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He certainly has a point.
Civil disobedience is not a good business model. On the other hand, that's an awfully hefty fee to shell out. $1 Million? That could probably help to line some lawyers' pockets.

Consider this, though: They care enough about their customers and their own business that they're willing to take this "voluntary" hit of over a million bucks just to protect themselves and their customers. Even if SCO isn't right (preaching to the choir, I know) then they've still made a major step in the direction of "we'd take a bullet for you."

SCO spokesman Blake Stowell declined to give the exact value of the deal but said it was worth at least $1 million.

EV1servers.net is a $99-per-month Web site hosting company. Formerly known as RadioShack.Net, the company has been in existence since 1999 and claims 400,000 customers in 42 states.

"They have 20,000 servers total," Stowell said. "The majority of those are Linux servers. This is a site license that covers those servers."

SCO has previous pegged its IP license at $699 per server processor and $199 per desktop processor. Using those figures, 20,000 server licenses would cost nearly $14 million, so the current agreement is likely a discounted arrangement.

EV1servers.Net bought $1 Mill in SCO Linux Licenses

I'm not completely sure, but this site says that BellSouth's backbone could download the library of congress in 126 seconds- so it's gotta be pretty fast.

Ellison is no longer on the board of directors at Apple.

Don't bash him though, in my opinion the guys a great lot of fun - apparently he has been known to fly his Russian built fighter over Gate's house to piss him off.

So he has a big ego too.

As for his credentials and people slagging Ellison for the thinPC/thinClient/netPC idea, it really wasn't a bad idea, but was put out of the water by the dramatically falling price of normal PC's. On other matters he's been right on the ball - convergence in enterprise apps for example in the 11i suite - it's going to make increasing inroads into systems integrators territory such as IBM if it continues along its current path of success.

Plus he's best mates with Steve, between them you can bet this dynamic duo get up to a lot of fun (Google for the trick they played on a technician at Pixar - offering him the CEO job at Apple).

Certainly there are industry people that consider only NT 4 as being the only MS OS at all securable and only then because it has been around long enough to pretty much have it's holes ironed out.

Any OS is secure if you don't turn on the computer. After that, all bets are off.

Yeah, I was reading that comment Taylor made being that "Just because you have more people looking at the code does not guarantee a level of quality, because those people might not be the most-qualified people to do code review." Funny he says that on the same day we find out the NSA has contributed security enhancements to the Linux Kernel (which was just mentioned on Slashdot).

Debian's security is LEGENDARY.

Almost mythical, even.

• Gentoo growing in popularity
  
  According to this article[1] on InternetNews, Netcraft's January survey
  counted over 24,000 Gentoo installations on active web servers, showing
  almost 20% growth over 6 months. Also, as we've reported in the past,
  Gentoo has been getting more and more recognition from various sources
  recently - while Gentoo Linux did not win the award, it was a finalist for
  a Product Excellence Award at LWE 2004[2], and has been featured in
  publications like Linux Journal[3] and Linux Weekly News[4]. Here's a
  shout out to all the developers and community members who keep making
  Gentoo great.
  
  1. http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3 313211
  2. http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/linuxworldny/V40/ind ex.cvn
  3. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?thold=0&mo de=thread&order=0&sid=7002
  4. http://lwn.net/Articles/59138/

The funniest part of this whole thing has been the industry pundits explaining the ramifications of the source release in various media outlets.

"Unlike Linux desktops, which is like the wild wild west and not controlled and enhanced all the time, Windows users have come to take a quality controlled operating system for granted and not have to worry about a bad release," Winell said. "We hope that Microsoft can swiftly identify how the code got released, prosecute the perpetrator and build a barrier/security patch to protect against intrusions."

Mr. Winell has obviously never used Windows ME if he thinks Microsoft quality control prevents "bad releases". You know Econium must be a real player when the title of their home page is "Welcome to Econium who is a solutions provider."

The classic yesterday was Laura Didio from Yankee Group comparing OSS hackers to suicide car bombers.

