctly because it's not a uncommon "once every 48 days" event. Firefox has a chaos debug mode that does things like randomize thread priorities and simulate short socket reads, but that has performance costs.

<comment><USER22> Go intentionally introduces randomness when reading maps so developers don't write code dependent on order.

<comment><USER21> Ironically, some Go developers began depending on the randomized map ordering and were surprised when it changed! :)

 _runtime: hashmap iterator start position not random enough #8688_

[https://github.com/golang/go/issues/8688](https://github.com/golang/go/issues/8688)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone else deployed a Chaos Monkey in _production_?

I can imagine it would be a tough sell to the CEO. :)

<comment><USER23> How so? The benefits are worth it, and I doubt any CEO will be argue against having fault tolerant code :)

You catch bugs, and no one says you can't run Chaos Monkey in staging or a similar environment if it really is a tough sell.

<comment><USER24> The drawbacks of potentially causing downtime and therefore having the potential to drive away customers as well as obtain an image of unreliability can be much more damaging than not using it in the first place. Customer image means quite a bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Chaos Monkey even periodically terminates itself."

Whoa, that's meta.

<comment><USER26> Just wait till it starts killing developers to test your bus factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Inspired by chaos monkey, I introduced malloc chaos mechanism into our codebase: [https://reviewboard.asterisk.org/r/4463/](https://reviewboard.asterisk.org/r/4463/)

Although designed originally to catch places where malloc failure wasn't being handled, it can also be used to randomly trigger other off-nominal portions of the code that might not otherwise be tested.

</comment><comment><USER28> I can see that Chaos Monkey adds selective pressure to ensure that systems evolve into a state where they can handle unexpected server outages.

But isn't there a danger that it also encourages maladaptions that come to rely on being regularly restarted by the Chaos Monkey? I'm particularly thinking that you might evolve a lot of resource leaks that go unnoticed so long as Chaos Monkey is on the job.

</comment><comment><USER29> Holy fuck that is some small font size. And the paragraphs aren't in paragraph tags... just hanging out between <div>'s with some <br>'s to keep them company.

</comment><comment><USER30> Following in line with the jokes, it's like they looked at my company's production environment and said "Let's make that a tool!"

</comment><comment><USER31> It looks like it's working too well. The site is unreachable for me.

<comment><USER32> Every time that URL comes up people try to access it from https but the site is only available from http... Fix your Firefox, it's clearly at fault here.

<comment><USER33> "Every time"?

If one random guy's complaining about a URL being unreachable and you're already seeing a pattern... is it at all possible the users aren't at fault?

<comment><USER34> To be fair it does happen frequently enough. I wouldn't say _every_ time but often on Netflix posts. A bit of a sampling for you:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12269411](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12269411)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12217900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12217900)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12038367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12038367)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11771714](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11771714)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What's new in Flash 11 - <AUTHOR> http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/whats-new-flash-player11.html <comment><USER2> Some of these are really welcome changes for me (native JSON, bezier curves, TLS sockets, DisplayObjectContainer.removeChildren).

And yet...

And yet I'm still planning on switching my web app to HTML5.

This is coming from a guy who's sunk over two years of development into Flash. It's not because the runtime is buggy and/or crashy (it is, but it's not that bad). It's not because it's so much easier to develop in HTML5 (I will dearly miss AS3 and generating art assets in Flash). It's not because HTML5 has more useful features than Flash does (Flash has more, and they're implemented more reliably).

I'm doing it because Flash doesn't run on tablets [1]. And that's what my users want. I don't have the time to develop three native clients for iOS, Android, and Windows 8, so HTML5 it is.

I will miss Flash dearly. I'm praying that between some combination of backbone.js, easel.js, raphael.js, and inkscape, I'll be able to build something as expressive as my old system.

[1] Those new Android ones included. I've used those tablets that "support Flash". It's a nightmare.

<comment><USER3> I was originally in your shoes, but after my first real attempt at writing a game in js/html I came to the conclusion it's still a ton easier in flash.

If you are talking about something more static (e.g. a non-game application or a fairly static game like a match-3) it's probably less of an issue.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it's easier -- but flash games are rather pointless. Does anyone actually make money selling flash games? You'd be better off learning Cocos2d and developing something that actually makes money, such as an app.

<comment><USER3> I'm making a living (mostly) selling flash games.

I agree that the app store has more potential for making big money, but there is also a good chance you'll make very little (<http://www.dilbert.com/2011-02-12/>).

