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"I will NEVER EVER DO THIS EVER AGAIN and I am once more terribly sorry," Baldino wrote in a statement for police. "Please let me go for I am terribly sorry!!! I'm only a kid! Help me out. I just want to go home. I did this not knowing of the serious penalty that lies behind it. Please! Please! Please!"

Oh. Well, in that case, off you go.

Hey now, it worked for Microsoft, except that nobody at Microsoft ever said they were sorry. Break the law, get convicted, punishment is that you have to promise not to do it again. A clever precedent to set, given the whoppers that the Bush administration already had in the works in 2001...

If you read this, you'll see that earlier this month Congress was moving to pass legislation delaying the mandate.

Indeed, I read not long ago an article that said Congress had indeed passed legislation noting that VOIP providers that could not comply were to be allowed an extension of up to one year where they would be allowed to continue aquiring customers. Sadly, I cannot find that article anywhere or other mention of the legislation passing.

So I am wondering if this story is a non-event as Vonage will just get an extension? You would have thought the article would mention that, but it's not like were reading a Blog where the writer has to know anything about anything I guess.

If you have been damaged in any way, shape or form, it's time to call their bluff!

... and ICQ is owned by AOL

If these filters really work, wouldn't US carriers love to have them?

MCI executive and Internet co-founder Vint Cerf agreed, saying it was bad for everyone if service providers suddenly started discriminating against traffic types by competitive parameters.

"The presumption [of the Internet] is that you're fully connected," Cerf said. Any attempts to block certain application types or types of content, he said, "will destroy the utility of the Net."

Qwest CEO Richard Notebaert, who also spoke at the conference Monday, said his company has a commercial contract with Vonage. Carrying more application traffic, Notebaert said, was an economic plus for Qwest.

"I want to run a network utilized as fully as possible," Notebaert said. "I want to sell wholesale [access] to everyone I can."

They already tried something akin to this, messing with Opera browsers on just one site. The backlash was immediate, amusing and probably lost Microsoft a few hundred thousand IE users who got tickled by Opera's response and switched.

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1 584361

As has been mentioned elsewhere Microsoft has, in the U.S. anyway, a trademark on "Microsoft Windows", not just "Windows". Windows by itself has been deemed too generic to trademark.

More information can be found here, in an article concerning the Lindows case.

But it would also appear that there is room for MS to wiggle. A fairly recent discussion on this can be found at Intellectual Property Forums.

I think the most insightful thing I've read so far in this discussion so far has been (paraphrasing) "Oh well, it wasn't worth him to fight their lawyers anyway".

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (30 Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

And we all know what happened to them.

the article uses zdnet blogs as its main information source?

In any case, i think the author lost the connection. It's not like Microsoft got suddenly lobotomized (they know that if they charge too much, their customers will flee elsewhere).

Microsoft's "hosted everything" (if real) is probably nothing but a response to the Google Office initiative.

The article author is just putting words in Microsoft's mouth.

I am a Sun Employee

The Register has, to some extent, got it's self mixed up.

The Grid Utility offering currently exists in 2 flavours which are still fairly fluid and are evolving to meet the markets needs.

The first is a 'enter your credit card number on our secure website, submit your job and wait for the results' ('Retail Grid') which has been on limited release to early access customers for a while now. I think the reason there has been little publicity around which customers which use this part of the service is because this model isn't contract based. As I understand it, people signing up on the website do not necessarily have an agreement with Sun over publicity.

The second model (the 'Commercial Grid') is a more tailored customer grid which does involve contracts and engineering development work whereby a customer is expected to return to the grid periodically to use 'their grid environment'.
This service has been in use for many months and although this part of the service *was* slightly delayed, we currently have a significant number of customers and potential customers who are conducting testing and running jobs on the Commercial SunGrid.
One thing we aren't suffering from is a lack of interest,

Also, The Register seems to have forgotten about this: http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3 529891

The FCC quickly ruled at the first chance that came along that telecom companies may not block VoIP:

http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/348746 6

and have reiterated again that this practice won't be tolerated. Of course, once the UN and/or EU "takes over the internet", we can look forward to paying $2 a minute again to make an overseas call.

My suspicion is the reason they're getting away with this has more to do with the fact that POTS is a cash cow for governments as well as phone companies. Here in the US state governments are terrified of VOIP because they count on POTS for a not-insignificant portion of revenues.

