Slashdot Mirror

Maybe the Moon is made of green cheese. Your "popular" argument is old and lame.

Steve Ballmer's graphic showed that Linux already holds more than 10% of the desktop market share. By your metric we should already have a Linux bot farm that contains 130,000 Linux zombies. 770 zombies is totally insignificant. However, the Linux desktop market share is higher than 10% in other countries.

Five months ago it was reported that 30% of Chinas desktops ran Linux and 60% ran Windows. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Chinas-Red-Flag-Sees-Desktop-as-Linux-Battlefield These governmentscity and provincialcompared the performance, capabilities and price of desktop Linux and Windows and they considered whether they could migrate all their applications from Windows to Linux. So finally about 30 percent of desktops in China now use Linux. Microsoft has about 60 percent.
Thats from the agency that make RedFlag Linux, Chinas own version of Linux.

That would mean that if your argument is correct we should already be seeing a Linux bot farm with 390,000 Linux zombies. But we don't. If such a farm existed Microsoft's "Highly Reliable Times" would be crowing over it, just they way they crowed over their .NET solution to the London Stock Exchange... which, by the way, was replaced today by a Linux solution.

Within the next 8 years Asia will adopt 861 million computers, compared with 92 million in the US, 130 million in Europe and 160 million in South America. Linux will be running the desktop on more computers around the world than there are people in the USA. As the netbook sales increase, and older computers are brought back into service because of the economy it will be Linux that will be used to revitalize them. Linux and its applications are free.
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VFX-4X01P8S-2&_user=10&_co

"Brain...*already* locked up. Isn't the Market Share Myth getting old? Does anybody [I mean, besides MicroSoft apologists] *really* believe it? - by baristabrian (1635747) on Saturday September 19, @07:37AM (#29475607)

See my subject-line above, because Apple computers has been forced to believe it & concede the whole "MacOS X is more secure than Windows" was a sham... per this article:

----

Mac OS X's Reputation for Security Wearing Thin:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Mac-OS-Xs-Reputation-for-Security-Wearing-Thin-845683/?kc=EWKNLSTE08112009STR4

----

Once Apple's MacOS X started gaining more marketshare & user's "mindshare"? They started getting attack more & more... disproving the entire line of b.s. you heard around here and elsewhere that "% of market doesn't matter" etc. et al, because it does & the facts tend to bear that much out on Windows vs. Mac @ least.

Now, as I said here in this very exchange -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1373959&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=29471435#29472419

?

Well, again: IF Linux ever suddenly "took the planet by storm" & displaced Windows NT-based OS as the "King of the Hill", marketshare-wise? I think most of you guys on Linux would start seeing EXACTLY what I am talking about, as the folks @ Apple have had to. It is, how it is. Period.

The more folks gather on a particular OS, the more criminals will show up to take advantage of them. That is the way it works, and the way it has always worked, period. This is just human nature's bad side is all.

APK

This is only a fraction of their egregious behavior. I am sure you know how to use Google. Try it some time. You will find a lot more eye opening info on the ruthless, vicious, unethical mobsters that are Microsoft executives.

I used to defend them back when I was young and ignorant to their marketplace behavior. I have learned a lot over the years. These people are slime.

As far as i4i goes. I think all sofware patents are bad. What makes software so special that it needs the protections of copyright and the patent system? Should music be patented too? How about story concepts in books? The i4i patent on using a standard is ridiculous. Even though they have an actual product based on this patent. I hope i4i loses this suit because they are patenting sofware and methods of using a standard. It still does not take away from the fact that Microsoft reaps what they sow.

This is only a fraction of their egregious behavior. I am sure you know how to use Google. Try it some time. You will find a lot more eye opening info on the ruthless, vicious, unethical mobsters that are Microsoft executives.

I used to defend them back when I was young and ignorant to their marketplace behavior. I have learned a lot over the years. These people are slime.

As far as i4i goes. I think all sofware patents are bad. What makes software so special that it needs the protections of copyright and the patent system? Should music be patented too? How about story concepts in books? The i4i patent on using a standard is ridiculous. Even though they have an actual product based on this patent. I hope i4i loses this suit because they are patenting sofware and methods of using a standard. It still does not take away from the fact that Microsoft reaps what they sow.