Of course you don't really need to choose, you can make your game for both flash & mobiles :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I guess crashing isn't a feature. I'm not trying to be a troll, but let's be honest -- There has never been a version of Flash that hasn't piece a complete piece of garbage when it comes to stability and performance.

If Adobe "got it" this list of "What's new" would include words like "removed" and "deprecated" and "eliminated." Those words don't appear once. They've just thrown more stuff into the kitchen sink that was already overflowing.

They have amazing developers, but there is a reason Flash is the beast it is, and this isn't moving it in the right direction in terms of delivering a stable, secure and fast experience.

<comment><USER6> If adobe "got it", Flash would compile into cross-platform HTML5 code. The world doesn't need another inner platform.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm wondering how would HTML5 video support audio, webcam feeds, and a plethora of other features that Flash has had for years but that are barely on the HTML's radar.

Having a time machine is not the same as "getting it".

<comment><USER7> That's a minority of use cases. Flash can stick around as a bridge technology for a few years to cover those. The majority of stuff that's today done in Flash can easily be done with plain HTML, CSS and Javascript, often not even the newest variety.

<comment><USER8> Can it be done with something that's not Javascript? Not trolling, I'm genuinely asking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> ActionScript 3.0 is what JavaScript should be. Actual classes, typed variables, and a platform that works the same in every browser.

Contrarian view but I see flash improving its lead on html. Adobe doesn't have to deal with a bureaucratic standards body and can act decisively when making platform changes. Ex: I'd like to see MS, Mozilla, IE, Chrome, Apple, Opera all agree to implement similar features in Flash 11 (and work the same in each browser). Then I'd like to see them agree on new feature sets when Flash 12, 13, 14 come out etc.

I just don't see how five browser vendors can equal the agility of one flash vendor. Too much red tape in the html congress…

Yes, Flash is proprietary and it doesn't work well for mobile. All I can say is that I've been burned one too many times by IE not showing CSS table borders on empty cells (last time I checked IE8 still requires that damned ampersand in each cell!). I'm fed up with browser incompatibility. All of the JavaScript frameworks (and now with Google making Dart) confirm that JavaScript is inherently outdated and broken. I gave up on html for Flex and am not looking back.

Just my humble opinion…

</comment><comment><USER10> As an HTML/JS developer I really appreciate these powerful features that HTML5 will never have, and wasn't designed to have.

People who say "use HTML5 instead of Flash" obviously have limited experience in actually building HTML web apps and sites.

Ever tried making a javascript pre-loader? Not gonna happen. There's no jquery.bytesLoaded to the rescue. Even before the web-app has loaded, HTML is struggling to stay in the same game as Flash or native apps. Pre-loading sound files and other assets and relaying the bytes loaded to the user as a progress bar just isn't possible in HTML. You might be able to cook up a half-baked progress loader in JS, but it will suck, I promise.

It's obviously true that for SIMPLE things like menus and other interface features, HTML5 is the choice. But when you start getting seriously rich and multimedia heavy, then you need flash or native apps. And I prefer the Flash development and deployment freedom over native app lock-in any day.

Flash should be allowed as an optional plugin on iOS devices, simple as that. Then people who want it can have it, and people who cry about Flash can turn it off and stick with their iTunes account.

<comment><USER11> Strangely enough I've seen a few preloaders working just fine. Are you aware about <progress> element in HTML5, XMLHttpRequest Level 2, Progress Events?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The most interesting thing about Flash 11 is the Stage3D and how it compares against webgl. It looks like IE10 won't support webgl (at least the version in WDP doesn't), and webgl penetration on the mobile platform hasn't gone very far yet. This will make Flash 11 very attractive to developers who want accelerated 3d content. Although, the very fact webgl exists (and has implementations) means it definitely isn't out of the game.

<comment><USER13> There are 3 free implementations of WebGL, and I think Opera support is on the way. If there's a WebGL game that you want to play, you can install Opera, Chrome, Safari or Firefox.

As for mobile, neither Apple nor Microsoft will support it. Flash will be around for years, but platform support is on the wane.

<comment><USER14> By default, Safari does not support WebGL. With Safari 5.1, you need to enable the Develop menu in Safari's preferences and then select Develop > Enable WebGL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm very surprised to see native 64bit linux support as one of their first bullets. It may very well be too little too late though. As of late, the only thing that I've used flash for has been to supplement my <audio> tags.

The native JSON / jpeg-xr / LZMA support will certainly make flash feel somewhat more lightweight, but I don't think it'll be enough to make it not feel bulky.

<comment><USER16> Shouldn't the new Web Audio API in Chrome be enough to replace that (at least for Chrome users) ?