Nothing like an embarassing Microsoft moment to get the "experts" out from under their rocks.

Mainsoft specialise in cross-platform development, enabling devlopers to develop using MS tools for deployment on *nix. Interestingly, for the conspiracy theorists, their previous mentions on /. date from 2000 and center around rumours that they were porting Office and IE to Linux. More news on the leak from Internetnews.com and The Register.

The code is said to be W2k-SP1.

Here's the ringing endorsement from Laura Didio (the anti-RMS, perhaps):

"With the open source community, there are a large percentage of tinkers and 'ankle biters' who are trying their hand at hacking. Some are even communicating with each other. So it only takes one or two of these groups sharing information to be able to pull something off. When you have this type of passion, it's hard to fight because these people are like virtual suicide car bombers."

=====

On an article at internetnews.com there is a paragraph that says: "Up until now it was more like the 70/30 rule, where 70 percent of the threats are bogus. Now it's more like 50/50," Didio said. "With the open source community, there are a large percentage of tinkers and 'ankle biters' who are trying their hand at hacking. Some are even communicating with each other. So it only takes one or two of these groups sharing information to be able to pull something off. When you have this type of passion, it's hard to fight because these people are like virtual suicide car bombers."

It's now all over online news..

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/12/HNmicrol eak_1.html
http://www.ebcvg.com/news.php?id=1903
http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1076628412.html
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3 312451
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/business/79 41292.htm
http://www.wvec.com/sharedcontent/nationworld/nati onprint/021204cccanatmicrosoft.149f2b31.html
http://www.komotv.com/stories/29778.htm
http://www.cryptonomicon.net/modules.php?name=News &file=article&sid=671
http://www.dvhardware.net/article2423.html
http://searchwin2000.techtarget.com/originalConten t/0,289142,sid1_gci950346,00.html

Looks like they are already pointing some fingers according to this article it's the open-source hackers who want this.

Didio said. "With the open source community, there are a large percentage of tinkers and 'ankle biters' who are trying their hand at hacking. Some are even communicating with each other. So it only takes one or two of these groups sharing information to be able to pull something off. When you have this type of passion, it's hard to fight because these people are like virtual suicide car bombers."

Yankee Group senior analyst (sic) Laura Didio has these alarming thoughts on internetnews.com about who might now be able to get their hands on the Windows source:

"With the open source community, there are a large percentage of tinkers and 'ankle biters' who are trying their hand at hacking. Some are even communicating with each other. So it only takes one or two of these groups sharing information to be able to pull something off. When you have this type of passion, it's hard to fight because these people are like virtual suicide car bombers."

So Microsoft is the defender of truth and justice in the free world, and OSS hackers are like suicide car bombers?

She then went on to warn of the dangers of hackers using the several hundred megabytes worth of leaked source code to compile their own pirated copies of Windows 2000. What a dumbass.

And what exactly is a "tinker", anyway?

When asked to comment, Microsoft responded by e-mail that "the rumor regarding the availability of Windows source code is based on the speculation of an individual who saw a small section of un-identified code and thought it looked like Windows code. Microsoft is looking into this as a matter of due diligence."

...according to Yankee Group senior analyst Laura Didio... See for yourself...

"The rumor regarding the availability of Windows source code is based on the speculation of an individual who saw a small section of un-identified code and thought it looked like Windows code. Microsoft is looking into this as a matter of due diligence," a company spokesman said. "If a small section of Windows source code were to be available, it would be a matter of intellectual property rights rather than security." - from Eweek.

Also see ZDNet, InternetNews and Google News

Some changes, however, are actually for the better.

I have a serious suggestion: as so many people are royally pissed at these stupid harvesting zines, why don't we just wait until a decent news source publishes before coming to /. with a story?

I'd prefer to have the choice at least, then I can take it or leave it (perhaps slashdot could introduce a filter on 'stories needing free registration' in the user preferences?). But let's hope their registration system is implemented more (or less?) compentantly than their domain renewal (and the entire email system going down)!

