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Linux Software

The Two LinuxHQs? 81

Posted by CmdrTaco from the will-the-real-hq-please-step-forward dept.
Several people have written in lately to note that LinuxHQ has moved to Kernel Notes. But the plot thickened recently when LinuxHQ sprung back to life looking quite similiar to its predecessor, but with a different license. Kernel Notes is GPL, copyrighted by the LinuxHQ Project, but the "New" LinuxHQ is copyrighted by ECS and not GPLd (as well as not crediting the creator of the nice logo up top). Can anyone clarify the confusion for us all? I'm getting a lot of questions about this and a lot of it smells pretty fishy.
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The Two LinuxHQs? More

The Two LinuxHQs?

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  • And I quote:

    LinuxHQ.com back online! (and it's not this site)

    The original creator of LinuxHQ has brought his original site back up (with a little bit of an explanation). I wish him luck!.

    :-)

    From now on, this site will be called kernelnotes.org, and I will continue on with my plans for it. The content on this site will always be free, so I have no problems with anybody borrowing it, or enhancing it. I believe the two different sites can develop complementary (not competing) content for the Linux community.

    I am glad that this little episode appears to be over. Please give me a few weeks to remove all the references to LinuxHQ in this site.

  • Any ideas? (aside from installing FreeBSD)

    I think you answered your own question (despite disregarding the solution).
  • The trademark does not apply to content, here or elsewhere.

    The trademark *does* apply to LinuxHQ, just as "Slashdot" applies to this site.

    Registration has very little to do with whether or not a trademark exists. Registration is nothing more than notice to the world of a claim of trademark, and extends the geographic range of the trademark; actual trademark is valid without registration in the market in which the trademark is used.

    If I sell a product underthe name "Zpd" in the western states, and an eastern company files a trademark for "Zpd," its trademark will be valid in the east and those regions where I have no presence. If I'd filed a federal trademark, I could have blocked the eastern usage. Not having done so, the eastern folks get it where I don't use it. However, if they want to come into my market, they'll have to do it under antoher name, or offer me enough for my rights that I'm willing to sell.

    And as a note to the other reponse, the GPL has nothing to do with it, nor with any other trademark. The license or copyright deals with the content, not the name. The name is a trademark difference.

    hawk, esq.
  • That's too close to giving legal advice for comfort.

    But as a generalization, all work automatically receives copyright protection in Berne convention countries. However, in the U.S., registration is required prior to instituting an action, and better remedies are available if the work was registered prior to the infringement.

  • Lawyer: trademark question (Score:3)

    by hawk ( 1151 ) <hawk@eyry.org> on Monday June 07, 1999 @06:06AM (#1863719) Journal
    Disclaimer: While I am a lawyer, this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice on this or other topics, contact an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

    There's a trademark issue here, too. Someone owned a domain name, while someone else used that name to build up a recognized entity, distributed worldwide.

    Who owns the trademark? The domain holder, the intellectual property holder, or a combination of the two? I could make arguments for all three, barring an enforceable agreement between the two of them.

    And if it's the IP holder, did he abandon the trademark by switching to kernel notes?

    Barring the agreement, this isn't clear cut. Unless the answer is "solely the domain owner," any purchasor of the domain might be unable to use it for a page of the same name . . .
  • At the top of the LinuxHQ Back OnLine page it says:
    The reason for the downtime was that I was originally planning on transfering the linuxhq.com domain to another organization.
    At the bottom of the LinuxHQ Back OnLine page it says:
    Also, if an established organization within the Linux community would like to take ownership of the linuxhq.com domain and continue to maintain the web site with a dedication to quality, I would be willing to hear the proposal. But, if you are serious about taking ownership, you must have a solid plan in place and willing to provide the committment necessary to maintain one of the best web sites in the Linux community.
    Sounds to me like the millions paid for Linux.Com [linux.com] got him thinking and he wants in on some of the action. The first deal fell through, so now he's being a little more forthright about what he's after. ;)
  • Netscape reports to me --"55% of 8k at 8k (stalled)"

    :)

  • Correct me if wrong, or some kind of stupid proxy in the way but this is what i get:

    Copyright

    Unless otherwise stated, all web content is licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL) copyleft agreement, so you can do just about anything you want with it - so long as you preserve this notice and conform to
    the terms of the GPL.