<comment><USER12> Currently html5 audio is a bit limited, especially when you want to play multiple sounds and on time (html5 audio doesn't have latency guarantees). Of course, the web audio api is designed to fix this, firefox also has their own solution. The fact that this won't work on every browser (like iOS or android), means it isn't much of a solution for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Before everyone starts complaining about Flash, I challenge people to go 30 days without Flash.

<http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html>

[http://www.cultofmac.com/67699/uninstall-flash-for-mac- os-x-...](http://www.cultofmac.com/67699/uninstall-flash-for-mac-os-x-in- seven-easy-steps-how-to/)

<comment><USER17> I've been using Chrome's FlashBlock extension and loving it:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gofhjkjmkpinhpoiab...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gofhjkjmkpinhpoiabjplobcaignabnl)

For those who want to take melling up on this challenge (and I would encourage it because it's an eye-opening experience to see much your favorite websites depend on Flash, or not), this extension is a nice bridge.

Flash embeds aren't loaded automatically. Instead, a placeholder appears instead. Clicking on that placeholder loads the Flash file, so you can selectively choose which Flash embeds to see.

<comment><USER12> Chrome has an inbuilt plugin blocker, that does the same as flash blocker. You may need to activate it in about:flags to see the option in the plugin settings. An advantage is that it doesn't depend on javascript, so it is friendly with the javascript blocker in chrome, if you are feeling very paranoid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Note: "High-efficiency SWF compression support: Developers can now take advantage of LZMA compression for their SWF files. LZMA compression can reduce SWF size by up to 40 percent, enabling users to benefit from richer experiences with shorter download times and reduced bandwidth consumption."

If I understand correctly, they must have used the code developed by Igor Pavlov, the author of 7z, who made it LGPL. LGPL means his code must be in a separate DLL, can anybody confirm that?

Note that this guy, to which Adobe refers:

<http://blog.kaourantin.net/?p=124>

claims it's public domain, but it's not:

<http://www.7-zip.org/>

<comment><USER19> From lzma920.tar.bz2!/7zC.txt:

      LICENSE
      </comment></comment><comment>-

      7z ANSI-C Decoder is part of the LZMA SDK.
      LZMA SDK is written and placed in the public domain by Igor Pavlov.</comment>


Ask HN: The islands at the end of the world – will the rich head for Aus and NZ? - <AUTHOR> As climate change becomes more and more pronounced, will the rich around the world all head for Australia and New Zealand? <comment><USER2> Why? Do you somehow believe Australia and New Zealand exist outside of the earth's climate?

</comment><comment><USER3> By default, we're a very expensive place to live, the poor couldn't afford it.</comment>


Introducing New LaunchRock: A Complete Re-Build - <AUTHOR> http://blog.launchrock.com/new-launchrock-themes-landing-pages/

<comment><USER2> Looks great, but your sticky header/nav bar takes up a quarter of the browser on my 13" MacBook. I'm all for sticky nav, but please make it smaller!

<comment><USER3> Agreed, especially when there is a ton of unused horizontal real estate on my screen. If you want to pin stuff, put it there. It's basically the 1024x768 browsing experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> LaunchRock needs better compliance with CAN SPAM, perhaps double opt-in integration with a email marketing platform like MailChimp, AWeber, et. al. It should also have an option for unsubscribing, even with the automatically generated email. And at least a basic privacy policy integration that complies with Google AdWords.. because traffic doesn't just magically appear on your launch page.

</comment><comment><USER5> In case anyone from launchrock is reading this: I'd be much more likely to use launchrock if I could embed the relevant functionality (signups, sharing, referrals) using javascript.

You're about to reimplement every tool that somebody would want to use to set up a landing page, beginning with an editor. What if I want to use a wordpress blog as my landing page. What if I wanted to embed the launchrock lead gen tools with some announcement that is posted on another site? I think that'd be useful and you wouldn't have to build so many things.

<comment><USER6> We do offer a JS embed option just for this. Just chose the widget option when you get started.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Login fails completely on the latest Firefox (16/OSX).

<comment><USER8> I have the same problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Current Customers: The new platform is being rolled out over the next couple weeks. Currently, only new Customers will have access but please don't think we forgot about you"

Ouch. I understand there is a large amount of technical work involved in getting everybody transitioned over smoothly, but you'd think they'd get the current customers ported over first, instead of driving off without them and promising they'll be back to pick'em up soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> This was a decision that was made with careful thought. Because most of the rebuild was matching feature parity, our current customers would get little benefit from the new platform because they have already launched their site and building their audience. The new suite of features that we're announcing benefit our Customers who have not launched a site yet. Due to the size of the rebuild, this was just not a possibility, unfortunately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Something to fix - <http://i49.tinypic.com/29dweph.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER11> Can one export mails to mailchimp? Or integrate with them? Looks like without double opt-in, they may not take me?

