In the open-source community, there is strong camraderie between developers. Developers code for the love of coding and for reputation, rather than for profit. This results in some innovative, dynamic projects, like the Linux OS, the Apache web server, the Firefox web browser, and the OpenNMS network management suite, among many, many others.

Commercial companies take advantage of this innovation to build equally innovative products. Linksys‘s WRT54G routers and the Tivo DVR use Linux. These companies can do so as long as they honor the GPL license, which gives one the right to do whatever one wants with the source code as long as any changes get released back into the community. This encourages collaboration, which in turn lends itself to some amazing tools as hackers can modify any project to suit their needs. Indeed, Linksys and Tivo all but encourage their users to hack their products. Often, their users’ cool ideas wind up in a future version of the mainstream product.

On rare occasions, a project will grow to the point where a contributor becomes greedy. Parts of the project become proprietary. The company begins to benefit from the work of others without sharing anything in return. Such is the case with the world-class network security tool, Nessus and its primary sponsor, Tenable Security.

My friend Brian Weaver works in the security industry and uncovered some dirty tricks in Tenable’s release of Nessus source code, tricks clearly designed to sabotage the GPL versions of Nessus. Why would they do that? Because they sell a commercial version which now competes with the free version.

It appears that Tenable is violating the spirit, if not the letter of the GPL agreement. And the proof is right in the source code the GPL obligates Tenable to release.

That demonstrates another wonderful aspect of open source: accountability. Dirty tricks have nowhere to hide. With the work of Weave and other Nessus contributors, these actions will not go unnoticed. In fact, companies pulling stunts like this have been known to have their project’s open source developers take control of the GPL project. The activity continues around the free version, leaving the commercial version to whither and die. See SSH and OpenSSH for examples.

In short, everyone is expected to play nice in the open source world because reputation is everything. Cross the line into evilness, as Tenable seems to have done, and the community will ostracise you. It will be interesting to watch the repercussions of this one.

Last evening, I sat down at the piano. For the first time in many years, I attempted to read music. My fingers were rusty, but after a few clumsy songs it began to come back to me. It was fun, though I am glad there was no audience!

This morning, a different type of keyboard was on my mind. I read with sadness about the death of Bob Moog this week. His synthesizers spawned the birth of electronic music. He was the Les Paul of keyboards. Much has been written about him and his influence on music. As a kid, I remember my dad always pointing out the Moog synthesizers in whatever song we were listening to.

I’m wishing now that I had time to go to Moog’s memorial service today in Asheville. The organ music should be out of this world.

The office where I work has never been a thing of beauty. There was the time we had a freak rainstorm and the place nearly flooded. Then there was that spring where the floors were crawling with millipedes. The power goes out probably once a month, which became only a minor irritation after the generator was installed. Its freezing in the summertime and cold in the wintertime. And a few weeks back, a rattle in the plumbing shook the office with bone-jarring noise.

The latest addition to the office is … mold. I’ve been reading up on mold, using sites like North Carolina, the CDC, and the EPA. In any office or home, mold is present. Its a natural part of the environment. Only when it begins to sprout legs and crawl across the ceiling does it become a problem. And its been a problem for a while now. A few ceiling tiles have always been a bit moldy. Most people who work in this office have had (or are having) headaches and sinus problems. This winter, I spent a few weeks on antibiotics to chase the moldy buggers out of my head. Sneezes happen frequently. Eyes burn. It’s nasty.

Lately its gotten worse. The rattling pipes have shaken some stuff loose in the ceiling space, which has left a growing line of water stains on the ceiling tiles. There is a large growth of mold on four or five tiles. My fix-it nature drives me to take a look up there, but I don’t dare without a respirator and gloves. Or maybe a full-body suit.

The office landlord has been notified and has promised to look into it. I hope he gets someone out here before we all get carted off by this alien fungus. Only time will tell if we survive or if we …. ARRRRGGH fjkl.;23462k,obmj

I’ve gotten lots of inquires regarding Asterisk since my presentation two weeks ago. It’s taking up what little free time I have left. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I love being a phone geek!

Seems that people are getting wise to the benefits of the Asterisk system, and how VoIP can really save them money. More importantly, it can fit their business, rather than the other way around. Why use anything else?

On my morning commute Friday I passed a large tanker truck with “powered by biodiesel” written on the back. It was owned by a biodiesel company, the name which escapes me now. I thought it was pretty cool running a vehicle on vegetable oil. Today, I got an email from the City of Raleigh’s recycling mailing list with a link to the Greasecar, a kit that will let you burn biodiesel in your your diesel engine.

Like a lot of things, there’s a trick to it. The diesel engine has already be warm in order for it to burn biodiesel. And it only works with mechanically-injected diesel engines. All in all, these are small caveats for the privilege of using essentially free fuel!

Maybe there’s an upside to having a McDonald’s on every corner, after all.

I had a busy, but fun day, overall. Lots of variety. I started “making hay” around 6 AM and didn’t stop until 9 PM. I won’t bore you with details. I’ll only say that I’m feeling pretty good about things.

I’ll be accompanying the family up to K’s parent’s house this weekend. They’ll stay the week while I drive back with the car I’m buying from my in-laws: a Honda CR-V. While it will be nice to have the car, I’m sure gonna miss the daily dose of smiles and laughter from the kids and wife.

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The service is free and only requires you to add some Javascript code to your pages. If you want to get the most out of your blog, you need to check out Blogbeat!

The other night, Kelly and I watched the movie Sideways. While it was an okay movie, I remember one particular scene where the characters drove past a California gas station. The price for a gallon of gas was $1.81. Whoa! Can you say ‘dated?’

Gas is now $2.58 per gallon at the cheap places in Raleigh. A picture in today’s paper shows gas at a California station at $3.15. A little while ago I wrote about peak oil. Perhaps its closer than I thought?

Take a minute to participate in my gas price poll on the right of the page.