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That's the next version, where all the new "experimental" stuff is going to be included. And it will still come out before Vista...

The FSF's most recent effort -- an anti-DRM protest staged at Microsoft's WinHEC conference last week, complete with demonstrators costumed in hazmat suits -- was particularly troubling. It signals a shift in the FSF, from an advocacy organization to one that engages in hysterical activism cut from the PETA mold. Um, what? FSF's tiny flashmob, equipped with some dodgy boiler suits, hardly compares to the work of an organisation which aggressivly targets firms and other organisations for mistreating animals. Hysterical? Almost polite.

The original post wasn't quite accurate.

The Dapper Drake was always intended to be an enterprise-grade release, but several months ago, they decided to give themselves six extra weeks to meet that goal more effectively. They've been working on it much longer than 6 weeks.

Here is an article describing the decision. It links to a log of the actual IRC discussion in which the decision to delay the release was made.

There aren't many in the wild but they definitely exist and they all perform some function you wouldn't want them to perform on your computer.

Yeah, yeah, here's the quote

TdR: There are always at least a few efforts in the project to get more documentation out of vendors. But some vendors are still incredibly resistant. We often run into vendors who have signed NDA agreements with Linux developers, who will then happily write a Linux driver filled with magic numbers, which only one developer in the world understands. Having signed the NDA ensured that Linux got a working driver, sure, but the internals are indistinguishable from magic. It cannot be fixed by anyone else, because it is full of secrets. It is a source code version of a blob.

Your ignorance and lack of thought are astonishing. "US based companies" have nothing to do with it...where else are you going to go with your money? Every wifi chipset manufacturer sells its products in the US, and thus abides by FCC rules.

Of course everyone selling products in USA has to comply with US regulations and laws.

The manufacturers in question here are mostly Taiwanese. The issue here is that, regardless of where a company is based or chooses to make its products, it invariably wants to sell those products in the US. Thus the manufacturer must comply with US regulations.

Are you stupid? The manufacturer has to comply with US regulations when doing business in USA. When doing business in another country, then another set of regulations apply.

Is the argument oversimplified? Absolutely. But the author still has a rather decent point: People aren't educated about Open Source Software. Unfortunately, what we see is an automatic "It's too hard to install" since it's not preinstalled. Most OSS ports for Windows require downloading 1 file and installing it. Okay, fine, the GIMP requires 2.

The point is this: There have been huge strides in terms of ease-of-use for installation and usability all throughout FOSS. Ubuntu is very easy to install, yes, but it is free, so you need to install the codecs. Luckily there are easy to install/run programs out there that do these all for you built by the community. And if you don't like that, Mepis is there, or Xandros, or whatever else you'd like.

The problem isn't that FOSS is hard to use, it's that people are afraid to use it. They don't go into Best Buy and purchase it and bring it home and can call a number on the back of the box when they need help. They're afraid they're getting scammed by "free" software. Seriously. I offered somebody Linux once and he went into this whole tirade about how somebody must be making money off of it and he's not going to be the victim of identity theft or a source of adware, which is what it must be, since it's free. It quite simply comes down to the fact that people just don't understand FOSS. The real challenge is to put FOSS into a very, very, very simple argument that outlines what it is, but doesn't delve into the intricacies of it. By doing so, you'll connect with more people...but only if you promulgate that message.

Let's just hope that there's not a bug in the kernel that will keep it from spreading - http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/04 /18/1941251&tid=78&tid=26.

The better way would be to run XBMC (XBox Media Center), and xbmcmythtv. It's not perfect yet, but it's definately getting there. It requires a modded xbox (which you have), and doesn't require installing/booting linux, so it's quicker. It's a bit tricky to get ahold of the programs, since the source is distributable, but the binaries are not (MS won't sign them [hence mod required], and the xbox SDK forbids the distribution of non-signed binaries). They can be found with some digging.

