Slashdot Mirror

InfoMinister writes "Good story at SiliconValley.com. The lead tells the tale: "In a boardroom drama rivaling its courtroom battle with Hollywood, SonicBlue's chairman and chief executive, Kenneth Potashner, was ousted Thursday after he demanded board members repay more than a half million dollars in loans they gave themselves to buy stock in an affiliated company.""

Frozen dinner writes: "SiliconValley.com is running a great article about technology workers' fascination with cryonics. From the article: "[the] otherworldly possibility of life after death [tantalizes] techies of all stripes -- mathematicians, physicists, software developers, computer programmers -- who make up a vast majority of those who have signed up for cryonics suspension. The family feud over deep-freezing baseball slugger Ted Williams has only intensified interest in cryonics in Silicon Valley and in the greater Bay Area, already a hotbed for the experimental and controversial process.""

Frozen dinner writes: "SiliconValley.com is running a great article about technology workers' fascination with cryonics. From the article: "[the] otherworldly possibility of life after death [tantalizes] techies of all stripes -- mathematicians, physicists, software developers, computer programmers -- who make up a vast majority of those who have signed up for cryonics suspension. The family feud over deep-freezing baseball slugger Ted Williams has only intensified interest in cryonics in Silicon Valley and in the greater Bay Area, already a hotbed for the experimental and controversial process.""

liquidsin writes "According to this article by Dan Gillmor, Bruce Perens has backed out of his plan to demonstrate how to modify a DVD player to break region coding (and openly violate the DMCA as well) due to pressure from his employer, Hewlett Packard. I wish HP had given him their blessing on this, but I guess they have to worry about shareholders first..." See our previous story for Perens' plans.

david_christie writes "Dan Gillmor has a piece on the economist Yochai Benkler's paper "Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm" which examines open source projects asan example of an emerging general model of economic behavior that is neither market nor company based. A previous version of the paper was noted in slashdot back in October, but it's been revised for upcoming publication in the Yale Law Review and is well worth a second look. Benkler attempts to explain why open source projects succeed, without falling back on theories about the special nature of software projects or hacker culture. He suggests that more general economic principles are at work, which are displacing the traditional motivations (market prices and employee relationships) that economists use to quantify individual behavior. If he's right the open source model could spread to other forms of creative work where the output is information or culture (music production comes to mind). The author thinks deeply about the information flows characterizing collaborative projects like free software development ("commons-based peer production"). That distinguishes this paper from the usual economist mumbo-jumbo about price points and such. Like Larry Lessig on the legal side of things, this is a guy who gets it and has thought deeply about how his field relates to it."

david_christie writes "Dan Gillmor has a piece on the economist Yochai Benkler's paper "Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm" which examines open source projects asan example of an emerging general model of economic behavior that is neither market nor company based. A previous version of the paper was noted in slashdot back in October, but it's been revised for upcoming publication in the Yale Law Review and is well worth a second look. Benkler attempts to explain why open source projects succeed, without falling back on theories about the special nature of software projects or hacker culture. He suggests that more general economic principles are at work, which are displacing the traditional motivations (market prices and employee relationships) that economists use to quantify individual behavior. If he's right the open source model could spread to other forms of creative work where the output is information or culture (music production comes to mind). The author thinks deeply about the information flows characterizing collaborative projects like free software development ("commons-based peer production"). That distinguishes this paper from the usual economist mumbo-jumbo about price points and such. Like Larry Lessig on the legal side of things, this is a guy who gets it and has thought deeply about how his field relates to it."

Last week the Berkman Center held their second annual Internet Law Program, an intensive course in (surprise) internet law and developments. You probably didn't spend the time/money to attend, but the topics covered are interesting enough (to me anyway) to check it out even second-hand. Dan Gillmor attended and posted his notes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 part 1 and Day 5 part 2. Donna Wentworth was there, trying to record the seminar in real-time; hopefully she's learned her lesson. There is tons of interesting stuff in there - it's worth your time to read through if you have any interest in the subject matter at all.

Last week the Berkman Center held their second annual Internet Law Program, an intensive course in (surprise) internet law and developments. You probably didn't spend the time/money to attend, but the topics covered are interesting enough (to me anyway) to check it out even second-hand. Dan Gillmor attended and posted his notes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 part 1 and Day 5 part 2. Donna Wentworth was there, trying to record the seminar in real-time; hopefully she's learned her lesson. There is tons of interesting stuff in there - it's worth your time to read through if you have any interest in the subject matter at all.

