It has been mentioned before, but I dont think it has gotten the attention it deserves... The REAL reason behind the letters is to find a handfull of the larger (ie: can afford the license fees) companies who sell Linux based products to disclaim their right to use the word Linux. These responses will then be used as evidence that these companies acknowledge that Linus owns the word Linux, clearing the way for the trademark to be granted.
IP Australia will not allow the trademark if the word is in common use, but if it can be shown that those using the word agree to relinquish their rights to it in favour of Linus, then IP Australia is free to grant the trade mark. Jeremy Malcolm will not show IP Australia responses he gets that do not support his position.
Once the trade mark is granted, they (Linux Mark Instutute) want to license the use of the word Linux. I have no problem with trademarks or interlectual property, but let me see if I get this straight... Linux is open source, and free (as in beer), yet you want me to pay for using the word Linux?
Dont respond to the letters or emails from Jeremy Malcolm. Instead, email IP Australia, outlining how and why you disagree with his position. The more emails they get, the less likely they will be to grant the trademark.
If this trademark is granted, it will likely put lots of small businesses which provide linux services or compatible hardware or software products, out of buisness. Many of these small business (such as mine) cannot afford the license fee. What are we supposed to say on our list of services?? "We provide consulting services for that operating system whose name we cannot mention", "We sell hardware that is compatible with a certain unix-like operating system" ?? This essentially makes those companies who pay the license fee "authorised dealers" and the rest of us, despite our skills, are "dodgy operators".
Keep Linux free. If people stop supporting it, or supplying hardware that is compatible with it, how useful will it be?
I havnt looked at the cans, but The current Thrillseeker competition in Australia is in the bottles. These are definately big enough for a cell-phone like device and arent made of metal.
From the label:
Look under the cap and if you've won, you'll find "Winner" and instructions on how to activate your winning Thrillseeker bottle. Once activated, we'll be able to find you using the latest satelite technology, so our Thrilseeker Squad can deliver your prize to you in hours
There is also a disclaimer, which includes:
Subject to satelite reception and You must keep all parts of your winning bottle to claim your prize
Hope this helps all the pedants debating the satelite tracking angle. *grin*
Personally, when I go to the store, Im gonna keep a look-out for the bottle which has a satelite dish and a hefty power pack attached.
lol. Its funny on a couple of levels, though im not sure which the author intended.
Most probably its a reference to NZ's national Rugby (Football) team, the "All Blacks" in which case its a bad play on words, but still kind of funny.
When I read it (admitedly I had to think a moment) I thought maybe its because NZ is also 'down under' and its dark to you americans during the day *shrug*. I chuckled anyway.
Redundant maybe, off topic... never.
Heh. With Australia's "Crimes Act" which makes it a criminal act to "Delete, damage, or impair access to, data..." It would be a criminal offense just to stand around.... if you happened to be standing in the path of a visible light data transmission beam.
Cant wait for that one to hit the courts. hehe
This is great news, however the bill is too limited in scope to be really effective.
The bill should be expanded to allow the victms of all crime to directly take action against those who commit crimes against them, be it copyright infringement, property theft, assult, or murder.
Imagine a world where the RIAA can commit DOS attacks on those who they claim would infringe their copyright. Imagine a world where a rape victim could stalk and ultimately castrate her attacker. Imagine a world where parents of murdered children could take the life of the person accused of that crime.
Allowing the RIAA to DOS p2p networks is legalising revnge and retribution. Keep going down that road, and you will find the above examples. I cant beleive there are people in your government that actually believe this would be a good thing. I only hope such people dont exist in ours.... Unfortunately Im beginning to think they do.
I wrote a paper last year on Code Red and the whole hacking culture, which won its category in my employer's "papers program". Unfortunately the paper isnt available publicly yet, though Im hoping to have it published soon.
Anyway, the conclusion was basically this:
There have been several worms in recent times, CodeRed, CodeRed v2, CodeRed II, and Nimda to name the more obvious ones. All of these exploited bugs in IIS that Microsoft knew about in June 1999 but other than a few knowledge base articles with attached patches, they did nothing about it. The same bug was even reported in beta versions of XP, so they didnt even fix their own development code.
