TELECOM Digest     Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:50:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 296

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Taking Chances With Open-Source Software (Lisa Minter)
    Web Site Makes Government Reports Available (Lisa Minter)
    Youbet.com Files For $50 Million Mixed Shelf (Lisa Minter)
    Re: Where to Buy a Cellular Phone Jammer? (Scott Dorsey)
    Re: Dial/Touch Tone Speeds (Paul Coxwell)
    Re: Hayes Smartmodems (Paul Coxwell)
    Re: Western Union History (Lisa Hancock)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Taking Chances With Open-Source Software 
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:41:23 -0500


by Philip H. Albert, newsfactor.com

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Do I want cable or satellite TV?
Should I dump the SUV for a hybrid? East or West Coast? Like most
major decisions, making the move to open-source software -- or not --
can cause a lot of genuine hand-wringing.

Despite all the innuendo and bias regarding the pros and cons
associated with such a decision, the legal analysis of using
open-source software is the same as the legal analysis for using
proprietary software. The devil is in the details; and those details
provide risk and opportunities. The trick is to make sure you are set
up to maximize the opportunities and minimize the risks.

It is well established that if you have access to code authored by
another and you incorporate some or all of it into your own code, that
incorporation is a "derivative work." The original author (or the
owner of that author's copyrights) can prevent dissemination of your
code unless you have a license to that original code.

That can really put a damper on sales, especially if the borrowed code
propagates throughout many projects.

New Risks

The increasing use of open-source code in commercial settings
introduces new risks related to practical matters rather than to
licensing. In a typical, well-run business, there are
business-development folks, purchasing officers, engineers,
programmers, lawyers and contract negotiators.

Business development tells contracting what software it needs to
"in-license" and how the company plans to use it. The contract
negotiators then get a suitable license and coordinate with the
purchasing officers.  Only when all of those steps are completed does
the vendor ship the code base to the technical team. As a result,
there is no access to the in-licensed code until licenses consistent
with the organization's business plans are in place.

With open-source software, the same process should happen, albeit with
a gravitas appropriate for the significance of the code being brought
in.  Thus, if millions of dollars of investment are to be made in
product development, marketing, packaging and promotion, the full
process must be used even if the purchasing step can be skipped.

Another risk that is sometimes present with open source is that of
provenance. You might have a license to a code base from one party,
but if there are other claimants to the code, you also might need
licenses from others. That means you must know where all of the code
came from, a requirement that is not always more difficult to fulfill
with open-source code than with proprietary software.

Even if there are other claimants to copyright in the code --
especially in cases where open-source code is licensed and used in
closed-source projects -- those claimants might never know that their
code is being incorporated into the closed source. With open-source
licensing that requires that the source code be distributed in any
future distributions, the code base will be more available to
claimants and could raise the chances of claims being asserted.

None of these risks are specific to open source and they should not
matter when a company is careful about licensing. If you licensed code
properly from all interested parties, the manner of acquiring the code
base and its availability for review should not lead to copyright
claims against you.

Recognizing the Opportunities

So, if properly used, there is no real increased legal risk of using
open-source software versus proprietary software. There are, however,
many opportunities that are unique to open-source code. Some of these
advantages -- such as the ability to leverage the development efforts
of a large community of programmers that you don't have to pay -- are
well known.  Other benefits are less obvious unless you happen to be a
lawyer.

Litigation is messy. Sophisticated users of legal services know this,
so they generally try and avoid litigation even if their opponent is a
disagreeable character. If a dispute can be settled with finality at a
cost considerably less than litigation, there will be saber rattling,
but a deal will happen. On the other hand, if one side wants something
that will cause a shut-down of the other side's business operations,
litigation is almost inevitable.

For example, when someone asserts a patent claim against Research In
Motion -- the company that makes the BlackBerry PDA -- and asks the
court to shut down the company, RIM is stuck. It has to litigate.

Designing Around the Problem

A dispute over the use of open-source code is less likely to get to
litigation because it is a lot easier to design around the problem --
except for the SCO v. IBM situation, which is an anomaly all
around. If a company finds that it might have used copyrightable
material in a way that was not permitted by the license under which it
used the material, it can design around the problem -- rather than
litigate the issue -- by removing the offending code and creating
replacement code from scratch.

