Started using fedora legacy

Since RedHat decided to discontinue RedHat Linux, I've migrated almost all the remaining RedHat and Conectiva Linux boxes to Debian.

However, I didn't migrate the Fedora Legacy as a means for installing security updates for the discontinued RedHat. Works like a charm, and I send many kudos to those volunteers who set this up in a very short time.

Presentation/Workshop about reverse engineering of Linux firmware images

At the 20c3 conference, I'll be giving a presentation/workshop on my personal experience on how to reverse engineer Linux-based firmware images.

This is basically the technique I've used to find out about violations of GPL'd software under my copyright.

The presentation will cover strategies, tools and describe the step-by-step process of an example firmware image.

KNF blog section started

I'm planning to drop here some notes about my work at KNF, a non-for-profit Internet organization based in my old home town Nuernberg. Despite not living there anymore, I'm still doing sysadmin for them, especially maintaining our large usenet server.

Companies violating the GPL of software under my copyright

Numerous companies have started to use Linux as the foundation for their commercial products. While this is a good thing[tm], they have to play by the rules. Over the last couple of months I found out that quite a number of companies is violating my copyright by not adhering to the GPL.
One of the more commonly-known cases is the Linksys WRT54G product, but there are several others.

The major problem for individual software developers and free software projects is the jurisdiction. For me as a German, I am very unlikely to carry the burden of starting a trial against a U.S. company. Not only that I don't trust their legal system, consider the incredible cost associated with a trial in foreign country.

However, as soon as a product is sold within Germany, I am able to take action against the importer of that device. Considering that .de is supposedly Europe's biggest market for IT, that might hurt the vendor enough to comply with the license, rather than stop selling it.

In the Linksys case, the Free Software Foundation is one of the copyright holders, and thus pushing for GPL compliance. However, after about half a year of lawyers talking, there is still no full GPL compliance. Yes, they have offered some source code on their website, but there's still lots of stuff missing.

I've also received significant indication about quite a number of other cases where GPL'd source code was used to build proprietary software. If I only had the time, I would like to start a website with a database of all known GPL violations, the companies involved, their response, the legal proceedings (if any).

I've started with registering the gpl-violations.org domain name. If anybody out there is interested in starting the website, I'm happy to offer the hosting, traffic, domain, etc. on one of my machines.

netfilter developer workshop 2003, Budapest (Hungary)

The 2nd netfilter developer workshop in Budapest went quite well. I'm happy that our most important developers managed to meet the second time.

Thanks to everybody who made it, to Astaro for funding, to KFKI Institute for the local support, and Jozsef for the local organization.

Prior to the workshop, Eli and I spent a couple of days for holidays in the City of Budapest.