We were lucky in that these worms were mostly an annoyance which did little more than deface a web site, and/or replicate themselves. They could have done a lot more damage, as many/.ers have pointed out.
What they achieved though is an almost global awareness of the dangers, and potential damage that worms like these can do if they wanted to, while reminding system admins that software should be patched/upgraded regularly - particularly when the bug being exploited had been known about and reported by cert 2 years prior to the worms being created! In this regard, they did us a great service. The media hype and predictions of doom got peoples attention in a way that had not been achieved before.
Microsoft, with its marketing machine, got loads of publicity. I remember seeing Bill Gates on the news, standing at a podium with the FBI at his side saying how Microsoft had reacted quickly and provided patches to defeat the evil hackers (remember that these patches had been available for 2 years - what Microsoft was providing was simply a cumulative bundle of these). The publicity was priceless, touting Microsoft as our saviour, yet I believe it was Microsofts lack of action in fixing the problem and making people aware of it that allowed the worms to be created in the first place.
Its not good enough to simply know about a problem and passively make a patch available for download. Its difficult to keep track of all customers, but I would have thought that if you have a large number of very large corporate customers, you should pro-actively send them updates and advisories, and make it widely known that there is a problem which needs attention. Whatever Microsoft did or didnt do, it wasnt enough (obviously).
I said it so much better in the paper, but basically I believe that the guys that wrote these worms did us a service, and although CNN might think it was a big fuss over nothing, I would disagree. It was certainly the bigest event of its kind in the internets history so far.
"What would we like to see Microsoft do? How can it work with the Open Source community, leverage its resources, and still make a buck?"
The real question is "Do we care?"
There are enough alternative operating systems out there. I for one couldnt give a rats a... if MS folded over night because it couldnt make a buck in the open source world..... and I run a couple of MS Windows boxes.
Microsoft will do whatever it wants - always has, always will... and as usual, in the eyes of the media, it will smell like a rose.
Slashdot Mirror
It has been mentioned before, but I dont think it has gotten the attention it deserves... The REAL reason behind the letters is to find a handfull of the larger (ie: can afford the license fees) companies who sell Linux based products to disclaim their right to use the word Linux. These responses will then be used as evidence that these companies acknowledge that Linus owns the word Linux, clearing the way for the trademark to be granted.
IP Australia will not allow the trademark if the word is in common use, but if it can be shown that those using the word agree to relinquish their rights to it in favour of Linus, then IP Australia is free to grant the trade mark. Jeremy Malcolm will not show IP Australia responses he gets that do not support his position.
Once the trade mark is granted, they (Linux Mark Instutute) want to license the use of the word Linux. I have no problem with trademarks or interlectual property, but let me see if I get this straight... Linux is open source, and free (as in beer), yet you want me to pay for using the word Linux?
Dont respond to the letters or emails from Jeremy Malcolm. Instead, email IP Australia, outlining how and why you disagree with his position. The more emails they get, the less likely they will be to grant the trademark.
If this trademark is granted, it will likely put lots of small businesses which provide linux services or compatible hardware or software products, out of buisness. Many of these small business (such as mine) cannot afford the license fee. What are we supposed to say on our list of services?? "We provide consulting services for that operating system whose name we cannot mention", "We sell hardware that is compatible with a certain unix-like operating system" ?? This essentially makes those companies who pay the license fee "authorised dealers" and the rest of us, despite our skills, are "dodgy operators".
Keep Linux free. If people stop supporting it, or supplying hardware that is compatible with it, how useful will it be?
I havnt looked at the cans, but The current Thrillseeker competition in Australia is in the bottles. These are definately big enough for a cell-phone like device and arent made of metal. From the label:
Look under the cap and if you've won, you'll find "Winner" and instructions on how to activate your winning Thrillseeker bottle. Once activated, we'll be able to find you using the latest satelite technology, so our Thrilseeker Squad can deliver your prize to you in hours
There is also a disclaimer, which includes:
Subject to satelite reception and
You must keep all parts of your winning bottle to claim your prize
Hope this helps all the pedants debating the satelite tracking angle. *grin*
Personally, when I go to the store, Im gonna keep a look-out for the bottle which has a satelite dish and a hefty power pack attached.
