Mozilla

Well, it's time for the semi-annual daylight savings time change. One thing that has annoyed me in recent years is the fact that, for a few weeks after the time change, it seems that many clocks are out of sync -- some a few minutes fast, others a few minutes slow.

For networked computers, the Network Time Protocol (NTP) can be used to synchronize the system clock with time standards available on the Internet, which are in turn tied to atomic clocks operated by the National Research Council in Canada, the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US, and other organizations. NTP used to be a chore to set up, but now it's pretty trivial -- in Fedora, for example, you just have to check the NTP option during installation (or select System>Administration>Date & Time, click on the Network Time Protocol tab, and then checkmark the field labeled "Enable Network Time Protocol").

What many people don't realize is that cell phone networks also use NTP (or a similar protocol, I'm not sure about the inner workings of the cell networks). This means that most cellphones display the time to within a second of the official standard -- it's like having an atomic time reference in your pocket.

So, if you're adjusting your clocks tonight, consider setting them according to your cellphone.

• Flickr Photos will be posted throughout the day
• the FSOSS:planet will aggregate blog postings
• videos will be posted on the FSOSS web site after the event (and maybe even during it)

One of the exciting things about the early web was that it was fully bidirectional. Since almost all of the early Internet connections were symmetrical, anyone who could read the web could publish on the web. Web server software was lightweight, and installing it was the only barrier to publishing a site. Every Internet-connected computer was a "host", not a "client" or a "server".

This changed with the introduction of asymmetrical broadband connections and client-oriented systems (read: Windows 95 and successors). Vendors made the assumption that we wanted to consume content, not create and manage it.

Now, finally, the tide is turning. Although most residential and small-business broadband connections are still asymmetrical, the upstream bandwidth is sufficient for medium-duty serving. Here in Toronto, a 3-8 Mbps download/800 kbps upload speed is very common and priced between $40-60. The 800 kbps upstream speed is half of a T1, which used to be the standard business-class data connection, and is sufficient for serving a low- to medium-volume web site. Although some ISPs such as Rogers and Bell still haven't grasped the concept (and may never), other ISPs such as TekSavvy are run and staffed by smart people that understand the demand for unencumbered, fast pipes. Most non-Windows operating systems do not distinguish between client and server roles and are happy to be both.

We're seeing the bidirectionial internet appear in other places too: browser extensions that provide services traditionally supplied by "servers", personal domain names, and SMTP and DNS servers running in homes.

The return of the bidirectional internet: is an exciting and empowering change that's well overdue.

To my OSD600 students: I'm having troubles matching up your face in class and your nicks on IRC! Please alter your feed links for the OpenSource@Seneca planet so that:

• Your IRC nick appears in parenthesis after your name: "Chris Tyler (ctyler)" or "Jay Dough (foxkeh)"
• Add a Hackergotchi (picture of your face)

In the past couple of weeks, I've heard several of my colleages refer to Open Source as Open Systems. I thought that this was a slip of the tongue, but since it's happened several times and by people of sufficient ... experience ... to remember Open Systems (as I do), I'm not so sure that the distinction is being made. To clarify:

• The term Open Systems was used, primarily in the 1980's, to refer to systems that were hardware-and-software interoperable between different vendors and therefore avoided vendor lock-in (with varying degrees of success). Standards such as POSIX, SVID, and the Single Unix Specification provided source-code portability, and network standards such as TCP/IP provided network interoperability. However, Open Systems were still often proprietary, did not include source code, and were generally Unix-centric.
  
  
• Open Source is software for which the source code is freely distributed (though the term is actually more formally defined). This software may be any type of program: an operating system, applications for an iSeries system, utilities for a Windows system, or games for a Mac. Since source code is provided, the software can be further enhanced and developed, and derivative works can be created.

There's not really much in common between the two. For good measure, one more definition:

• Free Software is Open Source software protected by Copyleft licensing so that access to source code and freedom to use that code is preserved for recipients of derivative works. This is also formally defined.