Slashback: SGI, Exploding Dell, Gizmo

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including: the possibility of selling OpenGL to save SGI, a denial from Dell that it knew of the overheating battery problem, an update on the Skype competitor Gizmo, and a response from the Chinese folks that reverse-engineered the Skype protocol. Read on for details.

SGI's McKenna Considers sale of OpenGL. delire writes "The Computer Business Review has an article on McKenna's strategies to salvage the flailing SGI from bankruptcy ... one of which may include selling assets like OpenGL. As Gnome developer Christian Schaller aptly put it, 'I hope this gets picked up by a friendly entity, especially if there are some patents still attached to OpenGL.'"

Dell Denies It Knew of Overheating Battery Problem. Billosaur writes "A report from ConsumerAffairs.com staties that according to inside information, Dell knew about the overheating problem in its laptop batteries for years. According to the report, an un-named insider 'leaked scores of documents to CRN, a computer industry publication, that indicated Dell knew of a dangerous battery malfunction for two years before a shocking video of an exploding laptop forced the company to recall batteries for about 22,000 laptops.' This on top of Dell's warning about lower than expected second quarter profits may cause the company some problems on Wall Street."

Gizmo: free VoIP to landlines in 60 countries. KrispyGlider writes "The more-standards-compliant Skype competitor Gizmo has launched a promotion in a bid to rapidly grow its userbase: free VoIP-to-landline calls to 60 countries, and even to mobiles in many countries. There aren't too many onerous catches to the deal Gizmo was previously covered in a Slashdot article from 2005 where it was noted that the Gizmo network has interoperability with other SIP networks, unlike Skype. However, the new version, 2.0 also has the ability to directly log in to open-source Asterisk VoIP servers, so you don't even have to use Gizmo's VoIP network any more."

When is it Okay to Reverse Engineer? Charlie Paglee writes "Last week Slashdot covered a story about a team of engineers in China reverse engineering Skype. Reaction on Slashdot was largely negative and raised many questions: Just when is it okay to reverse engineer and then innovate? The Chinese team issued a statement clarifying their actions: 'The domain of P2P innovation is limitless. We are very honored to work side by side Skype to promote P2P technologies in the VOIP industry. Our team is composed of the most talented P2P engineers in the world. We are working day and night to build a superior quality P2P network.'"

tinker rights

[b4stard (893180)]

When is it Okay to Reverse Engineer?

Always. Everybody should have the right to tinker with their gadgets and publish their results. Period.

PS tinkering with your gadget != masturbation DS

Re:tinker rights

[Poromenos1 (830658)]

I tinker with my gadget frequently, but the results aren't post-worthy :P

Re:tinker rights

[fm6 (162816)]

PS tinkering with your gadget != masturbation DS

I guess the folks who moded you up as "funny" didn't agree.

Hmm, who would buy OpenGL?

[Nova Express (100383)]

Hmmm, I wonder what computer company would want to buy OpenGL? It would have to be someone that doesn't have a DirectX license,or already used OpenGL in its operating system. I wonder who that could be?

(cough cough Apple cough cough)

Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL?

[someone300 (891284)]

Seriously though, I hope this goes the way that Blender did. If SGI could agree to give OpenGL to a non-profit organisation for a fixed amount, the non-profit organisation could appeal to the opensource community (and companies like RedHat, Novell) for donations.

Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL?

[ewhac (5844)]

Microsoft would buy it for the express purpose of killing it. It's been a thorn in their side for over ten years.

Since SGI needs money more than it needs OpenGL to survive, I expect SGI would acquiesce to such a deal even if Microsoft were up-front about their intentions.

Schwab

Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL?

[Butterwaffle Biff (32117)]

I think it's more likely the Khronos Group would buy OpenGL. They are already taking over management of OpenGL.org and handle lots of other "open" media libraries (OpenGL ES, Open ML, Open VG Open SL, ...). It's better than Microsoft but I suspect they would start charging a fee for access to the standard specification.

Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL?

[Bottlemaster (449635)]

Why would they charge a fee for access to the specification? Khronos is all about open standards. If they need to reimbursed for the purchase of OpenGL, I imagine they would just charge more for the conformance tests. You do have to pay to pay to put an OpenGLES/MX/VG/MAX logo on your implementation. Actually, it has always been that way with OpenGL too - this is why Mesa only claims to be "an API which is very similar to that of OpenGL".

Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL?

