Slashdot Mirror

Hope Thelps writes "The Seattle PI is reporting on a lawsuit being brought against Microsoft in response to their WGA spyware. Groklaw is also covering the story. Although there are a lot of similarities to Sony's rootkit, the actual harm done is less concrete. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out."

Kalak writes "IBM's motion to limit SCO's claims to those that have specific version, file and line numbers has been granted, in part. At the end of last year, SCO made 294 allegations. IBM asked for dismissal of 198 of them due to lack of this information, 1 SCO withdrew, 1 IBM withdrew from the request, and 185 of them have been dismissed from the case. This leaves 107 of the charges are left to be addressed by means other than lack of specificity (such as public domain, BSD code, who owns it, etc.) As usual, Groklaw, has discussion, as well as the Order and an excellent chart of the history of alleged violations has been created as well."

Kalak writes "IBM's motion to limit SCO's claims to those that have specific version, file and line numbers has been granted, in part. At the end of last year, SCO made 294 allegations. IBM asked for dismissal of 198 of them due to lack of this information, 1 SCO withdrew, 1 IBM withdrew from the request, and 185 of them have been dismissed from the case. This leaves 107 of the charges are left to be addressed by means other than lack of specificity (such as public domain, BSD code, who owns it, etc.) As usual, Groklaw, has discussion, as well as the Order and an excellent chart of the history of alleged violations has been created as well."

Henri Poole writes "In an interview with Groklaw's Sean Daly at GPLv3 Conference in Barcelona, RMS talks with passion about the dangers of DRM. From the article: 'the point is, we shouldn't be passive victims! We should decide that it will not happen! And the way we decide that is by activism. We have to do everything possible to make sure that those products are rejected, that they fail, that they give bad reputations to whoever makes them.' He closed the interview with a far reaching goal for the Free Software Movement: 'the goal is to liberate everyone in cyberspace.'"

Legal Ethics writes "According to an article on Groklaw, Microsoft is misrepresenting what the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool is to pressure people into installing it. It comes with no uninstall, it fails to disclose many pieces of information it provides to Microsoft, and it misrepresents itself as a 'critical update' when it does not address any security vulnerability, although it remains to be seen if it can create one. ZDNet has a series of screenshots so that you can see exactly how badly it misrepresents itself. Oh, and it also checks for updates, so Microsoft can presumably execute arbitrary code on any machine with it installed, merely by making that code part of a WGA update."

l2718 writes "In the most recent punch-counterpunch of the SCO v. IBM case, IBM is claiming that SCO is trying to vastly expand their claims beyond what they alleged in their list of material allegedly misused by IBM filed last December, using their expert reports. For example, two years ago we covered SCO's claim to own ELF, the main executable format of Linux. Apparently they are have finally made the same claim to a court of law, after the deadline for making such claims. From IBM's memorandum: 'The final disclosures identify 19 Linux files relating to the ELF specification, as well as excerpts from several specification documents. Dr. Cargill far exceeds this claims ... asserting infringement of the entire ELF format ... also ... for the first time, claims to the ELF magic number.'"

l2718 writes "In the most recent punch-counterpunch of the SCO v. IBM case, IBM is claiming that SCO is trying to vastly expand their claims beyond what they alleged in their list of material allegedly misused by IBM filed last December, using their expert reports. For example, two years ago we covered SCO's claim to own ELF, the main executable format of Linux. Apparently they are have finally made the same claim to a court of law, after the deadline for making such claims. From IBM's memorandum: 'The final disclosures identify 19 Linux files relating to the ELF specification, as well as excerpts from several specification documents. Dr. Cargill far exceeds this claims ... asserting infringement of the entire ELF format ... also ... for the first time, claims to the ELF magic number.'"

fistfullast33l writes "Groklaw has reported that the USPTO has ruled the broadest claims of the JPEG Patent held by Fogent to be invalid. PUBPAT, the organization that requested the review, released the news earlier today. According to PJ, the ruling will be hard to overturn as the 'submitters knew about the prior art but failed to tell the USPTO about it.'"

jbeaupre writes "Groklaw has spawned a new feature that may prove useful well beyond the current SCO litigation. The UNIX Methods and Concepts Database began as a list of books and papers on Groklaw that became so large it demanded organization. The new system was announced and is currently a work in progress."

