[PLUG] Meeting follow-up topics

["Paul L. Snyder" <plsnyder@drexel.edu>]

A few further pieces of information on topics discussed at Wednesday's
meeting:


China's incompatible version of IP:

The story that I was recalling was from just around a year ago.  The
putative protocol is dubbed IPv9.  The second story from El Reg,
linked below, suggests that IPv9 is "a research project that turned
out to have serious practical shortcomings and little support,"
that nevertheless managed to generate a lot of flap. Most of the
links I turned up were from the first week of July, 2004, with 
very few more recent.

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/05/china_ipv9_mystery/
  http://www.chinatechnews.com/index.php?action=show&type=news&id=1405
  http://www.circleid.com/article/646_0_1_0_C/
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/06/ipv9_hype_dismissed/


Revision Control Systems:

Here's a list of revision control systems, including several
that were not covered during the discussion:

  http://zooko.com/revision_control_quick_ref.html


esr's Opinion of the GPL:

Interesting interview from oreillynet, 30-Jun-2005.  From Eric
Raymond's responses in the interview: "I've actually been making
the argument that the GPL is rationally justified only if open
source is an inferior system of production since 1998...In fact,
it's political considerations that kept me quiet for a while."

It's an interesting take, but my opinion is that it misses the
value of the GPL's symbiotic stickiness.  Rather than focusing
on "virality", think of the GPL as an efficient Katamari,
gaining momentum as it grows.  (See the second link below for
the reference.)

Certainly the GPL has a function as a "social signal", but I am
inclined to think that there is something deeper going on, as
well.  It directly makes a cunning and balanced appeal to the
selfish/altruistic value mix of the programmer-on-the-street in
a way that other licenses do not.

  http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/30/esr_interview.html
  http://ps2.ign.com/articles/548/548201p1.html

pls
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