Slashdot Mirror

Red Hat has already counter-sued SCO.

Guess what Dell will be doing next.

Dell already made their move - they're not going to do anything per indemnification of customers (coming straight from Michael Dell himself).

It's a shame, as I like (and buy Dell - writing this from an Inspiron 8200 in fact). Looks like the next batch of servers ordered will be saying HP on them...

*scoove*

Nice write-up, I like how you managed to make up the bit about the children's magician, slip a nice anti-Mac troll in the middle there, and still make the front page. That takes skill. Now if only you could have shoe-horned the phrase "M$" in there somewhere.

As for this being yet another PR disaster; the RIAA knows almost everything they do these days is going to be a PR disaster. They simply do not care:

Clearly, record companies and the RIAA had some concerns about backlash before going into this. Certainly the story about the 12-year-old in public housing who was sued hit the headlines fast and hard. Are you at all concerned about public relations backlash?

We knew that this was not going to be a good PR experience from the get-go. But the (record) companies were of the view that this was something we had to do without regard to the PR implications. If PR were the dominant consideration, we would not have taken these actions, and the problem would be continuing unabated, and people would not be thinking twice about the legality of what they're doing. If bad PR is the price, it's a relatively small one compared to the size of the problem.

"Thin-client" is just another word for extremely small/light/cheap PC-in-a-box.

Then Sun dropped the ball on producing a Java VM capable of supporting desktop applications. Besides, nobody wanted to totally retool for a new platform. So they tried to reinvent the "thin client" as a graphics terminal connected to a Windows application server. The absurdity of calling a simple bitmapped graphics terminal a "client" should have clued people on to what a bad idea this was.

Yes, I am sure, as I've read reports of apps using >4GB under OS 10.2.7 on a G5. The only references I could dig up right now are a brief blurb on ZDNet here: ZDNet Story and at the Register here: Register Story, though the register mistakingly says that the G5s use a 64 bit memory address space. A more detailed and accurate report of the G5 is available here: SoundOnSound Story. That last one really has all the info on this matter, though it doesn't mention 10.2.7's memory address capabilities specifically. You better believe, however, that Apple isn't shipping systems with 8 GB or RAM that can only address 4 GB, or the outcry would be quite palpable.

Was it that hard?

The $50 headsets are being sold at the campus computer store. "But most headsets will work," said Bob Johnson, director of network services at Dartmouth. "It's just a question of what kind of voice quality you want."

Possibly by keeping the XSD proprietary?

You and others with unfettered access to those schemas through the latest MS applications like Office, Excel and C# are quite able to run the XML through any XSLT as much as you like. You can even use openly published XSLT to transform Word XML into other, more open XML based formats, as long as you buy the application and access to MS schema.

What's more problematic is whether others, without access to XSD, will be able to make a Word document saved as XML be able to look the way Word presents it. Or, to edit those XML files with anything but an MS application.

This is analogous to the long-standing problems with the .doc "standard": Strictly, RTF is documented, but it's value is disputed: presentation rules for RTF by Word are not completely documented publicly and different versions of Word can change how a document appears.

Possibly by keeping the XSD proprietary?

You and others with unfettered access to those schemas through the latest MS applications like Office, Excel and C# are quite able to run the XML through any XSLT as much as you like. You can even use openly published XSLT to transform Word XML into other, more open XML based formats, as long as you buy the application and access to MS schema.

What's more problematic is whether others, without access to XSD, will be able to make a Word document saved as XML be able to look the way Word presents it. Or, to edit those XML files with anything but an MS application.

This is analogous to the long-standing problems with the .doc "standard": Strictly, RTF is documented, but it's value is disputed: presentation rules for RTF by Word are not completely documented publicly and different versions of Word can change how a document appears.

Midway through the article we see this. What's this, chopped liver?

"Not yet available: software for 64 bits

Although AMD has published a list with many details on the Athlon-64 support, there are few software publishers who plan over the medium term to offer applications for true 64-bit operation.

In video the Divx encoder for MPEG-4 will be available shortly in a final version for 64-bit. Game producers in general are also hesitant: although according to AMD, producers like Epic, Valve, Crytek and SCI offer games based on 64-bit code. Companies such as ID Software, who are responsible for titles like Quake3 and Unreal Tournament 2003, are not ready to jump onto the 64-bit bandwagon.

