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Weblog • Archive • Cutedge

by: Bernard Teo

Thu 29 Apr 2004

AutopMac

Category : Commentary/autopmac.txt

Found this page to linked to the Postfix Enabler page : AutopMac pour Mac OS X Jaguar et Panther (http://autopmac.chez.tiscali.fr/). It looked interesting.

And here is the English translation.

Posted at 4:31AM UTC | permalink

Looking for Feedback

Category : Commentary/PFE1_1feedback.txt

There were some (twenty?) downloads of Postfix Enabler 1.1 Beta that I can count from looking at the web server log.

It would be great to get some feedback. If it had messed up a system, I would have heard by now. So, maybe, no news is good news. But it's still good to know if it has worked for you, all those who've downloaded it.

Posted at 3:14AM UTC | permalink

Tue 27 Apr 2004

Postfix Enabler 1.1 Beta ready for download

Category : Technology/PFE1dot1BetaRelease.txt

I've created a web page for Postfix Enabler 1.1 Beta. You can find it here :

http://www.cutedgesystems.com/weblog/Tutorials/PostfixEnablerBeta.html

You can download the latest beta release and let me know how it goes. I know only enough Unix and AppleScript Studio, and Postfix and SpamAssassin, to get all these done. I still don't know anything about Perl. But I want to get all these done and move back to doing Java. Hope all these have been useful.

I hope I've got all the license notices correct. Don't want to get into trouble over these. "License breached!" Not again. Sometimes it seems like so much trouble. But let's see what we can learn.

Posted at 7:18AM UTC | permalink

Mon 26 Apr 2004

Postfix Enabler 1.1 Beta

Category : Technology/PFE1.1Beta.txt

I've got a version of Postfix Enabler (1.1) that I can release for beta testing. In addition to a new field that will make it more convenient for a user to enter RBL (Real-Time Black Lists) sites that the mail server will check against, the real value that this new version brings is that it will install all the stuff needed to use a basic SpamAssassin configuration, as well as the ability to generate detailed mail statistics, with just a couple of clicks.

I'm tending towards the decision to GPL Postfix Enabler, too. I feel it's a waste of time to do a pflogsumm replacement, when it's already doing a good enough job.

And, at this point, I'm using the SpamAssassin/Anomy combination, where Anomy does the anti-virus filtering, and the latter is also GPL.

I'm using this exercise to try and understand the intellectual property issues better. So if I want to be precise, I think the key issue lies with the use of pflogsumm rather than with Anomy.

With Anomy (and SpamAssassin), Postfix Enabler acts like an installer application. Its job is only to bundle and install all the stuff needed by a non-technical user to make use of these two pieces of software with their mail server quickly. That's the value contributed by Postfix Enabler and I think everybody will agree that it's a good thing. But Postfix Enabler itself doesn't use Anomy or SpamAssassin as a library. So it can be argued that Postfix Enabler, then, doesn't need to be infected by the viral nature of the GPL.

But, in the case of pflogsumm, Postfix Enabler does use it like a library - to generate the mail traffic statistics and then show its results in a Postfix Enabler window. So that aspect of its use could constitute a requirement for Postfix Enabler to be released as GPL'ed software, too. So you can see the viral mechanism of the GPL at work.

In the main, the decision to treat this as a non-issue (i.e., make the Postfix Enabler source code available for download) is because it's already quite easy to see what Postfix Enabler does by going to the Finder, looking for the application, and do a "Show Package Contents". You will see all the scripts (both AppleScript scripts and Unix shell scripts), plus all the Unix binaries installed by Postfix Enabler. At various stages during the year, I've put up the link to the source code, only to bring it down, when I got tired of having to give support for that, too.

But, now, I may have to put that back. Postfix Enabler loads stuff into people's systems. It may be better to make the process transparent, to test the validity of Eric Raymond's argument (actually attributed to Linus Torvalds) for Open Source - "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". (Actually, I don't necessarily agree with that, at least not totally, and here's a guy who thinks along the same line.)

But Postfix Enabler is a vehicle to learn about a lot more things than turning on a mail server. I only wish I don't have to do, or turn away, so much tech support. The real issue with the GPL is that, in its zeal to make source code free, it undercuts the rights of the author to control how the software is distributed. For example, theoretically, it is permissible then to make very minor changes to the source, including re-directing the PayPal link, and then re-distribute the modified version from another server, so long as the person making the changes makes available the source, too. With GPL, you've given away the rights to be the only one who can distribute the software. If it does turn out to be true that I've made a big mistake, I think the way to recover is to rewrite the whole thing in another language, learn from what went wrong, add a lot more features, and release it under another name and licensing mechanism.