Because the source code is available, it is more likely that the
company will be able to understand the operation of the code and how
to create a replacement. Duplicating the functionality of software is
not covered by copyrights, although the line between permissible
copying of functions and ideas and impermissible copying of expression
is not always clear.

This ability to design around licenses has interesting second-order
effects on the parties to a dispute. If an aggrieved copyright holder
knows that a user of the code can easily strip it out and move on, the
copyright holder is going to be more willing to make a deal that
allows the copier to keep using the code under terms that might be
acceptable to the copier.

Permission Granted

In the domain of intellectual property, the maxim "it is easier to
obtain forgiveness than it is to obtain permission" doesn't
apply. Being forgiven for unlicensed use of intellectual property is
almost always more expensive than buying permission in the first
place.

Given a choice, you should always negotiate for permission before
using someone else's intellectual property. Nonetheless, there are
situations in which it is not clear until well into a project that
permission was needed in the first place. To minimize the impact of
such developments, developers facing a choice among various flavors of
open-source code should opt for the one most likely to grant
forgiveness.

For example, if you are developing a new printer series and want to
provide Linux drivers, there are likely many existing open-source
projects to form a base for your offering. Suppose you have a choice
of open-source code downloaded from a large printer manufacturer (your
eventual competitor) or from a small software house. If it later turns
out that you needed more permissions than were granted in the license,
which company is going to be easier to deal with?

The large printer manufacturer might opt for litigation to wear you
down until you quit the business, just as Polaroid did with Kodak in
the instant-photography business. By contrast, the smaller developer
might grant the necessary permissions in exchange for exposure and
other noncash benefits.

Like most major decisions, the choice to use open-source software
offers both great opportunities and serious risks. Done correctly, the
risk is no greater than with any other in-licensing of copyrightable
material. And the opportunities are greater.

Life is about choices. At some point, we need to decide if we are
ready to grab the brass ring the next time it comes around.

Philip H. Albert is a patent attorney and partner with the San Francisco
office of the intellectual property law firm Townsend and Townsend and Crew
LLP.

Copyright 2005 NewsFactor Network, Inc.

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily.

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------------------------------

From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Web Site Makes Government Reports Available
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:38:33 -0500


By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

A new Web site aims to make widely available to the public certain
government reports about topics from terrorism to Social Security that
congressional researchers prepare and distribute now only to
lawmakers.

The site -- http://www.opencrs.com -- links more than a half-dozen
existing collections of nearly 8,000 reports from the Congressional
Research Service and centrally indexes them so visitors can find
reports containing specific terms or phrases.

It also encourages visitors to ask their lawmakers to send them any
reports not yet publicly available -- and gives detailed instructions
to do this -- so these can be added to the collection. None of the
reports is classified or otherwise restricted.

The site, being announced Monday, is operated by the Center for
Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based civil liberties
group. The project is a response to years of rumbling and wrangling by
open-government advocates over a lack of direct accessibility to
reports from the policy research arm of Congress.

"This initiative ought to embarrass the Congress into changing its
policy and making these documents universally available," said Steven
Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy for the
Washington-based Federation of American Scientists. Aftergood has
collected hundreds of CRS reports and distributes them from his
group's own Web site.

The research service, with a staff of more than 700 and a nearly $100
million budget, does not object to public distribution of its reports,
said Jill Brett, a spokeswoman for the Library of Congress, the
service's parent organization.

"It's up to Congress when they're made public and how they're made
public," Brett said. "The law says we only make them available to
Congress."

Lawmakers often cite the reports during congressional debates, but the
research is generally not available to the public. Congress does allow
lawmakers to publish reports on their individual Web sites and send
them to constituents who request them.

On the Net:

Congressional Research Service: http://www.loc.gov/crsinfo
Federation of American Scientists: http://www.fas.org

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily.

------------------------------

From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Youbet.com Files for $50 Million Mixed Shelf 
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:37:04 -0500


http://Youbet.com which maintains a Web site that allows members to
watch and bet on horse races, filed on Monday to periodically sell up
to $50 million in debt securities, common and preferred stock, and
other securities.

The Woodland Hills, California-based company said in a registration
statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that
it will use the proceeds from the offering for general corporate
purposes, including working capital, debt repayment and acquisition
financing.

