Slashdot Mirror

Was it you that decided to blow off a company with only a few thousand workstation seats? or

The old SCO absolutely, positively despised Linux. Linux was a competitor, and the old SCO did everything they could against it. FUD, legal threats and dirty tricks were standard operating proceedure for the old SCO against any and all competitors.

For a sample of their mindset and FUD there's this interview: http://www.computerworld.com/news/1999/story/0,112 80,35431,00.html

Here are some excerpts from the CEO of SCO then, Doug Michels.

"Linux didn't break any new ground."

"So now we've got some punk young kids who've taken and engineered pieces around the Unix [kernel]. "

"As far as I'm concerned, [Linux} is free R&D [for us]".

In a different interview, Michels claimed he was going to steal everything they needed from Linux and put it into UNIX.

So, yes, the old SCO was very evil, and very hostile against Linux.

So it's fitting that Sun is aquiring the old SCO. Sun is no friend to Open Source, and has helped fund the current lawsuit against IBM. In fact, I'd say that it's fitting that two companies which hate Open Source are teaming up more closely.

What I find ridiculous is all of these apologists stating that the reason for outsourcing being so big is not because of cheaper costs, but because there are not enough smart Americans to fill the positions at reasonable prices.

Look at this article about Sun Microsystems from a few days ago. Sun has outsourced it's entire HR department to Hewitt Associates. And last year, they outsourced their entire internal IT department (1,000 employees). And they're still moving a lot of the company, especially in the development and support areas, to India.

The only thing reason is, cost. It's cheap. Labor is cheap. Property is cheap. Contracts are cheap. Not one single place does it say anything about the work force being smarter or stupider in either location.

Sun pumps up overseas outsourcing plans: It's expanding facilities in Bangalore, Beijing, St. Petersburg and Prague

Imagine calling your IT department in your American company only to always get someone named "Alice" with an impossible to understand Indian accent? But fear not, it's only fair competition friends!

• Linus referred to as "some kid from Norway"
  
• Alleged "misappropriation of intellectual property" in Linux. Hmmm, that sounds familiar :)
  
• Some laughable predictions about the future
  

I'm sure to get modded down/censored, but I really want to know? A story about a machine for pouring juice?!?!?! I mean come on... Stuff for nerds, stuff that snores.

Hows about we just pop over to see what Computerworld has on the boil...

• New N1 grid s/w from Sun
• Virtualization code directly added to windows
• "A Pragmatic Approach to Implementing ITIL Using ProactiveNet" - jeeze, I'm not really sure what *thats* about, but it sure does sound more interesting that mixing juice.

• Astronaut comments on NASA delaying flight
• Life on mars
• Tiger

If anybody comes near my desk with a blowtorch, I'm blaming you!

Also, I seem to remember that the reverse-engineering bit of the PC BIOS re-implementation process was done by analyzing the copyrighted BIOS code. You can't really expect a person that has seen, read and understood the code to provide new code with the same functionality and free of copyright issues.

Afaik, Tridgell did not look at the bitkeeper source or its derived object code, but instead analyzed its input and output to derive the protocols. As long as whatever he looked at is free from the Bitkeeper copyright, it should be fine (although this might vary between national laws).

See here for the BIOS reverse engineering story.

"I actually enjoy programming [outside of the Linux kernel] occasionally, because it's a huge relief to not have to be so horribly careful, as you need to be in the kernel"

So it doesn't matter if the tool used to make the kernel has bugs :)

Some people really believe that Windows is pretty up to par with OSX and will go after this point. Check out these comments from ComputerWorld (poor magazine IMO). For record, I don't like the magazine or agree with any of this:

"Mac OS X may be a nice-looking overlay to Unix, but it still leaves much to be desired. For example, networking in an environment where multiple servers are used is decidedly flaky, permissions must be changed to do simple things like adding fonts or nonstandard printers, and administrative access is difficult."

"...the view from the trenches is that Windows will be the way to go until an OS that is as user- and admin-friendly comes around."

