Slashdot Mirror

ebresie writes: "According to an article in Info World, the World Intellectual Property Organization indicates that the WIPO Copyright Treaty is scheduled to go into effect in March of 2002. The treaty "is designed to protect the rights of composers, artists, writers, and others whose work is distributed over the Internet or other digital media." It also makes reference of the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty which "specifically protects the digital-media rights of producers and performers of sound recordings"." This is not a "new" treaty; rather it's the old one, which says much the same thing as the DMCA and was used to justify the passage of the DMCA. Now the same provisions will be in effect across many countries.

CptnKirk writes: "Many people liked Visual J++ as an IDE. The settlement with Sun, following it's Java suit, pretty much stopped this development. Apparently Microsoft is back at it again, with another attempt to bring Java development back to the Windows platform. J# (Jay Sharp), will be part of Visual Studio .Net, and provides "an implementation of the Sun Java spec". It however has IMHO some very severe limitations. It's not actually Java(TM) compliant, doesn't product bytecode, or read Java raw bytecode, or run in a VM. It also doesn't support Java runtime features past 1.1.4. The InfoWorld article is here. As a Java developer, to me creating a product that is supposed to be some sort of Java tool that doesn't support any of Java's useful features or even latest language spec, doesn't cut mustard. I liked VJ++, it was a solid IDE and if it supported JDK 1.4 I'd be all for it. I wish Microsoft would just produce a good IDE, and not screw with the language."

CptnKirk writes: "Many people liked Visual J++ as an IDE. The settlement with Sun, following it's Java suit, pretty much stopped this development. Apparently Microsoft is back at it again, with another attempt to bring Java development back to the Windows platform. J# (Jay Sharp), will be part of Visual Studio .Net, and provides "an implementation of the Sun Java spec". It however has IMHO some very severe limitations. It's not actually Java(TM) compliant, doesn't product bytecode, or read Java raw bytecode, or run in a VM. It also doesn't support Java runtime features past 1.1.4. The InfoWorld article is here. As a Java developer, to me creating a product that is supposed to be some sort of Java tool that doesn't support any of Java's useful features or even latest language spec, doesn't cut mustard. I liked VJ++, it was a solid IDE and if it supported JDK 1.4 I'd be all for it. I wish Microsoft would just produce a good IDE, and not screw with the language."

iforgotmyfirstlogon submitted an InfoWorld story that makes the shocking claim that XP is slower then 2k for business use. Pretty graphs, comparisons of SMP, and they even tested without the eye candy. My favorite comment is this one "it appears that for light-duty service on the newest hardware, Windows XP with Office XP is an acceptable choice -- if an 11 percent performance hit, or 53 minutes added to an 8-hour day, is acceptable." And thats the best case scenario.

Slashback has updates tonight on nuclear-safe hosting facilities, the temporary return of Metricom's Ricochet service, and a possible problem with Apple's newest upgrade for anyone using Xfree86 under Mac OS X.

A soft spot on the Apple?MacXGuy writes: "I recently obtained by free 10.1 upgrade from the Apple Store in the Mall of America. After installing it on my Titanium PB-G4 XFree4.1 (http://www.mrcla.com/XonX/) no longer works. (I'm definitely not installing it on my Dual 800 G4 until a workaround is found.)"

Since most of the stuff I've heard about the 10.1 upgrade has been positive to the point of suspicion, I wonder if anyone else has experienced similar upgrade quibbles with it.

Another good reason for a complex infrastructure. PhantomHarlock writes "New York City officials requested and got what's left of Metricom to re-activate the wireless network in the area surrounding the World Trade Center. Rescue and cleanup crews are using the network to coordinate and access death certificates filed online. Only one rooftop transmitter had been destroyed, the other four are still intact."

Even when you're right, you're wrong -- as the fine print clearly shows. An anonymous reader points to column in InfoWorld about interpreting the overlapping, contradictory and sometimes funny EULAs that accompany Microsoft products. Microsoft certainly isn't alone in that regard either -- ever read a EULA you thought was totally fair, unambiguous, and satisfying? Mr. Anonymous writes: "This was amply illustrated last week after I mentioned here that the EULA (end-user license agreement) for FrontPage 2002 contains a term prohibiting use of the software in connection with a site that disparages Microsoft or its online services. I love it."

