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Adding a 1.2GHz Pentium M processor to the Eee PC

Luca spotted an interesting article called Adding a 1.2GHz Pentium M processor to the Eee PC which will presumably speed thing up a bit…

While there are several variations of the Eee PC, with different amounts of storage and RAM, each Eee PC ships with a relatively slow Intel Celeron processor. One Eee PC owner who goes by the name of Gurywha decided that the he wanted a bit more juice in his tiny laptop. So he popped out the 900MHz Celeron chip and soldiered in a 1.2M Pentium M processor.

Keep in mind, this is not an easy modification to make. I know you’re all proud of the fact that you were able to upgrade your RAM, but it doesn’t mean you’re qualified to attempt this hack. But if you know your way around a soldering iron and a miniscule circuit board, it’s apparently possible to replace an Eee processor.

Asus Eee 9-inch Version Gets Touch Screen?

Asus Eee 9-inch Version Gets Touch Screen? has been posted at MobileWhack (thanks to Luca)- “It’s no secret that Asus is planning on upgraded Eee PCs with screens larger than the original, measuring 8-, 9-, and 10-inches. Rumors abound that Asus Eee 9-inch, will get a touch screen LCD panel. Asus will reportedly adopt the four-wire resistive touch screen technology. Before you panic that the price would be far off from the original affordable Eee, according to sources, adding the touch screen technology to the device only costs an additional US$15. Hopefully, the price increase wouldn’t be too high. Before you get too excited though, reports say that Asus will limit the distribution of the touch screen versions to a few hundred thousands and will even give preference…”

Intel asked to stop supporting EEE?

It’s not been a good week  for the OLPC project. First a $20 million claim for the ongoing patent litigation / sparring from Lancor, and now Intel leaving from the project, effectively claiming that they were pushed, after being asked to stop supporting alternative low-cost projects, including the EEE. According to news.com:

“According to Intel, Negroponte asked the chipmaker to stop selling its Classmate PC while it was part of the OLPC, which is currently shipping its XO laptop based on a chip from AMD… Even more surprising, Intel is saying that the OLPC actually asked the chipmaker to stop working with any company that produces low-cost laptops, such as Asus’ Eee PC.”

The OLPC currently has an AMD processor, but, future versions of the device were apparently to be based on an Intel chipset instead. Whilst the OLPC has a worthwhile objective, I am not sure that many businesses would be willing to support a charitable initiative to the exclusion of other, revenue-generating, projects?

eeeWiki.org – (no) credit where credit is due?

It seems sad that, with so many people enjoying their EEE, there has to be a party pooper. Someone who, no matter what they are told, seems insistent on spoiling everyone’s fun. It’s now arrived in the EEE community, in the form of a site which seems proud of the fact that it takes content from other sites, and fails to attribute it correctly! That’s right- takes a word-for-word copy of content, without complying with the licensing terms, and then sticks up two virtual fingers at those who object. In the Free software world, that’s a big no-no, and rightly so.

There is a great wiki on eeeUser.com (I post quite a lot on there, for the record, but, it’s not my contributions which make it great!); it contains a wealth of information, which is constantly updated, increased and improved. This wiki was made available under a permissive Creative Commons licence, which permits third parties to copy, modify and distribute the wiki’s content, provided that the third party correctly attributes all of the original authors. Now, you wouldn’t have thought that there would be a problem with this; after all, it’s not unreasonable to expect an author to be credited for his work, is it?

Unfortunately, it seems that Doug, the administrator of eeewiki.org and eeeplace.org, believes differently. His wiki site has a word-for-word copy of huge chunks of the eeeUser.com wiki, and yet he has stated that he has no intention of crediting the individual authors, despite the attribution information being readily and easily accessible to him. For example, the wiki entry here (you might recognise part of it, as I posted my contribution here also) has all the necessary information just one click away, here. All the hard work and effort of the contributors to eeeUser.com is now hosted on a different wiki, without even bothering to thank them by crediting them appropriately.