Here's some links that might help you out:

http://waltercedric.com/Mambo/index.php?option=com _content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=40
http://forums.designtechnica.com/archive/index.php /t-4278.html
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonb oard.pl?act=ST;f=8;t=5934
http://hardware.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/07 /01/0353218&from=rss
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/archive/index.ph p/t-40168.html
http://www.xbins.org/

ThinkFree uses both AJAX and Java. The company admits that AJAX is more portable in that it doesn't require a plug-in, but they contend that Java is needed to provide true Microsoft Office compatibility and functionality.

What servers does Lightning use on the backend? IF your organisation is small then you could get away with subscribing to and publishing iCalendar files to a Webdav share -- in which case all you need is Apache. If you want something to scale a little more, you would want to use CalDAV (think HTTP + special verbs for managing calendars).

There are several CalDAV servers available, I don't know how which ones are good and which are bad however. See this article for some pointers to server software.

The other alternative is to ditch Web/CalDAV entirely and go with something proprietry like Hula (which might actually use CalDAV these days, I haven't checked) or Novel Groupwise or something like that. Also there are web based calendaring systems like Scooby and phpCalendar (most of which make their calendars available over WebDAV/CalDAV anyway, so you could choose when you want to use the web frontend or use a desktop application).

"Freespire won't ship with software to allow DVD playback, though Carmony says users can buy it through Linspire's Click and Run (CNR) service."

Quoted from here

I seem to remember being told in my software engineering class of a type of protection that provides a false sense of security. I think that Microsoft may be becoming more and more guilty of it.

Perhaps it's time they should change their "Who would ever think to put those bytes there anyways?" mantra.

Of course, what the article doesn't tell you is that they said that to him after he asked 50 times "how do I start process daemons like a web server" in the Gnome IRC channel. The whole context tells the real story and sometimes that does happen on IRC. Just like in the case of Ryan Holt and his balloons. Slashdot, stop being such a "hype" news source. Besides, you can get that kind of snobbish attitude "anywhere
".

On the other hand, I think the real barrier with Linux IS the Linux snobs, but in a different way. I was just talking about this on the BLUG mailing list two weeks ago. Many of you are too wrapped up in playing with the latest transparent desktop that you forget that it is important to support companies that do start adopting Linux and providing real value. A major reason why places like Micro Center start carrying Linspire PCs, but don't train anybody on them is because they are test it to see if it will make money. When it comes down to it, companies need to make money (big surprise there). Yet, everytime someone tries to start something around Linux open source, half the community starts acting suspicious and picking apart everything that company does. Sometimes this is warranted (read SCO), but most of the time it is not. Unless you expect Communism to be adopted in the United States anytime soon, you need to backup what YOU support with your own MONEY if you want to see the economy go your way.

All of you need to stop talking the talk and start backing up your shit with rea
l action.

... and here it is. Klez, MyDoom, Sobig, SCO and SomeFool are tested.

We sent an email to Linus Torvalds to let him know about our testing. He replied:

That said, it sounds like it's a regular program that just happens to work on both Windows and Linux, and that happens to do things that are perfectly OK per se (i.e. writing to files that are owned by the user). So it's interesting just because of the "works on both Linux and Windows" angle, not because of any viral nature.

This is a really good insight, I think. While the rest of us are thinking about the "virus" and wondering what it means for the future, Linus identifies all these ignored technical aspects.

The power of a mind untouched by Slashdot?

and almost as many crashes as an unpatched Win98 install.

LINK to the article.

From TFA you linked to:

"Today, Rekall is a dual-licensed GUI database front-end with aspirations of becoming Linux's answer to Microsoft Access."

" Note that Rekall does not include an RDMS -- it's only a front-end."

Done? I think not.

I'm still awaiting an Access port

You wanna read MS Access files in linux? Done: http://mdbtools.sourceforge.net/

You wanna port that data to an F/OSS db? Done: http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/gagn e_access.html

You want an MS Access equivolent for linux? Done: http://software.newsforge.com/software/04/04/20/18 23249.shtml?tid=150&tid=72&tid=82

Yeah, it was a joke, I know, but beleive it or not, there are those for whom MS Access is a working requirement who might be interested in these links.

Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/programming.html

I find it interesting that this 'virus' appears shortly after Symantec reportedly gets cushy with the Linux press

Everyone - don't forget that WiFi is a Basic Human Right

Politicians hey? They're sooooo cute!

Here is the link to the clip The photos are nothing great.

Oddly enough, the story link appears on the front-page, but disappears if you click-through to the article.

http://www.newsforge.com/blob.pl?id=02083954d3d50e 63f9af2eaad7d2090c

http://os.newsforge.com/os/06/04/04/169215.shtml?t id=2&tid=18&tid=3

Someone forgot to include a link to TFA.

Luckily Google News came to the rescue

http://os.newsforge.com/os/06/04/04/169215.shtml?t id=2&tid=18&tid=3

Link to video:
http://www.newsforge.com/blob.pl?id=02083954d3d50e 63f9af2eaad7d2090c

Someone forgot to include a link to TFA.

Luckily Google News came to the rescue

http://os.newsforge.com/os/06/04/04/169215.shtml?t id=2&tid=18&tid=3

Link to video:
http://www.newsforge.com/blob.pl?id=02083954d3d50e 63f9af2eaad7d2090c

http://os.newsforge.com/os/06/04/04/169215.shtml?t id=2&tid=18&tid=3

http://os.newsforge.com/os/06/04/04/169215.shtml?t id=2&tid=18&tid=3

This is a few years old???? Can's Slashdot get new, original content?

"Microsoft never have had much to do with standards, other than to completely ignore them and create their own stuff regardless."

I am not so sure about that. They made a fine friggin mess of the SPF standard by introducing patents on several key parts of the standard while delaying and filibustering until the IETF working group (MARID) became defunct as a result. I am sure I could find other examples of MS strong-arming, delaying, and otherwise being a general pain in the ass to standards bodies.

Debian sarge uses Exim4 as the default MTA... you can hear that from Martin Michlmayr (project leader @ Debian) or from postfix install instructions for debian at debianhelp.

I didn't realise suse had moved away from sendmail after version 8 though - you learn something new everyday =P

Read the first comment on this Newsforge Brainshare report.

When your CNE's are that frustrated, it's no wonder.

Let's see a story that DOESN'T suck Bill Gates' dick get posted on Slashdot for a change!

Simply put: they are "zealots" for lack of a better term. For them, free software is less about open source and open development and more about a form of political agenda.

Stallman repeatedly states that software freedom is his goal, and not its widespread adoption by "practical minded" corporations. He has nothing against corporations if they do not interfere with his primary goal. That make's him a zealot, I guess. I call it clear thinking. Time and again he has been proven correct in the face of criticism.

There are several free Linux software projects which might or might not what you are looking for. The first thing that comes to mind is something called ZoneMinder which, if I am not mistaken, is a Linux home security sytem which uses remote wireless Internet cameras.

Then there is also the well known Myth TV project which among other things is mainly used by people who bouild their own Personal Video Recorders(PVR). Myth TV supports both HDTV, NTFS and possbly also some other video broadcast standards.

A third possiblility that comes to mind is VLC which is a cross-platform media player and streaming server.

And then there are various other video related programs for Linux such as TvTime the televison application, or MPlayer the movie player. Concievably even something like the Ekiga (formerly known as GnomeNetMeeting) might be relevant. Ekiga supports Full-Screen Videoconferencing. Ekiga supports Video4Linux and Firewire Cameras Support through plugins.

Many Linux video projects seem to be built building block fashion, using other previously written free Linux software, as dependencies. In many cases there are also various other free video projects which are sometimes just user friendly front ends for other free video software. I could not even begin to list all of those free Linux software projects for video and other things.

By the way, Linux has never had virus problems but, even so, there are free anti-virus programs available for Linux. The one that I use is Clam Anti-virus. There are also several good free firewalls avilable for Linux which allow you to control which IP ports are open or closed. There is one other interesting video project which is interesting but, probably not what you are looking for is the free movie studio in a Linux box.