Considering the continuing legal troubles, I'm surprised they found a buyer. That's why Google purportedly backed out of negotiations to buy them some time back.

They can't.

Please see Ransom Love's comment:

Indeed, at first we wanted to open-source all of Unix's code, but we quickly found that even though we owned it, it was, and still is, full of other companies copyrights.

"MsWord has too large an installed base and there is too much inertia for people to change."

What?!? But Jeremy Reimer has spoken! How dare you claim we should not all follow his example into Linux bliss:
"I chose MediaWiki, the open-source software that powers Wikipedia. It was relatively easy to install on a virtual Linux server. Since everyone has read Wikipedia, the interface was familiar and so our users needed no training."

I'm glad it was easy for you to install it on your virtual Linux server, could everyone in your office do that? Could your mom? Could your replacement?

While this is a nice idea it doesn't sound like a mainstream solution. My old job had just started a wiki for the FAQs. Few people used it due to login issues and an over-complicated system of finding information. It'll take the kids of today becoming the adults of tomorrow before we can move offices into a completely wiki-type system.

I think we'll all be using Google Docs in the near future, especially if Google Chrome OS does well on netbooks. Google Docs already has a share feature and I'm sure adding a wiki wouldn't be too difficult.

Look at how quickly Apple ported Mac OS to Intel.

Apple maintained an internal cross platform port.

Here it is:
"First and foremost, the drive itself measures 12.5mm in height due to its capacity, and finds itself too thick for the majority of existing notebooks -- many of which use the traditional 69.85mm x 100mm x 9.5mm form factor," Mann wrote in his blog.

Even the last generation Macbook Pro 17 supported 12.5mm drives.

Does the MBP 3,1 Santa Rosa? A few months ago I replaced the 160GB drive mine came with with a 320GB drive. That was the biggest one I could find.

Falcon

Actually they won't fit in most laptops. About the only thing they're good for is external drives.

Falcon

to 1 TB since you can put 2.5" hard drives in there.

Maybe not. According to an article on eWeek it's height is 12.5mm. The PS3 probably has more clearance than most if not all laptops so it may fit in. I was hoping it'd fit in my MacBook Pro but I doubt it. And the thing is is I replaced the 160 GB HDD my MBP came with with the biggest drive I could find for it a 320 GB drive a few months ago.

About all the drives are good for is USB or Firewire, however I already have a 1.5 TB external drive.

Falcon

The best way to protect against drive failure is to buy server grade SATA drives, which are designed for 24/7/365*5 operation, and not cheap PC drives which are designed for 10 hours per day for 3-4 years. Buy server grade SATA drives, mirror them using a hardware controller, back up daily, sleep at night.

Err, thats been proven questionable. More specifically, here is an article from eweek and here is the google talk about a large study of drive lifetime characteristics. "Server" drives are just as good as "consumer" drives when it comes to lifetime. The only benefit you get with the more expensive drives is slightly better performance (NCQ, higher rpm, larger buffers, etc). I have several machines at home that run 24x7x365 on the "cheap PC drives" in raid1 pairs (linux md) and a non-raided windoze box, and have had to replace 2 drives out of 12+ over the past 8 years due to failure: I tend to need to upgrade to larger ones before they fail. Even at work we have used the cheaper drives in clusters, next to others running enterprise level drives and found no benefit to the extra cost in most situations.

-Tm

I think he's referring to the handling of the case after Clinton left office. The DoJ won the antitrust case right at the end of Clinton's 2nd term. So, before it was concluded and the remedies settled, the Bush people took over.

Very quickly after that, the Bush DoJ amazed experts by publicly stating it would not pursue structural remedies, and would drop its complaints about the (technically ludicrous) bundling IE with the OS.

The settlement they ultimately reached with Microsoft was essentially toothless and beyond the wildest fantasy that Microsoft could have hoped for, given the fact that the government had already won a categorical victory against them in court.