Last week the Berkman Center held their second annual Internet Law Program, an intensive course in (surprise) internet law and developments. You probably didn't spend the time/money to attend, but the topics covered are interesting enough (to me anyway) to check it out even second-hand. Dan Gillmor attended and posted his notes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 part 1 and Day 5 part 2. Donna Wentworth was there, trying to record the seminar in real-time; hopefully she's learned her lesson. There is tons of interesting stuff in there - it's worth your time to read through if you have any interest in the subject matter at all.

Last week the Berkman Center held their second annual Internet Law Program, an intensive course in (surprise) internet law and developments. You probably didn't spend the time/money to attend, but the topics covered are interesting enough (to me anyway) to check it out even second-hand. Dan Gillmor attended and posted his notes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 part 1 and Day 5 part 2. Donna Wentworth was there, trying to record the seminar in real-time; hopefully she's learned her lesson. There is tons of interesting stuff in there - it's worth your time to read through if you have any interest in the subject matter at all.

Last week the Berkman Center held their second annual Internet Law Program, an intensive course in (surprise) internet law and developments. You probably didn't spend the time/money to attend, but the topics covered are interesting enough (to me anyway) to check it out even second-hand. Dan Gillmor attended and posted his notes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 part 1 and Day 5 part 2. Donna Wentworth was there, trying to record the seminar in real-time; hopefully she's learned her lesson. There is tons of interesting stuff in there - it's worth your time to read through if you have any interest in the subject matter at all.

Last week the Berkman Center held their second annual Internet Law Program, an intensive course in (surprise) internet law and developments. You probably didn't spend the time/money to attend, but the topics covered are interesting enough (to me anyway) to check it out even second-hand. Dan Gillmor attended and posted his notes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 part 1 and Day 5 part 2. Donna Wentworth was there, trying to record the seminar in real-time; hopefully she's learned her lesson. There is tons of interesting stuff in there - it's worth your time to read through if you have any interest in the subject matter at all.

David_Bloom writes: "The University of California at San Francisco has acknowledged that it has been illegally toying around with human cloning. They had been attempting to create an early-stage human embryo, with the aim of harvesting stem cells for the use to treat patients with disorders such as Parkinson's and heart disease."

Dan Gillmor has an article concerning the notion of scarcity of the airwaves, which has long been a testament of faith at the FCC. Recent advances in technology may render that testament false.

ewhac writes "David W. Packard, son of HP's co-founder of the same name, obviously has some strong feelings on the merger between HP and Compaq. Today he shared those feelings on a poster put up in the lobby at the Stanford Theatre. The text of his message appears below. David W. Packard is president of The Stanford Theatre Foundation, a non-profit organization formed in the 1980's to save the classic Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, CA, from destruction. He is also the son of HP co-founder David Packard, and has been very close to the company and The HP Way."

ewhac continues: "Today, he shared his thoughts on the merger in the form of a poster placed in the Stanford Theatre lobby:

Hewlett Packard
1938 -- 2002
R.I.P.

The Stanford Theatre still exists today only because of the employees of the Hewlett Packard Company. Without their achievements over the years, there would have been no foundation to purchase and restore this theatre.

Palo Alto might have had one more book store, or perhaps another restaurant. Architects had plans ready for a new "Casablanca Cafe" at this location when the Packard Foundation rescued the theater in 1987.

The Hewlett Packard Company was founded in 1938 in a garage on Addison Street only a few blocks from where you are now standing. Back then, the Stanford Theatre was showing brand new movies. In 1938 you could have seen Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby and Holiday . You could have seen Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood . You could have seen Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman, and Tyrone Power in Alexander's Ragtime Band . You could have seen Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur in Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You . You still can see these same movies at the Stanford Theatre. Our audiences know that they are truly timeless.

The HP Way also touched many people's lives. Most of us expected that it would last forever -- that it would prove as timeless as a Frank Capra movie. But those entrusted with the duty to safeguard it have exercised their legal right to make another choice. Dura lex, sed lex. The law is harsh, but it is the law.

