Brendan Gregg 遇到的 An Unbelievable Demo

Hacker News Daily 上看到的熱門話題,Brendan Gregg 是效能分析領域的大老,現在在 Netflix 工作,在維基百科的條目「Brendan Gregg」上也有提到他的一些知名發明,像是 Flame Graphs:

He has also created visualization types to aid performance analysis, including latency heat maps, utilization heat maps, subsecond offset heat maps, and flame graphs.

昨天他發了一篇文章在講之間他遇到的事情,原文把過程寫的很有戲劇性,值得去看一看:「An Unbelievable Demo」,而 Hacker News 上的討論也很精彩:「An Unbelievable Demo (brendangregg.com)」,還引出了 Colin Percival 也分享他的經驗。

快速講 Brendan Gregg 遇到的事情,2005 年時 Brendan Gregg 因為業務上的需要 (他當年是效能分析的顧問),幫 Sun 推出的 DTrace 寫了一包工具,叫做 DTraceToolkit,用 GPLv2 或是 CDDL 釋出。

這包工具被 Sun 的人拿去用,並且拔掉作者與授權資訊,然後還被拿去「世界巡迴」介紹這個工具,最後在雪梨的時候居然是拿來介紹給 Brendan Gregg,然後被原作者打臉。

不過他後來還是加入了 Sun... XDDD

Colin Percival 的故事則沒有牽扯到 copyright issue,不過也很有趣,這邊提到的是 bsdiff,也是個經典的工具:

Reminds me of when Apple started providing "smaller size updates" to OS X. I was curious about the details since my doctorate had touched on the topic, so I worked my contacts (I had a few in Apple engineering from the FreeBSD / OS X relationship) and after a few months I got back as answer: "We're using a tool called bsdiff, are you familiar with it?" I was indeed, since I was the author of said tool.

(Just to be clear, there was no license violation involved in this case; just a lack of awareness of the provenance of the open source software they were using.)

另外在其他的 thread 裡面,可以看到 Brendan Gregg 也有浮上來回應 (可以直接字串搜尋 brendangregg),裡面也提到了有趣的故事,像是他另外一個發明 latency heat map 在一些會場上的交流,以及自己也有遇到其他工具的作者:

Thanks. There was a time when many observability products were adding latency heat maps, and at one conference expo floor there were three companies with latency heat maps on their screen at the same time, pitching them as a flagship feature. If I walked near them they'd start trying to explain them to me, and I never figured out an appropriate response. If I said "hey, great to see you added them, I invented these back at Sun" I'd get funny looks.

I think it's a small world, and everything is software, so the chance you'll bump into someone who wrote software you are using I think is pretty high. I was once trying to get my head around Andi Kleen's pmu-tools, and I had the github repo open in my browser on my laptop I was carrying, when the guy sitting next to me on a bus says he's Andi Kleen. (Ok, it was a bus taking Linux conference attendees to an event, not a random bus, but I still found it remarkable timing -- I was studying pmu-tools at that exact time!)

拿來配啤酒的文章 XD

Grafana 家的軟體改 AGPLv3

Grafana 家的軟體宣佈從本來的 Apache License 2.0 轉換成 AGPLv3:「Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3」。

相關的討論可以在 Hacker News 上的「Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3 (grafana.com)」看到。

Going forward, we will be relicensing our core open source projects (Grafana, Grafana Loki, and Grafana Tempo) from the Apache License 2.0 to the Affero General Public License (AGPL) v3. Plugins, agents, and certain libraries will remain Apache-licensed. You can find information in GitHub about what is being relicensed for Grafana, Loki, and Tempo.

這應該是對 Amazon Managed Service for Grafana 的反擊。

看起來 Grafana 7.5.3、Grafana Loki 2.2.1 以及 Grafana Tempo 0.6.0 是最後使用 Apache License 2.0 授權的版本,不確定會不會有人 fork...

AWS 對 Elasticsearch 的戰爭:OpenSearch

AWSElasticsearch 的戰爭繼續升溫,AWS 出來喊,搞了自己的 community 要跟本家 PK:「Introducing OpenSearch」,衍生出來的兩套軟體分別是 OpenSearch (對應 Elasticsearch) 與 OpenSearch Dashboards (對應 Kibana)。

Hacker News 上的討論「OpenSearch: AWS fork of Elasticsearch and Kibana (amazon.com)」裡面有些討論還蠻精彩的,其中這段:

One thing which surprised me: Elastic has a market capitalization of ~$11B.

