June 2006 Archives

"Hi, I'm calling from the office in the basement, and there's this strange noise..."

"Yes?"

"Well, it's coming through the wall, this really loud ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-ka-ka-thunk sound."

"Oh yeah, that's the heating."

"Right, I see, the heating. So you already had this reported?"

"Yeah, it's been making that noise for ages."

"Does it always makes that ka-thunk, ka-thunk noise, the heating?"

"Just when we turn it up. The people upstairs were complaining that it was too cold, so we turned it up. Now it makes that noise."

"So - well, is there anything that can be done then?"

"They've already had a look at it."

"Right... and so is it going to be fixed?"

"No, we'll just wait till we get a few more complaints about the noise, and then we'll turn it down again."

"I see..."

Silence.

"Er, ok - thanks. ... Bye."

"Bye."

A small but useful tip, due to the slightly non-obviousness of it. Let's say you've just scheduled a bunch of files to be added to your Subversion repository with a good old svn add *.c. But then you realise you didn't want to add all of them - some of them need to be put elsewhere. So you need to "undo" the add operation.

Okay, well the obvious thing is to use the opposite of add, which is delete. But that only works if the files are already in the repository. If the file is local and new (ie. not yet in the repo), you get this rather cryptic error message:

% svn rm F2_DATA_FORMATS.html
svn: Use --force to override this restriction
svn: 'F2_DATA_FORMATS.html' has local modifications

This actually has no effect on the file specified or the repo. Now wait! If you're feeling tempted to use the --force flag, please note that this will actually remove the local copy (which never got added to the repo!) as well as removing the scheduled 'add'. So you really probably don't actually want to do that, as you will lose it. (Ask me how I discovered that one.)

It turns out that a simple svn revert F2_DATA_FORMATS.html is all that is required, to undo the add and let you move the file into its proper place without dangling references.

As a general rule, I always advise against using wildcards in svn operations. It might take longer to explicitly identify the files you are working with, but it is far safer.

Of course, if you are working within an editor such as Emacs, the psvn module provides an excellent interface to your repo. But sometimes the command-line interface is just what you need for a bit of repo maintenance.

"The Corruptibles" is a clever animation produced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to educate consumers about the draconian laws restricting digital media and players that Hollywood is attempting to impose. Specifically, the Broadcast Flag, Audio Flag, and Analog Hole laws.

Watch it now:

Then you know what to do.

Some brief bits of good news (for a change!):

I have always loved books, and I have always appreciated good typesetting. Clear fonts, clean page layout, and a sense of style. And a good font can make a huge difference in terms of the readability of a document.

When I saw the first few screenshots of the Vista betas, Microsoft's latest version of Windows, I was particularly impressed with the new default system font. It was very clean, rounded, nicely anti-aliased and very readable. Digging a little deeper I was surprised to find some of the dubious history regarding Microsoft and fonts.

Rewind: Arial

But first, let us rewind to Windows 3.1. When Microsoft introduced TrueType, it chose to license Arial instead of Helvetica as the standard sans-serif font, apparently as a cost-cutting measure. It turns out that Arial is a cheap substitute for (some say poor imitation, even ripoff of) Helvetica, a very highly regarded modern sans-serif font.

Arial is nearly identical to Helvetica (the lowercase 'a' for example), although it has been altered subtly to work better on screen. Yet many typographers see it as a scourge, or a "shameless impostor".

Helvetica has a rich history, created by the Haas Foundry of Switzerland, later acquired by Linotype. Since then, it has endured many imposters. Arial itself was developed by Monotype, although they were certainly not the only foundry to develop their own 'flavour' of Helvetica.

Alas, now typographers and graphic artists lament Microsoft's choice, as Arial has become one of the most widely used fonts on the planet. Yet it is criticised for being ugly, inconsistent, and poor at print reproductions. (Since it was optimized for the screen, this is not entirely surprising.)

Further reading - more history and details on Arial:

• The Scourge of Arial: written by a font designer
• How to spot Arial: A comparison of Arial and Helvetica
• Wikipedia entry on Arial

Fast forward: Segoe

Now that the new Office 12 and Windows Vista are nearing release, Microsoft has been widely touting the new look, including the new system font Segoe (pron. "see-go"). It is certainly a very attractive font, a significant improvement over the default look in Windows XP.