The small fact that his actions fall outside the scope of the licence, and thus are an infringement of copyright, sadly appears to evade him; he not only insists that he is in the right (although, perhaps not coincidentally, he has since deleted his reasoning as to quite why he believes he is right), but also repeatedly abuses his position as administrator by insulting those who comment otherwise (see the image, which is, according to Doug’s now-deleted post, is, “humor”!) by editing information attributed to someone’s name, on a public-facing forum, even going as far as searching out personal details of complainants and posting them. You’d have thought that it would be quickler, easier, and less hassle to simply comply with the Creative Commons licence, and have a site full of great, non-infringing content without having to lift a finger, but, there you go…
So what’s the net result? Sadly, nothing very positive…

1. Because of eeewiki.org’s continued failure to attribute in accordance with the licence terms, the wiki at eeeUser.com is no longer available under the permissive licence, making it harder for those who genuinely would have benefited from it to do so. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that this change is worthwhile, as one non-compliant user should not cause anyone else to suffer through his actions; and
2. There’s a wiki floating around which contains infringing and out-of-date information – any changes to the eeeUser.com can no longer be replicated on the infringing wiki (although, I hear you say, if they’ve infringed once, what’s to stop them doing so on an on-going basis). As such, users who visit the infringing wiki cannot even be sure that they are getting quality advice! One of the best parts of the wiki system is that it can be improved very easily, ensuring that the audience should always be able to access the best advice. I certainly would not trust the content on eeewiki.org, as I don’t know how it’s been modified from the original authors’ works, or whether a major change has been made to the original wiki, to delete bad advice. If you want peer-reviewed information, updated on an almost daily basis, visit the eeeUser.com wiki.

My position on this is quite clear- as a contributor to the eeeUser.com, I am happy for people to make use of my work, provided that they do so according to the terms of the licence under which it is released.

There’s been a lot of wasted time on this issue, time which could have been better spent playing with the EEE, or helping others make the most of it. My gut feeling is that nature will take its course, and the more popular, friendly sites will thrive, and those on which the administrators insult their members, and infringe the copyright of their upstream contributors, will fall away. In short, if you require assistance with your EEE, or know someone who does, I’d wholeheartedly recommend that you support eeeUser.com.

“You shalt learn the art of Linux” yet the inherently lazy bugger side of me says “ah..stuff it”

The comment in the title of this article rather sums up what some feel about the Eee and Murray over at Palm-Mac has posted his thoughts on this wonderful device. It does everything I want, but I don’t seem to have the time to use it to maximum potential. The full article is here.

“This cheapo laptop is garnering some interesting praise and useage. Shaun from PDA247 and the guys from jkontherun have been using them of late and seem very impressed. It’s odd though as they’re probably exactly the types that Asus are not trying to entice into the EEEPC experience yet it seems the opposite is happening.

There’s an interesting post at the aforemntioned 247 regarding the underlying operating system, in fact there have been several posted by Shaun over the past week or so, one likened it a little to the abandoned and late-lamented, well by me anyway, Foleo. I’d still be very interested in the Foleo now if the price point was reasonable, I’d pay £300 tops for it. I’d rather have one over the Asus anyday, not because I think it would have been a superior product, far from it, but rather because the Foleo would be used with an existing system, my palm treo, as opposed to starting out trying to learn a whole new one from scratch as is the case with Linux…”

Neil rambles: copyright infringement or breach of contract?

I was asked to respond to a particular thread on EEEUser.com about slipstreaming a Windows XP Home CD, and various acts relating to copying software, and, whilst the answer makes most sense in the context of that thread, I felt that the principles contained within my response might be of interest to a wider audience. Or, rather, I’d be grateful for any comments and reasoned thought against anything I’ve written here – hearing what others think is one of the best ways to learn. I’ve posted my response basically as it appeared on the forum- I’ve edited a few things so that it is not tied so tightly to the relevant thread, but, nothing of substance. I maintain, however, that (a) it’s probably dull, and (b), it’s definitely not legal advice- just my thoughts on a particular issue.

… I wanted to know if you could clarify something for me: Based on what you wrote, you feel that the UK law stipulates that it is considered a copyright violation if the consumer exceeds the bound limitations of the End User License Agreement. Since there is no provision expressly prohibiting disk imaging in Microsoft’s agreement (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/eula.mspx), does this mean that UK law essentially declares you are in copyright violation since Microsoft never says one way or another?

The argument at question here is a very old one; what is the difference between a licence and a contract? In short, is a EULA a copyright licence or a contract – or, indeed, both, or neither.

Copyright under English law

Software can be protected under copyright, specifically as a literary work, provided that it satisfies certain criteria (which are irrelevant for this); let’s assume that, upon writing the code to Windows XP, Microsoft automatically attracted copyright protection. (As a tangent, unlike US law, where enforcement of a copyright benefits strongly from having a registration, there is no process for registering copyrights under English law; a qualifying work is protected on being fixed in a tangible form – in this case, being written as source code.) The English legislation dealing with copyright (the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988) sets out “acts restricted by copyright”; those rights which are controlled by the copyright owner. Amongst other things, these include the right to control copies, and the right to communicate copies to the public. As such, without a licence, it is an infringement to make a copy of a protected work.

