The MIT License is similar to the 3-clause “modified” BSD license, except that the BSD license contains a notice prohibiting the use of the name of the copyright holder in promotion. This is sometimes present in versions of the MIT License, as noted above.

The original BSD license also includes a clause requiring all advertising of the software to display a notice crediting its authors. This “advertising clause” (since disavowed by UC Berkeley) is present in the modified MIT License used by XFree86.

The MIT License states more explicitly the rights given to the end-user, including the right to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell the software.

A 2-clause BSD-style license used by FreeBSD (and preferred for NetBSD) is essentially identical to the MIT License, as it contains neither an advertising clause, nor a prohibition on promotional use of the copyright holder’s name.

Also similar in terms is the ISC license, which has a simpler language.

The University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License combines text from both the MIT and BSD licenses; the license grant and disclaimer are taken from the MIT License.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article MIT License, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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In the late 1980s HP was building four series of computers, all based on CISC CPUs. One line was the IBM PC compatible Intel i286 based Vectra Series started 1986. All others were non-Intel systems. One of them was the HP Series 300 of Motorola 68000-based workstations, another Series 200 line of technical workstations based on a custom silicon on sapphire (SOS) chip design, the SOS based 16-bit HP 3000 classic series and finally the HP 9000 Series 500 minicomputers, based on their own (16 and 32-bit) FOCUS microprocessor. HP planned to use PA-RISC to move all of their non-PC compatible machines to a single RISC CPU family.

Precision Architecture was introduced in 1986. It had thirty-two 32-bit integer registers and sixteen 64-bit floating-point registers. The number of floating-point registers was doubled in the 1.1 version to 32 once it became apparent that 16 were inadequate and restricted performance. The architects included Allen Baum, Hans Jeans, Michael J. Mahon, Ruby Bei-Loh Lee, Russel Kao, Steve Muchnick, Terrence C. Miller and William S. Worley.

The first implementation was the TS1 a central processing unit built from discrete transistor-transistor logic (TTL) devices. Later implementations were multi-chip VLSI designs fabricated in NMOS processes (NS1 and NS2) and CMOS (CS1 and PCX). They were first used in a new series of HP 3000 machines in the late 1980s — the 930 and 950, commonly known at the time as Spectrum systems, the name given to them in the development labs. These machines ran MPE/iX. The HP 9000 machines were soon upgraded with the PA-RISC processor as well, running the HP-UX version of UNIX.

Other operating systems ported to the PA-RISC architecture include Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD and NEXTSTEP.

An interesting aspect of the PA-RISC line is that most of its generations have no Level 2 cache. Instead large Level 1 caches are used, formerly as separate chips connected by a bus, and now integrated on-chip. Only the PA-7100LC and PA-7300LC had L2 caches. Another innovation of the PA-RISC was the addition of vectorized instructions (SIMD) in the form of MAX which were first introduced on the PA-7100LC.

The ISA was extended in 1996 to 64-bits, with this revision named PA-RISC 2.0. PA-RISC 2.0 also added fused multiply-add instructions, which helps certain floating-point intensive algorithms, and the MAX-2 SIMD extension, which provides instructions for accelerating multimedia applications. The first PA-RISC 2.0 implementation was the PA-8000, which was introduced in January 1996.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article PA-RISC, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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After growing up in suburban Detroit, Michigan, Joy received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan and his M.S. in EECS from UC Berkeley in 1979. Joy’s PhD advisor was Bob Fabry.

As a UC Berkeley graduate student, Joy worked for Fabry’s Computer Systems Research Group CSRG in managing the BSD support and rollout where many claim he was largely responsible for managing the authorship of BSD UNIX, from which sprang many modern forms of UNIX, including FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. Apple Inc. has based much of the Mac OS X kernel and OS Services on the BSD technology.

Some of his most notable contributions were the vi editor, NFS, and csh. Joy’s prowess as a computer programmer is legendary, with an oft-told anecdote that he wrote the vi editor in a weekend. Joy denies this assertion.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Novell at the time, continued the mythopoesis during an interview in PBS’s documentary Nerds 2.0.1, inflating Bill Joy’s accomplishments as having personally rewritten the BSD kernel in a weekend.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Bill Joy, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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* Amiga 2065 the first Ethernet controller for Amiga computer family. Uses the Zorro-II bus interface and equipped with the NMOS Am7990 chip.

* MicroVAX Q-Bus Ethernet controllers (like the DELQA).

* DECstation 2100/3100 MIPS architecture motherboard Ethernet.

* DEC 3000 AXP 64-bit Alpha AXP architecture motherboard.