I hope that something that I mentioned might be usesful. You can then decide if Linux is really what you want or not. I personally like it anyway.

"There were hundreds of encumbrances to open sourcing Solaris. Some of them we had to buy out, others we had to eliminate. We had to pay SCO more money so we could open the code -- I couldn't say anything about that at the time, but now I can tell you that we paid them that license fee to expand our rights to the code,"

Lets cut thru the hypocrisy, right. Microsoft, the all-American corporation sued a Brazilian magazine and a public offcial for criticizing their drug-dealer like tactics.
http://trends.newsforge.com/trends/04/06/20/142024 5.shtml?tid=137&tid=147

This is nothing but an attempt to violate the free speech rights of sovereign press/people and and shut them up. That being said, US and China are two sides of the same coin.

but let's be honest. "You've probably heard the quote, "BSD is for people that love Unix; Linux is for people that hate Windows."

Okay, I'm being honest. I actually never have heard that before. I hate Windows and MS because my first computer came with Windows ME and I feel that I was totally screwed. If I'd wanted a Mac I'd have gotten one.

"Many Linux users have no particular loyalty to Linux and would just as soon use something else. "

Funny, but I've been thinking the exact opposite, that too many of them are rather blindly loyal to their distro of choice. Mepis retail will require a serial number to update soon, for example, and the serial number is tied to the MAC address of your computer. This means that you'll have to fill out a form to update if you switch computers and that they can refuse to allow you uto update. It also means that you can only use your copy on one machine; even Linspire lets you use one copy on up to 5 computers in your home IIRC. We *nix users have been telling people for years that you don't have to put with this kind of treatment from MS but the Mepis folks are loyal enough to think this is a good idea for Mepis for some reason, even though Mepis has been known for some time as having problems with bug-squashing. As I posted at Distrowatch, why bother with this when there are other distros that are more stable and free? But the Mepis people are loyal.

Much the same can be said for the Libranet people; Libranet was more stable but it was also expensive, and the only original code the developers came up with they've refused to share with the Linux community even though their product was over 90% based on Debian's GPL code. Now that Libranet has been discontinued the adminmenu has remained closed-source. Why the lead developer's son refused to share with the community their product was based on, I don't know. But the Libranet users have remained quite loyal to them. And don't get me started about Mandriva.

"More than a few people from my local LUG have installed a bootlegged copy of the OSx86 beta. One of our members showed off his toshiba laptop running OS X, which was quite popular, even among the old school unix types."

Why they bother is beyond me. Oh wait, I do know - bragging rights. That's what a MAC is apparently all about as Apple fanboys spend so much time bragging on how great it is. One would think if it was so perfectly functioal they'd spend more time using it. "Plus I have a system that everyone envies!" was one post I read at Digg. C'mon, admit it- we all know that's really why people want a Mac.

"While we may protest that KDE or GNOME are better than OS X, the collective orgasm when Apple announced an OSx86 show that free (beer) beats free (speech)"

Really? I don't remember having an orgasm over OSX. I have had plenty of orgasms since it was released, but my thoughts at the time had nothing to with OSX (or even computers, for that matter). The media and people at Digg have been fawning over it and they seem to think that everyone in the world wants a Mac. They're wrong; give me a Mac and I'll sell it and use the money to upgrade my AMD running Linux, thank you very much.

"It doesn't really matter what features or eye candy KDE or GNOME add, because OS X does it better. "

I disagree. I don't like OSX's cluttered UI and I don't like vendor lock-in. With KDE I can remove the icons and have everything on auto-hide if I want to. And sometimes I do; if I wanted all this junk on my dekstop why would I bother using a wallpaer? Plus it's convenient to get everything out of my way when I'm multi-tasking. Apple has a lot of great eye-candy if you don't mind it being in your way, but I do mind. And when I want eye candy KDE has plenty enough of it to satisfy me. Plus I want freedom of choice, not what Apple chooses for me. Kde lets me choose when I wan the eye candy, how I want it to look, but only when I want it.

