UNIX/GNU/Linux topics covered in depth. en-gb http://s5h.net/ Copyright E Neville E Neville rss@s5h.net E Neville rss@s5h.net http://s5h.net/ http://www.s5h.net/favicon.png Quebec government sued for buying Microsoft software &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&uebec's open-source software association is suing the provincial government, saying it is giving preferential treatment to Microsoft Corp. by buying the company's products rather than using free alternatives. The lawsuit by Facil was lodged with the Quebec Superior Court on July 15 and made public on Wednesday. In it, the group says the provincial government has refused to entertain competing bids from all software providers, opting instead to supply public-sector departments with products bought from proprietary vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle Corp. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zf986"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zf986&a<br /&ecent: The Tragedy of the Anti-Commons &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&isapplication of “value for money” requirements when purchasing software results in poor value for money - Government purchasing policies for software tend to support the creation of monopolies.   Government purchasing has effects on the price paid by citizens for the product purchased. In some cases purchasing produces volume which permits   scale discounts and therefore a net benefit to citizens who also purchase the product. However, in the case of lock in software* Government purchasing can create a monopoly in the software which leads to increased costs for citizen purchasers and a net detriment for society as a whole. It is not appropriate for value for money policies to be assessed on a per acquisition basis when software is being acquired. Doing so will almost certainly create net costs for the community when considered in the aggregate.       [...] Government procurement can both create and reinforce a monopoly in goods and services which it is acquiring. Anecdotal evidence suggests that bureaucrats look at “value for money” type formulae and assess it against the cost to Government on a purchase-by-purchase basis. This approach is fine in respect of goods and services which are easily substitutable (such as hammers, screws, cars etc). In respect of goods which are specifically designed to prevent substitutability - eg devices which are not designed to be   interoperable it is an extremely hazardous approach. If those goods also tend to be a natural monopoly (such as software in general, but particularly that which is designed not to be interoperable) this approach is absolutely the wrong one.           &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z6f3b1"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z6f3b1&a<br /&nterview with NOiV's Maarten Wijnen-Meijer on Study on Gov't Acquisition of OS Software - Pick Your Brains &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& Dutch study has recently been translated and published in English, "The acquisition of (open-source) software", by Nederland Open in Verbinding (NOiV), which finds that in Europe, gratis software does not require tendering and so gratis Open Source software can be freely downloaded without having to go through the usual purchase process. If service is required, that service would, however, require going through the normal purchasing process,   but as a separate matter.       &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z40bcb"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z40bcb&a<br /&L: Use of Open Source software requires no European IT tenders &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&uropean public administrations that want to use software that is offered for free, such as Open Source software, do not need to organise a call for tender. [...] According to Wijnen-Meijer the translation is well-received. "At a recent Open Source conference in the US, copies were picked up quickly by companies. We also have had requests from cities and ministries in Germany and Greece." &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z5633"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z5633&a<br /&elated: My Visit to Sun &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&hipps went on to say that one of the main reasons prospects and customers are uncomfortable with this open source approach is that it fails to align with their expectations of how software is obtained. They're so accustomed to the bid/procurement process accompanied by the stereotypical sales rep proffering half-truths about the product that they literally feel anxious when offered the gift of free software. Furthermore, they're so used to an adversarial relationship with sales reps that they are bewildered about how to respond to a sales approach that is more collaborative and focused on user satisfaction, which is, of course, a prerequisite when what you sell is support.           &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z9f2e8"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z9f2e8&a<br /&K Government: Closed Minds on Open Source &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&o its eternal shame, the UK Government uses far less open source than most. Worse, it seems to have a closed mind to the whole idea. That's evident in the guidelines that have been released to aid in the interpretation of amendments to Computer Misuse Act (CMA) of 1990 with respect to “unauthorised access to computer material” (aka cracking)... &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z5ee7"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z5ee7&a<br /&he UK has wasted over $4 billion on failed IT projects since 2000 &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Guardian is reporting that the United Kingdom government has flushed over £2 billion (More than US$4 billion) since 2000 on failed IT projects. IT projects fail. [...] And imagine if before the UK government went into these projects if it's cost of failure was hugely mitigated upfront by zero licensing costs and the chance to fully evaluate technology before adopting it. It's called open source. Heard of it? &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z8e76"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z8e76&a<br /&awmaker blasts U.K. government on Microsoft policy &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&A member of Parliament of the United Kingdom has launched a stinging attack on the U.K. government's IT strategy, saying that it has given Microsoft too much control. John Pugh, who is a member of Parliament, or MP, for Southport and a member of the Public Accounts Committee, was speaking in an adjournment debate on Tuesday that he had called. The aim of the debate, he said, was to explore the alternatives to using Microsoft software, including open source." &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z7aba4"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z7aba4&a<br /&pen-source evolves from 'nerdy' to notable &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ast January, Host Europe, a company that runs the Web sites for 120,000 businesses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, secured an unlikely supplier for the open-source software it uses to run almost all of its computer servers. [...] "I think that the adoption of open source has been much greater in some of the Continental markets and in the United States," said Mark Brier, an open-source technician at the National Computing Center in Manchester, England, a nonprofit group that advises government on computer purchases. "Here there is no large-scale adoption." Scott Thompson, the executive director of OpenAdvantage, a nonprofit group in Birmingham, England, that promotes open-source software among businesses in the West Midlands region, said the spread has been limited by outmoded government procurement rules that favor larger, established proprietary vendors, government outsourcing of technology operations to companies with relationships to proprietary vendors, and the well-funded defense of proprietary software makers. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z3217"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z3217&a<br /&undestag: "Open-source strategy is not in jeopardy" &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&n April the Linux Association had smelt a rat with regard to the exchange tests and sharply criticized the manner in which the administration of the Bundestag awards contracts. We cannot "help suspecting that with the help of the Council of Elders the IT strategy of the administration of the Bundestag is being manipulated in a manner that excludes the technical departments," the association had declared at the time. A spokesman of the administration had replied that all procurement acts relating to the pilot project had taken place in conformity with the rules laid down for the awarding of contracts. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z46fe1"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z46fe1&a<br /&eds revise IT procurement model &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he federal government has launched version two of the SourceIT model contracts and user notes aimed at simplifying procurement of information technology 12 months after the first version. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zf56b"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zf56b&a<br /&overnments slammed for anti-competitive software tendering practices     &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& leading Australian open source advocate has called for an end for to tender lock-outs of competitors to Microsoft, claiming the practice is costing Australian taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z9460"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z9460&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zf986 Proprietary Innovation Strikes Again &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&here are two stories posted on Linux Today that I knew I was going to rant about as soon as I saw them: Nominum Solves Kaminsky Attack, and Novell's iPrint Open to Attack, Say Researchers. What do these stories have in common? I was thinking perhaps institutionalized delusional thinking and incompetence, but maybe I'm being too harsh. [...] Lest anyone think I am being too mean to poor old defenseless Novell and Microsoft, I recall ActiveX security advisories almost from its inception back in 1996 or so. What has changed since then, twelve years later? Nothing, as this random recent security bulletin shows: "Microsoft has released Security Advisory (955179) to describe attacks on a vulnerability in the Microsoft Office Snapshot Viewer ActiveX control. Because no fix is currently available for this vulnerability, please see the Security Advisory and US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#837785 for workarounds." So we need to revise the popular "fool me once" saying: Fool me once, shame on you Fool me twice, shame on me Fool me thousands of times over many years...let's get married!" Now why is it again that corporate participation is important to FOSS? &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zf0cba"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zf0cba&a<br /&awyer Falls Prey to Pricey Internet Scam &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&tlanta securities lawyer Gregory Bartko said he is the victim of an Internet fraud scheme that is apparently targeting law firms throughout the country and the banks where lawyers have their escrow accounts. As a result, Bartko is now a defendant in a federal suit by Wachovia Bank -- which is seeking reimbursement for nearly $200,000 that the bank wired, on Bartko's instructions, to a Korean bank on behalf of a company that had hired Bartko via the Internet. [...] On April 11, shortly after 10 a.m., Bartko returned to Wachovia and arranged to wire $192,530 to the Woori Bank. Three days later, on April 14, Bartko said he discovered that his escrow account reflected a debit of $197,530. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z58609"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z58609&a<br /&ackers resort to 'sick' kidnap spam &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he security firm is warning users that emails entitled 'We have hijacked your baby' are being sent to Web users around the globe. As well as asking for a US$50,000 ransom for the 'release' of the child, the messages also contain an attachement supposed to be a photograph of the child. Instead the file actually contains a deadly Trojan Horse that will steal personal information. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z4126"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z4126&a<br /&Spam will be a thing of the past in two years’ time." --Bill Gates, 2004 "There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed." --Bill Gates, 1995 "The Internet? We are not interested in it." --Bill Gates, 1993 "Like almost everyone who uses e-mail, I receive a ton of spam every day. Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick. It would be funny if it weren't so irritating." --Bill Gates Recent: What is the speed of spam? 7.8 billion messages per hour! &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&pam volumes have doubled, and the Srizbi botnet alone was seen to be capable of pumping out an astonishing 7.8 billion messages an hour. That is probably worth repeating: 7.8 BILLION spams every single hour! &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z46e7"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z46e7&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zf0cba Verizon and LG sued over visual voicemail patent &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&atent holding company Klausner Technologies Inc. has sued Verizon Wireless and LG Electronics Inc. for infringement of a patent on the visual listing of voicemail. New York-based Klausner said late Tuesday that Verizon Wireless' Visual Voicemail and LG's Voyager phone, sold by the carrier, infringe on a patent that covers services through which a user is able to view and retrieve individual voice messages through a menu. Klausner filed suit in the eastern district of Texas. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zae62"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zae62&a<br /&atent dispute threatens GPS imports &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&.S. importation of smartphones and other devices using SiRF's GPS chipsets could be banned by December, if the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) adopts a recommendation made last week. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zc994"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zc994&a<br /&es! Yes! Innovation!!! Embargo makes innovation. Recent: Greens urge end to software patents &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&s Turei, who called for greater use of open source and locally developed software, says excluding software from patents would ensure others could develop ideas. Software would still be protected against piracy by copyright law. The party has promised to investigate "the setup of free municipally owned wireless networks". Ms Turei says the cost needs to be researched, but the Government would "almost certainly" need to supply funding. Ms Turei says wider adoption of open source software would reduce costs and lead to investment in local IT businesses, which tend to lose out to dominant software companies such as Microsoft. "Monopolies have been allowed to form, stifling competition, consumer choice, and indigenous growth of the software industry in Aotearoa/New Zealand." &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z71e3"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z71e3&a<br /&ust say no to software patents &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&hy are software patents so odious? It has nothing to do with the patent system itself. The patent system is a generally good system whose benefits typically outweigh any problems that it creates. The problem with software patents comes from a failure on the part of people who are outside of the realm of software development to realize that software design and sales do not operate according to the same rules as other products. Software, if anything, is the quintessential exception to the patent system for products because the relationship that software has to hardware and between buyer and seller does not exist in pharmaceuticals and other patent-dependent industries. Software development rarely sees the labor and capital-intensive research that is done in industries like the pharmaceutical industry &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z10538"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z10538&a<br /&pen Source Software and Patents: An Uneasy Journey of Discovery and Understanding &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ver the past three months, I've been communicating at length with several leaders in the Open Source Software (OSS) community about how best to license software patents in a way that supports the goal of OSS developers, users, and distributors. I've learned a great deal along the way about the uneasy relationship between OSS and software patents. [...] I believe that by being open, honest and fair with the people in the OS communities, there will be no need for patent infringement litigation since developers and distributors will appreciate my position, realize that we're not "gangs of bandits," and act with integrity for a win-win relationship. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zc5d1"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zc5d1&a<br /&AFC Judge Regrets Decisions That Resulted In Software Patents &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&s the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) is considering the Bilski case, where it may finally push back on software and business model patents, it's interesting to hear one of CAFC's judges admit that he was "troubled by the unintended consequences" of the lawsuits (State Street and AT&hat resulted in software and business model patents being effectively allowed. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z3096"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z3096&a<br /&atents as property II: Rethinking SW patents? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&atents as property was also front and center in the thoughts of one judge on the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the main appellate court for patent disputes in the US. Senior Judge S. Jay Plager, speaking at a symposium at George Mason University, called for a “rethinking” of several aspects of patent law by returning to its origins in property law. According to the BNA, Plager “called for a renewed focus on setting recognizable patent ownership boundaries and on strengthening the notice function that patents are intended to serve. Such a reevaluation might require a reassessment of whether software and business methods are patentable subject matter, Plager said. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zb7aa"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zb7aa&a<br /&ethinking patent law &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&udge Plager writes that as a former law professor who taught property law for twenty-five years, he found our general thesis about analyzing patent law from a property law perspective “quite comfortable.” The book argues that many of the key institutional features and much of the economic performance (and many of the problems) of the patent system can be analyzed by treating patents as a property system. In his speech, Judge Plager suggested that this approach might require rethinking the patentability of software and business methods, doctrines of claim construction, patent scope and the doctrine of equivalents. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z4053e"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z4053e&a<br /&FIP Recommends: Research on Innovation and TIIP &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he block quote alone is amazing and extremely important due to the subject matter and the authority of US. Senior Judge S. Jay Plager. This is the type of thing that should be promoted by End Software Patents, rethinking subject matter for software patents and business methods is essential if we are to save the patent system. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z0374"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z0374&a<br /&udge Plager: Regrets "Unintended Consequences" of State Street &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&Plager] called for a renewed focus on setting recognizable patent ownership boundaries and on strengthening the notice function that patents are intended to serve. Such a reevaluation might require a reassessment of whether software and business methods are patentable subject matter, Plager said. It might lead to limiting a patent’s scope to what was known at the time of the application filing, and to an abandonment the doctrine of equivalents as a basis for patent infringement liability. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?ze8770"&ttp://s5h.net/u?ze8770&a<br /&atha Jishnu: The mouse that bit Microsoft PATENTLY ABSURD &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ere’s what Gates wrote in an office memorandum in 1991. “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. . . I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique.” This was the year after Microsoft launched Windows 3.0, the first of its new operating systems that would become hugely popular across the world. Yet, three years down the line, Microsoft had changed from a kitten that was content with copyright protection to an aggressive patents tiger. In 1991, Microsoft had filed fewer than 50 patent applications whereas last year it was awarded 1,637 patents, almost a 12 per cent increase in the number of patents it received in 2006. According to IFI Patent Intelligence, the rise in Microsoft’s patents portfolio bucked the general trend in 2007 when the number of patents issued by the US Patents and Trademark Office dipped by 10 per cent. Apparently several thousand of the company’s filings are still pending. All this may prompt the reader to conclude that there is indeed a direct correlation between IPR and growth — and wealth — as the company claims. Not true, says Mark H Webbink, a US Supreme Court lawyer who is a recognised voice on IT issues. Charting the company’s revenues, R&ending and patent filings from 1985 onwards, he shows that the spike in patent filings occurred long after the Microsoft “had become well established and was being investigated for its monopolistic practices”. Webbink contends that patents did not spur the launch and rapid growth of the mass market software industry. On the other hand, patents have become a threat to software innovation, he warns. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z12f8"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z12f8&a<br /&ritic of Software Patents Wins Nobel Prize in Economics &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&oom writes "You've probably already heard that the Nobel Prize for Economics was given to three gents who were working on advances in mechanism design theory. What you may not have heard is what one of those recipients was using that theory to study: 'One recent subject of Professor Maskin's wide-ranging research has been on the value of software patents. He determined that software was a market where innovations tended to be sequential, in that they were built closely on the work of predecessors, and innovators could take many different paths to the same goal. In such markets, he said, patents might serve as a wall that inhibited innovation rather than stimulating progress.' Here's one of Maskin's papers on the subject: Sequential Innovation, Patents, limitation (pdf). &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z0d50"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z0d50&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zae62 Microsoft, Nikon sign patent-sharing deal &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&etailed terms of the Nikon deal weren't disclosed, but the companies said Nikon is compensating Microsoft through the alliance. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z837f8"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z837f8&a<br /&elated: Microfraud? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&HE ALLEGATIONS WERE shocking: For years, Microsoft has systematically distorted its profit figures in an effort to consistently beat Wall Street expectations and keep its stock price steadily rising. The false reports would violate SEC regulations, and amount to outright fraud. More shocking was the source of the allegations: Microsoft's chief of internal audits, Charlie Pancerzewski, who reported directly to the company's chief financial officer. Most shocking of all was what happened to Pancerzewski when he reported the suspicious bookkeeping to his supervisors, Microsoft CFO Mike Brown and chief operating officer Bob Herbold, in the spring of 1995. Soon afterward, Pancerzewski—who for nearly five years had received stellar performance evaluations—received his first-ever unsatisfactory one, and was eventually forced to resign. Two months ago, Microsoft quietly settled a lawsuit containing these allegations, filed in 1997 by Pancerzewski under the Whistleblowers Protection Act. The auditor claimed he was wrongfully terminated after telling his supervisors that Microsoft might be breaking securities and tax laws. The lawsuit made its tortuous way through several rounds of pretrial motions until last fall, when US District Judge Carolyn Dimmick denied Microsoft's final plea for summary judgment, finding credible evidence that Microsoft may have violated SEC rules, as Pancerzewski alleged. Shortly thereafter, Microsoft and Pancerzewski settled out of court. Terms of the agreement were sealed, but one source who claims familiarity with the case says that Microsoft paid Pancerzewski $4 million. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z64099"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z64099&a<br /&icrosoft sees slide in profits &r /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z0d01"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z0d01&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z837f8 Xen.org Delivers Version 3.3 of the Xen Hypervisor &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&en.org, which is behind the open source Xen virtualization project, is out with its new Xen 3.3 engine. You can download it now, and grab a PDF datasheet as well. Xen 3.3 is faster and more scalable than previous versions, and has better graphics capabilities. It targets more types of chipsets--from supercomputing to handheld chipsets. Yes that's right, handhelds. The new Xen is smaller than ever. What else is under the hood? &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zce23"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zce23&a<br /&ecent: Citrix, Virtual Iron Duke It Out &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& war of words has erupted between two bitter opponents in the Xen open source-based hypervisor (define) market. Citrix, which owns XenSource and drives the Xen project, has insulted arch-rival Virtual Iron, saying, among other things, that it owns the hypervisor while Virtual Iron just consumes the product. This fired up Virtual Iron's chief strategy officer Tony Asaro, who slapped back by saying Citrix chief technology officer Simon Crosby is out of line because Virtual Iron has been a substantial contributor to the Xen project and Xen belongs to the open source community. A fuming Asaro told InternetNews.com "the dangerous thing Simon said is that Citrix owns the hypervisor. That's wrong; Citrix bought Xen and sells the Citrix commercial product and are the drivers or owners of the open source project, but it's the community that works on open source." Crosby's "irresponsible statement about the open source community is counter to the philosophy of open source which he's the biggest proponent of," Asaro added. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z664d"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z664d&a<br /&VM and Xen cofounders engage in war of words &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&aybe, but Pratt was responding to his KVM’s competitors’ claims that Xen’s days are numbered because of KVM’s tight integration with the Linux kernel. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z1037"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z1037&a<br /&itrix opens Xen for business, still Linux shy &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&en may have become the de facto virtualization platform for Linux, but, ironically, don't expect to see Citrix applications running natively on Linux any time soon. "It's market driven and we never got the uptake on Linux," Willis said. "Our focus for XenApp (formerly Presentation Server) is as a Windows application which we recommend customers run on bare metal for performance reasons." Willis said Citrix has partnered with Microsoft to develop Linux extensions for its Hyper-V platform. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z097e"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z097e&a<br /&buntu picks KVM over Xen for virtualization &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&VM will be built into Ubuntu's next version, called Hardy Heron and due in April. "For the Hardy Heron release, we've really picked up the virtualization ball. Virtualization is making its way into data centers and onto developer workstations everywhere. Even 'regular' users are using it to run Ubuntu on Mac OS X all the time," Hansen said. "Virtualization has been on our agenda for a long time, but it became a top priority at UDS (Ubuntu Developer Summit) in November. We could see that demand for it was growing." &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z95339"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z95339&a<br /&elated: Citrix strays far from XenSource’s original open source mission &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&��Citrix is not a virtualization company,” said Phil Montgomery, Senior Director of Citrix’s Virtualization and Management Division. “We’re not trying to be another VMware. Citrix is an application delivery software company.” In spite of that new positioning, XenSource is — or was — a virtualization company. But the competitive equation is now Microsoft + Citrix versus VMware, Montgomery told ZDNet last night. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z9ad52"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z9ad52&a<br /&itrix strips XenSource of virtualization, open source...everything &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&itrix either got completely snowed in the acquisition or, much more likely, it's getting pressure from its bosom-buddy, Microsoft. What it's not getting is much value for its $500 million. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z902d"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z902d&a<br /&icrosoft, Citrix grow alliance &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&icrosoft Corp. and Citrix Systems said they have expanded their alliance to deliver and market joint virtualization products with Windows Server 2008. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z99fe"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z99fe&a<br /&itrix Systems Tops Estimates &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&itrix completed the acquisition of open source virtualization developer XenSource about halfway through the quarter. It added $2 million to Citrix revenue. XenSource is expected to generate $50 million in revenue for 2008 and about $50 million to $60 million in expenses. For 2009, XenSource is expected to contribute $200 million to the top line. The bulk of that will come from its server products, CEO Mark Templeton said. XenSource desktop virtualization products will initially be used in corporate pilot programs. "We think we can build in the server virtualization market the same kind of symbiotic relationship with Microsoft (MSFT - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ that we had with [the Citrix] Presentation Server," which works atop Windows Server, Templeton said. "We'll be the third player in server virtualization" after VMware (VMW - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and partner Microsoft. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zf38f"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zf38f&a<br /&icrosoft targets VMware with new strategy &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&itrix is developing a software tool that helps Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization feature in the upcoming Windows Server 2008 to work more easily with Citrix's XenServer product. [...] Microsoft has acquired a start-up company called Calista Technologies and expanded its alliance with Citrix Systems, targeting VMware's early lead in virtualization technology. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zdc12d"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zdc12d&a<br /&icrosoft Pushes Virtualization &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&icrosoft announced that it competed acquisituion of Calista Technologies, a San Jose, Calif.-based start-up that makes computer graphics for virtualized computers, and an expanded partnership with Citrix Systems (nasdaq: CTXS - news - people ), a VMware competitor based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Microsoft and Citrix will jointly market services that "virtualize" computers, operating systems and applications. Microsoft's shot across the bow at VMware is inevitable as companies throughout industry shift to Web-based services. "Microsoft needs to get something into the market quickly," says Roger Kay, president of technology research firm Endpoint Technologies Associate. "Windows Office has 10 years to burn, but it will become less relevant." [...] A Microsoft-Citrix combination could present formidable competition to VMware, he suggests. Buying Citrix, however, would be a significant deal: The company has a market capitalization of $6.4 billion. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z39c35"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z39c35&a<br /&or Citrix, Target Acquired &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ou said earlier this year that Citrix is an "admirer" of Microsoft for its innovation, Adobe for its strong brand and Apple for its easy-to-use products. After watching your swift acquisition pace and the kind of companies you target for acquisition, I would argue Citrix is patterned more after Cisco Systems. Do you think that's a reasonable argument? You are thinking of the acquisition point of view instead of the comments I made. Those were about role models. Cisco has not been a role model for our acquisitions. They are a fabulous company. We love Cisco. When I talk about Microsoft, Adobe and Apple, they are role models for the things I cited. I happen to be a huge believer in role models. It's pragmatic: If someone does something really well, study it and translate that into your own business. I think it applies to companies and people. The way you better yourself is to find someone you want to be like and try to be like them. That impacts the way we work at Citrix. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z5826"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z5826&a<br /&allmer: Microsoft Will Buy Open-Source Companies &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&We will do some buying of companies that are built around open-source products," Ballmer said during an onstage interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z9e6b"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z9e6b&a<br /&s Microsoft Hijacking Open Source? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&hat really worries me is what looks like an emerging pattern in Microsoft's behaviour. The EU agreement is perhaps the first fruit of this, but I predict it will not be the last. What is happening is that Microsoft is effectively being allowed to define the meaning of “open source” as it wishes, not as everyone else understands the term. For example, in the pledge quoted above, an open source project is “not commercially distributed by its participants” - and this is a distinction also made by Kroes and her FAQ. In this context, the recent approval of two Microsoft licences as officially “open source” is only going to make things worse. Although I felt this was the right decision – to have ad hoc rules just because it's Microsoft would damage the open source process - I also believe it's going to prove a problem. After all, it means that Microsoft can rightfully point to its OSI-approved licences as proof that open source and Microsoft no longer stand in opposition to each other. This alone is likely to perplex people who thought they understood what open source meant. [...] What we are seeing here are a series of major assaults on different but related fields – open source, open file formats and open standards. All are directed to one goal: the hijacking of the very concept of openness. If we are to stop this inner corrosion, we must point out whenever we see wilful misuse and lazy misunderstandings of the term, and we must strive to make the real state of affairs quite clear. If we don't, then core concepts like “open source” will be massaged, kneaded and pummelled into uselessness. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z31ef"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z31ef&a<br /&ill Microsoft Buy the New Citrix? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&Mware, holding some 85 percent of the market, with its VI3 technologies offers a fully integrated stack and represents a third generation of virtualization technology, while Viridian and Xen-based products, including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, XenEnterprise and Virtual Iron, remain second-generation products, the report stated. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zc391"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zc391&a<br /&eady Days for Virtual Systems &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he former Microsoft general manager is now vice president of XenSource, a Palo Alto, Calif., virtualization company with a growing outpost in Redmond, Wash. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z1e61"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z1e61&a<br /&hat the XenSource deal says about open source &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&his is what Citrix is paying for. That and a close relationship with Microsoft that looks likely to get closer. “We will be building dynamic virtualization services and management tools on top of Viridian,” Levine added. “We will build the same set of products we’ve built on top of Xen for Viridian. We’ve already hired a team to go do that up in Redmond.” While Citrix maintained it will continue support for the Xen project, this deal is not about a proprietary vendor getting open source religion. It's about grabbing an emerging player in a rapidly expanding sector of the market. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zc590"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zc590&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zce23 Open source for the future. Art, music, and sustainablity at Monome &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&y name is Adrienne, and I’m a graphic designer at Red Hat—I create meaning using type and image. The other day I stumbled upon a story involving music, sustainability, and open source. Needless to say, I was intrigued. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z8fa5"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z8fa5&a<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z83f59"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z83f59&a<br /&pple's censorship (like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo): iTunes Store back online in China after Tibet song leaves front page &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he iTunes Store was blocked in China two weeks after an album released by Tibet activists appeared, but after the Olympics Games concluded, it was available once again. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z2b671"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z2b671&a<br /&o Apple cooperated with a suppressive regime. So did IBM in WW2. Tibet: "Beijing 10" return to USA; new Tibet docu "Leaving Fear Behind." &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&mage above: bloggers, artists, and pro-Tibet activists James Powderly, Tom Grant, Mike Liss, Jeremy Wells and John Watterberg arriving at LAX airport. They and others were held in jail in China for having participated in pro-Tibetan sovereignty demonstrations during the Olympics. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z83b0"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z83b0&a<br /&ood video. Recent: What if Apple stopped issuing DRM keys? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&t happened to Microsoft and Yahoo. Could it happen to Apple? [...] Microsoft's now defunct MSN Music service made a similar announcement last spring. Some CNET News readers have asked whether the same thing could happen at iTunes. The answer to that question is yes, it most certainly could. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z52fa"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z52fa&a<br /&FF: Microsoft betrayed MSN Music customers &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Electronic Frontier Foundation says that Microsoft has "betrayed" MSN Music customers and wants the company to make things right by issuing an apology, refunds, and eliminate digital rights management technology from the Zune music player.   &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z21ad"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z21ad&a<br /&sk Apple about the iPhone &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ervices like Amazon, eMusic, Napster, Rhapsody, Play.com and 7digital are all selling music without DRM. A typical response to this might be that Apple has no option to sell media without DRM, but this is simply untrue. Jobs is the largest individual shareholder at Disney, and he could insist that its films be DRM-free. Apple should be leading the way to promote DRM-free music, but instead is lagging behind. What is Apple doing to fix this? If it really is the RIAA's fault, can you tell me specifically what the RIAA said to Jobs when he asked for the ability to sell DRM-free music? &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z6002"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z6002&a<br /&Tunes legal silences Hymn &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&pple has fired a cease and desist order against the developers behind the open-source Hymn Project. Hymn develops software that strips Apple's FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) technology from user's iTunes purchases, allowing music fans to play their music on devices other than those from Apple. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zfb2a"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zfb2a&a<br /&elated: A Linux User's Perspective on the ITunes Store (and DRM in General) &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&hat if tomorrow you went to Best Buy or Walmart or Sam Goody and purchased a CD? What if, before you left the store, the salesman told you that although the CD was in all other respects a standard CD, that you could only play it if you owned a Pioneer or Sony stereo? Would that make any sense? Would it make you a bit hesitant about buying music from that store again? Well, if you purchase music or videos from the iTunes Store, [...] With content from the iTunes Store, however, users may find themselves a bit stuck if they ever want to make the switch to a more open computing platform, such as Linux. Because none of the DRM-restricted content from the iTunes Store will play on Linux. And it's all because that's how Apple wants it, to be honest, and not because of any technical limitation. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z98b93"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z98b93&a<br /&pple's latest trick to enforce digital rights &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&...] With this version of iTunes, users were finding that music subjected to the old download-burn-rip would no longer load onto their iPods. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zd812"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zd812&a<br /&orvalds pleased that DRM music is dying &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&inus Torvalds, coordinator of the Linux kernel, is pleased that music publishers have started selling more DRM-free music -- last year he said the technology was a lot of "hot air".   &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zf81d8"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zf81d8&a<br /&icrosoft: We Like DRM &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&teve Jobs wants the music business to drop restrictions for digital tunes. But Microsoft, which began competing head to head with Apple in the digital music business last fall, is happy with the way things are, says media exec Robbie Bach. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z2a6b"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z2a6b&a<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z2ac6"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z2ac6&a<br /&icrosoft Tells Apple To Stop Complaining About DRM &r /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z1954"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z1954&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z8fa5 Debian Live Lenny Beta1 &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Debian Live team[0] is pleased to announce the first beta of Debian Lenny's Live images. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z9ff6"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z9ff6&a<br /&ecent: New Debian GNU/Linux Update &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& new Debian GNU/Linux Update was released a few weeks ago - well, actually one and a half new updates, to be precise. I just got around to giving it a try, and I'm pleased and impressed. The new release is 4.0r4a, and it incorporates security updates and bug fixes. At the same time, they have released what they call an "etch-and-a-half" release, which adds support for new hardware to their current stable release, largely by updating to a newer Linux kernel (2.6.24 instead of 2.6.18). Given that Debian tends to be VERY conservative about updates to stable versions, this is a big step forward. