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"Eweek has an article on how PhoneGaim integrates IM and phone into one program making it possible for AOL/ICQ, MSN and Yahoo users to call each other, landlines and cellphones. It talks about how it could be a Skype-killer since it's based on open standard SIP and comes with free PSTN calling (5 minutes per day), free voicemail via email, and even supports incoming phone calls from PSTN. It's out first for desktop Linux (maybe the start of a new trend?) but it's open source so expect a MSWin version shortly from Gaim team."

I have had an opportunity to listen to audio of the AutoZone hearing. The court offers copies for sale from their web site, by the way. Here is what I got from listening to the hearing. The big news is that AutoZone won the stay they asked for. IBM goes first. There was no ruling on whether to transfer the whole thing to Tennessee or Utah. The stay made that moot at this time. The attorney for AutoZone told the judge that the motion they really cared about was the Motion to Stay. The judge has granted an indefinite stay,...

PARIS, Jul 13 (IPS) - Many European public administrations are distancing themselves from the U.S. software giant Microsoft and turning to free software. The Paris city administration has announced it is considering replacing its Microsoft systems with public domain software such as Linux, OpenOffice and Mozilla. The overhaul of the city's data processing systems would entail acquiring some 15,000 new computers with the new software by 2008. Microsoft said in January the change would cost Paris 15 million dollars, and offered a 60 percent discount on its own systems. That reduction would bring costs down to less than seven million...

Red Hat announced Tuesday it is restating earnings going back to 2002, as the company changes the way it accounts for subscription revenue. The Linux company, which recently reported the resignation of its chief financial officer, said it made the decision to change its revenue recognition after discussions last month with its independent auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

CHICAGO — Driven by a hypercompetitive marketplace and the looming shadow of Linux, two of the biggest players in embedded software are shifting strategies in aggressive efforts to capture the minds and pocketbooks of developers. Microsoft Corp. on Monday (June 28) will roll out its first-ever commercial-derivatives program for all licensees of Windows CE. The program, which lets developers modify and redistribute the Windows CE source code, is seen as an effort by the Redmond, Wash., software giant to make its code more accessible to developers, la Linux. "This represents a major perception change in terms of the way programmers...

Putrajaya: In muted tones, Microsoft’s chairman warned governments and companies that open source software is not the way to go if they are in the business of creating jobs and intellectual property. Bill Gates was on the Malaysian leg of a whirlwind Asian tour, which included a speech on his vision of “seamless computing”, when he voiced his concerns over the growing goodwill towards open source, especially in Asia. It is one of the top two challenges facing Microsoft today, the other being software piracy, which is making governments lose tax revenue, Gates outlined on Jun 29 at a roundtable...

The global trade in pirated software, from versions of Microsoft Windows XP to Adobe Acrobat, hit nearly $29 billion in 2003, an industry trade body said in its annual survey on Wednesday. That value amounted to about 60 percent of all legal global desktop software sales of $51 billion, said the Business Software Alliance (BSA). Since the Internet boom, software firms and media conglomerates have seen a rapid increase in piracy as online file-sharing networks and "warez" trading sites make it easier to exchange all manner of copyrighted material. "Peer-to-peer file-sharing services are becoming a huge problem for us," said...

The Micorsoft Windows application is more secure than you think, and Mac OS X is worse than you ever imagined. That is according to statistics published for the first time this week by Danish security firm Secunia.

commentary Franklin Fisher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professor, once said Microsoft's customers believed there were no serious commercial contenders to the Windows operating system. During the Microsoft-US Justice Department anti-trust trial in 1999, Fisher testified that this view was also shared by the software giant's hardware partners. While alternatives to the Windows operating system and Microsoft's cash cow -- its Office productivity suite -- have long existed, these products, including OS/2 and WordPerfect, failed to make a lasting impression on the IT community. Fast forward to 2004. Today, competitors to Microsoft, such as Sun Microsystems, are slowly but surely...

According to the French publication Libération, the objective of Microsoft is clear: at the time when an increasing number of public administrations around the world are choosing to use free and open source software, Microsoft considers losing the City of Paris to open source out of question. And they'll do anything they can to prevent it. According to a document to which Libération had access, Microsoft proposed a price reduction of almost 60% to the Paris city leaders for the 15,000-computer city contract. The battle around the city's software was precipitated by the arrival of Mayor Betrand Delanoë's team at...