[Butterwaffle Biff (32117)]

First of all, I have to apologize. I've read several stories on open standards lately and I confused this story with another where I heard "RAND" (Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory) fees which can be used to effectively shut down open source software projects. So perhaps it's not as bad as I thought. However, Jon Leech's comments on OpenGL.org:

The OpenGL and OpenGL ES groups can communicate under the same set of intellectual property rules. IP rules are to standards like dental checkups are to you: unple

cough cough Apple cough cough

[ElephanTS (624421)]

That's the first thing I thought. Apple, I hope, will buy it if only to protect their quartz extreme investment. What would be the coolest thing would be for them to buy it, continue using as normal, and keep it open and free for anyone else that wanted to use it. The kudos from that would easily be worth the money they paid for it.

Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL?

[kevin lyda (4803)]

Uh, bullshit?

Apple's no saint, but Microsoft doesn't have a site like this: http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html [apple.com]

Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL?

[Cal Paterson (881180)]

Honestly, though. Apple aren't particulary good to the Free Software community. They do just enough so that we don't totally hate their guts, but never enough to redeem their value to us.

I think...

[jd (1658)]

Open Cores, Sourceforge and Slashdot should get together to see if they can jointly buy OpenGL. SGI'll probably take anything at this point, most vendors already have OpenGL implementations of their own and don't need anything SGI still has, and I'd rather trust CowboyNeil with the specs than most of the vendors out there.

(Can you imagine what would happen if Microsoft bought it? Does anyone seriously believe ANY implementation would be safe, MESA included?)

Failing that, Google must have some spare change. Hell, they could probably buy SGI for less than the value of the machines in SGI's inventory, which would seriously boost their server power.

Eek!

[RyanFenton (230700)]

I hope an entity like Microsoft doesn't end up buying rights to too much of OpenGL, and thus lock it up for years. It's a superb cross-platform language for development... pretty much all there is for high-end games or similar real-time rendering when you want to develop something open source. It would pretty much suck if no further standards could safely rely on a base of OpenGL/GLSL/GL* to attract an audience and technology base in the future. DirectX isn't bad on windows... but I'd hate for that to be all there is for upcoming years.

Still... perhaps a something new from the ashes could form a more lasting standard that's better than going through major-company approval process of the OpenGL ARB. Even if DirectX continues to be the basis of future graphics card development, new open-source standards can use the same hardware hooks for better ends. I can't imagine that the graphics card manufacturers wouldn't be interested in helping a new standard form if enough of the developer community had a hunger for newer cross-platform 3d graphics library. GLSL is very nice - but perhaps a better set of standard could be developed in conjunction with future hardware in mind.

Ryan Fenton (Who has been reading through the GLSL Orange book for the past few weeks)

Re:Eek!

[MasterVidBoi (267096)]

SGI already sold most of the important OpenGL patents to Microsoft years ago, and it basically had no impact on OpenGL's development. The ARB has already announced that it is merging with the Khronos Group (which standardized OpenGL ES), and have taken the name and trademark with them. Basically, the OpenGL ARB have cut themselves loose from SGI, and SGI's future actions won't have any real impact on the development of the standard.

About the only part of OpenGL that SGI can sell at this point is perhaps their implementations (which would be specific to SGI hardware). And just about everyone who wants one of those already has one.

Wha...?

[Cal Paterson (881180)]

In what alternate universe did Slashdot react badly to reverse engineering?

Reverse engineering meaning what FOSS groups do every day...meaning WINE, Gaim, Samba etc...? I am actually shocked. This is a very good thing - I'm not sure if the Chinese group plan to release source code, but hopefully if they can, then others can, and we'll end up with FOSS Skype programs.

Re:Wha...?

[sholden (12227)]

The "foreigners bad" attitude overpowered the "freedom good" attitude.

Re:Wha...?

[labratuk (204918)]

Ah, but if people criticize the sacred cows of Apple and Skype, it might stop them getting the good juju like iPods and other fashion accessories.

Re:Wha...?

[DigiShaman (671371)]

Just run a google search for "China blocks skype" and you will understand why.

The problem with opening up the protocol means that the Chinese government can now effectively program their firewall to stop all Skype VOIP traffic going in and out of the country. The primary reason is so it does not cut into the government owned telcom industry. That's #1. Always follow the money trail first. Second, it's to censor the free flow of international communication as it will aid in dissent. The last think the CCP wa

Re:Wha...?

