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Yes I meant the British government. CSA springs to mind wasting £539M, along with the Fire Services failure costing another £500M. Apparently the last Labour government managed to waste £26bn in botched projects and 7/10 UK government projects are failures.

The Brits in the private sector are quite excellent. However they are rarely used with government contracts outsourced abroad (usually EDS).

Phillip.

I thought it odd I saw this thread on Slashdot after I'd read this article:

http://www.zdnetasia.com/android-4-0-to-be-open-source-in-coming-weeks-62302580.htm

"Rubin said Ice Cream Sandwich will be open source "in a couple of weeks" when Samsung's Galaxy Nexus ships and manufacturers will be free to push the update to their current range of devices. Going open source means manufacturers will be able to put Android 4.0 into their own devices and cut their own ROMs for existing products."

Linux:
http://www.zdnetasia.com/linux-world-dismisses-new-trojan-risk-39009405.htm
The variant of a two-month-old Remote Access Trojan that attacks Linux machines has been categorized as a low risk. A Remote Shell Trojan (RST) is making its way around the Linux community, but security experts say it should not pose a risk if users are vigilant with the programs they run.

http://www.zdnetasia.com/stuxnet-infections-continue-to-rise-62201930.htm

There are infections in Step 7 showing up at what I'm guessing are either automation companies or companies with big in house automation support, given that they are known to Siemens.

Sure. They also know that their products aren't licensed for anything except personal use.

Is this so? (spoiler: no it isn't)

Doing further research I came across another article that mentioned "testing" of the Aurora botnet had begun around July of last year. The command and control architecture and methods were picked up back then. They weren't anything new. Google announced the breach in January. That's a six month gap between when the initial testing occured and was recognized, and when Google acknowledged they had a problem.

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62061573,00.htm

I'm not completely surprised that Google got hit. They might be suffering from some institution hubris and buying into their own marketing about being "the best" at everything. We use Postini as our primary anti-spam mechanism. All in all they do a great job and out perform the in house solution that we were using a couple of years ago. Despite doing well, there are still some virii that slip through their net and get caught by the AV (Symantec) we're running on our Exchange server. When emails slip through the cracks, I use Postini's reporting mechanisms to make them aware of the problem. I have yet to have problems with the same exploit continuing after I make Postini aware of it.

Security has evolved from something that can be handled in house, to something that requires significant dedicated resources. Most organizations can't afford that cost and end up outsourcing it. There are some IT functions that I don't want to give up. Anti-spam and security aren't on the list. Despite my own personal interest in computer security stretching back to the early 1990s, I can't adequately address the constantly changing threatscape in addition to handling the rest of the requirements of my job.

To make a weak car analogy, I can't ever be 100% certain that when I get in my car that I will make it to my destination safely. I know how to operate my vehicle. It is in good shape. I wear my seatbelt. I use my turn signals. I look over my shoulder and check my mirrors when changing lanes. Despite all of that, accidents happen. I've been t-boned before because someone ran a red light. It sucks but it comes with the territory. Computer security is similar. I keep up to date on patches. I have multiple products to address different attack vectors. Some of those products overlap in functionality to provide some sembelance of redundancy. Sooner or later, something will slip through the cracks. I haven't dealt with a compromised server in close to a decade (that includes going back to the Slammer worm, Code Red and all that other mid-decade nonsense that hit most Microsoft shops). I haven't dealt with any compromised workstations on my network(s) for about five years. A lot of that I'm sure has to do with the industries I work with. They aren't huge targets so nobody is crafting exploits specifically for them.

Is this even legal, MS is making some sort of property claims , else they are engaged in an extortion racket. What does the FSF have to say on all this ? I think a definitive statement from them would help clear the air. a statement to the effect that such secret deals are bogus and have no standing in law.

Amazon, Microsoft sign patent deal

It's worse than you think. In some countries they have even more rights and are harder to try in court since it's kinda hard to lock them up in a prison. I know a story of a corporation that willfully infected its customers with malware (which would get a teenager nearly in jail and gives him a criminal record) and got off with paying some pocket change.

all of the consoles have reached the maturity/decline slope in their product life-cycle.

