Journal articles on the topic 'GNU Emacs (Computer program)'

We show the design principles of an automatic indentation GNU Emacs mode for Haskell and Miranda(tm), functional languages using the ‘layout rule’ instead of the usual parenthetic structures for indentifying dependent program parts.

This paper gives an overview of educational operating system called COLIBROS. It is small, object oriented, library operating system, based on micro-kernel concepts, supporting high level concurrency and synchronization primitives. In fact, COLIBROS is simplified operating system kernel accompanied with hardware emulation layer that emulates keyboard, monitor, disk and interrupt mechanism. A concurrent COLIBROS program behaves like stand alone program executing in emulated environment, in our case as plain GNU/Linux process. Encapsulating all critical concepts in host operating system user space makes COLIBROS development and debugging easier and more user friendly.

Dark Suite is a complete interactive software pipeline aiming to exploit the advantages of free software and modern programming. Besides two commands (installation and opening) on the command line, the handling and the program operation is done through a user’s friendly interface. This platform has a central graphical interface which allows the user to choose in what computational tool to work. Each computational tool has an interface. Dark Suite combines the functions of other programmes to create a pipeline for high-quality secondary effects through a friendly user interface. It is made to run on GNU/Linux distributions and its interface was built using JAVA to seamlessly integrate scientific tools written in Perl, Java, R and Python.

The article provides an assessment of the state of legislation of Ukraine on the protection of intellectual property at the present stage. The most important problematic aspects and prospects of improving the legal regulation of intellectual property protection on the way to European integration are described in detail. The experience of foreign countries in ensuring the protection of intellectual property is analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the features of computer program protection, which is especially relevant nowadays. Features of the use of license agreements by the owner of computer programs, namely BSD License, Apache License, GNU General Public License, GNU Lesser General Public License, were analyzed. The conclusion is drawn that a system of continuous analysis of decisions made by European countries in the field of intellectual property law, as well as on issues related to general state policy on the administration of intellectual property, in order to implement developed approaches to legislation and law enforcement practice, could improve the protection of intellectual property rights in Ukraine.

Abstract Summary Several web-based tools predict the putative targets of a small molecule query compound by similarity to molecules with known bioactivity data using molecular fingerprints. In numerous situations, it would however be valuable to be able to run such computations on a local computer. We present FastTargetPred, a new program for the prediction of protein targets for small molecule queries. Structural similarity computations rely on a large collection of confirmed protein–ligand activities extracted from the curated ChEMBL 25 database. The program allows to annotate an input chemical library of ∼100k compounds within a few hours on a simple personal computer. Availability and implementation FastTargetPred is written in Python 3 (≥3.7) and C languages. Python code depends only on the Python Standard Library. The program can be run on Linux, MacOS and Windows operating systems. Pre-compiled versions are available at https://github.com/ludovicchaput/FastTargetPred. FastTargetPred is licensed under the GNU GPLv3. The program calls some scripts from the free chemistry toolkit MayaChemTools. Contact bruno.villoutreix@inserm.fr Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

AFL is the most widely used coverage-guided fuzzer, which relies on rough execution information to assign seeds energy, which can lead to waste. We track the program executed by AFL and discover that the hit counts of each edge might vary greatly when using different seeds as inputs. Some seeds, which are continuously given too much energy, experience very high hit counts of several edges without new crashes or edges being explored, which results in invalid execution and waste of performance. We also define time-consuming edges and discover that they only occupy a small part of the program. In this paper, we define invalid execution edges and time-consuming edges as hot-spots and propose a fuzzing solution SpotFuzz to solve energy waste caused by the above hot-spot phenomenon. It allocates seeds with more hot-spots during execution and uses less energy to reduce energy waste. Moreover, it preferentially selects seeds with less time-consuming edges as test cases, allowing for more edges to be explored in a limited time. We implement an SpotFuzz prototype based on AFL and test it on several real programs for 600 CPU days. The experimental results show that minimizing the invalid and time-consuming execution of edges can improve the fuzzing efficiency. On average, SpotFuzz could find 42.96% more unique crashes and 14.25% more edges than AFL on GNU Binutils and tcpdump.

<p>At the CTU in Prague, there is a long tradition of master degree courses in geodesy, geodetic surveying and cartography. Taking into account the fast development of information technologies in recent decades, we decided to prepare a new study program that would combine computer science with a background of geodetic and cartographic know-how. Apart from other sources, our plans were inspired and influenced by the Review of Education Needs, a report prepared by Stig Enemark (Prague 1998), and by our experience from several Virtual Academy workshops.</p><p><br />We have decided to call this program “Geoinformatics” to emphasize the role of computer technologies in collecting, analyzing and exploiting information about our planet. Within this presentation we will explain the basic ideas behind our new study program and emphasize the features that distinguish it from classical geodetic or cartographic programs. We will mention the connection between our new study program and several geodetic and software projects running at our institute – software development for real-time GPS applications, cooperation with the Astronomical Institute, University of Berne, on the development of so-called Bernese GPS Software, the GNU project Gama for adjustment of geodetic networks, etc.</p>

The data transmission scheme between a transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) network port and a serial port based on an ARM embedded system is introduced in the paper. The data transmission between a personal computer (PC) and remote equipment through an Internet is realized. The structure of a hardware platform is simply introduced, the cutting and transplant of operating system, the communication program design of the network port and the serial port and the cross compiling between the two ports are introduced in detail. The AT91SAM9261 chip of ATMEL Corporation is employed as the embedded board of a kernel processor. The Redhat9 Linux operating system is employed as a software development platform, an ARM-Linux operating system is employed as a program operation platform and the kernel version is Linux-2.6.2. The C program is used and an ARM-Linux-GNU tool chain is used for the cross compiling. The experimental result proves that the real-time, parallel full duplex data transmission between the network port and the serial port is realized by the scheme provided in the paper.

AbstractAssertion checking is an invaluable programmer’s tool for finding many classes of errors or verifying their absence in dynamic languages such as Prolog. For Prolog programmers, this means being able to have relevant properties, such as modes, types, determinacy, nonfailure, sharing, constraints, and cost, checked and errors flagged without having to actually run the program. Such global static analysis tools are arguably most useful the earlier they are used in the software development cycle, and fast response times are essential for interactive use. Triggering a full and precise semantic analysis of a software project every time a change is made can be prohibitively expensive. This is specially the case when complex properties need to be inferred for large, realistic code bases. In our static analysis and verification framework, this challenge is addressed through a combination of modular and incremental (context- and path-sensitive) analysis that is responsive to program edits, at different levels of granularity. In this tool paper, we present how the combination of this framework within an integrated development environment (IDE) takes advantage of such incrementality to achieve a high level of reactivity when reflecting analysis and verification results back as colorings and tooltips directly on the program text – the tool’s VeriFly mode. The concrete implementation that we describe is Emacs-based and reuses in part off-the-shelf “on-the-fly” syntax checking facilities (flycheck). We believe that similar extensions are also reproducible with low effort in other mature development environments. Our initial experience with the tool shows quite promising results, with low latency times that provide early, continuous, and precise assertion checking and other semantic feedback to programmers during the development process. The tool supports Prolog natively, as well as other languages by semantic transformation into Horn clauses.

The Universal Software Radio Peripheral development technique is designing and implementing radio frequency based systems. The distinctiveness originates from the interchangeable daughterboard within the USRP. The system is designed around the Xilinx Vertex 3 FPGA chip. This means C++, Python, and VHDL can be used to program this device. The project consists of creating a receiver. The objective of the project is to research and comprehend the hardware functionalities of the USRP. The purpose is to create codes in C++ and Python to implement receiving capabilities of the device. The goal of this project was to design a GPS receiver that is capable of recording the L1 signal from a DirecTV satellite. The USRP is used a lot for research. This project consisted of more than just one method. We used GNU Radio Companion and Matlab/Simulink. GNU Radio is open source for building software defined radios. It is also known as GRC. While using GRC the USRP1 was the device used. This software has rapid development. It runs in Ubuntu, a Linux operating system. Within this software there are logic blocks. Each block consists of information to create a flow graph. The flow graph builds and generates the program. Simulink can be compared to GRC. They both have logic blocks that have to be connected to run. Simulink can be used to create a transmitter or a receiver for software radio development and signal processing. Software-defined radio can only be defined if its baseband operations can be completely defined by software. A SDR converts digital to analog signals. The USRP can also convert digital signals from a computer to Radio Frequency Signals (RF). This software is one way to communicate between hardware and software.