Open source has expanded into the political world, with open software powering the online operations of the Democratic National Committee and Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign. The DNC has embraced open source to run its online operation, including outreach and fund raising, and has been working on this front since 2001 with New York-based consultant Plus Three LP. This week, the DNC will launch, at www.democrats.org, the third version of its Web site, which is designed to mobilize voters on a national and grass-roots level, grow the party's online database, and raise funds, said David Brunton, Plus Three's vice president...

A group of Iraqi computer enthusiasts are advocating the use of the operating system Linux to rebuild their country. The US is running various computer training projects in Iraq Ashraf Hasson and Hasanen Nawfal are both natives of Baghdad. Like many 20-somethings, Hasson and Nawfal grew up nurturing passions for computers and for programming. Both of them are firm believers in open source software. Unlike expensive proprietary software, open-source software can be freely distributed and modified, as long as the modifications are shared with other users. They are particularly fans of Linux operating system. These two Linux enthusiasts, though, did...

Halloween XI: Get The FUD I've just seen a dispatch from the front lines of the FUD wars, Huw Lynes's report from one of Microsoft's Get The FactsHalloween VII and more recent leaks out of Microsoft. The outlines of the next stage in Microsoft's anti-open-source propaganda campaign are becoming clear. It's a good time to take stock of where we are, what our favorite evil empire is doing, and how best to respond. roadshow in Great Britain. It's a fascinating read, especially when considered in context with (Writing code that doesn't suck always has to be our base-level and most...

PARIS (Reuters) - France's cash-strapped government is giving alternative software firms the chance to win state business from Microsoft in a pioneering drive to challenge the U.S. software giant in the public sector. Civil service minister Renaud Dutreil told Reuters France wanted to use "open-source" software providers to resupply part of the almost one million state computers under a government cost-cutting drive designed to trim a bulging public deficit. "We are not starting a war against Microsoft, or against American companies in the software sector," Dutreil said in an interview. But he added that Microsoft "must return to being one...

We've been trying to make sense of the Novell-SCO spat over who owns the copyrights. Dr Stupid decided that a good way to determine who is right would be to look at the copyright notices back at the time of the Agreement and the later Amendment 2, and see what the conduct of the parties indicated as to what they thought at the time. I think you will find it revealing. You may wish to have all the relevant documents handy, so here is where you can find all of them: SCO-Novell Asset Purchase Agreement, 1995 Amendment No. 1 Amendment...

<p>Microsoft Loses Munich Contract to Linux Program (Update1) June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp., whose Windows software runs 95 percent of the world's personal computers, lost a contract for programs to run 14,000 PCs for the Munich city government to the free Linux software.</p>

Microsoft Calls AdTI "Study" an "Unhelpful Distraction" Monday, June 14 2004 @ 11:49 PM EDT Well, friends, we've won the Alexis de Tocqueville FUD war. It's official. In the face of a united community's repudiation of Ken Brown's "Samizdat" attack on Linus and Linux, Microsoft told the Wall St. Journal's reporter, Lee Gomes, the report wasn't helpful, leading Gomes to end his report, "Recent attacks on Linux come from dubious source", like this: "With growing numbers of businesses turning to Linux, its pros and cons are fair game for debate. But cynically manufacturing confusion isn't debating. Even Microsoft didn't...

See Link for full details. A bug has been reported that lets a simple C program crash the kernel, effectively locking the whole system. Affects both 2.4.2x and 2.6.x kernels on the x86 architecture. It does not require root access to work. There are patches available, but it will require recompiling your kernel at the moment. NOTE: this is not a remote exploit. A user must have shell access to make use of the bug. It will not elevate user privs. It would, however, provide a very efficient DOS attack. I tested it on one of my test boxes, and...

    SCO posts loss vs profit; revenue down 52 pctThu Jun 10, 2004 01:29 PM ET SEATTLE, June 10 (Reuters) - SCO Group Inc. (SCOX.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , the software developer suing to collect money from users of the Linux operating system, on Thursday reported a quarterly loss versus a profit as revenue fell 52 percent. Lindon, Utah-based SCO, which claims that parts of the Unix software code it owns are used in the free Linux operating system, posted a net loss of $15 million, or $1.06 per share, in its fiscal second quarter versus net income...

Consider these memory requirements for Fedora Core 2, as specified by Red Hat: Minimum for graphical: 192MB and Recommended for graphical: 256MB Does that sound any alarm bells with you? 192MB minimum? I've been running Linux for five years (and am a huge supporter), and have plenty of experience with Windows, Mac OS X and others. And those numbers are shocking -- severely so. No other general-purpose OS in existence has such high requirements. Linux is getting very fat. I appreciate that there are other distros; however, this is symptomatic of what's happening to Linux in general. The other mainstream...