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It's turns out that Google IS being bought by Nestle!
Here's the link to the story. I guess Nestle just offered too sweet of a deal to pass up.

You non-Americans who read NewsForge can move on to the next story right now. We know you don't hold our Constitution dear and don't understand the ideals that make the United of States of America the greatest nation on earth, so there is no reason for you to read this.

Look at how viruses spread. Then compare to flash. If one additional box had been included on the popup that asks you if you want to install flash, that says, no, and don't ask me again (instead of asking every time your mouse passes over an imbedded flash file), it wouldn't have spread so far so fast.

Flash is simply an animated gif enhancement for viewing more annoying banner ads. And for locking out users from web sites designed by designers that think it is more important to show off their flash programming skills than capturing a greater percentage of users through a more user-friendly site for the business or individual that the site is promoting.

As for Dreamweaver, regardless of the naysayers, it's bloated, not stable, and it still is not fully w3c compliant, even if you do know what you are doing. There is still non-compliant code that is inserted into source code, regardless of the settings.

For those who aren't chained to cold fusion, a better, more w3c compliant, and freer solution (as in freedom, and as in beer) is Quanta+. While wysiwyg is not in the stable release, it is in the cvs tree, and will launch when the new kde launches very shortly (check the mailing list for more updated info on the feature). And the other features are numerous, but the support for xml, and other technologies is all there. And the response from developers on the mailing list is fantastic, in features, in bug fixes, in help, and in just about everything else. I once thought I couldn't leave windows solely because of Dreamweaver, but Quanta+ enabled me to move to a much more stable and less restrictive operating system.

Sun, Adobe, and Macromedia, among other proprietary companies are the old guard. And they are the future SCO's of the tech world. The future is gpl'd source code for all applications. The rest of the world has already realized this, small businesses are catching on fast, and anyone looking to stay competitive and productive needs to admit this to themselves or they will be left behind, just like Sun, Adobe, and Macromedia.

Watch what happens to Sun in the next 18-24 months. Adobe and Macromedia will follow the same path shortly thereafter, maybe sooner.

And Oracle is not far behind...

Look at how viruses spread. Then compare to flash. If one additional box had been included on the popup that asks you if you want to install flash, that says, no, and don't ask me again (instead of asking every time your mouse passes over an imbedded flash file), it wouldn't have spread so far so fast.

Flash is simply an animated gif enhancement for viewing more annoying banner ads. And for locking out users from web sites designed by designers that think it is more important to show off their flash programming skills than capturing a greater percentage of users through a more user-friendly site for the business or individual that the site is promoting.

As for Dreamweaver, regardless of the naysayers, it's bloated, not stable, and it still is not fully w3c compliant, even if you do know what you are doing. There is still non-compliant code that is inserted into source code, regardless of the settings.

For those who aren't chained to cold fusion, a better, more w3c compliant, and freer solution (as in freedom, and as in beer) is Quanta+. While wysiwyg is not in the stable release, it is in the cvs tree, and will launch when the new kde launches very shortly (check the mailing list for more updated info on the feature). And the other features are numerous, but the support for xml, and other technologies is all there. And the response from developers on the mailing list is fantastic, in features, in bug fixes, in help, and in just about everything else. I once thought I couldn't leave windows solely because of Dreamweaver, but Quanta+ enabled me to move to a much more stable and less restrictive operating system.

Sun, Adobe, and Macromedia, among other proprietary companies are the old guard. And they are the future SCO's of the tech world. The future is gpl'd source code for all applications. The rest of the world has already realized this, small businesses are catching on fast, and anyone looking to stay competitive and productive needs to admit this to themselves or they will be left behind, just like Sun, Adobe, and Macromedia.

Watch what happens to Sun in the next 18-24 months. Adobe and Macromedia will follow the same path shortly thereafter, maybe sooner.

And Oracle is not far behind...

Look at how viruses spread. Then compare to flash. If one additional box had been included on the popup that asks you if you want to install flash, that says, no, and don't ask me again (instead of asking every time your mouse passes over an imbedded flash file), it wouldn't have spread so far so fast.