This work reports the personal computer implementation of a real-time simulator based on the widely used Electromagnetic Transients Program, version Alternative Transients Program (EMTP-ATP) software for testing protection and control devices. The proposed simulator was implemented on a conventional PC with a GNU/Linux operative system including a real-time kernel. Using foreign models programmed in C, ATP was recompiled with the PortAudio (sound card I/O library) with tools for writing and reading the parallel port. In this way, the sound card was used as a digital-to-analog converter to generate voltage waveform outputs at each simulation time step of the ATP, and the parallel port was used for digital inputs and outputs, resulting in a real-time simulator that can interact with protection and control devices by means of hardware-in-the-loop tests. This work uses the minimum possible hardware requirements to try to implement a real-time simulator. Due to the limitation of two channels, this simulator was used mainly to demonstrate the implementation methodology concept at this stage; this concept could potentially be expanded with more powerful hardware to improve its performance. The performance of the implemented simulator was analyzed through interactions with a real intelligent electronic device (IED). Furthermore, a comparison with the results obtained by means of the well-known real-time digital simulator (RTDS) was presented and discussed.

Open Source Software LicencesSummary Computer software is regarded in popular culture as a typical consumer good. Legally, it constitutes however an example of a „content”, which is protected – in a way not dissimilar to literary or audio-visual works – by copyright law. An important property of these works, closely related to recent advances in computer science and resulting ease of digitization and duplication, is a possibility of costless duplication. This allows the creator of a digital work – for example a computer program – to distribute it at no cost, hence the const of duplication itself is either minimal or even non-existent.In recent years, an emergence of a new content distribution philosophy can be observed. Its proponents postulate, that it should be possible to create such computer software, that would be available for everyone to use, modify and redistribute – all that at no cost.This paper introduces the concept of free software and discuses some legal aspects of its creation and distribution. An overview of the construction of the most popular free software licence, the GNU General Public License is also included.

The article describes the experience of designing and using in the process of training future educators professional training of electronic educational resource for the study of computer layout foundations. In the course of our research, we have found out the possibility of using electronic educational resources in the educational process of Higher education institutions to train future teachers of vocational education. In particular, we have developed an electronic educational resource «Basics of Computer Layout», in which, according to, the necessary training materials and author's methodological developments for learning the basics of computer layout in the Adobe InDesign CS5 software environment are structured. The Word Press content management system (CMS), which has open source code and is distributed under the GNU GPL license, has become a popular medium for creating the described ESM. The developed ESM contains a set of copyright educational and methodological materials, materials for monitoring the level of educational achievements, together they allow the future teachers of vocational training to form the theoretical knowledge and practical skills of the basics of computer layout in the Adobe InDesign CS5 software environment. For the purposeful implementation of conceptual research ideas, the author developed a method for using a complex of electronic educational resources for teaching computer graphics to future bachelors of the specialty 015.10 «Professional education (computer technologies)». The method involves the provision of practical knowledge and skills to future bachelors of vocational education in order to form professional competencies in the Special Informatics discipline (module 3 Fundamentals of computer layout in the Adobe In Design CS5 program).

AbstractTracers provide users with useful information about program executions. In this article, we propose a “tracer driver”. From a single tracer, it provides a powerful front-end enabling multiple dynamic analysis tools to be easily implemented, while limiting the overhead of the trace generation. The relevant execution events are specified by flexible event patterns and a large variety of trace data can be given either systematically or “on demand”. The proposed tracer driver has been designed in the context of constraint logic programming (CLP); experiments have been made within GNU-Prolog. Execution views provided by existing tools have been easily emulated with a negligible overhead. Experimental measures show that the flexibility and power of the described architecture lead to good performance. The tracer driver overhead is inversely proportional to the average time between two traced events. Whereas the principles of the tracer driver are independent of the traced programming language, it is best suited for high-level languages, such as CLP, where each traced execution event encompasses numerous low-level execution steps. Furthermore, CLP is especially hard to debug. The current environments do not provide all the useful dynamic analysis tools. They can significantly benefit from our tracer driver which enables dynamic analyses to be integrated at a very low cost.

ABSTRACT A new method for detecting chimeras and other anomalies within 16S rRNA sequence records is presented. Using this method, we screened 1,399 sequences from 19 phyla, as defined by the Ribosomal Database Project, release 9, update 22, and found 5.0% to harbor substantial errors. Of these, 64.3% were obvious chimeras, 14.3% were unidentified sequencing errors, and 21.4% were highly degenerate. In all, 11 phyla contained obvious chimeras, accounting for 0.8 to 11% of the records for these phyla. Many chimeras (43.1%) were formed from parental sequences belonging to different phyla. While most comprised two fragments, 13.7% were composed of at least three fragments, often from three different sources. A separate analysis of the Bacteroidetes phylum (2,739 sequences) also revealed 5.8% records to be anomalous, of which 65.4% were apparently chimeric. Overall, we conclude that, as a conservative estimate, 1 in every 20 public database records is likely to be corrupt. Our results support concerns recently expressed over the quality of the public repositories. With 16S rRNA sequence data increasingly playing a dominant role in bacterial systematics and environmental biodiversity studies, it is vital that steps be taken to improve screening of sequences prior to submission. To this end, we have implemented our method as a program with a simple-to-use graphic user interface that is capable of running on a range of computer platforms. The program is called Pintail, is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License open source license, and is freely available from our website at http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/biosi/research/biosoft/ .

Abstract Motivation In recent years, multiple circular RNAs (circRNA) biogenesis mechanisms have been discovered. Although each reported mechanism has been experimentally verified in different circRNAs, no single biogenesis mechanism has been proposed that can universally explain the biogenesis of all tens of thousands of discovered circRNAs. Under the hypothesis that human circRNAs can be categorized according to different biogenesis mechanisms, we designed a contextual regression model trained to predict the formation of circular RNA from a random genomic locus on human genome, with potential biogenesis factors of circular RNA as the features of the training data. Results After achieving high prediction accuracy, we found through the feature extraction technique that the examined human circRNAs can be categorized into seven subgroups, according to the presence of the following sequence features: RNA editing sites, simple repeat sequences, self-chains, RNA binding protein binding sites and CpG islands within the flanking regions of the circular RNA back-spliced junction sites. These results support all of the previously reported biogenesis mechanisms of circRNA and solidify the idea that multiple biogenesis mechanisms co-exist for different subset of human circRNAs. Furthermore, we uncover a potential new links between circRNA biogenesis and flanking CpG island. We have also identified RNA binding proteins putatively correlated with circRNA biogenesis. Availability and implementation Scripts and tutorial are available at http://wanglab.ucsd.edu/star/circRNA. This program is under GNU General Public License v3.0. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

With the progress of physical education reform, more and more educational methods are added to physical education. The state has always attached great importance to the reform of school physical education and has promulgated and implemented a number of policies and documents to stimulate the reform of school physical education. Change the teaching method from “theoretical knowledge teaching” to “combination of theory and practice”, change the teaching content from “subject standard and complicated subjects” to “comprehensive course teaching”, and change “conservative and mechanical teaching” to “active and teacher-student participation”. The introduction of intelligent systems and responsive software in physical education not only allows students to learn with the aid of multimedia courseware but also accesses to high-performance graphics data processing software GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) and so on. This article describes the production plan of multimedia courseware under the intelligent system environment and constructs the sports teaching framework of multimedia courseware under the intelligent system desktop system. Choose the Ubuntu18.04 stable version system to obtain OpenOffice and GIMP components, as well as multimedia materials for physical education, and make physical education courseware. The experiment teaching effect evaluation is carried out in the main body composed of 50 physical education students in our college. Research shows that the use of GIMP can greatly improve the learning efficiency in the physical education of the intelligent system. Compared with Windows and other systems, the teaching system constructed in this study only retains the core components and can reflect great system permissions in teaching advantage. In terms of processing speed, the image processing time is reduced by 36% compared to Windows, and it has more types of professional materials than Microsoft. The learning time of teachers using the intelligent system professional physical education software is more than 50% shorter than that of Photoshop, 3D Max, etc., thereby improving the work efficiency of physical education teachers.

The article reveals one of the topical issues of modern musical and pedagogical education, concerning the usage of innovative technologies in the musical-theoretical preparation of art university students. The author of the article emphasizes that modern scientific and pedagogical thought is one of the efficient means of increasing the efficiency of the educational process recognizing the application of pedagogical technologies. Accordingly, the author analyses the existing approaches to understanding the concept of «pedagogical technology» and concludes for all, the focus is on the guaranteed learning outcomes due to the teacher’s consistent actions in achieving the set learning goals.The author considers the development of the sense of the rhythm of students in solfeggio classes as an active process, the result of which is a deep, active understanding of the organization of the musical composition in time. A brief methodical review of exercises from the development of the sense of rhythm in classes solfeggio allowed the author to choose those of them, which compose the basis of pedagogical technology. They include: rhythmic sketches; rhythmic dictations; conducting and timing; different ways of rhythmization, rhythm-solmization; rhythmic transposition; rhythmic canons; rhythmic accompaniment with using the simplest shock and noise instruments; rhythmic transformation; rhythmic improvisation; warehouse-rhythmization and others.For today, the author of the article notes that the processes of informatization and computerization are actively implemented in the educational space. This affects the active use of innovative technologies in the learning process. In particular, the author outlines a number of computer programs for the development of a sense of rhythm, which can be used in classes solfeggio in higher art educational institutions. Among them: the MusicGoals Rhythm program, GNU Solfege, Ear Master and Sibelius Auralia 4. According to the author, only an organic combination of innovative technologies with traditional methods of training allows you to get optimal results in this direction.

