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on April 15 2004, Sun's James Gosling, in response to this article and some "slashdot flamage" from the same author, blogged in More on Sun & Microsoft

My last blog entry stirred up a lot of commentary and flamage (and some of the flamage was entertainingly wild: I love the Internet!). Reading through it, it's clear that there's still confusion about the meaning of our "collaboration" agreement with Microsoft.

While it is true that as a part of it we did sign up for Microsoft's Communications Protocol Program that is a part of the US v. Microsoft case, our full agreement both modifies and expands on it to give us a much more broad and useful agreement. It is important to understand that in no way does this lock Sun or Sun customers into interoperating with any Microsoft system on Microsoft's strict terms. Right now, most of our interoperability is achieved through reverse-engineering. We have the option, entirely at our discretion, to access Microsoft's specifications through the collaboration agreement. But before we do so, on a case-by-case basis, we will do an analysis of the business case for the entanglements that such access implies (principally confidentiality and royalties). Right now, the vast majority of the software that we (Sun) produce has free and open specifications and we provide the implementations of a large and growing fraction of it as open source. We are not going to slow down our involvement in the open source community. Right now we have launched no projects that will access any Microsoft specifications under the agreement - we simply have the option to, if we decide that the benefits outweigh the costs.

• http://www.thestreet.com/tech/internet/761537.html
  
• http://news.com.com/Yahoo+Mail,+Amazon+suffer+outa ges/2100-1017_3-216131.html
  
• http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalConte nt/0,289142,sid14_gci876675,00.html
  

For filmmakers.

digital camera buying guide

another link for filmmakers

Reference: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11_2-527592.html

Html is a wonderful thing

<a href=" http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5173014.html?part= rss&tag=feed&subj=news">Html is a wonderful thing</a>

Do you claim that the executives at Napster and the trustees at those three universities comprised Metallica's fan base?

Only the RIAA has been going after actual fans rather than just targetting other corporations... so far.

on CNET news

You're right. 1984 has nothing to do with increased government surveillance. Nor does it have anything to do with keeping the people in a state of terror allows the government to steal our liberties. Nor does 1984 have anything to do with the government rewriting history. Finally, 1984 has nothing to do with the world being in a constant state of war to assist in keeping the population in fear.

Seeing as though Malaysian Virus Writers Prefer Sleeping Code.

Live in superfear.

The result is that those two classes keep claiming, against all evidence to the contrary, that software patents are indispensable for economic growth and that without them, the end of the world is near. Other proponents are patent offices (they get their income from granting patents) and parasite companies like EOLAS (they don't make any products, they just buy some patents and then go around suing everyone to extract money).

The problem is that it's very hard for many people to understand that the, at first sight logical, rule that "more patents = always better" is a fallacy, as even a VP of IBM admitted. There is also a downside to having more patents in the system, and the balance is completely lost...

I think you better put on a tinfoil hat - you wouldn't want your brainwaves frying a plane going by either - that could endanger hundreds!!!.

No, I think a more appropriate term is "obsolete."

Isn't this like what SCO does? Tries to sell something that is given away somewhere else?

ICQ is owned by AOL. They recently allowed interoperability between AIM and ICQ so it would be silly to exclude ICQ. I'm not saying they won't exclude it, just that it would be silly.

"Federal authorities are investigating Microsoft Corp.'s, practice of setting aside some of its software revenues and recognising them later, chief financial officer Greg Maffei said. Maffei said in a conference call with reporters and analysts that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission apparently launched the probe after a newspaper report drew attention to a dispute over whether the company dips into its "cookie jar" of reserves to smooth financial results."
Microsoft Says SEC Probing Accounting Practices

"The Securities and Exchange Commission is reviewing potentially improper accounting procedures at Microsoft, according to a company executive. The federal agency is investigating how the company accounts for its financial reserves and related policies, according to Greg Maffei, chief financial officer for the leading PC software maker. Microsoft is cooperating with the SEC's efforts, he said."
SEC probes Microsoft's accounting methods

"Microsoft Corp. is still being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for possibly underestimating its revenue in order to show a sustained earnings growth, according to a published report. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the software provider, which disclosed the investigation more than two years ago, is of limited concern to analysts. But it said the investigation is the flip side of the current investigation of the collapse of Enron Corp., a company that is accused of overestimating its profits in financial reports."
SEC probes Microsoft

... and he died in a plane crash a few months later.

