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Domain: infoworld.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to infoworld.com.
Stories · 1,869
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Linux Can't Kill Windows
nberardi writes "Infoworld is running an article in which the author claims 'Linux is established and has a niche that, as various pendulums swing, will grow and shrink. Show me charts and stats and benchmarks that prove Linux superior to Windows in every measure and I'll not argue with you. But no matter how much money and dedication is poured into Linux, it will never put a dent in Windows' mind share or market share because Linux is an operating system, a way -- and probably the best way -- to make system hardware do what it's told. But you can't turn Linux into a platform even if you brand it, box it, and put a pricey sticker on it.'" -
Linux Can't Kill Windows
nberardi writes "Infoworld is running an article in which the author claims 'Linux is established and has a niche that, as various pendulums swing, will grow and shrink. Show me charts and stats and benchmarks that prove Linux superior to Windows in every measure and I'll not argue with you. But no matter how much money and dedication is poured into Linux, it will never put a dent in Windows' mind share or market share because Linux is an operating system, a way -- and probably the best way -- to make system hardware do what it's told. But you can't turn Linux into a platform even if you brand it, box it, and put a pricey sticker on it.'" -
France May Require Biometric ID Cards
Will Affleck-Asch writes "According to an article on Infoworld today, France may require her citizens pay for new identity cards that hold their biometric information in electronic format. The French government outlined its plan last month to replace the identity cards and passports offered to French citizens with new ones that carry a microchip containing digitized photographs and fingerprints. The plan is to introduce the passports in 2006, and the identity cards a year later. Citizens haven't been forced to carry ID cards since 1955." -
Microsoft Calls For Patent Law Change
Elektroschock writes "According to an article of IDG/Infoworld Microsoft calls for a reform of the US patent system . Last month Microsoft Denmark started a backfiring PR campaign to influence the European debate in favour of software patents. Critics of Microsoft often claim that MS was behind the EU lobbying and wanted software patents to kill open source. While it is true that lobbying took place, persons deeply involved in the debate are more cautious to affirm real business interests of Microsoft. In a CeBIT debate today it was concluded that the MS monopoly would not exist with today's software patenting in place back in 1985. Some highly influential stakeholders with real business interests are often forgotten: patent professionals and the patent offices. What if there was no evil MS conspiracy behind all those patent plans? Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith is very concerned of submarine patents and patent trolls for Microsoft's business. He said patent reform should begin at home." -
Symantec Patents Multiple File Area Virus Scanning
DigitumDei writes "Symantec announced on Wednesday that it has aquired a new patent (United States Patent - 6,851,057) titled "Data driven detection of viruses". Symantec has declined to comment on whether it will pursue litigation. Symantec's director of intellectual property Michael Schallop stated : 'We don't generally discuss how we will leverage this patent against competitors or others,'." From the article: "[The patent] could refer to any technology that allows antivirus researchers or antivirus products to use scripting to determine, dynamically, where in a file to scan and detect threats. It could also include the use of Javascript or other common scripting languages to direct antivirus scanning..." -
Unsung Heroes of Open Source
Yosef writes "Jon Udell uses his experience from using and hacking the free software BitPim to say that developers of such less-known projects are the true heroes of open source: 'For solving a host of vexing problems with quiet competence, and for doing it in ways that invite others to stand on their shoulders, I salute them all.'" -
AskJeeves Steps Into RSS with Bloglines Acquisiton
Sugarpimp writes "According to several sources, AskJeeves has stepped into the deep end of the blogging pool with an interesting acquisition. Bloglines is one of the premier RSS readers. Perhaps AskJeeves will be able to legitimize itself again in the crowded search market by integrating Bloglines into its suite of products." -
Same Part, Same Supplier, Different Prices
linuxwrangler writes "Infoworld's "Notes From The Field column this week includes a comment from a reader who found that Dell listed several different prices for the same part. Intrigued, I grabbed the first part number I found (a 512MB memory module #A0193405) and found that the list price is $289.99 which the price offered to "large businesses". Meanwhile, the GSA/DOD contract price is $266.21 while "home users" find the list-price discounted to $275.49 and "small businesses" fare even better with a $246.49 price. InfoWorld contacted Dell who responded, "Each segment sets its own pricing, and consumers are free to pick the one that's cheapest." Buyer beware." -
Easy Remote Access?
