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Let's not forget their tendency to substantially change their own rules in midstream (and not honor individuals' requests to be removed from their databases)...

<grrr>

From the article:

A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties -- even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password.

To me, it looks like what happened here is that the Dems didn't configure thier system correctly, and accidently gave the Rebublicans access to thier confidential files.

Of course, the right thing to do would have been for the Republicans to let them know that thier system was wide open, but then again, we all know what happens when you try to do the right thing and inform admins of thier security problems.

>>"In other words, make it as simple as possible
>>for you to infringe on someone else's
>>copyright."

I'm in Canada and the current understanding of the law here is that while sharing is forbidden, we do have the right to download. Until this goes to court, it has been widely by radio, print, and tv media organizations that this is acceptable, and even more importantly deemed legal by Canadian copyright regulators.

It may have something to do with the fee we pay on blank CD-Rs and some other media, it may not. Thats not my concern, my concern is that what I'm doing is legal, and under our law it is legal.

It will still probably go to court, and no matter if its a win or loss, when person X goes to court and says 'I thought it was legal to download, please don't punish me as much', he can point to news and copyright regulator decisions that prove he made an informed choice when he choose to download songs.

The user comments at download.com have more mention of the apparent spyware - to quote one comment:'The claim by the program vendor that this software is free of Spyware is utterly ridiculus. I installed it on a fresh install of Windows XP Pro. It installed "Websavings by Ebates" without the option to opt out.' But then, maybe that's just intrusive adware and not technically spyware - not being familiar with this ebates doobrey I wouldn't know.

On the RIAA comment, the download.com blurb states that 'Morpheus protects your privacy with integrated access to public proxy networks.' But I'm a bit skeptical about that myself.

I looks like binary only centrino support is on its way with an open source solution coming later, according to news.com

Maybe in your experience. But, my experience with installations of HP/UX, AIX, SunOS/Solaris in the largest entertainment companies based in SoCal and at least one of the largest Japanese electronic companies with offices in SoCal use GNU utils. In addition, others appear to disagree with you: "Most Unix systems today include many tools from the GNU project simply by default, even though they are not necessarily GNU systems!"

At least the GNU utilities made a uniformly bad implementation available across all platforms...

Bad enough to be used in the Open Source BSD distributions.

First, they did anything but lock it away. As I pointed out, Sun opened up Unix

Really?: " Proprietary versions of Unix were becoming popular in the corporate arena, and quite often these versions lacked source code (making them nearly unusable). Sun even distributed versions without C compilers! The personal computer was taking off, championed by proprietary software vendors Microsoft and IBM. If not for GNU, some argue, this disturbing trend of proprietary operating systems might have become the standard."

And NFS was an open spec from day one, and always available for licensing even to competitors on commercailly attractive terms

Affordable by developers like myself? Ha! Really, the wonder of it all. It's easy to be flippant about the "attractive terms" a license would be on a corporate budget, but we're talking about how individuals changed the Unix world by creating their own Open Source tools rather than something an individual couldn't afford. And, even if an individual Open Source developer could afford it, he'd be in the minority amongst his peers.

Sun opened up Unix, and was single handedly reponsible for proving that it was a viable alternative to the IBM and VAX machines that ruled in those days.

Sun was part of the Unix Wars, and didn't single-handedly do anything but make its own version of BSD proprietary. Yes, they did add functionality into their proprietary version which made it a top contender in the Unix Wars. As for NFS, Sun just doesn't know what to do in order to ingratiate themselves with Open Source developers and still maintain strict control over how people use their "Open" spec. But, clearly the market is dragging their asses out of the closet.

Sure, there are lots of Linux fan-boys who claim this, but it's simply not true.

At least one Unix vendor disagrees with you: "as most Linux kernel testing efforts have only been conducted over short periods of time, this series of tests provides us first-hand data and results of longer runs. The series of tests also provides data for heavy-stress workloads on Linux kernel components, as well as TCP, NFS, and other test components. The tests demonstrate that the Linux system is reliable and stable over long durations and can provide a robust, enterprise-level environment." And, other researchers disagree with you as well:"FreeBSD has by far the best performance of the BSDs and it comes close to Linux 2.6". Naturally, you can continue to believe that it's not true by disregarding the facts, but then you're simply operating on faith, not reason.

BSD's advantages

Maybe in your experience. But, my experience with installations of HP/UX, AIX, SunOS/Solaris in the largest entertainment companies based in SoCal and at least one of the largest Japanese electronic companies with offices in SoCal use GNU utils. In addition, others appear to disagree with you: "Most Unix systems today include many tools from the GNU project simply by default, even though they are not necessarily GNU systems!"

At least the GNU utilities made a uniformly bad implementation available across all platforms...

Bad enough to be used in the Open Source BSD distributions.