Under a shelf registration, a company may sell securities in one or
more separate offerings, with the size, price and terms to be
determined at the time of sale.

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily.

------------------------------

From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
Subject: Re: Where to Buy a Cellular Phone Jammer?
Date: 27 Jun 2005 15:05:26 -0400
Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000)


Fred Atkinson  <fatkinson@mishmash.com> wrote:

> Don't miunderstand me here.  I basically agree with your position.
> But didn't the more recent communications act render the
> Communications Act of 1934 obsolete?  I don't think that cell phone
> technology was considered when it was written, either.

Sadly, the ECPA has replaced much of the Communications Act.  This is
bad, since the ECPA is a badly-written piece of junk.

> I do think that perhaps use of such jamming devices (if properly
> designed) might be useful in prisons where there is a problem with
> contraband cell phones running being used for drug deals and other
> problematic things.  Of course, we'd have to address the issues and
> how to correctly make it legal for use (so that situations like you've
> described can be avoided).

If jamming were the only way to prevent prisoners from using
cellphones, I might consider this possibly a good idea.  But there are
plenty of other ways to eliminate cell use in prisons, varying from
Faraday shields around new construction, confiscating phones from
prisoners, and building prisons in distant areas with no cell
coverage.  That being the case, the unpleasant side effects of cell
jamming are not worth the benefit. 

Kathleen Carmody  <councilmembercarmody@ci.brooklyn-center.mn.us> wrote:

> (No lectures or legal opinions needed nor desired, please). 

> Anyone know where to purchase a cellular phone jammer, preferable 
> stateside.  There are vendors off shore, but none here in CONUS 
> that I know of.  Please post here any vendors that sell cellular 
> jammers. (Extra points for relating your experience with using one.) 

Since they are illegal, I don't think you will find any folks in the
US selling them, especially given how easy it is to hide behind a
foreign web site.

If I did know of any, I'd be reporting them in a very different forum.
I have already have nightmares with these things throwing trash out in
aviation bands.

scott

"C'est un Nagra.  C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 10:05:37 +0100
From: Paul Coxwell <paulcoxwell@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Dial/Touch Tone Speeds


> I never tinkered with changing the pulse rate, but
> there were AT commands to do that as well.  I think in foreign
> countries the "make/break" ratio of pulses was different and I didn't
> want to risk screwing up my modem/software with an oddball setting.

Yep.  Here in England it was common to have an AT&P1 command in the
initialization string to set the modem to a 67/33 ratio.  In practice,
the default U.S. setting almost always worked perfectly anyway.  I
don't recall ever having problems on the default setting when dialing
out from the small SxS office which served my area in the early 1980s.

The make/break ratio would probably become a problem only if tolerances 
on a particular switch were right on the limits.

- Paul.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 10:05:02 +0100
From: Paul Coxwell <paulcoxwell@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Hayes Smartmodems


> I'm confused.  IIRC, the command was four characters, either
> ATDT or ATDP.  Are you saying it would work with three?

You could use just ATD and if a mode which included dialtone detection
was in use, the modem would "adaptive dial."

It would attempt to dial the first digit using DTMF, then check to see
if dialtone was still present.  If not, it would dial out the
remainder of the number as DTMF, otherwise it would switch to pulse
and start over.

I can't remember if it did this only after a reset (power-up or ATZ)
and then latched into tone or pulse mode for future ATD commands or
whether it tried DTMF every time.  I have a SmartModem2400 somehwre in
a box with a manual, but might take a while to find!

> Also, for dialing out of a PBX, wasn't a 'pause' character needed to
> allow time for the second dial tone?

Yes, e.g. ATDP9,234-5678 where the comma indicates a default 2-second
pause.  You could change the comma delay period via one of the
S-registers.

Again, in modes which included dialtone detection you could also
insert a W into the chain to tell the modem to wait for a new dialtone
before continuing.

- Paul.

------------------------------

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Western Union History
Date: 27 Jun 2005 09:55:40 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com



Lisa Minter wrote:

> For your reading this weekend, a look though the Digest Archives at
> the Western Union Telegraph Company, as presented by Jim Haynes in
> this Digest in February, 1992. The original series of articles
> appeared in three articles that weekend, now 13 years ago.