10 characters??? Seiously, pasphrases should be longer. But I wasn't writing this post to flame the length of your pasphrase. I wanted to add to this by saying that keychain will save you from having to repreatedly enter your passphrase. It's a front end to ssh-agent that allows you to enter your passphrase once and have it available system wide. Normally you have to enter your passphrase for every login session. Most distributions include keychain. For a good how-to see this page.

Bill's 6 non-secret predictions for 1998 (also here) (four of which were left over from 1997 because they did not become true) incuded that DSL and DVDs will be big, videoconferencing and net meetings will be big, PC TCO will reduce, and "that people will widely recognize that PC technology can take on any computing task." That last one is killer.

Also, earlier this year a more substantial prediction made by bill is that MS will kill spam in 2 years. I might switch to MS products if this becomes true.

Lazy linking.

IE down to a mere 94.16% of US market.

I had a screaming baby keeping me up last night and am obviously paying for it; I apologize for the previous posting's error.

"Incidentally, with a few exceptions like the compiler, the open-source code in SFU is BSD-licensed, not the GPL-licensed."

RTFA, it specifically states that Microsoft is replacing the gpl'd code in SFU with SCO Licensed code.

No, it says Microsoft is replacing the 'open-source' software. That includes some GPL'd software too, mainly GCC, which is exactly what I said. Have you even used SFU? Most of the open-source code is from OpenBSD, with, again, the GNU compiler toolchain being the most prominent GNU software.

And uses the excuse that commercial code can't be shipped alongside gpl'd code as the reason it's not included with windows (which is ridiculous of course).

The GPL is vague enough with respect to 'a work based on the Program' that I wouldn't bet my business on it. Given Stallman's admission that the LGPL was designed to ensnare developers, so that a later conversion from LGPL to GPL would force them to GPL their own code, I wouldn't put anything past him. If he thought it would help his 'Free Software' cult, he'd be happy to sue Microsoft over GCC in Interix.

Yes there is a registered trademark, yes it's meaningless. Yes there is a generic term unix that has been in use as a generic term to refer to any unix-like system for over a decade.

If and when a court rules that UNIX is no longer a registered trademark of The Open Group, you'll have a point. 'UNIX' is arguably a 'famous' mark as well, like 'Xerox', for example, which adds further protection under American law. Note that all of this applies to commercial use, not common use, e.g. Xerox could sue Canon if the latter called its copiers 'xerox machines', but obviously can't sue someone who uses 'xerox' to mean 'copy' (which apparently some people do).

If Unix were merely a trademark, then you'd have no point. If Unix is the generic term then you have no case.

So what exactly is it your trying to prove in all this?

I'm simply stating the facts, in response to an erroneous claim in your post. The facts are:

* UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group
* Interix is UNIX (so are Solaris, AIX, Tru64 UNIX, SCO UnixWare, etc.)
* Mac OS X is not UNIX
* BSD is not UNIX
* Linux is not UNIX (nor is GNU)

You don't have to take my word for it either. The Open Group has already taken Apple to court over the latter's alleged violation of the UNIX trademark rights. See the following news.com article from last year.

NM, I've been baited by a troll, it's time to accept it.

Always an easy escape route for someone who's wrong, and afraid to admit it.

Google bought a photo management firm today, meanwhile Yahoo! Photos changed its disk space restrictions to unlimited quite a while ago.

.. Are Japanese school children anyway? (Japan school kids to be tagged with RFID chips) Just wait until a stalker hacks that RFID network!

http://news.com.com/Japan%20school%20kids%20to%20b e%20tagged%20with%20RFID%20chips/2100-1012_3-52667 00.html

i, for one, welcome our rfid tagged japanese overlords.

Please follow this link for a Western version of this classic Soviet-era game, comrade.