Goalie_Ca writes "Groklaw just posted that the OpenDocument Foundation is offering Massachusetts a plugin that could 'allow Microsoft Office to easily open, render, and save to ODF files, and also allow translation of documents between Microsoft's binary (.doc, .xls, .ppt) or XML formats and ODF ... The testing has been extensive and thorough. As far as we can tell there isn't a problem, even with Accessibility add ons, which as you know is a major concern for Massachusetts.'"

cduffy writes "OpenDocument has been voted in as ISO/IEC 26300, with no dissenting votes and a small number of abstentions. There are still several formalities to take place before final issuance. Now the question: Will OpenXML get the same treatment, despite its technical weaknesses? There's also coverage on Groklaw."

cduffy writes "OpenDocument has been voted in as ISO/IEC 26300, with no dissenting votes and a small number of abstentions. There are still several formalities to take place before final issuance. Now the question: Will OpenXML get the same treatment, despite its technical weaknesses? There's also coverage on Groklaw."

cduffy writes "OpenDocument has been voted in as ISO/IEC 26300, with no dissenting votes and a small number of abstentions. There are still several formalities to take place before final issuance. Now the question: Will OpenXML get the same treatment, despite its technical weaknesses? There's also coverage on Groklaw."

rm69990 writes "In response to SCO's amended complaint against Novell alleging copyright infringement, Novell subsidiary SUSE has requested from the International Chamber of Commerce that SCO be barred from asserting copyright over SUSE Linux due to the UnitedLinux agreement between Caldera, SUSE, Connectiva and Turbolinux. This agreement requires that SCO arbitrate with SUSE instead of filing claims, removes the copyright from any work SCO produced while in UnitedLinux, gives SUSE sublicensing rights to SCO's copyrights, and constitutes an SCO commitment that any code released under an OSS license in UnitedLinux remain Open Source. Novell has filed a motion to stay SCO's claims against Novell until the outcome of this arbitration. So now it looks like Linux users are protected both through the APA between Novell and SCO, but the UnitedLinux agreement as well."

ansak writes "The case of Wallace vs. the Free Software Foundation has been dismissed. It wasn't entirely on the merits of the case. From PJ's analysis, 'despite the judge clearly telling him where his previous complaint was lacking, he didn't fix it.... In this case, he had five tries.' Nevertheless, the judge did make a strong statement that the GPL 'encourages, rather than discourages, free competition' and ordered Wallace to pay court costs: 'Judges do that when they'd like you to learn a good lesson. It's a signal you shouldn't have brought the case in the first place.'"

musicon writes "As seen on Groklaw, a recent court decision upheld the the Creative Commons license in the Netherlands: 'The Creative Commons licenses are quite new, so there has been very little in the way of case law so far, so this is a significant development. The ruling rejected a 'the license wasn't clear' defense, particularly for sophisticated entities, and it upheld the license as binding without the licensee having to agree or even to have knowledge of the terms of the license.' You can read successful plaintiff Adam Curry's blog on the ruling too."

Devistater writes "Yesterday, SCO announced a new MLM called "Me Inc." using the EdgeClick platform in an attempt to boost sales. One of the apps on the Edgeclick site does mass text messages to cell phones. From the article: 'Becoming a Me Inc. Sales Agent requires no technical skills or training and no investment other than a smart phone and a subscription to Me Inc. digital services. With these two simple things, a sales agent can earn up to hundreds or thousands of dollars per sale in commissions and subscription annuities generated by each account they sign up.' Watch out for an increase in spam, SCO style. In the same press release [PDF], SCO also trademarks 'Me.' Groklaw also has a few details on their site."

CDWalton writes "Groklaw has the latest in the SCO v. IBM case. Judge Wells denied SCO the opportunity to get depositions from involved parties after the date she had specified as the cutoff for those activities." From the article: "Brent Hatch started out talking about the request to take the depositions of Intel, Oracle, and The Open Group. Judge Wells brought up her October 12, 2005 order and said that depositions MUST be completed by the cutoff date. That any that cannot be taken by that date must be forgone. Brent stated that they properly noticed the depositions before the cutoff date and that they were not taken for reasons outside his, or his client's, control ... Judge Wells asked if the subpeonas were defective in some manner. Hatch: Yes, they were."