This study analyzes the mistakes students are prone to make in programming and uses the GDB and Valgrind tools to implement dynamic analysis techniques for their eventual application to programs created by students. In the analysis process, spectral error localization technology is used to strengthen the dynamic analysis to find errors more accurately. The analyzed results are sorted and corresponding feedback is given to students in order for them to better understand the content of errors when revising the program and classifying and counting the types of errors made. This study sorts mistakes frequently made by students and topics in which students are likely to make certain mistakes. The developed system was implemented in experiments including students from a programming course who were divided into two groups, namely the experimental group and the control group. A system for both groups of students to upload and submit assignments and a code analysis and feedback improvement system were used. Students in the control group only used the assignment uploading and submitting system for basic assignment uploading, verification, and the comparison of test data. After the program was entered, declarative sentence disassembly and dynamic slicing were suggested. Data were sent to GNU Debugger (GDB) and Valgrind for spectral error location; the classification and recording of error types; and the interpretation of the number of error lines, error types, and related variables. Feedback and a generated report were sent back to the student interface to provide effective and useful feedback to the students in the experimental group for them to revise their homework and record the types and number of errors they made in that week’s homework in the database. The answers provided by the students to the questions were recorded. The analysis of the pass rates of the students in the experimental and control groups for each homework test aided the understanding of the differences in the learning success of the two groups of students each week. The weekly pass rates and the numbers of measured errors in the experimental group compared with in the control group were input into a distribution map to allow us to better understand whether there was any positive correlation between the detected information, feedback to the students, pass rates of the tests, and other related data. The system statistically obtained feedback and the degree of improvement of homework programs; then, it distributed specially designed questionnaires to all students to directly obtain and quantify their feedback and perceived benefits of this system, thereby verifying the effectiveness of the system and its practicality.

In this brief essay I sketch the characteristics of an open content community by considering a number of prominent examples, reviewing sociological literature, teasing apart the concepts of open and voluntary implicit in most usages of the term, and I offer a definition in which the much maligned possibility of 'forking' is actually an integral aspect of openness. Introduction What is often meant by the term 'open' is a generalization from the Free Software, Open Source and open standards movements. Communities marshaling themselves under these banners cooperatively produce, in public view, software, technical standards, or other content that is intended to be widely shared. Free Software and Open Source The Free Software movement was begun by Richard Stallman at MIT in the 1980s. Previously, computer science operated within the scientific norm of collaboration and information sharing. When Stallman found it difficult to obtain the source code of a troublesome Xerox printer, he feared that the norms of freedom and openness were being challenged by a different, proprietary, conceptualization of information. To challenge this shift he created the GNU Project in 1984 (Stallman 1998), the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in 1985 (Stallman 1996), and the authored the GNU General Public License in 1989. The goal of the GNU Project was to create a free version of the UNIX computing environment with which many computer practitioners were familiar with, and even contributed to, but was increasingly being encumbered with proprietary claims. GNU is playful form of a recursive acronym: GNU is Not Unix. The computing environment was supposed to be similar to but independent of UNIX and include everything a user needed including an operating system kernel (e.g., Hurd) and common applications such as small utilities, text editors (e.g., EMACS) and software compilers (e.g,. GCC). The FSF is now the principle sponsor of the GNU Project and focuses on administrative issues such as copyright licenses, policy, and funding issues; software development and maintenance is still an activity of GNU. The GPL is the FSF's famous copyright license for 'free software'; it ensures that the 'freedom' associated with being able to access and modify software is maintained with the original software and its derivations. It has important safeguards, including its famous 'viral' provision: if you modify and distribute software obtained under the GPL license, your derivation also must be publicly accessible and licensed under the GPL. In 1991, Linus Torvalds started development of Linux: a UNIX like operating system kernel, the core computer program that mediates between applications and the underlying hardware. While it was not part of the GNU Project, and differed in design philosophy and aspiration from the GNU's kernel (Hurd), it was released under the GPL. While Stallman's stance on 'freedom' is more ideological, Torvalds approach is more pragmatic. Furthermore, other projects, such as the Apache web server, and eventually Netscape's Mozilla web browser, were being developed in open communities and under similar licenses except that, unlike the GPL, they often permit proprietary derivations. With such a license, a company may take open source software, change it, and include it in their product without releasing their changes back to the community. The tension between the ideology of free software and its other, additional, benefits led to the concept of Open Source in 1998. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded when, "We realized it was time to dump the confrontational attitude that has been associated with 'free software' in the past and sell the idea strictly on the same pragmatic, business-case grounds that motivated Netscape" (OSI 2003). Since the open source label is intended to cover open communities and licenses beyond the GPL, they have developed a meta (more abstract) Open Source Definition (OSI 1997) which defines openness as: Free redistribution Accessible source code Permits derived works Ensures the integrity of the author's source code Prohibits discrimination against persons or groups Prohibits discrimination against fields of endeavor Prohibits NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) entanglements Ensures the license must not be specific to a product Ensures the license must not restrict other software Ensures the license must be technology-neutral A copyright license which is found by OSI to satisfy these requirements will be listed as a OSI certified/approved license, including the GPL of course. Substantively, Free Software and Open Source are not that different: the differences are of motivation, personality, and strategy. The FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) survey of 2,784 Free/Open Source (F/OS) developers found that 18% of those that identified with the Free Software community and 9% of those that identified with the Open Source community considered the distinction to be 'fundamental' (Ghosh et al. 2002:55). Given the freedom of these communities, forking (a split of the community where work is taken in a different direction) is common to the development of the software and its communities. One can conceive of Open Source movement as having forked from Free Software movement. The benefits of openness are not limited to the development of software. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) host the authoring of technical specifications that are publicly available and implemented by applications that must interoperably communicate over the Internet. For example, different Web servers and browsers should be able to work together using the technical specifications of HTML, which structures a Web page, and HTTP, which is used to request and send Web pages. The approach of these organizations is markedly different from the 'big S' (e.g., ISO) standards organizations which typically predicate membership on nationality and often only provide specifications for a fee. This model of openness has extended even to forms of cultural production beyond technical content. For example, the Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia and the Creative Commons provides licenses and community for supporting the sharing of texts, photos, and music. Openness and Voluntariness Organization can be characterized along numerous criteria including size; public versus private ownership; criterion for membership; beneficiaries (cui bono); Hughes's voluntary, military, philanthropic, corporate, and family types; Parsons's social pattern variables; and Thompson and Tuden's decision making strategies, among others (Blau and Scott 1962:40). I posit that within the contemporary usage of the term 'open,' one can identify a number of defining characteristics as well as an implicit connotation of voluntariness. Openness The definition of an 'open' community in the previous section is extensional: describing the characteristics of Free/Open Software (F/OS), and open standards and content. While useful, this approach is incomplete because such a description is of products, not of the social organization of producers. For example, private firms do release F/OS software but this tells us little about how work is done 'in the open.' The approach of Tzouris was to borrow from the literature of 'epistemic' communities so as to provide four characteristics of 'free/open' communities: Shared normative and principled beliefs: refers to the shared understanding of the value-based rationale for contributing to the software. Shared causal beliefs: refers to the shared causal understanding or the reward structures. Therefore, shared causal beliefs have a coordinating effect on the development process. Shared notions of validity: refers to contributors' consensus that the adopted solution is a valid solution for the problem at hand. Common policy enterprise: refers to a common goal that can be achieved through contributing code to the software. In simple words, there is a mutual understanding, a common frame of reference of what to develop and how to do it. (Tzouris 2002:21) However, these criteria seem over-determined: it is difficult to imagine a coherent community ('open' or otherwise) that does not satisfy these requirements. Consequently, I provide an alternative set of criteria that also resists myopic notions of perfect 'openness' or 'democracy.' Very few organizations have completely homogeneous social structures. As argued in Why the Internet is Good: Community Governance That Works Well (Reagle 1999), even an organization like the IETF with the credo of, "We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code," has explicit authority roles and informal elders. Consequently, in the following definition of open communities there is some room for contention. An open community delivers or demonstrates: Open products: provides products which are available under licenses like those that satisfy the Open Source Definition. Transparency: makes its processes, rules, determinations, and their rationales available. Integrity: ensures the integrity of the processes and the participants' contributions. Non-discrimination: prohibits arbitrary discrimination against persons, groups, or characteristics not relevant to the community's scope of activity. Persons and proposals should be judged on their merits. Leadership should be based on meritocratic or representative processes. Non-interference: the linchpin of openness, if a constituency disagrees with the implementation of the previous three criteria, the first criteria permits them to take the products and commence work on them under their own conceptualization without interference. While 'forking' is often complained about in open communities -- it can create some redundancy/inefficiency -- it is an essential characteristic and major benefit of open communities as well. Voluntariness In addition to the models of organization referenced by Blau and Scott (1962), Amitai Etzioni describes three types of organizations: 'coercive' organizations that use physical means (or threats thereof), 'utilitarian' organizations that use material incentives, and 'normative' organizations that use symbolic awards and status. He also describes three types of membership: 'alienative members' feel negatively towards the organization and wish to leave, 'calculative members' weigh benefits and limitations of belonging, and 'moral members' feel positively towards the organization and may even sublimate their own needs in order to participate (Etzioni 1961). As noted by Jennifer Lois (1999:118) normative organizations are the most underrepresented type of organization discussed in the sociological literature. Even so, Etzioni's model is sufficient such that I define a -- voluntary -- community as a 'normative' organization of 'moral' members. I adopt this synonymous definition not only because it allows me to integrate the character of the members into the character of the organization, but to echo the importance of the sense of the collaborative 'gift' in discussions among members of the community. Yet, obviously, not all voluntary organizations are necessarily open according to the definition above. A voluntary community can produce proprietary products and have opaque processes -- collegiate secret societies are a silly but demonstrative example. However, like with openness, it is difficult to draw a clear line: one cannot exclusively locate open communities and their members strictly within the 'normative' and 'moral' categories, though they are dominant in the open communities I introduced. Many members of those open communities are volunteers, either because of a 'moral' inclination and/or informal 'calculative' concern with a sense of satisfaction and reputation. While the FLOSS survey concluded, "that this activity still resembles rather a hobby than salaried work" (Ghosh et al. 2002:67), 15.7% of their sample declared they do receive some renumeration for developing F/OS. Even at the IETF and W3C, where many engineers are paid to participate, it is not uncommon for some to endeavor to maintain their membership even when not employed or their employers change. The openness of these communities is perhaps dominant in describing the character of the organization, though the voluntariness is critical to understanding the moral/ideological light in which many of the members view their participation. Conclusion I've attempted to provide a definition for openness that reflects an understanding of contemporary usage. The popular connotation, and consequently the definition put forth in this essay, arises from well known examples that include -- at least in part -- a notion of voluntary effort. On further consideration, I believe we can identity a loose conceptualization of shared products, and a process of transparency, integrity, and non-discrimination. Brevity prevents me from considering variations of these characteristics and consequent claims of 'openness' in different communities. And such an exercise isn't necessary for my argument. A common behavior of an open community is the self-reflexive discourse of what it means to be open on difficult boundary cases; the test of an open community is if a constituency that is dissatisfied with the results of such a discussion can can fork (relocate) the work elsewhere. Works Cited Blau, Peter and W. Richard Scott. Formal organizations: a comparative approach. New York, NY: John Wiley, 1962. Etzioni, Amitai. Modern organizations. New York, NY: Free Press of Glencoe., 1961. Ghosh, Rishab, Ruediger Glott, Bernhard Krieger, and Gregorio Robles. Free/Libre and open source software: survey and study. 2002. http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/ Lois, Jennifer. "Socialization to heroism: individualism and collectivism in a voluntary search and rescue group." Social Psychology Quarterly 62 (1999): 117-135. Nardi, Bonnie and Steve Whittaker. "The place of face-to-face communication in distributed work." Distributed Work. Ed. Pamela Hinds and Sara Kiesler. Boston, Ma: MIT Press., 2002. chapter 4. Reagle, Joseph. Why the Internet is good community governance that works well. 1999.http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/reagle/regulation-19990326.html Stallman, Richard. Free Software Foundation. 1996. http://www.gnu.org/fsf/fsf.html Stallman, Richard. Linux and the GNU project. 1997. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html Stallman, Richard. The GNU project. 1998. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html Tzouris, Menelaos. Software freedom, open software and the participant's motivation -- a multidisciplinary study. London, UK: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2002. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Reagle Jr., Joseph. "Open Content Communities." M/C Journal 7.3 (2004). <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/06_Reagle.rft.php>. APA Style Reagle Jr., J. (2004, Jul.) Open Content Communities, M/C Journal, 7(3), <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/06_Reagle.rft.php>.

