Here's my pet peeve for the week.

Web hosting companies that can get special permission to use trademarked logos, when we are unable to acquire the same permission.

For example:

"Cisco Powered Network"
http://www.pihost.net/images/supported/cisco-logo.gif
http://www.cwihosting.com/images/cisco2.gif
http://www.dominet.net/en/images/cisco.jpg
http://www.onefusion.com/images/cisco_logo_anim.gif
http://www.voyageri.net/img/cisco.jpg
"Microsoft FrontPage"
http://www.bmcweb.com/frontpage2000.gif
http://hostsave.com/images/frontpage2k.gif
http://www.powweb.com/images/fpcreated.gif
http://www.cobaltconnection.com/images/frontpage2000.gif
"Redhat"
http://teammediaonline.com/images/hostnew_r2_c5.gif
http://www.echolima.com/redhat.gif
http://www.championhost.com/images/redhat.gif
http://www.native-hosting.com/images/redhat.gif
http://www.evropi.net/images/redhat.gif
http://www.ntidesign.com/images/linuxbg.gif
"MySQL"
http://www.websitecreations.net/images/mysql-interface-logo-100w.gif
http://www.unitedwebhosting.com/ysv3.JPG
http://www.realprohost.com/images/mysql.gif
http://www.dominet.net/en/images/mysql.gif
http://www.evropi.net/images/mysql.gif
"Cobalt"
http://www.namesarecheap.com/bplus_shot.gif
"Real Audio Video"
http://www.westhost.com/real.gif
"Miva Merchant"
http://www.pwebtech.com/images/ecomhost_21.gif

And then there are companies that get totally creative with other peoples trademarks and add their own name to them.

http://www.rhyton.com/images/miva.gif
http://www.rhyton.com/images/verisign.gif
http://www.rhyton.com/images/realvideo.gif
http://www.rhyton.com/images/php.gif
http://www.rhyton.com/images/cisco.gif
http://www.rhyton.com/images/realaudio.gif

In order to display the Cisco Powered Network image, we have been told that we have to be registered here:
http://www.cisco.com/pcgi-bin/cpn/cpn_join.pl
Actual registered members are listed here:
http://www.cisco.com/pcgi-bin/cpn/cpn_pub_bassrch.pl

The Only FrontPage logo's approved by Microsoft for us to use are the "created and managed with", and the wpp logo for the certified FrontPage web presence providers.
http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/logo.htm

The only logos approved by redhat for us are the "powered by" images at:
http://www.redhat.com/legal/legal_statement.html

The only logos that MySQL has approved for us are the ones with the dolphin that say "powered by", "includes", or "works with" unless you are a MySQL AB representative:
http://www.mysql.com/downloads/logos.html

Real says that we can only use the following logos:
http://www.realnetworks.com/company/logos/index.html

Miva says that we can only use these logos:
http://www.miva.com/media/

Of course I'm assuming that these individuals and organizations (except maybe for certain known web design stealers) got special permission to use the logos that they're using.

Anyway, does this seem unfair to anyone else?

Speaking of logos, MySQL is having a "Name the dolphin" contest! Check it out here:
http://www.mysql.com/feedback/namethedolphin.php
I entered!

Also, I'm trying to track down the creator of the PHP(4) logo. You know the PHP logo with the circled 4 on it. The logo isn't approved, to my knowlege, by the PHP Group, but they haven't replied to my email. We're trying to get permission to use it. Does anyone have information on this?
http://www.php.net/download-logos.php

Originally posted by bitserve
Speaking of logos, MySQL is having a "Name the dolphin" contest!

I submitted the name "qmail". After all, qmail's mascot has been a dolphin ever since qmail-1.00 in February 1997 (and maybe even earlier).

Originally posted by cperciva


I submitted the name "qmail". After all, qmail's mascot has been a dolphin ever since qmail-1.00 in February 1997 (and maybe even earlier).

Yeah right, the man himself said the logo is a dolphin. However I never ever seen the qmail dolphin itself. :D

Originally posted by priyadi
Yeah right, the man himself said the logo is a dolphin. However I never ever seen the qmail dolphin itself. :D

Are we talking about dan bernstein? :) He's an elitist snob that needs to fix his buggy software so that we don't have to apply 18 patches to it to run it. IMHO.

Originally posted by bitserve
Are we talking about dan bernstein? :) He's an elitist snob

And he has a perfect right to be: He, quite apart from his valuable academic work, is one of a very small group of people who has written code which "just works", without security holes, for several years.

that needs to fix his buggy software so that we don't have to apply 18 patches to it to run it. IMHO.

Buggy software? Patches?

What bugs and patches are you talking about specifically? I know of a number of patches which people use in order to add extra features, but that's quite a different matter.

I doubt that they went out and got permission from all those companies.

Also.. I hate companies that say "Sure! Use our logo! Have fun!", but say that you can't modify the logo including resizing. Then they have these huge 300 pixel wide images. Who's going to use that?!

Microsoft says, "You will not receive special permission to use the logos out side of the logo programs." If you will not, do you think they got permission?

Fun Fact: I'm on edit five.

Originally posted by cperciva
What bugs and patches are you talking about specifically? I know of a number of patches which people use in order to add extra features, but that's quite a different matter.

You call changing things to work the "right" way "adding features", hanh?

What about his not closing file descriptors or giving an exit status of 1, instead of 0? He claims that the exit status is 1 because it's meant to work with ucspi-tcp, and not inetd. Which makes sense, since ucspi-tcp doesn't care about exit status. The exit error status of a program should be 0, unless there is an actual problem.

It would be nice if he would fix it and call it qmail 1.04. He says it works the way he intended. Well he intended wrong.

Originally posted by appletreats
I doubt that they went out and got permission from all those companies.