    More information on the GPL can be found at: www.gnu.org

    Met Vriendelijke groet/Yours Sincerly
    Stijn Jonker
  • Jim,

    I hope you were referring to *his* website.

    Yours is far from silly... I read the site every day or two. It is a fantastic site for information about the kernel.
    (although I wish Myrdall would comment a bit more rather than simply say "updates" all the time... I mean "duh"... tell us what happened :-)

    Please keep up the excellent work. I might even suggest that you think about how you can delegate portions to other people. At least to the extent that you can say, "Hey John Doe, could you figure out and implement how I can automate XYZ?" I bet you would get several takers, myself included.

    Cheers,
    -g
  • Actually, I think the voting for that award happened when Mark was still running his old site, so it's really his.

    It's getting sort of old (and it's sort of ugly). I think I'll replace it with a link to the OS War for Cystic Fibrosis.

    Cheers,

    - Jim
  • History:
    • Mark Evans started the site as www.ecsnet.com back in 1996.
    • then he renamed it to be www.linuxhq.com in 1997.
    • in August 1997, he shut it down with no warning. Everybody was wondering where it went. The site was too much work to maintain.
    • in September 1997, I contacted him, and he agreed to give me the site content. I took over the site, and he granted me the right to take ownership of the content. He held on to the domain name (as a service to me, I thought at the time).
    • I ran the site from September 1997 until a few weeks ago - not hearing from Mark Evans the entire time.
    • four weeks ago, he sent in a request to the Internic to change the nameservers to his own. I got one of the automated notices from the Internic, and asked him what was going on. I got no reply.
    • the next weekend, I finally got a message from him stating that he was transferring control of the domain in two weeks to a well-known Linux company (who's identity will remain under wraps, because they didn't have a clue about what was going on). He thanked me for the work I had put into the site.
    • the following Monday, I contacted that company. I asked what was going on, and how come they hadn't contacted me about the content? They got back to me very quickly, and told me that they hadn't realized that I was running the site (not Mark), and that they didn't want to undermine the work I was doing.
    • the next day, Tuesday, May 18th, I got an angry 1-line letter from Mark - apparently because I contacted the company. He then pulled the domain off the air. I had to drop everything, and register kernelnotes.org so that the site wouldn't die.
    • Yesterday, Sundary, June 6th, he resurrected his old site from 1997, with some updates. Since it seems apparent I won't be getting linuxhq.com back, I decided to permanently rename the site I was doing to kernelnotes.org.
    As far as I'm concerned - this whole ordeal is over with now. I haven't been treated fairly, but I'm not going to harbour any hard feelings - it's just a silly little website. I've got bigger fish to fry.

    Cheers,

    - Jim

  • Yeah, it probably isn't the best license for web pages. I only chose it because that's what the kernel uses - and it seemed compatible.

    Cheers,

    - Jim
  • I wouldn't be surprised if I've got a bit of flakey hardware. Unfortunately, it's only crashed a few times, and there weren't a lot of clues left behind.

    I'll probably end up moving the site to another machine. But I'd still like to figure out the instability problems.

    Cheers,

    - Jim
  • I'll agree the maintenance has been bad. I'm trying to do better. Things seem to break faster than I can fix them though. :-)

    For example, the htdig search engine has been broken for quite a while. It would probably only take me 4 hours to fix it - but there always seems to be something more important going on.

    The server has been quite unstable lately too - that's my top priority to figure out at the moment. It's colocated, without 24/7 support, so if it crashes on the weekend, it's ugly. I'm going to try to backtrack to 2.2.6 on the machine.

