Slashback: Bankruptcy, SUVdiving, Singalongs

Slashback updates tonight on sky-diving cars, Microsoft's new code Glasnost (guess who's signed up to see the code?), the fate of the PCI-SIG list, the SCO and Linux licensing brouhaha, music royalties in Finland, and more. Read on for the details.

Not like that un-American GPL. agentZ writes "The first Microsoft government customer to buy access to the Windows source code is Russia according to this CNet story. Interesting to note FAPSI, one of their intelligence agencies, authorized the purchase. Perhaps they're looking for vulnerabilities in the U.S. Government's dependence on Microsoft?"

The difference between Chapter 11 and The End. prostoalex writes "In regards to a recent heated discussion on whether tech companies can make it out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, XO Communications, the telecom company of the dot-com era, seems to be doing quite well after filing Chapter 11. The article on Internet.com also mentions another company, Covad Communications, picking up customers and more business after filing for Chapter 11."

There's hope in PCI Land. Regarding the Slashdot post of a few days ago about the PCI-SIG ("The End of the Free PCI Device List"), PCI-SIG Chairman Tony Pierce writes

"YourVote.com Supporters:

Thank you for making us aware of your concerns regarding Jim Boemler's online Vendor and Device Lists for the PCI technology.

There has been a misunderstanding between PCI-SIG and Jim - PCI-SIG officers are currently working with Jim to resolve the issues as quickly as possible. We respect Jim Boemler's work and are committed to support the PCI specification efforts industry-wide. We are confident that we will come to an amicable resolution.

We are pleased to see the strong industry support for PCI technologies and value your response to the issues. We understand this site has been a very valuable tool and are working together to find a solution to make sure that the tool is available to the public in some way.

Thank you for your support over the years. We will be sure to keep you informed as we come to resolution in this situation."

This lowers Finland on my list of vacation spots. E-Tray writes "It seems that Finnish equivalents of American RIAA, Teosto, which represents songwriters and publishers, and Gramex, which represents music producers and artists, want to force Finnish day nurseries to pay royalties every time nursery staff sings along with kids. Previously Teosto enforced a law that taxi drivers have to pay royalties if they play music while a customer is in the backseat."

Would still rather see a statement signed in blood. Error27 writes "Earlier this week, Slashdot linked to a Maureen O'Gara article that claimed SCO was probably going to try charge Linux users $96 per CPU. More than one person thought SCO's denial was, "Awfully ambiguous". Hopefully this article clears up any doubts. Essentially, SCO will continue to charge IBM but not RedHat or SCO's UnitedLinux partners."

Perhaps I can volunteer my dad's Suburbans? Finally, joe jennings writes

"A few months ago you ran a story about the cars my team and I skydived with and crashed into the desert. This is a bit of an update.

Next month, we're going to blow up my Nissan Pathfinder. Its twisted remains will be welded to a steel beam and planted on a plot of land in the mojave desert. We're starting "suv ranch," a tribute to gas guzzlers, a dying trend (we hope).

I intend to thoroughly document the project and will post images and quicktime videos on gaspig.com."

Comments

Wnblows source code... To RUSSIA???

[WildThing]

Ummm.... last time I checked you still couldn't export crypto outside the U.S. - won't this kinda kill the purchase ??? Sorry I couldn't add more but am already running late

dumping suvs out of planes to protest gas hogs?

[goofballs]

umm, isn't the recreational use of airplanes- which use a lot of gas and pollute a lot more than the worse suv's- including to dump suv's out of them, a lot worse than the suv's themselves?

Re:dumping suvs out of planes to protest gas hogs?

[Anonymous Coward]

if it helps you feel any better, we're riding to altitude in a c-123 that is "drop testing" other things to test parachutes and so on. the extra weight of the suv (biggest joke on 4 wheels) does burn fuel, lots of it so its not entirely wrong to label me a hypocrite. but suvs are a ripe target, they are just so big and goofy and top heavy. check out the suv warning label on the visor with the vehicle up on two wheels. and people buy them in the name of "safety", go figure. it's fashion, nothing more, like bell bottoms.

then there's the basic stuff like oil dependence, global warming, smog, rollovers...

we'll probably dump some suvs from planes cause ultimately it's art, and impact at terminal velocity will give us some great shapes to plant out in the desert! but next month, most likely, we'll use dynamite to blow up the gaspig mobile. just got a letter about maybe shooting some holes in it first. fun!

i don't have an account yet so i'm an anonymous coward but please feel free to write to me: info@gaspig.com or come check out the website at http://www.gaspig.com !

joe jennings
the Pig

Parachuting cars is saving the enviroment?

[puto]

Well as much as I liked seeing skydiving vehicles in the odd James Bonf Flick and all I don't see this as an good way to protest SUV's.