Whether this was the result of bribes paid by Microsoft (who went from being notably apolotical to Washington's largest lobbyist during the course of the trial), or simply because Bush's people leaned libertarian and didn't really believe in enforcing the antitrust laws, or a combination of the two, is anybody's guess.

I don't understand the problem here. Microsoft have far more Windows testers than every other OS put together.

Mods: please read the links before moderating.

That's only because everyone daring to USE a Microsoft product is treated by Microsoft like a beta tester.

Mods: please read the links before moderating.

"Do you know what's easier to do than following any of those directions? Buying a fucking Mac." - by RyuuzakiTetsuya (195424) on Monday June 15, @09:37PM (#28343231)

Think so? MacOS X, once it started gaining more popularity, began to be attacked as well - proving the points I made in my "p.s." in my prior post you responded to!

APK

P.S.=> Here are 20 "evidences thereof", as to my statements above about MacOS X, being "virus/trojan/spyware/malware-in-general" prone, like ANY OS IS - thus, here we go:

A Worm for Your Apple:

http://www.beskerming.com/commentary/2007/07/18/222/A_Worm_for_Your_Apple

Another Mac Trojan/Fake Codec:

http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2007/11/another_mac_trojanfake_codec.php

Leopard Has More Holes than Spots:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Leopard-Has-More-Holes-than-Spots/

Mac OS X Exploit Rapidly Follows Patch:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Mac-OS-X-Exploit-Rapidly-Follows-Patch/

More Mac Vulnerabilities Than Windows In 2007?

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/170241&from=rss

OS X Still Open to Samba Vulnerabilities:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2141380,00.asp

A Little .Mac Security Flaw:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/12/16/0055211.shtml

Ancient Flaws May Leave Mac OS X Vulnerable:

http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/06/01/26/2224236.shtml

Apple Clients Still Vulnerable After DNS Patch:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/08/01/1932258.shtml

Apple Still Has Not Patched the DNS Hole:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/28/2311240

Mac OS X Root Escalation Through AppleScript:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/18/1919224

Mac OS X Users Vulnerable To Major Java Flaw:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/19/2344239

Macs May No Longer Be Immune to Viruses:

http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/06/05/01/0359225.shtml

OS X Leopard Firewall Flawed:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/30/188214

Two Trojans for MacOS X:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/06/25/0032226.shtml

Worm Threat Forces Apple To Disable Software?

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/08/03/1451217.shtml

Zombie Macs Launch DoS Attack:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/16/2327246

Third flaw hits Mac OS X:

http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?NewsID=5429

(Want more? I can provide them, & a larger list for Linux over time also... as I said I could in my post to the "Pro-Penguin" pe

"Do you know what's easier to do than following any of those directions? Buying a fucking Mac." - by RyuuzakiTetsuya (195424) on Monday June 15, @09:37PM (#28343231)

Think so? MacOS X, once it started gaining more popularity, began to be attacked as well - proving the points I made in my "p.s." in my prior post you responded to!

APK

P.S.=> Here are 20 "evidences thereof", as to my statements above about MacOS X, being "virus/trojan/spyware/malware-in-general" prone, like ANY OS IS - thus, here we go:

A Worm for Your Apple:

http://www.beskerming.com/commentary/2007/07/18/222/A_Worm_for_Your_Apple

Another Mac Trojan/Fake Codec:

http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2007/11/another_mac_trojanfake_codec.php

Leopard Has More Holes than Spots:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Leopard-Has-More-Holes-than-Spots/

Mac OS X Exploit Rapidly Follows Patch:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Mac-OS-X-Exploit-Rapidly-Follows-Patch/

More Mac Vulnerabilities Than Windows In 2007?