The only place to hunker is a well-connected bunker. severn2j writes: "It seems that AL Digital's nuclear bunker (posted on /. a few weeks ago), has paid off for them in light of the attacks on the U.S. So much so that they've got another one."

And for all your fair-use needs ... An Anonymous Coward writes "Maybe lyrics.ch is going down now, but most of its content and even more is available from LyricsDot which is not going to close."

Good to hear. Amateur song transcription really isn't such a bad thing, except when you consider most of the songs.

Jeff writes: "CNN is reporting 'In a dramatic move, the new judge in the Microsoft case Friday ordered the government and the software maker into five weeks of intensive settlement talks, until Nov. 2.'" Other MS submissions coming in today: USAToday discovers the new upgrade scheme, designed to milk every last cent out of those who've locked themselves into Windows; tech-report.com goes a bit more in depth on the same subject; ZDNet hoists the black flag; MS discusses its plans to control how you compute (by the way, the license agreement for Windows Media Player now allows Microsoft to disable any software on your computer - you do read those license agreements, don't you?); Gates got $666,000 last year but won't have to apply for welfare just yet.

Seabass55 writes: "Researchers say Nimda is set to propagate again after rechecking Nimda's code. God help all the MS boxes ... again." Looks like the owners of unpatched IIS machines have until 9 p.m. GMT (1 a.m. ET) to get ready. I'd like to see a nice double stockade for the writers of Sircam and Nimda, and maybe some fireants. Update: 09/27 22:45 GMT by T : Temporal confusion -- that's 5:00 GMT, sorry :) Update: 09/28 00:14 GMT by T : Carnage4Life contributes this link to a command-line tool from Microsoft to list patches already installed or still needed, if you think your Windows machine may be vulnerable.

A mild controvery occured yesterday in a story claiming Microsoft prohibits anti-ms speech if you use Frontpage. Here is a followup submitted by Reyacta from the original author: "Several readers have told me their EULA for FrontPage 2002 does not contain the no-disparaging-MS term, or that the term only applies to the FrontPage logo or to the Web components like the MSNBC news headline component. Just to be sure, this afternoon I went down to the store and bought a copy of FrontPage 2002 myself. In the box was the "Microsoft Frontpage 2002" license on a four-page folded sheet, titled "End- User License Agreement For Microsoft Software." Under Section #1, Grant of License, the second paragraph headed "Restrictions" states in part: "You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services, infringe any intellectual property or other rights of these parties, violate any state, federal or international law, or promote racism, hatred or pornography." (Not only a stunning example of legal overreaching, in my opinion, but very poor grammar as well.) It appears to me to clearly apply to use of the program as a whole and not just the logo or Web components. I suspect that there are different versions of the EULA of FrontPage 2002. Perhaps the license was updated for the most recent SKU, or versions obtained through different channels don't yet have it. I'm going to try to get Microsoft to clarify where this EULA does and doesn't appear, but I'm not sure they will be very anxious to provide me with that information. Reply to Ed Foster."

According to this story running at Info World, the license from FrontPage 2002 contains a clause that says 'You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services ...' An unfortunate clause that will prevent me from my long term plan of migrating Slashdot to Frontpage (cough). There's lots of other nastiness in this article too. Can anyone find that specific clause? Can anyone find the EULA itself? Update: 09/20 18:10 GMT by T : According to reader bteutsch "FWIW, the clause appears only in the EULA agreement for use of the FrontPage Logo, not with the product or server extensions license."

Futurepower(tm) was one of the first to write with the news Red Hat reports loss, revenue slips, via Infoworld. Szulik ^? is right in his statement that compared to what's going on in the overall technology segment, RH is doing a good job.

Lester67 writes: "Infoworld has a pretty cool article on the "the Parasitic Grid," which is basically people (mainly in large cities) opening up their high-speed access through 802.11b to anyone that wants to use it, and how it may threaten telecom profits. One guy has a pretty interesting use for a Pringles(tm) can too (but only after you've removed your hand)." This article ties together several of the recent stories on free-for-all community networking, and fits in nicely with the recent post on bridging networks with 802.11b.