However even Segoe is not without its own controversy. It turns out that Segoe bears an uncanny resemblance to Linotype's Frutiger Next. The similarities are more than superficial, according to experts. Indeed, the European Union's Trademark and Design Office rejected Microsoft's attempt to register the font designs, after Linotype protested. Microsoft first attempted to cast doubt on Linotype selling Frutiger prior to 2004, but then later did not contest that they could be considered identical. The review that struck down the 8 claims held that the letter forms "differ only in minor details".

The original Frutiger was designed from scratch in 1968 by Adrian Frutiger for all the signage new Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. It was designed for clarity, recognition and legibility from a distance. Frutiger Next was a revised edition, released in 2000, expanding and enhancing the original classic, and improving the italics (the original featured slanted forms of the oblique version). A variation of Frutiger was selected in 2003 as the signage font to replace all the traffic signs in Switzerland.

Microsoft licensed Segoe from Monotype, and adapted it for the screen. The original Monotype designer explicitly states the font was not derived from Frutiger. However, there appears to be more similarities than differences, and questions still remain.

Fonts have always been in the grey area of law. Blatant copying and derived or "inspired" works between foundries have been widespread, as history shows. The legal protection seems to amount to copyright over the file, trademark of the name, and registration over the design. Sadly, few computer users appreciate the talent and effort that goes into font design, and widespread illiegal copying between users continues unabated. But it seems the companies involved are not squeaky clean themselves. So it really does ring hollow when Microsoft pursues even stronger copyright and patent laws in jurisdictions such as Europe and China, when it comes to protecting their own Windows and Office sales.

Further reading:

Hardware support in Linux is pretty good these days. But support for the exotic devices and features found in laptops tends to lag that of desktops. Accordingly, it can be hard to find a laptop that is well-supported by Linux, since hardware manufacturers have a nasty tendency to refuse to publish specifications that would allow FLOSS developers to write their own device drivers.

Historically, IBM has largely been a better community member than most in providing support for their excellent ThinkPad range. While not every model or feature was supported, there has been plenty of information, drivers and utilities provided for various models.

IBM's ThinkPad range was also renowned for its quality and engineering, which explains why historically it has been an extremely popular choice among FLOSS developers. A high percentage of laptops seen at FLOSS conventions in recent years by your humble author would be ThinkPads (and now it seems that Apple kit is surprisingly popular, but that's another story).

However - since the acquisition of the ThinkPad range by Lenovo, many things have changed. And due to certain "strategic agreements" with Microsoft, it seems that Lenovo plans to actively shun Linux users:

"What you see is what you get. And at this point, it's Windows."

Linux is ascending: hardware support, ISV support and community support are all increasing. Linux is now making a lot of companies a lot of money. Linux has proven its mettle in many environments, and is demonstrably useful.

Now Lenovo didn't have to actively exclude Linux, they could have chosen to simply release docs and specs, without ever committing major development time on their own ticket. But this latest move, an attempt to sidle up to Microsoft as an "exclusive" partner (see main article), may be seen by many as as an offensive move, one that is uncalled for.

The Linux laptop market share when viewed as a percentage may be small, but that is not the complete picture. Alpha-geeks, the talented techies who are involved in the FLOSS community, can be very influential in purchasing and technology decisions. And now their beloved ThinkPads are being turned against them, forcing once-faithful customers to find another supplier. One who respects their wishes, and their right to choose what they run on their hardware. This may end up costing Lenovo more than they think.

Update (15-Jun-2005): Some good news, Lenovo now denies ditching Linux. A spokesperson claims the original statements were incorrect, and that while they would not be providing Linux licenses, they would continue to support Linux. Let's hope they are good to their word, and also provide the necessary information on hardware so the community can write drivers to properly support them.

IEEE Spectrum is featuring a great (though scary) article, Death by DMCA, by Fred von Lohmann and Wendy Seltzer.

"A flood of legislation released by the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act threatens to drown whole classes of consumer electronics."

This should be required reading for consumers (who should know just now much of their fair-use rights are being taken away) and legislators (who should be aware of the disastrous impact of allowing Hollywood to dictate rights legislation with no regard for consumers).