I think that changes some of the more floaty ethical concerns. This is not a David vs Goliath situation. This is Goliath vs Super-Goliath.

雖然就公司市值比例來看,大約是 100:1 這個數量級的公司在打架 (AWS 的母單位 Amazon 大約在 USD$1T 的等級),但這其實這不是小蝦米被大鯨魚欺負的故事,而是大公司跟暴力超大公司之間的打架。

會怎麼演變其實猜不出來,但因為在 open source search engine 技術這塊的確缺乏其他像樣的競爭者,AWS 這樣丟資源進來未必是件壞事。

另外一方面,這件事情對商業公司在在 open source 的其他領域則是比較負面,很明顯的 Amazon 這樣玩對於其他以 open source 為基礎的商業公司處境就更嚴峻了。

Mapbox GL JS 的授權改變,以及 MapLibre GL 的誕生

看到「MapLibre GL is a free and open-source fork of mapbox-gl-JS (github.com/maplibre)」這篇,翻了一下資料發現年初時 Mapbox GL JS 的軟體授權從 v2.0.0 開始變成不是 open source license (本來是 BSD license),而社群也馬上 fork 最後一個 open source 版本並且投入開發,變成 MapLibre GL

MapTiler 在年初的時候有提到這件事情:「MapLibre: Mapbox GL open-source fork」。

The community reacted swiftly: forks of the latest open-source version were made almost immediately by multiple parties. In another positive development, the community came together the next day and agreed to make this a joint effort, rather than splitting energies. A video call was organized and the MapLibre coalition was formed. It includes people working for MapTiler, Elastic, StadiaMaps, Microsoft, Ceres Imaging, WhereGroup, Jawg, Stamen Design, etc.

MapLibre GL 目前與本來 v1.13.0 相容,可以直接抽換過去 (後來在二月的時候有出一個 v1.13.1,不過那是在 v2.0.0 改 license 之後的事情了):

  "dependencies": {
-    "mapbox-gl": "^1.13.0"
+    "maplibre-gl": ">=1.14.0"
  }

記錄一下,以後要在網站上用的話,得注意到 Mapbox GL JS 在沒有註冊的情況下不能使用,而且 SDK 會強制蒐集資料:

Mapbox gl-js version 2.0 or higher (“Mapbox Web SDK”) must be used according to the Mapbox Terms of Service. This license allows developers with a current active Mapbox account to use and modify the Mapbox Web SDK. Developers may modify the Mapbox Web SDK code so long as the modifications do not change or interfere with marked portions of the code related to billing, accounting, and anonymized data collection. The Mapbox Web SDK only sends anonymized usage data, which Mapbox uses for fixing bugs and errors, accounting, and generating aggregated anonymized statistics. This license terminates automatically if a user no longer has an active Mapbox account.

不過如果是抓 OpenStreetMap 資料的話,Leaflet 應該還是目前的首選...

AWS 跳出來決定繼續搞 Elasticsearch 了

先前提到「Elasticsearch 與 Kibana 也變成非 Open Source 軟體」,後來 Elastic 的 CEO (創辦人) 發了一篇「Amazon: NOT OK - why we had to change Elastic licensing」直接批評 AWS

接下來是 AWS 跳出來放話了,基本上也是個新聞稿:「Stepping up for a truly open source Elasticsearch」,大概就是會繼續維護自己的版本,維持本來的 Apache License, Version 2.0,然後批評 Elastic 所說的話不實之類的...

現在還在雙方放話的階段,過一陣子看看有什麼更新...

Elasticsearch 與 Kibana 也變成非 Open Source 軟體

Nuzzel 上看到的消息,ElasticsearchKibana 也變成非 Open Source 軟體了:「Elasticsearch and Kibana are now business risks」,官方的公告在「Upcoming licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana」這邊。

新版將會採用 SSPL (由 MongoDB 設計出來的授權) 與 Elastic License (Elastic 的商用授權) 的雙重授權,不過兩個授權都不是 Open Source 授權。

應該是跟 Amazon Elasticsearch Service 這種搞法加減有些關係?不知道 AWS 這邊後續會怎麼弄...