Flash is simply an animated gif enhancement for viewing more annoying banner ads. And for locking out users from web sites designed by designers that think it is more important to show off their flash programming skills than capturing a greater percentage of users through a more user-friendly site for the business or individual that the site is promoting.

As for Dreamweaver, regardless of the naysayers, it's bloated, not stable, and it still is not fully w3c compliant, even if you do know what you are doing. There is still non-compliant code that is inserted into source code, regardless of the settings.

For those who aren't chained to cold fusion, a better, more w3c compliant, and freer solution (as in freedom, and as in beer) is Quanta+. While wysiwyg is not in the stable release, it is in the cvs tree, and will launch when the new kde launches very shortly (check the mailing list for more updated info on the feature). And the other features are numerous, but the support for xml, and other technologies is all there. And the response from developers on the mailing list is fantastic, in features, in bug fixes, in help, and in just about everything else. I once thought I couldn't leave windows solely because of Dreamweaver, but Quanta+ enabled me to move to a much more stable and less restrictive operating system.

Sun, Adobe, and Macromedia, among other proprietary companies are the old guard. And they are the future SCO's of the tech world. The future is gpl'd source code for all applications. The rest of the world has already realized this, small businesses are catching on fast, and anyone looking to stay competitive and productive needs to admit this to themselves or they will be left behind, just like Sun, Adobe, and Macromedia.

Watch what happens to Sun in the next 18-24 months. Adobe and Macromedia will follow the same path shortly thereafter, maybe sooner.

And Oracle is not far behind...

The bottom line here is the old saying, "Perception is Reality." Yes, the Caldera/SCO Group is blowing nothing but very thick smoke. Yes, indemnification is a joke and a non-issue. Yes, it's all about FUD and trying to kill Linux. However...

The fact of the matter is that the world outside of the Open License community can only go by what it reads and hears. And everything they are hearing, from both sides of the fence, just makes them gun shy. It matters little whether or not Caldera/SCO Group have a real claim on any code. Just the idea that they "might" is enough to do some damage to the Open License community and the actual software produced under said licensing. Ranting about it will not help. Being silent will not help. The only way I can see that will counter this is with calm but firm statements of truth by the community when discussing it with those who are outside of the community or in any published forum. Make sure that you have all the ammunition that is available on the subject when going into a situation where you might be confronted with FUD. Calmly explain to those who aren't as knowledgeable as we are about the facts. Don't get hyped up or excited. Don't make it a big deal. And definitely don't over exaggerate Open Licensed softwares capabilities. Think of it as explaining to your young child that there are no monsters under the bed. Be calm, be reassuring, be honest. This will do far more to take the wind out of the FUD than anything else we could do.

It is clear that open source is a strong, low-cost replacement for Unix, and that most packaged applications for Linux and BSD cost the same as their Unix counterparts. The savings with open-source software mostly come from being able to use Intel and AMD server hardware rather than the more expensive proprietary servers required to run most Unix operating systems.

But if management is expecting open source projects to be free, how do you exceed that expectation? The big enterprise software companies don't give away their applications, not even for Linux and open source. Assuming you want to advance in your company, why put yourself at risk by setting an impossible expectation? Here's more e-mail input from people who've used the products: Linux has lousy user interfaces; no roadmap or clear escalation path; incompatibilities between distributions; IBM, HP and others are all usurping the process.

All platforms have problems. My concern is over what appears to be a user effort to cover up these problems. In the end, I see open source at a crossroads. The open-source community can either step up and address its faults, or continue to work furiously to cover them up and go the way of OS/2. I truly hope but sincerely doubt enough of you will make the right choice.

Surprise, surprise. An analyst without a clue.

Ahhh, where to start? Let's try at the top of the bit that I quoted above. There's more shit, but I won't waste too much time on this because this guy simply is an idiot. He should keep his analyst position, as most analysts share his open source knowledge. Ok, from the top,

It is clear that open source is a strong, low-cost replacement for Unix, and that most packaged applications for Linux and BSD cost the same as their Unix counterparts.