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/170241&from=rss

OS X Still Open to Samba Vulnerabilities:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2141380,00.asp

A Little .Mac Security Flaw:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/12/16/0055211.shtml

Ancient Flaws May Leave Mac OS X Vulnerable:

http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/06/01/26/2224236.shtml

Apple Clients Still Vulnerable After DNS Patch:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/08/01/1932258.shtml

Apple Still Has Not Patched the DNS Hole:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/28/2311240

Mac OS X Root Escalation Through AppleScript:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/18/1919224

Mac OS X Users Vulnerable To Major Java Flaw:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/19/2344239

Macs May No Longer Be Immune to Viruses:

http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/06/05/01/0359225.shtml

OS X Leopard Firewall Flawed:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/30/188214

Two Trojans for MacOS X:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/06/25/0032226.shtml

Worm Threat Forces Apple To Disable Software?

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/08/03/1451217.shtml

Zombie Macs Launch DoS Attack:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/16/2327246

Third flaw hits Mac OS X:

http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?NewsID=5429

(Want more? I can provide them, & a larger list for Linux over time also... as I said I could in my post to the "Pro-Penguin" pe

"If those were the best examples you could come up withm then I guess you succeeded in disproving your own point." - by parodyca (890419) on Friday June 12, @10:12AM (#28307657) Homepage

Well, @ this point, here are 50++ more evidences of his title of "Viruses aren't a Problem in Linux" subject-line being b.s.!

That all "said & aside"? Here we go:

Threat Encyclopedia Search Results for *NIX oriented malwares/virus/trojans etc. et al (pages 14-25, approximately 50++ more ontop of the 40 or so I have already noted in my prior posts here):

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=14&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=15&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=16&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=17&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=18&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=19&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=20&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=21&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=22&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=23&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=24&ltr=U

http://threatinfo.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/alphalisting.asp?NAV=25&ltr=U

&

New Worm Targets Linux Web Service Holes:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/New-Worm-Targets-Linux-Web-Service-Holes/

More info on the new Linux worm

http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/305

APK

P.S.=> Oh, by the by: If the (so far) 90++ evidences of worms, viruses, trojans, malwares & general faults in Linux' security? I think you're not as experienced in these matters as you'd like to think is all - especially with you're stating & agreeing about this exchange's subject-line of "Viruses Aren't a Problem in Linux" etc. et al... apk

"Gee, you had to go back 8 years to find three issues. The first one isn't even malware, just bad programming by the vendor that reduces performance. The next two are specific to Apache web servers, NOT Linux." - by parodyca (890419)
on Friday June 12, @10:12AM (#28307657) Homepage

Does it matter how far back I had to go, & no, not all are from "8 yrs. ago", because below also shows otherwise!

So, to prove the subject-line is bullshit? I provided contrary evidence thereof...

However, it appears You need more proofs then, apparently, so here you are/"ask & ye shall receive":

Linux RAMEN Worm:

http://service1.symantec.com/sarc/sarc.nsf/html/linux.ramen.worm.html

Net-Worm.Linux.Mighty:/b>

http://www.viruslist.com/en/viruses/encyclopedia?virusid=23864

DroneBL Security researchers warn of Linux Router worm (PsyB0t)

http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=25399&catid=5

Linux ADORE Worm:

http://www.sss.ca/sensible/home.nsf/6481a22be8dfdd19852568c900171fc6/abbbaec934169f6d85256a280054fd31?OpenDocument

New Worm Targets Linux Web Service Holes:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/New-Worm-Targets-Linux-Web-Service-Holes/

gicumz worm:

http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/305

Linux malware list (37 Viruses, worms, & trojans on Linux):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_computer_viruses

(Want more?? I'll supply them... & they're not all "8 years back either", don't you OR can't you read & determine dates? Apparently not...)

APK

P.S.=> Better luck next time, because all of your "it's old news" b.s. propoganda doesn't matter, if your subject-line is absolute b.s. - gotta love the Linux Penguin crew around here, with their "straight outta pravda" 1/2 truths they spout... lol! apk

But in terms of doing special things for other languages, there are actually quite a few languages targeted at the Java VM for quite a while. And it actually works pretty well for a wide variety of languages. There are some languages that are very hard to do, like C and C++. And thats mostly because theres no way to do them correctly without creating huge security holes. And thats part of the problem with C and C++. Their naked pointers are just a problem.

See here.