What are we supposed to do once there's a sizeable email list?

</comment><comment><USER12> Really excited to see the new advanced features in an awesome product, while remaining easy to use.

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks really interesting. Love the new themes.

</comment><comment><USER14> Can't login bros.

<comment><USER6> Can you shoot more details to email@example.com? We'll figure out the bug as quickly as we can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> more than launch pages? finally!

</comment><comment><USER16> Congrats to Jameson & team!</comment>


Ask HN: Parents, do you invest in a 529 plan? - <AUTHOR> Just wondering if any parents here invest in a 529 plan ? If yes, please share your experience/suggestions. <comment><USER2> For the non-americans here, could you elaborate what 529 is? It reminds me of something called 401k? No idea what that is either. I think 529 might be some new http error code...</comment>


Magnitude 8.2 quake strikes in the Pacific, but very deep: USGS - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pacific-quake/magnitude-8-2-quake-strikes-in-the-pacific-but-very-deep-usgs-idUSKBN1L4008?il=0 <comment><USER2> This is an example of why I prefer the Shindo scale used in Japan[0]. If you tell someone a "magnitude 8.2 struck" it doesn't really tell you anything actionable. The Shindo scale instead measures shaking on the surface, which is what you really care about if you live somewhere with regular earthquakes.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_se...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_seismic_intensity_scale)

</comment><comment><USER3>
      M8.2 Earthquake - Fiji region

      Preliminary Report
      Magnitude 8.2
      Date-Time
      19 Aug 2018 00:19:37 UTC
      19 Aug 2018 12:19:37 near epicenter
      18 Aug 2018 19:19:37 standard time in your timezone
      Location  18.165S 178.144W
      Depth 559 km
      Distances
      269.0 km (166.8 mi) E of Levuka, Fiji
      326.9 km (202.7 mi) SE of Labasa, Fiji
      361.3 km (224.0 mi) E of Suva, Fiji
      448.7 km (278.2 mi) E of Ba, Fiji
      451.3 km (279.8 mi) NW of Nuku�alofa, Tonga
      Location Uncertainty  Horizontal: 9.2 km; Vertical 6.4 km
      Event ID  us 1000gcii

[https://earthquake.usgs.gov](https://earthquake.usgs.gov)

<comment><USER4> "Look how far our coverage goes and how sensitive our network is." (Still very impressive data)

<comment><USER3> The USGS is one of the jewels in our federal government. They are under attack right now by the Trump administration, so I'm glad they have the courage to toot their own horn a little.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Happens often in South Papua without anyone caring.

</comment><comment><USER6> Good to hear that the Earth is settling somewhere that it won't affect us instead. This is newsworthy to me if it decreases the likelihood of new earthquakes in the area.</comment>


A cumulative $20,000 in tips has now been sent via the Reddit bitcointip bot - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1dfv2l/a_bit_of_bitcointips_statistics/

<comment><USER2> And tomorrow it'll be a cumulative $200, and in a few months it'll be a cumulative $450,371, until the next day when it's only been $2.17.

Ok, that's mostly hyperbole, but I have to ask, does that figure include the amount the bitcoins were worth at the time of transfer?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Find the sub-reddit for the bitcointip bot at: <http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcointip></comment>


Std::get_money - <AUTHOR> http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/manip/get_money

<comment><USER2> And people still wonder why C++ is one of the most popular programming languages that ever existed...

</comment><comment><USER3> if only new Date.getDate() was as easy as Std::get_money

</comment><comment><USER4> Haha. solid.</comment>


Australia Plans Airstrikes to Kill 650K Camels in Outback - onreact-com http://planetsave.com/blog/2009/08/12/australia-plans-airstrikes-to-kill-650k-camels-in-outback/

<comment> onreact-com How bizarre! Why don't they use use nuclear weapons instead? Usually you'll use a predator to decimate an animal population gone out of control.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, predators could be useful; although, that might disrupt the balance yet again...

<comment><USER2> Which is precisely what has happened in the past.

Also, it's not an air strike. They plan to shoot the animals with rifles, not drop bombs on them.

<comment> onreact-com I doubt that they will shoot 650 thousands of them with rifles.</comment></comment></comment></comment>