Wrong. Most applications that come in the distro, which is a large number of them, cost one copy. After that, you can 1. pay for support, where the distro company may expect you to buy "seats", or 2. you can hire an outside consultant, or one of your own employees to hack the code and provide your own support. And if that employee or consultant can hack the code for that one app, they can hack the code for just about any other app that came with the distro. So, thanks to the gpl license, a company is free to copy the distro, including the app, to more than one desktop or server. Or both. Instead of paying for licenses. Just to take the gimp as an example, for companies where the gimp is sufficient to their needs, instead of spending $1,000 per seat, in a 50 seat install base for photoshop costing $50,000, the gimp costs...a free download! Or comes with most major distributions of linux.

Applications separate from the distro? Some can be obtained, LEGALLY, by free download. You pay for support, if you need support. OR YOU USE THE OPEN SOURCE EMPLOYEE OR CONSULTANT WITHIN YOUR OWN COMPANY to hack the code and answer support questions (who will have the open source community to turn to in order to answer questions, often quicker than a closed source company).

Will Oracle on linux be cheaper than Oracle on windows? I'm sure Oracle will charge WHAT THE MARKET WILL BEAR, but I'll bet that Oracle on linux is priced, with the same capabilities, on par with windows. The savings will come from not paying the microsoft licensing, and increased performance on the same hardware, or lower costs for not requiring beefed up hardware to run windows bloat. Also, thanks to linux, microsoft is being forced to offer competitive pricing. 80% profit margins? Don't hold your breath for too long.

What a lot of foss advocates aren't aware of, is that for Oracle on Linux, you can't just use an off the shelf copy of Red Hat if you

Rational? It doesn't matter what we think. In the end, it will come down to an old man in a black robe.

I know everything else that you posted. I don't know what application servers are, but I've seen them listed as "java" and "j2ee" application servers, and know that sun and ibm are offering these.

Can you elaborate? Can I run an application server without java? Without sun? Not looking to start a flame war, but sun is dead imho, in the next couple of years because they are spurning linux.

Can I run an application server on linux?

You explained what the topology basically is, but if it's possible to run the application server on linux, can you give a few details for a better understanding?

Thanks. Slowly making the switch to linux on a few family business setups, and the application server sounds like a good idea if I can do it on linux and don't have to learn or even use java.

The Inquirer also has an article predicting the doom Sun. It references an article by Eric S. Raymond at Newsforge found here.

Please please please leave Sun alone - after all, _they_ are running the business, therefore it's their responsability, no matter if success or failure happens.

The concerted "efforts" to "rescue" Sun, to bring it to the path of righteousness look very dubious to say the least: on one hand everybody and his sister seem to enjoy firing on this particular ambulance, on the other hand nobody seems to want to miss the feeding frenzy over some presumable defunct company. The last example was given by ESR: http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/10/02/12402 43.

Give the poor people a break!

Newsforge

i first read this article last night on Newsforge and did some cursory searches for the project. i couldn't find anything. has anyone else had any luck?

the only things i've yet found are blog entries. he seems to be a reliable hacker but of what news is this until there's downloadable source-code? i'm planning on working on a new MUD; i'll be sure to submit that to /. right away!!

so if you have a link for us, please pass this along. also, like so many others have asked, how closely will this be tied to GNOME? even my desktop system uses WindowMaker ; why should a foundational mother-program rope me into a DE i don't like? or be reliant on the GUI in the first place?!

Newsforge

http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/09/05/14142 47&mode=thread&tid=16

You are right. It'll take a lot of work to degrade OpenOffice's quality to the levels of MS Office. It this point, OpenOffice works so well it might not even be possible to introduce all the flaws of MS Office into it, but we can hope.

I also just found an review in English of this distro.

here it is.