Really? "For years, Sony has argued that its video game consoles have 10-year lifecycles" says this interesting article, which mainly focuses on PS2's 9th birthday. Also, I don't see a big decline in sales in this console hardware sales chart (which, admittedly, might not be too accurate, but gives you a rough idea).

Frankly, I don't think we're nowhere near seeing what can be eventually squeezed out of PS3 or 360 or Wii. Remember the difference between early vs. later PS2 games?

And I don't realistically see what major upgrades in the main units would be beneficial for either the manufacturers or gamers in the near future, apart from cutting manufacturing costs and providing new kinds of controllers and accessories and online gaming modes. The current consoles will be with us for a long time, and they will sell huge numbers for years.

NVidia historically had a dominant position

I suppose "historically" is a relative term. I remember when just about EVERY graphics card was ATI.
ATI had the OEM market in the bag for quite a while.

From 1999:

What this also does is put a dent in the armor of ATI Technologies Inc., Toronto, Canada. ATI is the PC graphics market share leader with revenues close to $1 billion and has been steam rolling over the competition in the PC space for the past year or so. This includes S3, Trident Microsystems, 3Dfx, 3Dlabs and even Intel. The only companies to put up much of a fight was Nvidia, which is much smaller than ATI, and Montreal, Canada-based Matrox Graphics Inc., which has a similar business model to ATI.

Until the nVidia juggernaut took off in 2000:

Nvidia has overtaken ATI Technologies as the biggest maker of chips to enhance graphics on desktop computers, according to a new study by industry consultant Mercury Research.
In the third quarter, Nvidia chips were in 48 percent of all desktop computers, more than doubling its market share from 20 percent in the third quarter last year, Mercury said. ATI slipped to 34 percent from 39 percent.

No it doesn't. It requires that you ship the offer of code with the binary.

We are talking about this specific instance.

In general, you are strictly correct. However, in this case, the source code is shipped with the release since plugins are source deliveries, therefore they are compliant.

Sure it does. You must both advertise to the downstream user their rights under the license, and in some circumstances the No Warranty text should be shown. This is Term 1, it's not exactly buried in the text.

Since they are shipping source code with their plugin, and the complainant themselves states that the files are unchanged, they again, are compliant. The advertising clauses in BSD 1.0 and the AFSL are very different, requiring the use of the software to be mentioned in any marketing materials. _THAT_ is an advertising clause.

There is no statement that their closed source plugin makes use of the GPL code. All we have so far is a developer complaining that their code was used without attribution. Something that the GPL does not require. It requires several things, but advertising where you got the code is not one of them.

All Firefox users are absolutely fine to use a mix of GPL and non GPL plugins at run time. What they can't do is redistribute the things together as a single monolithic program to others without relicensing the entire package as GPL. The GPL has to do with redistribution, not use. (ie the "copy" in "copyright")

The act of creating a running image of a software program is considered copying under current US statute and case law. This is why there is an argument around Linux closed-source drivers. If you talk to the FSF, they say that's a GPL violation. If you talk to Linus, he says that it's fine, with a specific exception to the GPL.

The FSF sharply disagrees. "If the kernel were pure GPL in its license terms...you couldn't link proprietary video drivers into it, whether dynamically or statically," FSF attorney Eben Moglen said in a January interview.

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39352584,00.htm

So, running software makes a copy, therefore is covered by the license. Since the license is the GPL, everything in the running image must also be GPLed. Congratulations you've just committed a copyright violation. This was covered in MAI Systems Corp. v Peak Computing. The law was later changed to cover copies made for maintenance. However, it still does not cover the violation made during execution.

I work for Cisco, so this post is biased.

If you want to know more about Intel Nehalem 55xx architecture.

It explains that a the server manufacturer using the Intel Nehalem 55xx processor can support up to 3, 6 or 9 DIMMs/socket. This corresponds with a memory bus speed of 1333, 1066 or 800Mhz. The latter is not often implemented and would give you (9x2x8GB) 144GB in a dual socket system.

What Cisco did is, developing a patented "memory switch" which presents up to 4 DIMMs as 1 to the processor, MULTIPLYING THE ALLOWED RAM TIMES FOUR. If the memory is running at 1066Mhz this gives you 48DIMMs. If the memory is running at 800Mhz this would allow up to 72 DIMMs in one server. The latter one has not been implemented.

Where would you ever need this kind of memory?

