Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2007

Despite the uncertainty and costs associated with CALEA, we seems to be barrelling down that path without a huge amount of evaluation of the US experience.

Seems pretty much the standard policy development practice for the past five years.

Optimal copyright term

14 years. Gut feel is that this too short for some technologies and too long for others.

Ubuntu on PPC

Ran up Ubuntu on a old Apple G4 the other week. I'm usually a Fedora user but this was a chance to come to grips with the other major cutting edge distro.

First shock was that Ubuntu isn't as technically advanced as Fedora. No partition editor, no LVM, no SELinux. More conservative kernel options. Some of this is fair enough -- what is the advantage of a LVM on a laptop -- but missing SELinux is what will push me back to Fedora.

Second shock was how difficult it was to install the illegal-in-USofA software. Oh well.

On the plus side, Ubuntu has a lot of fine documentation. It's init system is nice, if lacking in belief in its own abilities. Network Manager seems to work rather than get in the way, a vast improvement.

Seems to me that Ubuntu is a nice choice is you want to use the computer, Fedora if you want to develop it. Fedora wins hands-down for a server, a server simply shouldn't be running without SELinux.

The over-riding impression was how identical both of the distributions are. Looking at the source software it suggests that they've made some of the same patches. Which in turn raises questions about the ability of the GNOME and OpenOffice.org projects to integrate distro-originated patches.

Also used a recent Solaris. Oh my god, it was stepping back into the Dark Ages. I had forgotten just how dreadful Unix was until Linux arrived.

And whilst I'm ranting. What is it with Fedora and Look and Feel. Every release they feel the need to change the theme and icon set. And for no good reason as far as I can see. And they still don't work right on wide screens. Dear oh dear.

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Alexander McCall Smith.

Started like a Noble Savage novel with a loose plot. Half way through you realise that both of these first impressions are wrong. Lovely writing.

Risk and return

Before any good view of the Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM it has set the terms for partners. And they are not good. MS's service is a Version 1, and it is priced like a Version 3. Worse still, Microsoft wants to sell this thing through partners, and they take most of the risk, face most of the cost, but hand 90% of the takings to Microsoft. Hmmm.