And another:

"A couple of years after the release of Win 95, I attended an Apple event celebrating the new features in Mac OS 8.0. As I sat watching this operating system version that offered full-screen wallpaper (a feature of Win 3.1), Internet options (catching up with Win 95), systemwide sound effects (another Win 3.1 feature) and more, I said to the longtime Mac user sitting beside me that this was Apple's attempt to maintain parity with Windows 95."

It's called a Solid State Disk.

Interesting

Hardly, unfortunately. It's the same thing they did with Burst with whom they just settled for a paltry $60M. This is becoming modus operandi for Microsoft.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft destroyed evidence in this case as well.

The problem, QuantamG, is that beauracracy is typically unwilling to explore new methods when old, proven methods are available.

Compounding this problem is the fact that American politicians/higher-ups seem to lack the ability to say, "I'm sorry, I screwed up. Everyone makes mistakes," so possibly funding a program that fails in the public eye is a non-option.

It is true that the government has programs that fail all the time [computerworld.com]; it's just that something like space travel is more suitable for general public news consumption so it's more widely reported and therefore a touchy subject for most politicians.

I agree, we should be putting money into exploring better technology now, so space endeavors will be more efficient later. All the more reason to do things like voting and calling your congresspersons

P.S.- The above statement isn't an invitation to talk about how fucked up American politics are. Sorry if anyone views it that way.

For those who don't know:

Laura DiDio calls Linux code a "copy and paste" of SCO's code.

Laura DiDio is advising customers not to dismiss SCO's licensing offer. "The customers who received these 1,500 letters from SCO have been told this isn't going anywhere," DiDio told TechNewsWorld. "I don't think anyone should listen to such empty assurances."

From TFA:

Advances in server technology may give data center managers a little room to breathe. Innovations from chip technology to server construction are improving hardware's capability to deal with high-density environments. According to Gordon Haff, analyst with Nashua, N.H.-based Illuminata, the days of using traditional server cooling methods are over. Companies going forward with dense server environments will need to use every little piece to get closer to its goals. Upshot: A cooler servers start with the processor.

The obvious answer here is to move the CPUs farther apart. But moving them further apart requires more square footage, and square footage is astronomical in places like San Jose and Manhattan. Therefore the following solution starts to make a whole lot of sense:

Homegrown
IT outsourcing options sprout up across rural America.

Welcome to the ever-so-nascent world of rural IT sourcing. Both large and small companies are tapping into a highly skilled but often underemployed IT workforce in lower-cost rural areas--frequently as an alternative to shipping work overseas.

http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,4814 ,100632,00.html

Oh, and one more link, talking about more than just the Windows OS:

http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/win dows/story/0,10801,96047,00.html

In fact, her position has often been more anti-Linux than pro-Microsoft. This is the same Laura Didio that signed the SCO NDA back in 2003 and came back to report:

"The courts are going to ultimately have to prove this, but based on what I'm seeing ... I think there is a basis that SCO has a credible case," and "This is not a nuisance case."

Toshiba announced "perpendicular recording" technology in 2004 with a scheduled release Q2, not late this year or next year. With a much better description of how "3d" perpendicular recording works.

According to this article at Computer World http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardwa re/story/0,10801,100808,00.html Transmeta is getting some new business from Sony to make derivatives of the new Cell processor. smp

Hitachi has a 400GB drive that's readily available, and they've released a 500GB drive (seriously!), but I haven't seen it retail yet.

Personal data need to be treated as government certification of Secret documents, or at least give it Collateral classification level treatment. When personal data is checked out and allowed to be placed on laptops or other portable devices for removal from the central location where the data is stored, personal responsibility needs to be ensured and access should be confirmed by 1) need to know basis and 2) those who are trained to undergo training with confidential data.

Granted, this will not prevent all leaks as even the State Department, CIA and FBI have had problems with missing laptops, but they are getting better about data confidentiality and security through training and implementation of protocols designed to limit leaks and unauthorized access.

Life is about choices and trade-offs. Face up to the truth. You made your choice. Now accept the trade-offs.

