A key Republican lawmaker said on Thursday he would introduce legislation designed to stop the sale of private cell phone records and push wireless carriers to better protect customer privacy.

US House lawmaker vows to protect cellphone data

Even as geologists fiercely debate whether depleting oil fields can satiate intense demand for oil in the rising economies of Asia, the actions of the international energy industry may speak louder than words. Big oil is betting on once-derided unconventional energy sources, like this stranded natural gas in the Persian Gulf and remote tar deposits in Canada and Venezuela, to help meet surging demand for transportation fuel.

These different types of fuels may have clunky nicknames, like G.T.L. and L.N.G. But they draw big money. Mr. Attiyah rattled off a roster of ventures with Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, Chevron and Sasol of South Africa to produce a new form of diesel from natural gas and said they were expected to invest more than $14 billion in capital over the next five to seven years.

A New Old Way to Make Diesel

The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying "intelligent design" is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.

Vatican paper article says 'intelligent design' not science

The National Consumer Council (NCC) said anti-piracy efforts were eroding established rights to digital media.

Fears raised over digital rights

Reactions are starting to come in to the draft of the GPLv3, and they are favorable. I'd say it is a success. Of course, this is the first draft and there will be more. I believe the next is in June. If you have comments you wish to make to FSF to make the draft better, they go here. Endearingly enough, the process is that you select text and then type "c" to submit comments. You can also email them. Instructions on that are here.

Groklaw on GPLv3.

Reactions to the GPLv3 Draft and a GLPv2-V3 Comparative Chart

The first draft of GPLv3 is up...

A few notes:

1. RMS did not add the much-feared affero-GPL clause that triggers the GPL if you're running a public (web) service. This would have caused a huge schism and I applaud RMS for recognizing that fact and being pragmatic!

2. They added a narrow patent-retaliation clause which is (I think) narrower than the one that the Apache foundation adopted awhile back.

3. They state that no GPLed program is part of a "technological protection measure" for the purposes of the DMCA, etc. There is some other, related anti-DRM text added.

They also ammended the definition of "complete corresponding source code" such that I can't give you a box that only runs signed binaries with a bunch of GPLed software on it unless I also give you the signing program, keys, etc. Though they don't explicitly mention trusted (treacherous) computing, I think this is targeted at that.

4. They're taking a new tack on compatibility with other licenses. They enumerate the kinds of additional requirements other licenses can or cannot make. In particular, I think this is designed to help with the problem that came up a year or two ago when the Apache foundation added a patent retaliation clause and FSF felt that it wasn't compatible with the GPL and this caused a big mess.

Otherwise, there seems to be bits of fine-tuning to deal with copyright laws in other countries better.

It'll probably be a mess for Linux which is explicitly GPLv2. I understand how Linus made that decision at the time back in 1991; he was afraid that RMS would do something crazy in a future version. But they probably want a lot of this fine tuning but it would probably be a nightmare to try to get every contributor to sign off on it.

GPLv3 Draft — GPLv3

If the experts are right, some time this month, perhaps somewhere in the suburban South or West, a couple, most likely white Anglo-Saxon Protestants or Hispanic, will conceive a baby who, when born in October, will become the 300 millionth American.

Come October, Baby Will Make 300 Million or So

A federal appeals court has upheld a 55-year prison term imposed on a Utah man with no criminal record who was convicted in 2003 of selling several hundred dollars worth of marijuana on three occasions.

Prison Term of 55 Years for Drugs Is Upheld

As you can see in News Picks, there is big patent news today. For a long time, we've been complaining about the patent system, particularly as it affects FOSS. It turns out, someone listened. The New York Times' John Markoff has the story, as does Martin LaMonica. Here's Andy Updegrove's take and ComputerWorld.

One might suspect that the success of Groklaw had no small part
in this coming about.

3 Initiatives to Improve the Patent Mess Announced

The United States Patent and Trademark Office plans to announce today that it will cooperate with open-source software developers on three initiatives that it says will improve the quality of software patents.

On the face of it, this seems like good news.

U.S. Office Joins an Effort to Improve Software Patents