irker 1.0 (a functional CIA replacement) is shipped

OK, I’ve been hacking intensely for most of the last 24 hours and here’s the payoff: irker-1.0 is shipped. Code and documentation are at http://www.catb.org/esr/irker/. Out of the starting box we have a hook script with tested support for git and (rather clumsily) Subversion; hg should be a piece of cake for anyone who wants… Continue reading irker 1.0 (a functional CIA replacement) is shipped

coverity-submit 1.2 is released

Coverity simplified their remote-submission procedure. Because of this, I have been able to remove the ugliest bits of configuration cruft from coverity-submit; you no longer have to specify either a public drop directory for your results tarball or a URL that advertises it. Get your remote-static-checking goodness here.

Ground-truth documents

Sometimes good terminology, by making a distinction that wasn’t easily articulated before, can be very clarifying. I was in an IRC conversation about software engineering with A&D regular HedgeMage earlier today and found myself inventing a term that I think may be useful: the ground-truth document.

Published
Categorized as Software

doclifter 2.9 is released

I’ve released doclifter 2.9, and as part of that process I’ve been testing it on the entire collection of manual pages on my system again. Because doclifter does mechanical translation of troff-based markups to DocBook-XML, one of the side effects of testing it is that I find lots of broken markup. I’ll ship over 700… Continue reading doclifter 2.9 is released

doclifter 2.8 is released

In response to a bug report that was relatively easily fixed, I’ve just shipped release 2.8 of doclifter, a program that takes troff-based document markups – including man page markup – and lifts them to DocBook XML.

GIFLIB 5.0.0 is released

I’ve just shipped the 5.0.0 release of GIFLIB, a graphics service library that is deployed pretty much everywhere that throws pixels on a display. Older versions live in your browser, your game console, and your smartphone. I have written about what it was like to go back to this code after 18 years previously, in… Continue reading GIFLIB 5.0.0 is released

Evaluating the harm from closed source

Some people are obsessive about never using closed-source software under any circumstances. Some other people think that because I’m the person who wrote the foundational theory of open source I ought to be one of those obsessives myself, and become puzzled and hostile when I demur that I’m not a fanatic. Sometimes such people will… Continue reading Evaluating the harm from closed source

API copyrights are dead

I’ve now read Judge Alsup’s ruling in the Oracle vs. Google lawsuit addressing the copyrightability of the Java APIs as a matter of law. This is a bigger win for the good guys than appears at first glance; Alsup has subtly but definitely driven a stake through the heart of API copyrights. The interesting part… Continue reading API copyrights are dead

Oracle becomes SCO redux

To the surprise of nobody who was actually familiar with the underlying law and precedent, the judge in the Oracle-vs.-Google mega-lawsuit ruled today that Oracle’s claim of copyright protection on the Java APIs is contrary to law. This means Oracle’s claims against Google are toast. Their best case is now that they’ll get $300K in… Continue reading Oracle becomes SCO redux

Beginning of the end for the patent wars?

It’s all over the net today. As I repeatedly predicted, the patent claims in the Oracle-vs.-Java lawsuit over Android have completely fizzled. Oracle’s only shred of hope at this point is that Judge Alsup will rule that APIs can be copyrighted, and given the extent of cluefulness Alsup has displayed (he mentioned in court having… Continue reading Beginning of the end for the patent wars?

giflib 4.2.0 released

First giflib release since I reassumed the lead. Short version: lots of useless old cruft thrown out, everything Coverity-scanned, one minor resource leak found and fixed.