TinyApps asks: "How do Slashdot readers make remote connections through firewalls and NAT routers when assisting friends/family/customers? Reverse VNC connection are relatively easy to setup, but there is also the free LogMeIn and WebEx's new free service that startstarted, this week. Do you all have any other ideas?" -
IBM Desktop Linux Pledge, One Year Later
Blue writes "It's been more than a year since the bold announcement from IBM that they planned on dumping Windows for Linux throughout the company. InfoWorld is reporting that not all is well with IBM's desktop Linux push. What went wrong?" -
Grand Challenges For The Next 20 Years
terrapyn writes "Infoworld is reporting: 'A group of British computer scientists have proposed a number of grand challenges for IT that they hope will drive forward research, similar to the way the human genome project drove life sciences research through the 1990s.' Did they get it right? What are some other worthy computing challenges?" -
PARC Signs On A Partner: Fujitsu
leighklotz writes "PARC, which a few years ago was said be be targeted for a spin-off from Xerox, has signed on its first major partner under its new life as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xerox. Fujitsu has announced "Joint Research in Ubiquitous Computing," a three-year sponsored-research plan beginning in January 2005. 'Because we're not a product company, we need a partner like Fujitsu who can deliver our products into the marketplace,' said Teresa Lunt, according to InfoWorld." -
Linux Server Sales Top $1 Billion
linuxwrangler writes "InfoWorld is reporting that IDC's report on Q3 server sales shows that Linux server revenue topped $1 billion for the first time. Linux servers showed year-over-year gain of 42.6 percent. Windows server revenue grew by 13.3 percent year-over-year while the mid-range server marked dominated by Sun showed a 10.2 percent decline this quarter." -
Dell May Try AMD Chips For Some Servers
LarsWestergren writes "According to InfoWorld, Dell may be close to adopting AMD processors. Don't get your hopes up too early though. It is mainly for servers (and possibly "gaming"?) since AMD doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to supply Dell with enough processors for the desktop. Furthermore, Dell have said similar things before, possibly to put pressure on Intel and get better deals from them. Still, this is definitely a PR win for AMD." Intel, though, has a lot more ad dollars to contribute. -
Hal Stern interview on Solaris & Linux Datacenter
m3ntos writes "Hal Stern from Sun gets interviewed on Solaris and Linux pricepoints in the datacenter, among other things. What is going to replace the margin included with all those unused cycles in the datacenter?" -
50K Linux Man Bites At Merkey.net
magnany writes "In a recent article, former TRG CEO Jeff V. Merkey had offered to pay 50K USD for a BSD-licensed Linux. Groklaw did a followup on his offer, to which Jeff responded by notifying the FBI of Groklaw's 'hate crimes violation.' Merkey doesn't exactly have a great record, either, which is made even more apparent by his recent threats to file suit against Merkey.net for slander and trademark infringement, amongst others. In addition, he has also reported Merkey.net to the FBI's hate crime department. What could Merkey.net do to get Jeff V. Merkey off their backs?" -
Portable Usability Labs As User Research Tools
Pete Gordon writes "Do Portable Usability and User Research Labs make sense in the software development life-cycle? This interview (my bias--it's with me, and I have a tool in beta now) covers some of the issues and questions on KDE's news site. I don't have the right answers necessarily, just looking for others input and opinions. Also, here are other links about the subject over the past few months. Info World and Harry's comparison." -
E-Voting Problems Are Mostly User Error, Says ITAA
grcumb writes "InfoWorld is carrying a story today which mentions a press kit being distributed by the Information Technology Association of America. Its purpose? To 'help journalists put election equipment-related snafus in context.' Most e-voting problems, they insist, are [l]user issues, where people who don't know how to deal with the new technology cause delays as they seek assistance. They don't seem to feel the need for journalists to understand basic system design issues (like making sure your computer and human processes work), why testing didn't identify these problems, nor why this is better than paper ballots." -