HP employees are now on a new ship, being taken on a new voyage. The company has even changed its stock symbol to HPQ to stress that the "old" HP is gone. For the sake of the surviving employees, of course I hope for a good outcome. But it is hard to imagine that their leaders can invent something better than what they left behind.

David W. Packard
The Stanford Theatre Foundation.

"The San Jose Mercury News also has a short article about Packard's message.

"Editorial Content: HP's road to the merger has been the subject of much lunchtime controversy out here. As one of the "founders" of Silicon Valley, Hewlett Packard has for decades been a highly respected institution who earned their reputation through solid engineering and research, and by creating a legendary workplace envied the world over.

"Especially in the Valley, people within and without HP came to feel as David Packard did; that The HP Way would survive management fads and fickle stockholders, and serve as a lasting example of How To Do It Right. But HP's current management has won the right to move onward; to where, no one is sure.

"Though the company is still there, the HP mythos and The HP Way seem to be gone. All anyone can do now is watch and see what happens next."

EyesWideOpen writes "The merger between Hewlett-Packard Co. and Compaq Computer Corp. (originally reported in this Slashdot story) is now official according to eWeek as well as SiliconValley.com. From the eWeek article:'Hewlett-Packard Co. today announced that it will complete its $19 billion buyout of Compaq Computer Corp. and that the merged companies will formally launch as the new HP on May 7.'For you investors out there, HP will begin trading under the new symbol HPQ on Monday." A message to the Interesting People list gives some insight into the shareholder voting procedure.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Got outrage? According to a story on SiliconValley.com, a federal magistrate has ordered SonicBlue to track ReplayTV users' every click to see what they're watching, recording, skipping (commercials) and e-mailing to friends. The info is to be given to the entertainment industry control freaks who are suing SonicBlue for allegedly abetting copyright violations."

An Anonymous Coward writes: "A report from CFP2002 on the tension between making fair use clear and retaining ambiguity to facilitate the application of fair use to future technologies." Lots of good papers available from the Fair Use By Design workshop and the conference in general.

TTop writes "Roger Ebert has weighed in with a scathing critique of the Universal Music Group and its new copy-protection scheme which renders CDs unplayable in non-Windows operating systems, DVD players, and CD-compatible game consoles. It's nice to see the mainstream press start to come out against the idiotic copy-protection war the RIAA is declaring on their best customers, music lovers. Having to agree to a legal contract to hear a CD you've purchased on your own PC? Puh-leeze. Ebert compares these copy-protection schemes to Circuit City's failed DIVX DVD format." Columnist Dan Gillmor wrote a piece a few days ago about drawing a line in the sand.

Slashback tonight with an mini-avalanche of updates and corrections on Pioneer 10 (it's not a Star Trek series), Canadian copyright hearings, Intel's stance on SSSCA and similar laws, and -- Oh Yes, whether 640K really is enough for anyone. Read on for the details. Update: 03/05 00:19 GMT by T : "Pioneer," not "Voyager." Asleep at the keyboard.

Kudos to the guys behind Pioneer 10! Soft writes: "As a follow-up to yesterday's story, Pioneer 10 was successfully contacted for its 30th birthday, as announced in sci.space.news. The commands that were sent yesterday have been executed by the spacecraft, and more data has been collected by the Geiger Tube Telescope." lostchicken adds a link to Associated Press wire story on Yahoo!', writing "Not bad for a 30 year-old spacecraft. Perhaps those making time capsules could learn something from this?" Several readers also pointed out the SpaceDaily version of the goings on.

What, in the middle of Canadian winter?! schon writes: "An update to this /. story - The Canadian Copyright Board has announced the details of the public hearings on Canadian Digital Copyrights, at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/rp00838e.html. Interested parties should register before attending (details available on the page.)"

Sent to you in compliance with the current Federal legislation An Anonymous Coward writes: "Back in June of 2000 Slashdot.org reported a story called ' Taking On A Spammer' about a spammer being hacked by a pissed sys-admin. The Behind Enemy Lines web page talked about a pump-and-dump spam done by Premier Services and Mark Rice."

(See this page for more information on that scam.)

"Well on February 25, 2002 the SEC filed charges against Mark Rice!"

Death of a legend? Jean-Luc writes "The New York Review of Books has published an article that contains an e-mail from Bill Gates denying he ever said the infamous "640K should be enough for anyone" quote. He foists the blame on IBM and claims he tried to convince them to include more address space from the get go. Very technical and fairly convincing, showing that for all his might Bill is still basically a geek's geek."