    Any ideas? (aside from installing FreeBSD)

    I've got 2 sites lined up where I can move the content to, or make mirror sites - but I haven't had the time yet to do that.

    Cheers,

    - Jim
  • Well, he did copy some pages that I (and others made).

    I don't really care though. I'm not going to enforce things. I needed a license, so I just picked the GPL because it matched the kernel sources. I probably should have just made my stuff public domain.

    Most of the pages are derived from pages Mark originally made, so he does have some claim on them.

    I see he's now changed the license on his site to the GPL. That's good.

    Legally speaking, he still doesn't have the right to change the copyright notices though. When I took over the site, he assigned copyright to me. He hasn't contacted me in order to do the reverse.

    Still, I don't care. I hereby grant Mark Evans permission to change the copyrights on the content he is stealing. :-)

    Cheers,

    - Jim
  • you just did not mention reason why to boycott new linuxHQ.

    sure it looks suspicious and the "replacement" has been not done the "clean" way, but until now nothing that wrong happend to take this kind of action against author.

    so i recommend "normal" operation (i.e. browse this page which you are interested in) for now.

  • Perhaps I'm dense, but I don't understand the concept of GPL'ing web pages. It's not software. What is the source code? What is the object code?

    Is the HTML code the "source code"? If so, does that mean that if I print the page and give it to someone, they can demand that I give them the HTML code? So I'd be legally obligated to keep a copy of the HTML around (since it might no longer exist on the web site)?

    I'm all in favor of GPL-like licenses, but in this case I think something else is needed.

  • I hadn't visited LinuxHQ from the "before time". Of course, an AC has pointed out the that changes to the 2.0 and 2.2 files were "obviously" derived from the change lists distributed w/ the kernels (and GPLed), yet they have the ECS copyright.
    Again, w/ the site /.'ed, I can't get in to verify this. :-(
  • It seems to me, from quickly looking over the new LinuxHQ site that a LOT of it is similar, if not identical to, kernelnotes. Since kernelnotes is GPLed, LinuxHQ has some other copyright & distribution limitations, and it can probably be argued that kernelnotes existed with the content and layout (especially the identical content and layout of pages like "linux distributions"), and therefore linuxhq, by re-releasing GPLed material under another, more restrictive licenes, is now violating the GPL.

    IANAL, and I don't even pretend to play one.
  • any ideas on where i might get this? ftp.apostols.org has been down for about a month, and i haven't been able to find any mirrors.
  • I just checked on LinuxHQ and there is a reference at the bottom of the page to a COPYING [linuxhq.com] file. It states that, unless otherwise noted (and I didn't see any other notices), the material is covered by GNU GPL. There is even a copy of the GPL on the copying page. Did I miss something?
  • hostname of border host seems to suggest 128k pipe. looks like that was well thought out.

    Hostname %Loss Rcv Snt Last Best Avg Worst
    14. pinky.x25.net 27% 56 76 130 108 127 252
    15. ecs-128.ecsnet.com 58% 32 76 576 320 733 1125
    16. evans11.x25.net 50% 38 76 523 266 726 1132

  • Seems to be no bad blood with Jim... (Score:3)

    by Booker ( 6173 ) on Monday June 07, 1999 @05:38AM (#1863737) Homepage
    On kernelnotes, Jim Pick says:
    LinuxHQ.com back online! (and it's not this site)

    The original creator of LinuxHQ has brought his original site back up (with a little bit of an explanation). I wish him luck!. :-)

    From now on, this site will be called kernelnotes.org, and I will continue on with my plans for it. The content on this site will always be free, so I have no problems with anybody borrowing it, or enhancing it. I believe the two different sites can develop complementary (not competing) content for the Linux community.

    I am glad that this little episode appears to be over. Please give me a few weeks to remove all the references to LinuxHQ in this site.