First, they did anything but lock it away. As I pointed out, Sun opened up Unix

Really?: " Proprietary versions of Unix were becoming popular in the corporate arena, and quite often these versions lacked source code (making them nearly unusable). Sun even distributed versions without C compilers! The personal computer was taking off, championed by proprietary software vendors Microsoft and IBM. If not for GNU, some argue, this disturbing trend of proprietary operating systems might have become the standard."

And NFS was an open spec from day one, and always available for licensing even to competitors on commercailly attractive terms

Affordable by developers like myself? Ha! Really, the wonder of it all. It's easy to be flippant about the "attractive terms" a license would be on a corporate budget, but we're talking about how individuals changed the Unix world by creating their own Open Source tools rather than something an individual couldn't afford. And, even if an individual Open Source developer could afford it, he'd be in the minority amongst his peers.

Sun opened up Unix, and was single handedly reponsible for proving that it was a viable alternative to the IBM and VAX machines that ruled in those days.

Sun was part of the Unix Wars, and didn't single-handedly do anything but make its own version of BSD proprietary. Yes, they did add functionality into their proprietary version which made it a top contender in the Unix Wars. As for NFS, Sun just doesn't know what to do in order to ingratiate themselves with Open Source developers and still maintain strict control over how people use their "Open" spec. But, clearly the market is dragging their asses out of the closet.

Sure, there are lots of Linux fan-boys who claim this, but it's simply not true.

At least one Unix vendor disagrees with you: "as most Linux kernel testing efforts have only been conducted over short periods of time, this series of tests provides us first-hand data and results of longer runs. The series of tests also provides data for heavy-stress workloads on Linux kernel components, as well as TCP, NFS, and other test components. The tests demonstrate that the Linux system is reliable and stable over long durations and can provide a robust, enterprise-level environment." And, other researchers disagree with you as well:"FreeBSD has by far the best performance of the BSDs and it comes close to Linux 2.6". Naturally, you can continue to believe that it's not true by disregarding the facts, but then you're simply operating on faith, not reason.

BSD's advantages

Lets be clear on this: SCO has never even claimed to have Unix patents.

And the message was: "We hold more patents than any other company in the world, and we can cut you off from all your revenue with just 4 of our patents. If the judge doesn't like those, we'll find 4 more. Welcome to the big leagues."

So far, the Linux community exists modtly out of tech-people. When you look at Apple Computer, they have a separate division that purely focusses on human interface design.

Won't it be possible for people like that to spend some time on a better enduser-experience? Can GUI-development be organised in the same way as Linux' kernel-development is?

I have used my friends' i500, and it rocks - he is always looking up a restaurant on Zagat's or finding a bar's address when we are out - it's actually useable to do stuff like that, unlike my shitty old Voicestream phone with supposed wireless web access. I have been waiting for the last year for the SGH-i500 (the GSM version) which has still yet to appear. I'm seriously considering ditching Voicestream for Sprint so I can get an i500 sooner rather than later.

Lay off it. Even Microsoft said that they over-reacted.

Microsoft is giving away 5 million to try to stop hackers... I am not sure that helps any of us sleep at night. :)

The reason these cash prizes are used is to make people assume what you are assuming: "Hell, they wouldn't offer so much money if their protocal was not safe."

Although I surely hope that turns out to be the case, jumping to that conclusion without any data is dangerous.

AC

I know the article is on exchange rates, but there is a site doing (or claiming to do) dynamic pricing based on demand.

www.musicrebellion.com

Obligatory disclaimer: I have no connection to musicrebellion.com. I just bought a dozen albums from them during their .10 / track promotion.

The basic idea is that popular songs will rise in price, while less popular songs will decrease in price. To start things off they had a promotion where all tracks were .10 (albeit almost all songs are in crippled WMA format with limited burning capabilities). News.com.com story here.

The thing that bugged me about Music Rebellion is that after the promotion ended everything immediately jumped to 90-odd cents.

I disagree strongly with that, as they have now given me little incentive to use them over iTunes. I'm willing to give them my business for some of the obscure Christian music I listen to if it's dynamically priced at 20-35 cents per track. Otherwise I'll save the WMA hassle and go iTunes. Unfortunately, the news.com article listed a floor of 50-75 cents per song (citing wholesale cost).

What I did like about them is that their customer service was responsive (some licenses didn't download correctly), and their selection was comparable to Apple's. They also seem to have some indie music promotion.

However, iTunes is so well designed (not relying on MSIE for downloads or WMP for burning) that I haven't had to use their customer service.

- Neil Wehneman

Here is a similar sounding story. Not sure if it's the one you are referring to.