Sadly enough, there are some "recycling" programs that do involve the electronics ending up in less-developed countries.

Relevant quote from the article:

[The Exporting Harm report] says that between 50 percent and 80 percent of the e-waste collected for recycling in the western United States is not recycled domestically, but rather shipped to destinations such as China. Market realities force even well-intentioned recyclers to take part in dumping.

Mainstream? Like Forbes, BusinessWeek , Ziff-Davis (and here and here too), CBS News, USA Today, and most have heard of PC Magazine, plus a lot of papers like The Houston Chronicle, The Detroit News, the Syracuse Post-Standard, The Baltimore Sun, and the St. Louis Post-Standard. I have all those links plus others in a list I just send to people. I keep adding to it as I find more. Usually gets the message across that I'm not making stuff up.

It should be noted that Questar is loading Linux on these Dell "white boxes". Dell has nothing to do with this decision. FWIW, Dell offers a "white box" service to mom&pop shops that don't want to build their own PCs. Once you become a distributor, you simply roll your own packages and sell the PC as your own brand. Questar is simply a white box distributor.

ANYONE can go out and do this. It doesn't mean that Dell has anything to do with selling Linux. This is secondary.

Dell just recently clarified the situation in an artivcle on zdnet.com located here .

The writeup may be a little misleading; Dell isn't the entity behind installing Linspire on these machines, it's Questar:

A PC dealer in Europe has begun selling Dell desktops equipped with Linux, but Dell emphasized that the systems were customized by the dealer and that this isn't the first time this has happened.

That article can be read here at Cnet.

Dell is not using Linspire. That is completely the doing of their reseller, and Dell has distanced themselves from Linspire.

See the article at C|Net from last week on the matter

Yeah, yeah. Point is, Mozilla shouldn't have been affected at all (like Opera, for example).

Yeah, Opera never suffers from security problems!

Gimme a break. No fancy software is secure.

Let's start simple: the iTunes Music Store is not a good value for customers.

Right. So do tell me what is the best 'value for money' solution that allows you to from your armchair instantly download songs from a range of bands and burn your own custom CD. Or put it seamelessly on a superb digital device.

That's less than the $16 store price, but used CDs at Amazon or ebay cost $5

You complain about artists not getting any money then advocate buying used CDs. WTF? Buying a used CD means the artist gets no extra money. At least with iTMS they are getting something.

And you don't have to deal with restrictions on how you use it.

Sorry what was that .. Velvet Revolver, chart topper with DRM. Hmm. Sounds like restrictions to me. What, more to come .. how interesting! You keep buying those CDs .. I'm sure those "experiments" won't make your ripping difficult at all.

Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do.

Clearly your not a developer as I am sure most people would appreciate there is some cost in delivering a high quality, high availability, high traffic web infrastructure. Costs that come to mind include salaries, importing of CDs/cover art, creation of 30-second previews, big iron servers, networking. Oh and the odd 400 TB of traffic (100 mil songs x approx 4 MB each)

Until the musician "recoups" these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label gives them nothing.

And this is Apple's fault why ? It is the fault of the musician if they signed a contract with a music label and didn't like the terms. That was their choice.

In Australia right now we have a great band, John Butler Trio who has the number one CD released under their own, independant label. They get to keep the full 65%. Remember being with a label doesn't guarentee success and vice versa.

Because it's the exact same deal that artists have always gotten from the big five record companies.

Why would you think it would be otherwise ? Oh wait you thought just because its Apple, the labels would offer new contracts with bigger cuts to all of their artists. What world are you living in ?

But when Apple supports and profits from an obviously unfair system, while telling customers that it's "fair to the artists", they are just as guilty.

Of course its "fair" .. until now there has been NO alternative. Its not a great deal for artists by and means, but at least they get something. Before people who wanted internet delivered music, had no choice but to turn to Kazza and others of the same ilk.

Thanks to peer to peer filesharing, we finally have a chance to break the major record label system

On one hand you talk about the rights of the artists on the other you talk up pirating songs. Which side of the fence ARE you on ? Or at the end of the day do all you really care about is justifying your pirating ways. Now that's something to feel guilty about.

