... they deesrve an entry in the Guinness Book of Records: not even Saddam Hussein managed to do so many mistakes and mismanagements in a so short period of time...
once IBM division of lawyers wipe them out what will be really fun will be watching the shareholder lawsuits against the actual SCO management
a small scale Enron that is...
other than that, they 're claims are so frivolous and vaporous that this only means free publicity for Linux, after all Linux is replacing they 're supposed cash cow, UNIX (TM)...
one last point: it would be polite that Sun Microsystems, in a gesture of good will distanced itself from this affair... that would prove a lot about they 're real intents regarding Linux...
closed source or not, the fact is that the NVIDIA drivers on Linux are as good or better that it's win* counterparts...
ATI is starting to try but has anyone tryed ATIs drivers and compared them, both fetaure-wise, performance-wise and stability-wise with the NVIdia ones ?
so unless/. started covering HW 99% focused on MS platforms the duel is a non issue:-) Nvidia wins by K.O.under linux, and under even BSD:-)...
you got it WRONG! this is all about EULAs; reread it again... the question about EULAs is to know *if* costumers only have *duties* regarding sellers (and if yes, which are the limits) or if they also have some basic rigths...
regarding the poor incompetent sys-admins that you blame for the spreading, just a few quickies to you : did you read the advisory that MS posted regarding the *bug* and it 's side effects (at the time of the propagation) ? did you took a look at the patch application details (completly braindead)?:: So here we in fact have some sort of MS responsability, if only in doing a very bad job communicatting...
and no, thank god i 'm not a Win* sys admin...
Think again:-)
Cheers from Portugal...
quoting...
In a sign of users' increasing frustration with the security shortcomings of many software applications, a civic group in South Korea has made good on their threat to file a lawsuit against Microsoft Corp.'s Korean subsidiary, a Korean ISP and the country's Information Ministry.
The suit is the direct result of the havoc caused by the SQL Slammer worm in January. The worm infected thousands of machines all over the world running Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 software, but it hit South Korea particularly hard. Some ISPs in the country were knocked off-line for extended periods of time thanks to huge amounts of network traffic generated by the worm. Damage in the U.S. was mostly limited to smaller network outages, but at least one bank's ATM machines were affected, as was the 911 system in one locality.
Slammer exploited a known flaw in the database software for which Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., had released a patch six months prior to the outbreak of the worm. But that apparently wasn't sufficient to satisfy the plaintiffs in the Korean lawsuit. The People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, suing on behalf of more than 1,500 Internet users, 70 Internet café owners and an online shopping site, says that Microsoft is at fault for allowing the vulnerability into the SQL Server software in the first place, according to a story in the Korean-language Chosun Ilbo newspaper. The group had been threatening to file the suit for several months.
Negligence Abets Slammer Attack
The Slammer Blame Game (Security)
New Dangers Exposed in the Wake of Slammer
The action is predicated on the country's Product Liability Act, which enables consumers to sue for damage resulting from products. There is some question, however, as to whether software qualifies as a product under the terms of the law.
Such lawsuits--especially those that name software vendors as defendants--are relatively rare, thanks to the terms of the user license agreements that accompany virtually every commercial application sold today. License agreements typically require that users agree to use the software as-is and surrender any rights to hold the manufacturer liable for defects or damage caused by the application.
In some cases, large corporate customers have service level agreements that give them the ability to hold their ISPs liable for network outages that affect the companies' ability to do business. But individual consumers don't enjoy such protections and are essentially left to their own devices when it comes to problems such as Slammer.
if we see this in a *absolut* way then it is a bad, bad, thing because it increases greatly the cost of putting a product in the market (be it open source or not).
Anyway there is a very important point about *incidents* like this : they get people's attention about the completly crazy EULAs that some SW companies (namely Micosoft) and content providers (RIAA/Hollywood mob) are currently imposing to they 're costumers...
imposing a bit of regulation about the limits of what could be put in a EULA is IMHO a very good think...
if the ppl who launched this lawsuit make the/. cummunity, and the online community in general, think a bit about this issues then they made already a very good thing... (ah, and btw i 'm yet to see MS loose in court...:-( )
Cheers from Portugal
lets act like adults, ok ? ...
on
SCO DOS'ed
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
it 's obvious that this so called move by SCO is a desperate measure from them to stay above the water, but this kind of actions against SCO does as much harm to linux as they're actions and put it 's authors in a moral level simillar to the one of RIAA with they 're *countermeasures*...
there are too many *legal* ways of showing to SCO our revolt with they 're dirty tactics without needing to play at they 're (very low) level...
Just my two cnts...
cheers from Portugal...
this is *simply* Corporate (Cyber) Terrorism ...
on
RIAA Plans Cyberwar Effort
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Even if we assume that RIAA is trying to protect a legitimate *stream* of business, what isn't all that clear, this is going way too far...
first, even Machiavelli would recognise that by no way a legitimate end would justify such an extreme mesaure.
second, and if we look at things straigth, this just looks like spam (only not over SMTP) .