SuSE Linux 9.0 Professional for AMD64 is $119.95. An update version of the software will be available online for $50.

The problem is that they are offering to file the claims for the user when the details of the settlement say the user must file the claim themselves. Also, the settlement says the user must also physically sign and mail in their claim, while the website is just collecting digital signitures which is not permitted by the settlement.

This is just to name a few of the obvious ones. Here is the full text of the letter on Newsforge.

...that this paper was written by MS's opponents, as claimed by ACT president Jonathan Zuck on sourceforce.com.

It was co-authored by the (now-former) CTO of a security firm that does business with Microsoft. A business partner, one might say.

hmmm...

From the article as written by Roblimo:

Fink was asked what he thought about SCO's allegation... [that HP's actions reinforced SCO's position.] He called SCO's words, "An interesting spin," and carefully pointed out that HP has no official position on the validity of SCO's claims. "That's up to the courts to decide," he said.

After passing through the Timothy filter: "HP's Martin Fink roundly denies SCO's backhanded interpretation."

C'mon, man. At least make an effort.

According to a story on NewsForge, it's not quite true (yet)

Joan Witte, Communications Manager for Ford Motor Information Technology, had this statement to make late this afternoon when I called her at her Detroit office about a story being reported that Ford was moving to Linux.

Witte said "Like any other company, Ford Motor is looking at Linux, primarily in the application space. We presently have an enterprise-wide agreement with Microsoft to handle our collaborative solutions. We aren't contemplating using Linux in this area, and don't contemplate doing that in the foreseeable future."

Regarding the source of the rumor, Witte said "I'm not sure where they got the info from, but I'd like to know."

Newsforge reports is reporting that this story is untrue. Sad but, as I suspected.

According to this article at NewsForge, the Ford move to Linux is untrue.

-- snip --
Joan Witte, Communications Manager for Ford Motor Information Technology, had this statement to make late this afternoon when I called her at her Detroit office about a story being reported that Ford was moving to Linux.

Witte said "Like any other company, Ford Motor is looking at Linux, primarily in the application space. We presently have an enterprise-wide agreement with Microsoft to handle our collaborative solutions. We aren't contemplating using Linux in this area, and don't contemplate doing that in the foreseeable future."
-- snip --

According to this article at NewsForge, the Ford move to Linux is untrue.

-- snip --
Joan Witte, Communications Manager for Ford Motor Information Technology, had this statement to make late this afternoon when I called her at her Detroit office about a story being reported that Ford was moving to Linux.

Witte said "Like any other company, Ford Motor is looking at Linux, primarily in the application space. We presently have an enterprise-wide agreement with Microsoft to handle our collaborative solutions. We aren't contemplating using Linux in this area, and don't contemplate doing that in the foreseeable future."
-- snip --

In that article, [Kevin] Poulsen offers a detailed description of how another Microsoft worm, Slammer, crashed two Unix-based control systems at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Northern Ohio.

"Following up on a story appearing this morning at DesktopLinux.com about MandrakeSoft selling ads in their free download version of Mandrake Linux, I contacted Gael Duval at MandrakeSoft for more detail on the new advertising/revenue source.

Duval pointed out that advertising in Mandrake Linux is not really a new thing. There have been ads for Mandrake Linux, MandrakeSoft products, and for free software projects in the installation all along. They introduced paid advertising in the Safari Service in Mandrake Linux 9.l. Duval says that in version 9.2 they are just advancing that concept a little further.

Duval said the boxed versions of Mandrake 9.2 will not include any paid ads, but that the free download edition (the choice of 90% of Mandrake users) "will now include several additional ads, in the bookmarks and in the screensavers." He noted there will be no annoying pop-up ads.

He added that most Mandrake users want to see them continue to operate in the spirit of free software while at the same time being successful as a business. These new ads, Duval said, are one way that MandrakeSoft tries "to solve this equation."

More details on the advertising, including pricing, is available on the MandrakeSoft web site.

See Joe Barr's article.