In the end, there's 100 million reasons why you are full of shit and blaming Apple for what is so clearly an issue between the label and the artist is just being disingenious.

Lexmark is using the DMCA to stop rivals from using 3rd party toner cartridges in their printers. What the hell is up with this?!

If these case are won, it is a damn dangerous precedent.

You can send a Cease & Desist letter to them, since those screensavers are your own work. An example letter, though not exactly suitable for your situation, is here.

Basically, you need to tell them:
1 - Your works are distributed on their site. Specify exactly what these works are.
2 - You have contacted them in the past (give dates) asking them to remove your material from the site.
3 - As of the sending of the letter, they continute to distribute your material on the site.
4 - If they continute to distribute your material, you may take action against them under Copyright Law.

I am not a lawyer ... I'm just letting you know that you do have recourse agains them. Good luck.

DailyWireless has more on Wearable Communicating Costumes and the Adidas Hot Shoe.

"Smart clothing" and wearable computing developers include:

• France Telecom invented a flexible fiber optic system that can be embedded in clothes. Static or animated graphics can be displayed.

• Chipmaker Infineon has created a packaging technology that allows circuitry to be woven into ordinary fabrics, which can then be normally washed or even dry-cleaned. The company created a prototype jacket with an embedded MP3 player.

• Orang-Otang Computers has patented designs for gadgets like a phone that fits under a shirt sleeve, a wrist-mounted audio recorder, a wearable laptop and a wearable camera.

• California's Charmed Technology, an MIT Media Lab spin-off, is poised to be a world leader in affordable, wearable Internet products. Their CharmBadge is designed for aiding the communication and networking.

• Fossil, best known for trendy watches, has created wrist devices that exchange information with handheld computers and Microsoft's Spot.

• The Smart Shirt System uses biological sensors to monitor heart rates or the locations of those wearing the technology, says Jeffrey Wolf, CEO of Sensatex Inc.

• Tactex Controls uses "smart fabric" for a touch-sensitive MIDI controller.

• Zigbee-equipped sneakers might record speed, body telemetry and even external sensors.

• Orientation, communications and geographic positioning electronics can all be incorporated into outdoor clothing. Heat can be transferred through conducting fibres to colder areas of the body

• The SCOTTeVEST shows the way traditional garments may be altered to meet the demanding needs of spies and undercover agents.

-nod- As is often said, I and Bill Gates make an average of 2 billion a year, each.

Bill Gates is paid no where near $2 billion a year from Microsoft though. No stock options either. He (and now Balmer) are actually some of the lowest paid CEOs.

C|Net: Gates, Ballmer get slight pay raises

CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates each received $551,667 in pay and $313,447 in bonus last year, up from $547,500 in salary and $205,810 in bonus a year ago.

While Gates and Ballmer received no stock options, other Microsoft executives did:

Dear Steve,

If you had really paid attention in your Harvard business classes, you would have learned the story of Standard Oil. A big monopolistic oil company that was finally forced to break up into pieces. Mr. Rockerfeller was sad until he suddenly discovered his stock portfolio went through the roof. Apparently, when Standard Oil became a bunch of smaller companies, they grew the market and their collective market capitlization was far, far greater than they were in one company.

You've had the opportunity several times now, and the last time had the feds suggested it too. But maybe it's not too late. It's time to knife the baby and split Microsoft into two or more companies. Split applications from OS. Create an Internet technology group separate from the others that encompases IE as a pluggible component for Windows or any OTHER Operating System, and provides search, MSN, Instant Messaging, VOIP, etc.. Move the Entertainment group into its own company and let it succede or fail on its own, and more importantly, let them have the freedom to chose the technologies involved. XBox has fans now, and it has a bright future. But only if the XBox division is no longer distracted by trying to save the OS group.

Come on, Steve. You know the time is right, and this is so the right thing to do.

I don't see what the big deal is here.

The big deal is making it easy for Joe User to do it every day without thinking. I should remind you that Joe User is no scripting wizard.