* Running VMware ESX, XenServer,... and assuming 3-4GB per VM -> imagine 96 VMs per physical box
* imagine running a 300GB MySQL database out of RAM without the need of a high end machine

Also the price per GB is not linear for memory. 8GB costs currently way more than 4x 2GB. So if you still don't need the 384GB memory, you can fill the 48DIMMs with 2GB and have a 96GB RAM server for a lower price.

There are also a lot of other features which are really different and better than the competition, such as centralized management per 320 servers. In more enterprise environments customers can also consolidate their SAN and their LAN network by using open standard FCoE.

Please check it out at Cisco - Unified Computing System

Articled headline is misleading if not completely wrong. MediaSentry is not dead, and the MPAA is still using it. They're just masquerading as "Safenet DMCA". But, it's still the same company. But now they're attempting to escape the horrible PR associated with the name MediaSentry. Exactly like the name of Gator was changed to Claria in an attempt to avoid allegations of spyware that were largely accepted as true.

MediaSentry lives on in the US and ISPs are still bowing to their scare tactics and threat letters, typically this means immediately punishing their customers without due process and based solely on the allegations of SafeNet DMCA/MediaSentry.

There is a phone ban on airplanes now, which seems to apply to the calling itself rather than the device used (i.e. skype is out.) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/31/congress-upholds-cell-pho_n_116187.html This article mentions it in relation to the new wi-fi service. http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,39365108,00.htm

The ARM netbooks and embedded devices are coming and there's nothing Microsoft or Intel can do about it except adapt and compete. The time when you could defeat a good technology with an evangelist is long gone since the public now knows evangelists are just shills for hire. The day a MS rep could derail a Linux deployment with a sneer has passed. Sorry Enderle, your day is done.

Intel will choose to compete and they have a good start because they started years ago. As the Atom die shrinks and gains SOC capabilities, its power requirements will come down. Maybe not to ARM levels, but to an acceptable level faster than ARM can bring their performance up to acceptable levels for a good user experience. Microsoft will choose to use the tools they have, and fail to adapt. That's what they do. They can't grasp a market that's abandoned the need for them. It's alien to their corporate culture. After they've failed in the market they'll buy an ARM OS vendor and try, but that's five years hence. and they'll buy five of them badly and integrate them poorly and we'll laugh at their ineptitude here.

Ultimately Intel will win this one but there will be some interesting side stories and products between now and then. Microsoft will lose because they choose not to port to the interesting new platform Linux runs on already, and so when the channels merge again they will have lost share. By then low power devices might be most of the share, at least for end user devices.

Australia's internet packets may touch Australia's defense satellite operated by Singtel (Singapore government telco) at some point.

"SingTel's Optus bid part of 20-year spy operation?" http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,38000285,00.htm

'While hundreds of companies have donated to this week's Republican presidential convention, Microsoft may have the most at stake. Microsoft gave US$900,000 in software and US$100,000 in cash to the committee hosting the convention'

'Microsoft's budget for political lobbying exceeded that of Enron, the judge residing over the antitrust case has heard'.

'the Bush administration has sharply changed course by repeatedly defending the company both in the United States and abroad against accusations of anticompetitive conduct'

South Koreans consume LOTS of bandwidth just watching "broadcasting" and films/"pirated" DVDs. Probably there is little crackdown on at least the piracy of DVDs and related material because ultimately sales downstream probably depend upon or are enhanced by it. Plus, in the South, there are seriously dedicated gamers who'd probably put to shame just about any of the rest of the world.

The Bandwidth Capital of the World
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/korea.html

Korea Broadband Archives (12)
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/broadband/korea/

Who Wants To Watch Full Length Movies On Their Mobile Phones?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080401/105208716.shtml

south korea, bandwidth
http://www.zdnetasia.com/tags/south-korea+bandwidth/

Until and unless US bandwidth consumers need or demand higher speed and quality and demand it for reasonable (to consumer, not to the execs/investors or excessive R&D or boondoggling) pricing, people here will just shrug it off.

Afterall, don't forget:

Two-thirds of Americans without broadband don't want it
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/01/two-thirds-of-americans-without-broadband-dont-want-it.ars

Most Americans without broadband don't want it
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/23/poll_most_without_broadband_dont_want_it/

(Captcha: maleness)

Here is more about it.