E-Voting Problems Are Mostly User Error, Says ITAA
grcumb writes "InfoWorld is carrying a story today which mentions a press kit being distributed by the Information Technology Association of America. Its purpose? To 'help journalists put election equipment-related snafus in context.' Most e-voting problems, they insist, are [l]user issues, where people who don't know how to deal with the new technology cause delays as they seek assistance. They don't seem to feel the need for journalists to understand basic system design issues (like making sure your computer and human processes work), why testing didn't identify these problems, nor why this is better than paper ballots." -
SCO To Counter Groklaw With 'Fair' Coverage
linuxwrangler writes "Tired of being 'flamed, dissected and dismissed' on Groklaw, SCO has decided to fight back. SCO's site, scheduled for launch on November 1, will be called prosco.net. Just yesterday SCO CEO and favorite /. whipping-boy Darl McBride gave a speech comparing the software industry to the 'wild west' and warning companies that they must protect their intellectual property or risk being 'sacked by open source-touting bandits.'" -
SCO To Counter Groklaw With 'Fair' Coverage
linuxwrangler writes "Tired of being 'flamed, dissected and dismissed' on Groklaw, SCO has decided to fight back. SCO's site, scheduled for launch on November 1, will be called prosco.net. Just yesterday SCO CEO and favorite /. whipping-boy Darl McBride gave a speech comparing the software industry to the 'wild west' and warning companies that they must protect their intellectual property or risk being 'sacked by open source-touting bandits.'" -
Microsoft Can't DRM Docs Fast Enough
grcumb writes "As part of the DoJ Anti-trust settlement, Microsoft was ordered to provide freely available documentation for its communications protocols. InfoWorld is reporting that not only are they late in delivering the required APIs, but it's because they want to convert everything to the read-only Web Archive (MHT) format, which can only be viewed in MSIE. InfoWorld reports that, "In July, Microsoft said it would complete revisions of the documentation required by the court in the autumn, a season generally reckoned to include the months of September, October and November in North America, but may now have to extend work on a beta or test version of the new documentation into December...." So we have to wait longer for a format that makes the content harder for developers (developers! developers!) to use. Maybe they didn't read the documentation ..." -
Microsoft Can't DRM Docs Fast Enough
grcumb writes "As part of the DoJ Anti-trust settlement, Microsoft was ordered to provide freely available documentation for its communications protocols. InfoWorld is reporting that not only are they late in delivering the required APIs, but it's because they want to convert everything to the read-only Web Archive (MHT) format, which can only be viewed in MSIE. InfoWorld reports that, "In July, Microsoft said it would complete revisions of the documentation required by the court in the autumn, a season generally reckoned to include the months of September, October and November in North America, but may now have to extend work on a beta or test version of the new documentation into December...." So we have to wait longer for a format that makes the content harder for developers (developers! developers!) to use. Maybe they didn't read the documentation ..." -
Stichting Spamvrij (spamfree.nl foundation) Closing
TeVi writes "Stichting Spamvrij.nl (Spamfree.nl foundation), the authority on spam in The Netherlands, has decided to stop. Spamfree.nl gained international attention for their fight against the CyberAngels spammers. More information can be found on their website regarding the shut-down." It's the classic story of too much work to do, not enough time; meanwhile another reader notes: "Some new anti-spam products out there - but everyone seems to agree that even Sender ID ideas and laws won't do much." -
Gates on Spyware and OS Competition
Ant writes "CNET's News.com has an article that says Microsoft plans to offer its own anti-spyware software." prostoalex writes "Both OsNews and InfoWorld talk about Bill Gates' speech at the Computer History Museum in California. Gates is noting that Linux is taking over, and claims that 10 years forward Linux and Windows will be the only OSs left in the market." -