    Now, I personally feel that the linuxhq.com thing was a fiasco, but I admire the diplomacy on the part of kernelnotes. An explanation from the linuxhq guy (Mark Evans) is here. [linuxhq.com] He says he wants it to be better maintained, but I always thought it was well maintained. Well, whatever.

    /me changes bookmarks to kernelnotes.org. :-)

  • Ownership of creative content is a long-running debate (look into the whole litigation over the pen name "Robert Cringely" between the copyright owner infoworld & the guy who made it famous writing columns in their employ).

    The people who are responsible for the creative content generate the real value, and are the geese that lay the golden eggs. The existing backlog of creative content is always a finite resource, no matter how big a backlog that is. It doesn't matter if we're talking about programmers, authors, musicians, painters, actors...

    If kernelnotes now has the people who made LinuxHQ great, then kernelnotes will prosper and LinuxHQ will fade unless they have their own talent (which is, as yet, unproven). In the mean time, if the original creative team that won the award (even if it's only for collating data, there's a lot of valid creative effort in good organization and an intelligible presentation. Ask Tim O'Reilly...) is at kernelnotes, then they should get the "cool site" award. The new linuxhq can earn its own, if it's up to it.

  • Yes, it is. Your protection is better if you submit the work to the copyright office as well, but in legal theory the second you write something it has your copyright.

    D

    ----
  • Do you remember linuxhq before Jim Pick took it over. The current linuxhq looks just like it did prior to the transfer, and Jim has maintained a similar look and feel from the beginning.

    Just my $.02
  • I just visited linuxhq.com (between apparent spasms of slashdot effect) and there is a link "COPYING" at the bottom of the page (sorry I can't get the URL, the site has gone down again). This link leads to a page which says everything is GPL'd unless stated otherwise. So where's the beef?
    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction

  • Here's something interesting - queso gives the following output for www.linuxhq.com:

    204.57.81.139:80 * NetBSD 1.3.x

    Hmmm...

  • Um.. well, I don't know about you, but if I were running a site entitled "LinuxHQ", I might at least consider it a good idea to do it on a Linux box, if only for the sake of credibility. If he's running it on a remote host, sure, no problem - but you don't see netbsd.org running on Linux, do you? Or openbsd.org? Or sun.com, for that matter? Perhaps you've heard the word "advocacy"? (As opposed to "moronic flaming", which seems to be what you're into.)

    And as for "'tude", I think you've got more than enough for both of us...

  • Down... (Score:1)

    by BJH ( 11355 )

    Oops - linuxhq.com is down as of 1am JST... Time for a switch to T1 perhaps?



  • Well, I did say that it might be a remote host - but remote hosting services usually have a fatter connection...

    And while it is true that it's better to have a Linux site on a BSD box than no Linux site at all, the whole idea of advocacy is to use your OS of preference in situations that will show it in its best light. A Web server is an excellent application for a Linux box; what's wrong with saying so? Especially for a relatively high-profile site like LinuxHQ? (Hey, I have nothing against NetBSD - I'm running NetBSD/mac68k on a Quadra 700 next to me right now.)

  • Re:queso (Score:1)

    by BJH ( 11355 )

    You're in luck. Last time I mentioned queso on /., I was asked the same thing, so I put a copy up on my site. Grab it from here [ask.ne.jp]. (It's a bit old, I know.)

  • nmap has assimilated all the features of queso. See www.insecure.org

  • Unless otherwise stated, all web content is licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL) copyleft agreement, so you can do just about anything you want with it - so long as you preserve this notice and conform to the terms of the GPL.

    http://www.linuxhq.com/copying.html

  • I thought he didn't like some of the stuff that was being done with LinuxHQ, but he's basically copied Kernelnotes and hasn't given them any credit. My impression is that he needs to grow up. That may not be the case, but that's the impression i get.
  • It all depends on what's broken... Is it the kernel, the distro, or the hardware? Once that's evaluated, then the proper course can be taken to rectify the situation.

    BTW, the hardware and kernel are almost one and the same problem. (Just wanted to point that out before someone else did. Yeah, I'm talking to you ACs!)