And thus it is with Open Source. Fixing bugs and maintaining old code is booooring. Noone wants to do it, so noone will. Same with documentation.

If the whole world ran on a volunteer basis, there'd be no janitors. Who'd clean up all the shit?

Well, how about these janitors, for example?

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I'm not really sure I'd call Open Source strictly volunteer, anyway. Personally speaking, about 40% or so of the OSS hacking I do is fixing bugs that I personally need fixed.

Granted, the other 60% is probably making new bugs for other people to fix (I like to think of it as "adding features")... but somehow we still seem to come out ahead in the end. ^_-

Sure, just like SmartGuns could stop murder via handguns. Only problem is the millions of "old fashioned" handguns already in circulation.

Let's assume that somehow, somewhere, this new "arrangment" between the car's GPS and the police computer system involved a Windows box. Now instead of just taking out power to a few million people, a future Windows Worm could stop millions of cars in their tracks.

Dan East

Raymond and Perens respond to McBride's open letter

The only news that could be better is that someone had patented spam emailling and was taking every spammer in the world to court.

The simple answer is here. ESR doesn't know the identity of the DDoSer, having only dealt with a cut-out, only that (s)he is "an experienced Internet engineer". I find it incredibly crass of Darl to intimate that someone of ESR's standing in the community is obstructing the course of justice like that, and wonder if ESR might have some grounds for a libel case.

• Slashdot for first making me a sco-story addict, and then leaving me for hours, sometimes even days without sco story.
• ezines for reporting in favour of SCO, and thus spreading the slander
• US government, for not sending nukes to Lindon, Utah.
• SCO, for not sending me an invoice (I Want One Too!)
• Myself, for replying to an SCO-slashdot post.

BTW, Darl, I'm looking for a new job. Considering that I have no legal experience whatsoever, can think of loads of silly lawsuits in under 5 minutes (see above), I think I'll fit in perfectly with your legal team.

NewsForge has released their top 10 things to do with your SCO Linux Invoice.

"Most manual labor performed by machines"?

It already is! Recall that work is measured in joules (distance of mass per time). Then look outside the window at a modern European or American nation.

Where are all the joules (work) coming from? Not by human effort! 90% of it is from machines. Look at all the energy that goes into driving North Americans to their Labour Day holidays!

Some might disagree and say that all of the output of these machines isn't "work", as does the article author when claiming that 50% of modern work is in service industries (like McDonalds). That's because he's already accepted an altered definition of work that excludes non-human efforts.

Take the perspective of a 17th century economist and ask what tasks account for most of the "work" done in a nation- the list includes plowing, digging, hammering, sewing, scrubbing, and chopping (amoung similar things). Today all but one of those (scrubbing) are performed by machines. As Roblimo mentioned last week, agricultural food production is the only really important job. The US makes 5x more food than it did a century ago by employing 10x fewer people.

The time when most work is performed by machine has long since come. A more accurate description of the question facing us in the future (as addressed by the article) is: What happens when unskilled jobs cease to exist?

Do you mean something like this? Someone at Newforge has posted that they have done traceroutes to routers on Center 7's network and it tends to confirm the suspicion that SCO isn't experiencing any DoS attacks:


Well, if it was a DOS how could I access machines behind the same routers the website is on?

Such as these routers
c7pub-216-250-136-74.center7.com (216.250.136.74)
c7pub-216-250-136-98.center7.com (216.250.136.98)
c7pub-216-250-136-254.center7.co m (216.250.136.254)

And these machines behind the routers
fgw.calderasystems.com (216.250.128.253)
mail.sco.com (216.250.130.37)
phoenix.ut.caldera.com (216.250.130.1)

These machines were ALL accessable with NO dropped packets and LOW latency. A simple traceroute from 3 parts of the country (OR, WI, CT) produced the same route from "hs-10-1-1.a01.ptldor01.us.ra.verio.net (157.238.26.129)" on to the endpoint.

It cannot be a DOS without disrupting traffic to the other machines behind the final router unless the there is some absurd setup like www.sco.com having a 128KB/s link while the router has a 1GB/s link. I do not think this is the case though.