Exactly!
lol. Its funny on a couple of levels, though im not sure which the author intended. Most probably its a reference to NZ's national Rugby (Football) team, the "All Blacks" in which case its a bad play on words, but still kind of funny. When I read it (admitedly I had to think a moment) I thought maybe its because NZ is also 'down under' and its dark to you americans during the day *shrug*. I chuckled anyway. Redundant maybe, off topic... never.
Heh. With Australia's "Crimes Act" which makes it a criminal act to "Delete, damage, or impair access to, data..." It would be a criminal offense just to stand around.... if you happened to be standing in the path of a visible light data transmission beam. Cant wait for that one to hit the courts. hehe
Visible light huh? Like... I can see it? Hmmmmm. Hope someone thinks to encrypt it :)
* Keel moose and squirell
This is great news, however the bill is too limited in scope to be really effective.
The bill should be expanded to allow the victms of all crime to directly take action against those who commit crimes against them, be it copyright infringement, property theft, assult, or murder.
Imagine a world where the RIAA can commit DOS attacks on those who they claim would infringe their copyright. Imagine a world where a rape victim could stalk and ultimately castrate her attacker. Imagine a world where parents of murdered children could take the life of the person accused of that crime.
Allowing the RIAA to DOS p2p networks is legalising revnge and retribution. Keep going down that road, and you will find the above examples. I cant beleive there are people in your government that actually believe this would be a good thing. I only hope such people dont exist in ours.... Unfortunately Im beginning to think they do.
Cool. I can hook this up to my laptop with the 802.11b wavelan card and have my own $20 cell phone - just a little more bulky :p
I wrote a paper last year on Code Red and the whole hacking culture, which won its category in my employer's "papers program". Unfortunately the paper isnt available publicly yet, though Im hoping to have it published soon.
/.ers have pointed out.
Anyway, the conclusion was basically this:
There have been several worms in recent times, CodeRed, CodeRed v2, CodeRed II, and Nimda to name the more obvious ones. All of these exploited bugs in IIS that Microsoft knew about in June 1999 but other than a few knowledge base articles with attached patches, they did nothing about it. The same bug was even reported in beta versions of XP, so they didnt even fix their own development code.
We were lucky in that these worms were mostly an annoyance which did little more than deface a web site, and/or replicate themselves. They could have done a lot more damage, as many
What they achieved though is an almost global awareness of the dangers, and potential damage that worms like these can do if they wanted to, while reminding system admins that software should be patched/upgraded regularly - particularly when the bug being exploited had been known about and reported by cert 2 years prior to the worms being created! In this regard, they did us a great service. The media hype and predictions of doom got peoples attention in a way that had not been achieved before.
Microsoft, with its marketing machine, got loads of publicity. I remember seeing Bill Gates on the news, standing at a podium with the FBI at his side saying how Microsoft had reacted quickly and provided patches to defeat the evil hackers (remember that these patches had been available for 2 years - what Microsoft was providing was simply a cumulative bundle of these). The publicity was priceless, touting Microsoft as our saviour, yet I believe it was Microsofts lack of action in fixing the problem and making people aware of it that allowed the worms to be created in the first place.
Its not good enough to simply know about a problem and passively make a patch available for download. Its difficult to keep track of all customers, but I would have thought that if you have a large number of very large corporate customers, you should pro-actively send them updates and advisories, and make it widely known that there is a problem which needs attention. Whatever Microsoft did or didnt do, it wasnt enough (obviously).
I said it so much better in the paper, but basically I believe that the guys that wrote these worms did us a service, and although CNN might think it was a big fuss over nothing, I would disagree. It was certainly the bigest event of its kind in the internets history so far.
"What would we like to see Microsoft do? How can it work with the Open Source community, leverage its resources, and still make a buck?"
The real question is "Do we care?"
There are enough alternative operating systems out there. I for one couldnt give a rats a... if MS folded over night because it couldnt make a buck in the open source world..... and I run a couple of MS Windows boxes.
Microsoft will do whatever it wants - always has, always will... and as usual, in the eyes of the media, it will smell like a rose.
Is it too early to rush out and buy a Delorean with the 'Mr Fusion' attachment?