He is right that the most revolutionary years for personal computing are yet to come, but the "PC", as defined by an Intel Processor + a Microsoft operating system, is dead. That doesn't mean that the PC is somehow vanishing or becoming irrelevant. Mainframes and minicomputers were once also thought to be obsolete, but those platforms continue to be used widely today. It simply implies that, like its predecessors, the PC will remain important, but its central role as a driver of innovation in the technology industry is waning. The real growth and innovation is happening with new kinds of devices that are definitely "personal", but have a completely different design from the classical "PC". For example, worldwide mobile phone sales jumped 30 percent in 2004, reaching 674 million units. That compares with PC shipments that grew 14.2% to 176.5 million units. Other devices like handheld music players are just getting started. These types of devices will define personal computing for the vast majority of users in the future, not PCs.

Someone at Symantic retiring and they are trying to pump up the stock?

Recent Symantic news:
OSX Doom and gloom, Symantic will save you.

Fire Fox doom and gloom Symantic will save you.

Now this

See also Symantec: Mozilla-based browsers increasingly targeted by hackers.

As a user of Firefox on OS X, I'm terrified.

Shouldn't you say, "IF a laptop is stolen..."? What business are you in that laptops go missing willy-nilly! I should think that before one installs scripts to say where the laptop went I might invest in some padlocks on the office building ;)

He probably works at Los Alamos National Laboratories. Or the Navy. ;)

And at least by going through the exercise of thinking like an attacker they may help spur the development of better defenses, traps, early warnings, recovery procedures , what have you.

We have a difficult enough job getting machines to do what we want, without pseudo-academics like this giving manufacturers yet another excuse to compromise on quality.

Once bad chips are allowed out the door, it can be difficult to know where and how they'll be used.

NASA for example, has a whole team of engineers scouring eBay and other outlets, just to find vintage electronic parts for the Space Shuttle program!

http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardwa re/story/0,10801,71140,00.html

If a 2000-styled election cliffhanger happens again, perhaps we'll have USC to thank for it.

It could be just coincidence, but Burst.com is also a company held by Baystar Capital. These are the people responsible for $50 million in funding for the SCO legal case against IBM over Linux. But then you would have to believe that when Microsoft helped Baystar and SCO meet was a coincidence. And don't forget when Microsoft bought $12 million in SCO licenses when they didn't need them.

And who can forget when Sun bought SCO licenses too and then less than a year later, Microsoft and Sun were best friends and settled their lawsuits with each other.

Maybe some of this stuff is a coincidence and then again maybe none of it is. I find it hard to believe that all of it is a coincidence though.

I registered JUST for this. On this website it claims: "The San Francisco-based bank said it also installed more than 3,000 online stations in nearly all of its 6,046 branch locations" So, Wells Fargo has done a half-machine job, eh?

Actually, you're completely wrong.

Mac OS X is actually the number one shipping UNIX/UNIX-like OS in the world, surpassing Linux and all commercial UNIXes.

Yes, surpassing Linux.

No, not just on the desktop.

Yes, even servers.

(Okay, maybe not on embedded devices, but definitely in computers/servers/workstations. By far.)

Apple, in unit shipments, is the largest vendor of UNIX systems in the world. They may not be used in the same fashion, but Apple completely eclipses "unix/solaris/linux/bsd" in shipped units, in fact ridiculously so.

"With the release of Mac OS X, Apple became the largest vendor of Unix in the world"

"There are over 5 million Mac OS X users, including scientists, animators, developers, and system administrators, making Apple the largest vendor of UNIX-based systems."

A lot more...

This has been common knowledge for a couple of years now.

And to repeat. THIS INCLUDES SERVERS. There are now over 12 million Mac OS X systems in use (source: 23:40 of WWDC keynote). This by far eclipses shipments by all other UNIX/UNIX-like system vendors. Apple is the single largest vendor of UNIX-based systems in the world, bar none.

They hired a deputy CIO who did not have a degree. More accurately she had a degree from on a non accredited diploma mill check it out it looks like a church.

Normally I'd have no problems with a deputy CIO not having a degree but apparently the dept of homeland security did not check out their deputy CIO carefully enough and now they had to "put her on leave".

Now we find out they are putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

Something is seriously askew at this dept. How can we trust these guys to safeguard our country when they have shown such awful judgement?