In what timeframe Microsoft will be able to bundle its final version of Windows XP 64 with systems is currently unknown. However, we can assume that an operating system will be ready before summer 2004. The pre-alpha version of Windows XP 64 that we use came with only a few drivers integrated."

Midway through the article we see this. What's this, chopped liver?

"Not yet available: software for 64 bits

Although AMD has published a list with many details on the Athlon-64 support, there are few software publishers who plan over the medium term to offer applications for true 64-bit operation.

In video the Divx encoder for MPEG-4 will be available shortly in a final version for 64-bit. Game producers in general are also hesitant: although according to AMD, producers like Epic, Valve, Crytek and SCI offer games based on 64-bit code. Companies such as ID Software, who are responsible for titles like Quake3 and Unreal Tournament 2003, are not ready to jump onto the 64-bit bandwagon.

In what timeframe Microsoft will be able to bundle its final version of Windows XP 64 with systems is currently unknown. However, we can assume that an operating system will be ready before summer 2004. The pre-alpha version of Windows XP 64 that we use came with only a few drivers integrated."

It's Mitch Bainwol, the former GOP whipping boy.
Not that it would matter. If anything, Ms. Rosen might be more at liberty to discuss issues than before, now that's she no longer a hired gun.

I guess there's XML and there's XML and getting between them is not necessarily easy.

Microsoft made a big deal about the most recent versions of Office writing out XML, but that was because XML was a buzzword, sounded as if it might be more open than ".doc", and was essentially a selling point.

From what I've read, people have been underwhelmed with the XML coming out.

If only a similar set of transformations could be developed for OpenOffice to import and export the XML of the latest version of Microsoft Office. From what I understand, the schema is not documented and the formatting and rendering rules for documents are still kept a private affair, just as it has been for .doc files.

You're still locked-in, dude!

"July 14, 1997

A rival domain name registry to the official Internet registrar, InterNIC, redirected users from "www.internic.net" to its own site last weekend in what is being called a "protest." "

Internic was administered by Network Solutions at the time.

If I recall correctly, these were going to provide alternative root DNS services as alternative from the abuse that some of the monopoly players were subjecting people to.

Any projects like that still in existance?

Of course you could always et up your own TLD :-)

According to "IBM steals server sales from Sun", IBM has been handily defeating Sun in its bread-and-butter market. As Sun's share of the UNIX server market shrinks, Sun itself shrinks. The worst is yet to come.

... from the desk of the reporter

According to "IBM steals server sales from Sun", IBM has been handily defeating Sun in its bread-and-butter market. As Sun's share of the UNIX server market shrinks, Sun itself shrinks. The worst is yet to come.

... from the desk of the reporter

According to "IBM steals server sales from Sun", IBM has been handily defeating Sun in its bread-and-butter market. As Sun's share of the UNIX server market shrinks, Sun itself shrinks. The worst is yet to come.

... from the desk of the reporter

Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet...

To anyone that 64 bits might make a difference for, they're steering clear of Intel, who has stated they're not going to focus on that desktop market for another 5 years. So all this article amounts to is Prescott FUD to support Intel's (misguided) roadmap.

Disclaimer: I own some AMD stock and I do my Unix development on Mac OS X.

> It's time for us geeks to belly up to the bar and pay for something that we want.

Assuming that geeks do, there's still a problem -- we're a small part of the population and I'm betting that despite all the good points you raise many will use OpenOffice anyway.

There's a worse issue.

Despite this story talking about "ultra-expensive Office 2003", Microsoft has already reduced prices for Office 2003. Most slashdotters missed this (I submitted a story but it was rejected) but retailers (at least in Europe, from personal experience) are selling Office for as low as $110 to general customers. Here's a News.com story about this -- note it seems to be happening with Microsoft's active encouragement.

Given a choice between a $80 StarOffice and $110 Microsoft Office, I know which one I -- as a rational individual -- would choose.

(And business already get huge discounts on Microsoft software anyway, not to mention the fact that many get Office preloaded when they buy the PC.)

To be honest, I have no idea how the RIAA will react to this. I wonder if this will be their IBM-SCO-like 800lb gorilla. I wonder what MS will eventually charge for membership on the service eventually and how much of it the RIAA may get.

I bet you're right about it being filled with DRM. It also wouldn't suprise me if they are using some of the DRM they have created for Media Player. I wonder if that's of any anti-trust interest.