Also.. I hate companies that say "Sure! Use our logo! Have fun!", but say that you can't modify the logo including resizing. Then they have these huge 300 pixel wide images. Who's going to use that?!

Microsoft says, "You will not receive special permission to use the logos out side of the logo programs." If you will not, do you think they got permission?

Fun Fact: I'm on edit five.

I wasn't going to assume that the above companies didn't get permission, but somehow I doubt it, too.

What about the ugly apache logo? They designed that back before decent image editors existed, obviously.

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/FAQ.html#logo

And you're right about the Microsoft thing. If you're talking about the FrontPage WPP logo, it's horribly ugly, and horribly big. Also, the "created and managed" logo is ugly. The only other options are the box art logos that seem only to be available to registered WPPs anymore.

Speaking of Apache and logos, they're having a logo contest for the Cactus project:

http://jakarta.apache.org/cactus/logos.html

I agree with your putting "right" in quotes... because breaking stuff in order to work with an archaic relic like inetd is definitely not right. Why would you *want* to run qmail under inetd? tcpserver works much better anyway.

Do you also call postgresql "buggy" becuase it doesn't fully emulate the non-standards-compliant behaviour of mysql?

Originally posted by cperciva
I agree with your putting "right" in quotes... because breaking stuff in order to work with an archaic relic like inetd is definitely not right. Why would you *want* to run qmail under inetd? tcpserver works much better anyway.

Do you also call postgresql "buggy" becuase it doesn't fully emulate the non-standards-compliant behaviour of mysql?

Did you even read my post? Breaking stuff in order to not work with archaic relics is not right, which is what db claims to have done, rather than admitting to not making qmail use correct exit status codes.

QMail does not exit with a 0, as all programs that haven't encountered an error should. And ucspi-tcp is not smart enough to report error codes on exit, but ignores them.

This really has nothing to do with inetd or postgresql, except that inetd has less bugs in it than qmail.

I agree that db's work is very academic in nature.

I submitted the name Quecko or Mecko..strange but if you know dolphins you would understand it :stickout

So what? I have one of those logos on my site....big deal. Can`t people find more important things to whine about these days?

C'mon people! I've had enough qmail flame wars on other forums before..:uhh:

Originally posted by bitserve
And ucspi-tcp is not smart enough to report error codes on exit, but ignores them.

I'm a bit puzzled by this comment, since ucspi-tcp is a package consisting of a number of utilities. Assuming that you mean tcpserver, you're still wrong: if you pass tcpserver the -v option it will dutifully log lines of the form "tcpserver: end $PID status $RETURNCODE".

Originally posted by Frosty
So what? I have one of those logos on my site....big deal. Can`t people find more important things to whine about these days?

What's your site? I'll add you to the list, if you're so proud that you received permission to use the logo and I didn't.

You may not know this, but pet peeves are often only important to the person who has the pet peeve. That's why they're considered someone's personal peeve.

Thank you for having a pet peeve that I have a pet peeve.

I try to limit myself to one pet peeve a week, and that week has passed. I've moved on. I have a new pet peeve this week.

Originally posted by cperciva


I'm a bit puzzled by this comment, since ucspi-tcp is a package consisting of a number of utilities. Assuming that you mean tcpserver, you're still wrong: if you pass tcpserver the -v option it will dutifully log lines of the form "tcpserver: end $PID status $RETURNCODE".

I'm glad that you were smart enough to surmise what I was talking about tcpserver based on context. However you should probably stop assuming that because you read the man page for tcpserver that it works.

The -v option only reports the exit status of "0" correctly.

Now if you're talking about a patched tcpserver where it actually works, please feel free to post the patch.

Originally posted by bitserve
I'm glad that you were smart enough to surmise what I was talking about tcpserver based on context. However you should probably stop assuming that because you read the man page for tcpserver that it works.

The -v option only reports the exit status of "0" correctly.

Now if you're talking about a patched tcpserver where it actually works, please feel free to post the patch.

I wasn't reading the man page; I was reading the source code:


void sigchld()
{
int wstat;
int pid;

while ((pid = wait_nohang(&wstat)) > 0) {
if (verbosity >= 2) {
strnum[fmt_ulong(strnum,pid)] = 0;
strnum2[fmt_ulong(strnum2,wstat)] = 0;
strerr_warn4("tcpserver: end ",strnum," status ",strnum2,0);
}
if (numchildren) --numchildren; printstatus();
}
}


No distinction is made based on the return code.

bitserve....actually i use a bunch of those logos plastered all over the place on my site. But i don`t have permission to use them. Only sissy`s ask for permission.

well, that's kind of illeagal then, wouldn't you say??
those are copyrighted logos, that you are using without permission, I would say that's illeagal. Getting permission is more or less a lot wiser than "stealing" copyrighted images.

Originally posted by cperciva


I wasn't reading the man page; I was reading the source code:


void sigchld()
{
int wstat;
int pid;

while ((pid = wait_nohang(&wstat)) > 0) {
if (verbosity >= 2) {
strnum[fmt_ulong(strnum,pid)] = 0;
strnum2[fmt_ulong(strnum2,wstat)] = 0;
strerr_warn4("tcpserver: end ",strnum," status ",strnum2,0);
}
if (numchildren) --numchildren; printstatus();
}
}


No distinction is made based on the return code.

Which is exactly what I've said before. It doesn't care about exit status. The only time the exit status is correct is when it's 0.

You've just pointed out why. Because the status of the wait is being returned, and not the status of the child. I've always wondered why it wasn't correct, but I never looked at the source. Thank you.

BTW: You sidetracking the discussion to tcpserver still in no way affects the original issue of qmail exiting with 1 even when there is no error.