Besides, you would WANT to attack the Routers instead since they can do something fancy like redirect legitimate HTTP requests to the webserver at a different address while letting the DOS'ing machines continue to think 216.250.140.112 is the correct address.


And again, even SCO says they are doing maintenance and not experiencing DoS attacks.

You're right! Why a DDOS? Come on, if you shut them up, we won't be able to read their "oh so bright" allegations. They won't give us their information that help us to discover that they don't have a case...

My favorite ( from newsforge) is: What people don't understand, McBride insists, is that SCO's legal actions aren't just about SCO's IP, Unix, and the GPL anymore, it's a broader issue that includes music, video, and anything that can be digitized and distributed on the Net. To McBride, the real issue is "the future of IP rights in the 21st century."

Is that what we call an Ego-Trip?

Well, ESR claims to know about the person that caused the DoS.

He affirms that he doesn't actually know the guy, but that "[he has been] told enough about his background and how he did it to be pretty sure he is one of us".

His rank shall will remain as General, but with a royal rasberry tunic color.

The former I.M, Mr. McBride, who is stepping aside to focus on more demanding issues (i.e., option dumping and viable exit strategies), will remain as the SCO CEO.

First SCO public statement from Gen. Saeed as-Sahaf has been reportedly delivered from United Arab Emirates via a microcassette tape as "SCO shall return!" followed by "I.B.M. hasn't touch Santa Clara Operations," and "History will tell!"

No comments from Mr. McBride as how much the new I.M. is being paid to deliver these messages.

(fading tune to Ian Fleming's Goldfinger movie theme).

It's not quite like that. This Newsforge article has more details: KDE looks more like windows, but does not behave like it. This confuses the users. Gnome, better yet, Ximian Gnome, being different, proved to be easier for the transition.

This was also said by a post above mine, but without the link.

Actually, looking too much like Windows may not be a good idea.

Siemens Business Systems has done usability tests with Gnome and KDE on secretaries and found KDE less usable, because it was to Windows like.

It seams that because KDE looks to much like Windows, people expect it to work exactly like Windows and will quickly be disappointed. Gnome however looks different enough to make the user expect differences in behavior and was therefor easier to use for the subjects.

So maybe we really shouldnt get too close to Windows. (Although too far away isnt good neither IMHO)

Note that this test was about people using a IDE that has been choosen for them, not what IDE would make people more likely to switch.

I also agree with another post that people tend to choose the next local minima instead of the best solution when left on their own. And that's exactly the reason why usability test were created ... dont think it's better, measure it.

The article on newsforge about the testing

You have a choice. Peel off that dark helmet and deal with us like a reasonable human being, or continue down a path that could be bad trouble for us but will be utter ruin -- quite possibly including jail time on fraud, intellectual-property theft, barratry, and stock-manipulation charges -- for you and the rest of SCO's top management.

I'd ask if you'd found the right sort of isolated wasteland for your citadel of dread yet, but that would be a silly question; you're in Utah, after all.

Now, I've been to Utah years ago, and I think it's one of the most beautiful states of the union - especially the Northern parts...I think the "Hundreds of Customers" he speaks of have just been alienated by his remark. That must be the total amount of customers loyal to the SCO product line - but do they all live in Utah?

Here is the complete open letter from ESR as the one to linux.com didn't work, but their homepage directed me to the newsforge page...

ESR wrote a interseting open letter: An Open Letter to Darl McBride

Nice try, jackass. You just copied an article written by Robin "Roblimo" Miller, almost word for word. Is slashdot-karma so important to you that you have to plagiarize? Welcome to the world of Google.

The SCO Group responds to Torvalds

When asked for a comment this morning, Linus Torvalds had this to say about McBride's claim of a million lines of SCO code in Linux: "He's lying."

......to BSD. Wha?!? They own that too?

Legal response

After reading the above, you can return to ignoring the whole SCO problem.