Showing all newswire headlines

According to Internet services company Netcraft's latest poll, open source Web sites dominate the Web site market. The November 2005 survey found that Apache Web servers run on 70 percent of all Web sites. In addition, almost every reputable site that asks you for any personal information will do so using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.

Sony's rootkit style DRM software XCP, designed to prevent copyright infringement, looks like it's breaching the terms of a copyright agreement itself, by including code written by no less than MPAA nemesis "DVD Jon" Johansen.

[ED.- DRM software illegally containing code written by someone who got sued by the MPAA for circumventing the DRM on DVDs... Oh! The irony! - Tsela]

LinuxDevices.com is pleased to publish the proceedings from the Seventh Real-Time Linux Workshop held in Lille, France, November 3-4, 2005, at the University for Science and Technology of Lille (USTL). The papers span a broad range of topics, ranging from fundamental real-time technologies to applications, hardware, and tools.

Anyone can search the Web. Now, Google aims to create its own invisible Web, which will be invisible to anyone not using Google.

(Frankfurt, Germany - November 16, 2005): The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), (http://www.lpi.org), the world's premier Linux certification organization announced that their exam totals have topped the 100,000 mark and continue to demonstrate strong global growth. Notable IT companies such as IBM, Novell, SGI, NEC and others joined together in congratulating LPI on this achievement.

SPIP stands for Système de Publication Pour l'Internet, which can be loosely translated as Publishing System for the Internet. Although the first version of SPIP appeared in 2001 and the software continues to evolve rapidly, it remains relatively unknown outside France, despite the fact that SPIP is available in multiple languages and is well documented.

[ED-We have covered this in detail but this summary is priceless and accurate I might add bstadil]

So, let quickly recap: Sony sells CDs with DRM software containing rootkit malware. They get caught. They offer a fix. The fix makes matters worse. The Sony exec in charge puts foot in mouth. Viruses surface using the holes provided by the rootkit. Charges of copyright infringements (what's the DRM for anyway?) on open license software surface as well. Sony's getting sued. They issue a recall on the offending discs. In the meantime, Sony's losing record sales and credibility at a time of year when people spend more money than ever. Also consider they're trying to push through their Blu-Ray DVD technology and the PlayStation3.

This week, advisories were released for awstats, kdelibs, acidlab, AbiWord, uim, ftpd-ssl, phpsysinfo, phpgroupware, lynx, rar, sylpheed, gtk, egroupware, cpio, lm_sensors, and gdk-pixpuf. The distributors include Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva, and Red Hat.

"Klipper is the KDE clipboard utility. It stores clipboard history, and allows you to link clipboard contents to application actions." That's the common explanation you get from most people and online manuals when seeking information about Klipper. But what else can Klipper do? Is that ALL it does? Can we empower it to be what cut and past is in Windows? (ducks the possible flames) Perhaps. Grab a pen and paper Klip...let's see what this thing can do. Please note that this article is written with the assumption that you are using KDE 3.4 or higher.

What happens when the creators of malware collude with the very companies we hire to protect us from that malware? We users lose, that's what happens. A dangerous and damaging rootkit gets introduced into the wild, and half a million computers get infected before anyone does anything.

FYI, Here is a new website that lists 12 Linux/ GNU regular Web-Radio & Podcasts!. Hopefully TheLinuxShow will show up one of these days as well.

Linux's record for reliability may be the polar opposite of what critics consider the crash-a-day life of Windows. Yet, the fact that Linux crashes are rare means that an unexpected outage throws many IT administrators in unmapped territory. Learning the proper steps to prevent such crashes can help Linux admins avoid many headaches over the long term.

In a misguided attempt to protect the movie industry, key members of the US Congress are considering funding the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. It won't work. No Law can shield copyright holders from millions of highly motivated file sharers. Instead, Congress should focus its might on protecting innovators from its wild and woolly US Patent Office.

In an unprecedented move, IBM has completed its assault on the x86 market by moving ahead of both Dell and HP in customer satisfaction, according to the "Corporate IT Buying Behavior & Customer Satisfaction Study: x86-Based Servers Third Quarter 2005" from Technology Business Research.

Open source software (OSS) developers find and fix software bugs quickly, according to Evans Data Corp.'s Fall 2005 Open Source Software/Linux Development Survey. Seventeen percent of OSS developers find and repair severe bugs in less than 4 business hours on average. Another quarter say they can find and fix severe bugs in their software in four to eight business hours.

Sun is improving its Solaris OS with new support for the open source PostgreSQL database, Xen virtualization, GRUB boot loader and the Solaris ZettaByte File System (ZFS).

David Berlind writes: "For those looking to alter the technology landscape in a way that affects People With Disabilities (PWDs), Chong's opinion can make or break new initiatives like the one in Massachusetts where that state's Information Technology Division (MA ITD) is trying to establish the OpenDocument Format (ODF) as a standard format for creating and saving public documents. So far, Chong has opposed the Massachusetts plan. But, as you're about to find out, he's actually willing to endorse it and he's putting the ball in the pro-ODFers' court."

[Ed: This is an excellent discussion of getting the Visually-impaired and other people with disabilities (PWDs) on board with OpenDocument - a must read. - dcparris]

What would happen to Linux, Free Software, and Open Source Software if Microsoft reformed itself? What if Microsoft abandoned their evil, customer-hostile, restraint-of-trade ways, and did a complete turnaround? Would FOSS even have a reason to exist?