To be honest, I have no idea how the RIAA will react to this. I wonder if this will be their IBM-SCO-like 800lb gorilla. I wonder what MS will eventually charge for membership on the service eventually and how much of it the RIAA may get.

I bet you're right about it being filled with DRM. It also wouldn't suprise me if they are using some of the DRM they have created for Media Player. I wonder if that's of any anti-trust interest.

I remember there were some internet filters that tried to eliminate porn through image content. What these filters seemed to end up doing was eliminating anything that contained a certain amount of skin tones. You can imagine how well that worked.

I just googled for the original article and found a related one. It talks about a search product for companies that uses "color, texture, shape and spatial configuration" to find porn. I guess that could work OK if the resuls were reviewed by actual humans.

The bank I work at just put in a new OS2 based ATM. It communicates on a TCP/IP based network consisting of the ATM and a dedicated router that then connects to an ATM servicing company. Depending on the safeguards in place at the ATM servicing company, a worm or trojan could spread to all ATMs that they process.

Also, earlier in the year quite a few Bank of America ATM's went down to Slammer congestion.

You are comparing companies (Microsoft vs RedHat), but let's compare products (Linux vs Windows) This is from news.com (see bottom of page)
$2.05 billion: Total revenue from sales of Linux servers in 2002, up 63 percent from 2001. (IDC) Which is only 1/4th of total Microsoft revenue.
What is the revenue from, say, Windows Servers ?

Interesting link ... Microsoft spends more on Marketing and Advertising than it does Research and Developement.

In this article on on CNET O'Shaughnessy said "the service has been embraced by end users. "We've seen nothing but very positive results from the Internet community," he said. "Usage is extraordinary. Both individual users and enterprises are giving very positive feedback."

So they are attributing a slashdotting, and a lot of media interest to people being positive about the service. I haven't seen one article, comment or anything that was even remotely positive. What are these guys on?

He also claims they are fully compliant with every RFC. I don't see how this is possible, unless they have found some loophole.

This is likely the Swen/Gibe.F worm. More info at news.com.

An interesting thing about this work is that it hits a web counter on each infection! Its currently at 913,000 at 2:45 PDT (GMT-7).

Also, this exploits an OLD IE hole. This is not a new bug.. but I guess not many people are patched?

-molo

Let me make sure I understand. There's a front page article about a potential Microsoft worm that may be created using an eight day old security vulnerability, but no articles at all about the Sendmail vulnerability discovered today, or the SSH Vulnerability discovered yesterday? What am I missing?

Let me make sure I understand. There's a front page article about a potential Microsoft worm that may be created using an eight day old security vulnerability, but no articles at all about the Sendmail vulnerability discovered today, or the SSH Vulnerability discovered yesterday? What am I missing?

According to C|Net's News.com.com, two new woms have surfaced exploiting a 2 year old hole in IE 5.x.

I like my Compaq X1000 just fine thank you. 6.5 Lbs. 15.4 screen. 1.5" thick. A G4 chaser for sure, but does anyone really need the power of a G5 in a notebook?

P.S. Nice try on the sig. Those are for APPLICATIONS not Linux you dolt. Here is my new sig

31 Unpatched IE security holes
Server attacks stump Microsoft
Credit card theft feared in Windows flaw
Microsoft issues patch for "serious" XP hole
Windows flaw threatens PC services
Microsoft's Source Code Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Why I hate Microsoft
bsod_videowall
bsod_airport
License to plunder
Microsoft Media Player logs users' DVD picks
MS wanted to 'extend, embrace and extinguish' competition
Microsoft Palladium
Control with fine print
Microsoft WinXP Update spies on other PC software
Microsoft Windows: Insecure by Design
Microsoft software "riddled with vulnerabilities", trade body claims
Microsoft Issues Five New Security Warnings
Why Open Source Software / Free Software

P.S. Nice try on the sig. Those are for APPLICATIONS not Linux you dolt. Here is my new sig