Other than that, I've heard that the video review on GameSpot is priceless, but you do have to be a member to view that. Oh well, I'll settle for the wonderful sarcasm in the reader reviews :)

and how else can Microsoft be sure that someone truly is running an 'official' driver than by requiring it to be signed?

However, seeing as A) "requiring" signed drivers has not affected quality during the last 4 years and B) past and current predatory marketing practices, I'd say it looks a heck a lot more like market control. It does, even at face value, make it very difficult for smaller developers.

But that's neither here nor there, that platform is too far out of date.

Well, I for one found the article intriguing, I remember the first time I went from my NEC 8080 to a mac and was like 'what is this weird square thing with the button?'. I actually giggled out loud (my roomate probably thinks I am insane) when I read the description of the mouse. hee hee hee. boy how times have changed, nowadays if someone doesn't know what a mouse is, you think their insane! This article gives a little history

From the article:

"The proprietary 64-bit workstation market is dominated by Sun Microsystems, which sells more 64-bit machines than any other company -- their market share is over 60%."

I wonder how long this market domninance is going to last now that commodity hardware is going 64. (e.g. a 64-bit laptop for $1,549)

Only one of those names gives me any semblance of a clue of what it might do.

Valgrind, okay, I'll give you that one. The name is from Nordic mythology, as explained in an interview with Julian Seward. It actually makes a bit of sense if you know what it means.

VideoLAN is obvious.

JACK is used to connect audio programs together. The name makes sense to me.

Pango, well, I got the name immediately, and I think it's a perfect description. But I admit that many people won't understand a combination of Greek and Japanese roots meaning "all languages".

I opted out of Microsoft for Oracle a long time ago. In favor of Solaris and a real server platform.

Well, Oracle doesn't seem to agree with your assessment, as they have switched to Linux from Solaris for internal operations, and recently switched to Linux (again from Solaris) as their primary build platform.

Still, what would Oracle know about running their own software? Surely it makes more sense to take advice from some random poster on slashdot. You've convinced me, I'm switching to Solaris tomorrow.

There is, it's in the last sentence:

The same piece of software that lets people around the world play video games on their cell phones is now letting scientists drive the ultimate remote-controlled car across the surface of Mars.

But yeah, the submission isn't very well formatted, and I really hate it when there's a sea of "informative" links like ones to java.sun.com or cnet.com.

Well spoken. It's nice to see some clear examples instead of "AMD sucks".

But, being the AMD fan I am, I must say that perhaps your problems are more due to bad luck than anything, since RMA rates for motherboards are significantly higher than other components.

And so this brings me to a question... is there a site that gives statistics on RMA rates?

- - - - - - - - - -

P.S. - The following riposte is a cut and paste of a previous slashdot post:

Pentium Floating-point division bug [ku.edu] (it's close enough, isn't it?)
Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums [iss.net] Pentium crash codes
Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats [ddj.com] Unable to convert to int
Pentium III can't even start up [bbc.co.uk] You went faster with an 8088
SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash [zdnet.co.uk] Pretty blue screens abound.
PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage [macworld.com] Watch the task manager, Phil.
Yay, PIII MTH crashes! [com.com] Does MTH stand for Meth?
Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz [com.com] Fastest crashes ever.
Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz [com.com] More Xeon quality in a box.
Total Recall 4: CC820 [techweb.com] How many defects? Can't recall...
Pentium 4 overwriting data [zdnet.co.uk] Hope it wasn't something important.
Pentium 4 chipset bug [com.com] Fast video performance? Naaa.
P4 Oracle/Sun problems [indiana.edu] More workarounds than work
Itanium shipments halted [theinquirer.net] That's an expensive oops.

Just so nobody gets any ideas that Intel is perfect...

Well spoken. It's nice to see some clear examples instead of "AMD sucks".

But, being the AMD fan I am, I must say that perhaps your problems are more due to bad luck than anything, since RMA rates for motherboards are significantly higher than other components.

And so this brings me to a question... is there a site that gives statistics on RMA rates?

- - - - - - - - - -

P.S. - The following riposte is a cut and paste of a previous slashdot post:

Pentium Floating-point division bug [ku.edu] (it's close enough, isn't it?)
Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums [iss.net] Pentium crash codes
Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats [ddj.com] Unable to convert to int
Pentium III can't even start up [bbc.co.uk] You went faster with an 8088
SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash [zdnet.co.uk] Pretty blue screens abound.
PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage [macworld.com] Watch the task manager, Phil.
Yay, PIII MTH crashes! [com.com] Does MTH stand for Meth?
Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz [com.com] Fastest crashes ever.
Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz [com.com] More Xeon quality in a box.
Total Recall 4: CC820 [techweb.com] How many defects? Can't recall...
Pentium 4 overwriting data [zdnet.co.uk] Hope it wasn't something important.
Pentium 4 chipset bug [com.com] Fast video performance? Naaa.
P4 Oracle/Sun problems [indiana.edu] More workarounds than work
Itanium shipments halted [theinquirer.net] That's an expensive oops.