They hadn't even gotten to the bowlderizing chip yet ... Dan Gilmor pointed out Intel's strong statement Thursday on copy protection front, "much stronger than the letter sent yesterday. Surprising given their history..." Maybe Intel believes they can do a better job of what deciding what goes into Silicon than a committee of bureaucrats steered by the entertainment moguls can.

michael_cain writes "Siliconvalley.com is reporting that Microsoft is shutting down its Ultimate TV project. The service itself will continue to be offered. The set top box hardware developers are moving to the XBox organization. With the sales of the XBox already larger than either Ultimate TV or its predecessor, WebTV, it looks like Microsoft is adopting the game console as their method-of-choice for getting a platform to run their software into the family room." I found the decision to more or less put UltimateTV on life support and discontinue active work on it interesting - that leaves TiVo and ReplayTV as the main standing competitors.

A reader writes "Google brought us the age of high quality searches, and with that may come the end of domain-name speculation. Good thing we paid for all those laws to punish cyber-squatters. Read the article and learn more."

Anonymous Minion writes: "The Associated Press is reporting that Bill Gates announced to employees Wednesday a major strategy shift across all its products to emphasize security and privacy over new capabilities. In e-mail to employees, Gates referred to the new philosophy as "Trustworthy Computing" and called it the "highest priority". Gates said the new emphasis was "more important than any other part of our work."" People criticized Microsoft for treating security breaches as a public relations problem, so Bill Gates sent this email out to the Associated Press to prove them wrong. (rimshot!) Meanwhile, Richard Smith notes that the Globally Unique Identifier in every installation of Windows Media Player allows websites to universally track users, and Microsoft does not consider it a security problem.

unclegus writes "I ran across this article talking about Michael Roberston and Lindows. Says a "Sneak Preview" will be available in a few weeks. Release 1.0 will be $100 for single user ..." Dan Gillmor, the author of it, has said that it appears to be the real thing - I'll be interested in getting my hands on it.

grub wrote to us about an article about SGI, and its ongoing battles to turn its corporate fortunes around. The company's been doing interesting stuff for a long time - here's to hoping they stay around.

BillTheKatt writes: "The formerly (as in a couple of weeks) "unbreakable" Oracle 9i has been found to be vulnerable to a Denial Of Service bug. ... Thanks [H]ardOCP for the link to the Article At SiliconValley.com. For more information see the official notice on SecurityFocus. More proof that Microsoft does not hold a monopoly on bugs. And of course a black eye to Mr. Larry 'Big Mouth' Ellison. I'm still waiting for my network computer, Larry."

angkor wrote in with a link to a story about how Universal Plans to copyprotect all CDs which will render them unplayable on Macs, DVD Players, PS2s, and some CD Players. And it won't even stop people from ripping MP3s I bet.

saridder writes: "There's a saying that behind every fortune is a crime, and as we have learned with Apple, Microsoft, and others, Cisco is no different. The SJ Mercury has an article outlining and debunking the myth of Cisco's founding."

n3hat was one of many who wrote in to tell us about the following: "Saw this report in Siliconvalley.com, 'Intel has devised a new structure for transistors that could lead to microprocessors that run faster and consume less power than conventional ones. The technology solves two of the more intractable problems: power consumption and heat.' It goes on to say that Intel plans to present two major elements of the new "TeraHertz" transistor structure at the International Electron Device Meeting in Washington on Dec. 3.

Dan Gillmor, who's currently on the road in China, has sent a report about the role of Linux in China. We've talked about this before. Dan hits on some of the high points for *why* the Chinese are interested, which makes for interesting reading.

bstadil writes: "There is an interesting debate over at SiliconValley.com about the right of researchers funded by Universities to make their IP Open Source. It's not at all simple. On one side Universities claiming their derive 5% of their Budget from IP licenses and it's vital for continued high level of 'Output,' on the other hand researcher who claim the public is billed twice by licensing the output."

