"You can use GPLd (any version) software to build anything you like. The license doesn't come into play until you distribute the software. Why do people find this so hard to understand? "
Because GPL is overly complicated. As said by Russ Nelson (quoting him from the summary): "These [Microsoft's] licenses are refreshingly short and clean, compared to, say, the GPLv3 and the Sun CDDL.
According to the cited "hotfix" link, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942435/en-us , the problem is due to an OLE memory link when dealing with files that have "extended attributes".
This problem occurs if the following conditions are true:
* The files include extended attributes.
* You copy lots of files in a single operation.
CAUSE This problem occurs because of a memory leak in the Windows OLE component. This memory leak is triggered by the way that Windows Explorer deals with the extended attributes of the files.
Lets see... counter examples... how about searching Google for the word "shipping". What do you know, UPS and Fedex are #1 and #2, and their front pages aren't a mess of useless, Google-pleasing crap. Maybe because they are real businesses and aren't pandering some direct ship junk or get rich quick scheme.
Um, maybe because UPS and FedEx are already well-known shipping companies, whose page rank for a search on "shipping" would be high regardless of what their sites looked like? But companies that aren't already well known, and want to use Google page rank in order to *get* known, do clutter up their sites in order to please Google's search engine. Search your feelings, you *know* it to be true!
The difference being that the MS iPod video was made by MS itself; Microsft was calling itself out in order to improve their packaging of future products (and Microsoft has indeed used simple uncluttered packaging since then). Google is way too arrogant to do anything like that.
"I think that the problem with Open Office is that Microsoft Office has no real competition..."
Here's where you're wrong. Microsoft Office does have competition: itself. To be more precise, each new version of Office competes with the previoius version and needs to have features that intice users to upgrade. Office 2007 is the biggest upgrade since Office 97 (you were wrong again to say that Office 2007 has "little innovation" over Office 97).
OO.o, to put it bluntly, is primitive compared to MSO. Office 2k7 blows OO.o both in features, integration, and UI. OO.o can't has no answer for Outlook (Thunderbird is a joke), no answer for OneNote, no answer for Visio. Excel makes Calk look like a toy, and Word and PowerPoint do the same to OO.o's corresponding functionality (to a less extent than Excel).
OO.o isn't even up to the level of Office 97, and that's a fact. That's why OO.o isn't "competition" for MSO. But as I said, MSO is competition for itself.
Nigeria has ~140 million people, more than any other country in Africa, more than any country in Europe except Russia (and just barely), more than any country in the Western Hemisphere except USA and Brazil.
What if a user opened cmd.exe and executed "Firefox ". Is cmd.exe supposed to clean up the command line before passing it to Firefox? It's up to apps themselves to parse and validate whatever is passed as the command line. This is programming 101 stuff.
First, the patent doesn't refer to "prior art", it lists previous tech that is similar, and then describes how the new tech differs. This is required for all patent applications.
Second, citing anything by Xerox PARC as "prior art" isn't going to fly, becuase this patent was originally awarded to the very same Xerox. Somehow this new company obtained the rights to the patent, but you'll have a hard time convincing a judge that Xerox filed for a patent that isn't valid because of their own "prior art".
I'm of the opinion that patents should only be enforced if the patent holder makes a good faith effort to sell products/services that use the patented technology OR the patent holder makes good faith effort to license the technology to others at a reasonable price or through cross-licensing deals, etc.
I don't know what happened in this case. It could be that the patent holder asked Red Hat to license the patent for a fee and Red Hat refused. Given Red Hat's recent statements that suggest that they feel no obligation to honor patents (at least patents held by companies they don't like), it wouldn't surpsise me.
"OTH, had she bought the CD, or simply borrowed from friends, and the only offered it to friends, then I believe this would have been an interesting case."
No it wouldn't have been, because in that scenario there wouldn't have been a "case" at all. Back in my day (speaking as an old fogey), it was common for one person to buy an LP and make cassettes for his friends. Or a group of people would pitch-in and buy an LP and make tapes for everyone in the group. It wasn't legal, but the "industry" didn't really care. Surtaxes on cassettes, (and later, blank CDs) were imposed and the revenue given to the "industry" to cover this small amount of piracy, and such piracy also helped spread word of the artist involved, enough to make up for the low amout of piracy involved.
It was only when people started to upload content to millions of their "friends" did these suits start, because the scale of piracy today is so many orders of magnitude greater than it was in the past, that it's really a new problem rather than just the same problem to higher degree.