Just so nobody gets any ideas that Intel is perfect...

Well spoken. It's nice to see some clear examples instead of "AMD sucks".

But, being the AMD fan I am, I must say that perhaps your problems are more due to bad luck than anything, since RMA rates for motherboards are significantly higher than other components.

And so this brings me to a question... is there a site that gives statistics on RMA rates?

- - - - - - - - - -

P.S. - The following riposte is a cut and paste of a previous slashdot post:

Pentium Floating-point division bug [ku.edu] (it's close enough, isn't it?)
Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums [iss.net] Pentium crash codes
Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats [ddj.com] Unable to convert to int
Pentium III can't even start up [bbc.co.uk] You went faster with an 8088
SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash [zdnet.co.uk] Pretty blue screens abound.
PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage [macworld.com] Watch the task manager, Phil.
Yay, PIII MTH crashes! [com.com] Does MTH stand for Meth?
Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz [com.com] Fastest crashes ever.
Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz [com.com] More Xeon quality in a box.
Total Recall 4: CC820 [techweb.com] How many defects? Can't recall...
Pentium 4 overwriting data [zdnet.co.uk] Hope it wasn't something important.
Pentium 4 chipset bug [com.com] Fast video performance? Naaa.
P4 Oracle/Sun problems [indiana.edu] More workarounds than work
Itanium shipments halted [theinquirer.net] That's an expensive oops.

Just so nobody gets any ideas that Intel is perfect...

Well spoken. It's nice to see some clear examples instead of "AMD sucks".

But, being the AMD fan I am, I must say that perhaps your problems are more due to bad luck than anything, since RMA rates for motherboards are significantly higher than other components.

And so this brings me to a question... is there a site that gives statistics on RMA rates?

- - - - - - - - - -

P.S. - The following riposte is a cut and paste of a previous slashdot post:

Pentium Floating-point division bug [ku.edu] (it's close enough, isn't it?)
Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums [iss.net] Pentium crash codes
Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats [ddj.com] Unable to convert to int
Pentium III can't even start up [bbc.co.uk] You went faster with an 8088
SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash [zdnet.co.uk] Pretty blue screens abound.
PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage [macworld.com] Watch the task manager, Phil.
Yay, PIII MTH crashes! [com.com] Does MTH stand for Meth?
Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz [com.com] Fastest crashes ever.
Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz [com.com] More Xeon quality in a box.
Total Recall 4: CC820 [techweb.com] How many defects? Can't recall...
Pentium 4 overwriting data [zdnet.co.uk] Hope it wasn't something important.
Pentium 4 chipset bug [com.com] Fast video performance? Naaa.
P4 Oracle/Sun problems [indiana.edu] More workarounds than work
Itanium shipments halted [theinquirer.net] That's an expensive oops.

Just so nobody gets any ideas that Intel is perfect...

I agree that Microsoft has gotten better in the past couple of years, but after a bit of research you're arguments don't support your thesis.

Look at the issues that you mention:

The "one"Microsoft's patch You mentioned was actually three Windows fixes (and one Office fix) bundled together
"The updates fix at least eight security issues," one of which "could allow an attacker to gain control of a person's PC via the Internet"

The three linux patches and the bugfix (which mostly just optimized some things and fixed a memory leak):

The first issue was a local priviledge escalation issue. Local meaning you already have to have access to the box. Although local priviledge escalation exploits can be used with other techniques to gain control PCs, they're nothing compared what microsoft was patching.

The second issue was with lftp. Uh....lftp is an ftp client so I at least wouldn't really count it as part of a server patch..but...This vulnerability does allow a remote site to execute arbitrary code on the local machine (it didn't say as what user, but probably as the current user).

The third issue (was actually to minor issues) were with apache. These fixed a vulnerability that would allow a user to execute arbitrary code as the user apache if they have the ability to edit the apache configuration files. The other issue was a vulnerability in a module with a non-default setup that "can result in CGI script output being sent to the wrong client".

I'm not going to say which is better, but at least be honest with your arguments. Only zealots feel the need to hide facts in order to convince others of the truth.

I don't think free software is an issue of concern with GPL zealots. However, Free Software certainly is. But, it may be too subtle a point for BSD zealots to understand.

No. The BSD license considers that the community includes, for example, government organizations that have a mandate to release works into the public domain

The BSD license has an onerous stipulation and cannot be used as a license for works that are mandated by law to be placed in the public domain. This is why there is something called the public domain which is already considered in the U.S. Constitution. In fact, you might say that the public domain is the natural condition of any work in the United States unless the author makes effort to claim copyright, temporarily taking the work away for a limited time before being returned to the public domain.