Rob Kischuk writes: "According to an article at InfoWorld, McAfee.com has been granted a patent on its variety of "software as a service". No specifics on the patent, but the CEO's statement, "You either work with us, or you work around this patent", seems to indicate that more than a couple of ASPs could be affected." kerubi gets a cookie for sending in a link to the patent in question, or read McAfee's press release.

Rob Kischuk writes: "According to an article at InfoWorld, McAfee.com has been granted a patent on its variety of "software as a service". No specifics on the patent, but the CEO's statement, "You either work with us, or you work around this patent", seems to indicate that more than a couple of ASPs could be affected." kerubi gets a cookie for sending in a link to the patent in question, or read McAfee's press release.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Bad Ximian. In this week's Infoworld opinion piece Nicholas Petreley points out how Ximian's .Net Clone, Mono, may very well be the "Destroy Open Source" Trojan horse that Microsoft has been desperately seeking. Thanks Nick for the wake up slap. We needed it." I don't understand how Ximian expects to succeed either. Lots of other companies have attempted to co-exist with Microsoft in a similar fashion, and they all lasted right up until the instant Microsoft decided to squash them.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Bad Ximian. In this week's Infoworld opinion piece Nicholas Petreley points out how Ximian's .Net Clone, Mono, may very well be the "Destroy Open Source" Trojan horse that Microsoft has been desperately seeking. Thanks Nick for the wake up slap. We needed it." I don't understand how Ximian expects to succeed either. Lots of other companies have attempted to co-exist with Microsoft in a similar fashion, and they all lasted right up until the instant Microsoft decided to squash them.

jeffwolfe writes: "In his latest column in InfoWorld, Nicholas Petreley claims that Microsoft's attack on the GPL is merely a diversionary tactic to distract the Open Source community from Microsoft's real goal: authentication services."

jeffwolfe writes: "In his latest column in InfoWorld, Nicholas Petreley claims that Microsoft's attack on the GPL is merely a diversionary tactic to distract the Open Source community from Microsoft's real goal: authentication services."

TwP writes: "That new computer will cost you $1,200 - wait no $1,300 - better make that $1,500 dollars! IBM, Compaq, and Dell are experimenting with "dynamic pricing" according to this article over at InfoWorld. Amazon tried a similar idea last summer and met with quite the negative response. Hope the computer makers can spin this idea in a better light." Amazon's experience didn't work out, and as far as I know, they've ceased doing it.

TwP writes: "That new computer will cost you $1,200 - wait no $1,300 - better make that $1,500 dollars! IBM, Compaq, and Dell are experimenting with "dynamic pricing" according to this article over at InfoWorld. Amazon tried a similar idea last summer and met with quite the negative response. Hope the computer makers can spin this idea in a better light." Amazon's experience didn't work out, and as far as I know, they've ceased doing it.

rgetty writes "Inforworld posted this article describing the process used by a group of engineers and scientists from Kyoto University and Central Glass (Japan) to pack 1TB of data into a cubic centimeter of glass. Portable data warehousing is not too far off..."

rgetty writes "Inforworld posted this article describing the process used by a group of engineers and scientists from Kyoto University and Central Glass (Japan) to pack 1TB of data into a cubic centimeter of glass. Portable data warehousing is not too far off..."

deran9ed writes: "Silicon Graphics plans to introduce a version of its Origin 3000 series computer built around Intel's 64-bit IA-64 Itanium processor running Linux, according to SGI Chairman and CEO Robert Bishop. The current Origin 3000 computers from SGI are built around processors from MIPS Technologies and run SGI's proprietary Irix operating system. SGI has not decided as yet on the name for the new product line. Infoworld article."

Wattsman writes "Looks like Microsoft is taking a new approach. From Linux Today, Microsoft has announced that will release software that will allow non-MS operating systems to run .NET web services. Ballmer specifically mentions that Linux is one of the platforms."

ILikeRed writes "Well, you mentioned this story more than once, and even gave advice on fighting it. But now the UCITA has come to Texas, my home state, so I am hoping you will send out the word, so we can show that people do not want this legislation, even if it is in Compaq's back yard. And here I thought they were supposed to be a company that got it - can anyone submit a full list of companies supporting this thing? Might be a good cause for a boycott...."