Matthew Skala writes: "The Recording Artists' Coalition, which includes such luminaries as Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, and Sheryl Crow, is still annoyed about the "Work for Hire" legislation we heard about in August 2000. They've filed a brief in the Napster cases, urging the court not to accept the RIAA's copyright registration documents as proof of ownership, because accepting the documents would allow the music cartel to sneakily destroy artists' claims to the music they recorded. They don't take a stand on other issues we might be interested in, but it's still worth thinking about. If the artists are against the RIAA, then whom exactly does the RIAA represent? Some quotes and info are on Siliconvalley.com."

fm6 writes: "Just the thing to remind an aging geek of his mortality: this week marks the 30th anniversary of the Intel 4004, the very first microprocessor. Another historical page here, and a column bemoaning the absence of dancing in the streets here. Trivia -- why 4004? Because it was the fourth component in a 4-bit chipset." You might want to read the interview with Ted Hoff from a few months ago, it's pretty informative about the origins of the 4004.

Cutriss writes: "The ICANN seems to be thinking about giving in to public demands. According to this article on Wired.com mentions that ICANN is considering allowing domain owners to elect their board of directors. It's a step in the right direction. I wonder if domain owners could collaborate and cast a collective vote of no confidence, absolving ICANN of its responsibilities..." I wouldn't call it a step in the right direction since each revision to ICANN's Board involves less individual representation and more corporate representatives. There's another story with some quotes from Karl Auerbach. The At-Large study that we talked about earlier has now been released in its final form. If you don't like the way ICANN is going, please consider attending their meetings. Next one is in Los Angeles next week.

Unipuma writes: "Tim Berners-Lee gives his views in an interview with Silicon Valley about the latests blocking of the MSN website for most other than Internet Explorer browsers. 'I have fought since the beginning of the Web for its openness: that anyone can read Web pages with any software running on any hardware. This is what makes the Web itself. This is the environment into which so many people have invested so much energy and creativity. When I see any Web site claim to be only readable using particular hardware or software, I cringe - they are pining for the bad old days when each piece of information need a different program to access it.'"

cplater writes: "This article discusses Larry Ellison's call for a U.S. national ID card, and his offer to provide the software for such an initiative." There's an advertising slogan to be proud of: 'Oracle, the Big Database behind Big Brother'. Or 'Oracle, the All-Seeing Eye'. Or 'If it's good enough for Orwell, it's good enough for your company'. Update: 09/23 23:22 GMT by M : Richard Jones writes "The British Home Secretary is considering compulsory identity cards, despite the fact that such cards would not have made any difference in the recent terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. The British have generally opposed their reintroduction since the wartime system of identity cards was abolished in 1952."

angkor points to this Siliconvalley.com article about companies not jumping for the newfangled TLDs like dot-biz. "This is delicious revenge for all the spam I've gotten reminding me to reserve new domain names now before they're all gone ... ." Besides the nice sound of "dot com," perhaps the restrictions surrounding the new official TLDs help to prevent them selling like hotcakes. The world won't be fair until the LED museum and similar sites are offered -- No, given! -- .museum addresses.

John Paczkowski writes: "SiliconValley.com is currently hosting the third in its series of online Roundtable discussions. Our topic is 'Does Apple Matter?' and as you might imagine conversation has been quite spirited. Among our guests: Jean-Louis Gassée -- chairman and CEO of Be and former head of head of product development at Apple, former Apple chairman and CEO Gil Amelio, former Macintosh project manager Jef Raskin, and Mark Gonzales, a former senior Apple product manager who worked on the company's 'Star Trek' project. You'll find the introduction to the event here and the discussion itself here."

John Paczkowski writes: "SiliconValley.com is currently hosting the third in its series of online Roundtable discussions. Our topic is 'Does Apple Matter?' and as you might imagine conversation has been quite spirited. Among our guests: Jean-Louis Gassée -- chairman and CEO of Be and former head of head of product development at Apple, former Apple chairman and CEO Gil Amelio, former Macintosh project manager Jef Raskin, and Mark Gonzales, a former senior Apple product manager who worked on the company's 'Star Trek' project. You'll find the introduction to the event here and the discussion itself here."

John Paczkowski writes: "SiliconValley.com is currently hosting the third in its series of online Roundtable discussions. Our topic is 'Does Apple Matter?' and as you might imagine conversation has been quite spirited. Among our guests: Jean-Louis Gassée -- chairman and CEO of Be and former head of head of product development at Apple, former Apple chairman and CEO Gil Amelio, former Macintosh project manager Jef Raskin, and Mark Gonzales, a former senior Apple product manager who worked on the company's 'Star Trek' project. You'll find the introduction to the event here and the discussion itself here."

