Month: December 2007

The NASA scientists are trying really hard to not get excited.

The impact probability for a collision of asteroid 2007 WD5 with Mars on January 30 has increased from 1.3% to 3.9%.

Pre-discovery observations of asteroid 2007 WD5, taken on November 8, 2007 have allowed its orbit to be refined and the uncertainties for the late January Mars encounter have been improved. The impact probability resulting from the recent orbit refinement has increased to a surprising 3.9% (about 1 in 25 odds). The uncertainty region during the Mars encounter now extends over 400,000 km along a very narrow ellipsoid that is only 600 km wide. Since the uncertainty region intersects Mars itself, a Mars impact is still possible. However, the most likely scenario is that additional observations of the asteroid will allow the uncertainty region to shrink so that a Mars impact is ruled out. In the unlikely event of an impact, the time would be 2008 January 30 at 10:56 UT (2:56 a.m. PST) with an uncertainty of a few minutes.

The war between Earth and Mars continues unabated.

A recently discovered asteroid which passed close to the Earth in November, is now headed towards a very close passage by Mars in late January, and there is a small chance that it could hit that planet. The probability of a collision is only 1 chance in 75, but scientists are excited about the possibility. If it happens, the impact would occur on January 30, 2008 at around 10:55 UT (2:55 a.m. PST).

Groklaw – Samba Team Receives Microsoft Protocol Documentation

No. This isn’t a bit like the Novell-Microsoft agreements. This is for access to Microsoft’s protocols, as ordered by the EU Commission and agreed to by Microsoft. It’s a good thing, in my opinion, and the Samba guys worked really hard to make this as good as it gets. Note that it’s a copyright agreement, with no per-copy royalties, not a patent licensing, but there’s a list of patents. Samba has not agreed to license them. Rather it will avoid them, and with a list of them provided by Microsoft, they can and so can you. There is no acknowledgment of them by Samba, no money paid for them, nothing. This is what Novell and others could have done, and thanks to Samba, everyone is a bit freer today.

Microsoft now gun shy of government regulators

Then a remarkable thing happened. Responding to an article on Groklaw where the agreement was being discussed, the trustee Neil Barrett posted a suggestion that I get in touch with him. Neil directed me to Craig Shank, who heads up Microsoft’s protocol licensing team. Neil thought that Craig would be the right person to talk to to try and fix some of the problematic parts of the agreement.

This in turn resulted in several weeks of intensive discussions, during which we found that Microsoft was indeed very willing to make modifications to the agreement to make it more suitable for use by the free software community. Microsoft was keen to ensure that it complied with the court ruling, Neil Barrett was happy to help facilitate those discussions, and of course we were more than willing to point out the parts of the agreement that were problematic for free software projects.