Excavation is an important part of any construction project whereby removing earth to form cavity in the ground. This paper mainly focuses on cut and fill excavation by identify the cost of labor, material and equipment. Besides that, this paper aims to have better understanding on Bill of Quantity using coding. The method implemented for this study is using GNU Octave, version 6.2.0 and manual calculation to calculate the construction cost incurred during excavation process. Referring to the manual calculation, the overall cost obtained for the project is RM27352.15 whereas using GNU Octave software obtained for the project is RM27352.15. Thus, both GNU Octave software and manual calculation has zero percent difference. Octave is a computer programme that is designed for numerical computations and able to solve linear and nonlinear mathematical problems.

Resultant force caused by the pressure loading of a liquid acting on submerged surfaces are known as Hydraulic force. Calculating the hydrostatic force is necessary to design a building that can resist forces due to its fluid. There are 2 conditions of the submerged surface, those are fully submerged and partly submerged. In this study, three scenarios will be used for developing computer-based program for calculating hydrostatic force and will be compared to manual calculation. The numerical analysis will be conducted using GNU Octave, version 6.2.0. The scenarios are fully submerged plane with 90°, fully submerged plane with inclination angle and partially submerged plane with inclination angle. Overall, from scenario one to three, the percentage differences are 0%, with the mean percentage difference of the program is 0%. Hence, it satisfies all the elements that need to be checked based on the hydrostatic force calculation in Fluid Mechanics.

Online and realtime monitoring system for water quality that uses a computer mainboard as data logger requires software applications that serve to control the sensor work in order to measure the water quality data and sends it to the data center. Some of the requirements such as data measurement, storage and delivery of data and early warning system are required by the data logger in order to have the features as desired by the majority of users of this system. To facilitate the making of the program code, sensor with serial communication ports (RS232C) will be used. Program control data logger that meets these requirements is developed using Water Flow Software Development Life Cycle method and using GNU C++ the free open source software (FOSS) as the development tools. Program control data logger that has been developed will be installed to the data logger hardware and operated using FreeBSD as the Operating system. The program will run on the class 10 of flash drive with 16 giga byte capacity. Keywords: water quality monitoring, online/realtime monitoring, early warning system (EWS), open source software, data logger, onlimo OSS, control data logger, GNU C++

At the CTU in Prague, there is a long tradition of master degree courses in geodesy, geodetic surveying and cartography. Taking into account the fast development of information technologies in recent decades, we decided to prepare a new study program that would combine computer science with a background of geodetic and cartographic know-how. Apart from other sources, our plans were inspired and influenced by the Review of Education Needs, a report prepared by Stig Enemark (Prague 1998), and by our experience from several Virtual Academy workshops.We have decided to call this program „Geoinformatics“ to emphasize the role of computer technologies in collecting, analyzing and exploiting information about our planet. Within this presentation we will explain the basic ideas behind our new study program and emphasize the features that distinguish it from classical geodetic or cartographic programs. We will mention the connection between our new study program and several geodetic and software projects running at our institute - software development for real-time GPS applications, cooperation with the Astronomical Institute, University of Berne, on the development of so-called Bernese GPS Software, the GNU project Gama for adjustment of geodetic networks, etc.

Abstract Background The wealth of biological information available nowadays in public databases has triggered an unprecedented rise in multi-database search and data retrieval for obtaining detailed information about key functional and structural entities. This concerns investigations ranging from gene or genome analysis to protein structural analysis. However, the retrieval of interconnected data from a number of different databases is very often done repeatedly in an unsystematic way. Results Here, we present TAxonomy, Gene, Ontology, Protein, Structure INtegrated (TAGOPSIN), a command line program written in Java for rapid and systematic retrieval of select data from seven of the most popular public biological databases relevant to comparative genomics and protein structure studies. The program allows a user to retrieve organism-centred data and assemble them in a single data warehouse which constitutes a useful resource for several biological applications. TAGOPSIN was tested with a number of organisms encompassing eukaryotes, prokaryotes and viruses. For example, it successfully integrated data for about 17,000 UniProt entries of Homo sapiens and 21 UniProt entries of human coronavirus. Conclusion TAGOPSIN demonstrates efficient data integration whereby manipulation of interconnected data is more convenient than doing multi-database queries. The program facilitates for instance interspecific comparative analyses of protein-coding genes in a molecular evolutionary study, or identification of taxa-specific protein domains and three-dimensional structures. TAGOPSIN is available as a JAR file at https://github.com/ebundhoo/TAGOPSIN and is released under the GNU General Public License.