Player To Be Traded Later writes: "Robert Cringely at Infoworld reports here on Microsoft's attempts to squash SQL Server 7 benchmarks." In short, when a testing lab came up with far better results for SQL Server 7 under Windows NT than with its much-touted successor Windows 2000, Microsoft decided they'd rather keep the touting nice and quiet.

Andy Tai writes "According to this InfoWorld column, a coalition, AFFECT, has been formed to fight UCITA (the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act). UCITA was passed in Virginia and Maryland and is beginning to move through other state legislatures, and oppositions are needed to halt UCITA's passage. AFFECT is composed of a variety of organizations, including, from the ACM, EFF to several big companies outside the computer industry. They are calling for action and support in each state of the US. UCITA's background can be found here and how it can impact Free Software is described here."

utoddl asks: "Now that Microsoft is dropping volume licensing for non-NT versions of Windows, will corporate types who are forced to 'upgrade' from their Win9x OSes be any more likely to look at alternatives to NT (say, Linux, for example) than they would be otherwise? Could it be that Microsoft's attempt to increase the NT revenue stream by forcing the hand of slow adopters cause some to adopt something else instead?" Ouch! This will cause hell for shops who have a large number of Win9x based clients. Is this a desperate move by Microsoft to increase revenues from one area that they are expecting to lose in another year?

Eggplant62 writes: "In the wake of recent reports of spam-friendliness at big ISP's like AT&T and PSInet, [this article] takes a pretty good look at the problems UU.net is having with enforcing their AUP when it comes to unsolicited email. According to the article, it can take "two to four weeks to shut off a spammer's digital tap." The author of this article solicited news.admin.net-abuse.email for material for the article." Guess it isn't easy even for the big carriers to end the pink-meat congestion.

ErrantKbd writes "An article at Infoworld discusses IBM's plans to release Itanium-based systems sometime in the January/February timespan. They will be building systems running Windows of course, but also ready-made servers running RedHat, Caldera, TurboLinux, and SuSE. Should be pretty sweet provided everything goes smoothly with the 64-bit processor. Note: there is an error in the article, a 64 bit system can directly address approximately 1 billion times more than the article suggests." Those'll be one helluva desktop box.

Dominic writes: "Seems microsoft have been hacked (possibly) again, acording to infoworld." They don't seem to have a lot of evidence, but there's some interesting commentary related to this, and the earlier crack where the source code to Windows and Office was supposedly stolen (I'll believe that when I see it).

The European delegate to ICANN was interviewed about his plans for ICANN - he has a few choice words about the whole situation. He seems to be a fascinating character.

stereoroid writes "InfoWorld has an article describing how the US Federal Trade Commission" has listed the "Top 10 Types" of "Dot-Con" scam. The main web page does not name names, but the PDFs downloadable from there certainly do - hundreds of names. Then there's the list of last month's actions, including MS WebTV's "Deceptive Advertising Claims". "

stereoroid writes "InfoWorld has an article describing how the US Federal Trade Commission" has listed the "Top 10 Types" of "Dot-Con" scam. The main web page does not name names, but the PDFs downloadable from there certainly do - hundreds of names. Then there's the list of last month's actions, including MS WebTV's "Deceptive Advertising Claims". "

Scareduck writes: "We've all heard much of @Home's lousy service. Ed Foster's column today in InfoWorld discusses a fellow who got his @Home e-mail account pulled for posting @Home internal documents to a Usenet newsgroup explaining how tech reps are to assume problems are always on the customer's side. He subsequently posted them on various free Web services (WebJump and Angelfire) only to discover his pages mysteriously disappear. @Home earns bonus villain points for invoking the purely evil DMCA in their justification of this thuggish behavior."

Scareduck writes: "We've all heard much of @Home's lousy service. Ed Foster's column today in InfoWorld discusses a fellow who got his @Home e-mail account pulled for posting @Home internal documents to a Usenet newsgroup explaining how tech reps are to assume problems are always on the customer's side. He subsequently posted them on various free Web services (WebJump and Angelfire) only to discover his pages mysteriously disappear. @Home earns bonus villain points for invoking the purely evil DMCA in their justification of this thuggish behavior."

jilles writes "I found this article at infoworld. Apparently some company executive of Sun was caught saying that SUN Microsystems is moving toward making its Java technology fully open-source."