"We wouldn't go into what security systems we've got, but we do have extra layers within the whole Oyster system," the spokesperson claimed. "We run daily tests for any cloned cards or rogue devices and none have been discovered. We are aware of the situation in Holland but, at this stage, there's no reason to migrate to a different system due to any security concerns."

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,62040565,00.htm

When they say 'none have been discovered' its not clear if that includes the Dutch hack. While Im sure there are probably ways around that too in the future and that saying this is partly to play down the impact of 'omg free travel!' I would imagine that an organisation like TFL with the resources they've got they probably can do such scans every evening or in transit. It's interesting regardless to see how this plays out...

Do you live in the United States of America? Also known as "The United States of Advertising?" (Bill Hicks)

Take the Microsoft Mafia Monopoly Challenge:

1. Walk into one or several of your local stores selling computers
2. Ask them what their computers have preloaded on them for an Operating System
3. If they reply, "Windows", inquire about other choices and note them if available (most won't have alternatives)
4. If they tell you every system is preloaded with Windows, note this and add a Windows logo flag next to the store name
5. Ask about the possibility of refunds for Windows should you purchase a preloaded Windows system and want a refund for the OS. Even if this isn't the way to go about it, ask about the refund anyway to see what they say, express your dismay at the limited choices and the forcing of Windows on desktops. A convicted monopoly should not continue to enjoy the luxury of a monopoly on the desktop
6. Compile this list and post it online somewhere visible, or coodinate your effort with others with sites like BoycottNovell.com and the like, groups of people collecting this information may wish to present it to the appropriate people in American government, to show how strong the Microsoft monopoly remains today, and how little the DOJ has leaned on Microsoft vs. other countries.

If the DOJ will do nothing further to stop Microsoft's continued monopoly in the United States, we must do something.

Microsoft is a convicted monopoly and it should not continue to enjoy the luxury of preloaded systems and mysterious OEM deals

In addition, archive/save the following articles before they disappear:

Microsoft's Dirty OEM-Secret
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110

Microsoft Caught Out
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/11/15/124827/52

Microsoft Exec: OEMs Must Not Install Linux Besides Windows
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/27/214930/249

Secret deals MS uses to control PC companies
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/10/secret_deals_ms_uses/

Congress: Clear the Air and Stop Preloads
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/50179/

Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux?
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=07/02/11/1443211

Microsoft: Open source is too complex
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39380307,00.htm

Microsoft: "Drug-Dealing Methods"
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

Do you live in the United States of America? Also known as "The United States of Advertising?" (Bill Hicks)

Take the Microsoft Mafia Monopoly Challenge:

1. Walk into one or several of your local stores selling computers
2. Ask them what their computers have preloaded on them for an Operating System
3. If they reply, "Windows", inquire about other choices and note them if available (most won't have alternatives)
4. If they tell you every system is preloaded with Windows, note this and add a Windows logo flag next to the store name
5. Ask about the possibility of refunds for Windows should you purchase a preloaded Windows system and want a refund for the OS. Even if this isn't the way to go about it, ask about the refund anyway to see what they say, express your dismay at the limited choices and the forcing of Windows on desktops. A convicted monopoly should not continue to enjoy the luxury of a monopoly on the desktop
6. Compile this list and post it online somewhere visible, or coodinate your effort with others with sites like BoycottNovell.com and the like, groups of people collecting this information may wish to present it to the appropriate people in American government, to show how strong the Microsoft monopoly remains today, and how little the DOJ has leaned on Microsoft vs. other countries.

If the DOJ will do nothing further to stop Microsoft's continued monopoly in the United States, we must do something.

Microsoft is a convicted monopoly and it should not continue to enjoy the luxury of preloaded systems and mysterious OEM deals

In addition, archive/save the following articles before they disappear:

Microsoft's Dirty OEM-Secret
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110

Microsoft Caught Out
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/11/15/124827/52

Microsoft Exec: OEMs Must Not Install Linux Besides Windows
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/27/214930/249

Secret deals MS uses to control PC companies
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/10/secret_deals_ms_uses/

Congress: Clear the Air and Stop Preloads
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/50179/

Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux?
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=07/02/11/1443211

Microsoft: Open source is too complex
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39380307,00.htm

Microsoft: "Drug-Dealing Methods"
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

not motivated by profits and has the resources, like say... the US government

As a Filipino - and by the way, the comments here are very very disturbing (...)