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

quick google search (heh) turned up this:

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3 394361

suggesting that a bunch of people attempted to register gmail as a trademark at the same time back in march/april 2004, including google who were a bit slow off the bat. this applies in the US and i assume it's been resolved, anybody?

as for the uk this guardian article

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,125 97,1568223,00.html?gusrc=rss

suggests that the company registered it waaaay back in 2002, therefore not qualifying for bandwaggoning and actually probably having a legit claim.

http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/35 56116

http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/35 56116

Microsoft and Blackboard created an "alliance" back in 2001 and now Microsoft is naming their new OS Vista, the name that WebCT's more recent CMS goes by.

Where do we draw the line on what is a coincidence and what is Microsoft tossing out chump change to protect their choice of name for the new OS?

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

Says who and why? Says the US government, repeatedly.

http://www.physorg.com/news6901.html
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/355468 6

This is all only the latest even in a long history of similar events.

Regardless, I would hope the UN wouldn't stoop that low. But the article frames it as an inevitability. Interesting; I didn't know we were bound by all of their laws. If we could get the resolution over to the Security Council we could easily veto it there. I'm not sure how the UN plans to wrest control from us, but either way, this sounds like the work of idiots.

You can hope, but PalmSource, the developer of Palm OS, was recently sold to a japanese company. It looks like a total rollover to me...
See This link.

MSN Messenger is quite seriously a joke. Here is a service that few people really use. AOL IM stills has the majority share here as well since they were one of the original IM services. They also bought up another "original", ICQ. Yahoo, I believe is probably 2nd in the IM race and has a strong support base from its e-mail service and people who use Yahoo as a primary search tool.

Nobody uses it? MSNger doesnt have an email service to back it up? Have you not heard of hotmail?

AIM is #1, MSN is #2, and Yahoo is #3, but they are pretty much evenly distributed:

According to online audience measurement firm comScore, in July 2005, AOL's AIM had 30 million unique visitors, slightly down from usage one year ago; MSN Messenger grew 11 percent to 25.9 million unique users; and Yahoo Messenger grew 16 percent to 25.6 million.

From here

Please, stop making things up when trying to get modded as "insightful".

Yes, I bought Linux Game Programming (by Nurgle, not JRH's unfortunately) and he was adamant on that point, but it'd be nice to have AvP & other old games fully portable.

If Carmageddon uses Direct Play then I think it's in the best interests for all of us discerning gamers!

I don't seem to see anyone point out that Mirosoft's License for interoperability (also here and here ) that was created for Open Source access to otherwise DRM'ed information was a sham. They put "Per installation Licensing Fee's" in it!

This was demanded by the EU on the grounds of Open Source being deliberately disempowered BTW. IMHO they deserve all they get from this (which will be very little no doubt).

I'm glad to hear that game developers have wised-up and stopped using Direct Play, it seems fairly trivial to build your own network code anyhow.

The original article is missleading, it mentions some outdated version numbers that should rise suspicion, besides the fact that this is reported nowhere else. If you look at Mozillazine, you will find this article from June:
Korean Mozilla Site Hacked
This site was not an official "mozilla.org" site but a korean fan site, and it was hacked, like MSN Korea a week before:
internetnews article
So some hackers in june broke into a korean site that has nothing to do with the mozilla foundation, altered files by adding virusses. This slashdot article makes me feel sad.

In eastern PA, where I live, Verizon is rolling out a fiber optic network. Up to 30MB downstream, 5MB upstream. http://www22.verizon.com/FiOSforhome/channels/FiOS /root/faq.asp

They also have been quietly offering $14.95 naked DSL as part of a deal with Yahoo. http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/352935 1

I tried to see if I could sign up for this services and drop my dial tone, but they are only offering it to new customers. I ended up ordering Comcast cable at a promotional rate of $19.95 with the idea of switching again to whatever is the best deal.

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

Sounds like left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.. Today's early "Race to Linux" thread about porting .Net linked to this article, which explicitly mentions mono as being an allowable language. This just seems odd to me, expecially because its also sponsored by the very same Microsoft Professional Developers Conversation..

...a concept so simple even Congress gets it. Too bad tech doesn't.
Data breach law

http://www.ilaw.com.au/linuxfaq.html/ explains it a bit.

