Monthly Archives: October 2009

US Dep of Defense on Open Source

LWN reports on an analysis by David Wheeler on a new memorandum from the US department of defense.

Main takeaways (emphasis mine):

  • “In almost all cases, OSS meets the definition of ‘commercial computer software’ and shall be given appropriate statutory preference…”
  • the DoD is “required to conduct market research… [and should] include OSS [in the research] when it may meet mission needs”.
  • “if you use a binary program, you must either have a warranty or the source code for a program.“
    I do wonder how this confirms with eg any standard Windows EULA whose warranty is restricted to damage payments of … 5$ or so?
  • “To effectively achieve its missions, the [DoD] must develop and update its software-based capabilities faster than ever,[…]. The use of Open Source Software (OSS) can provide advantages in this regard…”.

It seems the Department of Defense has understood Open Source better than many companies…

Postfinance.ch

Mein Konto ist bei der Postfinance. Normalerweise bin ich zufrieden mit dem Service, meistens benutze ich nur Internetbanking. Allerdings haben sie dieses Wochenende schon zum zweiten Mal von Freitag abend bis Sonntag abend bis 22:00 “Wartungsarbeiten”. Ich komme nur am Wochenende zum Banking und einfach das gesamte Wochenende den Service lahmzulegen ist mehr als unprofessionell.

Jetzt um 22:00 darf ich wieder meine Geheimzahlen eintippen, dann bekomme ich ein:

“Systemstörung: Ihre Transaktion kann im Moment nicht ausgeführt werden. Wir setzen alles daran, die Störung so schnell wie möglich zu beheben undentschuldigen uns für die Unannehmlichkeiten.”

Genervt…

I’m moving

I move into a new building. Or rather not :-). In the very unlikely case I would still be working at ETH/MTEC in the autumn of 2013 (optimistic planning), we’ll get a brand new department building. ETH Life has a German article on the planned new building close to the ETH main building. 10 floors above ground and 5 floors below, I do know where I would get an office….

Not funny

I do run the latest Karmic beta on my laptop and I am willing to endure the stress that brings running unstable versions with it. However, some changes are just too much.

Latest running of update-manager restarts the dbus (or hal?) service and that silently restarts X11, so all my windows were closed without me having a possibility to save my ongoing work. The restarting of X11 had interrupted in update process too, so I was left without a working NetworkManager. I had to fix it by manually setting up the network and the updating via aptitude.

Just closing my X session under my ass without asking/notifying me is a no-go. The cuplrit here is the new “upstart” service manager. So kids, never try “sudo restart dbus” when you have windows open.