* Sun Microsystems Sun Hydra 3/80, SPARCstation 1, SPARCstation 2, and SPARCstation IPX computer motherboard.

* Various x86-Personal computer ISA network interface cards (some called NE1500 and NE2100 ). Under Unix operating systems like FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD/Linux the device driver is usually called le(4).

* QEMU emulating Sun-4 architecture (sun4m) virtual network interface.

* GXemul with le(4) emulating ARM, MIPS, M88K, PowerPC, and SuperH CPU. One example architecture is DECstation 5000 (3max).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article AMD Lance Am7990, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Because MTP/IP uses proprietary algorithms, compatible software must be installed on both ends of a communication path. Use of the UDP packet format permits compatibility with standard Internet Protocol (IP) network hardware and software. MTP/IP applications may use any available UDP port number.

MTP and the applications which use it have been implemented for several operating systems, including versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, IRIX, HP-UX, and AIX. Hardware platforms include variations of x86, PowerPC, UltraSPARC, MIPS64, PA-RISC and POWER.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Multipurpose Transaction Protocol, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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FreeBSD

FreeBSD is served by a mailing list specifically for advocacy discussion. Advocacy-related materials and links are provided on the FreeBSD website, including a page of logos.

Linux

As there are a large number of Linux distributions, there are many organizations involved in Linux advocacy, including companies directly involved in the development of distributions as well as purely advocacy-based groups, such as SEUL. Promotion takes on a wide variety of forms from plush toys to t-shirts and posters, and even to more unorthodox forms, such as body paints and video games.

Macintosh OS

From the 1984 Super Bowl advertisement and “Test Drive a Macintosh” to the Apple Switch and Get a Mac advertising campaigns, Apple Computer has a long history of advocating its platform through innovative techniques in traditional media. This also covers advocacy of the Macintosh hardware, peripherals and even lifestyle choices, with both fans and the company projecting a hip and trendy image while negatively portraying Microsoft Windows, IBM or other competitors as anything from awkward and dated to a totalitarian Big Brother figure.

Microsoft Windows

Neowin.net is a recent attempt in Windows and Microsoft advocacy, concentrating a community of fans of Microsoft products. The site also wrote editorials opposing Windows bashing in the media. Microsoft has also attempted to boost popularity of Windows 7 with a widely ridiculed Launch Party program [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ].

NetBSD

Like FreeBSD, the NetBSD Foundation hosts a mailing list especially for advocacy. This mailing list is automatically archived and made accessible online. They also provide some official advocacy material, such as posters and flyers and an official “powered by” logo with a license permitting use on any product running NetBSD.

OpenBSD

Like FreeBSD and NetBSD, the OpenBSD project provides a mailing list specifically intended for advocacy, advocacy@openbsd.org. It was created on July 21, 1998 for discussion of user groups, stickers, shirts and the promotion of OpenBSD’s image and also to host all flame-worthy discussions. As a part of its advocacy, the project also maintains a list of consulting firms and individual consultants around the world on its website and has produced a number of slogans, including “Free, Functional & Secure”, “Secure by default”, and “Power. Security. Flexibility.” Each OpenBSD release features an original song and a variety of artwork.

OS/2

OS/2 is the only operating system which saw the creation of a semi-formal advocates organization. Named ”Team OS/2”, it was a grassroots organization conceived by an IBM employee and initially joined by other IBMers which quickly spread outside IBM. Whether IBM employees or not, Team OS/2 members initially volunteered their time and passion without official sanction from or connection to IBM. Members would promote OS/2 at trade shows, conferences, fairs, and in stores, participate in operating system discussions on CompuServe, Prodigy, Fidonet and Usenet, throw parties, help users install OS/2, contact media figures to explain OS/2 and generate interest, and in general exercise creativity and initiative in helping popularize OS/2.

The industry dynamics that gave rise to such passionate advocacy were multi-faceted. Perhaps the leading cause was antipathy for the idea that Microsoft could and would establish a monopoly for Windows and DOS, widely deemed as far inferior to OS/2. Additionally, many users feared that IBM, who had proven eminently capable of developing a superior PC operating system, knew very little about consumer marketing in the high-tech marketplace or establishing even a superior product as a standard in the cut-throat, get-there-first-at-any-cost arena dominated by Microsoft. Finally, the mere fact that so many copies of Windows were shipping to users (whom OS/2 advocates viewed as uncritical and uninformed), coupled with the fact that so many in the industry had so much riding on the success of OS/2, created conditions ripe for so many trying to take matters into their own hands. The only spark that was needed for this combustible situation to ignite was an example of evangelism provided by the “new IBM” – a few employees who took “empowerment” seriously, able to coordinate their efforts through participation in TEAMOS2 FORUM, an internal IBM discussion group) – and passionate supporters outside IBM who adopted the ideas and modeled the behaviors of those who were early activists within IBM.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Operating system advocacy, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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OpenVPN allows peers to authenticate each other using a pre-shared secret key, certificates, or username/password. When used in a multiclient-server configuration, it allows the server to release an authentication certificate for every client, using signature and Certificate authority. It uses the OpenSSL encryption library extensively, as well as the SSLv3/TLSv1 protocol, and contains many security and control features.

