The important part of the agreement is this: Google gets to substitute values for User IDs, IP addresses and Visitor IDs before handing the database over to Viacom. The parties will figure out next exactly how to do it so that unique values are substituted, so that you can still tell when one individual uploaded 10 zillion videos and 10 zillion individuals only 1 each. Viacom promises not to circumvent the encryption. The parties have not agreed about encrypting the records of any uploading by Google/YouTube employees in the course of their business activities, something I gather Viacom wants to get hold of as part of its quest to prove Google is responsible for infringing content, despite the safe harbor section of the DMCA:

The parties do not agree whether the arrangements contained in Paragraph 1 should extend to records reflecting the business activities of the parties' employees and agents, including whether the obligations are reciprocal.

Ah! Reciprocal. Otherwise known as tit for tat. Google would like to know what Viacom employees have uploaded to YouTube if Viacom is going to ask for the records on Google employees. So, while the parties argue about all that, the records will be encrypted and turned over to Viacom, and then within two weeks the parties will try to work out the rest, and if they fail, either party can bring the dispute to court. I think you could say they've agreed in the big picture sense that they have agreed to go after each other while leaving end users out of it, so long as they are not employees of either party.

And someone sent me encouraging news of a decision in a patent infringement case by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Muniauction v. Thomson Corporation [PDF], on the subject of obviousness. It's interesting enough that I've done it as text also, right after the short Viacom/Google stipulation.

The 8th Linux Foundation Japan Symposium took place last week in Tokyo.  The goal of these symposiums is to bring leading Linux luminaries to present and interact with local senior software developers, with the goal of increasing open source participation by talented Japanese developers and also fostering Linux usage in the Japanese IT industry.

Andrew Morton was on hand to speak about the status and direction of kernel development, covering kernel process material and specifically highlighting areas that need to be worked on including solid state disks and the linux-next tree.

James Morris presented on the SE Linux project, Thomas Gleixner spoke about the advantages of the Completely Fair Scheduler and Paul Moore talked about labeled networking.  Toshiharu Harada,project manager of TOMOYO Linux, was  able to explain to the developers in attendance about how to participate in Linux development and provided words of encouragement to other young developers like himself.

While the majority of the audience came from Japan, attendees came from throughout Asia.  The audience consisted almost completely of developers attending from such companies as NEC, Hitachi, Fujitsu, NTT, Sony, Toshiba, Canon and Red Hat and from universities including Tokyo University and Waseda University.  An audience survey revealed that the areas of most interest to the attendees included server, desktop and embedded with the largest technical interests focused on virtualization, process scheduler and file systems, in that order.

Andrew Morton informed the audience that about 15% of current kernel contributions are now coming from Japan - something we hope the Japan Symposiums have contributed to.

For more information on the 8th Linux Foundation Japan Symposium, please visit the following:

All speaker slides posted on LF Japan’s website: http://www.linux-foundation.jp/modules/eguide/event.php?eid=10

James Morris’ notes, photos and slides: http://james-morris.livejournal.com/31240.html