File Trading Law Would Include 'Willing' Traders
mgessner writes "From InfoWorld comes a story on the U.S. House's approval of a new, tough law against trading files online. 'The bill expands the definition of file traders eligible for criminal penalties from individuals who 'willingly' distribute copyright files to those who 'knowingly' do so, an escalation that could result in jail time for file swappers.'" (The bill has yet to go through the Senate.) -
Linux-only POWER5 server From IBM
vaporland writes "This story from Infoworld.com talks about IBM's new low priced POWER5 based servers which will ship with Red Hat or Suse Linux, but not IBM's AIX. My question is, will it boot up Apple's OSX Server?" -
Spammers Are Early Adopters of SPF Standard
nazarijo writes "In an article entitled Spammers using sender authentication too, study says, Infoworld reports that a study by CipherTrust shows that SPF and Sender ID (SID) aren't nearly as effective as we expected them to be when combatting spam. The reason? Spammers are able to publish their own records, too. 'Spammers are now better than companies at reporting the source of their e-mail,' says Paul Judge, noted spam researcher and CipherTrust CTO. Combined with low adoption rates of either SID or SPF (31 of the Fortune 1000 according to CipherTrust), this means that the common dream of SPF or SID clearing up the spam problem wont be coming true. Wong, one of the original authors of SPF and a co-author of SID, says that it was never intended to combat all spam. Weng, another researcher in the space, says that this is just one of the many pieces of the puzzle needed to combat spam. Various SID implementations exist, including a new one from Sendmail.net based on their milter API, making it easy for you to adopt SID and try this for yourself." -
Ballmer on Linux
theodp writes "'In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims,' warned Steve Ballmer, saying that Microsoft customers would be protected from the $550 million Eolas patent infringement judgment. 'I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt,' said the CEO of the company who earlier cried wolf about breaking IE in the wake of the Eolas judgment, prompting the W3C to go to bat for the software giant." -
The U.K.'s National Health Service Licenses JDS
deputydink writes "Recently the NHS licensed from Sun 5000 seats of its JDS system for tactical deployments within the health care service, adding that it deemed JDS a viable desktop alternative for certain types of user communities. The NHS has already deployed JDS in its back-office. This could be the high profile boost for JDS subscription services that Sun needs." -
Longhorn to be Released in 2006, Sans WinFS
skillio writes "Everyone's favorite OS maven, Bill Gates, announced a release date for Longhorn on Friday. He confirms what many had suspected - Microsoft will attempt to complete this release in calendar year 2006. The most notable element of this announcement was Gates' admission that WinFS, Microsoft's next-generation file system, would not be complete in time for this release - surprising, since this was the most hyped component of the next iteration of Windows." -
Free Software Day Around The World
depechemodem writes "In a follow-up to Microsoft Leaves U.N. Standards Group, it appears that it may have been in reaction to the UN's sponsorship of the 1st annual Software Freedom Day in which its International Open Source Network (IOSN) will educate Asian users on the benefits of Free and Open source Software (FOSS). FOSS promotes several high-profile applications including OpenOffice, Mozilla, MySQL, and Apache." An anonymous reader says of the U.N. effort, "Events will be organised in Bangladesh, Brunei, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam on Saturday, August 28th." According to another anonymous reader, "Go Open Source, funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation and HP, expects up to 10,000 visitors at the various Linux install-fests around South Africa this Saturday, says the Mail & Guardian." -
IT Myths
linuxwrangler writes "A special report in this week's InfoWorld tackles the six big myths in IT. Among the findings: server upgrades don't matter, 80 percent of corporate data is not on mainframes, C[IT]Os really do need technological savvy, most IT projects may be late or over budget but they don't fail, IT does scale and nearly all big shops do run multiple platforms." -
IT Myths