[squiggleslash (241428)]

Slashdotters don't always have a consistant opinion on reverse engineering (which is natural given the large number of us with differing opinions.) It wouldn't be the first time a vocal group opposed reverse engineering though - when Linus threw a hissy fit because Tridge had "reverse engineered" (ie telnetted in and typed "help") BitKeeper, with BitKeeper's control-freak creators terminating kernel developer's gratis usage as a result, there were enormous numbers of Slashdotters who sided with Torvalds. I

Dell and exploding laptops

[56ker (566853)]

Reading about Dell and the exploding batteries reminds me of the story about Ford and its Firestone tyres (oh and Cadbury's and its recall of chocolates because of salmonella). In the latter two cases both companies knew about the problem yet nothing was done (or things were just glossed over by management) until the bad PR forced them to do something. However I'm sure it's bad PR to have to do a product recall at all as it starts making people wonder as to whether your other products have major faults too.

Re:diction nazi time..

[Detritus (11846)]

plasmacutter: a chauvinist who doesn't realize that the English language is used in countries other than the USA.

Re:diction nazi time..

[56ker (566853)]

I'm British so I use British spellings. We spell them tyres over here. Diction Nazi should also notice that sentences have capital letters at the start and so do proper nouns - eg Tyre and Carthage.

reverse enginnering bad?

[fermion (181285)]

Reverse engineering is always ok. Very little happens in technology without a community of development, some of which is poaching other peoples idea. We all like out cheap PCs, which is largely due to the effort of Compaq, and to a lesser extent MS. We all like Linux and BSD, which is in a way a reverse engineered version of Unix, except that the specs were largely published. We all like to use various messenging service, which is only possible because the protocols were discovered. We all like cheap replacement parts for our cars, which are only possible when unauthorized third parties are allowed to produce the parts. Same for printer refills.

Perhaps this has caused skype some problems. Oh well, it happens. Perhaps this has caused Skype users some issue with security. Well, if reverse engineering can break security,then that is what is called bad security. If they want to interface with Skype, that is as good wanting the messaging services to interface. If they want to block it, as much as we may not understand, i think that soveriegnty is something everyone can agree upon. After all, you do not give keys to your house to just anyone, or let just anyone put stuff on you lawn.

Reverse engineer, especially in software, is what is going to save this generation of computing technology. Can you imagine how much a PC would be if Dell did not have support MS 40% profit margin, if Dell were truly free to put whatever software it wished on the computer and charge for the privilege? This will happen when MS is forced to standardize, as is happening with the EU case, and a truly compatible WIndows runtime is present.

Exploding batteries and closed minds

[Moocow660 (975091)]

I find it a bit frustrating how closed minded people are being about this exploding laptop issue.

Yes, its definitly possible that the battery exploded due to overheating or overcharging caused by failure of its protection circuit. However, it is also possible that it suffered impact damage. (e.g. someone dropped the battery while changing it, or the laptop was dropped but survived.)

It is a bit of a pity everyone tends to ignore other likely causes simply because they enjoy talking down the same companies ov

Re:Exploding batteries and closed minds

[Jonny 290 (260890)]

Just because there might have been mishandling of the laptop does not absolve Dell of responsibility.

If dropping a battery will cause it to later catch fire (which it will almost always not), they should build a motion sensor into it. You can't tell me that they can put a mechanism in a hard drive that will lock the heads before it contacts pavement from a 3 foot drop, but the MYSTERY OF THE FLAMING DROPPED BATTERY remains unsolvable.

No, Dell screwed up.

[alizard (107678)]

Dropping is part of the ordinary environment of a laptop. While one doesn't necessarily expect it to work afterwards, a reasonable person wouldn't expect one to spontaneously combust in a life-threatening sort of way afterwards, either. So there's no reason to give Dell a free pass because "it might have been dropped". Even if it had been, it shouldn't have blown up.

I suspect that the problem is that the lithium-ion technology is inherently unstable and should not be put in consumer gear.

(contemplating th

Re:No, Dell screwed up.

[zippthorne (748122)]

Assuming that supercaps or fuel cells are safe in this regard. I'd assume there'd be a lot of mechanical stress due to the electric charge in the former.

there is also ...

[dominic.laporte (306430)]

another open source client [openwengo.com] out there that is way better for me. it also based on mozilla .. yay !

OpenGL - what is there to sell?

[Animats (122034)]

SGI doesn't have any valuable rights in OpenGL. The specification is a public document. The reference implementation is open source. You can't copyright an API (SCO and Microsoft have both tried and failed). There's a charge to use the OpenGL trademark in a closed-source implementation [sgi.com], and that's it.

SGI's higher level APIs, like Inventor and Performer, have little if any resale value.

Re:OpenGL - what is there to sell?

[squiggleslash (241428)]

But there are the patents. And yes, you can design patents such that they eliminate the possibility of implementing a certain API without being in breach. As I understood it, that's one reason why the Free Software community hasn't been that enthusiastic about OpenGL.

Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday

[Durrok (912509)]

Well since all the cool kids are doing it, guess I will go write one too.

Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday

[R3d M3rcury (871886)]

Who among you is pathetic enough to post a comment on a slashback article on a Friday night?

Uh...it's late-Friday afternoon where I am and I'm just killing time 'til the freeway dies down.

But you make a good point. Isn't Stargate SG-1 on? :^)

Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday

[56ker (566853)]

In some parts of the world it's Saturday morning and the weather in England makes it too hot to sleep.

Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday

[R3d M3rcury (871886)]

I'll admit, I'm not as big a fan as I was. I miss Jack...

Personally, I'd've just shut it down. Send Jack into retirement, Jackson to Atlantis, Carter to Area 51, and Teal'C back to the Jaffa. Wait a year and try to talk Richard Dean Anderson into an SG-1 movie.

Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday

[EtherealStrife (724374)]

I agree completely. Except perhaps the end of s7 being the true death of the series. It started its decline before that, but the deus ex machina trend started around there (before which success was based on ingenuity -- a kind of scifi MacGyver :) ). At this point, a child could outwit carter and the bunch. I still watch the show, but out of a kind of morbid curiosity interlaced with boredom. That, and for claudia black (!!).

The show is dead and gone...all that remains is the shell.

Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday

[identity0 (77976)]

Who among you is pathetic enough to post a comment on a slashback article on a Friday night?

Hey, I only came here because I thought SGI had come up with a Gizmo to make Dells explode :) I thought, "Finally an SGI product I'd buy!" but no, they're only selling stupid OpenGL.

Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday

[ggvaidya (747058)]

Actually, it's Saturday morning here already ... and I try to be as unproductive as possible on Saturday mornings. Hence this post :).

Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday

[Rufus211 (221883)]

Who among you is pathetic enough to post a comment on a slashback article on a Friday night?

Those of us still at work, "being productive".

Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday

[EmperorKagato (689705)]

I am

Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer?

[sholden (12227)]

It looks like standard SIP.

Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer?

[mikeisme77 (938209)]

I just started using Gizmo because I was looking for a VoIP service and they had one of the cheapest Call-In numbers (free if you use 775 otherwise as low as $3 a day for select area codes). It also helps that they have builds for all my operating systems (OS X, Windows, and Linux). Anyway... Gizmo supports multi-user chat with audio, but so far I haven't seen anything about video chat so I'm assuming that's not part of the deal. I don't really know about the answers to your other questions but I don't know about the decentralization issue. Voice quality is pretty good though and the interface is nice and that with the low prices are what made me choose it (at least for now) over the competitors.

Even if it's decentralized though, it's not like the packets can't be intercepted... I don't think they encrypt the packets (but I could be wrong--and even if they did the NSA would be able to encrypt it). So if you're looking at general secured communication then I recommend meeting face to face.

Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer?

[lethalp1mpslapper (238264)]

...$3 a day for select area codes.

You mean $3 a month.

Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer?

[mikeisme77 (938209)]

Yep, that's what I meant. My bad, sorry. Guess I should learn to use the preview button. Thanks for the correction!

Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer?

[lethalp1mpslapper (238264)]

Looks like Gizmo is now doing RTP encryption in the latest versions. Check your preferences, under "Advanced".

Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer?

[mikeisme77 (938209)]

On the OS X client I don't see anything about encryption under the Advanced tab. I only just installed the client on my Windows Desktop (since my headset doesn't work with my MacBook), but maybe that client has the RPT encryption (since I think they updated it more recently).

Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer?

[mikeisme77 (938209)]

I know about encryption and decryption. I took courses that explained how PGP and other such encryption algorithms worked. I've also had discussion about both with people in charge of researching how to break these encryption methods and those trying to find ways of better securing networks and finding better encryption techniques. I'm definitely not an expert on the matter, but I'm at least above the total layman level. I also know that just about any encrypted internet packet out there, the NSA has the ab

Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer?

[labratuk (204918)]

Is Gizmo peer to peer,

Peer to peer is really a buzzword. It doesn't actually mean anything definite and skype's approach buys you little in the VOIP world apart from annoying some router administrators by usurping the internet's regular 'peer to peer' protocol, IP.

decentralized

It's SIP. It's as decentralised as email is. Then again, skype's not really decentralised because if the developers of skype go belly up, that's the end of that. SIP depends on lots of independently run servers. Like jabber. It's just

Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer?

[Mark J Tilford (186)]

IIRC, "peer to peer" has a definite meaning: the protocol is the same for both sides.

Re:Backslash? Slashback?

[creimer (824291)]

Blah... Just call for what it is: chumbucket!