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Slashback: NIC, Dastar, Defects

Slashback tonight with a round of corrections and updates to recent (and not recent) Slashdot postings. Read on to find out more on the fate of Larry Ellison's thin-client Linux machine, OpenTV vs. GNU, getting satisfaction instead of defective hard drives, and more. Enjoy!

Was it ahead of its time or vice versa? BreadMan writes "After limping along for years, the New Internet Computer (NIC) company finally went under. Founded by Larry Ellison, NIC sold a diskless workstation running Linux targeted at home users that wanted internet access. From the spec sheet it looks like this would be fun as a hacking platform if you can get one on the cheap."

Way to GNU! xarium writes "Seems that in response to pressure from the FSF OpenTV has released the source code to all of its compilers. You can download the full package here (~18meg)."

Because a hard drive should not be a rhythm section. Dynamoo writes "As previously noted in Slashdot, Fujitsu MPG3xx series hard drives have been failing in huge numbers. The U.S. law firm, Shepherd Finkelman Miller & Shah is currently conducting a class action against Fujitsu and HP for knowingly distributing faulty drives. According the this article in The Register, Gateway has now been lined up as a defendant.

The fault appears to impact MPG3102AT, MPG3204AT, MPG3307AT and MPG3409AT units manufactured in early 2001. If you have one of these, then it has probably failed already, if not you should replace it asap. If you're a customer of HP/Compaq you can visit the HP Hard Disk Drive Replacement Program site.
We had about 40 of these things fitted to Compaq DeskPro EXDs, and I can assure you the failure rate is pushing 100%."

In the public domain, no one knows you're a dog. smiff writes "United Press International reports on Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox. Reversing lower court rulings, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Dastar did not violate the origin-of-work provision of the Lanham act. Dastar had taken public domain video, made some modifications, and sold it as its own product. Twentieth Century Fox sued claiming they should have been given credit for the video. According to Antonin Scalia, Dastar would have violated the Lanham Act if it had simply repacked the material and sold it as its own. But since Dastar made some minor changes, the Lanham Act doesn't apply.

While Dastar has been cleared under the Lanham Act, the Supreme Court sent the case back for a rehearing. The Fox video entered the public domain in 1977, but the book it was based on is still protected by copyright."

... or get off the pot. Brazilian Joe writes "The LinuxTag folks, as you may know, are responsible for a restraining order against SCO's claims in Germany. As a result, SCO has shut down its Germany web site. Story here."

6 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Im glad I dont have a Fujitsu drive by .!.+(0.o)+.!. · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... thankfully, I have an IBM Death^H^H^H^H^HDeskStar :-/ purchased 8/02 dead 10/02

  2. Speaking of SCO... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, SCO is still not out of cash... aparantly. So, for them to stop, they need to run out first. Since they have to pay for bandwidth... I guess using a little wouldn't hurt.

    So, got bandwidth? Mad at SCO? Want to learn more about their products and/or hear them talk? Last time they pulled the file when slashdot wanted to know how to administrate their Linux server. This time...

    Download a 36.6mb ZIP from the SCO Authorized Eduaction Partner program from here

    (for all you non-English speakers)
    a 12.9mb Italian OpenLinux manual pdf from here

    a 10mb Unixware administration pdf from here

    a 7.9mb mp3 of a Caldera confrence call (May 2002) from here

    a 4.2mb mp3 of a SCO confrence call from here

    a 4.5mb vector image of the Caldera logo from here

    OR

    a 6.8mb SCO education Linux courseware pdf from here

    ***If you want to get these interesting files easier, you can also launch an unspecified number of wget processes. You can even -O /dev/null them if you don't want to use disk space, but still want to download them...

    36.6mb: (removing the space in 'zip')
    wget sco.com/images/pdf/education/SCO_AEP_posterfiles.z ip

    12.9mb:
    wget sco.com/images/pdf/edesktop/edesktop_24_it.pdf

    10mb:
    wget sco.com/images/pdf/aep/UW7NET~1.PDF

    7.9mb:
    wget sco.com/images/pdf/06032002.mp3

    4.2mb:
    wget sco.com/images/pdf/q2.mp3

    5.4mb:
    wget http://www.sco.de/images/pdf/12-11-01.mp3

    9mb:
    wget sco.com/images/pdf/aep/OS5NET~1.PDF

    4mb:
    wget sco.de/images/pdf/unixware/946000000b.pdf

    And, if you need their entire website for offline viewing... not wanting to waste bandwidth downloading things multiple times:
    wget -r -l0 http://www.sco.com/

  3. Holy Cow, read this from the NIC faq page by AmoebafromSweden · · Score: 5, Funny

    Q:We are constantly losing PCs and PC parts to thieves. The NIC is physically smaller. Do they make a more attractive target for thieves?

    A:You shouldn't be losing any. The NIC will not function as a standalone computer so if a machine is stolen, the thief will soon discover that there is no market for the machine.

    Uhhhm, no market? Well to me it feels like they are dooming their own device right there and then from the start...

  4. disregard this stupid joke by iamatlas · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...only without the hassle of learning how to use a trojan...

    You should always use protection.

  5. bittorrent? by pschmied · · Score: 5, Funny

    Could someone set up a bittorrent for those?

    -Peter

  6. Oracular NIC crap by allrong · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oracle8 - A Beginner's Guide by Abbey and Corey (1997) contains the following about NICs:

    "This is HOT stuff. Ever since Larry Ellison, Oracle's CEO, stated talking about the NC computer [tautology!], the world is trembling."

    OT, but still amusing:

    "Oracle's recent agreement with Netscape positions it uniquely to dominate the World Wide Web. The real power of the Web is yet to be harnessed. Today most people are not very impressed with a majority of Web sites they visit. They are nothing more than static applications -- in other words, they are glorified billboards. When your Web site is able to harness the power of a database, watch out. Imagine a Web site that knew who you were and could tailor itself to your needs and wants. That would be a very powerful tool, indeed. Once again, Oracle Corporation sees the future and is positioning itself to get there first."

    And finally, we have a section title that's about as far from the truth as you can get:

    SQL*Plus--The User-friendly Interface
    --
    What is the inverse of the Matrix?