linuxwrangler writes "A special report in this week's InfoWorld tackles the six big myths in IT. Among the findings: server upgrades don't matter, 80 percent of corporate data is not on mainframes, C[IT]Os really do need technological savvy, most IT projects may be late or over budget but they don't fail, IT does scale and nearly all big shops do run multiple platforms." -
IT Myths
linuxwrangler writes "A special report in this week's InfoWorld tackles the six big myths in IT. Among the findings: server upgrades don't matter, 80 percent of corporate data is not on mainframes, C[IT]Os really do need technological savvy, most IT projects may be late or over budget but they don't fail, IT does scale and nearly all big shops do run multiple platforms." -
IT Myths
linuxwrangler writes "A special report in this week's InfoWorld tackles the six big myths in IT. Among the findings: server upgrades don't matter, 80 percent of corporate data is not on mainframes, C[IT]Os really do need technological savvy, most IT projects may be late or over budget but they don't fail, IT does scale and nearly all big shops do run multiple platforms." -
IT Myths
linuxwrangler writes "A special report in this week's InfoWorld tackles the six big myths in IT. Among the findings: server upgrades don't matter, 80 percent of corporate data is not on mainframes, C[IT]Os really do need technological savvy, most IT projects may be late or over budget but they don't fail, IT does scale and nearly all big shops do run multiple platforms." -
IT Myths
linuxwrangler writes "A special report in this week's InfoWorld tackles the six big myths in IT. Among the findings: server upgrades don't matter, 80 percent of corporate data is not on mainframes, C[IT]Os really do need technological savvy, most IT projects may be late or over budget but they don't fail, IT does scale and nearly all big shops do run multiple platforms." -
IT Myths
linuxwrangler writes "A special report in this week's InfoWorld tackles the six big myths in IT. Among the findings: server upgrades don't matter, 80 percent of corporate data is not on mainframes, C[IT]Os really do need technological savvy, most IT projects may be late or over budget but they don't fail, IT does scale and nearly all big shops do run multiple platforms." -
End Of The Line For Alpha
Scareduck writes "Infoworld reports HP has released the last iteration of the Alpha chip. I used these babies in the late 90's, and for a time, they were da bomb. Sadly, the economics weren't there, DEC management really didn't have much of a clue, and Alpha has, at long last, bit the dust. Alpha-based servers will continue to be sold through 2006, and supported through 2011. Farewell, Alpha; the world's line of chips seems to have declined to Intel and a handful of niche guys." Slashdot ran for the first 7 or 8 months off an Alpha box. -
Microsoft Admits Japanese Monopoly Battle Hurting Image
News for nerds writes "The head of Microsoft Corp.'s Japan unit, Michael Rawding, acknowledged that the battle with Japanese anti-monopoly authorities over a controversial licensing clause has hurt its corporate image. But he said the company will continue to oppose a Fair Trade Commission ruling ordering Microsoft to retroactively remove the clause from its licensing agreements, as similar investigations in the United States and Europe found it 'lawful and appropriate' according to him, though Longhorn faces another delay. Commission officials are not certain any patents have been violated by Microsoft. But several Japanese electronics makers have complained about suspected patent infringements since December 2000, especially regarding multimedia technologies (VC-9 and H.264/AVC, anyone?). Major Japanese CE companies that are partners with Microsoft include Sony, Toshiba, and Matsushita." -
Munich to Go Ahead with Linux After All
Saeed al-Sahaf writes "According to Groklaw and the German publication Heise (it's in German, of course) Munich's mayor Christian Ude has held a press conference, in which he said that the bidding process for the switch from Windows to Linux will go forward as originally planned, despite patent issues. InfoWorld (in English), quotes Bernd Plank, a spokesman for Munich town hall, saying that he expected that the administration would take a maximum of 'two to three weeks' to decide whether the EU's Directive on software patents could affect the city's plan to switch to Linux, and that would be no 'dramatic setback.'" We reported this earlier as well, but now that it's making the rounds again in English, more of us can read it without resorting to Babelfish. -