ZDnet Asia about MSOOXML

I had to laugh at the quote

With OOXML, one can use Notepad or just about any productivity software like Microsoft's rival OpenOffice, to open a file that's saved in Microsoft Word document. OOXML, Microsoft says, is backward-compatible and future-proof...meaning, it can open all previous and future versions of Microsoft document formats.

Maybe this explains the presumed wine & dine:

The Philippines is one of the countries that voted "no", which partly explains why we were invited to attend the press briefing.

If MS Windows is dominant, then maybe that also implies that people tend to believe what Microsoft says, because they're used to using their products and the brand name is familiar. I find it difficult sometimes to keep faith that policymakers and journalists the world around will listen to their own voice of reason instead of claims like "it can open all previous and future versions of Microsoft document formats. Would you like to visit us so we can explain this to you?".

According to this web site (http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62034821,00.htm), Vista, in less than one year, has many times the desktop penetration as does Linux (all flavors still constitute less than 1%) after 15 years. The article also mentions that many (most?) businesses are waiting for SP1 before even considering adoption. Given that SP1 is due in a month or so, I strongly suspect there will be a dramatic change in Vista's numbers in its second year of existence.

Also along these lines, I know quite a few people who are getting Vista on their new home machines, and have been, for the most part, favorably impressed. This, over time, will also translate into increased adoption in the business world. Like it or not, Vista will become the pervasive desktop in the next 2 years.

Well see, there is thing called "encryption".

Okay, some wing-nutty paranoia now. Is there any form of encryption that you believe people like the NSA cannot crack? I suspect stories like "Skype encryption too tough for German police" are a ruse to encourage criminals to use the Skype which is likely easier to track, and certainly less portable, than prepaid cell phones.

Besides, if Google doesn't do the encryption, 99.99% of the data will not be encrypted. That should make the people with something to hide pretty easy to pick out.

Ok, if ships bore you, here's a car story: BMW glitch locks Thai minister in. Sorry, this is also 4 years old, but it's hard to find more recent stories, as after this incident, car makers slowly moved away from Windows CE... (Yes, there was this Renault Velsatis careening down French freeways, ignoring the brake pedal, but unfortunately Renault has stayed mum about the software that they use...)

I saw a glimmer of hope from the worst offender recently.
Is Microsoft learning from Web standards mistakes?

It's this simple, people are afraid of change, many people will not do change because it puts the testing of their reputation on the line. (many CEO's, CIO's, IT Directors, IT Managers, and the likes) Even though it is very evident the cost savings and the possibilities of re-allocating money to other projects that have never been touched because of current issues with M$ products or incompatibilities with others. These people are not comfortable with change and they do not want to put any effort or time in to making a significant change (they would rather deal with what they have been dealing with because of the possibilities of not having a job tomorrow, if they were wrong). Even if of it is evident that the benefits out weigh the eventual cost, productivity, time and effort of another product that they don't have now.

No one is willing to take risks anymore. They would rather agree with one another that it will not work out in the end. Even though I don't agree with these peoples though process, I do agree that it can be a task to get everyone to buy in to the change that would take place with the sagnificant change switching to OSS or Linux, but it is not impossible if you spend time to outline, plan and prepare for this type of rollout.

There are many success stories of people switching to OSS and Linux for their small, meduim and large size companies, who have taken the plunge to save money and troubles.

Ask the following companies - (I will kill two FUD's with one stone here - the use of OSS and Linux)

NASA - http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Projects/Columbia/co lumbia.html
- http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

DELL - http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/pow er/en/ps1q03_insights?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz

Walmart - http://www.wirespring.com/ (firecast runs on Linux andfirecast is and OSS)

Sony - http://www.computerpartner.nl/article.php?news=int &id=2804
- http://mtechit.com/linux-biz/media_companies/sony3 .html

Google - Summer of Coders (need I say more?)
- http://code.google.com/

IBM - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource

Boeing - http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/TAO-boeing.html
- http://www.zdnetasia.com/toolkits/0,39047352,39379 125-39094247p,00.htm

Wall Street, Merrill Lynch, ETrade, TowerGroup, Shahrawat (even as far back as 2002 - they must be Linux and OSS giants now!)
- http://www.forbes.com/2002/03/27/0327linux.html
- http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/lin ux/story/0,10801,75271,00.html
-

other to name Remax, People Soft, Byte, Cisco, Credit Suisse

For a much longer lists.. and why enjoy the following!