Infoworld has released their list of the top E-Business Innovators and, lookie-lookie, the Apache Group was selected because of the Apache Server Project. What's also nice is that Infoworld "got it right" in attributing the work to the entire group, and getting the feel of how the group operates. No idea where they got the idea that the future Apache will "no longer be a C language-based Web server"...

Infoworld has released their list of the top E-Business Innovators and, lookie-lookie, the Apache Group was selected because of the Apache Server Project. What's also nice is that Infoworld "got it right" in attributing the work to the entire group, and getting the feel of how the group operates. No idea where they got the idea that the future Apache will "no longer be a C language-based Web server"...

cnkeller writes with this snippet from an article in InfoWorld: "BERLIN -- THE much-anticipated 2.4 version of the Linux kernel will take at least another two months to complete, Linus Torvalds, creator of the open-source operating system, said here Friday. 'It's been a slower process than many people would like,' he said, remarking that developers are no longer adding new features, only fixing bugs. 'With luck, we'll see it in early December, and with not so good luck, I still hope that we can do it this side of the year.'"

Michael Baumann writes: "Look out Intel, AMD's at it again! Check it out!" According to the usual "Sources close to," "[a] 1.2Ghz Athlon chip should appear sometime near the end of this month." That would mean all my computers have been officially lapped, which is great. Ryan Shrout writes: "It looks like the rumor circulating on the Web recently that AMD would be removing the pins on the socket A CPUs to stop multiplier adjustments via the motherboard may be false. This post at the Athlonmb.com forums (Scroll down to the post by OptiX) states 'the simplest way to put it is that the multiplier lock seems to be part of the chip package rather than the core, and short of a new processor stepping and a complete revision of the processsor interface there's no way the FID pins can be removed, unless the multiplier becomes a purely DIP switch set function, which would defeat the object of the exercise!!'" Secondly, and probably of interest to far more people, this page discusses the expected price drops on AMD chips in the near future, and says that "the official date for the change is Oct. 30th, but [that] many larger distributors will be taking advantage of the lower costs as soon as the 15th." I hope so -- heat up, market, heat up!

ICANN's At-Large Elections are now underway. If you were lucky enough to be able to get through during the registration process, and then lucky enough to actually receive your PIN in the mail, congratulations, you can vote. Click through for your FREE Slashdot voter's guide... :)

There is actually a great deal of information available about these elections and the candidates - it puts the U.S. presidential elections to shame, quite frankly.

Where to Vote: ICANN's online voting site

When to Vote: Now until midnight (GMT), Oct. 10.

Who to Vote For: That's a little less straightforward. Here's some resources to help you decide.

• CDT's Election Guide - CDT mailed a questionnaire to the candidates asking a variety of questions, their answers are online: North American thumbnail guide - North American detailed guide
• Internet Democracy Project - They also sent out a questionnaire, and the answers from all candidates have been posted. These are good questions.
• Association for Progressive Communications voting recommendations
• Berkman Center candidate forum - The Berkman Center sponsored a debate between all seven candidates (not just the ones with more than 15% of the vote, heh), Webcast it, and recorded it for your viewing pleasure. Archives are available here. While the discussion is lengthy, there's no better way to see the candidates in action.
• Dan Gillmor, columnist
• Brian Livingston, columnist - Livingston has a good summary of what is wrong with ICANN.