AOL IM 'Away' Message Security Hole Found
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AOL IM 'Away' Message Security Hole Found
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IBM Has 'No Intention' of Using Patents Against Linux
bendelo writes "In his keynote address on Wednesday at LinuxWorld, IBM Senior Vice President of Technology and Marketing Nick Donofrio assured the Linux nation his company would not assert its formidable patent portfolio against the Linux kernel and strongly advocated others to promise the same. This comes following an independent study by insurance firm OSRM who revealed this week that the Linux kernel might use up to 283 patented methods. This seems a smart move by the Big Blue to help counter the FUD going around." A zdnet.com.com story has a response from Bruce Perens, who basically says he wants to see it in writing. :) -
McBride Says No More Lawsuits From SCO
thephotoman writes "Well, Darl McBride gave an interview to IDG News Services in which he said that SCO is not going to sue any more customers. They do bring up the issue of the SCOsource Linux licensing, and how much of a failure it has been. Instead, they plan to start marketing their flavor of Unix. However, as he's not dropping the current lawsuits, there's no good reason to believe him on this change in strategy." -
Hatch Pushes INDUCE Act
An anonymous reader writes "According to CNET the Senate is leaning strongly in favor of the INDUCE Act sponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch. It looks like the RIAA is making significant progress manipulating the marionette strings in Congress. MP3newswire.net states that if such laws were to pass, the record industry would become the new AMTRAK. 'Bloated and inefficient as always, but now a drain on taxpayers wallets and liberty as well'." Infoworld has a story as well. Reader CryptoEngineer writes: "Marybeth Peters, of the US Copyright Office testified recently before the Senate Judiciary committee in support of the INDUCE Act, which has been discussed here before. In summary, she thinks its not strong enough. Among other things, she proposed scrapping the Betamax decision, which makes it legal to timeshift TV shows with a VCR. Analysis here." -
Microsoft to Deploy SPF for Hotmail Users
wayne writes "In a show of just how much Microsoft wants to put an end to email forgery, Hotmail, MSN and Microsoft.com will start enforcing Sender ID checks by Oct 1. In late May, MicroSoft announced that they would be adopting the Open Source SPF anti-forgery system (with a slight modification to make it Sender ID) and they have been working together with the IETF MARID working group to help create an RFC to define the Sender ID standard. Already tens of thousands of domain owners, such as AOL, Earthlink, and Gmail, have published SPF records, and thousands of systems are already checking SPF records. Publishing SPF records is easy, as is checking SPF records." -
Identifying Compromised Websites
linuxwrangler writes "'An infectious disease broke out recently in a number of communities. We'd like to tell which communities they were, just in case you were visiting one at the time, but we can't. It would be bad for business, after all.' Thus begins an interesting column in InfoWorld's Gripe Line in which Ed Foster discusses the astonishing secrecy surrounding the identity of the sites that were compromised by Scob/Download.ject and spreading malicious code to their visitors. As Foster notes, when food-poisoning is traced to a store or restaurant the health-department makes every effort to inform those who may be affected. Shouldn't we demand the same when a business's server poisons our computer?" -
When RSS Traffic Looks Like a DDoS
An anonymous reader writes "Infoworld's CTO Chad Dickerson says he has a love/hate relationship with RSS. He loves the changes to his information production and consumption, but he hates the behavior of some RSS feed readers. Every hour, Infoworld "sees a massive surge of RSS newsreader activity" that "has all the characteristics of a distributed DoS attack." So many requests in such a short period of time are creating scaling issues. " We've seen similiar problems over the years. RSS (or as it should be called, "Speedfeed") is such a useful thing, it's unfortunate that it's ultimately just very stupid.