- http://mtechit.com/linux-biz/

-

Adobe Flash exploit could log keystrokes
By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET News.com
16/07/2007
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215, 62028443,00.htm

Adobe has issued three critical security updates, one of which is designed to stop a problem in the way the Flash player interacts with browsers, which could result in users' keystrokes being transmitted to attackers.

Adobe Flash Player 9.0.45.0, 8.0.34.0 and 7.0.69.0, as well as their earlier versions running on all platforms, are affected.

Users loading a malicious vector graphics file format (SWF) in their Flash Player may find attackers exploiting security flaws due to an input validation error in 9.0.45.0 and earlier versions, according to a security advisory from Secunia. Attackers, as a result, can gain remote access to a user's system.

In versions 7.0.69.0 and earlier running on Linux and Solaris, malicious attackers could exploit an error in the interaction between the Flash Player and certain browsers. That could potentially lead to a leaking of keystrokes to a Flash Player applet, Secunia noted. Flash Player 9 is not affected.

Versions 8.0.34.0 and earlier contain a bug due to insufficient validation of the HTTP referrer. As a result, an attacker could execute a cross-site forgery attack. Flash Player 9, however, is not affected.

Adobe recommends that 9.0.45.0 users upgrade to 9.0.47.0 for Windows, Mac and Solaris, or 9.0.48.0 for Linux.

Adobe Flash Player 9 is the recommended solution for the other two versions that contain security flaws.
--
For Your Flash-Based Safety

Before you try to pass your FUD as information to the rest of the world you ought to read the links that you are linking to.

I'll address security as the rest of the "design" arguments and functionality are more subjective.

So Gosling says that C/C++ Interop is a huge security risk? No not really. Overall it's not a security risk this to some extent has been proven over the last 6 years. When is the last time a severe and exploitable vulnerabilty has been published for .NET? In addition, .NET has mechanisms to protected untrusted code from taking truly damaging actions. However, you can have a look at the latest news out of the java camp regarding the JVM and how wonderful it is. You've also linked to a shill that was just fishing for some PR complaining that the UI for UAC could be spoofed. The only way for the spoof to work however was under a very elaborate set of circumstances. There are three or four actions that a user would have to take (and not in their normal order) before the exploit would work. Finally you have an article about Symantec complaining that Vista is not safe. Right, and you would expect anything different from a company that makes their money from the fact that users don't know how to use and protect their computers properly?

I'd prefer that you not use Vista.

• The switch is the center of the system. When you buy the switch, you also buy cabinets full of blade systems. Sun won't sell you the switch as a stand-alone component.
• The blades in cabinets can be SPARC, AMD, or Intel; Sun will support them all. The first one will be delivered to the Texas Advanced Computing Center, and will use Barcelona chips from AMD because it has better FP performance
• The switch is built around Infiniband technology, which is an interconnect architecture not a company.

Borrie said that during the past year he has seen Apple-based systems hacked and then used to control bots of Trojan-infected Windows PCs.

He explained that the hacked Mac systems were left vulnerable because users had employed weak passwords or misconfigured their services.

Yes, IBM sold the Thinkpad line to Lenovo. But the IBM logo continues to appear on Thinkpads, including the X60. Apparently IBM also sold the temporary right to use the IBM logo to "sustain sales momentum".

So it's a natural mistake to look at a Thinkpad and infer that IBM still plays some role in its development and deployment. Like many such branding exercises, Lenovo's use of the IBM logo is just a bit dishonest.

Their are wonderful OSS drivers for 2D features, it is hardware-accelerated 3D where things fall short. HA3D means AGP or PCI-Express, not PCI. Even with support there is no way the OGP is going to release anything usable on that front for YEARS.

On the other hand, Intel has been providing specs and source code for their integrated graphics chipsets. This includes hardware accelerated 3D, though the chips aren't up to the nVidia and ATI top or upper-mid range. Hardware T&L is missing, for one thing. However, their next refresh of those chips should get much closer and should still have excellent OSS drivers.