nicolaiplum writes "CNet is reporting that IBM is sending subpoenas to HP, Baystar, Sun and Microsoft requiring them to disclose most of their dealings with SCO over UNIX licensing and litigation." From the article: "The subpoenas demand that Microsoft, HP, Sun and BayStar hand over a range of information, including details of their dealings with SCO, by March 7. They will also have to appear in court later in March to give depositions." Groklaw also has links to each of the subpoenas.

pryonic writes "The Register is reporting that the EU software debate may be reopened by the Internal Markets Commissioner Charlie McCreevy. He has unveiled a public consultation on 'future action in patent policy to create an EU-wide patent system can take account of stakeholders needs.'" More from the article: "Both individuals and businesses are invited to contribute to the consultation which will run until 31 March. In launching the initiative McCreevy said that the European Commission wants to make the single market for patents 'a reality.' He urged individuals and businesses to give their views on how that could be achieved." Groklaw has commentary on this development as well.

gormanly writes "Victor Yodaiken has an article up on Groklaw in which he discusses how DRM may decrease security and reliability. He raises several questions that the developers of DRM technologies ought to answer - because not all computers are merely personal entertainment systems for 'content' consumers." From the article: "Sony BMG put DRM software onto CDs that broke the basic system security and made the entire system slower and less reliable. Imagine that your children put such a CD on your computer and opened an avenue for hackers to make copies of your business memos and personal email ... We are entering the era of ubiquitous and safety critical computing, but the developers of DRM technologies seem to believe that computers are nothing more than personal entertainment systems for consumers. This belief is convenient, because creating DRM mechanisms that respect security, safety, and reliability concerns is going to be an expensive and complex engineering task."

OSS_ilation writes "In an interview over at SearchOpenSource.com, IP attorney Thomas Carey shoots down SCO's cases against IBM and Novell, but predicts that SCO will fight a losing battle to its last. IT directors shouldn't worry about SCO Group's latest sallies in its legal war on Linux vendors IBM Corp. and Novell Inc., Clarey says, and explains why SCO has no case, predicts the open source legal fields of battle for 2006 and discusses SCO's claims against Novell. Carey chairs the Business Practice Group of Bromberg & Sunstein LLP, an intellectual property law practice in Boston, Mass." Groklaw, as always, has additional details and commentary on this.

Joe Barr writes "Joe Brockmeier and I have teamed up in a story on NewsForge to point out how the mainstream and trade press misrepresent the annual summary of vulnerabilities from US-CERT. They're doing it again this year to make it appear as if it is more secure than UNIX/Linux. Pamela Jones did a similar report at Groklaw over the weekend." From the article: "One figure represents the vulnerabilities found in Windows operating systems: XP, NT, 98, and so on. The other represents a total figure not just for Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, the BSDs, and Linux, but for a hundred different versions of Linux. The sum of all the unique vulnerabilities from all the Linux distros does not equate to the sum of vulnerabilities in any single Linux distro, and one could say the same about the various versions of Windows. That's why it is a completely meaningless exercise to discuss those totals as if they present an accurate picture of the relative security of Windows and Linux. " We've reported on the US-CERT list already this year. NewsForge is a sister site to Slashdot.org, both of whom are owned by OSTG.

rm69990 writes "According to Groklaw, SCO now seeks to amend their complaint against Novell. SCO says it 'seeks leave to file a Second Amended Complaint in significant part in consideration of the counterclaims that Novell asserted in its Answer and Counterclaims.' SCO now accuses Novell of infringing SCO's copyrights by distributing SUSE Linux, of breaching a non-compete clause between the two companies, and SCO is also asking for specific performance forcing Novell to turn over the Unix copyrights to SCO. So SCO is essentially admitting that Novell owns the copyrights at this point, but is saying that Novell breached the contract (that specifically excluded copyrights) by failing to transfer them to Santa Cruz."

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including the exoneration of Peter Quinn, the debut of Honda's new ASIMO robot, Vonage customers now all have 911 access, Nathan Peterson pleads guilty to copyright infringement, an interesting follow up to the recent Wikipedia articles, the Citizen e ink clock makes its first real world debut, and a response for criticism of the $100 laptop - read on for details.

Peter Quinn exonerated. An anonymous reader writes "Groklaw is reporting that Peter Quinn, the man who terrified Microsoft by moving part of the Massachusetts government to ODF, has been exonerated of any alleged impropriety concerning his trips to tell others about Massachusetts' move to ODF."