It seems like Linus (or his lawyers rather) want to protect the Linux trademark. Hypthetically speaking, if I had a product titled Lunix Utilities, I wouldn't seem to fall under that trademark use. However, if my company or product name was MikeRoweSoft or Lindows, Microsoft could and would sue me.

*Shrug* It's a pretty hairy issue. I see where Linus or his lawyers are coming from, but I wonder why the demand in monetary payment in order to ensure their trademark isn't abused.

Show me PHP websites of this magnitude...

Let's see...there's Yahoo, for one. Then there's also MIT who seems to process 3 million hits on over 1.1 million documents a day, according to their reported stats.

Throwing a couple high-profile links out to websites using foo on the backend does not a good language make. Coders with style and best practices a good backend make.

"The application process is first come, first served," said Sharon Marsh, a USPTO administrator. "Applications are processed as they're received, and the person second in line will get a refusal of registration from our examiner."

Google is fourth in line. First is Cencourse, a Miami, Fla., company that provides multimedia services, with an application filed March 31,2004, the same day Google's news broke. Next up is Precision Research, a Santa Barbara, Calif., company that consults on the design of high-tech equipment, with an application dated April 2. Following them is the British firm Independent International Investment Research (IIIR), formerly known as The Market Age, which operates Pronet Analytics, a stock research service; IIIR applied on April 3. Google didn't file its application until April 7, but at least it beat the Gospel Music Association's April 8 paperwork."

Obviously after google's announcement of gmail everyone and their mom tried to trademark "gmail" and they're squatting on the name.

Don't they have to justify having a trademark, or can I trademark the name "crystal coke" and when Coca-Cola comes out with a clear coke I can take them to court?

Of course, wikipedia's article says it isn't a file system, because it uses NTFS underneath, or is at least based on NTFS. Even so, most sources can agree that the best definition is WinFS is a file system with some added features.

Anyway, I don't think the comparison is so bad. Spotlight, WinFS and Reiser4 may not technically work the same, but they all have the goal of presenting the user with a database interface and allowing the user to query that interface, much like a desktop search, only built into the OS itself. It is this level, the interface level, at which comparison is apporpriate. Not at the implementation level, as you already mentioned.

I'm not so sure. If you read this article, you can see where four companies rushed to file trademark claims after Google announced Gmail. Also, if IIIR has really been using this trademark since 2002, you have to wonder why they didn't already have the domain name registered, or why they didn't contest Google's aquiring it.

LOL, I forgot to put my source in it: http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3 547611 Slashdot editors, please put it in the story?

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

All technology companies patent stuff as fast as they can, to prevent scenarios just like this one (from Apple's perspective), but not all companies sue as fast as they are awarded the patents. There's only a few cases from Apple that really stand out, imo: them suing Miicrosoft back in the day, suing eMachines over their iMac look-a-like, and a few cease and desist letters over their logos appearing in aqua themes. Contrast that to Adobe and Macromedia, who would sue eachother every couple of months over some truly lame patents, such as tabs in a pallet window.

And then there are companies that don't even try to patent inventions, because they don't actually invent anything. Rather, they invent patents by looking at where an industry is going, hazard a guess as to what someone else might come up with, and run to the patent office. I read a nice story about a guy (couldn't find a link in a couple minutes of Googling, sorry) who made about a billion dollars by doing exactly that. He got millions from the auto industry by patenting a mechanical eye that would detect defective parts. He didn't do a damned thing to research or develop it, he just looked to where the industry was heading and ran to the patent office.

The problem, imo, is that the patent system is too lenient on accepting ideas and way to lax on requiring actuall implementations.

OT

but why is this news not on /. yet..........

Massachusetts Eyes Open Office Standards
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3 531991/

would be if China blocked inbound USA connections seeing as 80% of the worlds spam originates from there, the numbers are no different for all the other scams either ie Phishing, Malware, Adware , Spyware etc etc

hmmm perhaps the rest-of-the-world should just cut off USA it would probably stop 80% of internet related crime overnight

Wrong again. They have licensed it.

My understanding is that they haven't. I admit that that's only based on a news story, not a statement direct from Red Hat, but do you have a source to support your claim that have licensed it?

There's no "selective enforcement". If there was, the LMI would be opening themselves to a challenge of inadequately protecting the trademark.

"Your honour, if my client had selectively enforced his traemark then that would undermine it therefore he can't have done. I rest my case."