Gosling doesn't actually state that the JVM was designed the way it was because of the naked pointer problem, so you may not be convinced by that interview, which took place more than a decade after Java was first released to the public. And, since I didn't think to make a note of the article that mentioned the Java design goals, more than 10 years ago, I can't prove *my* point right now, either. Mea culpa.

Maybe Gosling only realized that "naked pointers" can cause security problems after he designed Java?

Whatever...

Google fourth quarter 2008 Google first quarter 2009

"This one is different and much more troubling, since it harms not just our company, but also damages the systems and productivity of a large number of other companies and organizations around the world. The perpetrator of this virus is attacking SCO, but hurting many others at the same time"

"There are computers with incorrect clock settings that may already be firing off an attack," against SCO's site"

Curiously enough SCOs site was hit before the virus was set to trigger and a company Centershift based in the same co-location facility was hit at the same time and/or were having contemporaneous problems with the same hosting company. And iirc the DNS record for www.sco.com briefly disappeared at the time.

Jim Rapoza of eWeek has a great article on the subject of monopolistic behavior in this month's issue (which can be seen on line at http://etech.eweek.com/content/operating_systems/apple_trumps_microsoft_google_as_tech_monopolist.html) and while I'm sure the view might not be as popular here on /. I think it bears reading.

According to IBM, the name was meant to indicate the goal of eclipsing Microsoft Visual Studio, not anything to do with Sun Microsystems. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Eclipse-Behind-the-Name/

"Eclipse" is when the Sun is blocked/hidden/occulted by something else. It makes IBM's reasons for funding Eclipse dead obvious.

I completely agree so long as you remember that Eclipse targeted Visual Studio and not Sun. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Eclipse-Behind-the-Name/

But increasingly they can't command that price. Their market share has been plummeting lately.

...Apple's U.S. share of the PC market reached 9 percent in third quarter, according to Gartner. U.S. recession and high average selling prices took their toll. Mac market share declined to 8 percent in fourth quarter and to 7.4 percent in first quarter 2009. Apple has even fallen below year-ago January, when U.S. share was 7.5 percent.

Certificates

The problem is that CAs are subject to the "too big to fail" problem. Consider the Comodo certificate debacle -- Comodo delegated the authority to grant certificates to a third-party reseller, CertStar. CertStar then issued a certificate for mozilla.com with no validation whatsoever. This is about as big a breach of trust as a CA can manage short of publicly posting its master private key on a web page in China.

What happened? Fucking nothing happened. Sure, CertStar's wrist was slapped, and Comodo made a bunch of promises, but there were no reprisals, and no consequences. The Mozilla people refused to revoke the Comodo certificate because it would "break the web", and too many websites would stop working mysteriously.

What was the end result? Moral hazard for certificate authorities, and danger for users. My point is that CAs aren't fairies who are always magically correct. They're as vulnerable to incompetence and corruption as any institution.

(P.S.: I disable Comodo certificates in all browsers I use. I suggest you do the same thing.)

Good point, but information you've used is not correct.

FY2008 Apple Unix Desktops revenue: $5.6 Bln.

5.60 b (desktops) + 8.67b (laptops) = 14.27b

I guess I should have said "Desktops and notebooks" or perhaps "workstations" or perhaps even "PCs."

Apple is fighting for PC/Windows desktops market share - they are not in traditional Unix market - big boxes for commercial workloads, mostly databases.

Today, sure. And fifteen years ago, Microsoft was only in the PC market, and had essentially no share of the server market. It's a lot easier for a popular desktop vendor to wedge its way into the server room than for a popular server vendor to wedge its way onto the desktop. (2009 is the year, baby!)

Good point, but information you've used is not correct.
FY2008 Apple Unix Desktops revenue: $5.6 Bln.

Apple is fighting for PC/Windows desktops market share - they are not in traditional Unix market - big boxes for commercial workloads, mostly databases.

Remember Lotus Symphony? It's vying for a comeback.

It's not your dad's Lotus Symphony, though. This version was dubbed OpenOffice in Eclipse Clothing.

redhat too, they just signed a deal with MS for virtualization.