What are your credentials? Must lie in something other than computers and internet, since all of the nerds here can answer questions such as yours by doing a Google search. If you had bothered to so so, you'd have read that Clarke was chairman of Bush's Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Board when he retired in 2003. He was also the first counter-terrorism coordinator. His office also released the US National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, and he seems to be enough of an authority in the field to be interviewed by IEEE Security & Privacy. There is a lot more to his background, if one really cares to investigate.

So, I'd say that he's pretty well credentialed to comment on threats to US cybersecurity. Perhaps not from the perspective as a bits-and-bytes technologist, but certainly as someone who has expertise in assessing systemic strengths/weaknesses from the perspective of counter-terrorism.

Problems filing 10-K indicate serious problems in their accounting department.

Maybe it's a problem with management sorting things out now that Yarro's out and Noorda's back at Canopy. Probably just wishful thinking.

Now before people starting giving out about the Fink, he is one of people who got HP to start supporting Linux (and especially Debian). And has done a lot of evangelical work for Linux, Open Source, & Free Software.

He also talked a little about software patents, and how that even if one disagrees with them that one still need to pay attention to them. And that it's not the fact that one has patented something, but what one does with a patent that counts. Only problem with this is that any of us came up with a great software patentable idea, we probably couldn't afford the fees involved in patenting something and then allowing free use of it.

Fink is the head of Linux services at HP, he is also VP or director at OSDL, see his bio at the Linux Expo site.

Think this is some obscure industry sideshow? Think again. Yarro was the architect of The SCO Group's assault on Linux and its corporate users. Yarro used his position to turn a Noorda-funded Linux start-up named Caldera into the anti-Linux litigation machine SCO.

blue

"While I regret the board and I have differences about how to execute HP's strategy, I respect their decision," Fiorina said a statement. "HP is a great company, and I wish all the people of HP much success in the future."

There have been other shakeups in personel at HP leading to speculation that there is something wrong. You have to wonder if all the animosity she accrued while making the HP/Compaq merger happen has finally been returned.

As noted in a previous article, this is nothing new. In fact, Amazon.com has already done this.

There are many technical problems with this change. It essentially undermines IDNA, which is now on standards track, by adding a level of guessing to the DNS that IDNA is explicitly designed to avoid. Further, it makes it appear that IDNs are only useful in domain names for web sites (and only for sites in .com and .net), and only at the second level. VGRS has said that their plug-in will not work with most of the ccTLDs, for example.

For example, if you enter .com in Internet Explorer for Windows, where "" is the single hex octet 0xE5, you see the screen shown in the attached file called "[lynn-message-to-iab-06jan03-]e5.tif". (Sorry about the TIFF image, but it's the only reliable format for PC screen dumps.) As you can see, VGRS makes wild guesses about what the user wanted, some of which are very clearly impossible. Worse yet, they do not include all of the legal guesses that they could have made. And, just to make it completely confusing to the user, not all of the choices work.

The DNS is not supposed to be a best-guess service, yet VGRS has turned .com and .net into this just before IDNA is to be an RFC. VGRS should not be allowed, through its monopoly on the .com and .net gTLDs, to destroy the coherence of the DNS for its own short-term profit. ICANN should demand that VGRS immediately stop giving incorrect answers to any query in .com and .net, and should instead follow the IETF standards. If VGRS refuses, ICANN should re-delegate the .com and .net zones to registries that are more willing to follow the DNS standards.

December 1994
Apple Computer sues San Francisco Canyon Company for using Apple Computer's QuickTime code to speed up Microsoft's Video for Windows product.

I got this in my computer world email subscrib, a bit more info then then CNN article. Computer World

I'm not going to have a pissing contest because we could probably go back and forth all day...but just one thing.