It is available on Solaris, Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, QNX, Mac OS X, and Windows 2000/XP/Vista. Although Windows, Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone, etc. include built-in support for VPNs, they do not include OpenVPN. It must be installed as a separate program and configured by editing text files manually, rather than through the normal GUI. It is not a “web-based” VPN, meaning that it is not shown as a web page such as Citrix or TS Web access. OpenVPN is not compatible with IPsec or any other VPN package. The entire package consists of one binary for both client and server connections, an optional configuration file, and one or more key files depending on the authentication method used. It is sometimes used by computer gamers as a way of accessing LAN games over the internet.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article OpenVPN, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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XORP, or eXtensible Open Router Platform, is an open source Internet Protocol routing software suite.

It is designed from principles of software modularity and extensibility and aims at exhibiting stability and providing feature requirements for production use while also supporting networking research. The development project was founded by Mark Handley in 2000. Receiving funding from Intel, Microsoft, and the National Science Foundation, it released its first production software in July 2004. The project was then run by Atanu Ghosh of the International Computer Science Institute, in Berkeley, California.

In July 2008, the International Computer Science Institute transferred the XORP technology to a new entity, XORP Inc., a commercial startup founded by the leaders of the opensource project team and backed by Onset Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. In February 2010, XORP Inc. was wound up, a victim of the recession. However the open source project continues, with the servers now based at University College London.

The XORP codebase consists of around 670,000 lines of C++ and is developed primarily on FreeBSD, but fully supported on Linux, OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X. A port running on Windows Server 2003 only supports IPv4. XORP is available for download as a Live CD or as source code via the project’s homepage.

The software suite was selected commercially as the routing platform for the Vyatta line of products in its early releases, but later has been replaced with quagga.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article XORP, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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A personal computer that does not have embedded Bluetooth can be used with a Bluetooth adapter or “dongle” that will enable the PC to communicate with other Bluetooth devices (such as mobile phones, mice and keyboards). While some desktop computers and most recent laptops come with a built-in Bluetooth radio, others will require an external one in the form of a dongle.

Unlike its predecessor, IrDA, which requires a separate adapter for each device, Bluetooth allows multiple devices to communicate with a computer over a single adapter.

Operating system support

Apple has supported Bluetooth since Mac OS X v10.2 which was released in 2002.

For Microsoft platforms, Windows XP Service Pack 2 and SP3

releases have native support for Bluetooth 1.1, 2.0 and 2.0+EDR.

Previous versions required users to install their Bluetooth adapter’s own drivers, which were not directly supported by Microsoft.

Microsoft’s own Bluetooth dongles (packaged with their Bluetooth computer devices) have no external drivers and thus require at least Windows XP Service Pack 2. Windows Vista RTM/SP1 with the Feature Pack for Wireless or Windows Vista SP2 support Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. Windows 7 supports Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and Extended Inquiry Response (EIR).

The Windows XP and Windows Vista/Windows 7 Bluetooth stacks support the following Bluetooth profiles natively: PAN, SPP, DUN, HID, HCRP. The Windows XP stack can be replaced by a third party stack which may support more profiles or newer versions of Bluetooth. The Windows Vista/Windows 7 Bluetooth stack supports vendor-supplied additional profiles without requiring the Microsoft stack to be replaced.

Linux has two popular Bluetooth stacks, BlueZ and Affix. The BlueZ stack is included with most Linux kernels and was originally developed by Qualcomm. The Affix stack was developed by Nokia.

FreeBSD features Bluetooth support since its 5.0 release.

NetBSD features Bluetooth support since its 4.0 release. Its Bluetooth stack has been ported to OpenBSD as well.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Bluetooth, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Snack Sound Toolkit is a cross-platform library written by Kåre Sjölander of the Swedish Royal Technical University (KTH) with bindings for the scripting languages Tcl, Python, and Ruby. It provides audio I/O, audio analysis and processing functions, such as spectral analysis, pitch tracking, and filtering, and related graphics functions such as display of the sound pressure waveform and spectrogram.

It is available on Microsoft Windows , Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, HP-UX, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and IRIX.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Snack Sound Toolkit, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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