BSD cannot lay claim to being more of a community builder than the GPL. If anything, BSD has been responsible for the rise of various proprietary Unix systems, completely splintering the market, allowing other inferior proprietary systems to enter and dominate. A fork in GPL code could never be truly splintered as improvements are guaranteed to be made available for all to profit from.

= 9J =

Microsoft gives more "soft money" to politicians (both dems and gops) than the next five largest contributers combined. In addition to that, Microsoft spends more money than Enron ever did lobbying Washington. It is no co-incidence that this all started at exactly the same time that the Clinton administration initiated the antitrust lawsuit against them. It is also no co-incidence that the lawsuit was killed shortly after the Bush administration took office.

Money talks.

to say that "[Microsfot] SQL Server [...] has an archetecture that virus and worm writers have been able to exploit" is simply pathetically desprate misleading of the audience. Here is why.

The Slammer worm has used a vulnerability that was NOT an architectural design flaw across the product. It was a simple stack buffer overflow in an implementation of the SQL Resolution Service.

On a seemingly unrelated topic, here is a plethora of buffer overflow vulnerabilities of Oracle from some time ago. How much mass media attention did that receive. Close to none, because it doesn't pay the media in advertising revenue to show an expert talking tech about buffer overflows and authorization headers. But does pay off to create a bombastic news report on a big-time screw-up of the largest software company in the world.

I am sorry to bust your balls, but I do recall several instances of similar problems such as an Apache worm on FreeBSD. I am not arguing that Apache et al. have more flaws, I am just pointing out that everyone who has coding skills prefers to explore IIS's quality rather than some Apache's because of simple "I can pick on the weaker guy easier" predatory concept from kindergarten.

Of course Ballmer's upset, even late comers like HP are raking in sums like $2.5bn on Linux. That's not even counting the extra productivity from having a more secure design.

Even the regular employees know the gig is up and more than half have cashed in their options, even Uncle Fester himself cashed in. I'm sure the fact that the options come out of your U.S. taxes (in the form of a write off) has something to do with the accounting as well.

Parmalat, Enron, Worldcom, Microsoft.

Of course Ballmer's upset, even late comers like HP are raking in sums like $2.5bn on Linux. That's not even counting the extra productivity from having a more secure design.

Even the regular employees know the gig is up and more than half have cashed in their options, even Uncle Fester himself cashed in. I'm sure the fact that the options come out of your U.S. taxes (in the form of a write off) has something to do with the accounting as well.

Parmalat, Enron, Worldcom, Microsoft.

Of course Ballmer's upset, even late comers like HP are raking in sums like $2.5bn on Linux. That's not even counting the extra productivity from having a more secure design.

Even the regular employees know the gig is up and more than half have cashed in their options, even Uncle Fester himself cashed in. I'm sure the fact that the options come out of your U.S. taxes (in the form of a write off) has something to do with the accounting as well.

Parmalat, Enron, Worldcom, Microsoft.

That's right. I know many people have used Netscape 7.x but very few have even heard about Mozilla.

It would have been nice if AOL gave mozilla.org the rights to the name "Netscape", and hence allowed mozilla.org to market Netscape as the end-user browser. Such a move would have hugely increased Mozilla's recognition.

Pity that Netscape is now just an AOL service.

Here's a utility that will let you do that.

And here's a Winamp plug-in to control Winamp's playback with a gamepad or joystick.

Here's a link to the patent.

So, anyone have a website log or e-mail from before November 23,1999?

Just when you thought they'd run out of silly patents to sue over, here comes another one. According to the good folks at News.com, a couple of Nizzas (the name of their company) have sued Network Solutions and Register.com. As Marguerite Reardon so eloquently puts it, "Two Internet entrepreneurs are suing Network Solutions and Register.com for allegedly infringing on their e-mail and domain naming patent." I take issue with the term entrepeneurs, as scum-sucking bottom feeders seems more appropriate, but you get the idea. Basically, they patented the method of assigning an email address of fake@name.com to the guy with the website fake.name.com. This might be the lamest excuse for a patent ever granted; a 2-year old could have come up with this idea.

Now Mr. Tibbits says they need recent AIX and Dynix/ptx code from IBM before they can comply.

Have they identified offending lines in the kernel source or have they not. Darl claims they have already matched code to the Unixware code and now they can't seem to reproduce it for the court. What's wrong with this picture?

So if they can get inside of IBM records they can begin to stitch a winnable case together, while if the "Match code or acquit" theory holds then the case is over. So if they can satisfy the initial requests enough to make the judge open up IBM to their SCO discover, then they can begin to make the case.