Du you just want to repeat some FUD about Sun, you heard somewhere?
This was _not_ a bug I heard somewhere. I was one of the first people to ever get this bug. I ran 14 netra t105s, 25 ultraIIs and 4 220rs. All of them had the UltraIIi processor. Most of them were incredibly stable, until a cache error crept in. Then I'd find them at an OK prompt with nothing to say for themselves. I'd go digging and find something like "Transient Error CPU x" (that's not what it said, but those were some of the words) in messages. After explaing to the boss why the oracle/web/nfs server died in the middle of the night, I'd have to make a support call to sun (You know, those guys you pay an extraordinary amount of money to).
Sun would give me the run around on the phone, then after a couple hours and talking to every "engineer" there, I was told it was a transient error, and it would only realistically happen once in a server's lifetime.
Only later did I run across more people having the problems, and none of them were given a straight answer from sun. This, of course, shattered any confidence I had in Sun.
Later, when McNealy actually acknowledged the problem, Sun earned some of my respect back.
More:
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardwa re/story/0,10801,66102,00.html

BTW, regarding your BTW:
BTW: There is so much broken with x86 hardware
I paid for Sun hardware expecting the best out of either class. When I buy cheap x86 hardware, I'm prepared for the worst. However, when I buy a 3com905b, I know I'm getting a good qualitity card. When I buy a Cyrix, I'm prepared for the worst, I'm ready for a bug. When I buy a Sun, I assume the hardware has been tested and some engineers have poured their heart and soul into the designs of the unit. Now, I just purchase AMD and in the future I will probably try to get some IBM P720s to test.

Isn't UltraSPARC II Sun hardware, too? ;-)
I don't really know, sounds like you do. I know that the last sun I owned had it, and I loved it.

p.s. Sorry if it's all garbled, I haven't had any coffee yet.

IANAL, but, historically there has always been a significant legal distinction between reverse-enginnering in a "clean" setting for the purpose of interoperatbility and copyright infringement. See, for example, Phoenix Technology's revese engineering of IBM's BIOS. This principle has been upheld recently; the DMCA even has a specific exemption for reverse engineering for interoperability.

I'm not familiar with the specifics of what mldonkey is doing, but I suspect that the answer to your question lies in this concept. Certainly it holds for gaim and trillian.

Post a story about THIS. YET another SERIOUS security flaw in MS Office.

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/secu rity/story/0,10801,99040,00.html (Slashdot adds space to the link so remove the space character)

He'd never lie to us, would he?

It took me a good couple minutes to pull the article off the site--did we really manage to take down Computerworld? Regardless, here's the text...

Microsoft woos PeopleSoft customers
It wasted little time going after firms unhappy with the Oracle takeover

News Story by Marc L. Songini

JANUARY 10, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Microsoft Corp. isn't wasting any time moving to scoop up worried or disgruntled PeopleSoft Inc. customers uncertain about the prospect of becoming part of Oracle Corp.'s installed base.

Only days after Oracle completed its accelerated takeover of PeopleSoft (see story), Microsoft Business Solutions today announced a new effort to get users to migrate from PeopleSoft software to Microsoft products. The company said it would offer financial incentives as well as specialized consulting services to any interested PeopleSoft customer through June 22. The offer includes a 25% license discount and a 25% discount for support and enhancement programs for the first year.

"PeopleSoft customers need to make a decision on whether to ante up for another year on their maintenance contracts, and this often involves a fairly substantial financial investment," said Tami Reller, vice president of marketing for Microsoft Business Solutions. She argued that Microsoft can provide customers with more than just a minimum of support and has a clear and compelling product road map.

Customers who choose to take advantage of the program have to sign on with a local Microsoft partner and file the necessary paperwork to document they were doing business with PeopleSoft before its takeover by Oracle.

Among the program's components will be a strategic assessment service offered by partners to help customers decide about their migration, Reller said. Software tools will also be available to assist companies in the upgrade or migration.

Reller didn't have hard numbers about how many customers have already defected, but she said most of them were onetime J.D. Edwards & Co. customers. J.D. Edwards was bought out by PeopleSoft in 2003.

Microsoft is recommending that PeopleSoft World and PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne customers migrate to its Axapta suite, while North America-based PeopleSoft Enterprise users should standardize on its Great Plains ERP application.

Oracle had no comment today on the program.

It took me a good couple minutes to pull the article off the site--did we really manage to take down Computerworld? Regardless, here's the text...

Microsoft woos PeopleSoft customers
It wasted little time going after firms unhappy with the Oracle takeover

News Story by Marc L. Songini

JANUARY 10, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Microsoft Corp. isn't wasting any time moving to scoop up worried or disgruntled PeopleSoft Inc. customers uncertain about the prospect of becoming part of Oracle Corp.'s installed base.