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z01bcb"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z01bcb&a<br /&ebian GNU/Linux 4.0 updated with support for newer hardware &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Debian project is pleased to announce the fourth update of its stable distribution Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (codename etch). &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z674ae"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z674ae&a<br /&ebian looks to launch lenny in Sept. &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Debian project's maintainer, Luk Claes, announced in an email Saturday that he will freeze the "testing" or "Lenny" tree, in preparation for a new stable release of Debian Linux. On Claes's checklist for September 2008: "Release lenny!" &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z99272"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z99272&a<br /&eploying KDE [+Debian GNU/Linux] to 52 million young people &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&y the end of this year 29,000 labs serving some 32,000,000 students will be fully deployed and in active use. By the end of next year (2009) those numbers will have swelled to 53,000 labs serving some 52,000,000 students. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z07c9"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z07c9&a<br /&eeling the heat at Microsoft &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&f I ask you who is Microsoft's biggest competitor now, who would it be? Ballmer: Open...Linux. I don't want to say open source. Linux, certainly have to go with that. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z31fcb"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z31fcb&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z9ff6 Decathlon to translate multimedia tools &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&peakers of Hindi and Tagalog will soon benefit from the work of a project called Decathlon which is translating multimedia software into these languages. Other languages from the Indian and Far Eastern subcontinent, such as Bengali, Nepali, Pashto, Burmese and Tetum, may also benefit from this venture. Organised by African localisation organisation Translate.org.za and funded by a grant from the Open Society Institute (OSI), the Decathlon project is focusing its translation energies on the VLC multimedia program. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z623b"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z623b&a<br /&ecent: Firefox translated into Ugandan language &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& two-day translation marathon has resulted in a version of Mozilla's Firefox browser Firefox in Luganda, Uganda's most widely spoken language. The software will be made available by Makerere University's Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (CIT) with the aim of giving non-English speakers a browsing tool. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z43717"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z43717&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z623b Computer viruses in space!! &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&aybe they should run Mac or Linux. Then they would have nothing to worry about at all, right? &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?za738"&ttp://s5h.net/u?za738&a<br /&alware infects space station laptops &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&alware has managed to get off the planet and onto the International Space Station (ISS), NASA confirmed today. And it's not the first time that a worm or virus has stowed away on a trip into orbit. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zb4c0"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zb4c0&a<br /&L: "The W in the name of the virus stands for Windows, because that is the only operating system affected by the virus, according to Symantec and Sophos. Do you think maybe NASA could supply astronauts with one of the new Linux mini-laptops, for safety's sake?" NASA already uses a lot of GNU/Linux (recent examples below). After this incident, it's likely that they'll use more. Recent: NASA launches online historical image gallery &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&nternet Archive, founded in 1996 to create an Internet-based library, will manage and host NASA's new interactive image gallery on the cluster of 2,000 Linux servers at its San Francisco headquarters, said John Hornstein, director of the NASA images project for the group. The non-profit currently runs 2 petabytes of storage, Hornstein said. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zd4a7c"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zd4a7c&a<br /&oddard's open source site &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., has established a Web site for open-source projects that were developed by center personnel for mission needs. By releasing such code into open source, NASA hopes to speed development of the software, as well as raise awareness of NASA research. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z5698"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z5698&a<br /&ASA Uses Ubuntu &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&e and I walked back over behind the guy to look. I pointed out the little bit of the heron you could see at the bottom of the screen, and he said "yep, it's Hardy." Then he added, "look what else he's running." "What?" "Compiz. You can see the shadows on the panels." &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zd3ea4"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zd3ea4&a<br /&edora on the Final Frontier &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&here has been a long standing rumor regarding NASA running Fedora which all of us in the Fedora community have been always intrigued by. Is it true? What are they doing with it there? Why don't they run RHEL. Fortunately enough, a couple of weeks ago, I got to experience NASA behind the scenes, first hand, and hang out with the coolest members of the Fedora community, and find out the answer to these questions and lots more.     &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z519f1"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z519f1&a<br /&ASA tests Linux for spacecraft control &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&n the software side, embedded Linux vendor Wind River says it was selected to "support the development of NASA's New Millennium Program Space Technology 8 (ST8) Dependable Multiprocessor." As part of its role in supporting the project, the company will supply its Platform for Network Equipment, Linux Edition (PNE-LE) for use on the DM system.     &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z1b02b"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z1b02b&a<br /&t NASA, Windows Vista Isn't Ready For Launch &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&pace agency among the growing list of federal agencies that have put a temporary hold on Windows Vista rollouts. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z36548"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z36548&a<br /&ASA tests Linux-based planetary surface exploration robots &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& Linux-based NASA lunar rover is on maneuvers -- and Internet webcams -- this week in the Arizona desert near Meteor Crater. [...] The K-10 runs Red Hat Linux, which NASA says was chosen for its large user base and application compatibility. Additionally, NASA notes that, "Linux's flexibility and scalability enable us to easily add, remove, and extend devices with minimal difficulty." &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z683"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z683&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?za738 Migration to Fedora &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&very time when user wants to try something different, many unanswered questions raised. Is is good? Why should I migrate, I am satisfied from my operating system now. Could I lose data on my computer? Is it possible just to see that thing and if I like it I would give it a try? Yes, now it is possible. Take a virtual migration tour with screenshots in just a few clicks. Do not try anything until you liked it! When you are completely sure about that, then you would migrate on real. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z0715"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z0715&a<br /&ike Spread Firefox, but Spread Fedora instead. Recent: How Can We Harness the Firefox Effect? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&hree things are striking about the recent launch of Firefox 3. First, the unanimity about the quality of the code: practically everyone thinks it's better in practically every respect. Secondly, the way in which the mainstream media covered its launch: it was treated as a normal, important tech story – gone are the days of supercilious anecdotes about those wacky, sandal-wearing free software anoraks. And finally – and perhaps most importantly - the scale and intensity of participation by the millions of people who have downloaded the software in the last week. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z153fe"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z153fe&a<br /&uiness World Record Certificate in your name - Firefox 3 &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he record is 15,067,570 downloads (15 Million). Country wise, USA tops the list with a whooping 4 million + downloads. Surprisingly, sans the US, relatively small countries like Iran and France clocked more downloads than its larger counterparts like India and China. If you are one of the people who downloaded Firefox on June 17th, then congratulations !!; You are a part of the Guiness Book of World Records. And the people at Firefox are ever too grateful to forget your valuable contribution. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z04dd83"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z04dd83&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z0715 SofTech Announces Linux Support with Latest CADRA Release &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ofTech, Inc., a proven provider of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) solutions, announced that its latest CADRA(R) 2008 CAD/CAM release supports the Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS Version 4 operating system. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zc8df"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zc8df&a<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z4d002"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z4d002&a<br /&elated: Would You Use Proprietary Software Ported to GNU/Linux? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ustas Ingelevičius wrote in about an Autodesk international user group poll about non-Windows ports. [...] It’s easy to predict that this conversation will happen more frequently and with greater volume. (I imagine something similar happened when Windows NT was worth using and much, much cheaper than high-end UNIX workstations.)   &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?za4066"&ttp://s5h.net/u?za4066&a<br /&utodesk Launches Autodesk Toxik 2008 Software for Feature Film Visual Effects &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&oxik 2008 is available as a stand-alone product on both the Windows and Linux operating systems. It offers greater interoperability with Autodesk Maya 3D modeling, animation and rendering software, thereby helping artists combine 2D and 3D techniques to solve complex production problems,   &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zf8da"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zf8da&a<br /&utodesk F1Q08 (Qtr End 4/30/07) Earnings Call Transcript &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&s customers continue to transition away from proprietary high-end SGI workstations, revenue from our Linux based solutions continues to show strong growth. In fact this quarter, nearly 90% of our systems product revenue was Linux based. Overall, I'm very pleased with our performance this quarter. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zb497"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zb497&a<br /<br /<br /<span class="lniquote"&Linux is the default operating [system] on desktops and servers at major animation and visual effects studios, with maybe 98 percent [or more] penetration," CinePaint Project Manager Robin Rowe told LinuxInsider. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z8c89"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z8c89&a<br /&4 Bit Psyborg Extreme Graphics Workstation Now with SUSE Linux &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&8/20/2006 - Psychsoftpc announces that the 64 Bit Psyborg Extreme Graphics Workstation is now available with the new 64 bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zbff"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zbff&a<br /&ver 100 Additional Post-production Facilities Adopt Autodesk's Visual Effects and Editing/Finishing Systems &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&n April 2006, Autodesk transitioned its visual effects and editing/finishing systems from SGI-based workstations to workstations running the Linux operating system. [...] "The migration of Autodesk systems to the Linux platform has been a great success," said Stig Gruman, Autodesk's Media &ertainment vice president of systems. "This operating system allows Autodesk to take advantage of rapid, continuous improvements to commodity hardware components such as central processing units, graphics cards, and Infiniband networking technology." &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z9f9b9"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z9f9b9&a<br /&pen source creeps into mapping software &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&icensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), MapGuide Open Source enables organizations to develop and distribute spatial and design data over the Web. [...] "We think there is a direct analogy between what's happening in Web mapping [software market], and what happened with Web servers in the beginning," Zeiss said, noting that the trend toward commoditization had convinced Autodesk to contribute MapGuide Open Source to the OSGF. "This was a strategic way of creating a much bigger market than we could have ever created with a closed-source product," he added. With an open source product on its cards, Zeiss said Autodesk is also following the footsteps of other open-source software vendors--that is, to charge for premium services and support. [...] "To open-source AutoCAD will be giving away valuable trade secrets to competitors. There's no prospect for doing that at all," he explained. IDC noted in a June 2006 report that it is too early to assess the long-term impact of Autodesk's open source strategy. "But initial indications are that geospatial users and the open source community are responding positively, perhaps to the point of shifting Web-based geospatial interfaces to a predominantly open source model," the analyst company said. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z4c6b"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z4c6b&a<br /&ustralia and New Zealand Visual Effects Industries Support Autodesk's Move to Linux-based Systems Products &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ver the past two years, Autodesk has transitioned its Media and Entertainment systems products from running on proprietary, high-end SGI workstations to running on Linux-based personal computers (PCs).  To date, more than 30 Autodesk Linux-based systems seats have been installed in Australia and New Zealand. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zad2a"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zad2a&a<br /&sia Pacific Digital Content Creators and Broadcasters Turn to Autodesk's Linux-based Solutions &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ver a dozen broadcasters and post-production facilities in the Asia Pacific region have recently embraced Autodesk, Inc.'s visual effects, editing/finishing and digital color-grading products running on the Linux operating system. [...] In its China Linux 2006-2010 Forecast and Analysis report, market research firm IDC estimates that China's Linux market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 34 percent from 2006 to 2010. IDC also forecasts that by 2008, Linux-based personal computers (PCs) will account for more than 9 percent of PC unit shipments in Asia Pacific. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z7361"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z7361&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zc8df How Windows Vista is turning people to Linux &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ure, we have to be balanced and fair; Microsoft can’t take all the credit. There have been remarkable advances in the world of open source software that have reached the public eye. This includes the runaway success of the diminutive ASUS Eee Linux PC which brought its Xandros Linux-based software to the forefront. In fact, the Eee was so surprisingly successful that it single-handedly launched an entire new product range for ASUS and also spawned a whole new category of modern lightweight, internet-connected hardware known as nettops and netbooks. Suddenly it seems every manufacturer and their dog is at work churning out such a beast. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z494dc"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z494dc&a<br /&ecent: Linux preinstalls rocket to three per cent &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&inux has nevertheless made an impressive gain. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z283b"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z283b&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z494dc The rise of the all-conquering Liliputer &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he number of models of "Liliputer" - low-cost ultraportable PCs running Windows or Linux - has exploded to more than 100 in less than a year, according to Liliputing.com, a site put together by the freelance journalist Brad Linder. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zd311"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zd311&a<br /&There's a lot of Linux out there -- much more than Microsoft generally signals publicly -- and their customers are using it..." --Paul DeGroot, a Directions On Microsoft analyst. Recent: Intel &rosoft Killed the $100 Laptop &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he article points that the stand taken by Intel and Microsoft is similar to the stand by large drug companies who, instead of working for the illnesses that plague the poor, (such as malaria) choose to focus on low-volume, high-margin drugs for cancer, heart ailments and diabetes. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?za924c"&ttp://s5h.net/u?za924c&a<br /&icrosoft dropped Vista hardware spec to raise Intel profits &r /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zbeefc"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zbeefc&a<br /&icrosoft 'Caves' To Intel &r /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z8d69"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z8d69&a<br /&ntel Backstabs Microsoft by Abandoning Vista &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he news that Intel has decided it won't upgrade its PCs to Vista must be especially bitter for Microsoft because court documents show that Microsoft may have launched its ill-fated "junk PC" Vista scheme at the behest of Intel. Is this the kind of payback that Microsoft expected? &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z70ba"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z70ba&a<br /&ntel won't touch Vista &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&o that leaves two other choices, Linux and Mac. Linux is a distinct possibility, they already have an in-house distro that causes employees look nervously around the room when you talk about it. Although it is not a desktop variant, there is no reason that they could not roll one given two years. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z88d7c"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z88d7c&a<br /&tellini: 'MID revolution will be centred round Linux' &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ntel CEO says Microsoft's insistence on pushing Vista will hand market to open source rival Intel's CEO has said that he sees the revolution that is about to happen around mobile internet devices (MID) such as the Eee PC and other Atom-based sub-notebooks will be "centred round Linux", in an interview with Associated Press. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zd981"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zd981&a<br /&U files new charges against Intel &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&uropean Union antitrust regulators made new accusations against chipmaker Intel on Thursday, saying it paid retailers to not sell PCs using chips made by rival Advanced Micro Devices. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z49a06"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z49a06&a<br /&ntel "paid vendors not to use AMD" &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&MD filed suit in Delaware against Intel in June of 2005, accusing its competitor of abusing its monopolistic position. The complaint charges that customers were forced not to use AMD processors. At that time the Japanese anti-trust body was investigating Intel and the EU Commission also had its eye on Intel's behaviour. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z226d"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z226d&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zd311 Microsoft plans Apple event spoiler? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Mac rumour machine is predicting Apple will introduce new products at a special event on 9 September - but now it appears Microsoft plans to flex its muscle to spoil Apple's game. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z42052"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z42052&a<br /&icrosoft sabotaged PlayStation 3 launch parties around the world. Apple iPhone ad banned &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an ad for the iPhone which promised users access to "all parts of the Internet" on their Apple device. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z84420"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z84420&a<br /&pple tried open source defence in ad case &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ay what? So, to translate: "We at Apple only want to use open standards. We won't include stuff we can't control. It's for the user's own good. Even if they can't access all the intarwebs as promised. Unless they're using Safari on the desktop, in which case this argument doesn't apply." Is that about right? If so, it's certainly a thought-provoking approach to take... &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z3ee3b"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z3ee3b&a<br /&I am convinced we have to use Windows – this is the one thing they don’t have. We have to be competitive with features, but we need something more — Windows integration." --Jim Allchin, Microsoft Yesterday: Apple goes auntie over slasher comic &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he application because it breaches their SDK license, serving up content that "...in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable". The problem is that this restriction only applies to applications. Dodgy movies, episodes of South Park or even The Breakfast Club are perfectly acceptable iTunes content. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?za81c"&ttp://s5h.net/u?za81c&a<br /&pple Takes the "Tris" Out of iPhone Tetris &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ow a student named Noah Witherspoon that created an iPhone Tetris knock-off called simply "Tris," has been threatened with legal action by The Tetris Company. In what he refers to as "petty bullying," the company had Apple contact Witherspoon and had him pull the game from the iTunes App Store. Apple even told him that they'd take action themselves if he didn't comply. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zfd39"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zfd39&a<br /&ays ago: OpenClip, she is dead &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&or those of you who do not remember - or do not care to remember - OpenClip was supposed to be an open framework for implementing the Cocoa NSPasteboard functionality to the iPhone. While I’m thinking that if Apple wanted to implement copy/paste into the iPhone they would have done it already or will do it soon, OpenClip was a noble effort to work around the limitations of OS X on the iPhone. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z1c2fb"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z1c2fb&a<br /&hy does Apple Always Seem to Get a Break??? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&inux. This is the only platform that is not a prison. You are really free with Linux. People are congregating at will, building creative new structures. Yeah – maybe it isn’t as pretty as the luxury hotel prison that is Apple, but at least we are free. In the end it isn’t prison walls that win in technology. CompuServe and AOL were beaten by the internet. Centrally controlled mainframes were killed by the PC. Over time the best technology comes from innovation in unexpected places and while we are occasionally wooed by the pretty sounds of “You’ve Got Mail” or the stunning design of a new iPhone; we have all seen this movie before and know how it ends. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?ze267"&ttp://s5h.net/u?ze267&a<br /&teve Jobs thinks he is disabled &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&PPLE MESSIAH Steve Jobs has been a bit sick lately but according to US gossip reports it could be a lot worse than anyone thought. The sultan of smug has been seen parking his motor in a disabled carparks in Palo-Alto much to the horror of Apple fans who believe him to be capable of healing the sick with his beautiful entertainment toys. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?ze2f1"&ttp://s5h.net/u?ze2f1&a<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z76251"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z76251&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z42052 Microsoft Unintentionally Blocking Some Xbox 360 Users From Registering To Vote [UPDATED] &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&hacknews discovered something strange while testing out Microsoft’s “Rock The Vote” section on Xbox Live: Silver users can’t register to vote. That seemed like a one-time glitch. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zb28d"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zb28d&a<br /&etter than to have real ballots devour votes (as reported recently). Related: Windows Outstuffs Linux in Poll &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&inux users are accusing the Microsoft-affiliated news site of tampering with the results of an online poll. They believe that the numbers were altered to ensure that a Microsoft-made system was chosen as the winner. [...] Reichard also notes that at some point during the poll Linux "magically" lost votes. "At one point Linux had 37 percent of 37,000, which works out to just over 14,000 votes. But when the voting reached 205,000, the poll showed Linux had 6 percent, which is only about 12,000 votes." &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zda177"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zda177&a<br /&.Net vote rigging illustrates importance of Web services &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&y 21 December, more than two-thirds of the respondents (69.5 percent), said they planned to deliver some applications by Web services by the end of 2002, with a large majority of those (nearly half the total sample) planning to use Java. Only 21.5 percent said they planned to use Microsoft .Net -- less than the figure (23.5 percent) planning to use neither. But by the time the poll closed, on 5 January, the position had dramatically changed, with three quarters of voters claiming to be implementing .Net. This apparent sudden change of heart over the Christmas period appears to be the result of a concerted campaign within Microsoft. ZDNet UK logs reveal rather obvious vote rigging, and prove that it originated from within Microsoft:     * A very high percentage of voters are from within the microsoft.com     domain.     * There is a very high incidence of people attempting to cast multiple     votes, even though the poll script blocked out most attempts at multiple     voting. The one that wins the prize made 228 attempts to vote. This     person was from within the microsoft.com domain.     * Several of the voters evidently followed a link contained in an email,     the subject line of which ran: "PLEASE STOP AND VOTE FOR .NET!" We know     this, because our logs include the Web address where visitors browsed     from; when people click there from a Microsoft Exchange email message,     Exchange helpfully gives us the subject line and username. The people who     followed that link all had email addresses in the microsoft.com domain.     * There is also clear evidence of automated voting, with scripts     attempting to post multiple times. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z88ce8"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z88ce8&a<br /&uppet countries leaves P membership &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&icrosoft Puppet countries are leaving the P membership. Lebanon, Turkey, Cyprus, and Trinidad &ago have already dropped out. All those countries voted Yes without comments to OOXML. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zb84f"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zb84f&a<br /&artin Bryan: we are getting “standardization by corporation” &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& November informative report of Martin Bryan, Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 WG1 highlights the fallout of the ECMA-376 fast-track process for ISO. He says he is 'glad to be retiring before the situation becomes impossible' [...] In what is an astonishingly outspoken report, Martin Bryan, Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 WG1 has given us insight into the total mess that Microsoft/ECMA have caused during their scandalous, underhand and unremitting attempts to get - what is a very poorly written specification {i.e. DIS 29500 aka OOXML, AR} - approved as an ISO standard. … &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zc967"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zc967&a<br /&ysfunctional ISO - Courtesy of Microsoft &r /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zc7fb2"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zc7fb2&a<br /&icrosoft accused of stacking ISO committee &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&n a memo sent following his last meeting as head of the working group on WG1, which is handling Microsoft’s application to make the Word format an ISO standard as ECMA 376, outgoing Governor Martin Bryan (above), an expert on SGML and XML, accused the company of stacking his group. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z75ee"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z75ee&a<br /&U Commission Investigating Microsoft's MSOOXML Push &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& hope they think to investigate the smear campaigns that seem to always happen to anyone on the other side from Microsoft. What happened to Peter Quinn was by no means unique. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z755c6"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z755c6&a<br /&oftware wars &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&llegations of committee-stuffing, the outcome of votes overridden by political appointees, a final decision that many involved consider tainted: this may sound like a discredited election in some third world country. But it is actually a description of an ugly fight over international technical standards that wrapped up this week. Microsoft came out on top, but at the cost of tarnishing its reputation and the credibility of an important back-room process that oils the wheels of many global industries.       &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zeab00"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zeab00&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zb28d Chinese lawyer puts Microsoft in the hot seat &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ong Zhengwei, a partner with Beijing-based Zhongyin law firm, has attracted the attention of multinational corporate executives and the legal community alike, after he filed a complaint against Microsoft with China’s anti-monopoly regulators and proposed that a US$1bn fine be imposed on the global software giant. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zec2e"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zec2e&a<br /&mmersion settles suit with Microsoft &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&mmersion Corp, which develops and licenses touch feedback technology, said it will pay $20.75 million to software maker Microsoft Corp as part of the settlement of a litigation. The companies agreed to resolve Microsoft's claim under a 2003 sublicense agreement, as well as Immersion's counterclaim that Microsoft breached a confidentiality agreement dated May 2007, Immersion said in a statement. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?ze0274"&ttp://s5h.net/u?ze0274&a<br /&ecent: CF files FTC complaint against Microsoft &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Consumers' Foundation (CF), a private consumer watchdog, filed a complaint yesterday with the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) against Microsoft over the software giant's pulling Windows XP from the Taiwan market in line with its migration to the new operating system Vista. The CF urged the government body to impose sanctions on Microsoft for the termination of Windows XP sales in Taiwan. "We suggest that the FTC slap Microsoft with a heavy fine for impairing market fairness," said CF Acting Chairman Hsieh Tien-jen while delivering the complaint to the commission. [...] "Sixty-seven percent of local users want a return of XP to the market," he said, citing the results of another poll. He described Microsoft's marketing strategy as an abuse of consumer rights. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z1bc48"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z1bc48&a<br /<br /<br /<span class="lniquote"&oland’s Office for Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) claims that selling laptops with obligatorily preinstalled Microsoft's Windows operating system constitutes a monopolistic practice and is restrictive to competition.... The investigation, instigated in December 2007, as a result of many complaints filed with the UOKiK by Polish consumers, has revealed that breaching antimonopoly principles in commonplace among computer hardware and software producers. "[Consumers] complained that they could not make their own choice of an operating system when buying a laptop", Malgorzata Cieloch, UOKiK's Spokesperson has told Gazeta Wyborcza." &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z2740"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z2740&a<br /&U: Hearing on Competition Office complaint over Microsoft deal &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Metropolitan Court's (Fővárosi Bíróság) second hearing on a complaint by Hungary's Competition Office over a government software tender requesting "Microsoft or equivalent solutions" is scheduled for 1 September, the Hungarian IT news site IT Cafe reports. The Competition Office in March decided to take the Hungarian Public Procurement Authority to court for refusing to annul the 25 billion HUF (about a 100 million euro) tender. The request to cancel the software tender was filed earlier that same month by three Hungarian IT companies specialising in Open Source software solutions, ULX, Multiráció and Open SKM. The companies say that the tender is anti-competitive since it explicitly calls for Microsoft products. The Public Procurement Authority denied the request. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z8f6c6"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z8f6c6&a<br /&teve Ballmer Receives the Egg-treatment in Budapest &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&pdate#2: OK, enough of the fun part. As the story circulates people start wondering what may be the background, and since the only sources are in Hungarian, here’s a summary of the circumstances:     A Hungarian Government bid, worth $25B Hungarian Forints, roughly $157M     was allegedly skewed towards MS. (A ‘competitive’ bid with wording that     all but ensures only Microsoft meets the requirements.) A Hungarian     Watchdog Body (sort of like the FTC in the US) challenged the bidding     process via the Court system, and a trial date was set for today. The     trial was suddenly and unexpectedly rescheduled just as Ballmer arrived     in Budapest. So there may be a perception of the Bully lobbying there. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?za1c34"&ttp://s5h.net/u?za1c34&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zec2e Security Researcher Warns of Vista Vulnerabilities &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& New Zealand security researcher is exploring several scenarios in which Windows Vista could be attacked and warns more protection is needed for users. Ben Hawkes presented his findings at the Black Hat conference, held in Las Vegas this month, and will also present them at the Kiwicon conference, to be held in Wellington in the end of September. Hawkes' research has uncovered hacking techniques for attacking the Vista heap, which is a dynamic memory management component, used by every single application, from Microsoft Word to web applications, he says. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z9ae59"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z9ae59&a<br /&ew Computer Vulnerability Discovered, Affects Microsoft, Intel, HP and Other Platforms &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ViZ ,a company that specializes in on-demand penetration testing, announced its discovery of a new class of vulnerability. This vulnerability lets attackers steal computer boot passwords and reach the pre-boot authentication software like hard disk encryption tools. It can result in unauthorized access and theft of confidential data, contributing to an already big problem; for 2007, the global loss due to data theft was estimated at $40 billion. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?za104"&ttp://s5h.net/u?za104&a<br /&pace worm causes concern &r /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z57e9c"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z57e9c&a<br /&ecent: Bots rule in cyberspace &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&SA TODAY REPORTS that on an average day, 40 per cent of the 800 million computers connected to the Internet are bots used to send out spam, viruses and to mine for sensitive personal data. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z27d2"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z27d2&a<br /&tudy Says Linux More Secure &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ore than 70 percent people surveyed said they found Red Hat Linux less vulnerable to security issues than Microsoft's operating system. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zc514ad"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zc514ad&a<br /&tudy: 70 percent say Red Hat more secure than Windows &r /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zb35b5"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zb35b5&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z9ae59 Microsoft readies new Windows XP Pro antipiracy nag &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&icrosoft Corp. today said it will update the antipiracy software in Windows XP Professional to make nagging more prominent for those running bogus copies and -- assuming the user approves the update -- to skip any future notification of an impending update to the tool. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?ze0e8"&ttp://s5h.net/u?ze0e8&a<br /&elated: Windows 2000 faces security melt down &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&espite the fact that the operating system is as old as Spinola, and that Microsoft refused to service them any more, there is still a large number of Windows 2000 machines out there. According to News.com, a "critical" Windows 2000 exploit has been released on the Internet designed to kick the crutch of the ageing operating system. The exploit takes advantage of a security hole in a file system and print request application "Workstation Service". The flaw can be exploited remotely without any user interaction. [...] Microsoft has released a patch for the operating system using security bulletin MS06-070. This is despite saying that it had given up on Windows 2000 and would not make any more security ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ fixes for it. ^^^^^^^^^^^^ &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z5be"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z5be&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?ze0e8 Firefox extension protects against man-in-the-middle attacks &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&esearchers at Carnegie Mellon University have released an extension for Firefox 3 that can protect wireless network users from so-called "man-in-the-middle" attacks. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z2b801"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z2b801&a<br /&0 Firefox add-ons for better browsing &r /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z513d"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z513d&a<br /&op 10 Firefox add-ons &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&dd-ons or extensions are small pieces of software that can add new features or tiny tweaks to your browser. They can add niche search engines, change the look of your browser tool bar, block annoying pop-ups, preview links, organise your browsing history and do much more. Mozilla Corp, which recently set a world record with Firefox 3, recently held its annual competition that recognises the year's best Firefox add-ons. This year's contest focused on add-ons that took advantage of its latest open-source browser Firefox 3. Here's listing what Mozilla crowned best Firefox add-ons. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z39f1"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z39f1&a<br /&oogle adds geolocation to Gears offline plug-in &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ew API will let developers create apps that can obtain information from Gears about end users' geographic location. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z4f65"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z4f65&a<br /&ecent: CyberNotes: Top 10 Firefox Extensions to Impress Your Friends &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&irefox extensions are often lauded for the additional features and functionality that they bring to the browser. Some of them can save you crazy amounts of time, while others are more about beautifying Firefox. Here at CyberNet we typically try to focus on those extensions that can make you more productive, but today we’re going to flaunt what the developers have given us. That’s right, it’s time to tell your friends that your browser is better than theirs. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z21cf"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z21cf&a<br /&irefox 3 is coming - is it everything we hoped for? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&hile it can be said that there are no can't-live-without features included, the full package is a great improvement on Firefox 2. Mozilla have made a lot of changes and innovations to the application but it's unlikely that anything will strike the casual user and make him or her go "wow!". However, the speed of the browser and its handling of web applications could make it a winner and it looks like Mozilla has again raised the bar for Microsoft. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?ze977"&ttp://s5h.net/u?ze977&a<br /&ozilla: Firefox 3 beats IE7 and Opera in memory tests &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ork done to plug Firefox's memory leaks and reduce its RAM profile has paid off, two of Mozilla's engineers said Friday, as they claimed that the newest beta of their open-source browser uses less memory than rivals such as Internet Explorer and Opera. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z7453"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z7453&a<br /&irefox 3 is Worth the Upgrade! &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ure, Firefox is algorithmically beautiful. The sad truth though is that 99% of people don’t appreciate this. What is appreciated is what you see on the screen. And in this regard, Firefox 3 does not disappoint either. The best improvement made was the adoption of native program controls in both Firefox’s controls, and in actual websites. What does this mean? Take a look for yourself.     &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zeadf"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zeadf&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z2b801 Windows PCs Subject to Clogging, Need Draino &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he release of a new OS begins both a new hardware buying cycle and an upgrade cycle. Since the buying cycle is stretched to six years or more, you end up with an interesting phenomenon: The upgrade cycle is contaminated with machines too old to upgrade. This causes the entire system to break down because the upgrade cycle immediately feeds back into the perception of the new product. In the situation with Vista, too many old clunkers couldn't be upgraded and the OS was given a bad reputation. This was worsened by Microsoft itself discouraging upgrades and admitting to problems. Combined with the Apple attack ads the public perception of Vista skewed to the negative. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zdb873"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zdb873&a<br /&elated: Windows Vista: Sold but not deployed &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&icrosoft says it remains happy with enterprise sales of Vista -- however, the software behemoth acknowledges that many businesses which have bought Vista licences are yet to deploy the software.   &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?ze6dc6"&ttp://s5h.net/u?ze6dc6&a<br /&ill Windows Vista Succeed In 2008? Don't Count On It &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ista has certainly been slow out of the gate. Sure, Microsoft is putting the operating system on newly shipped systems, but Vista sales didn’t benefit from the upgrade surge that previous OSes got upon release. A year after it began shipping, less than one percent of corporate desktops are running                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vista.     ^^^^^ &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z1b4c6"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z1b4c6&a<br /&indows Vista kicked out of Olympics PCs &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&icrosoft's latest version of Windows is too risky to implement for the important computers managing the 2008 Olympic summer games in Beijing, said the event's computer supplier and sponsor Lenovo.   &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z0561"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z0561&a<br /&cer: PC industry 'disappointed' with Vista &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&cer president Gianfranco Lanci became the first major PC manufacturer to openly attack Microsoft over the Windows Vista operating system in the Financial Times Deutschland on Monday.   Lanci said the operating system was riddled with problems and gave users and businesses no reason to buy a new PC, according to the report. Taiwan-based Acer is the world's fourth-largest PC manufacturer, after HP, Dell and Lenovo. "The whole industry is disappointed with Windows Vista," Lanci said. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z55a2"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z55a2&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zdb873 Firefox 3.1 "three times faster" than predecessor &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&irefox 3.1 could run web apps almost three times faster than previous version, according to the Mozilla Foundation. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zdb47d"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zdb47d&a<br /&ecent: Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 now available for download &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he first developer milestone of the next release of Firefox - code named Shiretoko Alpha 1 - is now available for download. Shiretoko is built on pre-release version of the Gecko 1.9.1 platform, which forms the core of rich internet applications such as Firefox. Please note that this release is intended for developers and testers only. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z89532"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z89532&a<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zd6ea"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zd6ea&a<br /&ew tab switching added for Firefox 3.1 &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ress Ctrl + Tab (or Shift + Ctrl + Tab) and you are presented with tab thumbnails and titles with the most recently visited ones first so you can more easily determine which tab you want to go, have the one you most probably want to go closer, and as a result get to it faster. Hold Ctrl pressed and keep pressing Tab to see the thumbnails smoothly scroll to the left while the status bar displays the tab web address. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zacd7"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zacd7&a<br /&irefox is King &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ozilla Firefox is now the king of all browsers. --At least based on the web traffic data gathered from junauza.com and from a popular tech blog by known Windows Vista fanboy user Jeff Atwood. Firefox tops all other web browsers and most importantly kicked its archrival Internet Explorer out of the highest position. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z9f30"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z9f30&a<br /&irefox 3.1 alpha 1 code freeze is next Monday &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&irefox 3 has only recently shipped but the first public milestone for its successor is fast approaching.  The Mozilla team is expecting that the code freeeze for alpha 1 of Firefox 3.1, code named Shiretoko, will be next Monday and that alpha 1 be available for early adopter testing on July 25. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z2fd8d"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z2fd8d&a<br /&ozilla pitches Firefox 3.1 alpha for July release &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ust a week after Mozilla shipped Firefox 3.0, the open-source developer has proposed ship dates for the next version that, if approved, would produce an alpha release next month and a final no later than early 2009. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z80420"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z80420&a<br /&irefox 3.1 (Shiretoko) planned features draft &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& very early draft of planned features reveals that as expected, this release will be mainly about landing stuff that didn’t make it on time for the Firefox 3, along with the usual performance, stability and security bug fixes. Visual tab switching and tab searching/filtering were both tried for Firefox 3, abandoned for other more critical features, and are being considered for 3.1. Ctrl+Tab, a extension developed by Dao Gottwald implements both of them displaying a thumbnail of the opened tabs when pressing Ctrl + Tab to switch tabs. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zf33b"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zf33b&a<br /&ozilla targets Firefox 3.1 release for later this year &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&lthough Mozilla hasn't even released the final version of Firefox 3.0, its developers are already hammering out plans for the next edition, which may come as soon as late 2008, according to posts written by company executives. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zce06"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zce06&a<br /&evelopers: Firefox 3.1 Update Should Be "Easy" &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he release of Firefox 3.0 has been a resounding success, but for some the upgrade path has been less than painless. The latest version of the open source browser differed enough from previous versions that many add-ons had to be substantially rewritten before they would work with the new release. And just when the dust appeared to be clearing, Firefox 3.1 is on the horizon. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z6bfed"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z6bfed&a<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z30d27"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z30d27&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zdb47d Microsoft dishes dirt on IE8 'pr0n mode' &r /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z74609"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z74609&a<br /&icrosoft Adds Privacy Tools to Internet Explorer 8 &r /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zae7d"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zae7d&a<br /&J: "I find this article a bit puzzling, unless there are other features not mentioned, because you can already achieve the first mentioned privacy already in Firefox and in Opera, and more." Microsoft Files Patents for 'InPrivate' and 'Cleartracks' Browser Privacy Tools &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&icrosoft (News - Alert) has reportedly applied for trademarks to protect two of its Internet tools, InPrivate and Cleartracks. Microsoft indicated that these tools could be part of the upcoming version of Internet Explorer 8 Web browser. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z9a55"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z9a55&a<br /&ow dare they patent it? Recent: Web browser to get 'privacy mode' &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&icrosoft watchers have spotted two patent applications covering ways to manage the amount of information a browser logs. When introduced the privacy mode will match features found on other browsers. Medical test Australian blogger Long Zheng has found two patent applications made by Microsoft on 30 July for ideas it calls "Cleartracks" and "Inprivate". &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z26f6"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z26f6&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z74609 Why Firefox Will Be Ubiquitous &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&learly, this is the most problematic aspect of what otherwise is an amazing capability. I'm already addicted to it, even though it's still a bit clunky under GNU/Linux: it simply makes things that I do all the time – emailing links, doing word counts of Web pages, mapping addresses, translating foreign language sites – trivially easy. If you want to see the future of the Web, I suggest you download it and try it out. It's yet another reason why Firefox, already hugely enriched through myriad extensions, will take over from Internet Explorer, and yet another example of how open source is becoming a hotbed of online innovation. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zfb74"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zfb74&a<br /&ntroducing Ubiquity &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ou’re writing an email to invite a friend to meet at a local San Francisco restaurant that neither of you has been to. You’d like to include a map. Today, this involves the disjointed tasks of message composition on a web-mail service, mapping the address on a map site, searching for reviews on the restaurant on a search engine, and finally copying all links into the message being composed. This familiar sequence is an awful lot of clicking, typing, searching, copying, and pasting in order to do a very simple task. And you haven’t even really sent a map or useful reviews—only links to them. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zeb11"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zeb11&a<br /&bout:mozilla - Major update, Labs meetup, MozCamps, Web tech blog, MDC, JavaScript, Firebug, Extend Firefox, and more… &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&n this issue… * Firefox 2 gets a major update * Monthly Labs Meetup - Thurs, Aug 28 in SF * Toronto MozCamp: Workshops - Sep 15-16 * Mozilla Camp Europe - Oct 25-26 * Mark Surman: New Mozilla Foundation Executive Director * New Mozilla Web Tech weblog * New and improved Mozilla Developer Center * JavaScript performance improvements coming for Firefox 3.1 * Firebug 1.2 released * Extend Firefox 3 contest winners [...] &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z594e"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z594e&a<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z4ea44"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z4ea44&a<br /&ecent: Firefox translated into Ugandan language &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& two-day translation marathon has resulted in a version of Mozilla's Firefox browser Firefox in Luganda, Uganda's most widely spoken language. The software will be made available by Makerere University's Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (CIT) with the aim of giving non-English speakers a browsing tool. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z43717"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z43717&a<br /&ozilla experiments push Firefox envelope &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ozilla is experimenting with several ideas to push the browser envelope, including one that could turn the browser into a messaging hub. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zeff48"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zeff48&a<br /&icrosoft Flops and Loses 7% of the Browser Market in Last 12 Months - Vista Still Only Used by Less Than 15% of all Users, per Janco &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&anco and the IT Productivity Center have just released their Browser and Operating System Market Share White Paper. The major findings are: Microsoft's browser market share has continued to erode and has fallen to 58.50% versus 65.48% (loss of 6.96%) in August 2007 and 82.99% (loss of 24.49%) in August 2005; Firefox has maintained its number 2 browser position and now is used by almost 19% (18.94%) of all users; Google Desktop has over 4% (4.01%) of the market; and Time Warner made a strategic error in abandoning Netscape as users continue to use Netscape even though AOL no longer supports it. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z044c8"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z044c8&a<br /&ozilla’s Firefox Wins the “Who’s the Next Open Source Idol” Crown at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&roundWork Open Source, Inc. (www.groundworkopensource.com), announced today Mozilla’s Firefox was successful in beating out the other three contestants, reigning champion “Tux” the Linux kernel penguin, “Beastie” the BSD demon and the GNU “Gnu” to become the world’s favorite Open Source Idol. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z71192"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z71192&a<br /&irst Look: Mozilla Snowl &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&eturning to Snowl, hot on the heels of Mozilla Lab’s call for participation in exploring the future of the browser, and the experimental Weave service, comes Mozilla’s efforts to move messaging beyond email and to the types of communication now commonplace across social networks, blogs and services such as Twitter. Mozilla’s Myk Melez describes Snowl as a browser extension that helps users ‘follow and participate in online discussions’ and track all your conversations across various networks, services, protocols and messaging types. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z6b5ed"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z6b5ed&a<br /&irefox Most Installed Open Source Project &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ccording to the Open Source Census, Ubuntu and Debian are the most used Linux distributions. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?za871"&ttp://s5h.net/u?za871&a<br /&ozilla reveals the Firefox of the future? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ozilla has unveiled a spectacular new concept browser, dubbed Aurora. The bleeding-edge browser is part of a new Mozilla Labs initiative, in which the open-source foundation is encouraging people to contribute ideas and designs for the browser of the future. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z05554"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z05554&a<br /&ozilla Looks to Grass Roots for Next Wave of Browser Innovation &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Mozilla Labs Concept Series is a program for gathering from the public ideas on developing new software projects. The program kicked off with three new concept applications: the Aurora browser, a mobile version of Firefox and a new way to visualize bookmarks. The purpose is to let any user join the conversation, not just those with programming skills. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z6c9c"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z6c9c&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zfb74 Don't just buy the music, fans told - now you can invest in big names of the future &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he music executives behind Kaiser Chiefs and Primal Scream are backing a new website that will allow music fans to invest financially as well as emotionally in hotly tipped new acts. The venture, dreamed up by a music business lawyer and backed by the founder of Friends Reunited, is being billed as the latest innovative funding model that could provide artists with an alternative to major labels. Bandstocks will let the public buy a stake in an artist in £10 increments. Once funding reaches a preordained level, for example £100,000, the money will be released for the act to record an album. Investors will get a copy of the album, a credit on the CD sleeve and a percentage of the profits from its sale and licensing. They will also get priority ticket booking and the opportunity to buy limited edition releases. For the artist, founder Andrew Lewis claimed that Bandstocks would offer a better return than a major-label deal, as well as more freedom and control over copyright. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zdf759"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zdf759&a<br /&ecent: Antipiracy Campaign Exasperates Colleges &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ow, feeling burdened and betrayed, some of those universities are quietly fighting back, resisting requests for information and trying to quash subpoenas. Those that do so, though, find that their past compliance — and the continued compliance of their peer institutions — is being held against them. "We feel like we've been led down the garden path, and our interest in working in partnership and leading our mission as educators is now being used against us," said Tracy Mitrano, director of IT policy at Cornell University. [...] "At the point where universities finally come to see they're the target of this RIAA campaign, that's the point at which they'll start arguing their own self-interest," says Charles R. Nesson, founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. He believes the RIAA is trying to wear universities down with letters and subpoenas until they give in and install filtering software, a policy precedent that the RIAA may then decide to use against commercial ISP's. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z10c82"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z10c82&a<br /&llman Brothers sue UMG for 'digital exploitation' &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he popular group, formed in the 1960s, sued UMG Recordings in federal court on Monday, claiming it was the victim of "digital exploitation." They are asking for a larger cut of recordings sold through third parties, demanding at least $13 million and additional royalties from CD sales and digital downloads. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z14789"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z14789&a<br /&ne Man's Quest to Digitize and Publicize Rare Vinyl &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&housands of recordings that had been largely consigned to the realm of prehistory in the digital age have gained a new life, thanks to the tireless efforts of one man. [...] As the digital music movement started in earnest, Bolling began digitizing his records, and posted a list of first 1,500 songs he had digitized so fellow collectors could see what kind of progress he had made. Finally, he decided to upload MP3s of every song on the list so that he could access them from anywhere, and so that curiosity seekers could find them. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z13b6d"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z13b6d&a<br /&buntu community head tests music economics with open content &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&buntu community manager Jono Bacon, an independent musician and prominent figure in the open source software community, is starting a new solo music project through which he aims to explore the challenges of distributing music under a Creative Commons license. He hopes that his efforts will bring some clarity to the copyright debate and provide real answers about how open content might change the economics of the music industry. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zaf88e"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zaf88e&a<br /&reative Collaboration: The Open Source Filmmaking Experiment &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ith new collaborative tools available, some filmmakers are opening up their work to the participation of others. Tapping into the creative power of the crowd can take a film in an entirely new direction -- one that the creator hadn't even envisioned. [...] Creative Commons, which gives users the option of opening up the rights to their work, has done much to facilitate open source creative work, including filmmaking, &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zc04cb"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zc04cb&a<br /&elated: Australia set to give the go-ahead for Creative Commons licensing &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&esearchers at Queensland will shortly publish a study on the pricing of public sector information which is expected to set out the case for making all government data free. We will watch with interest. In the meantime, we think the UK government could usefully copy one set of Australian ideas: a policy review in 2002 which said that the government should not try to charge for data where to do so is not cost-effective, would be inconsistent with policy objectives or would unduly stifle competition and innovation. Bonza!       &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z4f05"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z4f05&a<br /&essig For Congress? &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& 'Draft Lessig' group is forming on Facebook, featuring some of Lessig's old co-workers at Harvard and Jimmy Wales, among others. No word from Lessig himself yet, but he's been increasingly vocal about politics of late. If it happens, it would be a huge step forward for the representation of technology in Washington.     &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zb74c"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zb74c&a<br /&he Creative Commons CC0 project &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&C0[http://creativecommons.org/projects/cczero] is a Creative Commons project designed to promote and protect the public domain by 1) enabling authors to easily waive their copyrights in particular works and to communicate that waiver to others, and 2) providing a means by which any person can assert that there are no copyrights in a particular work, in a way that allows others to judge the reliability of that assertion. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z96ca"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z96ca&a<br /&reative Commons Artist Spotlight: Convey &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&very week, we will introduce our readers to emerging musical artists who choose to release their work under Creative Commons licenses. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zaf18c"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zaf18c&a<br /&edora and Creative Commons Team Up To Deliver LiveContent Distribution &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ed Hat and Creative Commons have said that Fedora 7 will serve as the platform for Creative Commons LiveContent CD, an initiative to showcase free, open source software and dynamic, Creative Commons-licensed multimedia content.   &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z4011"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z4011&a<br /&Creative Commons in Support of] GPLv3! &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&ote that Creative Commons has always recommended the GPL and other free software licenses for software. We look forward to transitioning software we create to GPLv3. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z87810"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z87810&a<br /&reative Commons Sponsored Software ccHost Release &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&hese features most notably show up and are tested in Creative Commons' project, ccMixter (www.ccmixter.org), a popular on-line social network service that supports legal music sharing and remixing. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z47e4"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z47e4&a<br /&andling of Microsoft's copyleft violation &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"& member of the Microsoft packaged software team lifting one of my images is definitely a case where the infringing party should have known better, as the company routinely takes action to protect its own IP. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z6a6"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z6a6&a<br /&ewsmaker:  Joi Ito a man of many hats &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&: I would like to ask if Joi thinks traditional copyright as articulated in much Western legislation is outdated? Ito: I think copyright is outdated. Basically, copyright in the physical world is a very limited thing. It doesn't affect you showing someone a book, how you read a book or how you sell a book you own because it involves only making copies which used to be expensive and cumbersome. On the Net, every time you view a Web page, you are making a copy, and every activity that involves content involves a lot of copying and mixing of stuff. This screws up copyright but also allows copyright to significantly screw us up by extending the ability of copyright to influence and control a significant portion of our online activities just because every step we take, we are "copying" something. Creative Commons is trying to work inside of the current copyright regime to provide choice and show people the value of sharing and do what we can. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z5990"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z5990&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?zdf759 Talend Makes Splash with Open Source Data Quality Suite &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&pen source data quality (DQ) tools are here and more are on the horizon. For example, consider open source data integration (DI) specialist Talend. It made a splash at last week's TDWI World Conference in San Diego, announcing Talend Data Quality, a DQ complement to its flagship ETL software that the company claims is comparable to alternatives from Business Objects (an SAP company), DataFlux (a SAS Institute Inc. company), IBM Corp., and Informatica Corp. DQ has been on Talend's roadmap for some time. Just two months ago, the company unveiled what it billed as the industry's first open source data profiling tool, too -- Talend Open Profiler. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z3eb94"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z3eb94&a<br /&ecent: Talend releases open-source data-profiling application &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&alend Open Profiler is available for free download under a GPL license at the company's Web site. Support is available under fee-based contracts. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z2bb47"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z2bb47&a<br /&elated: How The GPL Can Save Your Ass &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&f you are the multi-billion dollar IT industry you stick you head in the sand and just keep making cars. It is after all, not your problem. That seems to be the attitude of almost every company with a vested interest in the computing market. There was a recent announcement indicating Intel and Microsoft have put up $10 million to fund research in parallel software. Hah! I'm going to laugh harder this time HAH, HAH! Ever here the phase pissing in the ocean, well this is more like throwing a match into the sun. We need more -- much more. [...] Second, the entire in industry must co-operate and be involved. We need everyone working on this problem. The best minds in high performance computing have been at it for quite a while and it is time to turn up the volume. Fantasies of telling your R&ys to get on it are not enough. Trying to corral your Intellectual Property (IP) with trade secrets and patents is wishful thinking. The rocket scientists (and plenty of other smart people) have been working on this issue for a long time. You don't have the time to waste trying to expand your IP fiefdom. Instead start thinking about what happens when the next generation of products is of absolutely no interest to your customers. Third we need to respond quickly. There is no time for IP agreements, posturing, and NIH ego trips (Not Invented Here). We need leaders to recognize the scope and magnitude of this challenge and act. Before too long, it will not be unreasonable to have four or even eight cores in a desktop. A workstation or server may have double this amount. It would sure be nice if my software could effectively use all these cores. [...] Using the GPL will immediately remove issues that would normally choke such an important undertaking. First, the any IP barriers get pushed aside and everyone can cooperate openly &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z3d74"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z3d74&a<br /> http://s5h.net/u?z3eb94 Burns Lake (B.C.) Public Library Goes Live with Evergreen &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&urns Lake Public Library of the British Columbia SITKA Consortium has become the 8th library in the British Sitka consortium to go live with Evergreen, the consortial-quality open-source library automation software. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?zb26a0"&ttp://s5h.net/u?zb26a0&a<br /&ecent: Government of Kerala decides to use Koha &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&he Government of Kerala,a tiny well-developed state lying in the south-west part of India, has made a decision in principle to make Koha as its official software for computerization of libraries under Government control. The Government of Kerala,a tiny well-developed state lying in the south-west part of India, has recently made a decision in principle to make Koha as its official software for computerization of libraries under Government control. &span<br /<br /<a href="http://s5h.net/u?z21ec0"&ttp://s5h.net/u?z21ec0&a<br /&ree for All: Open Source Software &r /<br /<span class="lniquote"&f you’re curious about open source software, first ask yourself if you’re already using an OSS product such as Firefox. I like recommending Firefox as an entry point for grasping OSS because it’s one of my favorite software programs. Plus, because Firefox is open code, it’s easy to write add-ons, which I’ve done, tricking o