My wife reads these pages and thinks that I can't quite decide between being cynical or idealistic. That's probably understating it.

Posted at 5:17AM UTC | permalink

Panther Server

Category : Technology/pantherserverreviewAFP548.txt

I was about to think that there's no point looking at the Panther (OS X 10.3) Server when even something that is so simple to do on a normal OS X machine, like sharing an Internet connection, seems so much harder to get right on a Panther Server machine.

But I found this article by Joel Rennich at afp548.com and it's a very good review of the Panther Server. It's easy to miss a lot of the good stuff Apple had built into the Server version of OS X. There are a lot of things I didn't know OS Server could do, including the ability to extend the administrative capabilties of the system by writing plug-ins, if I hadn't read the article. So I'm making a link to it, in case I forget where to find it later.

Posted at 1:56AM UTC | permalink

Sat 24 Apr 2004

Roadstead Domain Down

Category : Commentary/roadstead.txt

Sorry for the loss of service, if you're trying to get here via the roadstead.com domain name. The cutedgesystems.com domain name is still active, fortunately.

The problem was that I forgot to update the billing/admin contact information, etc, for roadstead.com, so I didn't get the renewal warning (I'm sure they would have sent that out). And I didn't set it to auto-renew.

But that's been fixed and it'll probably get cleared in the next few hours as it propagates through the domain name system.

I didn't set the domain to auto-renew because I thought of dropping the roadstead.com domain and concentrate everything on cutedgesystems.com. Roadstead.com was just a fun thing I did with the Mac-related stuff that I put up. I wouldn't have known, a year ago, that it would get to this state where it would be noticed if it were to be brought down. Maybe I need to re-think that.

Posted at 5:03AM UTC | permalink

Wed 21 Apr 2004

The Ultimate Toolbox for Business

Category : Commentary/SunTechDay2.txt

I'm sitting in front of Leon Chen's custom-made "Ultimate Toolbox for Developers" poster stand at Sun Tech Day. We (i.e., my friend Hai Hwee and me) had been asked to help set up the Xserve at the booth to show the widest variety of applications - e.g., a J2EE insurance application we've been porting over to run on the Tomcat server, and a series of demos we've done to show Java on OS X, from the command line to Cocoa to web-based applications - that will, in fact, do justice to that claim. I hope we did manage to achieve that.

Mostly I hear the same thing - "I never thought the Mac could do that". For example, the Oracle guys, below, came over to watch trailers on the QuickTime site but ended up amazed when they found Oracle running on the Xserve. And on my iBook. They quickly got round a few more of their friends to see something they never thought they would see - Oracle actually running on a Mac. (And they showed us where to find a newer 10g release).

I've never had much affinity for Apple's sales and marketing people. I ended up over the last two days with even more antipathy. Not that I had expected much. But I can't help feeling, from contrasting the focus and determination to add value that Sun brought to Singapore (over their last ten years of working with the government, ministries, and major corporations) that all these technologies that Apple's own developers had wrought was like so much casting pearls to the swine, as far as the Apple sales people were concerned. Sun, I'm sure, would have done so much more - if their people had all these richness, instead. If only we could merge Apple and Sun. But, then, the world ain't big enough for both Steve Jobs and Scott McNeally together, I should imagine.

If Apple could get their sales people's noses away from concerns about shop fronts, and all the frills, signifying nothing, and thinking about how cool everybody think they are ... if they could just do that, the Mac would have been a contender. Now, if only I didn't like the Mac quite so much...

[But I'm in good company; it is easy enough for all the Java guys to see that James Gosling likes his PowerBook a lot. Where their hero goes...]

Posted at 4:20PM UTC | permalink

Tue 20 Apr 2004

An Industry Icon

Category : Commentary/industryicon.txt

"It's not everyday that you get to meet an industry icon," says the Sun guy on the stage. So we welcome James Gosling to Singapore for Sun Tech Day.

Note that PowerBook, below. It has done more than anything Apple could do to make using a Mac cool among the Java crowd, judging by the interest shown by the visitors to the Apple booth.

