Professional Piracy

Yesterday during the course of a political discussion I was told that I am a professional pirate. Perhaps I'm a little hazy on definitions, but I thought piracy involved stealing and getting gain and what not. If I'm a pirate then I need to find another line of work because piracy isn't paying off nearly as well as my day job.

What was implied when I was called a "Professional Pirate"? I believe it was a shot at open-source software. If you believe everything that comes out of SCO I guess that would make some sense.

This all came up because I shared my belief that Orrin Hatch is bad for copyright. Tighten copyright down to the point where nothing leaves copyright or make reverse engineering illegal and you will eventually stifle innovation.

Despite this tendency of copyright to become tighter and tighter there are people who want software to be free. They write software and release the source under a license that allows editing and redistribution of code. In fact with when released under the GPL providing your changes to source code is mandatory if you are distributing the software.

The point is it's good and legal to give something away that is yours. In fact, you are probably making use of open source software. The HTTP headers for this blog show that it is being served by an Apache Web Server (free software). If you're using Mac OS X to read this the base system is BSD UNIX based (BSD has its own open source software license). If you're using windows the IP networking code is derived from BSD UNIX and the API is specifically called BSD sockets. Being able to borrow the BSD sockets API from BSD UNIX and use it in other operating systems helped the development of interoperable systems. Because of the open source BSD license and industry standard APIs that are not defended by copyright I can write code that can be ported to many different systems. I can spend more time on my software and less time on writing compatibility layers. It's already hard enough to port without having to rewrite network code for every operating system.

What really bothers me about being called a Professional Pirate is that it is based on my use of software that is being contributed willingly by programmers and companies. IBM contributes to free software because they are a hardware vendor. With open source they can contribute to a server operating system with growing mind share in the market place. What happens when they do this? They can make sure it runs perfectly on their hardware and can make better promises about how well their hardware can run these systems.

This problem really comes down to two fundamental schools of thought. The first is "We (a company) must build what people want and be paid for it. We will protect it with copyright". This is right and fair and I will agree with it; that's what copyright is for. The second is "We (everyone) all need this. Let's all contribute to the common cause of building it, but keep it free by copyright protection." This is also right and fair.

Now for the real question: Why was this important enough for me to blog about?

Quite simply, it's because without open source software I would not be where I am today. I was able to install Linux on an old 486 with 16MB ram and a 240MB HDD. I was able to start learning on my own. I thought the Linux kernel was an interesting topic and all I had to do was download the source and start reading. Looking at real world grade code is highly educational. Using open source development tools like GCC also allowed me to become a better programmer.

I am where I am today because some information is free to those who look for it and some people are generous enough to give of their time to help others learn (online discussion groups) produce good software. Besides, Linux originated as a hobby project.


Shaun

Sonnet

Today Christie asked me if I was going to write some more haiku. Since I've already done that I think I'll try something different...

To what end do I make a hack?
For which cause do I write?
Perhaps it is because I have a knack.
For this cause I think I might!

On my programs I do work.
In my code I do conceive,
to find my errors where they lurk.
Inspiration for this I do receive!

It is much fun to pass the time.
A new project to come forward!
Oft I work not for a dime,
The code complete my true reward.

Is not this time well spent?
Just a shame it pays not rent!

Ok, so it may not be the best sonnet around, but I think it's pretty good for 15 minutes.

Shaun

Peer review has never been so tasty!

I was looking at Reddit.com last night and I found this cool little thing. Measuring the speed of light with chocolate chips. I think I need to give it a try, just to make sure I can get the same results. However, I think it would be best to replace the plate with a rice crispy treat substrate. That would make cleanup even easier.

Shaun

I see parse trees!

I have a confession to make. I've been playing with scheme again. The trouble is that languages like Scheme and Lisp are just so interesting. My biggest problem is I'm not thinking like a compiler yet. I've been doing so much procedural programming that I'm not really ready to jump straight into generating parse trees.

To skip the code scroll down to "END CONCLUSIONS".