What you're describing is known as a "fishing expedition", and is generally frowned upon when bringing a lawsuit. The judge in this case apparently understands this, which is why she decided that SCO has to show all of their cards first before the judge will decide on SCO's Motion to Compel Discovery.

In case you've forgotten, here are some of the questions that SCO must answer before they get a shot at IBM:

INTERROGATORY NO. 1: seeks specific identification of all alleged trade secrets and confidential or proprietary information that SCO alleges IBM misappropriated or misused. This information is requested by product, file and line of code.

This means that IBM wants SCO to show show which parts of Linux are deemed to be infringing, "by product, file and line of code". This is "The Code" that followers of the suit have been waiting for since at least March.

INTERROGATORY NO. 2: For each alleged trade secret and any confidential or proprietary information identified in response to Interrogatory No. 1, Interrogatory No. 2 seeks further identification of: (a) all persons who have or had rights to the same; (b) the nature and sources of SCO's rights in the same; and (c) efforts to maintain secrecy or confidentiality of the same.

This is IBM saying "For each item you identified in answer to the first question, we want to know who else can claim rights that information, the exact nature of any agreements between that entity and SCO, and what efforts were made on both parts to keep it a secret." (Novell, maybe?)

INTERROGATORY NO. 3: For each alleged trade secret and any confidential or proprietary information identified in response to Interrogatory No. 1, Interrogatory No. 3 seeks the identity of all persons to whom the same was disclosed and the details of such disclosure. In particular, this interrogatory seeks: (a) the date of disclosure; (b) the terms of disclosure; (c) the documents relating to disclosure; (d) all places where the trade secret and/or confidential or proprietary information may be found or accessed.

This is IBM saying "For each of the items you identified in answer to the first question, we want to know who all you've shown that information to, when you showed it to them, why you showed it to them, all documentation relating to that disclosure, and any place where that information can be found." Remember, SCO not only charges that SCO's IP got into Linux against their wishes, but that IBM did it. IBM wants to see SCO's evidence that is had to be IBM and couldn't be someone else.

As far as what SCO wants this case to be about, SCO has contradicted itself on so many occasions that it's impossible to say with any certainty what SCO is suing over. We've gone from Darl McBride saying, on several occasions, that there is "line-by-line" copying of UnixWare code into Linux. But somehow we've gotten to the point where they're trying to tell the court that they can't possibly find has been infringed until they get their response from IBM.

So if you will excuse me, I will continue to believe that SCO are stupid scum, because they've not shown any evidence to the contrary.

Jay (=
(I'm not a lawyer either; if you're coming to /. or me for legal advice, you're going to get your money's worth)

So if they can get inside of IBM records they can begin to stitch a winnable case together, while if the "Match code or acquit" theory holds then the case is over. So if they can satisfy the initial requests enough to make the judge open up IBM to their SCO discover, then they can begin to make the case.

What you're describing is known as a "fishing expedition", and is generally frowned upon when bringing a lawsuit. The judge in this case apparently understands this, which is why she decided that SCO has to show all of their cards first before the judge will decide on SCO's Motion to Compel Discovery.

In case you've forgotten, here are some of the questions that SCO must answer before they get a shot at IBM:

INTERROGATORY NO. 1: seeks specific identification of all alleged trade secrets and confidential or proprietary information that SCO alleges IBM misappropriated or misused. This information is requested by product, file and line of code.

This means that IBM wants SCO to show show which parts of Linux are deemed to be infringing, "by product, file and line of code". This is "The Code" that followers of the suit have been waiting for since at least March.

INTERROGATORY NO. 2: For each alleged trade secret and any confidential or proprietary information identified in response to Interrogatory No. 1, Interrogatory No. 2 seeks further identification of: (a) all persons who have or had rights to the same; (b) the nature and sources of SCO's rights in the same; and (c) efforts to maintain secrecy or confidentiality of the same.

This is IBM saying "For each item you identified in answer to the first question, we want to know who else can claim rights that information, the exact nature of any agreements between that entity and SCO, and what efforts were made on both parts to keep it a secret." (Novell, maybe?)

INTERROGATORY NO. 3: For each alleged trade secret and any confidential or proprietary information identified in response to Interrogatory No. 1, Interrogatory No. 3 seeks the identity of all persons to whom the same was disclosed and the details of such disclosure. In particular, this interrogatory seeks: (a) the date of disclosure; (b) the terms of disclosure; (c) the documents relating to disclosure; (d) all places where the trade secret and/or confidential or proprietary information may be found or accessed.

This is IBM saying "For each of the items you identified in answer to the first question, we want to know who all you've shown that information to, when you showed it to them, why you showed it to them, all documentation relating to that disclosure, and any place where that information can be found." Remember, SCO not only charges that SCO's IP got into Linux against their wishes, but that IBM did it. IBM wants to see SCO's evidence that is had to be IBM and couldn't be someone else.