另外如果不選擇 Elasticsearch 的話,目前好像只有 Solr 算是堪用?不過很久沒回去看 Solr,不知道現在軟體發展到什麼程度...

Nmap 變成非 Open Source Software

在 RSS reader 上看到「A license change for Nmap」這篇,雖然看不到內容,但標題已經先把重點講出來了 (雖然在 Hacker News 上找一下就有連結了),看起來 Nmap 的軟體授權有改過,查了一下是在去年十月出版的 7.90 發生的,不過最近突然被炒熱了起來:「Nmap 7.90 Released! First release since August 2019.」。

We also did some long-needed license cleanup and gave the license a name (Nmap Public Source License) to avoid the previous confusion of Nmap being under "GPLv2 with various clarifications and exceptions". The NPSL is still based on the GPLv2, but brings in terms from some other popular open source licenses. See https://nmap.org/npsl

看到這種自我宣稱的就超可疑,而翻了一下 NPSL 裡面的限制,看起來就不怎麼符合 open source license 的定義,在「Is nmap's custom NPSL license free?」這邊的說明算是很客氣了,都是掛上「probably」,不過大家自己讀過以後應該就會知道問題了...

目前開槍的應該就是 Fedora 了,Fedora 在 Nmap Public Source License (NPSL) Version 0.92 - devel-announce - Fedora Mailing-Lists 這邊決定把 NPSL 列為 bad license,並且在 Fedora 裡面禁用。

Debian 目前則是在「#972216 - nmap: New NPSL 0.92 license likely non-free - Debian Bug report logs」這邊也有類似的討論,不過目前看起來就還在討論,沒有動手。

Gentoo 跟情況跟 Debian 也類似,在「Add NPSL (nmap license) to MISC_FREE」這邊討論中。

看起來這幾天應該會有進展,沒意外的話應該是會被封殺,裡面的條款把 installer 之類的程式也都限制進去了,直接影響到 Linux 平台的各種工具 (像是 apt/dnf/yum)。

該拉個折凳,買個爆米花來等著看了...

C++ 版本的 Kafka

Hacker News 首頁上看到的東西,看起來是 C++ 版本的 Apache Kafka 替代品 Redpanda,要注意的是這不是 open source license 軟體:「Redpanda – A Kafka-compatible streaming platform for mission-critical workloads (vectorized.io)」。

目前網站上可以看到,最主要的特點是不需要 Apache ZooKeeper,不過這點在 Kafka 這邊也正在進行了 (之前在「Kafka 拔掉 ZooKeeper 的計畫」這篇有提到),雖然進度有點慢...

另外目前完全沒有 benchmark 資料,只有宣稱 10x 更快,官方在 Hacker News 上的回應是說十二月會有公開的測試報告,這樣我會把 10x 當廣告詞看了,應該會更快,但大概是某種特殊情境下才會達到...

在一台電腦上多畫面與多鍵盤滑鼠操作遊戲:Universal Split Screen

Hacker News Daily 上看到這款工具,可以在 Windows 上把拆出多個畫面,並且提供給不同的鍵盤與滑鼠使用:「Universal Split Screen」,而且是 open source 專案 (使用 MIT License),程式碼在 UniversalSplitScreen/UniversalSplitScreen 這邊。

理論上只要不是太吃資源的遊戲,應該都適合這個方法搞 (從他列出來的遊戲列表看起來,似乎都不會太吃 CPU 與顯卡)。

另外在想是不是也可以拿給其他用途使用,像是 PuTTY 之類的程式?

微軟開源 1983 年版的 GW-BASIC

微軟用 MIT License 放出 1983 年版的 GW-BASIC:「Microsoft Open-Sources GW-BASIC」。

這次放出來程式看起來是 x86 assembly,不過放出來的版本好像也不能算是「原始」的版本,而是從 "master implementation" 轉譯出來的版本:

This source was ‘translated’?

Each of the assembly source files contains a header stating This translation created 10-Feb-83 by Version 4.3

Since the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) of the early processors used in home and personal computers weren’t spectacularly different from one another, Microsoft was able to generate a substantial amount of the code for a port from the sources of a master implementation. (Alas, sorry, we’re unable to open-source the ISA translator.)

主要還是 PR,然後帶一些考古價值...