The way I look at it, producers and consumers made a deal with each other. Consumers agree not to pirate en masse, only share copies among a handful of friends, and producers would turn a blind eye and not impede the ability to copy their works for fair use. Consumers broke that deal when they began sharing with millions, so producers had no choice but to lobby for DCMA-like laws, impose DRM, and bring these law suits. Consumers have their own selfishness to blame for what is going on today.
"Notebooks break, they get lost, and they are replaced frequently, so the cheaper, the better."
I've never had a notebook "get lost", but I guess if they become cheap enough people will lose them more often as they'll be less careful with them. But if a notebook does "get lost", the price of the hardware is the least of your concerns. The data that's on the notebook falling into the wrong hands is a much greater concern, and that has no relation to the price of the computer.
"while it is true that they needed an infusion of cash, its not a stretch to imagine a world where that cash came from another source. Someplace like Apple for instance (to make it mac exclusive, or at least mac first) or perhaps another gaming company."
It wasn't just "infusion of cash" that was needed, focus was also needed. Halo had been in development for years, and, contrary to popular belief, was nowhere near being completed. It's focus kept changing, it's very genre kept changing (moving between RTS, FPS, action-RPG-type thing, etc). When Microsoft bought Bungie, Microsoft directed them to get the game out in time for Xbox's launch. This focus drove them to complete the game rather than continue the open-ended unfocused development. Again, that "Evolution of Halo" video talks about this.
That brings to mind, if you watch the "Making of Halo 2" DVD that comes wtih Halo 2 LE, Bungie devs talk of how Halo 2's development was all over the place as well, missed ship dates, a whole year gone by with nothing but drawing board material that kept changing. Microsoft had to step in and get Bungie on track for that game too, and Halo 2 came out a year later. But it was only half the game Bungie had intended, because so much time was wasted that resulted in nothing. That's also the reason for Halo 2's abrupt cliff-hanger ending. This makes me worried for what Bungie will do on its own now, since it took Microsoft to focus them when making Halo and Halo 2. Without a "grownup", if you will, giving them a sense of direction and/or schedule, will they go back to open-ended unfocused development?
Cringely sensationalizes and hates Microsoft, so take his writings with huge helpings of salt. Allen remained on the Microsoft board for years, and kept being on friendly terms with Gates (they attended many Sonics vs Trailblazers games together). There was no lawsuit. Quite unlike this Google case.
If what you say is true, then Google did do something extremely "evil" in my book.
What do you mean? The Mac version of Halo was released years ago in 2003. What is preventing you from "legally buying" it? Was it discontinued for some reason?
I hate to break this to you, but Bungie was on its way to bankruptcy and the Microsoft buy-out saved them. There were reports to that effect at the time.
Besides that, do a web search for an "Evolution of Halo" video. It's a quicktime video made a few years ago, about 30 minutes long or so (maybe an hour), that features Bungie developers showing footage of Halo at its various stages of development, since it was first announced at Mac World, then became a PC/Mac title, and right up until the Xbox version. The video includes commentary by three Bungie devs and at one point they talk of the fact that had it not been for Microsoft, Halo would never have been completed and released, period. Bungie was on the ropes as a company before MS bought them.
I don't know that Bungie would get a "healthy sum of money from Microsoft" at the outset. Probably the opposite. Microsoft paid, let's say 50 million to buy Bungie (I don't really know the real amount) and the heads of Bungie got rich on that deal. But since then, Bungie's value has gone up 10-fold (Rare cost ~300 million; Bungie would be worth at least twice that today). It would seem that Bungie would have to buy back it's semi-independence by paying Microsoft at least some of what it would be worth in the open market, otherwise Microsoft is simply giving away a ~600 million dollar property.
I would guess that Bungie pays back some of its present worth, and commits to continuing to have its games published by Microsoft Game Studios (in the article, the Bungie guy calls MGS "our publisher" (for both now and in the future)), and therefore gets to return to its "independent roots".
Of course, if by "getting a healthy sum of money from Microsoft in the process", you referred to revenue earned from future Bungie titles, then sure!:)
Also, I imagine that Microsoft will continue funding Bungie's development of games, as well as funding and/or running the underpinnings of Bungie.net, since Bungie.net is much more than simply an "About Bungie" site, it's used for hosting billions of Halo statistics and whatnot.