31 Unpatched IE security holes
Server attacks stump Microsoft
Credit card theft feared in Windows flaw
Microsoft issues patch for "serious" XP hole
Windows flaw threatens PC services
Microsoft's Source Code Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Why I hate Microsoft
bsod_videowall
bsod_airport
License to plunder
Microsoft Media Player logs users' DVD picks
MS wanted to 'extend, embrace and extinguish' competition
Microsoft Palladium
Control with fine print
Microsoft WinXP Update spies on other PC software
Microsoft Windows: Insecure by Design
Microsoft software "riddled with vulnerabilities", trade body claims
Microsoft Issues Five New Security Warnings
Why Open Source Software / Free Software

P.S. Nice try on the sig. Those are for APPLICATIONS not Linux you dolt. Here is my new sig

31 Unpatched IE security holes
Server attacks stump Microsoft
Credit card theft feared in Windows flaw
Microsoft issues patch for "serious" XP hole
Windows flaw threatens PC services
Microsoft's Source Code Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Why I hate Microsoft
bsod_videowall
bsod_airport
License to plunder
Microsoft Media Player logs users' DVD picks
MS wanted to 'extend, embrace and extinguish' competition
Microsoft Palladium
Control with fine print
Microsoft WinXP Update spies on other PC software
Microsoft Windows: Insecure by Design
Microsoft software "riddled with vulnerabilities", trade body claims
Microsoft Issues Five New Security Warnings
Why Open Source Software / Free Software

P.S. Nice try on the sig. Those are for APPLICATIONS not Linux you dolt. Here is my new sig

31 Unpatched IE security holes
Server attacks stump Microsoft
Credit card theft feared in Windows flaw
Microsoft issues patch for "serious" XP hole
Windows flaw threatens PC services
Microsoft's Source Code Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Why I hate Microsoft
bsod_videowall
bsod_airport
License to plunder
Microsoft Media Player logs users' DVD picks
MS wanted to 'extend, embrace and extinguish' competition
Microsoft Palladium
Control with fine print
Microsoft WinXP Update spies on other PC software
Microsoft Windows: Insecure by Design
Microsoft software "riddled with vulnerabilities", trade body claims
Microsoft Issues Five New Security Warnings
Why Open Source Software / Free Software

P.S. Nice try on the sig. Those are for APPLICATIONS not Linux you dolt. Here is my new sig

31 Unpatched IE security holes
Server attacks stump Microsoft
Credit card theft feared in Windows flaw
Microsoft issues patch for "serious" XP hole
Windows flaw threatens PC services
Microsoft's Source Code Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Why I hate Microsoft
bsod_videowall
bsod_airport
License to plunder
Microsoft Media Player logs users' DVD picks
MS wanted to 'extend, embrace and extinguish' competition
Microsoft Palladium
Control with fine print
Microsoft WinXP Update spies on other PC software
Microsoft Windows: Insecure by Design
Microsoft software "riddled with vulnerabilities", trade body claims
Microsoft Issues Five New Security Warnings
Why Open Source Software / Free Software

From the zdnet article "It's not uncommon for vulnerabilities in Unix-style systems to be exploited for months by the underground community, Maiffret said."

I guess thats in contrast to windoze vulnerabilities which go for years exploited by the underground community (whoever they are- any-one want to own up?) and then more years exploited by who-ever wants to.

Some interesting quotes:

"The performance boost is awesome," Burns said Tuesday during a speech at the Intel Developer Forum here.

"It is a Xeon with a different pin-out, or least that's what it looks like to me," said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at Insight 64.

Intel did not disclose the price of the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. It likely will be as expensive as its counterpart, the 2.8GHz Xeon with 2MB cache. That chip sells for $3,692 in quantities of 1,000.

"It absolutely will be kind of pricey," Brookwood said.

What their tying to do is (a) use an aggressive interpretation of a new law to their advantage while (b) circumventing standard legal procedure for filing of civil suits.

Throw in the fact that there is a related article on cnet about how the RIAA is claiming that P2P networks are "rife with child porn" in order to make P2P seem like more of the devil's work.

Of course Koreans have easy access to broadband, it's subsidized by their government. When a government wants to get behind something, they can make it work, whatever it is. The downside is that government resources only stretch so far, so when they push broadband, some other area (education, public welfare, defense, economic investment, etc.) will inevitably get less funding. It's just a matter of priorities.

MS-Windows is unsuitable unless the advertising contracts have clauses about defacement, BSOD, MSTDs and other causes of down time. QNX, BSD, Linux and other systems are much more suitable for embedded systems being smaller, more secure and capable of providing the uptime required to fulfill a normal advertising contract.