    One last overdraft of $0.02: If it's a Linux box now, why potentially break everything by even entertaining the thought of *BSD?

    Rev Lewellyn
  • Maybe moderators should view thread Oldest First, as well as at Threshold -1. This was posted 5 minutes before the other, yet it was labeled redundant.

    Therefore, it must not have been noticed before the other because it has a lower score.

    Uh, just because it's an AC post, it shouldn't have been knocked off in favour of the logged in post.

    Or maybe the timestamps were just screwed up.

    kmj

  • It's confusing but the copyright notice in linuxhq.com
    has been just changed to GPL. See http://www.linuxhq.com/copying.html

    What's happening? :)
  • It is interesting, that now there is no explanation link, the one from earlier today is now 404.

    The About link has no info on the overall situation. There seems to be nothing explaning, as well as no more asking for support.

    Perhaps some damage control in fighting the fires from the mailbox?? ;-)

    On the overall "look and feel", I see he trimmed down the main menu, it fits on a single page now.
    But, its still pretty much the same content and pretty much the same style.

    I think Jim Pick has done a excellent job, in producing one of the major resources of the Linux world. After it was languishing, and nearly died out, he stepped in, made some changes, and breathed it back to life. For 2 years, his site has been the resource I want in my bookmarks. Heck, that's where I found out about /., in the list of other important sites under the banner.

    Anyway, rather than going on and on.. we all know what we're going to on this one..
  • Pathchar output:

    12 pinky.x25.net (204.57.81.1)
    | 63.5 Kb/s, 10.2 ms (316 ms), +q 247 ms (1.96 KB) *3, 12% dropped
    13 ecs-128.ecsnet.com (204.57.81.129)

    Bleh! hahaha...
  • Jim Pick has done a nice job for two years
    building a solid reputation for a useful
    Linux community site, LinuxHQ. My guess is that
    Mark Evans will be attempting to cash in on
    the LinuxHQ name as either an ad banner site
    or auctioning the domain name.

    It would be nice if my /. link were to kernelnotes.org

    tim
  • I think you're looking at moderation the wrong way... (well, at least differently from how I look at it). Moderation doesn't rank posters but content. If there is a case of redundant data, it shouldn't matter WHOSE name gets put on it but rather that the (important) data be moderated up and viewed by more people. And in the case where two people post the same data at about the same time and one is an AC (assuming EXACTLY the same data), the AC's post should be the one that is considered redundant because (from what I remember of moderation) moderation adjustments stick with the user. ie - a user's starting comment rank will fall if his post is moderated down ... but AC's don't have a rank and are therefore unaffected by being moderated down.

    Yes, I know this is off topic, but this whole thread will probably be moderated down off the map soon, anyway. :)

    Note that I haven't read the more recent /. moderation instructions since I have no interest in being a moderator, so this info may even be incorrect... :(

  • Sorry ... Moderation -shouldn't- rank posters but content. ;)

    My point was that there was no sense in crying about the downgraded post. There are reasons (but if you try hard enough, you can justify anything :( ) for the choices and as long as the important DATA gets moved up, it -shouldn't- really matter whose name was on the post.

    When you start imposing penalties for no reason (moderating down because two people posted the same thing at the same time) then if there -must- be a long term penalty, it should be assigned to the AC because AC's are immune...

  • That's a good point, but unfortunately you need to remember that there's a good chance that he doesn't actually *own* the box it's running on. He might not have a choice at all, and if that's the case, then it's better to have a Linux site running on a BSD box than no site whatsoever.
  • Good Work. :)

    -- Bad Manager! No doughnut! -- Dogbert
  • I'll have to agree with Mark Evans on this one. For the longest time, the 2.1 Documentation link was broken on the old linuxhq. This is of course, before 2.2 came out. I periodically checked that link for months and it never got fixed. I did like the old linuxhq site, but it did have a few maintenance problems.