In a time when finnaly all parties involved start to try to kill spam in a global way it is interesting that this kind of *solutions* is not only thinked but openly presented to the public...
what we, the *society* need to demand is that the big fish do the same to this polluters that does to the average spammer i.e. silence, block and wipe them!
AOL are you listening ?...
the world can be going nuts, but surely it is fun...
just one note : when i mentioned the *geek* factor i was thinking in the interest this kind of *news* would raise here at slashdot not the motivations of the missile builder...
besides the obvious *geek* factor this kind of *experiments* and demonstrations should make us all stop to think a bit...
how do we prevent terrorist from using this kind of stuff ?
limiting acces to knowledge (with DMCA style laws)?
creating a orwellian policial state where all are suspect ans subject to vigilance (and who controls the vigilantes) ?
limitating the publication of (now) public-domain stuff ('cause it can be used to devilish ends) ?
the RIAA/DMCA people already want to control what could go on the net, and that is, maybe, only the beggining (see China - although there 's hope there - see the massive failure of the SARS coverup) so maybe it is time to start thinking about how to mantain the net free and at the same time this planet a safe planet to stay...
its only masked because we are in a feeature freazee pendin the release of gentoo 1.4... The first distro fully optimized for gcc3.2 (currently we are at rc1 stage)
Slashdot Mirror
once IBM division of lawyers wipe them out what will be really fun will be watching the shareholder lawsuits against the actual SCO management
a small scale Enron that is ...
other than that, they 're claims are so frivolous and vaporous that this only means free publicity for Linux, after all Linux is replacing they 're supposed cash cow, UNIX (TM) ...
one last point: it would be polite that Sun Microsystems, in a gesture of good will distanced itself from this affair ... that would prove a lot about they 're real intents regarding Linux ...
just my two 0,02
cheers from Portugal
ATI is starting to try but has anyone tryed ATIs drivers and compared them, both fetaure-wise, performance-wise and stability-wise with the NVIdia ones ?
so unless /. started covering HW 99% focused on MS platforms the duel is a non issue :-) Nvidia wins by K.O.under linux, and under even BSD :-) ...
regarding the poor incompetent sys-admins that you blame for the spreading, just a few quickies to you : did you read the advisory that MS posted regarding the *bug* and it 's side effects (at the time of the propagation) ? did you took a look at the patch application details (completly braindead)?
and no, thank god i 'm not a Win* sys admin
Think again
Cheers from Portugal
Anyway there is a very important point about *incidents* like this : they get people's attention about the completly crazy EULAs that some SW companies (namely Micosoft) and content providers (RIAA/Hollywood mob) are currently imposing to they 're costumers ...
imposing a bit of regulation about the limits of what could be put in a EULA is IMHO a very good think ...
if the ppl who launched this lawsuit make the
Cheers from Portugal
there are too many *legal* ways of showing to SCO our revolt with they 're dirty tactics without needing to play at they 're (very low) level
Just my two cnts
cheers from Portugal ...
first, even Machiavelli would recognise that by no way a legitimate end would justify such an extreme mesaure.
second, and if we look at things straigth, this just looks like spam (only not over SMTP) .
In a time when finnaly all parties involved start to try to kill spam in a global way it is interesting that this kind of *solutions* is not only thinked but openly presented to the public ...
what we, the *society* need to demand is that the big fish do the same to this polluters that does to the average spammer i.e. silence, block and wipe them!
AOL are you listening ? ...
the world can be going nuts, but surely it is fun ...
chrs from Portugal...
PS: where is Ashcroft when we need him ?
you made a very valid point!
doing what ? bombing slashdot's hosting provider ? ...
... a pandora box is open ...
now talking seriously : this is much more complex that it may seems at first sigth
be sure you won 't be sued by SCO for having infringed they 're copyrights...
and the hawks at the Defense Department are trying to revive the star wars project ...
...
lets hope the laser satellites won 't be running MS stuff
just one note : when i mentioned the *geek* factor i was thinking in the interest this kind of *news* would raise here at slashdot not the motivations of the missile builder...
Regards
besides the obvious *geek* factor this kind of *experiments* and demonstrations should make us all stop to think a bit ...
...
how do we prevent terrorist from using this kind of stuff ?
limiting acces to knowledge (with DMCA style laws)?
creating a orwellian policial state where all are suspect ans subject to vigilance (and who controls the vigilantes) ?
limitating the publication of (now) public-domain stuff ('cause it can be used to devilish ends) ?
the RIAA/DMCA people already want to control what could go on the net, and that is, maybe, only the beggining (see China - although there 's hope there - see the massive failure of the SARS coverup) so maybe it is time to start thinking about how to mantain the net free and at the same time this planet a safe planet to stay
just my two uros,
cheers from Portugal
its only masked because we are in a feeature freazee pendin the release of gentoo 1.4
Regards
and as a distro is growing at a much faster rate than any other distro in the Galaxy :-)
check http://www.gentoo.org