Honda debuts new ASIMO robot. Tomo Hiratsuka writes "Honda's ASIMO robot has received his annual refit and now has the power to carry objects with a cart, serve drinks, and run with both feet off the ground at up to 10mph."

911 now available to Vonage users. Ben writes "Only a month after Vonage 911 Deadline Passed the VoIP phone service announced today that all of its customers now have access to 911 services."

Nathan Peterson pleads guilty to copyright infringement. Chris Bradshaw writes "iBackups' owner Nathan Peterson pled guilty to two counts of criminal copyright infringement for illegally copying and selling nearly $20 million worth of computer software. The FBI was first alerted to possible software piracy by the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA) back in 2003. iBackups was selling pirated copies of software over the internet claiming that they were "backup copies" to be used by software owners in case of system crashes."

Wikipedia still just as effective as normal encyclopedia. AxelBoldt writes "The Australian newspaper The Age reports that Nature has run a formal comparison of the science coverage of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. From the article: 'The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, around three.'"

Citizen e ink clock makes its debut. Tim Jones writes "The flexible e ink clock that Citizen announced what seems like ages ago is finally making an appearance in the real world. It's apparently going to be displayed at a Tokyo exhibition this week."

$100 laptop not quite so ineffectual. segphault writes "Ars Technica posted a response to Intel chairman Craig Barret's criticism of MIT's $100 laptop. From the article: 'Despite Barret's criticism, interest in the $100 laptop remains as strong as ever, and lightweight, affordable technology continues to weave its way into the classroom with great results. Young students in Olathe, Kansas now read their textbooks on Palm handheld computers. According to survey statistics, 28 percent of American school districts offer handheld computers for student and teacher use. A study done at a high school in South Dakota in 2001 found that the the availability of school-provided handhelds actually improved student grades. Eric Johnson, educational sales director for Palm, says the public schools represent a US$300 million market. If handheld computers can do so well in the public school system, surely the $100 laptop can too.'"

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including the exoneration of Peter Quinn, the debut of Honda's new ASIMO robot, Vonage customers now all have 911 access, Nathan Peterson pleads guilty to copyright infringement, an interesting follow up to the recent Wikipedia articles, the Citizen e ink clock makes its first real world debut, and a response for criticism of the $100 laptop - read on for details.

Peter Quinn exonerated. An anonymous reader writes "Groklaw is reporting that Peter Quinn, the man who terrified Microsoft by moving part of the Massachusetts government to ODF, has been exonerated of any alleged impropriety concerning his trips to tell others about Massachusetts' move to ODF."

Honda debuts new ASIMO robot. Tomo Hiratsuka writes "Honda's ASIMO robot has received his annual refit and now has the power to carry objects with a cart, serve drinks, and run with both feet off the ground at up to 10mph."

911 now available to Vonage users. Ben writes "Only a month after Vonage 911 Deadline Passed the VoIP phone service announced today that all of its customers now have access to 911 services."

Nathan Peterson pleads guilty to copyright infringement. Chris Bradshaw writes "iBackups' owner Nathan Peterson pled guilty to two counts of criminal copyright infringement for illegally copying and selling nearly $20 million worth of computer software. The FBI was first alerted to possible software piracy by the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA) back in 2003. iBackups was selling pirated copies of software over the internet claiming that they were "backup copies" to be used by software owners in case of system crashes."

Wikipedia still just as effective as normal encyclopedia. AxelBoldt writes "The Australian newspaper The Age reports that Nature has run a formal comparison of the science coverage of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. From the article: 'The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, around three.'"

Citizen e ink clock makes its debut. Tim Jones writes "The flexible e ink clock that Citizen announced what seems like ages ago is finally making an appearance in the real world. It's apparently going to be displayed at a Tokyo exhibition this week."

$100 laptop not quite so ineffectual. segphault writes "Ars Technica posted a response to Intel chairman Craig Barret's criticism of MIT's $100 laptop. From the article: 'Despite Barret's criticism, interest in the $100 laptop remains as strong as ever, and lightweight, affordable technology continues to weave its way into the classroom with great results. Young students in Olathe, Kansas now read their textbooks on Palm handheld computers. According to survey statistics, 28 percent of American school districts offer handheld computers for student and teacher use. A study done at a high school in South Dakota in 2001 found that the the availability of school-provided handhelds actually improved student grades. Eric Johnson, educational sales director for Palm, says the public schools represent a US$300 million market. If handheld computers can do so well in the public school system, surely the $100 laptop can too.'"

dr_d_19 writes "According to Groklaw, SCO is now demanding IBM to turn over 'all documents concerning IBM's contributions to the Linux 2.7 kernel, including development work'. Of course, there is no 2.7 kernel and no plans at all to create one."