Besides Shane Kim's statment of Bungie/MS continuing relationship quoted in the summary, the article also says:
Bungie studio head Harold Ryan described the move as "an exciting evolution" of the relationship with Microsoft. "We will continue to develop with our primary focus on Microsoft's platforms; we greatly value our mutually prosperous relationship with our publisher, Microsoft Game Studios, and we look forward to continuing that affiliation through Halo and beyond," he said.
The article also says Microsoft will "will retain an equity interest" in Bungie.
This tells me that Bungie simply goes from Microsoft 1st party to Microsoft 2nd party, like Sony's relationship with Polyphony (makers of GT).
Because deep down everyone knows that linux distros (not linux itself, necessarily) violate patents en masse, just like most software does. You see companies like Microsoft, Apple, Sony, IBM, getting sued all the time for patent infringement and/or making patent deals with each other and/or paying appropriate licensing fees to license other's patents. Are you really so naive as to believe that Red Hat violates NO patents? Come on now.
As an example, VideoLan admits that their VLC player runs afoul of mpegla patents, but says that since they are "free" and "open source" that it's up to the user to pay mpegla's patent fees, knowing full well that users aren't going to bother, and in fact, saying to MPEGLA, "You want your fees? Then sue our users, not us". http://wiki.videolan.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#What_about_personal.2Fcommercial_usage.3F
It's a game that many OSS devs like to play: "I'm 'open source' so I can violate patents at will!!"
But big companies like Red Hat *can* pay the necessary patent fees, and they shouldn't be getting a free ride. They're one of the big boys, so let the act like it and license the patents in question by paying the fees or making licensing deals or whatever. Why should other companies like MS, Apple, Sony, Panasonic, Oracle, etc, have to pay patent fees and make licensing deals, but not Red Hat and other big-name linux distros?
To answer your question again, Red Hat and the like don't want to start a suit that could end up with an official declaration that they *are* violating lots of Microsoft patents, and would be liable to pay up for the entire time that they've been violating said patents. And that would open the flood gates, because while Red Hat might be violating 200 (or whatever) Microsoft patents, you can be sure they are violating hundreds more patents by others, and those others will come a-knocking.
Looks like you need help with your reading comprehension skills, as my post clearly indicated speculation on future events.
Examine the title of my post: "Google to become 'convicted discriminator?" Note the "to become"; that implies future events. Note the '?'; that implies speculation. The combination suggests speculation on future events.
Examine the sentence you quoted: "Looks like in the future slashdotters will be able to refer to Google as 'convicted discriminator' in each and every Google story." Note the "Looks like"; that suggest speculation. Note the "in the future" and "will be"; those suggest future events. Combined, they suggest speculation on future events.
See how that works?
BTW, according to the court's words, "We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.", Google is indeed heading down the path to "conviction". Sure, the path could change, but attacking me for speculating that conviction is in the offing is baseless.
Of course the term "conviction" doesn't apply to civil cases, but that never stopped slashdotters from using that word for civil cases in the past, now has it?;)
"'We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.'"
So much for "Do no evil" (of course, Google has acted contrary to that self-righteous and self-congratulatory credo for years now. Looks like in the future slashdotters will be able to refer to Google as 'convicted discriminator' in each and every Google story.:p
"that the hackers hack one or a few Linux boxes and use them to control the hundred or more Windows boxes they've hacked."
Wouldn't that be merely a function of how many Linux boxes vs Windows boxes are out there? I know slashdotters don't like to hear that, they always argue that popularity has no bearing on how often one gets attacked and comrpomised, but using Occam's razor when pondering this new info, one would conclude that the only reason there are more Windows bots than Linux ones is that there are more Windows boxes than Linux ones.
Also, from reading the article, it seems that Cullinane, the guy quoted in the summary, is saying that Linux boxes themselves are the bots. I don't see him talking of hacked Linux boxes controlling Windows bots, like the summary's title suggests.
However, the article then quotes Symantec's Huger, saying that Linux boxes are used for phishing and controlling Windows bots, which does jive with the summary's title. But he doesn't say that the Linux boxes in question were hacked; it could be that he meant that the bad guys themselves own the Linux boxes; I can't tell from the article what he is saying.;)
Lastly, the article quotes Iftach Amit, director of security research with Finjan's malicious code research centre, as saying that compromised Linux boxes are highly valued by online attackers due to their capabilities.
"What they are saying is that they don't want to bother testing their products any more and they are looking for suckers who will do their work for them."