There are exceptions to this copy-right, which means that certain classes of use are not covered by copyright; in a sense, like the “fair use” provisions under US law, although, not as far reaching. For example, the main carve-outs are for news-reporting, criticism and review; even research purposes are strictly limited, and there is certainly nothing as broad as reasonable personal use. As such, without a licence, creating a copy of a work is an infringement of copyright.

An owner of a copyright can grant a licence, which is basically a bare permission to do something- for example, I grant Ant a licence to the contents of this post, for the purposes of hosting it on the forum. I don’t recall seeing anything in any terms and conditions relating to intellectual property, so, the licence is an implied one. As such, if Ant were to, for example, make a book based on this information, or another user were to take something I had written and add it to the wiki, irrespective of whether it was attributed to me or not (that’s a moral rights issue, which is related, but irrelevant here), it would likely be an infringement of my copyright. (Whether I would choose to enforce my copyright is an entirely different issue.) The important thing to take away from this section is that, without a licence from the copyright owner, you have virtually no rights over a copyrighted work; from here on, I’m going to say you have no rights, as that’s pretty much the position in terms of useful rights relevant here.

A licence is a permission which a user is granted. It does not need to be accepted, nor even communicated to a user – without such a licence, a user has nothing. When you purchase software, you can probably imply a licence to do all acts necessary for the most basic form of installing and running that software; I’d be hard-pushed to suggest that you had a right to run N-lite, or other such tool, and then burn the resulting contents to CD for installation elsewhere. Most developers will include a licence, which sets out the scope of the rights granted to the user, but, a user has no say in this; either they can use the product in accordance with the licence, or they can use the product outside the scope of the licence, and thus infringe copyright. The GNU GPL attempts to be very clear on this point, that it is a licence and not a contract, but, as I will go on to explain, the difference is not always clear-cut, and can be very important.

Contract under English law
There are several prerequisites for a contract under English law, which I shall not bore you with, but, the part which is of relevance here is acceptance. Before a contact comes into existence, it has to be accepted by both parties to the contract. In the case of a Microsoft EULA, this is presented to the user before they can really begin to use the software; by clicking the “I accept” button (or “Okay”, or whatever the wording may be), the user indicates that they accept the terms and conditions of the contract. Note that a user does not really have scope to negotiate this contract – it is take it or leave it – but, the user does have the option of refusing to accept, and thus being eligible to return the product. (In practice, this returning of software can be rather difficult, especially if the user is wishing to keep the hardware, but get a refund on the unwanted, and often bundled, software).

A contract contains terms – some of these terms can have different names, and have different legal weights (“terms”, “conditions”, “warranties”, “indemnities”, for example) – but, fundamentally, it consists of terms. These terms may grant rights, or impose restrictions; for example, I could contract with you, to say that, I will give you my SugarBabes CD if you will give me your My Little Pony. If I break a term of the contract (for example, I take your My Little Pony, but do not give you my SugarBabes CD), you could sue me for breaching our contract. (I may also be committing a criminal offence in this example also – by possessing a SugarBabes CD, if not for the obtaining your My Little Pony by deception – but that is irrelevant here.)

The difference

The difference is of great importance, but is rather nuanced.

You do not breach a licence, as far as I am concerned. You are either within the scope of the licence, or outside the scope of a licence. A licence is not a contract, and so cannot be breached. By acting outside the scope of the licence, you are infringing copyright.

However, if you act outside a contract’s terms, you are breaching that contract; you have broken the trusted position between yourself and the other party. A breach of contract does not necessarily mean an infringement of copyright, though.

Let’s consider a document quite close to my heart- the GNU GPL. Is it a contract, or is it a licence? Some will argue one way, some will argue the other; personally, my opinion changes depending on what I have read recently, or how I am thinking. It’s certainly not a fixed position.

The GNU GPL effectively states that “You have an unlimited licence to do pretty much everything a copyright owner can do, provided that you stick to the terms of the document”. And it’s the “provided that… document” part which causes the uncertainty. If a user were to fail to stick to the terms, would the user be liable for copyright infringement (and also breach of contract), or just breach of contract? Well, it depends on the interpretation.

If you interpret the “provided that… document” wording to be a restriction on the ambit of the licence, then, by failing to comply, you are acting outside the terms of the licence, and thus committing copyright infringement (and also breach of contract). This interpretation means that your licence is dependent on your compliance with the terms of the document.