J. Random Luser writes "Groklaw is carrying a story about Microsoft quietly engaging a French company to develop Open Document filters for Office 12, due out mid-2006. The SourceForge project claims to be an import filter for MS Office, and that is how the developer describes it. But ZDNet quotes Ray Ozzie as talking about an export filter from MS Office, and this french blog takes Ozzie at his word. Ostensibly the tarball unpacks as OpenOfficePlugin, and SourceForge has the WindowsInstaller.msi listed as 'platform independent'." From the ZDNet article: "Ozzie told me that supporting ODF in Office isn't a matter of principle. Microsoft isn't opposed to supporting other formats. The company just announced support for PDF, and he added that the Open Office XML format has an 'extremely liberal' license."

Mr. Slant writes "According to this article on Groklaw, IBM is dropping their patent counter-claims. Why? It's not because they think they'd lose, but rather because SCO wants to waste more time litigating. There's still some question over whether SCO will be able to pay the rest of their legal bills, given how much cash they're losing each quarter." From the article: "Here's a simple rule of litigation. You never, ever offer to drop anything you think you'll need for victory or to make yourself whole. Litigation is always a cost-benefit analysis. You have to have the prospect of a sizable enough win to pay your lawyer, or you will find it hard to get one, or, like Boies Schiller, the lawyer will want its money up front. IBM did the math, and SCO isn't looking like deep pockets any more, is it, now that Boies Schiller has drained them of pretty much all they had? So, IBM's practical analysis apparently was that it's worth more to get the thing over with on time than to go after counterclaims against a defendant with no money in its pocket to pay damages or royalties, even when IBM won. Plus, there is some strategy here too. Sometimes in chess, you'll let a pawn be sacrificed to set up a checkmate."

Buccaneer-American writes "Over here on Groklaw, PJ is reporting that PS2 mod chips are now legal in Australia. The highest Australian court decided in Stevens v. Sony to overturn a lower court ruling that PS2 mod chips were 'technological protection measures' which would run afoul of the Australian DMCA-equivalent. Because they do not protect copyrights per se, but are rather region coding devices, they were ruled to be regional coding devices. In short, we have Sony to thank for being a loser yet again and establishing some of our rights in case law, albeit sometimes inadvertantly." The High Court's decision is online, with some legal commentary from the Australian court. More coverage of this story available at The Age and SMH.

Buccaneer-American writes "Over here on Groklaw, PJ is reporting that PS2 mod chips are now legal in Australia. The highest Australian court decided in Stevens v. Sony to overturn a lower court ruling that PS2 mod chips were 'technological protection measures' which would run afoul of the Australian DMCA-equivalent. Because they do not protect copyrights per se, but are rather region coding devices, they were ruled to be regional coding devices. In short, we have Sony to thank for being a loser yet again and establishing some of our rights in case law, albeit sometimes inadvertantly." The High Court's decision is online, with some legal commentary from the Australian court. More coverage of this story available at The Age and SMH.

Random BedHead Ed writes "Groklaw has some interesting new information online. In an entry today, PJ has posted the Deposition of Erik W. Hughes (PDF), a SCO employee. Hughes' 2004 testimony reveals that the Linux Kernel Personality (LKP) of UnixWare somehow used kernel code. Exactly how it was used is not clear. UnixWare was released under a proprietary license, but the General Public License under which Linux is distributed requires derivative works to use the same license. As PJ says, it's "now apparent why SCO tried to say the GPL is unconstitutional" back in 2003."