Microsoft submitted MS-PL and MS-CL to OSI. And most observers agree that those are indeed open source licenses. The.NET code in question is being released under MS-RL, which Microsoft never claimed to be "open source", and which Microsoft has not submitted to OSI. Microsoft explicitly says regarding the.NET code release, "no, this is not open source". THe only people confused by that are guys like you, who are trying to imply that Microsoft is pretending that this is open source. It's guys like *you* that are being disingenuous and intellctually dishonest, not Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
"You can use GPLd (any version) software to build anything you like. The license doesn't come into play until you distribute the software.
Why do people find this so hard to understand? "
Because GPL is overly complicated.
As said by Russ Nelson (quoting him from the summary): "These [Microsoft's] licenses are refreshingly short and clean, compared to, say, the GPLv3 and the Sun CDDL.
Um, maybe because UPS and FedEx are already well-known shipping companies, whose page rank for a search on "shipping" would be high regardless of what their sites looked like? But companies that aren't already well known, and want to use Google page rank in order to *get* known, do clutter up their sites in order to please Google's search engine. Search your feelings, you *know* it to be true!
The difference being that the MS iPod video was made by MS itself; Microsft was calling itself out in order to improve their packaging of future products (and Microsoft has indeed used simple uncluttered packaging since then). Google is way too arrogant to do anything like that.
"I think that the problem with Open Office is that Microsoft Office has no real competition..."
Here's where you're wrong. Microsoft Office does have competition: itself. To be more precise, each new version of Office competes with the previoius version and needs to have features that intice users to upgrade. Office 2007 is the biggest upgrade since Office 97 (you were wrong again to say that Office 2007 has "little innovation" over Office 97).
OO.o, to put it bluntly, is primitive compared to MSO. Office 2k7 blows OO.o both in features, integration, and UI. OO.o can't has no answer for Outlook (Thunderbird is a joke), no answer for OneNote, no answer for Visio. Excel makes Calk look like a toy, and Word and PowerPoint do the same to OO.o's corresponding functionality (to a less extent than Excel).
OO.o isn't even up to the level of Office 97, and that's a fact.
That's why OO.o isn't "competition" for MSO. But as I said, MSO is competition for itself.
Nigeria has ~140 million people, more than any other country in Africa, more than any country in Europe except Russia (and just barely), more than any country in the Western Hemisphere except USA and Brazil.
What if a user opened cmd.exe and executed "Firefox ". Is cmd.exe supposed to clean up the command line before passing it to Firefox? It's up to apps themselves to parse and validate whatever is passed as the command line. This is programming 101 stuff.
First, the patent doesn't refer to "prior art", it lists previous tech that is similar, and then describes how the new tech differs. This is required for all patent applications.
Second, citing anything by Xerox PARC as "prior art" isn't going to fly, becuase this patent was originally awarded to the very same Xerox. Somehow this new company obtained the rights to the patent, but you'll have a hard time convincing a judge that Xerox filed for a patent that isn't valid because of their own "prior art".
I'm of the opinion that patents should only be enforced if the patent holder makes a good faith effort to sell products/services that use the patented technology OR the patent holder makes good faith effort to license the technology to others at a reasonable price or through cross-licensing deals, etc.
I don't know what happened in this case. It could be that the patent holder asked Red Hat to license the patent for a fee and Red Hat refused. Given Red Hat's recent statements that suggest that they feel no obligation to honor patents (at least patents held by companies they don't like), it wouldn't surpsise me.
These particular "market share" stats in the article are based on web usage, not paid-for OS installations.
Specifically, the status come from here:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=5
"OTH, had she bought the CD, or simply borrowed from friends, and the only offered it to friends, then I believe this would have been an interesting case."
No it wouldn't have been, because in that scenario there wouldn't have been a "case" at all.
Back in my day (speaking as an old fogey), it was common for one person to buy an LP and make cassettes for his friends. Or a group of people would pitch-in and buy an LP and make tapes for everyone in the group. It wasn't legal, but the "industry" didn't really care. Surtaxes on cassettes, (and later, blank CDs) were imposed and the revenue given to the "industry" to cover this small amount of piracy, and such piracy also helped spread word of the artist involved, enough to make up for the low amout of piracy involved.
It was only when people started to upload content to millions of their "friends" did these suits start, because the scale of piracy today is so many orders of magnitude greater than it was in the past, that it's really a new problem rather than just the same problem to higher degree.