If you interpret the “provided that… document” wording to be a term of a contract, then, by failing to comply, you are breaching your contract. Importantly, this interpretation means that, in exchange for your promises of what you will do, you are granted a wide-ranging licence; by failing to comply, you do not lose your licence, but rather are required to remedy your breach under the law of contract. Your use of the copyrighted work is still licensed.

Bringing the discussion back to a the Microsoft Windows XP Home EULA, the rights granted to a user are far more limited. As such, by copying without permission to do so, it is likely that you are infringing Microsoft’s copyright, as you are exceeding the ambit of the licence. You are not agreeing not to do something which you would otherwise be entitled to do; you are getting a limited licence subject to some terms and conditions, with no rights ever granted to exceed that licence.

As such, on an analysis such as this, I would suggest that, by creating an image of Windows XP Home, a user would be in breach of contract, but, more importantly here, infringing copyright.

The actual details as to why the distinction is important are not hugely interesting to a non-legal audience; basically, the distinction comes down to whether the infringement is remediable by damages, or whether the licensing party has grounds for an injunction against the infringing part. (An injunction might be harder to obtain against a party merely in breach of contract, as the breach is likely to be remediable by damages, and thus not needing an injunction).

To me, that seems unreasonable. I’m not saying it can’t be that way…like you said, these are obsolete laws in a tech-progressive world…but I would be hard pressed to vote for any yahoo willing to tell me I am guilty until proven innocent smile

I am not convinced that this is at all unreasonable. By paying money, you are being granted a licence to copy the software to your computer, and to do certain things which, otherwise, you would not have been entitled to do. If you just breach a term of the contract, but remain without the scope of your licence, then, you are liable for breach of contract. But if you copy the CD and give it to all your friends, then, you are infringing copyright as well as potentially breaching your contract. Without the EULA, you have no rights at all.

The right to enforce a copyright infringement is important in the open source world, as, to many projects, damages are insufficient. It is often stated to be spreading FUD that, if a user fails to comply with the terms of the GNU GPL, they could be required to release the source code to their changes- the argument is often made that this could never happen. Personally, I disagree with this; it could be possible to seek a writ of mandamus, or a specific performance; essentially forcing the user to comply with the GNU GPL, on the grounds that their breach is not remediable by damages. This has yet to be tested in court, but, I’d be very interested in hearing reasoned arguments against this approach.

It is important to note that no-one is being judged “guilty until proven innocent”; if you were to copy the Microsoft Windows XP Home CD, Microsoft would still need to prove that you had infringed their copyright, although, to be honest, I do not see that being very difficult, especially as (a) the scope of the licence is pretty clear, to my mind, and (b) it only needs to be proven “on the balance of probabilites”, as it is a civil, and not criminal, standard of proof.

(You may feel that, as argued by many about the US cases brought by the RIAA, this is only true in principle; few people have the resources to successfully defend themselves against a claim of copyright infringement brought by a determined company and the full weight of its legal team, and end up settling, and accepting that they were infringing copyright, simply because it is more commercially sensible to do so. This is not a criticism of the law of copyright, though, but rather one of due process, which is a very different point. For example, I might not be in a position to defend myself against a claim that I was negligent, with the result that I caused you injury, but, that is not a problem with the tort of negligence.)

I hope that this makes some form of sense- apologies for the length, and the complexity of the issue (the latter not entirely of my making, though). If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to let me know; the same goes if you feel that any part of this is incorrect, or my logic is flawed.

Palm Foleo…

• So the Asus EEE is selling faster than distributors can get their hands on them…
• So the Asus EEE has an active, if still very young, user community…
• So the Asus EEE appeals to technophobes and technicians alike; experienced Linux users and those who just want to run Windows…
• So the Asus EEE has been billed as this year’s number one Christmas present in America…
• So the Asus EEE has achieved almost universal acclaim in the press, both technical and non-technical, being rated in one magazine as better than the OLPC XO unit…

So, Palm – why did you drop the Foleo after spending what can only be a considerable amount of money getting it to production stage? It’s clearly not for a lack of desire in the marketplace. Dropped the ball on this one?

You know the EEE is the way to go when…

… it takes 35 seconds to go from laptop powered off to full desktop environment ready and available in front of you.

I know my Windows machine needs some tinkering, but, with twice the RAM and four times the processing power, it must feel slightly embarrassed that I can boot the EEE, connect to my WLAN, or through my phone via Bluetooth, check my email, close the connection and be shutdown and switched off before the PC has even finished booting…