READ the story on internetnews.com they talk to KDE people and SuSe development internetnews.com Here's one of my fav lines in the piece... "KDE 3.2 is very important for many people because it offers a nice set of new features," said SuSE's Schlaeger. "It's not a revolution as it used to be in the early days of KDE, when it brought something completely new to the Linux world that wasn't there, but I think the KDE project is making steady progress."

more info on that legislation:

The House Judiciary Committee approved controversial legislation Wednesday that extends protection for facts within databases which are not currently eligible for copyright protection.

Opponents to the bill claim it is special interest legislation that will ultimately make it more difficult and costly to access public information.

The Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act (H.R. 3261) allows database owners to sue in civil court for damages arising from the theft of the information in the database

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3 307631

SCO home page has been moved to http://www.thescogroup.com/ in order to minimize damage caused by MyDoom.A virus. There is an article about it in InternetNews

Now "the open source community" is being blamed for writing this...

SCO's actions seem rather hard to distinguish from organized shake down techniques. What would it take to get a RICO investigation started? The Feds seem to have little trouble with another three-letter acronym for fraud - maybe another few months and they'll get to the latter part of the alphabet?

Or does hiring a U.S. Senator's son automatically indemnify SCO from RICO prosecution?

Let's not forget their tendency to substantially change their own rules in midstream (and not honor individuals' requests to be removed from their databases)...

<grrr>

From internetnews.com.

For its part, Provo, Utah-based Novell was caught unawares.

"We can't comment because we haven't seen the filing yet," said spokesman Bruce Lowry. "But we can certainly say we will be defending our interests."

In other words, SCO is issuing press releases within hours (maybe minutes) of filling lawsuits. Certainly before even discussing these matters with Novell. Surely that's not normal behaviour.

There's a running joke on Groklaw that SCO is using press releases and lawsuits as a foul form of free advertising. Unfortunately I'm not finding the joke very funny anymore.

Get real. If all the factors were equal, we'd see a LOT more Apache exploits. There are over TWICE as many Apache sites as there are IIS sites.

I agree that Apache has proven to be a more secure webserver than IIS.. Which isn't to say that it's trouble-free though.

on a related note check out this internetnews.com story - http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3 300161 Legacy Red Hat users seek alternatives - they quote a couple of people off of the Fedora Legacy project who say it's not ready

Internet News

They care that there customers know that using a P2P downloads leads to litigation. Caring makes them happy.

Apple is widely rumored to be releasing a "mini-ipod" that (a) is smaller and (b) costs less than the current ones, with prices of $99 to $149 being floated around for a 2GB model and $149 to $199 for a 4GB model.

Just wait and get one of those. You don't want to use a crappy service with WMA audio when in a week you can get the real thing.

Mini iPod On Apple's Plate

Mini iPods ... focus of upcoming Expo keynote

Mini iPod Buzz...

MWSF: More Mini iPod Confirmation and Detail?

Mini-iPod Rumors

Micron bought out Dominion Semiconductor, a joint Toshiba-IBM memory fab plant in Manassas, VA in early 2002. As time went on, production went down, work on a second process lab was all but halted and the plant effectively stopped production early in 2003 (I had a family member that worked there). In the same time frame, they also cut production in their main plant in Idaho. The goal at was to also buy or merge with cash strapped Hynix in Korea but that was shot down by the Korean government. I believe their goal was either to move production out of the US or to buy who they could and join forces with those they could not. In that time frame, memory prices were extremely low, companies were failing and Micron saw a chance to gobble up the competition. The gamble failed when the Hynix buy fell through. Interestingly enough, they applied for and have recieved government funds related to memory dumping.
They had a goal of getting memory prices to a certain level and could not do it with competitors.

PS.. Crucial is Micron

...far more damage to that reputation ... rumors have had a tremendous chilling effect... no way to undo that damage

Your post reflects SCO's approach to their entire Linux IP adventure: High drama, low plot value.