1. You need to gas the planes to get the cars up into the wild blue yonder. MORE POLLUTION.

2. Crashing theme into the desert. I am sure that this does wonders for the native wildlife and natural look of the desert. Just cause it is empty space doesn't mean we have to throw trashed cars into it. Even if you remove all the hydrocarbons and glass, it's still junk.

3. Then blowing up a Nissan Pathfinder. Hmmm, releasing smoke and debris and further polluting the enviroment. Could have recycled the metal into something else.

I am all about making a statement about SUV's and pollution. But you doing things like driving a small car, riding a bike, using the bus. But spending money, resources, and then further polluting the air with a Jack Ass like stunt. Just don't make much sense to me.

Put0

How does the MS code license work?

[Ryu2]

Bloomberg says it's just a chance to LOOK at the code (by visiting Redmond perhaps or having them visit you?) But News.com reports that MS will let governments BUILD their own custom versions (doesn't say whether by MS or by themselves). Which is it? There's a big difference there.

And also is it access to ALL the source code, or just the security-related bits?

Windows is now less secure

[dybdahl]

Within a couple of years, non-democratic governments will have a copy of the source code of Windows, and some governments, that have been cooperating with local companies to do industrial espionage, will also have it.

The old argument that Linux is less secure because evil hackers can see the source code now also applies to Windows. Except that the good guys can't see the Windows source code. I wonder what they're hiding.

Lars Dybdahl.

Re:That's awfully Microsoft of them.

[mentin]

Isn't that called being discriminatory?

Discrimination is legal, as long as

• It does not violate specific anti-discrimination laws (discrimination by sex, race, some others)
• You are not a "court-certified" monopoly

Finnish RIAA?

[Wouter Van Hemel]

E-Tray writes "It seems that Finnish equivalents of American RIAA, Teosto, which represents songwriters and publishers, and Gramex, which represents music producers and artists, want to force Finnish day nurseries to pay royalties every time nursery staff sings along with kids. Previously Teosto enforced a law that taxi drivers have to pay royalties if they play music while a customer is in the backseat."

This is absolutely ridiculous and non-enforcable. It even screams for civil disobedience, if something like this gets passed. Nobody will take the law serious anymore, if too many crazy laws are made. Even people I know who don't know anything about mp3s and P-t-P software, are becoming more and more pissed off at things like copyright protection and excessive prices for music that tends to get worse (cfr. bland, faceless, uninspired, synthethical pre-fab pop 'sensations' that are pushed and hyped everywhere these days).

It also goes to show (again) that many people involved in the music business are in it rather for the love of money than the love of music.

(Which is -in a horrible way- understandable when you make and sell 'artists' as 'products').

Sourcecode: Novell did something similar in '99

[Anonymous Coward]

In spring of 99 there were a few programmers from Russia hanging out at Novell, looking through code to make sure that there weren't any "back doors" in the code that could potentially give the US government access to Russian servers. I was told this was a requirement before they would buy certain Novell software. I would think that previously they would have imposed similar requirements on Microsoft as well.

Giving Out Source

[shylock0]

This whole new policy of Microsoft's makes me really wonder how much they value their source code. They're not so stupid in Redmond to think that there won't be leaks if they start offering the code for free to any government that asks.

I know some fairly well-placed programmers who have worked on XP and Win2k, and even they didn't have access to the complete source code the way governments will.

So we should ask ourselves what Microsoft gains from an unofficial general release of their code. I think there's a lot of speculation that can be done here, and it becomes very paranoid very quickly. In the reasonable realm, I think two things are possible:

1) Microsoft cries "uncle" when their source is plastered all over the net. They start lawyers and a few bots looking through thousands of lines of GPLed code looking for similarities. They then sue the writers of the code for stealing MS code and using it in GPL software (which would be very, very clearly against the law).

2) They use the illicitly released code as an experiment. They know it can't start showing up in applications, because they haven't released it legally, and nobody wants to be sued (for an essentially legitimate reason) by a company with billions and billions in the bank. So they see how often code like it shows up. How much people mimic their code. How people try to stretch the limits of the law to use some of MS's techniques. Or if people are simply uninterested. Letting it be released illegally seems to be a great way to test the waters for a legal release of protected source code, Apple-style.

3) The third possibility is that Microsoft knows that their code will be stolen, but that doesn't scare them quite as much as the prospect of losing tens of thousands of government computers to OSS.

For our sake, I hope that it's 2 or 3...

~Shylock0

Comments and questions welcome. Flames ignored.

Pre-emptive note to RIAA

[jcsehak]

You can keep me from teaching and singing songs to people by cutting my throat. Failing that, stay the fuck out of my way.

Music is an Art form, not a business. It comes from and belongs to the people. Your greed is one step less than that of the money-changers that Christ threw out of the temple. I am not alone. Our numbers are growing. Enjoy your yachts and cocaine now, because we have you in our sights and mark my words, we will take you down.