Not exactly a convincing line of argument :)

<disclaimer statement='I speak only for myself as an American citizen'/>

Largely speaking, it was the MP3 equivalent of the Betamax case, and the RIAA lost in 1999 after it was ruled that the PMP300 was an audio playback device and not a recording device, meaning it was allowed to exist as-was under fair use and the precedent of the Betamax case. Diamond/Rio may have never made the breakaway device that solidified the market like the iPod, but as they were willing to stand up to the RIAA and fight for user rights(and admittedly a nice profit), it's a shame to see the company finally wind down.

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

Thank you. Anything you say after that is just irrelevant and back-pedaling.

SpyGlass's contract explicity stated that they would get royalties for the sale of the browser. Microsoft, however, pulled a fast one by bundling it with the OS (which they made a profit off of!) then paying SpyGlass nothing! It was nothing more than a dirty loophole, and the courts agreed. (Even though SpyGlass still walked away with little.)

Spyglass fucked up the lawsuit and you like to blame Microsoft because you are a zealot. If you read the contract, you would have known that the annual cap is $5 million. For whatever reason, Spyglass settled for an one-time $7.5M and was glad that it settled. It was a boneheaded decision. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/januar y/new0122d.htm The company I work for is also in direct competition with Microsoft (and Google) but I don't blame my hitting a pot hole on my drive home on Microsoft.

Got proof?

What are ya, blinded by Google-love and Microsoft-hate that you can't do a search on Google?

"The proprietor of Froogles.com registered the Web address in December 2000, according to the filing, but did not use the domain for business until July 2002. Google claims that this was four years after it had secured rights to its Google trademarks. Froogles.com registered for a trademark for e-commerce related marketing services in September 2003.

For its part, Google filed a trademark application for Froogle in November 2002, and was granted the mark in February 2004." -News.com 4/19/05

"Humphrey said that after Wolfe filed an opposition proceeding with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office last spring, Google told Wolfe that if he would dismiss his opposition, it would leave him alone. If he refused, according to Humphrey, Google's attorneys said, "We'll file a complaint and take the trademark away from you."

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/print.php/349 8621
4/18/2005

Not only are you a zealot, you are lazy as well.

"The licensing strategy chosen by the Linux Mark Institute, which, as far as I know, has not changed -- despite the recent uptick in interest -- is well-designed to meet that requirement without unduly burdening any business that wants to identify itself and its goods as 'Linux.'"

Wrt your accusations of submarining and turning around, putting the screws on, etc., you might be interested in this slashdot story from 2000 in which Linus, among other things, says this (originally posted to lkml):

"In order to cover the costs of paperwork and the costs of just _tracking_ the trademark issues (and to really make it a legally binding contract in the first place), if you end up going the whole nine yards and think you need your own trademark protection, there is a rather nominal fee associated with combination mark paperwork etc. That money actually goes to the Linux International trademark fund, so it's not me scalping people if anybody really thought that that might be the case ;)"

I don't see how you can justify your accusations

"Avalon is based on the XML-based markup language XAML, representing user interface for Windows applications."

Yahoo Shoots Down VoIP Speculation
By Jim Wagner

Officials at Internet portal giant Yahoo (Quote, Chart) are denying a report that it will launch a VoIP (define) service in the next two weeks.
In a research report issued this week, Safa Rashtchy, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, said the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company was likely to launch a service similar to the popular Skype application.

The analyst noted that such a service would "expand Yahoo's content footprint and further establish Yahoo's brand as a comprehensive provider of content, search and communication services," and likely run as both an advertising-based basic service and paid premium service.

That's not the case, Yahoo officials said.

"The rumor from the financial analyst is not true," Terrell Karlsten, a Yahoo spokeswoman, told internetnews.com.

Yahoo has been making a number of moves this year to advance its voice offerings. That's sparked speculation over the company's VoIP strategy.

Slashdot: Bogus news for nerds... Stuff that really doesn't matter.

Let's not get too cocky...

CAIS(Cereberal Anal Insertion Syndrom) is a component is this problem. First one hand (the gov office) doesn't know what the other hand (another gov office) is recommending. First you have an office charge with document protection. They get their function largely undercut by the Berlin Treaty, then they fall totally unaware of the recomendations of Homeland Security to NOT use IE.
Cert

The worst part is ... this violates a number of other laws related to accessability as well. But in the interest of big business first. Seig Heil.

There is talk about having the GPL 3 force companies to release the code in instances like google.

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3 495981