Thanks for posting it.  Very interesting.

I am always curious as to the recent history of Western Union.  There
are many books on its pre-1900 history "The Victorian Internet", but
little on its post 1900, and esp WW II and later except for Oslin's.

I know that around 1975 WU carried relatively few classic telegrams,
the bulk of its businses was money transfers (which it still does,
under new owners).  It also had Mailgram that seemed reasonably
popular in the business world.

But I don't understand how WU missed the explosion of computers.  It
had a microwave system in place.  It even put up a satellite.  I think
it could've been a long distance carrier, perhaps a niche player, but
a carrier just the same -- with a good name.

I do know WU was saddled with an old physical plant (they knew it in
1960, but had a long way to go to get rid of it) and expensive union
labor.  I knew a fellow student who worked for them and earned great
money for a kid -- they had huge wage rates; certainly that didn't
help.

A dying company is awfully hard to turn around.  The trick is for
management to foresee the future and turn a company to deal with that
future.  It sure seems that way back in 1960 WU mgmt saw the future --
correctly -- in data communications, yet somehow later on they missed
the boat.

> It will be able to provide increased telegraphic service, leased voice
> channels, facsimile, closed-circuit television, and perhaps most
> important of all, high-speed data processing channels that can handle
> digital information at computer speeds.

AFAIK, this was completed.  I wonder how effectively it was used to
earn revenue during the 1960s.  One would think it would do a lot.

> "Although the number of leased wires has not been reduced in absolute
> terms, today their proportion has decreased to about 60%.  S. M. Barr,
> Western Union vice-president in charge of planning, expects this
> percentage to drop to 40% in the next few years, hopes to get the
> proportion of leased facilities down to 20% eventually.

Did they get the reduction they forecast?  The expense of leased lines
was a big problem for Western Union in the 1970s.  I heard they were
mostly dependent on AT&T even then.

> "-Private Expansion- But it does expect its private wire services to
> expand greatly.  Here, particularly, Western Union's new facilities
> will be of help in solving communications problems for private
> customers.  Western Union already has a good deal of savvy when it
> comes to tailoring a special system to a customer's needs.  About
> 2,000 companies in the U.S.  -- among them U.S. Steel, General
> Electric, Sylvania, and United Air Lines -- have private
> communications networks leased from Western Union. And its bank wire
> service interconnects 213 banks in 55 cities with pushbutton
> switching.

So, did this service -- where the money is -- expand or contract in
the 1960s?  Obviously eventually it contracted.  Why?

> [1] One would think that a writer for such an astute publication
> as {Business Week} would have noted the price elasticity of personal
> communication.  This would have suggested that the dropping price of
> long-distance telephony would devastate public Telegram service,
> as it did.

But I think in 1960 WU recognized just that and was getting out of
that business.  Maintaining local telegraph offers for that service
was very expensive.

> "-Government Contracts- Part of the load the new microwave system will
> carry is already under contract.  The U.S. Air Force hired Western
> Union to build an automatic system of data and message handling that
> will interconnect all domestic Air Force bases.  The combat and
> logistics network (COMLOGNET) [1] also costs, coincidentally, $56-
> million and will be operated by Air Force personnel.  Western Union
> also built for the Air Force an international automatic switching
> telegraph network, [2] which was completed last May, and has put in a
> high-speed weather map facsimile system for the Strategic Air Command.
> In addition, it built a nationwide weather map facsimile system for
> the Weather Bureau that serves several hundred points.

Again, this is good business.  What happened to the government
contracts?

> "Finally, during the war, it became obvious that Postal couldn't go
> on.  Operations for several years had been dependent on RFC [2] loans.
> So Congress finally permitted Western Union to absorb its competitor
> (BW - Aug. 7 '43, p102).

According to Oslin's book, the government _forced_ WU to absorb Postal
and Postal was in miserable shape.  He says the Postal addition
badly hurt WU.

> [2] RFC = Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a Depression-era
> government agency in the business of lending money to business firms
> to help them get back on their feet.

Side note: The RFC was started during the Hoover Administration as a
way to fight the Depression.  Many people credit it as part of FDR's
New Deal, but it was a Hoover program.  Hoover did more than credited
to fight the Depression.

[Other perspectives welcome.  public replies please]

------------------------------


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