Posted at 8:14AM UTC | permalink

Wed 14 Apr 2004

Speaking of James Gosling

Category : Commentary/suntechdayUpdate.txt

I understand that James Gosling will be the keynote speaker at next week's Sun Tech Day in Singapore at The Stamford, 20th and 21st of April.

James Gosling - Java creator and, need I remind you, Mac user.

Posted at 11:16AM UTC | permalink

James Gosling on the Java Road

Category : Commentary/ontheJavaRoad.txt

My cousin, Edwin, who works for Sun, writes me this note, "Sun is a great company. Not many company (Apple excluded) shares this kind of belief and passion. Sometimes, many comments by people are unreasonable. On one hand, they say the company is doomed because it seems to not follow mainstream, next it wants to see more profitability, next the same criticise that we are a separatists because we don't do MS, next we should opensource our IP in Java, finally being the largest open source contributor after UCBerkeley, yet accused of being proprietary."

He sent me this : James Gosling : On the Java Road.

I like this paragraph in the James Gosling (creator of Java) article :

"As for Richard Stallman's Free but shackled: The Java trap , it's hard to know where to begin. He has his own rather peculiar definition of "Free" that I think violates the First Law of Thermodynamics (energy is conserved): developers put a huge amount of energy into creating software and if they can't get that energy back in a way that balances, then the system falls apart. I've been in this discussion countless times and I'd like to avoid landing there again. GPL software is not "free": it comes with a license that has a strong political agenda. Like GPL software, the Java platform is "free" in many senses: you don't have to pay anything for the runtime or developers kit and you can get the sources for everything. Unlike GPLd software, the Java sources don't come with a viral infection clause that requires you to apply the GPL to your own code. But the sources for the JDK do come with a license that has a different catch: redistribution requires compatibility testing."

-- "He (Richard Stallman) has his own rather peculiar definition of "Free" that I think violates the First Law of Thermodynamics (energy is conserved) ... GPL software is not "free": it comes with a license that has a strong political agenda."

-- "Developers put a huge amount of energy into creating software and if they can't get that energy back in a way that balances, then the system falls apart."

As they used to say in Marvin Gaye's time, right on...

Posted at 11:06AM UTC | permalink

Tue 13 Apr 2004

The Mac is so good

Category : Commentary/theMacIsSoGood.txt

It's evening and energy levels are getting low. I've just finished the spam filters and mail stats installer for the Xserve, building on the Postfix Enabler framework. Finished testing on the TiBook. Time to move it to the Xserve. It's the moment of truth. Will it work?

But before that, maybe it's time for some iTunes. And my life flashes past. I've got all of my CDs on iTunes - every song I've ever loved. From Sandy Lam to Van Morrison to Jackson Brown. It feels so good. Even over the noise from the Xserve.

But did the code work? Yes. The Xserve is so fast, the installer loaded the spam filters and everything needed to generate the mail stats in under thirty seconds. Try doing this manually, even if you're a Linux expert.

The Mac is so good. No fiddling with Sound Blaster Cards. From Unix to Gloria Estefan to James Taylor ("I don't want to be lonely tonight"). It's never let me down in twenty years as a Mac user. Why do the IT guys hate it so much? I don't care. It's Rod Steward, Tonight's the Night, and I'm going home.

Posted at 12:41PM UTC | permalink

Mon 12 Apr 2004

Sell Your Air

Category : Technology/linspot.txt

Take a look at LinSpot. It has a very interesting business model.

"LinSpot is free and easy software to sell your Wireless Internet Access. LinSpot uses an innovative combination of different technologies to turn your Wireless Internet into a paid-for Internet Access Point and let YOU benefit from it!"

You, as well as LinSpot because they take 15% of the cut. But the LinSpot software is free and they only get paid if you get paid (payments are via PayPal), so you've got nothing to lose. Wonderful.

Now, why didn't I think of that? But then you need the technical skills to make this work, so they probably deserve to succeed with the idea.

But LinSpot uses a bunch of Open Source applications. Is its source code available? And how does it handle the respective licensing requirements of Apache, the ISC DHCP server, the ISC BIND Nameserver, the SQUID Web Proxy Cache, etc, among the things that are packaged into the LinSpot application? This will make an interesting case study.

Posted at 9:49AM UTC | permalink