More likely MS-Windows was mentioned because it's a MLM scheme that's wrapping up and the top piers are making one last push before it goes under.

I suspect this has more to do with retaining customers already "file sharing" and avoiding bad PR than it does to be protecting customer privacy.

Are y'all sure that Sun did give SCO $$$ recently?

Yup. I got yer links right here:

SCO 10-Q
Sun expands Unix deal with SCO

Wait a minute. So the only two "SCO source" licensees are Microsoft and Sun, and there's proof in this "10Q" document (slashdotted already, but I believe you). Now Microsoft, IIRC, paid for some "IP" for their UNIX compatibility thing for NT. And we're told here that Sun bought a "'clean-up' license to cover items that were outside the scope of Sun's initial UNIX license".

Well that's all nice and good, except that neither of those licenses seem to be Linux-related, and I vividly recall Sontag bragging about how they actually sold a Linux license to some mystery "Fortune 500 company":

"This Fortune 500 company recognizes the importance of paying for SCO's intellectual property that is found in Linux, and (they) can now run Linux in their environment under a legitimate license from SCO," Chris Sontag, head of the company's SCOsource effort to extract more revenue from its Unix intellectual property, said in a statement.

Shouldn't they had to disclose that sale too in this "10Q" filing? But it wasn't Microsoft, it wasn't Sun, and they didn't sold anything else. So what's going on here? Could it be that... oh no... that SCO... either then or now... lied?

I guess there's XML and there's XML and getting between them is not necessarily easy.

Microsoft made a big deal about the most recent versions of Office writing out XML, but that was because XML was a buzzword, sounded as if it might be more open than ".doc", and was essentially a selling point.

From what I've read, people have been underwhelmed with the XML coming out.

But your question is a good one when you see the potential for XSLT transformations that enable OpenOffice to import and export DocBook XML.

If only a similar set of transformations could be developed for OpenOffice to import and export the XML of the latest version of Microsoft Office. From what I understand, the schema is not documented and the formatting and rendering rules for documents are still kept a private affair, just as it has been for .doc files.

You're still locked-in, dude!

And in order to do this, all they have to do is show the court The letter sent from SCO to RedHat's clients... pretty sure that'll do it...

In related news, there's an article on news.com.com that just seems crazy and doesn't do Sun any favours.The main problems with this article are not Sun's strange ideas (which constitute some of the shallowest media manipulation that I've recently seen), but author Michael Kanellos' jumbled up logic that only presents one side of the issue because he ignores the possibility that SCO are insane.
Here are some choice inaccuracies/curious statements (interspersed with my comments):

"You license Java--we will indemnify you on Linux," is how Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president of software at Sun, said the program, if initiated, might work
O.K. I don't see how Sun would think that they could do this but it's clear what they have in mind. Though what they mean by "license Java" is probably a detail that even they haven't worried about.

SCO's legal position has drawn the ire of open-source advocates, some of whom have hacked SCO's site.
As I understand, SCO's site hasn't been hacked, so he is refering to the DoS by an unknown person.

Microsoft signed a multimillion-dollar licensing agreement with SCO that revolves around Unix-Linux compatibility issues
Unix-Linux compatibility issues? Microsoft mentioned Unix-Windows compatibility, but surely noone would regurgitate that as the reason that Microsoft pay SCO.

Sun has publicly stated on several occasions that it will indemnify its Solaris customers against any liability
Is this true? Do Sun offer significantly greater protection that Microsoft (i.e. purchase price of the software)?

Schwartz did not comment on how Sun could insulate its Java customers from a lawsuit from SCO, but there are a number of possibilities.
So Sun are just posturing.

Sun could request that Java customers seeking indemnity switch from using Linux to Solaris.
Microsoft could request a similar thing!

Sun could also, conceivably, devise a Linux-like OS
I suppose I am capable of conceiving that, but it is a ridiculous idea.

Sun's license only extends to Solaris, said SCO spokesman Blake Stowell, not to Java related products
So the whole idea was obviously nonsense from the start and Michael only wrote about it because Sun said it so people will take notice.

- Brian

I call them MSNBC's.

It makes sense, all four cause damage or rapidly cause long term harm.

Since Ford is an SAP shop the transition shouldn't be a painful one at all, other than the possibility of end users filling up the help desk cue with mundane requests.