Linus said

"Notice how the current GPLv3 draft pretty clearly says that Red Hat would have to distribute their private keys so that anybody sign their own versions of the modules they recompile,"

when the (draft of the) GPLv3 says

"3. Digital Restrictions Management. [...] no permission is given [...] for modes of distribution that deny users that run covered works the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this License."

As far as I understand, what the GPLv3 says is that as long as RedHat gives you a way to recompile the OS with your own signing keys (or without authentication at all) then they are allowed to distribute GPL software with whatever signature they want.

Where did I miss something ?

http://software.newsforge.com/software/06/02/01/16 30225.shtml?tid=132&tid=25

This has been tried at least: http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/01/25/14 30222

If Linux dont want do comply with openness

What the f*ck? GPLv2 was way more open that GPLv3 is looking to be (check it out for yourself: heres a draft analysis). Note the restrictions on (a) DRM (b) patent retaliation. While you may like what GPLv3 has to say about those things you do have to agree these are restrictions that DO NOT EXIST in GPLv2. Therefore, GPLv2 is more open and less restrictive.

http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/01 /17/1454213&from=rss

DRM clause I guess?

"Complete Corresponding Source Code also includes any encryption or authorization codes necessary to install and/or execute the source code of the work, perhaps modified by you, in the recommended or principal context of use, such that its functioning in all circumstances is identical to that of the work, except as altered by your modifications. It also includes any decryption codes necessary to access or unseal the work's output."

http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft

Discussion over GPLv3 has been going on for quite some time now even though the draft has just now emerged. He has mentioned a few things, one is that he has no problem with DRM in the kernel, whereas GPLv3 is Anti-DRM. Also Linus opposed having his developers have to make their private keys available, which was stated in the article.

I think he's thought it though, and I think the decision makes sense. No one says you have to increment from GPLv2 to GPLv3, it is at your option. RMS make the license more restrictive, too restrictive, therefore Linus said no.

Microsoft Corp. seems to be moving away from focusing on the actual number of security patches and updates that it and its software competitors release.

But of course they are...since Joe Brockmeier and Joe Barr of NewsForge , as well as Pamela Jones of Groklaw did such a masterful job of debunking the ridiculous annual summary of vulnerabilities by US-CERT (discussed earlier on Slashdot), Microsoft has necessarily had to switch propaganda tactics.

Instead, it is concentrating on making it easy and efficient for customers to obtain the security fixes and update their systems.

That's funny...I've never had a problem with my Yast Online Update...

"...patching, particularly for security, is not a 'Microsoft problem,' but something that affects all operating system and platform vendors," Hilf said.

Nice straw man, Hilf. No one is claiming that non-Microsoft operating systems don't need to be patched. The issue is whether the patches are issued in a timely manner...or not.

Let's leave well enough alone. It's basically the same as this.

The original article written here http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/05/18/20 33216 and credited at the end of the posted article is just a much better send up.

Appart from being much the same article this article shoots itself in the foot a bit. I think the reason why so many people have taken it seriously is because of this fact.

It details a lot of things that are different in Windows compared to Linux but his Linux alternatives all sound somewhat more complicated. From the more complex partitioning to the editing of config files and even the classic mention of recompiling the O/S. It all makes it sound like Linux is actually more complex than Windows which makes the sarcasm of the piece make a lot less sense.

Is he saying sarcastically that the daft Windows users moving to Linux articles are actually correct and it is more difficult? Or is he just stupid and genuinly believes all this stuff?

The newsforge article only mentions Linux as being totally easy it does everything for them, without mentioning command lines and command. Makes the sarcasm much more clear cut.

reading the TFA's disclaimer:
Disclaimer: Kudos to NewsForge(http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=0 5/05/18/2033216) for the idea, and Microsoft for the inspiration. I also declare that all events described in this piece are factually correct, they really, honestly happened. Just not necessarily all at the same time, on the same computer.

I'll go out on a limb and say 'most likely' ;-)

http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/05/18/20 33216&from=rss Not sure if the author of the new one got the idea from this.

...is on Newsforge.