The groups above recommend a voting slate of Lessig first, followed by Simons, followed by Auerbach, for the North American seat (you get to rank all seven candidates in order of your preference). Here's my recommendation, slightly different from the above:

1. Auerbach - Auerbach understands DNS, and he understands the civil liberty issues, and he has paid a LOT of attention to ICANN, and he understands - right now - how to fix its main problems. The other recommended candidates (Simons and Lessig) have the potential to understand ICANN as well as he does, but he has already put in the study time! I picked Auerbach as my first choice.
2. Simons - Simons understands the civil liberty issues, and has spent a lot of time in this sort of political environment, and has the potential to understand ICANN inside and out, but she hasn't put the time in yet. I picked her second.
3. Lessig - Lessig is a smart guy. I don't think he comes with as solid a commitment to civil liberties as the others, and I don't think he has any special understanding of DNS issues. Of course he's bright enough to understand anything he puts his mind to, but why distract him from the 20 other things he's undertaking (such as joining EFF as a board member recently). Lessig gets my third choice.
4. Tiller - Tiller is sort of a wildcard. From what he says, he would be a civil-liberties oriented candidate, but I had never heard of him before the elections, so he's a bit of a dark horse to me. Still, he beats the remaining candidates hands-down.
5. Langenberg - Langenberg seems like he would be a fairly ineffective candidate, no civil liberties focus, not (obviously) captured by IP interests or anything else. But we don't need an ineffective candidate.
6. Chapin - Chapin earns the second-to-last spot. He works for Verizon and can be expected to promote policies that would benefit the major telcos, as if they didn't have enough representation already.
7. Miller - Miller is dead last. President of the ITAA, he represents all that is wrong with ICANN right now, and states flat out that he thinks they've done a great job to date and he would continue the path taken so far. If you think ICANN is right on track, vote for Miller. Bleh.

Vote!

kirwin writes: "InfoWorld offers some insight to the possible rewards that the Open Source community could reap, thanks to the Sun's acquisition of Cobalt Networks." I'm still not sure how I feel about this one. I'm gonna adopt ye old wait-and-see before I let it bug me.

kirwin writes: "InfoWorld offers some insight to the possible rewards that the Open Source community could reap, thanks to the Sun's acquisition of Cobalt Networks." I'm still not sure how I feel about this one. I'm gonna adopt ye old wait-and-see before I let it bug me.

earache writes: "This story at Infoworld.com talks about how the WAP forum is moving away from WML and adopting XHTML as the markup of choice for WAP 2.0."

Captain Pooh writes "Nicholas Petreley expresses his opinion about how "Information Doesn't Want To Be Free--People Want It To Be". " Pretty provocative piece - although his reasoning is sound.

Captain Pooh writes "Nicholas Petreley expresses his opinion about how "Information Doesn't Want To Be Free--People Want It To Be". " Pretty provocative piece - although his reasoning is sound.

linux slacker writes "Bob Metcalfe, Inventor of ethernet, writer of a weekly columnn on Infoworld, was on Boston U's NPR show The Connection this morning. Among other topics, he predicted the eventual downfall Open Source and Linux, citing as one reason the old argument that "Open Source leads to security breaches". Now, this guy did support the Microsoft anti-trust case and opposes monopolies, but he just doesn't like the Open Source idea. " To be fair, he did talk about a lot of other stuff - it was a pretty good show.

AntiBasic writes "This article over at InfoWorld recounts an Ex-Microsoftie's accounts of Microsoft's infrastructure usage of different Unices. Interesting insider's perspective which reinforces what we've been thinking all along. For the most part, the company's money-making Web properties are all based around Unix, with Hotmail 99 being 99% FreeBSD, MSN using some Apache on Solaris, bCentral ad servers on 100% FreeBSD, and WebTV pretty much entirely Solaris. "Internally when Windows 2000 was announced, people were told not to even think about using it for production because it was too unstable," says the ex-Microsoft employee. "

AntiBasic writes "This article over at InfoWorld recounts an Ex-Microsoftie's accounts of Microsoft's infrastructure usage of different Unices. Interesting insider's perspective which reinforces what we've been thinking all along. For the most part, the company's money-making Web properties are all based around Unix, with Hotmail 99 being 99% FreeBSD, MSN using some Apache on Solaris, bCentral ad servers on 100% FreeBSD, and WebTV pretty much entirely Solaris. "Internally when Windows 2000 was announced, people were told not to even think about using it for production because it was too unstable," says the ex-Microsoft employee. "

cchuter writes "Apparently Sun has been getting it's customers to be 'mum' about a certain memory problem for as long as 18 months. The problem is assumed to be the cause for many website outages (most visible, ebay). "