As far as what SCO wants this case to be about, SCO has contradicted itself on so many occasions that it's impossible to say with any certainty what SCO is suing over. We've gone from Darl McBride saying, on several occasions, that there is "line-by-line" copying of UnixWare code into Linux. But somehow we've gotten to the point where they're trying to tell the court that they can't possibly find has been infringed until they get their response from IBM.

So if you will excuse me, I will continue to believe that SCO are stupid scum, because they've not shown any evidence to the contrary.

Jay (=
(I'm not a lawyer either; if you're coming to /. or me for legal advice, you're going to get your money's worth)

First, thanks for the reply. I wasn't sure you'd write back.

"If there are individual readers for each one, build a device that incorporates all of them try one at a time until you get an expected result." Sorry, it doesn't work like that. You can't just tape them all together. See, the problem is that they're all emitting and reading RF, and if you have more than one active at a time, you'll get nasty interference. The fact is, it is hard to build a device that does multiple frequencies and protocols.
I really meant, run one reader on one frequency - then if you get no good response, turn its transmitter off. Then try the next one and so on, in other words avoid interference by trying one at a time. (But again.. I'm no RF engineer, this is just how I imagined it and am just clarifying what I ment)

"But what makes you think anti-collision is even necessary for my argument?" Anti-collision is necessary for any reader on any of the of the protocols you mentioned. Otherwise if you have two tags in the field and your reader tries to read the tags in the field, they'll both try to answer at the same time and interfere with eachother (collide). AC is one of the hard parts of any shared medium communication, be it aloha-net, ethernet or RFID.
While anti-collision may be required by those protocols, many uses of RFID tags (as I imagine them) do not need to deal with this. A "key" reader for example - if there are two tags in the reading range, it shouldn't unlock the door. Only if there is one key, and it has a valid authorized code should the door be unlocked. Same goes for Speed Passes and many similar applications. In these situations it would almost be a "feature" that they don't work when there are two keys present. Of course anti-collision mechanisms will definitely be needed in, say a retail environment, or with long range tags.

Anyhow, you don't have to be an RF engineer to participate in RFID discussions. But if you're completely misinformed about the subject, then you're just spreading FUD, and that's what I object to.
You're absolutely right, and I stand corrected on several issues you've pointed out.

"They don't have batteries, which is the only reason for their limited range. They get power directly from the radio waves." Half-true. Some RFID tags are powered or active, some are unpowered or passive.
I actually didn't know this when I wrote this, I only found out when I did some more research today. For me, when thinking of RFID tags I just didn't think of a powered device which to me seems more like an integrated wireless device. Again, I stand corrected.

"They are now weaving them into of clothing, they are inside your tires, and in the handle of your razor." They are not weaving them into clothing. I challenge you to find me one quote where they say they're doing that. I think that rumour may have started when a Wired article claimed that "Prada already embeds RFID inventory tags into its clothing". But a little research shows that is simply a tag that they put on in one particular store, which is probably removed when it is sold, and it is very visible to the customer: "Pick up any pair of shoes or handbag or dress and you'll find a clear RFID tag, with the antenna and chip clearly visible." See, it's the antenna that's difficult. Sure, the RFID chip is tiny, but the antennas are pretty big, normally on the order of 10cm by 3cm or so, so weaving it into clothing just wouldn't work.
Here are three examples: Benetton, Marks & Spencer, and KSW-Microtec - they make wearable/washable tags specifically to be embedded in clothing. (These may not be the best links, but further reasearch on each of them can easily be found by googling.)

As for tires and rasors, I sincerely doubt that that's the case

SCO has made no secret in recent months that it hired high-profile attorney David Boies to spearhead its case against IBM, but the company's legal representation in Utah courts is also noteworthy. The company retained Brent O. Hatch and Mark F. James of the law firm Hatch, James & Dodge. Hatch is the son of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a representative for SCO confirmed Monday.

There are actually many security features Apple service packs address.
M$ also allows you to get the security fixes without the service packs. No, you don't need the SP to get the security patches. Nothing forces you to upgrade to the new SP. But if you do, you do get new features.
Granted more viruses are written for Windows and the alerts appear more on CNN when it concerns Windows, you might think Windows contains a lot more security holes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying M$ wrote windows very securely, but they do fix their stuff for free.

I think there will be a lot of traction behind AAC (protected/unprotected) in the coming days. I just remembered the recent adoption of Quicktime by the no 1 and 2 (DoCoMo and KDDI) wireless service providers in Japan for Video/Audio playback. I think this implies that a large (and growing) percentage of over 60 million cellphone subscribers in Japan already have the ability to playback AAC audio content. And once Apple announces the ITMS for Japan it could easily (If Apple does not think that cellphones will eat into the iPod market) mean protected AAC with ability to buy Music directly from your phones (This will be big in Japan). A Lot of these same Quicktime enabled phone are being sold in Europe and Europe could follow the same pattern with the iTMS for Europe. If Apple plays this right Redmond could face their first major defeat in the platform wars. But call it Deja vu or whatever, I have this gut feeling that at the crunch time Apple will revert back to wanting to sell iPods rather than defeat WMA.