Random BedHead Ed writes "Groklaw has some interesting new information online. In an entry today, PJ has posted the Deposition of Erik W. Hughes (PDF), a SCO employee. Hughes' 2004 testimony reveals that the Linux Kernel Personality (LKP) of UnixWare somehow used kernel code. Exactly how it was used is not clear. UnixWare was released under a proprietary license, but the General Public License under which Linux is distributed requires derivative works to use the same license. As PJ says, it's "now apparent why SCO tried to say the GPL is unconstitutional" back in 2003."

clusterix writes "Groklaw has posted Novell's answer to SCO's slander of title complaint. In it, Novell produces many counter claims. The most eye-catching is the claim for the revenue from the SCOsource licenses bought by Microsoft and Sun and others. Novell states that they must be SVRX licenses which entitles them to 95% of revenue in royalties. They further request a trust to be constructed to hold the revenue until the case is decided. It is hard to see how the judge could deny such a request to protect the money which will likely bankrupt SCO."

clusterix writes "Groklaw has posted Novell's answer to SCO's slander of title complaint. In it, Novell produces many counter claims. The most eye-catching is the claim for the revenue from the SCOsource licenses bought by Microsoft and Sun and others. Novell states that they must be SVRX licenses which entitles them to 95% of revenue in royalties. They further request a trust to be constructed to hold the revenue until the case is decided. It is hard to see how the judge could deny such a request to protect the money which will likely bankrupt SCO."

rm69990 writes "In a recently unsealed email in the SCO vs. IBM case, it appears that an outside consultant, hired by SCO in 2002, failed to find copyright violations in the Linux Kernel. This was right around the time Darl McBride, who has before been hired by litigious companies as CEO, was hired. It appears that before SCO even began its investigation, they were hoping to find a smoking gun, not believing that Linux could possibly not contain Unix code. Apparently, they ignored the advice of this consultant."

jonathan_ingram writes "As reported on GrokLaw, AMD has just filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel. AMD states in its press release that the complaint details "... how Intel has unlawfully maintained its monopoly in the x86 microprocessor market by engaging in worldwide coercion of customers from dealing with AMD. It identifies 38 companies that have been victims of coercion by Intel - including large scale computer-makers, small system-builders, wholesale distributors, and retailers, through seven types of illegality across three continents.""

Slashback this evening brings you updates on recent and ongoing stories about the lost (or just possibly not lost) solar sail launched earlier this week, Website tagging (this time client-side), Google's Summer of Code, and more -- read on for the details.

A new definition for optimism. Rei writes "According to a weblog entry from the Planetary Society, it appears that Cosmos 1 - the world's first controlled solar-sail spacecraft - has been found. The data is still tentative, but they have detected evidence of the spacecraft's signal in multiple tracking stations. There is a chance that it is in the wrong orbit, but it appears to be up there. This is after it was reported that the Volna rocket that launched it lost an engine after 83 seconds, and many had assumed that the craft was lost."

The power of the tag can only grow with time. An Anonymous reader writes "Saw your coverage of YubNub - I've been playing with a similar tool for a while that might interest your readers. It's called Ambedo and works in a way that you can tag search engines or bookmarks with a bookmarklet (you can also enter them manually if you want to). These are then added to you own tag directory. You then access these tags by typing them in a search box -- but all the matching is done client-side in javascript. It also has nice features like matching IP addresses, domain names, FedEx packages, calculator in the search box and so on."

If you like it so much, why don'tcha marry it? Mad Merlin writes "Groklaw has an interview with Chris DiBona of Google with regards to their Summer of Code program (as previously covered here). When asked why Google is doing the SoC program, Chris responds, 'It is simple: We love open source. A great number of Googlers have and are donating their 20% time to the open source efforts that we're doing.'"

Just kidding! scotty777 writes "Japan plans to give up its bid to have the world's first nuclear fusion reactor built in Aomori Prefecture. Japan Today reports the government decision, which means that the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) site decision can be made. Japan Times reports that the government announced the decision by saying 'it plans to back down [from the Aomori site proposal] if the European Union stands firm on bringing the project to Cadarache, in southern France.'"

Surely this won't cause any controversy. davenaffis writes "Here's a little site I developed that uses Google Maps to map sex offenders. Only Washington, D.C. data is available right now, but I'll be adding more states soon."

Udo Schmitz writes "As Groklaw reports, the SCO Group stated in a SEC filing from yesterday: 'In addition, regulators or others in the Linux market and some foreign regulators have initiated or in the future may initiate legal actions against us, all of which may negatively impact our operations and future operating performance.' Does this mean the SEC finally started to pull some stops? SCOs and Canopys financial dealings (Vultus acquisition anyone?) long ago lead to speculations in the Linux community about the legality of their business practices, or the whole lawsuit just being a stock scam."