AbstractFault injection attacks (FIA), which cause information leakage by injecting intentional faults into the data or operations of devices, are one of the most powerful methods compromising the security of confidential data stored on these devices. Previous studies related to FIA report that attackers can skip instructions running on many devices through many means of fault injection. Most existing anti-FIA countermeasures on software are designed to secure against instruction skip (IS). On the other hand, recent studies report that attackers can use laser fault injection to manipulate instructions running on devices as they want. Although the previous studies have shown that instruction manipulation (IM) could attack the existing countermeasures against IS, no effective countermeasures against IM have been proposed. This paper is the first work tackling this problem, aiming to construct software-based countermeasures against IM faults. Evaluating program vulnerabilities to IM faults is required to consider countermeasures against IM faults. We propose three IM simulation environments for that aim and compare them to reveal their performance difference. GDB (GNU debugger)-based simulator that we newly propose in this paper outperforms the QEMU-based simulator that we presented in AICCSA:1–8, 2020 in advance, in terms of evaluation time at most $$\times$$ × 400 faster. Evaluating a target program using the proposed IM simulators reveals that the IM faults leading to attack successes are classified into four classes. We propose secure coding techniques as countermeasures against IMs of each four classes and show the effectiveness of the countermeasures using the IM simulators.

Free and open source software (FOSS) is any computer program released under a licence that grants users rights to run the program for any purpose, to study it, to modify it, and to redistribute it in original or modified form. Our aim is to explore the intersection between FOSS and computational reproducibility. We begin by situating FOSS in relation to other ‘open’ initiatives, and specifically open science, open research, and open scholarship. In this context, we argue that anyone who actively contributes to the research process today is a computational researcher, in that they use computers to manage and store information. We then provide a primer to FOSS suitable for anyone concerned with research quality and sustainability—including researchers in any field, as well as support staff, administrators, publishers, funders, and so on. Next, we illustrate how the notions introduced in the primer apply to resources for scientific computing, with reference to the GNU Scientific Library as a case study. We conclude by discussing why the common interpretation of ‘open source’ as ‘open code’ is misplaced, and we use this example to articulate the role of FOSS in research and scholarship today. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reliability and reproducibility in computational science: implementing verification, validation and uncertainty quantification in silico ’.

Abstract Background Current alignment tools typically lack an explicit model of indel evolution, leading to artificially short inferred alignments (i.e., over-alignment) due to inconsistencies between the indel history and the phylogeny relating the input sequences. Results We present a new progressive multiple sequence alignment tool ProPIP. The process of insertions and deletions is described using an explicit evolutionary model—the Poisson Indel Process or PIP. The method is based on dynamic programming and is implemented in a frequentist framework. The source code can be compiled on Linux, macOS and Microsoft Windows platforms. The algorithm is implemented in C++ as standalone program. The source code is freely available on GitHub at https://github.com/acg-team/ProPIP and is distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL v3 license. Conclusions The use of an explicit indel evolution model allows to avoid over-alignment, to infer gaps in a phylogenetically consistent way and to make inferences about the rates of insertions and deletions. Instead of the arbitrary gap penalties, the parameters used by ProPIP are the insertion and deletion rates, which have biological interpretation and are contextualized in a probabilistic environment. As a result, indel rate settings may be optimised in order to infer phylogenetically meaningful gap patterns.

Abstract: Introduction: In pandemic times, in which the “lockdown strategy” has been adopted, the use of innovations using technological resources such as the creation of instruments that can replace traditional teaching-learning methods in the training of health professionals is essential. Objective: the aim of this study was to develop and evaluate the usability of a realistic interactive simulation computer system using three-dimensional imaging technology and virtual reality with free-access computational tools available on the web. Methods: the development of a prototype (OSCE 3D) was based on the steps used for the construction of a “Serious Game” simulation software. The free-access version of the Unity Editor 3D platform (Unity Technologies, version 2018), used for developing educational games, the software GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP, version 2.10.12), Blender (version 2.79) and MakeHuman (version 1.1.1) were utilized for creating textures and building models of the 3D environments. An experimental phase was carried out to assess usability, through a questionnaire based on the System Usability Scale. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution and all participants signed the Informed Consent Form. Results: a total of 39 undergraduate medical students attending the 6th semester of a private university center of northeastern Brazil voluntarily participated in the evaluation of the OSCE 3D. The usability evaluation resulted in a mean score of 75.4 with a margin of error of 3.2, which is considered a good usability score according to the literature. Conclusions: this study allowed the development of a low-cost prototype, using a three-dimension realistic simulation system for clinical skills assessment. This product, even in the prototype phase, showed good usability.

Abstract: Introduction: In pandemic times, in which the “lockdown strategy” has been adopted, the use of innovations using technological resources such as the creation of instruments that can replace traditional teaching-learning methods in the training of health professionals is essential. Objective: the aim of this study was to develop and evaluate the usability of a realistic interactive simulation computer system using three-dimensional imaging technology and virtual reality with free-access computational tools available on the web. Methods: the development of a prototype (OSCE 3D) was based on the steps used for the construction of a “Serious Game” simulation software. The free-access version of the Unity Editor 3D platform (Unity Technologies, version 2018), used for developing educational games, the software GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP, version 2.10.12), Blender (version 2.79) and MakeHuman (version 1.1.1) were utilized for creating textures and building models of the 3D environments. An experimental phase was carried out to assess usability, through a questionnaire based on the System Usability Scale. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution and all participants signed the Informed Consent Form. Results: a total of 39 undergraduate medical students attending the 6th semester of a private university center of northeastern Brazil voluntarily participated in the evaluation of the OSCE 3D. The usability evaluation resulted in a mean score of 75.4 with a margin of error of 3.2, which is considered a good usability score according to the literature. Conclusions: this study allowed the development of a low-cost prototype, using a three-dimension realistic simulation system for clinical skills assessment. This product, even in the prototype phase, showed good usability.