The way I look at it, producers and consumers made a deal with each other. Consumers agree not to pirate en masse, only share copies among a handful of friends, and producers would turn a blind eye and not impede the ability to copy their works for fair use. Consumers broke that deal when they began sharing with millions, so producers had no choice but to lobby for DCMA-like laws, impose DRM, and bring these law suits. Consumers have their own selfishness to blame for what is going on today.
"Notebooks break, they get lost, and they are replaced frequently, so the cheaper, the better."
I've never had a notebook "get lost", but I guess if they become cheap enough people will lose them more often as they'll be less careful with them. But if a notebook does "get lost", the price of the hardware is the least of your concerns. The data that's on the notebook falling into the wrong hands is a much greater concern, and that has no relation to the price of the computer.
"while it is true that they needed an infusion of cash, its not a stretch to imagine a world where that cash came from another source. Someplace like Apple for instance (to make it mac exclusive, or at least mac first) or perhaps another gaming company."
It wasn't just "infusion of cash" that was needed, focus was also needed. Halo had been in development for years, and, contrary to popular belief, was nowhere near being completed. It's focus kept changing, it's very genre kept changing (moving between RTS, FPS, action-RPG-type thing, etc). When Microsoft bought Bungie, Microsoft directed them to get the game out in time for Xbox's launch. This focus drove them to complete the game rather than continue the open-ended unfocused development. Again, that "Evolution of Halo" video talks about this.
That brings to mind, if you watch the "Making of Halo 2" DVD that comes wtih Halo 2 LE, Bungie devs talk of how Halo 2's development was all over the place as well, missed ship dates, a whole year gone by with nothing but drawing board material that kept changing. Microsoft had to step in and get Bungie on track for that game too, and Halo 2 came out a year later. But it was only half the game Bungie had intended, because so much time was wasted that resulted in nothing. That's also the reason for Halo 2's abrupt cliff-hanger ending. This makes me worried for what Bungie will do on its own now, since it took Microsoft to focus them when making Halo and Halo 2. Without a "grownup", if you will, giving them a sense of direction and/or schedule, will they go back to open-ended unfocused development?
Cringely sensationalizes and hates Microsoft, so take his writings with huge helpings of salt.
Allen remained on the Microsoft board for years, and kept being on friendly terms with Gates (they attended many Sonics vs Trailblazers games together). There was no lawsuit. Quite unlike this Google case.
If what you say is true, then Google did do something extremely "evil" in my book.
What do you mean? The Mac version of Halo was released years ago in 2003. What is preventing you from "legally buying" it? Was it discontinued for some reason?
I hate to break this to you, but Bungie was on its way to bankruptcy and the Microsoft buy-out saved them. There were reports to that effect at the time.
Besides that, do a web search for an "Evolution of Halo" video. It's a quicktime video made a few years ago, about 30 minutes long or so (maybe an hour), that features Bungie developers showing footage of Halo at its various stages of development, since it was first announced at Mac World, then became a PC/Mac title, and right up until the Xbox version. The video includes commentary by three Bungie devs and at one point they talk of the fact that had it not been for Microsoft, Halo would never have been completed and released, period. Bungie was on the ropes as a company before MS bought them.
I don't know that Bungie would get a "healthy sum of money from Microsoft" at the outset. Probably the opposite. Microsoft paid, let's say 50 million to buy Bungie (I don't really know the real amount) and the heads of Bungie got rich on that deal. But since then, Bungie's value has gone up 10-fold (Rare cost ~300 million; Bungie would be worth at least twice that today). It would seem that Bungie would have to buy back it's semi-independence by paying Microsoft at least some of what it would be worth in the open market, otherwise Microsoft is simply giving away a ~600 million dollar property.
:)
I would guess that Bungie pays back some of its present worth, and commits to continuing to have its games published by Microsoft Game Studios (in the article, the Bungie guy calls MGS "our publisher" (for both now and in the future)), and therefore gets to return to its "independent roots".
Of course, if by "getting a healthy sum of money from Microsoft in the process", you referred to revenue earned from future Bungie titles, then sure!
Also, I imagine that Microsoft will continue funding Bungie's development of games, as well as funding and/or running the underpinnings of Bungie.net, since Bungie.net is much more than simply an "About Bungie" site, it's used for hosting billions of Halo statistics and whatnot.
The article also says Microsoft will "will retain an equity interest" in Bungie.
This tells me that Bungie simply goes from Microsoft 1st party to Microsoft 2nd party, like Sony's relationship with Polyphony (makers of GT).
Because deep down everyone knows that linux distros (not linux itself, necessarily) violate patents en masse, just like most software does.