Intel's Digital Briefcase will be realized with the introduction of the following technologies:

1) High-density, low-power, nonvolatile memory
2) Integrated logic & wireless

At this point, the Personal Server becomes feasible. A specification for "personal server compliant" operating systems helps any compliant PC in the world "log on to you", as they say in Soviet Russia. All of your preferences down to the last minute detail (wallpaper, favorites, browsing history, etc) will immediately be transferred to this particular PC and it will be as if it were your own.

This is close. Since Microsoft will try to "embrace and extend" this to the point that we can't use these devices without Windows, the open-source community will need to rapidly develop this into an open, robust standard that will work with all PCs. I give it two years... Power consumption will be the biggest issue. Otherwise, you could stick a WiFi link on an iPod and do it now (though I suppose it could be done with a cable that also supplies power).

And with the passage of UCITA

UCITA only got passed into law in two states (Maryland and Virginia), and BSA has stopped lobbying for it in the face of growing opposition. I don't know if you'd call it "dead", knowing BSA, but it's at least in extended hibernation.

Link

Cerf and Crocker and some of the other good old boys were just in China, trying to force IPv6 down their throats. The Chinese are very smart engineers. They did not swallow it. They want FREEDOM from people like ICANN and the ISOC. Now, Vinton Cerf, the Chairman of ICANN is calling for public flogging of people. He suggests that people be entrapped via sting operations. You can listen to his video taped comments here with Farber. http://news.com.com/1606-2-5239781.html

Oh yeah?

You keep telling yourself that you're not a thief

No, actually, it was the Supreme Court that told me I wasn't a thief. So there's not even a semantic argument, at least where I live. You may be tired of hearing it, but that doesn't make you right. File sharing is not stealing. File sharing is not illegal. Period.

I'm tired of hearing MegaEntCorp apologists like you libelling me as a thief - how about you have a nice big mug of STFU?

"All Dell computers sold by Questar will be equipped with word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software and file compatibility with Microsoft Office."

Linspire comes with Open Office 1.1.

While there is a great deal of compatability between Open Office and MS Office, there are still issues
Sounds a little misleading to me.

(cough, inside source, hmm)

Inside source? Just call them up and ask! It's not hidden knowledge.

Just as a note, China sends 6.2%, South Korea 5.8% and Brasil is even less.

Here's a CNET article about the closing: http://news.com.com/2100-1017-991480.html.

The official date now is October 14th. They originally wanted to close it July 13th, but a lot of Half.com sellers complained about their plans for selling textbooks on the site before it shut down, so eBay switched the date to October 14th. On that date, Half.com will no longer exist and sales will be done using eBay's auction format or by eBay Stores for those sellers who can justify the cost.

This browser warning page thoroughly trashes MSIE, but every phrase is linked to a news article that uses the exact same verbiage in order to demonstrate that it isn't just anti MS FUD - It's the honest truth. It's designed and maintained for webmasters to deliver to the IE-using visitors to their webpages. You can read the source code for some more information about that. In case you're curious, here's a paste of the text and links that it has - This should prove quite effective with anyone you're trying to convince to stop using IE:

Your web browser - a version of Microsoft Internet Explorer - may not function properly on this website, and could have a large number of problems that allow hackers to hijack it with viruses. These viruses could be used by criminals to secretly take over your computer, download child-pornography, or to commit acts of terrorism and fraud. You may automatically update it now with Microsoft's available patches, however, there is a possibility that a necessary patch will not be available due to Microsoft's somewhat sluggish development schedule.

The US Department of Homeland Security strongly suggests that you stop using Internet Explorer immediately.

There are several standards-compliant web browsers that you may use instead of Internet Explorer. Please install one of them as a replacement.

• Opera [Download Now]
• Mozilla [Download Now]
• Netscape [Download Now]
• K-Meleon [Download Now]

If you suspect that your computer is already being used for criminal activity, it is critical that you seek help from a computer professional in your local area. You may also try one of the free web-based virus scanners that are available.

A more important question is, do Firefox and Mozilla format the webpages correctly?

More: http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/4520-6033_16-4206930. html.