I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. Richard Stallman (GNU Manifesto) There is much more to Stallman’s Manifesto […] Suffice it to say that on the surface, it read like a socialist polemic, but I saw something different. I saw a business plan in disguise. Michael Tiemann (72) The current discourse surrounding the rapid development and deployment of “free” and “open source” software and operating systems is framed by an undeniably utopian impulse. The “openness” of open source software is informed by concerns both practical (freedom from oppressive software production and licensing/copyright schemes) and ideological (the valorisation of anarchic organizational forms, communal production, and public property rights). The utopian impulse that underwrites this discourse is important for many reasons, but what I want to trace here is the trajectory from ideological position to practical action as it relates to differing forms of utopianism. The initial anarcho-socialist utopian move initiated by Richard Stallman’s GNU (GNU’s Not UNIX) Project and Free Software Foundation (FSF) is currently being transformed into an organizational utopia in the form of the Open Source Movement (OSM). The purpose here is not to take sides in the philological/philosophical debate over the definitions and relative merits of “free” versus “open source” software or to lament the passing of a missed opportunity, but to address the intimations of hope and deprival (with apologies to Grant) that can be gleaned from the relationship between utopianism and socio-technological practices. The popularity of open source development ideals and practices indicates a certain dissatisfaction with corporate technoculture on the part of some (many?) of those who work in these institutions. This dissatisfaction is clearly evident in Richard Stallman’s GNU Manifesto wherein he critiques the shift from public domain to copyrighted software development that has occurred in the last three decades. Recalling Brian Winston’s theorization of technological development, the move toward copyrighted software appears to have come as a result of the increasing diffusion of computing hardware in the 1980’s and the practical realization of software development as an economically rationalized for-profit enterprise. Prior to the broad commodification of software, programmers shared knowledge and code without worrying about software licenses and copyrights, institutionally commodified intellectual property, and non-disclosure agreements (at least according to Stallman’s experience). Stallman’s heroic effort to create the GNU system is thus not only a direct attack on commodified software production, but a consciously utopian attempt to recapture the “open” communal programming practices that existed during the 1960’s and 70’s. The utopian impulse found in this open form of software development is significant precisely because it underwrites recent efforts to reject current copyright regimes and, by extension, techno-industrial oligarchies. This potential is enabled by newly available forms of grassroots software development (code sharing and development via the Internet being the most obvious example). Stallman introduced and encouraged a licensing system that expressly prohibited the copyrighting of software developed using GNU software protocols and standards (termed “copyleft”). The lag between the initial deployment of Stallman’s early software efforts and their uptake by the wider computing community came as increases in computer literacy, technology markets, affordable personal computing power, and broadband CMC networks came along in the 1990’s. The OSM’s recent mobilization around Linux continues and parallels Stallman’s efforts via the adoption of the GNU license and copyleft. While the hallmarks of Stallman’s communal software production system remain, the overall nature of Open Source software is framed by a rather different notion of utopian openness than is evident in Stallman’s manifesto. This brings me to the broader notion of an anarcho-utopianism framed by what Bookchin has identified as the twin goals of individual liberty and social democracy. Claims are already being made that practices related to open source software development and its emergent virtually interconnected organizational form may provide the basis for (re)imagining systems of social governance while simultaneously providing the practical infrastructure by which these new forms may be manifested: The experience of open source development, or even just the acceptance of its value as a model for others, provides a real-life practice for the deeper change in perspective required if we are to move into a more networked and emergent understanding of our world. The local community must be experienced as a place to implement policies, incrementally, that will eventually have an effect on the whole. (Rushkoff 61) Suggestions that the FSF’s and OSM’s methods of software development may serve as a model for more open and democratic policy making resonates with political theory in general, and social democracy and anarchism in particular. But neither the OSM nor the FSF is a political platform. They are simply modalities of software production which find their foundations in communal forms of decision making, intellectual labour, and dissemination. A utopian impulse is nonetheless revealed in the typically vague invocations of political anarchism and social democratic ideals that accompany the discursive promotion and legitimization of these modalities. The FSF advocates a broadly social anarchistic approach allied with a desire to overturn entirely commodified software production. The OSM, on the other hand, is more concerned with a kind of lifestyle anarchism that focuses on increasing programmer and user freedom within existing frameworks of software production and use. For Bookchin, the latter form of anarchism is positive insofar it advocates individual liberty, but it ultimately undermines the broader goals of anarchism by focusing on transient notions of individualism. The result is a situation wherein “the word anarchy will become part of the chic bourgeois vocabulary of the coming century — naughty, rebellious, insouciant, but deliciously safe” (3). It is interesting to note in passim the various discursive entanglements of anarchism and the Internet that have occurred since 1995, the time of Bookchin’s statement. The utopian discourse that weaves its way through the non-technical discussions surrounding GNU, Linux, and other Open Source projects is certainly strong, but it begs the question of exactly what kinds of utopias are being offered ? Henri Lefebvre was rather suspicious of utopian thought because it is so frequently allied with efforts to legitimize nationalistic and totalitarian organizational practices. While suggesting that utopian thought was useful, he would only go so far as to warn that any such thought must avoid notions of a revolution that would simply substitute one state-sanctioned form of organized production with another, arguing instead for a “transformation of society [that] presupposes a collective ownership and management of space [we could say “society’ or even “software” here in place of “space] founded on the permanent participation of the ‘interested parties’, with their multiple, varied and even contradictory interests” (422). For Lefebvre, any useful form of utopianism is not a matter of coming up with alternative state apparatuses, but of somehow creating the conditions through which an open orientation to future possibilities might allow for the foundation of a more socially democratic society. The FSF comes closest to fulfilling this ideal—at least within the realm of computing—insofar its attendant communities are involved less in the creation of a new institutional form than in the propagation of practices and desires for more open forms of software development. As such, the FSF seems to deploy the kind of utopian thinking and practice that Lefebvre finds useful. There is hope (social and computational) in this kind of utopian orientation because its socio-institutional functioning is left forever open-ended by way of its locating productive practices in communal formations. The FSF offers an idealized mode of communally open software development while refusing to provide an overarching and institutionalized organizational form by which it is to be utilized. Borrowing heavily from the FSF’s ideals and practices, the OSM’s efforts to integrate practices of communal software development into contemporary techno-capitalism is not simply an intimation of deprival — a moment to lament the passing of the FSF’s utopian ideals — rather, the OSM constitutes what Deleuze and Guattari refer to as a moment of actualization whereby the virtual (and utopian) potential future(s) of communal software development cross the practico-material threshold to become manifest practices. Stallman’s GNU existed in the rather rarefied realm of hardcore coders for years before Torvald’s Linux took open/free software principles into the mainstream. The moment of actualization was not simply technical (available hardware, software, programmers, networks, etc.): it was the recognition that communal “copylefted” programming could “find a place” in the everyday structures of IT industries, services, and markets. It is the moment when Tiemann sees a business plan in Stallman’s “socialist polemic”. At this point that the utopian orientation and ideals promoted by the FSF transforms into an organizational utopia spearheaded by the OSM. The debate over this transformation shows few signs of abating any time soon. Stallman feels that Eric Raymond’s (the spiritual “leader” of the OSM) promotion of a potentially massive, and certainly for-profit, industry founded on the implementation and support of open source software defeats the basic (utopian) principles of free software. Echoing Bookchin’s concerns about lifestyle anarchism, Stallman worries that the OSM will simply result in the re-introduction of all of those things that drove him out of institutional software development in the first place: “the rhetoric of ‘open source’ focuses on the potential to make high quality, powerful software, but shuns the ideas of freedom, community and principle” (1999:70) . The FSF’s social utopianism thus appears to provide the productive content, but not the political form, for the more practically minded utopianism of the OSM, which offers an organizational utopia more akin to the “substitutive” utopias disavowed by Lefebvre. As Martin Parker argues, utopian thought and practice tends to be organizational in nature: “most, if not all, fictional and actual utopias rely on a re-formulation of principles of social order. They are in that sense organized, though often on different principles to the market managerial hegemony” (217-218). Stallman’s open anarcho-utopianism commits to an avoidance of market managerial hegemony. The OSM, however, not only cooperates with market hegemony, it seeks to find a place within it. This is a crucial difference. The openness introduced by the FSF is incorporated by the OSM only at the level of software production itself, thus containing and integrating its communal practices in the service of existing market needs and structures. The OSM is thus likely only a threat to Microsoft, and this only because it proffers a new business model. Indeed, the popular appeal of the OSM’s version of open source as a metaphor and model for businesses suggests that it may be an easily, and safely, appropriated set of practices. On the other hand, the FSF’s promotion of a more “socialist” approach to software production and use is based on the same basic programming practices and it will therefore be rather difficult to exact some sort of industrial control of copyright and/or intellectual property where open source software is concerned. Whether or not these two approaches are compatible, or if users will push their development into as yet unseen directions, is by no means clear at this point. With open source development poised on the verge of being the “next big thing”, the manifest expression of its anarchic utopian impulse in the form of treatises and essays is somewhat limited insofar as the community is primarily composed of programmers rather than social theorists. Nevertheless, the utopian impulse is becoming more clearly expressed where it perhaps matters most: as an emergent set of practices in the domain of software production and use. The “kernel” of openness introduced by both the FSF and the OSM thus needs to be addressed in detail, and sooner rather than later, because it is in the struggle between these two forms of anarchic utopianism that the broader sociopolitical implications of a radically different form of software production will be played out. About the Author Dale Bradley is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Communications, Popular Culture, and Film at Brock University, Canada. His research interests include the discursive analysis of contemporary technoculture and the historical emergence of cybersociety. Email: dbradley@brocku.ca Works Cited Bookchin, Murray. Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism. San Francisco: AK Press, 1995. Deleuze, Gilles & Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 1987. Grant, George. Technology and Empire: Perspectives on North America. Toronto: House of Anansi, 1969. Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford UK: Blackwell, 1991. Parker, Martin. ‘Utopia and the Organizational Imagination: Eutopia’. Utopia and Organization. Ed. Martin Parker. Oxford UK: Blackwell, 2002. Rushkoff, Douglas. Open Source Democracy. London: Demos, 2003. Full text available under open source licensing at: http://www.demos.co.uk/catalogue/opensourcedemocracy_page292.aspx http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html Stallman, Richard. ‘The GNU Operating System and the Free Software Movement’. Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution. Eds. Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman & Mark Stone. Sebastopol CA: O’Reilly & Associates,1999. Tiemann, Michael. ‘Future of Cygnus Solutions: An Entrepreneur’s Account’. Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution. Eds. Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman & Mark Stone. O’Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol CA: 1999 Winston, Brian. Misunderstanding Media. Harvard U Press, Cambridge MA: 1986 For a brief overview of the debate between Stallman and Raymond, see ‘Whence the Source: Untangling the Open Source/Free Software Debate’ at: http://opensource.oreilly.com/news/scoville_0399.html) Citation reference for this article MLA Style Bradley, Dale. "Open Source, Anarchy, and the Utopian Impulse" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/03_Bradley.php>. APA Style Bradley, D. (2004, Jul1). Open Source, Anarchy, and the Utopian Impulse. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 7, <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/03_Bradley.php>