PowerMacDaddy writes "Over at SiliconValley.com there's an article about an Ausin, TX startup named Intrinsity that has unveiled a new chip that utilizes a new logic process with conventional fab processes to acheive a 2.2GHz clock rate. The company is headed by former Texas Instruments and Apple Computer microprocessor developer Paul Nixon. The real question is, is this all FUD, will the real-world performance be part of The Megahertz Myth, or is this thing for real?"

PowerMacDaddy writes "Over at SiliconValley.com there's an article about an Ausin, TX startup named Intrinsity that has unveiled a new chip that utilizes a new logic process with conventional fab processes to acheive a 2.2GHz clock rate. The company is headed by former Texas Instruments and Apple Computer microprocessor developer Paul Nixon. The real question is, is this all FUD, will the real-world performance be part of The Megahertz Myth, or is this thing for real?"

Thanks to Dan Gillmor for the head's up concerning the investigation by the DoJ into MusicNet and pressplay. These are the two big services being put together by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music, EMI Group and BMG. This follows on from an investigation launched by the EU this past June. This is prelim work but we'll see what happens.

A reader writes:There's a new column from Dan Gillmor on SiliconValley.com about Windows XP. The column calls for an injunction stopping the shipping of WinXP. Dan's got a well thought out list of reasons why and how it would work."

So, we've gotten a lot of submissions about various things related to the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. Michael Tiemann had a few words before the convention; Dan Gillmor wrote a column about it; Fred Baker made a few flameworthy remarks. For whatever reason the whole conference seemed to be dominated by the Mundie-Tiemann debate. See our earlier story for some good links, or watch the debate video, or just read some post-debate coverage here or here. And if you haven't heard enough from Mundie, you can even read his post-debate letter.

Thanks to Simone for pointing out Doc Searls' weblog as well as Dan Gillmore's weblog being updated about the Craig Mundie (of Microsoft)'s speech @ O'Reilly's Open Source Convention. Dan's take is excellent - that's what I'm hearing from people there as well.

There's a great Dan Gillmor article, from his blog ^[?] regarding the challenge issued by Tim O'Reilly and Clay Shirky to the computer OEMs, asking them to include the latest Java JRE. As Microsoft has said they won't be including Java in WinXP, but are cool with "letting" OEMs put in other programs, let's see the manufacturers strike a blow for competition, and compatibility, and including a non-"extended and embraced" JRE.

dar writes "Scientists have built a transistor a single molecule wide that works at room temperature. " Nanotech continues to move forward - while each step is interesting in itself, we've still got a long ways to go before I can have my can of nanobots.

Everyone and their brother sent in this unsurprising news: the Appeals Court handling the Microsoft anti-trust case has overturned the break-up decision. A few story URLs: CNet, BBC, ABC, AP, Reuters, MSNBC. The decision is available in .pdf format. A brief summary: the Findings of Fact (Microsoft's conduct, etc.) are still in place, but Judge Jackson's evaluation of those facts and the penalty he imposed are thrown out. A new District Judge will examine the case, starting from the Findings of Fact. Update 2h later by J : Dan Gillmor's analysis is good. So is this Washington Post column, which is insightful except it doesn't go far enough. It also shows MS CEO Steve Ballmer's attitude even before today's ruling: "Is there any limit to what you think you can put into the operating system at all?" "...as a matter of law, no, I don't think so..."

Gandalf61 writes: "On siliconvalley.com, they've opened up a roundtable discussion concerning MS's Craig Mundie's recent attacks on the GPL. It's titled 'Code War,' and a panel of other-than-MS luminaries is on-board, and attacks on Mundie's the over-the-edge 3 May speech have begun. Mundie started the discussion, and one reply is now posted by a panel member, shredding the MS view of reality ... This looks to be fun." Since this submission rolled in, a number of posts have appeared in this moderated discussion set to continue for the next few days; RMS withdrew from the panel shortly before it began, though, and the result is a discussion which is engaging but perhaps not as fiery as it would be with Stallman in the ring. It's downright civil so far, in fact; hopefully it's a good environment for FUD-busting.