Intel offers much more hope than OGP ever will, as noble as that effort is.

http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man4/i810.4.html
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164, 39352584-2,00.htm

  -Charles

However, I do sympathize with linux users who want quality drivers for all types of graphics hardware. I doubt, though, that NVIDIA or ATI will ever release open-source drivers for linux. I think they can and should take the desktop linux market seriously and release high-quality, closed drivers, even if it affects the OSS purity of the linux operating system.

For decent article reviewing some of these issues, see this.

In Firefox the search box defaults to Google, and that the pulldown menu of pre-entered options doesn't even include MSN Search, but Google seems to have been oddly quiet on that front for the many years prior to IE7 that Firefox has made this feature available.

Just to save time, I'll summarize the typical MS-basher's point of view:

• If Apple bundles a media player with MacOS, that's good for consumers. If Microsoft bundles a media player with Windows, that's bad for consumers. Consumers would be better off paying extra money for Windows Media Player. If European consumers have the option of free-media-player or no-media-player Windows and they choose the free player version, something is wrong with them.

• If Apple uses their Operating System to pimp dotMac, that's good for consumers. If Microsoft uses their Operating System to pimp MSN, that's bad for consumers.

• If Microsoft's OS has viruses and spyware, they are being irresponsible. It's outrageous that consumers have to pay companies like Symantec and McAfee to do Microsoft's work. If MS decides to offer their own anti-virus service, now suddenly they are abusing their monopoly power.

• When Apple integrates things like video-conferencing into their OS, they are innovating. When Microsoft wants to do the exact same thing, they are stifling innovation. No one is really sure why this is true, but it's true.

• When Microsoft used closed, undocumented file formats for its Office applications, that was evil. When Microsoft switched to open XML file fomats and asked to join the OpenDocument committee, they are "muscling in" on open source and planning to sabotage their efforts.

Who said anything about a non-living entity?

Ummmm, just what extactly is "Apple", if not a non-living entity?

As for superceeding your rights. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" and it's implicit granting of privacy doesn't superseed your right to free speech.

I'm not sure what you're going for with that statement, so I'll just quote an Amendment for you.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

You can still say what you want, just that you may have to suffer the consequences for spying on people.

Who said anything about spying?

On the off chance you didn't actually read the article Apple is suing a blogger to find out who his source is. They are in effect saying only journalists can keep their sources hidden and a blogger isn't a journalist. This in effect elevates the value of Apple's trade secret over the blogger's freedom of press(free speech) rights.

I have to say, I'm suprised and impressed... a $1.2M grant to harden open source software? Thanks all seeing orwellian eyeball. I don't recall slashdot posting anything about the original grant but here's a link from the posted article to another about the funding.

The data is meant to help secure open-source software, which is increasingly used in critical systems, analysts said. Programmers working on the Linux operating system, Apache Web server, BIND Internet infrastructure software and Firefox browser, for example, will be able to fix security vulnerabilities flagged by the system before their code becomes part of a released application or operating system.

scuse me, but we have quite a few computers here in malaysia, thank you. Penetration rate of 66%, relative to say korea 61%, or taiwan 58%. Your statement about southeast asia may be true, but you chose the wrong country.

http://www.zdnetasia.com/smb/news/0,39043754,39246 721,00.htm

Sony reported that over the past eight months it shipped more than 4.7 million CDs with the so-called XCP copy protection.
Source

Figure a thousand dollars in damages per.
Actually Texas is suing for $100,000 per documented instance, but I will be lenient and generous on this one.

That's a potential for maybe $3Billion.

Germany was on the hook for about $33B - so yea, I was off by a power of ten, but don't forget I was using a very light $1,000 per, not the $100,000 per that Texas is suing for - if I was, it would be a dollar total 10x the amount of damage (dollar figure, not adjusted for inflation) caused by Germany in WWI.

I was wrong, but only by a single order of magnitude - which is close enough when you are dealing global disasters (which in the long run I envision it to be, at least for music sales /grin)

Its a shame that they are dragging the feet to resolve the issue. They didn't expect the outcry to be that great. Starting with a defiant rebuttal, last week a senior SonyBMG executive Thomas Hesse, the president of SonyBMG's global digital business division, said in a radio interview: 'Most people don't even know what a rootkit is so why should they care about it?' Either he is the one who does not understand the implication(technical/security) of a rootkit or he is mastermind of this idea. Eitherway, I can imagine how he is going to face the music not only from the media but also from Sony's management.