Talk about not reading the article. One of the articles is here . For those who don't want to read the article, the deal was for Microsoft to certify Redhat Linux under Microsoft's visualisation software and for Redhat to certify some of Microsoft's OS's under Redhat's Linux visualisation software. This is nothing like the deal that Microsoft and Novel entered into and Redhat is not selling out.

Tut, tut

Symantec Caught in Norton Rootkit Flap

"Symantec Corp. has admitted to using a rootkit-type feature in Norton SystemWorks that could provide the perfect hiding place for attackers to place malicious files on computers..."

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Symantec-Caught-in-Norton-Rootkit-Flap/

Lumenary7204 said:
> The Net Applications survey seems to be centered on desktops and personal-use devices only, while Microsoft's graphic conceivably includes OS deployment across all kinds of devices (desktops, servers, network appliances, etc.).

According to EWeek, you are wrong and Ballmer was only discussing desktops with that slide. This seems to be collaborated by this story at brighthand which shows a different Ballmer slide just for phone OS share. Which makes the original story more interesting....

So they wan to help laid off workers, just not their own laid off workers?

Microsoft Bungles Severance, Asks Laid Off Workers for Money Back

How Microsoft-esque

With that in mind, you should focus on how to provide the highest value IT services for your University. That means building a business case around any changes that you proposed, including the upfront and ongoing costs of transition, training, and support. As many others have noted, "free" software isn't free.

Your University has thousands of users, including a broad diversity of stakeholders, including executive and administrative staff, faculty, and students. All of them expect to have systems up and running 24x7. Any lengthy downtime in a critical system must be avoided.

So what should you do?

• Recommend the formation of a University-wide task group to look at "future needs" and at potential cost-saving approaches. Make sure to include students. Bring in outsiders with expertise on open source software, including commercial open source solutions, e.g., Sun/MySQL and RedHat/JBoss. You can help to justify the need for a task force by mentioning the costs of moving everyone to Windows 7 next year.
• Make sure that one of the task force recommendations is to set up a server from which people can download various high quality open source software to try on their own mchines. That set can include many of the 25 packages that Palamida rated as enterprise-ready, along with Firefox and OpenOffice.org.
• Perform a census of existing open source software on your IT systems. You might be using a lot more open source software than anyone realizes.
• Put together a couple of demos or pilot projects. For example, you can bring up a working Drupal CMS or Mediawiki wiki within an hour, even less if you start with a preconfigured Bitnami stack. Anyone need a new web site right now?

Of course, there is no assurance that these methods will work, or that proprietary vendors won't try an end run around your efforts. But I've found these techniques to be an effective guerrilla marketing approach in the past. Good luck.

Yeah all of India is a shit hole where people have to eat their own feces to survive. I mean look at all the dirt streets and disease! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mumbai_Downtown.jpg

Yes India does have poor areas but do you honestly think IBM operates in the backwoods areas of India? They're in the good areas, like Mumbai and if you looked at that picture you can see it's not exactly a shit hole.

The wages can't be that bad if Indians are willing to do things like English to take on support roles and thinking that programmers in India some how make minimum wage is silly. In fact some are claiming that India is losing its edge because of wage inflation due to foreign companies sending so much work over there.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/Is-India-Losing-Its-Wage-Edge/
http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=167d1c86c1d28e7607c942fd9891938e
http://www.sharedxpertise.org/file/2070/rising-wages-likely-to-blunt-indias-bpo-edge-deloitte.html

I feel so torn. On one had here is a chance to be paid to work on netbsd. On the other hand the job is with Microsoft.

Time to stick a fork in it, it's done. Sidekick is gone and it's time to move on. Sure it could linger on and slowing languish taking a few good developers with it on the decent into obscurity. But face it, it's owned by MS and the official policy is to stomp anything that does not promote lock-in to Windows/Office. Look at the warning example of Foxpro and see what happens to a good product that MS can't compete with on quality but was too popular to shutdown outright.