You see companies like Microsoft, Apple, Sony, IBM, getting sued all the time for patent infringement and/or making patent deals with each other and/or paying appropriate licensing fees to license other's patents. Are you really so naive as to believe that Red Hat violates NO patents? Come on now.
As an example, VideoLan admits that their VLC player runs afoul of mpegla patents, but says that since they are "free" and "open source" that it's up to the user to pay mpegla's patent fees, knowing full well that users aren't going to bother, and in fact, saying to MPEGLA, "You want your fees? Then sue our users, not us".
http://wiki.videolan.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#What_about_personal.2Fcommercial_usage.3F
It's a game that many OSS devs like to play: "I'm 'open source' so I can violate patents at will!!"
But big companies like Red Hat *can* pay the necessary patent fees, and they shouldn't be getting a free ride. They're one of the big boys, so let the act like it and license the patents in question by paying the fees or making licensing deals or whatever. Why should other companies like MS, Apple, Sony, Panasonic, Oracle, etc, have to pay patent fees and make licensing deals, but not Red Hat and other big-name linux distros?
To answer your question again, Red Hat and the like don't want to start a suit that could end up with an official declaration that they *are* violating lots of Microsoft patents, and would be liable to pay up for the entire time that they've been violating said patents. And that would open the flood gates, because while Red Hat might be violating 200 (or whatever) Microsoft patents, you can be sure they are violating hundreds more patents by others, and those others will come a-knocking.
Looks like you need help with your reading comprehension skills, as my post clearly indicated speculation on future events.
;)
Examine the title of my post:
"Google to become 'convicted discriminator?"
Note the "to become"; that implies future events. Note the '?'; that implies speculation. The combination suggests speculation on future events.
Examine the sentence you quoted:
"Looks like in the future slashdotters will be able to refer to Google as 'convicted discriminator' in each and every Google story."
Note the "Looks like"; that suggest speculation. Note the "in the future" and "will be"; those suggest future events. Combined, they suggest speculation on future events.
See how that works?
BTW, according to the court's words, "We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.", Google is indeed heading down the path to "conviction". Sure, the path could change, but attacking me for speculating that conviction is in the offing is baseless.
Of course the term "conviction" doesn't apply to civil cases, but that never stopped slashdotters from using that word for civil cases in the past, now has it?
"'We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.'"
:p
So much for "Do no evil" (of course, Google has acted contrary to that self-righteous and self-congratulatory credo for years now. Looks like in the future slashdotters will be able to refer to Google as 'convicted discriminator' in each and every Google story.
Whew!!
Thank God. Now we can just dismiss this info as paid-for FUD.
"that the hackers hack one or a few Linux boxes and use them to control the hundred or more Windows boxes they've hacked."
;)
Wouldn't that be merely a function of how many Linux boxes vs Windows boxes are out there?
I know slashdotters don't like to hear that, they always argue that popularity has no bearing on how often one gets attacked and comrpomised, but using Occam's razor when pondering this new info, one would conclude that the only reason there are more Windows bots than Linux ones is that there are more Windows boxes than Linux ones.
Also, from reading the article, it seems that Cullinane, the guy quoted in the summary, is saying that Linux boxes themselves are the bots. I don't see him talking of hacked Linux boxes controlling Windows bots, like the summary's title suggests.
However, the article then quotes Symantec's Huger, saying that Linux boxes are used for phishing and controlling Windows bots, which does jive with the summary's title. But he doesn't say that the Linux boxes in question were hacked; it could be that he meant that the bad guys themselves own the Linux boxes; I can't tell from the article what he is saying.
Lastly, the article quotes Iftach Amit, director of security research with Finjan's malicious code research centre, as saying that compromised Linux boxes are highly valued by online attackers due to their capabilities.
Whatever...
"What they are saying is that they don't want to bother testing their products any more and they are looking for suckers who will do their work for them."
:p
Hmm...
I guess this *is* true open source then.
Microsoft submitted MS-PL and MS-CL to OSI. And most observers agree that those are indeed open source licenses. The .NET code in question is being released under MS-RL, which Microsoft never claimed to be "open source", and which Microsoft has not submitted to OSI. Microsoft explicitly says regarding the .NET code release, "no, this is not open source". THe only people confused by that are guys like you, who are trying to imply that Microsoft is pretending that this is open source. It's guys like *you* that are being disingenuous and intellctually dishonest, not Microsoft.
Nice FUD try, though.