Have you ever read the EULA that you are presented with when you buy a new computer or piece of software and you are prompted with that “I Agree” checkbox? I’m guessing no. I never have either. You would likely be surprised if you did read it. Here I’m doing a basic compare and contrast between the Windows 7 Ultimate EULA that comes on a new PC and the GPL (Gnu General Public License).

MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
WINDOWS 7 ULTIMATE N

2. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS.
a. One Copy per Computer. The software license is permanently assigned to the computer with
which the software is distributed. That computer is the “licensed computer.”
b. Licensed Computer. You may use the software on up to two processors on the licensed
computer at one time. Unless otherwise provided in these license terms, you may not use the
software on any other computer.
c. Number of Users. Unless otherwise provided in these license terms, only one user may use the
software at a time on the licensed computer.

8. SCOPE OF LICENSE.

The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights
to use the features included in the software edition you licensed. The manufacturer or installer and
Microsoft reserve all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation,
you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must
comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways. You
may not
· work around any technical limitations in the software;
· reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that
applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
· use components of the software to run applications not running on the software;
· make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law,
despite this limitation;
· publish the software for others to copy;
· rent, lease or lend the software; or
· use the software for commercial software hosting services.

26. LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES.

Except for any refund the manufacturer or installer may provide, you cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages. This limitation applies to
· anything related to the software, services, content (including code) on third party Internet sites, or third party programs; and
· claims for breach of contract, breach of warranty, guarantee or condition, strict liability, negligence, or other tort to the extent permitted by applicable law. It also applies even if
· repair, replacement or a refund for the software does not fully compensate you for any losses; or
· Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.

Taken from: http://www.microsoft.com/About/Legal/EN/US/IntellectualProperty/UseTerms/Default.aspx

The Free Software Foundation & The Gnu General Public License

The Foundations of the GPL
Nobody should be restricted by the software they use. There are four freedoms that every user should have:
the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
the freedom to change the software to suit your needs,
the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and
the freedom to share the changes you make.

Taken from: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html

In the GPL v3 any language devoted to what you may not do with the software is for the purpose of ensuring that the freedoms granted by the license are not infringed. For example, you may not modify it and then license it in a different way.

There is one way in which the GPL and the Microsoft EULA are quite similar. They both provide no real warranty. The GPL is even more absent of warranty as it provides none at all. The MSFT EULA does provide a 90 day warranty for defects.

I have on numerous occasions heard the argument that proprietary software is better if only for the fact that, if it performs poorly or causes damage then there is some recourse against the manufacturer. As paragraph 26 in the MSFT EULA above states, you can see that is not the case.

I suspect that people not familiar with “free as in speech” software have the notion that if it doesn’t cost money then it can’t be good. Those that are familiar understand that is not the case. If you have not had the pleasure to experience free software then you owe it to yourself to give it a try. You can get started with something like The Open Disc .

Be aware that terms are often used that misrepresent the true nature of software licenses. You will hear the term “open source” applied to many software product that may not necessarily be “free as in speech” free. Free software is however inherently open source and this can cause confuision. This is a topic for another discussion but it is good to be aware of it.

Our changeover from XO DSL for Verizon FiOS is now complete. We just ordered the cancellation of the DSL line yesterday so there is no turning back now. Our network topology with the DSL service was not what I would call ideal, particularly when it came to security and because of that it was quite an effort to get completely functional with the new design. We leased a block of 32 IP’s from the DSL provider and every device on our network had a public Class A address (I know, not cool), it’s just how I did it from the beginning 11 years ago. But I was able to keep everything secure with diligent firewall rules and reviews and by keeping all the systems up top date. I knew long ago that I should change this but it was one of those things that just remained on the back burner.

With the new FiOS package that we chose I went with leasing only 14 IP’s which obviously forced me into making the long needed change. We have approximately 30 network devices here at the office including the IP phones (they were not publicly adressed, thank you). So, logically I did what should have been don in the first place and put all of our network devices on a private network and left only the servers on the public IP’s. Needless to say this required the reconfiguration of all the desktops, printers, the scanner, switches and servers. The switch was the most involved as we had to reassign a number of ports and add an additional VLAN for the new private address network. A number of the servers were also converted to multihomed mode so that they would have a physical connection to both the public and private networks because they provide services to both. Additionally, we have 2 primary DNS servers here that provide name resolution for a number of domains including some that are not ours. The coordination of reconfiguring those servers and making the authoritative record changes was done carefully so as to avoid any downtime for web-services, they were completed on Monday this week.

As I mentioned in the previous post, we are using a Soekris Net5501 as our router and firewall. It runs BSD’s well regarded PF packet filtering software via pfSense and has more than enough processing power to allow our bandwidth to operate at full speed.

Our Sonic Wall SOHO 50 is now retired after almost 12 years in service. Proprietary it may have been but it ran like a champ. It’s so out-dated I can’t find a picture of it on the internet. We have the Soekris set up to provide NAT to the new private address LAN and then we set up a bridge from the WAN port to another port that provides the connectivity to all the new FiOS leased public IP’s. Its a mildly complicated configuration but once its going it is rock solid reliable.

I also mentioned in the earlier post that I was looking forward to the speed increase that would allow us to do offsite backups in a reasonable amount of time. That is working out great. We have about 330GB of current and archived data. It wouldn’t pay to start the offsite transfer from scratch so I made an initial transfer at the office and then took that drive to the offsite location. From then on all that needs to happen is to transfer the incremental updates. That amounts to a few GB at most a on any given day, only mere minutes now instead of hours.

It’s done.

I came across a website related to open code and information freedom and encountered this bio on one of the members of the organization. I’ve redacted their name because I don’t mean to poke fun at them personally. I just thought the bio was pretty funny in a what the heck does that even mean sort of way.

*REDACTED* is a strategic and conceptual advisor to *REDACTED*, helping to articulate an approach toward creative visualization and to evaluate and develop potential partners and engagements relative to that vision. *REDACTED* is a highly regarded experience designer and conceptual strategist, guiding the creative direction and vision of multiple successful endeavors

My good friend Mike Brown and I have done a number of motorcycle trips together in years past. This is the time of year that I reflect on those experiences and gain some escape from the cold and snow here in the north east. They were all trips of a lifetime. I will attempt to get them all posted here eventually. This post highlights the trip from 2008.

These are some memories of our trip from 2008 which took us through the Grand Canyon, Telluride Colorado, Southern Utah and Lake Powell, the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona and Past the VLA in New Mexico.

We hit quite a snowstorm atop the pass from Show Low to Globe in AZ., the kind where you know your fate is no longer in your hands. I don’t know how we made it.

2008 TRIP SLIDESHOW

• Polemic
• Palpable
• Solecistic
• Solipsistic
• Chimera
• Ambisinister