Only days after Oracle completed its accelerated takeover of PeopleSoft (see story), Microsoft Business Solutions today announced a new effort to get users to migrate from PeopleSoft software to Microsoft products. The company said it would offer financial incentives as well as specialized consulting services to any interested PeopleSoft customer through June 22. The offer includes a 25% license discount and a 25% discount for support and enhancement programs for the first year.

"PeopleSoft customers need to make a decision on whether to ante up for another year on their maintenance contracts, and this often involves a fairly substantial financial investment," said Tami Reller, vice president of marketing for Microsoft Business Solutions. She argued that Microsoft can provide customers with more than just a minimum of support and has a clear and compelling product road map.

Customers who choose to take advantage of the program have to sign on with a local Microsoft partner and file the necessary paperwork to document they were doing business with PeopleSoft before its takeover by Oracle.

Among the program's components will be a strategic assessment service offered by partners to help customers decide about their migration, Reller said. Software tools will also be available to assist companies in the upgrade or migration.

Reller didn't have hard numbers about how many customers have already defected, but she said most of them were onetime J.D. Edwards & Co. customers. J.D. Edwards was bought out by PeopleSoft in 2003.

Microsoft is recommending that PeopleSoft World and PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne customers migrate to its Axapta suite, while North America-based PeopleSoft Enterprise users should standardize on its Great Plains ERP application.

Oracle had no comment today on the program.

It took me a good couple minutes to pull the article off the site--did we really manage to take down Computerworld? Regardless, here's the text...

Microsoft woos PeopleSoft customers
It wasted little time going after firms unhappy with the Oracle takeover

News Story by Marc L. Songini

JANUARY 10, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Microsoft Corp. isn't wasting any time moving to scoop up worried or disgruntled PeopleSoft Inc. customers uncertain about the prospect of becoming part of Oracle Corp.'s installed base.

Only days after Oracle completed its accelerated takeover of PeopleSoft (see story), Microsoft Business Solutions today announced a new effort to get users to migrate from PeopleSoft software to Microsoft products. The company said it would offer financial incentives as well as specialized consulting services to any interested PeopleSoft customer through June 22. The offer includes a 25% license discount and a 25% discount for support and enhancement programs for the first year.

"PeopleSoft customers need to make a decision on whether to ante up for another year on their maintenance contracts, and this often involves a fairly substantial financial investment," said Tami Reller, vice president of marketing for Microsoft Business Solutions. She argued that Microsoft can provide customers with more than just a minimum of support and has a clear and compelling product road map.

Customers who choose to take advantage of the program have to sign on with a local Microsoft partner and file the necessary paperwork to document they were doing business with PeopleSoft before its takeover by Oracle.

Among the program's components will be a strategic assessment service offered by partners to help customers decide about their migration, Reller said. Software tools will also be available to assist companies in the upgrade or migration.

Reller didn't have hard numbers about how many customers have already defected, but she said most of them were onetime J.D. Edwards & Co. customers. J.D. Edwards was bought out by PeopleSoft in 2003.

Microsoft is recommending that PeopleSoft World and PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne customers migrate to its Axapta suite, while North America-based PeopleSoft Enterprise users should standardize on its Great Plains ERP application.

Oracle had no comment today on the program.

This is a by-product of UPS's Industrial Engineering unit with the aim of not keeping an eye on their employees as much as making sure packages are sent as quickly as possible.

Without this unit you wouldn't have packages sent as quickly to you thanks to their research in creating systems to determine the shortest land route to deliver as many packages as possible or track packages accurately.

This is with the aim of helping deliveries of your amazon product or thinkgeek gear get to you as quickly as possible. What's the problem with that?

Residual data is pretty real. My friend works for a company that used to do data recovery (they have evolved to selling wholesale lockboxes to financial industry). Everything from formatted hard drives, to hard drives that were in a fire. There are plenty of articles on the web that discuss the different methods of recovering data from a formatted disk. Google it and you should find plenty of articles:

Dawn of the Undead Data

New worm, Santy.A, using Google to spread

He sees you when you're posting, he knows when you write spam, he hates it when you flame users, so be good for goodness' sake!