Your role play dialogue is quite true. That's how business is done in the media industry. But not all marketers will buy in, that is why there are only few out of the 50 are sponsors. But I don't think the report is rigged, I find them quite balanced otherwise the report will contain obvious flowerly praises for the company as desired by the marketers. hmmm... maybe that is why Intel aint the sponsor? cos the report touches the raw nerves by mentioning the recent debacle with AMD and the anti-trust suit...

I think the result is quite fair, there are many companies in the list and Red Hat is just one of the 50. There are many other companies in the list. If you read the report about Red Hat, it is quite measured and balanced and wasn't one of those all out praise to Red Hat. If any report on companies that looks good at any angle it would be Baidu but it wasn't a sponsor. But Red Hat being a small emerging player in among other well established tech giants, the marketing folks certainly wouldn't mind seizing the opportunity for additional exposure by being an advertiser.

BMW for the most part, although others are mentioned in this particular article. Oddly enough, they have had the occasional problem although I think by now they've worked most of the bugs out.

Uhm, additionally?

My post was about Linux & Windows... try keep on the topic I used, please, thanks.

BUT, there is RealBasic & I mentioned it in another reply here, it WILL write one codebase for Win32, Linux, & Macs. I have not tried it, and it is relatively an "infant" still, but imo?

A "baby hercules" really... especially for a 'write once, run everywhere in TRUE std. stand-alone .exe non-interpreted form" from a single codebase type of app on ALL 3 platforms.

Again - I haven't tried it, but like the sound of it already... especially imo, for the future of OS' being more "interoperable" & also having more common apps too!

By the by -

Linux folks & places like IBM as well, see the URL's below, HIGHLY AWARDED & RECEIVED KYLIX with great appreciation apparently:

(Also, @ tradeshows & such for it as well as mags for it)

Linux people have HIGHLY awarded & reviewed Kylix as an excellent tool!

See here in these:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/ techarticle/0211swart/0211swart2.html

&

http://builder.com.com/5100-22-1064560.html

"Best Linux Development Tool: Borland Kylix 2
Borland wrapped up a double play by taking home our Best Linux Development Tool award for Kylix in yet another landslide. Kylix finished with 50 percent of the final vote. I was mildly surprised to see KDE Studio finish as first runner-up with 14.4 percent in our Linux category, slightly ahead of Metrowerks CodeWarrior for Linux with 12.4 percent. Its interesting to note that these three tools accounted for over 75 percent of the votes cast in this category, so obviously these companies are doing something right."

http://www.zdnetasia.com/builder/program/dev/0,390 45513,39163332,00.htm

http://www.programmersheaven.com/zone2/articles/ar ticle317.htm

"One of the potentially exciting things about Kylix is being able to write Apache web server shared modules."

http://sdmagazine.com/jolts/2002/year_01.htm

Tons more too, I could fill the page so... Heck, just search "Awards" and "Kylix" on GOOGLE, you will see I am not b.s.'ing you!

(32 pages worth of them) :)

APK

DHS has had a "cybersecurity" chief for years. The first one, Richard Clarke (with years of counterterrorism experience in successive White Houses), quit in disgust after his work and warnings were ignored. His successor, Amit Yoran left Symantec's security division for DHS, then quit in disgust after his work and warnings were ignored. Every cybersecurity czar has quit in disgust, saying the job was impossible. Now we've got a new guy, in a newly "tweaked" position, to be the cybersecurity czar. Stewart Baker was the NSA lawyer who championed the Clipper Chip, key escrow, and the "trust the government" approach to info security - while attacking crypto like PGP as a threat to national security.

Somehow, I don't feel any safer with failed spook lawyers taking over from the counterterrorism and cybersecurity professionals.

No this isn't a shot at Java this is a shot at over building things. What's next Java in my car?

It may already be there:
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164, 39185006,00.htm

Love never understood the OpenSource movement or the GPL, and probably never understood how to run a company either. It's amazing Caldera has been around for so long with the CEO consistently doing the Wrong Thing [tm].