The MITA License

I've always like the MIT License. However, there was one thing that always bugged me about it. That's the copyright notice.

You see, the copyright notice is often not really correct. It often is when the project is in its early phases, but when more contributors start adding things, it may not be correct. However, the license itself stipulates that you cannot change the notice. Surely, you yourself can change the license, but once there are more contributors who should be considered you becomes more and more foggy as well.

One way this is often mitigated by a copyright notice that refers to some "software group". However, that's often not how the project started off and whether it was actually legal to change it to that is often a bit up in the air. And whether new contributions actually are copyright of said group completely depends on the contributors agreement (if there was one to begin with). Oh, and the jurisdiction the viewer is on may have something to say about it as well.

At the end of the day, the copyright statement is often just incorrect or it may just be undecidable. Of course the copyright statement doesn't need to be factual for the license to work, but the license does make sure that you cannot change it. I just don't like that.

That's why I forked the license. I replaced "copyright notice" with "attribution notice". The idea is that you can put anything above it, things like "Project <A> was started by <B>" and "This software was created by <C>" come to mind, but you may very well think of something completely different yourself. It can basically be anything, as long as it's something that you can clearly refer to as an "attribution notice".

I named my fork "MITA", after MIT-Attribution, but I pronounce it as in (Playstation) Vita. The license can be combined with a copyright notice elsewhere (though it won't be protected by the license, of course). The home of the license is my website which was launched pretty recently. (Hi there, future visitor! Is the link broken? Do let me know. When I wrote this I was definitely planning to change the url at least once or twice and may well have forgotten to update this link.) The text of the license can also be found below.

<freeform attibution notice>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above attribution notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

SBCs: Orange package recevied, over

A couple of days ago I received a package. Or actually, I had to pick it up because it didn't fit in mail box and I wasn't home when they tried to deliver it. It was a new piece in my collection of SBC, the Orange Pi Zero:

As the name might betray, it's the competitor to the Raspberry Pi Zero and the CHIP from the Orange Pi line.

With a full-size network, a USB port and a one presoldered header, it actually gets more in line with the CHIP than the Raspberry Pi Zero.

It has wifi and that combined wifi in addition to its network port, so it's also not as poorly connected as the RPi Zero. On the other hand, it's the only in its class not to have any display output, while at $9 (or $7 for the model with less RAM) it is the most expensive of the three similar boards (unlike the CHIP, it still needs a SD card to be added to that cost).

Of course, that higher price does get you something: a processor that actually competes with the normal Raspberry Pi line rather than the Zero. And of course, little to no software support.

For size comparison, here's the new board together with an Orange Pi PC, a Raspberry Pi 2, a Raspberry Pi Zero and a CHIP. The OPi Zero actually has quite different dimension than any other the others. Perhaps the Orange Pi is actually starting to take its own direction instead of just copying others.

The same package also included a case for my Orange Pi PC. Now that it has a real function in my infrastructure, I felt it deserved that. If you look closely, you can actually see that the case is artially transparent:

In fact, that was not the only case in the package. There was also a case for the Orange Pi itself. I have a plan for it too, so this seemed only fitting. I want to use it for NAT (if it's going to work is another story all together, but we'll get to that when we get to it). This may in fact be the first time that I buy a non-Raspberry board with a specific use in mind!

Speaking of Raspberry boards, there's actually a board that has joined the family without me writing about it on this blog. High time for some photos, don't you think?

It's the official Raspberry Pi Touch Screen! It's inside a SmartiPi Touch case.

And it's being driven by a Raspberry Pi 3.

Alright, that's what I've got for you for now.