Even if the offer is legit, which it probably, isn't, just wasting invaluable developer resources porting Microsoft Useless Widget from Windows CE to NetBSD is a human resources denial of service attack taking developer time away from something useful. An extreme version of that tactic was used against Borland and others. NetBSD is small enough that it is comparable in size to small companies, and taking out enough developers to sink the project is a realistic goal if some NetBSD developers, or potential developers, are naive or weak enough to turn quisling.

Face it. Sidekick is gone, M$ has it, and its now time to finish your mourning, face reality and move on. Start a new company.

sorry eldavojohn, you got it completely wrong in your summary. From eweak article:

"98,304 compute nodes and 1.6 million processing cores."

1000 CPU's per rack makes alot more sense.

BZZT! R2 has not, in the past "been used for very minor updates to Microsoft products" - Windows Server 2003 R2 is a major incremental upgrade to the base product, includes many new features, and Windows Server 2003 non-R2 can not be upgraded via a trivial patch. R2 was not a minor upgrade to Windows Server 2003, as noted here and expanded on here.

I don't know about his legal theory, but presumably the people writing moralityware like the program in this story tell themselves they're doing it to bring people back to the path of righteousness. So that's their duty of care taken care of.

It's not dual screen 1920x1200, but it is dual screen. The Lenovo W700ds

and substituted an unlocked Google Android cell phone, retail price $180.

Everywhere I have seen Google's unlocked Android phone it was for $399. Not $180 which is the price of one that is locked to T-Mobile's network and a 2 year contract. http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/05/sim-hardware-unlocked-android-dev-phone-1-surfaces-for-399/ http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Google-Releases-SIMunlocked-Android-Phone-For-399/ http://code.google.com/android/dev-devices.html all give the $399 price point.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/First-Look-Lenovo-ThinkPad-W700ds-Mobile-Workstation-Laptop/ I want one. I admit it. That thing is sick, as the kids say.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Analysts-iPhone-Has-Neither-Security-nor-Relevance/

http://gizmodo.com/5042332/huge-iphone-security-flaw-puts-all-private-information-at-risk

http://forums.techarena.in/web-news-trends/1050689.htm

EWeek also has an interesting write up with more technical details.

And for the terminally lazy, here's the link.

This is not a place where you want to encounter mistakes, and caution is the word. You might hear excuses for some, but those people are idiots. This is /inexcusable/.

Like this, that, and the other thing?

Instead this guy bends over backwards to explain how this broken database is actually quite useable, and ready for "general production" - how that's different from just "production" is clear: apparently "general production" refers to systems with zero value.

I think it would be better to simply say -- this is not ready for enterprise or mission-critical usage and will not be for some time. My little Saturn will get me to and from work without much complaint for cheap, though it isn't engineered as well as other vehicles and breaks more often. And for me, that's all I need. Many businesses are like that -- they need something cheap that mostly works and if it breaks it can be fixed without too much trouble. It doesn't have to be the best, it just needs to be good enough.

re recovery: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Microsoft-Says-Recovery-from-Malware-Becoming-Impossible/

Sort of answering the thread: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/OpenOfficeorg-Grows-Up/?kc=rss
When Sun Microsystems bought the little-known StarOffice productivity suite in 1999, and soon thereafter released the product's code base as open-source software, it was unclear how far the arguably quixotic initiative might reachâ"and what damage it could possibly wreak on Microsoft's ironclad grip on the office productivity market.

Now, nine years later, Sun is on the verge of a major 3.0 release of the project that grew up around that code base, OpenOffice.org. While OpenOffice.org hasn't achieved the same measure of mainstream adoption as its ideological cousin, the Firefox Web browser, the freely available office suite has helped advance the state of file format standardization, to the extent that Microsoft first developed its own open file format and is now prepared to include support for the ISO-standard OpenDocument format in Office 2007.

It wasn't IBM but Sun... My Goof!

> The machines, rebranded 'Magellan,' will also come with Linux

I tracked down an attribution - with pictures of the device

"This is effectively a second-generation Classmate PC, and integrates a Celeron ULV part and uses Linux, although down the line it is expected to migrate to a fully Atom-based system with a "lighter version of Windows" (whatever that is)."

The Portuguese have also bought 500,000 of the same devices.