Those I've met who seriously thought Linux or IBM's legitimacy damaged were those who already had a vested interest against them. Like Microsofties, and the odd BSDer. Most consider SCO's hystrioncs artificial and a thoroughly transparent attempt to manipulate both the software market and the stock market alike.

There have been a number of surveys recently, clearly indicating there have been no chilling effects on the Linux marketplace.

Reason #83 that MD5 is an inadequate method of identifying MP3s. Hashsums are only "practically unique."

In March of 2002, my company shifted three-fourths of our CUW Systems Team (kern-devs) -- which had been untouched, platform-wise, the previous two years -- onto a parallel development path with Linux 2.4.18.

This bold (in my opinion) decision was made despite Wind River International, the dominate embedded software technologist, matter-of-factly asserting at the time that they view Linux as inferior to their preferred platform, VxWorks, and would never include Linux in their product line. (They eventually changed their minds.)

Four months later, on July 19, 2002, my company, in consultation with our customers, announced that we were ending all new development for CUW, were placing it into maintenance mode, and were solely developing for Linux. On a personal level, myself and most of my team were ecstatic about the new direction the company was taking.

As we are all so evidently aware, the SCO Group began its grandiloquent and legal smear campaign against Linux in February, and March of 2003. Well almost four months ago, I was assigned the somewhat informal task of determining the validity of the SCO claims of ownership to Linux. Despite the seemingly preposterous evidence offered thus far by SCO, I'm saddened to reveal that they may have a solid case for copyright infringement in the 2.4 Linux kernel.

There are three code pieces that appear to be copied verbatim. The first is forty-two lines of packet handling code. Following the ip_vs_state_table variable is where most of the infringement takes place. Only the state transition handling seems to be original. The second is sixteen lines of VM allocation code. Five lines after CONFIG_DISCONTIGMEM, and eleven lines after VMALLOC_VMADDR. And the last is seven lines after SELFPOWER, USB specific power management code.

It's possible, some would say probable, that this is actually code that SCO copied from Linux. Not the inverse. I'm not knowledgeable enough of the history to determine that, but it definitely needs to be looked into. Nevertheless, it's still accurate to state that the vast majority of the Linux kernel code is original. And that's really the only fact that matters to the nontechnical mass media.

The G5 spanks the Opteron in many of the non-gaming tests, except for the Photoshop tests.

Isn't photoshop the reason for buying a mac?

And what about all those announcements?

Microsoft asks Mac users, "How can we get your business?'

Merrill Lynch, whose technology group recently began coverage of Red Hat, noted in a research note last week that "open source and Mac adoption is still in infancy in the enterprise market." However, "we should see explosive growth in the years to come as corporations look to achieve cost savings within their IT departments."

Using IDC's own estimate for G5/OSX server shipments through 2007, as well as its internal data on OSX operating system attach rates and server pricing, Merrill reckons that the enterprise G5 market could be worth $529 million by 2007. "This represents a [compound annual growth rate] of 61 percent over the 5-year period from 2002-2007," the note said.

Japanese telco to aid Mac phone development

Mac, G5 systems move out enterprise's mainframe

New G5 chips, but no 64-bit OS X for at least two years (too late).

"We're saying that OSX/G5s will eat Unix," Gantz said.

Is Computer Associates contemplating dumping Windows?

If you have been following Microsoft attempts to hold onto counties, cities, states, governmental bodies, governments, corporations and people, you know the headlines have gone from talk to action.

The governments that are starting to move over tend to be mostly poorer countries, or ones with large, largely computer-free populaces. Brazil and China are good examples of this trend. In those places, OSX/G5 adoption has been picking up steam to the point that if a second world country told MS to take a hike, it would hardly rate a Slashdot story on a slow day. .

THE NATIONAL HEALTH Service is considering using the OSX operating system & G5s in a 2.3 billion deal that could affect as many as 800,000 PCs if a pilot is successful.