Take for instance a factorial function I just wrote:
(define (mfac num)
(if (= 1 num)
num
(* num (mfac (- num 1)))))

In C I could write this a couple of ways...
int mfac(int num){
return num == 1 ? num : num * mfac(num -1);
}
or
int mfac(int num){
if(num = 1)
return 1;
else
return mfac(num - 1);
}

Now these map pretty well. It's just doing other more procedural things that is harder. I'm just not thinking in parse trees well enough yet. Take the following:
char *str = "This is a string";
printf("%s\n",str);
str+=5;
printf("After += 5 \"%s\"\n",str);
I can see that I need to use (let ((str "This is a string")) (print str))
The trouble is doing things like the pointer addition and the subsequent call to (print ...).

I get errors with the following:
(let ((x 2))
(print x)
(print (* x 2))

Update: I think I figured out why (let ...) wasn't working. I was using the "Advanced Student" language with DrScheme. I tried "Standard R5RS" and it started working. Oops... I even tried (let) with CLisp (Yes, I know Lisp and Scheme aren't the same) and it worked as expected there too.

C would look like this:
int x = 2;
printf("%i\n",x);
printf("%i\n",x * 2);

END CONCLUSIONS:

It doesn't seem to want to work. There is something I don't understand yet. It's obvious. I'm getting close and it's more of a syntax thing than anything else. Suffice it to say this is one of the most fun/hardest programming languages I've ever tried to learn. The coding style I used when doing the first C implementation of mfac() above came to me after I started learning Scheme.

People look at me funny and wonder why it is that I can get excited about a language. I guess it's because it's taking everything I thought I knew and shifting it. I still write programs in the same languages; they just don't look the same to me anymore.

Shaun

The internet and you

Have you ever stopped to think about just how much you use the internet? Since my last post I have moved and been living with reduced internet access.

Sound exciting?

I can assure you I've just found other ways of wasting my time. Usually involving other people or sleeping. Yeah, sleeping is good. I've gotten more good nights of sleep without using the internet than I have had in a while. The first key is that I'm not up until 12:30 or 1:00 reading sites like reddit. Granted, there is nothing wrong about those sites. It can just take a long time to read all of the interesting stuff that's out there in the world.

I hadn't really given much thought to how much time I was spending on the internet. As I think about it I feel like it fills the same void that TV fills for some people. Instead of talking about last night's episode of Survivor or whatever else people are watching these days I start or join conversations with things I read in links on reddit. Or, gasp, things I found linking from other people's blogs.

Now for the question I'm not sure I'm ready to honestly answer. Is this much better than sitting and watching TV? I am on a constant search for things that look interesting. I often forget to ask if I am contributing to the interesting things in the world.

what is the net impact of my life if all I do is read other people's material? I may be able to contribute to interesting dinner conversation, but what can I really do?

Starting this blog was partially meant to give me mental exercise. It's done pretty good in that regard. It helps me clear up what exactly I am thinking. It also provides a forum for people I know and people I don't know to respond to what I write. I've only ever been called a bad name one time.

Perhaps it's time to step up and do something more. Every so often I feel the urge to start another programming project. Though, the more time I spend programming the more realistic I get about what size of projects I can take on by myself. Maybe it's just time to manage my time better and spend my time better reading more literature and doing more in my life rather than reading web pages. Perhaps I'll even spend a little more time alone with my thoughts. This could be dangerous; it's a good way to end up with blog posts like this one.

All things considered I'm looking for some change. Let's see how I do.

Shaun

Etching

Ever thought to yourself how fun it would be to etch your own circuit board? Me too.

Ok, so this really places me as a nerd, but I found some PCB etching instructions. I think after I move I should try this out. I've always wanted to get into designing and building hardware and I think this would be a fun way to get started.

Shaun

Hopping On The Cheney Bandwagon

Ok, so I'm not much for just joining in on every little thing that comes through the news, but this was really funny. It's an article on the Onion about Bush having prior knowledge that Cheney was a threat to people ages 70-80.

Funny stuff

Shaun