NW writes "Tony Mobily, editor of the Free Software Magazine recently interviewed Fuat Kircaali, founder and publisher of Sys-Con Media. The interview revolves around the recent controversy surrounding the article written by Maureen O'Gara attacking Pamela Jones of GrokLaw."

flood6 writes "On the heels of yesterday's article about unrest at LinuxWorld, editor James Turner is reporting in his blog that Sys-Con Media has decided to purge Maureen O'Gara from the print and online publications." From the post: "Sys-con Media listened to what I and my fellow editors, their advertisers and the readership was saying, and made the correct decision. Maureen O'Gara's bylined material will no longer appear anywhere in the Sys-con universe of sites or publications. We have received this commitment in writing from Fuat Kircaali, the publisher." PJ at Groklaw also has commentary on this development.

akahige writes "It took more than 400 employees 4,700 hours of work to comb through IBM's source code repository and versioning system to assemble every possible scrap of AIX and Dynix source code (which SCO claims they improperly socked into Linux). That's 80 GB of source code, and almost a million pages of correspondence, which IBM scanned and provided on CD. They delivered the goods on a server along with a detailed (snide?) set of instructions on exactly how to search for that stolen code."

Soko writes "Yes, it's real. The crack team of Daniel Wallace and Maureen O'Gara have ganged up once again to protect their version of "The American Dream," he by filing a lawsuit in Indiana court saying the GPL is nothing more than a price fixing scheme designed to drive software vendors out of business, she by parroting the proprietary vendors' "The GPL kills business" mantra (as well as a few well placed insults at the free software community). I found the story on Groklaw - no links to Ms. O'Gara or Mr. Wallace from me. I'm still kind of dumbfounded at the audacity of Mr. Wallace, but wonder if he has an angle that might have a slim chance of prevailing." This Google search reveals some of Daniel Wallace's views on the GPL.

microbee writes "Over the past weeks Groklaw has been running a series of articles on new discoveries about SCO and Project Monterey. Surprisingly (to me, as I love both sites), The Register published another article to counter the argument of Groklaw's serials, claiming "it's difficult to envisage Groklaw's conjecture swaying a court case, but it provides SCO with valuable public relations ammunition."" There's also a rebuttal on groklaw as well.

microbee writes "Over the past weeks Groklaw has been running a series of articles on new discoveries about SCO and Project Monterey. Surprisingly (to me, as I love both sites), The Register published another article to counter the argument of Groklaw's serials, claiming "it's difficult to envisage Groklaw's conjecture swaying a court case, but it provides SCO with valuable public relations ammunition."" There's also a rebuttal on groklaw as well.

microbee writes "Over the past weeks Groklaw has been running a series of articles on new discoveries about SCO and Project Monterey. Surprisingly (to me, as I love both sites), The Register published another article to counter the argument of Groklaw's serials, claiming "it's difficult to envisage Groklaw's conjecture swaying a court case, but it provides SCO with valuable public relations ammunition."" There's also a rebuttal on groklaw as well.

microbee writes "Over the past weeks Groklaw has been running a series of articles on new discoveries about SCO and Project Monterey. Surprisingly (to me, as I love both sites), The Register published another article to counter the argument of Groklaw's serials, claiming "it's difficult to envisage Groklaw's conjecture swaying a court case, but it provides SCO with valuable public relations ammunition."" There's also a rebuttal on groklaw as well.

microbee writes "Over the past weeks Groklaw has been running a series of articles on new discoveries about SCO and Project Monterey. Surprisingly (to me, as I love both sites), The Register published another article to counter the argument of Groklaw's serials, claiming "it's difficult to envisage Groklaw's conjecture swaying a court case, but it provides SCO with valuable public relations ammunition."" There's also a rebuttal on groklaw as well.

microbee writes "Over the past weeks Groklaw has been running a series of articles on new discoveries about SCO and Project Monterey. Surprisingly (to me, as I love both sites), The Register published another article to counter the argument of Groklaw's serials, claiming "it's difficult to envisage Groklaw's conjecture swaying a court case, but it provides SCO with valuable public relations ammunition."" There's also a rebuttal on groklaw as well.

microbee writes "Over the past weeks Groklaw has been running a series of articles on new discoveries about SCO and Project Monterey. Surprisingly (to me, as I love both sites), The Register published another article to counter the argument of Groklaw's serials, claiming "it's difficult to envisage Groklaw's conjecture swaying a court case, but it provides SCO with valuable public relations ammunition."" There's also a rebuttal on groklaw as well.