Microsoft Campus Agreement Double Dipping

I’m not a lawyer nor a business analyst nor a licensing expert but I’m annoyed at Microsoft’s double dipping on Windows licenses under their Campus Agreements. Apparently, Windows and Windows only, under the Campus Agreement is an upgrade license and not a full (albeit leased) license like every other product falling under the Campus Agreement.

What this practically means is that for a PC to qualify for a Windows license under the Campus Agreement one must have purchased that PC with an OEM version of Windows installed. How is that not double dipping, Microsoft? Is it simply because you call the CA license an upgrade? Why not apply the same rules to Office or would that be too obvious of a rape for your customer base to handle? I also find it humorous that if you buy a Mac from Apple, apparently the upgrade clause doesn’t apply! I wonder why that is? Perhaps it’s because Microsoft would like keep Mac users dependent on their software by offering it under the CA without the big “gotcha” you’ve snuck in for other manufacturers PCs because it’s impossible without Apple selling OEM copies of Windows? Why wouldn’t Microsoft want to “convert” some Linux geeks with whitebox or custom built PCs back to their platform the same way as Mac users? Not a big enough install base to care?

Am I the only person that thinks this is double dipping? Am I missing something here?

“Put it in H!”

I can’t help but share my Simpson’s nerddom.

It’s from a recent trip to Europe (this was in Prague)… I had to take a picture when I saw it.

POSIX Default ACLs, umask and Project Directories

I’ve recently come across a situation where the inherent design of POSIX ACLs has left me scratching my head for a solution to the problem of setting up a “project” or “group share” directory on Linux. The problem is as follows: We have several different projects or groups that desire a directory where any and every file created, copied or moved to said directory will become owned by a particular group and have group read/write permissions set automatically.

Most of the problem is solved through age-old UNIX techniques. For group ownership, all we need to do is setup the top-level directory to be owned by the “project” or “group share” group and setgid the directory:

$ mkdir project1
$ chown .projgroup project1
$ chmod g+s project1

This effectively forces every file created, moved or copied into the “project1″ directory to be owned by group “projgroup”. So far, so good. The difficulties begin when we attempt to use default ACLs to enforce the permissions of any files created, moved or copied into the directory.

The POSIX ACL standard defines “default” ACLs which can be applied to a directory, which are in turn inherited by newly created/copied/moved child files and directories. While the default ACLs are inherited properly, the ACL mask when applied to files copied into the group share directory WITHOUT previous group write set prevents the files from being group writable!

$ getfacl project1
# file: project1
# owner: root
# group: projgroup
user::rwx
group::rwx
other::r--
default:user::rw-
default:group::rw-
default:group:projgroup:rw-
default:mask::rwx
default:other::r--

So far so good, right?

$ ls -alh test
-rw-r--r--  1 user1 user 0 Apr 23 15:10 test
$ cp test project1
$ ls -alh project1/test
-rw-r--r--+ 1 user1 projgroup 0 Apr 23 15:10 project1/test

What the… ?!?! No group write? Noooooo!

$ getfacl project1
# file: project1/test
# owner: user1
# group: projgroup
user::rw-
group::rw-			#effective:r--
group:projgroup:rw-		#effective:r--
mask::r--
other::r--

And so we have the great POSIX ACL mask problem, which is by design in fact. Still looking for a complete solution that doesn’t involve global trying to force a specific umask on every account… It would be nice if I could ensure that every file had group write set before it was copied into the group share directory but alas, I cannot. Telling users to manually check and change permissions is also a pain. Cron jobs to change group write recursively is also ugly. Please, someone provide me with the solution.

iPod Touch Woes

That’s right, my 1st generation iPod touch has been troublesome lately.

First, I took it snowboarding and it decides to get wet and short the battery somehow, killing it. Bad iPod! I told you not to get wet but you wouldn’t listen! At first I wasn’t sure if the battery really was dead or if the iPod itself had died. I quickly found out the battery was at fault when plugging it into my Macbook and seeing it come alive… too bad it was demanding that I restore it.

So, I tried to restore it. Turns out you can’t restore an iPod touch that doesn’t have a working battery. Part way through the restore, the iPod would die, presumably because it would disconnect from the USB power momentarily. Fine, I bought a new battery and soldered the three tiny little wires in and tried to restore it… and BAM! same problem! Ok, my fault, I didn’t let the battery charge enough. Once charged, I was able to perform the restore.

Now after waiting quite some time for the iPod backup to restore and my music to sync, I try plugging in my headphones to listen to some music. Nothing. The software volume slider is there and I can turn up the volume all the way but nothing. Some jiggling of the jack allows for one channel to come through all muddled. Open the iPod back up and I notice how I destroyed the ribbon cable going from the board to the jack during the battery replacement! Noooooooo.

I actually spent time trying to run four cables to jump the broken ribbon cable, but I didn’t heed my friend’s advice: There was no space for four wires in that tight case. Absolutely no way I could put the back on with those four “jumper” wires crudely soldered in. I also ended up shorting out at least two of the four leads, making my iPod think some kind of remote volume control was plugged in and preventing the display of the software volume controls! I decided to remove my failed attempt at fixing the headphone jack ribbon cable.

I’ve now ordered a replacement jack and I’m going to learn about the joys of soldering a ribbon cable to a tiny PCB. Wish me luck for when it arrives!

BFD2, Variable Hats and MIDI CC Messages

Last night while recording some ground work for a new song with BFD2 and my Hart Dynamics electronic drums, we ran into a problem that has recently been cropping up again and again after a seemingly long time of reliable performance. None of us were quite sure what was going on but I’m super glad we got it figured out.

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