>[electronic watches] won't last nearly as long: they'll either get wet, simply stop working, or wear out electronically long before a Rolex begins to stop keeping the correct time.

N.B.: Among watch afficionadoes, Rolex is something of a joke, mostly because they don't keep time nearly as well as equivalently-priced watches from less-widely-marketed makers (International Watch Co., Breitling, et al), and partly because of the enormous number of counterfeit Rolexen in the wild.

And, in case anyone's wondering, the original Moon watch is the Omega Speedmaster Professional.

And Apple, for all their ills as far as co-opting technology in ways distressingly similar to Microsoft, has never been known to utterly decimate the competition or actively belittle or disparage them.

Ask independent dealers.

Since the opening of the company-owned stores, the smaller distributers of Apple products have slowly been squeezed out of the market. Required minimum orders have increased, margins have decreased, and many small shops have either closed or consolidated.

I cannot find the article, but Apple has used the Macintosh registration process to harvest e-mail addresses in order to lure customers who bought their Macintosh from a distributer/dealer to purchase accessories from the Apple store at a discount to the dealer price.

As an Apple dealer, I wouldn't wait too long to sell the business. Apple will continue to squeeze all of the dealers out of the market, concentrating on locations where an Apple store is already present.

I'm sure SCO would love that. The best legal team the avrage collage student could afford.
Yeah...

Or maybe we could ALL put our money where our mouths are and create a fund.

"We are going to produce a patch that should be up within a week," said Microsoft's David Fester, group product manager for Internet Explorer. "We'll put up that patch as quick as we can."

Internet Explorer Bug Makes a Return Visit

In 1998 he was the management flunky most directly responsible for all those MSIE bugs.

"On the one hand, they say they're pursuing standards, but they're implementing and pushing proprietary technology with their development community," Microsoft product manager David Fester said. "Microsoft has pledged 100 percent standards support for some time. The truth is in the pudding and the products."

Pot, Kettle Black (netscape, microsoft , standards, name-calling)

Wednesday's Windows Media announcements are specific to XP, said David Fester, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Digital Media division. "These are companies that are doing things specifically around XP," he said. "As you know, our Windows Media effort is broader than just XP."

Windows Media announced for MAC/Linux/Solaris (not)

"This is unprecedented, but we realized we need to work together [with Netscape] for the common good. We decided we should not propose separate standards for privacy software." David Fester, Microsoft, June 97

More Outright Lies from David Fester

Tell me again why I want to listen to *anything* this man has to say.

"We are going to produce a patch that should be up within a week," said Microsoft's David Fester, group product manager for Internet Explorer. "We'll put up that patch as quick as we can."

Internet Explorer Bug Makes a Return Visit

In 1998 he was the management flunky most directly responsible for all those MSIE bugs.

"On the one hand, they say they're pursuing standards, but they're implementing and pushing proprietary technology with their development community," Microsoft product manager David Fester said. "Microsoft has pledged 100 percent standards support for some time. The truth is in the pudding and the products."

Pot, Kettle Black (netscape, microsoft , standards, name-calling)

Wednesday's Windows Media announcements are specific to XP, said David Fester, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Digital Media division. "These are companies that are doing things specifically around XP," he said. "As you know, our Windows Media effort is broader than just XP."

Windows Media announced for MAC/Linux/Solaris (not)

"This is unprecedented, but we realized we need to work together [with Netscape] for the common good. We decided we should not propose separate standards for privacy software." David Fester, Microsoft, June 97

More Outright Lies from David Fester

Tell me again why I want to listen to *anything* this man has to say.

Um, isn't Microsoft going to release a competing music service later this year (pissing off everybody else who had gotten assurances that Microsoft was just going to provide WMA tech, and not compete directly)? Unless they're also going to release AAC-only files, shutting out the rest of the WMA players, then they've got BOATLOADS of competition for iTunes.

Basically HP saw that anybody who tried to use WMAs in a competing music service was eventually going to get swallowed up/squished by Microsoft, and condemmed to selling commodity players. Instead of going that route, they signed up to sell high-margin music players, probably with a cut for every customer they sign for iTunes. Now THAT's real competition right there, and Microsoft doesn't like that - no siree...

Besides - if other services wanted to get their stuff on iPods, all they have to do is sell em as straight MP3s. iPod will play that with no problems.

It is a short link but it says a lot.