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After the GNU General Public License (GPL), the Creative Commons License (CCL) is probably the most popular open source license now in use. Yet, while the writing of version 3.0 of the GPL has been widely covered in the media, the current revisions to the CCL have received little attention from the press -- nor have the drafters of the two licenses consulted each other. All the same, the CCL 3.0 revision has many of the same priorities as GPL 3.0, including increasing the clarity of the language, internationalizing the language, and addressing issues about digital rights management (DRM).

Is a glass half full or half empty? This eternal question sums up the challenge of interpreting a software license. So how does one avoid the pitfall of a wrong interpretation? Here is my thumb rule — never ignore the spirit in which the software license was created in the first place.

Some say "if you don't like the fact you can't run a modified version of TiVo linux on a TiVo, then don't buy a TiVo, you're still free to take your modified version and install it on something else". This is very flawed reasoning. Hardware and software are not separate. TiVo linux is meant for running on a TiVo.

In this week's entry we'll look at two more"live" CDs of Linux systems optimized for multimedia creation and performance. I've been having a great time with these systems, and I hope that my mini-profiles inspire you to try them all. They're a great way to introduce someone to Linux, they show off the system optimized for multimedia performance and they provide a wealth of high-quality sound and music software to exploit that system. They all include the standard cornucopia of applications for the mundane tasks, word processing, text editing, graphics, networking, and so on. All that, for the cost of a download and a disc.

I have been very busy recently and have not updated the site with anything interesting or new - ironically I have not really done anything interesting or new in the last month or so. I have been getting ready for this year's Ohio Linuxfest conference (see their website for details). This year I will attending as an Open Source vendor. Steve Dickinson and I will be at the NetBSD booth (table) with flyers and a small system with NetBSD installed on it. Pics and comments to follow of course.

One of the key developers for the GNU Image Manipulation Program, Dave Neary has walked off the project. Writing in his bog, Neary said he has had a gutsful of the abusive behaviour in the GIMP community.

Okay, non-interview stuff first. I've recently picked up several'shortcuts' fromO'Reilly andAddison-Weseley. I love this format. For about 10 bucks, you can get a PDF only copy of a 50-100 page"book". The shortcuts (so far at least) have been very focused, which allows them to cover a reasonable topic in sufficient depth without creating a monstrous 600+ page tome. The shortcuts I've looked at so far have been timely, useful, and a great value. October marks the beginning ofApress' push into Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Apress also hasPractical OCaml coming out soon to help soothe your inner functional programmer. Now, on to interview news!

Create secure server applications with OpenSSL; its documentation makes it look intimidating, but it's actually rather simple. In Part 3 of this three-part series learn how to build a secure server app by building on the concepts from Part 1 for creating a basic secure client, and by going in depth in Part 2 about digital certificates.

O'Reilly held EuroOSCON, the European Open-Source Convention, on 18-21 September in central Brussels. El Reg's technical department had the opportunity to turn up and see what the fuss was about.

About 200 seasoned and budding programmers from all over India gathered at the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi earlier this month for FreeDel 2006, a two-day event on FOSS in education organized by the Delhi chapter of the Indian Linux Users Group.

The software industry has succeeded in gaining a reputation for rushing buggy products to market. Deserved or undeserved, this label is sticking like glue, and that’s where specialised software testing companies come into the picture. As usual, some Indian companies have latched on to this opportunity.

The popular distribution formerly known as Mandrake, and with no Purple Rain to be seen, will include in its next 2007 release Transgaming’s Cedega engine to play mainstream Windows gaming titles out of the box.

There was a time when the only storage a small business required was a filing cabinet and the odd cardboard box or two. But increasing reliance on electronic data processing has seen demand for fast, reliable and secure storage – mostly magnetic disk – grow exponentially in recent years.

European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has acknowledged that there are "legitimate concerns" about proposals to create a pan-European patent litigation system. Addressing the European Parliament's plenary session on Thursday, McCreevy said industry is not happy with either the proposed Community Patent system or the EPLA (European Patent Litigation Agreement).

Alfresco Software is readying the final piece of its open-source enterprise content management (ECM) software suite with the unveiling of a preview of its Web content management product.

TCS has taken some screenshots of the fresh new Ubuntu 6.10 Beta. "The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the Beta Release of Ubuntu 6.10 - code named 'Edgy Eft'. Highlights include: GNOME 2.16; OpenOffice.org 2.0.4 RC2; X.Org 7.1; task selection for easier installation of mail servers, web servers, etc.

Trademarks, licensing agreements, branding, and other fundamental product issues remains unchanged

This week the People Behind KDE series is featuring Philip Rodrigues. He mostly is active as a documentation contributor, but he also does user support and some coding.

As an MP3 and MPEG player, the Hauppauge MediaMVP lets you play digital media through your television set. It is the smallest, and on of the least expensive, non-handheld Linux systems out there. Go inside this tightly purposed embedded device, exemplifying compact Linux implementation on minimal hardware.

Konversation developer Eike Hein noticed KDE appearing on new US drama Heroes. This follows previous outings on 24, Alias and the making of Lord of the Rings. Kopete is the star of the episode, but you don't have to be a hero to make use of KDE's multi-protocol instant messenger.