“As the old technologies become automatic and invisible, we find ourselves more concerned with fighting or embracing what’s new”—Dennis Baron, From Pencils to Pixels: The Stage of Literacy Technologies What constitutes a computer, as we have come to expect it? Are they necessarily monolithic “beige boxes”, connected to computer monitors, sitting on computer desks, located in computer rooms or computer labs? In order for a device to be considered a true computer, does it need to have a keyboard and mouse? If this were 1991 or earlier, our collective perception of what computers are and are not would largely be framed by this “beige box” model: computers are stationary, slab-like, and heavy, and their natural habitats must be in rooms specifically designated for that purpose. In 1992, when Apple introduced the first PowerBook, our perception began to change. Certainly there had been other portable computers prior to that, such as the Osborne 1, but these were more luggable than portable, weighing just slightly less than a typical sewing machine. The PowerBook and subsequent waves of laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and so-called smart phones from numerous other companies have steadily forced us to rethink and redefine what a computer is and is not, how we interact with them, and the manner in which these tools might be used in the classroom. However, this reconceptualization of computers is far from over, and is in fact steadily evolving as new devices are introduced, adopted, and subsequently adapted for uses beyond of their original purpose. Pat Crowe’s Book Reader project, for example, has morphed Nintendo’s GameBoy and GameBoy Advance into a viable electronic book platform, complete with images, sound, and multi-language support. (Crowe, 2003) His goal was to take this existing technology previously framed only within the context of proprietary adolescent entertainment, and repurpose it for open, flexible uses typically associated with learning and literacy. Similar efforts are underway to repurpose Microsoft’s Xbox, perhaps the ultimate symbol of “closed” technology given Microsoft’s propensity for proprietary code, in order to make it a viable platform for Open Source Software (OSS). However, these efforts are not forgone conclusions, and are in fact typical of the ongoing battle over who controls the technology we own in our homes, and how open source solutions are often at odds with a largely proprietary world. In late 2001, Microsoft launched the Xbox with a multimillion dollar publicity drive featuring events, commercials, live models, and statements claiming this new console gaming platform would “change video games the way MTV changed music”. (Chan, 2001) The Xbox launched with the following technical specifications: 733mhz Pentium III 64mb RAM, 8 or 10gb internal hard disk drive CD/DVD ROM drive (speed unknown) Nvidia graphics processor, with HDTV support 4 USB 1.1 ports (adapter required), AC3 audio 10/100 ethernet port, Optional 56k modem (TechTV, 2001) While current computers dwarf these specifications in virtually all areas now, for 2001 these were roughly on par with many desktop systems. The retail price at the time was $299, but steadily dropped to nearly half that with additional price cuts anticipated. Based on these features, the preponderance of “off the shelf” parts and components used, and the relatively reasonable price, numerous programmers quickly became interested in seeing it if was possible to run Linux and additional OSS on the Xbox. In each case, the goal has been similar: exceed the original purpose of the Xbox, to determine if and how well it might be used for basic computing tasks. If these attempts prove to be successful, the Xbox could allow institutions to dramatically increase the student-to-computer ratio in select environments, or allow individuals who could not otherwise afford a computer to instead buy and Xbox, download and install Linux, and use this new device to write, create, and innovate . This drive to literally and metaphorically “open” the Xbox comes from many directions. Such efforts include Andrew Huang’s self-published “Hacking the Xbox” book in which, under the auspices of reverse engineering, Huang analyzes the architecture of the Xbox, detailing step-by-step instructions for flashing the ROM, upgrading the hard drive and/or RAM, and generally prepping the device for use as an information appliance. Additional initiatives include Lindows CEO Michael Robertson’s $200,000 prize to encourage Linux development on the Xbox, and the Xbox Linux Project at SourceForge. What is Linux? Linux is an alternative operating system initially developed in 1991 by Linus Benedict Torvalds. Linux was based off a derivative of the MINIX operating system, which in turn was a derivative of UNIX. (Hasan 2003) Linux is currently available for Intel-based systems that would normally run versions of Windows, PowerPC-based systems that would normally run Apple’s Mac OS, and a host of other handheld, cell phone, or so-called “embedded” systems. Linux distributions are based almost exclusively on open source software, graphic user interfaces, and middleware components. While there are commercial Linux distributions available, these mainly just package the freely available operating system with bundled technical support, manuals, some exclusive or proprietary commercial applications, and related services. Anyone can still download and install numerous Linux distributions at no cost, provided they do not need technical support beyond the community / enthusiast level. Typical Linux distributions come with open source web browsers, word processors and related productivity applications (such as those found in OpenOffice.org), and related tools for accessing email, organizing schedules and contacts, etc. Certain Linux distributions are more or less designed for network administrators, system engineers, and similar “power users” somewhat distanced from that of our students. However, several distributions including Lycoris, Mandrake, LindowsOS, and other are specifically tailored as regular, desktop operating systems, with regular, everyday computer users in mind. As Linux has no draconian “product activation key” method of authentication, or digital rights management-laden features associated with installation and implementation on typical desktop and laptop systems, Linux is becoming an ideal choice both individually and institutionally. It still faces an uphill battle in terms of achieving widespread acceptance as a desktop operating system. As Finnie points out in Desktop Linux Edges Into The Mainstream: “to attract users, you need ease of installation, ease of device configuration, and intuitive, full-featured desktop user controls. It’s all coming, but slowly. With each new version, desktop Linux comes closer to entering the mainstream. It’s anyone’s guess as to when critical mass will be reached, but you can feel the inevitability: There’s pent-up demand for something different.” (Finnie 2003) Linux is already spreading rapidly in numerous capacities, in numerous countries. Linux has “taken hold wherever computer users desire freedom, and wherever there is demand for inexpensive software.” Reports from technology research company IDG indicate that roughly a third of computers in Central and South America run Linux. Several countries, including Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, have all but mandated that state-owned institutions adopt open source software whenever possible to “give their people the tools and education to compete with the rest of the world.” (Hills 2001) The Goal Less than a year after Microsoft introduced the The Xbox, the Xbox Linux project formed. The Xbox Linux Project has a goal of developing and distributing Linux for the Xbox gaming console, “so that it can be used for many tasks that Microsoft don’t want you to be able to do. ...as a desktop computer, for email and browsing the web from your TV, as a (web) server” (Xbox Linux Project 2002). Since the Linux operating system is open source, meaning it can freely be tinkered with and distributed, those who opt to download and install Linux on their Xbox can do so with relatively little overhead in terms of cost or time. Additionally, Linux itself looks very “windows-like”, making for fairly low learning curve. To help increase overall awareness of this project and assist in diffusing it, the Xbox Linux Project offers step-by-step installation instructions, with the end result being a system capable of using common peripherals such as a keyboard and mouse, scanner, printer, a “webcam and a DVD burner, connected to a VGA monitor; 100% compatible with a standard Linux PC, all PC (USB) hardware and PC software that works with Linux.” (Xbox Linux Project 2002) Such a system could have tremendous potential for technology literacy. Pairing an Xbox with Linux and OpenOffice.org, for example, would provide our students essentially the same capability any of them would expect from a regular desktop computer. They could send and receive email, communicate using instant messaging IRC, or newsgroup clients, and browse Internet sites just as they normally would. In fact, the overall browsing experience for Linux users is substantially better than that for most Windows users. Internet Explorer, the default browser on all systems running Windows-base operating systems, lacks basic features standard in virtually all competing browsers. Native blocking of “pop-up” advertisements is still not yet possible in Internet Explorer without the aid of a third-party utility. Tabbed browsing, which involves the ability to easily open and sort through multiple Web pages in the same window, often with a single mouse click, is also missing from Internet Explorer. The same can be said for a robust download manager, “find as you type”, and a variety of additional features. Mozilla, Netscape, Firefox, Konqueror, and essentially all other OSS browsers for Linux have these features. Of course, most of these browsers are also available for Windows, but Internet Explorer is still considered the standard browser for the platform. If the Xbox Linux Project becomes widely diffused, our students could edit and save Microsoft Word files in OpenOffice.org’s Writer program, and do the same with PowerPoint and Excel files in similar OpenOffice.org components. They could access instructor comments originally created in Microsoft Word documents, and in turn could add their own comments and send the documents back to their instructors. They could even perform many functions not yet capable in Microsoft Office, including saving files in PDF or Flash format without needing Adobe’s Acrobat product or Macromedia’s Flash Studio MX. Additionally, by way of this project, the Xbox can also serve as “a Linux server for HTTP/FTP/SMB/NFS, serving data such as MP3/MPEG4/DivX, or a router, or both; without a monitor or keyboard or mouse connected.” (Xbox Linux Project 2003) In a very real sense, our students could use these inexpensive systems previously framed only within the context of entertainment, for educational purposes typically associated with computer-mediated learning. Problems: Control and Access The existing rhetoric of technological control surrounding current and emerging technologies appears to be stifling many of these efforts before they can even be brought to the public. This rhetoric of control is largely typified by overly-restrictive digital rights management (DRM) schemes antithetical to education, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Combined,both are currently being used as technical and legal clubs against these efforts. Microsoft, for example, has taken a dim view of any efforts to adapt the Xbox to Linux. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who has repeatedly referred to Linux as a cancer and has equated OSS as being un-American, stated, “Given the way the economic model works - and that is a subsidy followed, essentially, by fees for every piece of software sold - our license framework has to do that.” (Becker 2003) Since the Xbox is based on a subsidy model, meaning that Microsoft actually sells the hardware at a loss and instead generates revenue off software sales, Ballmer launched a series of concerted legal attacks against the Xbox Linux Project and similar efforts. In 2002, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft simultaneously sued Lik Sang, Inc., a Hong Kong-based company that produces programmable cartridges and “mod chips” for the PlayStation II, Xbox, and Game Cube. Nintendo states that its company alone loses over $650 million each year due to piracy of their console gaming titles, which typically originate in China, Paraguay, and Mexico. (GameIndustry.biz) Currently, many attempts to “mod” the Xbox required the use of such chips. As Lik Sang is one of the only suppliers, initial efforts to adapt the Xbox to Linux slowed considerably. Despite that fact that such chips can still be ordered and shipped here by less conventional means, it does not change that fact that the chips themselves would be illegal in the U.S. due to the anticircumvention clause in the DMCA itself, which is designed specifically to protect any DRM-wrapped content, regardless of context. The Xbox Linux Project then attempted to get Microsoft to officially sanction their efforts. They were not only rebuffed, but Microsoft then opted to hire programmers specifically to create technological countermeasures for the Xbox, to defeat additional attempts at installing OSS on it. Undeterred, the Xbox Linux Project eventually arrived at a method of installing and booting Linux without the use of mod chips, and have taken a more defiant tone now with Microsoft regarding their circumvention efforts. (Lettice 2002) They state that “Microsoft does not want you to use the Xbox as a Linux computer, therefore it has some anti-Linux-protection built in, but it can be circumvented easily, so that an Xbox can be used as what it is: an IBM PC.” (Xbox Linux Project 2003) Problems: Learning Curves and Usability In spite of the difficulties imposed by the combined technological and legal attacks on this project, it has succeeded at infiltrating this closed system with OSS. It has done so beyond the mere prototype level, too, as evidenced by the Xbox Linux Project now having both complete, step-by-step instructions available for users to modify their own Xbox systems, and an alternate plan catering to those who have the interest in modifying their systems, but not the time or technical inclinations. Specifically, this option involves users mailing their Xbox systems to community volunteers within the Xbox Linux Project, and basically having these volunteers perform the necessary software preparation or actually do the full Linux installation for them, free of charge (presumably not including shipping). This particular aspect of the project, dubbed “Users Help Users”, appears to be fairly new. Yet, it already lists over sixty volunteers capable and willing to perform this service, since “Many users don’t have the possibility, expertise or hardware” to perform these modifications. Amazingly enough, in some cases these volunteers are barely out of junior high school. One such volunteer stipulates that those seeking his assistance keep in mind that he is “just 14” and that when performing these modifications he “...will not always be finished by the next day”. (Steil 2003) In addition to this interesting if somewhat unusual level of community-driven support, there are currently several Linux-based options available for the Xbox. The two that are perhaps the most developed are GentooX, which is based of the popular Gentoo Linux distribution, and Ed’s Debian, based off the Debian GNU / Linux distribution. Both Gentoo and Debian are “seasoned” distributions that have been available for some time now, though Daniel Robbins, Chief Architect of Gentoo, refers to the product as actually being a “metadistribution” of Linux, due to its high degree of adaptability and configurability. (Gentoo 2004) Specifically, the Robbins asserts that Gentoo is capable of being “customized for just about any application or need. ...an ideal secure server, development workstation, professional desktop, gaming system, embedded solution or something else—whatever you need it to be.” (Robbins 2004) He further states that the whole point of Gentoo is to provide a better, more usable Linux experience than that found in many other distributions. Robbins states that: “The goal of Gentoo is to design tools and systems that allow a user to do their work pleasantly and efficiently as possible, as they see fit. Our tools should be a joy to use, and should help the user to appreciate the richness of the Linux and free software community, and the flexibility of free software. ...Put another way, the Gentoo philosophy is to create better tools. When a tool is doing its job perfectly, you might not even be very aware of its presence, because it does not interfere and make its presence known, nor does it force you to interact with it when you don’t want it to. The tool serves the user rather than the user serving the tool.” (Robbins 2004) There is also a so-called “live CD” Linux distribution suitable for the Xbox, called dyne:bolic, and an in-progress release of Slackware Linux, as well. According to the Xbox Linux Project, the only difference between the standard releases of these distributions and their Xbox counterparts is that “...the install process – and naturally the bootloader, the kernel and the kernel modules – are all customized for the Xbox.” (Xbox Linux Project, 2003) Of course, even if Gentoo is as user-friendly as Robbins purports, even if the Linux kernel itself has become significantly more robust and efficient, and even if Microsoft again drops the retail price of the Xbox, is this really a feasible solution in the classroom? Does the Xbox Linux Project have an army of 14 year olds willing to modify dozens, perhaps hundreds of these systems for use in secondary schools and higher education? Of course not. If such an institutional rollout were to be undertaken, it would require significant support from not only faculty, but Department Chairs, Deans, IT staff, and quite possible Chief Information Officers. Disk images would need to be customized for each institution to reflect their respective needs, ranging from setting specific home pages on web browsers, to bookmarks, to custom back-up and / or disk re-imaging scripts, to network authentication. This would be no small task. Yet, the steps mentioned above are essentially no different than what would be required of any IT staff when creating a new disk image for a computer lab, be it one for a Windows-based system or a Mac OS X-based one. The primary difference would be Linux itself—nothing more, nothing less. The institutional difficulties in undertaking such an effort would likely be encountered prior to even purchasing a single Xbox, in that they would involve the same difficulties associated with any new hardware or software initiative: staffing, budget, and support. If the institutional in question is either unwilling or unable to address these three factors, it would not matter if the Xbox itself was as free as Linux. An Open Future, or a Closed one? It is unclear how far the Xbox Linux Project will be allowed to go in their efforts to invade an essentially a proprietary system with OSS. Unlike Sony, which has made deliberate steps to commercialize similar efforts for their PlayStation 2 console, Microsoft appears resolute in fighting OSS on the Xbox by any means necessary. They will continue to crack down on any companies selling so-called mod chips, and will continue to employ technological protections to keep the Xbox “closed”. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, in all likelihood Microsoft continue to equate any OSS efforts directed at the Xbox with piracy-related motivations. Additionally, Microsoft’s successor to the Xbox would likely include additional anticircumvention technologies incorporated into it that could set the Xbox Linux Project back by months, years, or could stop it cold. Of course, it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty how this “Xbox 2” (perhaps a more appropriate name might be “Nextbox”) will impact this project. Regardless of how this device evolves, there can be little doubt of the value of Linux, OpenOffice.org, and other OSS to teaching and learning with technology. This value exists not only in terms of price, but in increased freedom from policies and technologies of control. New Linux distributions from Gentoo, Mandrake, Lycoris, Lindows, and other companies are just now starting to focus their efforts on Linux as user-friendly, easy to use desktop operating systems, rather than just server or “techno-geek” environments suitable for advanced programmers and computer operators. While metaphorically opening the Xbox may not be for everyone, and may not be a suitable computing solution for all, I believe we as educators must promote and encourage such efforts whenever possible. I suggest this because I believe we need to exercise our professional influence and ultimately shape the future of technology literacy, either individually as faculty and collectively as departments, colleges, or institutions. Moran and Fitzsimmons-Hunter argue this very point in Writing Teachers, Schools, Access, and Change. One of their fundamental provisions they use to define “access” asserts that there must be a willingness for teachers and students to “fight for the technologies that they need to pursue their goals for their own teaching and learning.” (Taylor / Ward 160) Regardless of whether or not this debate is grounded in the “beige boxes” of the past, or the Xboxes of the present, much is at stake. Private corporations should not be in a position to control the manner in which we use legally-purchased technologies, regardless of whether or not these technologies are then repurposed for literacy uses. I believe the exigency associated with this control, and the ongoing evolution of what is and is not a computer, dictates that we assert ourselves more actively into this discussion. We must take steps to provide our students with the best possible computer-mediated learning experience, however seemingly unorthodox the technological means might be, so that they may think critically, communicate effectively, and participate actively in society and in their future careers. About the Author Paul Cesarini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Communication & Technology Education, Bowling Green State University, Ohio Email: pcesari@bgnet.bgsu.edu Works Cited http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/docs/debian.php>.Baron, Denis. “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies.” Passions Pedagogies and 21st Century Technologies. Hawisher, Gail E., and Cynthia L. Selfe, Eds. Utah: Utah State University Press, 1999. 15 – 33. Becker, David. “Ballmer: Mod Chips Threaten Xbox”. News.com. 21 Oct 2002. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-962797.php>. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-978957.html?tag=nl>. http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/08/13/020813hnchina.xml>. http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/1062/>. http://www.bookreader.co.uk>.Finni, Scott. “Desktop Linux Edges Into The Mainstream”. TechWeb. 8 Apr 2003. http://www.techweb.com/tech/software/20030408_software. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/29439.html http://gentoox.shallax.com/. http://ragib.hypermart.net/linux/. http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2362/LWD010424latinlinux/pfindex.html. http://www.xbox-linux.sourceforge.net. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/27487.html. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/26078.html. http://www.us.playstation.com/peripherals.aspx?id=SCPH-97047. http://www.techtv.com/extendedplay/reviews/story/0,24330,3356862,00.html. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61984,00.html. http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2869075,00.html. http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/docs/usershelpusers.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/fun.games/12/16/gamers.liksang/. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Cesarini, Paul. "“Opening” the Xbox" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/08_Cesarini.php>. APA Style Cesarini, P. (2004, Jul1). “Opening” the Xbox. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 7, <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/08_Cesarini.php>