  • I am wondering - has the guy the right (even if just moral) to say that his site is "resommended by Linux Journal" and "Readers Choice Award 1997 'Best Linux Web Page'"?


    It looks similar but at the same time is newly created another web site... Or I missed someting?

  • > 5 points for 3 days is too much for most
    > people...they're just trigger happy

    from what i see, the moderation work pretty much ok, although there is a *slight* tendency to prefer linus positive comments.

    certainly, remarks which beg to be moderated down tend to be ignored, which, IMHO, is good.

    btw, i've tagged this post as [M]eta in accordance with the alt.fan.pratchett guidelines, which may bb becoming relevant to the continuining debates on moderation here.

    i'm assuming that all posters here don't need to be told how to find out how to search a newgroup for faq's. anyone who doesn't know can reread the new user faqs in the appropriate place.

    dave (RTF!@#$%$^&M goddamnit!)
  • . difference between the two sites. A General Public License violation. A License that has been available for the last 15 years which is more than half the lifetime of the consumer computer market.

    The Linux trademark was purloined once before and it failed thanks to the GPL. Check out LinuxMall.com. They have the article. It dates back a few years.

    Note also since LinuxHQ/REview/Resources/Today are sites about different topics with similar names. It is the License that matters!


  • Hmm. http://www.linuxhq.com/online.html 404's for me.

  • I suppose it speaks well of you that YOU could not tell the difference and thus are not just any fool...

    GPL applies to copyrightable content, be it code, traditional writing, etc. It DOES NOT cover trademark issues, which are quite different. For instance, although Red Hat distributes software under the GPL, the name "Red Hat", their funky little logo, and anything else in the tradedress that identifies the product as having come from Red Hat is trademarkable and not covered by the GPL. This limits anyone else's ability to use those trademarks in non-RedHat products. Similarly, the name and tradedress of "LinuxHQ" likely do not fall under the GPL which applies (applied?) to the content, unless this was explicitly stated on the site.

  • 5 points for 3 days is too much for most people...they're just trigger happy

    sure, it's redundant to have two posts with about the same contents. but does anyone really care? it's pretty obvious neither of these two posters was aware of the other's post.
  • What happened is that somebody read Slashdot....
  • So I checked out both LinuxHQ.com and kernelnotes.org and I'm still confused (no comments from the peanut gallery... Rob.). Is the old LinuxHQ guy back at LinuxHQ again or still operating kernelnotes?

    Please, oh please straighten out my purty head!

    Dan
  • From my 10Mbps link, I was stuck at 76% of 13K for about 7 minutes. After 7 minutes, I got the page. With transfers that slow, they'll get a process table overflow before the day is out unless they have a *really* big process table.
  • I have looked into linuxhq.com and now it says:
    "For information regarding copying and distribution of this material
    see the COPYING document."
    This COPYING document is exactly the GPL. Have they changed it or did I miss something ?
  • Um, I've heard the story from Jim Pick himself. Read the slashdot article regarding when LinuxHQ first went offline.

    Jack ass.
  • Simple as that. Don't go to the web site and it won't stay up long. The author says he's looking for support on the LinuxHQ is Back Online [linuxhq.com] page, so if nobody helps, the site cannot continue.
  • Since kernelnotes.org and linuxhq.com are now quite clearly two totally separate entities, shouldn't the link on Slashdot be changed to read 'Kernel Notes' (the LinuxHQ link currently points to kernelnotes.org)? I suppose to be completely nonpartisan, Rob should include a Kernel Notes AND a LinuxHQ link :)

    For what it's worth, I've always found what is now known as Kernel Notes to be up to the minute and informative.

    Umm... not really the insightful and informative comment that I hoped my first non-anonymous post would be, but there ya go.
  • At least Jim Pick gave me credit for that logo someplace.. this is about the 8th time my stuff has been taken without giving me credit lately
    -sigh-
  • Jim,

    You are a man of Integrity, keep up the good work.

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