Nine German cities poised to adopt OSX/G5

Official: China to invest in OSX/G5-based software industry

The US Army has abandoned Windows and chosen OSX for a key component of its "Land Warrior" programme, according to a report in National Defense Magazine. The move, initially covering a personal computing and communications device termed the Commander's Digital Assistant (CDA), follows the failure of the previous attempt at such a device in trials in February of this year, and is part of a move to make the device simpler and less breakable.

According to program manager Lt Col Dave Gallop this is part of a broader move towards OSX/G5 by the US Army: "Evidence shows that OSX is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to OSX/G5-based OS."

Sun Microsystems is the odd man out. It has an impressive array of powerful enemies: IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Red Hat, Apple, Novell, and more. It has only a weakened Oracle as a friend, and Oracle too has made a "bet the company" move to OSX/G5. OSX/G5 threatens many of Sun's traditional products as sharply a

Yep, apparently back in 1999. I found this news article:

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/1 88211

I don't think they are still in business, the website doesn't seem to mention dialup at all, just seems to point to Netscape.co.uk.

Simple question then: If Lindows is so clearly infringing on a valid tradmark why was an injunction not issued against them back in March in Microsoft's U.S. suit against them? Anyone can assert that anything is a trade- or servicemark, but that doesn't make it enforceable. Even in the case of a registered trademark validity can be questioned.

Anonymous ... hmmm ... has a huge database ... and apparently contracted its operations with Microsoft ... hmmm ... Who could that be?

Last week, President Bush signed the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, an important measure which should serve as a needed stimulus for that nascent field full of potential.
Nanotechnology deals with the study and manipulation of atoms and molecules -- at about the scale of 1/100,000th of the diameter of a human hair. As its name implies, it is not a field of pure research, but rather an interdisciplinary area with many possible applications. ...

Nanomaterials are already being used in sunscreens and tennis rackets. The oil industry saves an estimated $12 billion each year by using molecular sieves known as zeolites to extract gasoline from crude oil....

In the future, nanotechnology coupled to biotechnology could produce a variety of beneficial products, from better sensors for agents of bioterrorism to custom-built medicines for fighting cancers. Nano-manufacturing processes could reduce waste from industrial production, and nanomaterials could be used to make power systems highly efficient. ...

The nation has needed this federal catalyst to fully develop the breathtaking possibilities of nanotechnology. The bill signed by Mr. Bush should serve well in widening the way.

...by Eric S. Raymond.

He makes it clear that SCO is attacking everyone, but he opposes DOS'ing them saying that "the open source community must use the truth, not criminal methods, as its weapons." Nicely done

You'd think but www.openbsd.org doesn't run OpenBSD. Here's a link that explains why.
In fact, just last year ftp.openbsd.org did get compromised!

I recall reading about Amtrak working with yahoo to provide net access on the trains.. I don't know if it panned out, and google searches just come up with old articles. Anyone know what happened?

Looking now, I see that the local train is testing wifi on certain routes.

the rigor imposed by Linux himself and the development community at large

And who is this "Linux" guy? Fantastic reporting.

If you're using at least Debian 3.0 stable (woody), install devfsd, install a devfs kernel, reboot, and everything should Just Work.

Debian 3.0 may not be so stable. You better go checking up on this.

Ok how about just perjury alone. Forged video evidence was also presented in the anti-trust trial in the U.S.

Ok how about the court's decision, upheld on appeal, that the company used illegal methods to maintain a desktop monopoly?

There are also the false and misleading advertising, against palm, novell, and regarding MS-Passport. MS-Passport cannot be secure even in theory, so any claims were clearly known to be falsehoods. And since MS-Office 2003 is tied into that, expect more legal action.

Then there have been a series of fines regarding patent infringements. The most recent being from SPX.

Where I come from, all that's called lying or stealing.

Looking at today's quote, it seems like their FUD is not having the effect that they thought it might. Perhaps that is why they are getting more desperate and far reaching with their accusations. Seriously, someone would have to have rocks in their head to believe anything they say at this point.