Free Republic

PHONE GIANT Motorola has dumped Apple’s iTunes, and a lot of its technical problems, from its ROKR E2 phone.

Researchers tracked three browsers (MSIE, Firefox, Opera) in 2004 and counted which days they were "known unsafe." Their definition of "known unsafe": a remotely exploitable security vulnerability had been publicly announced and no patch was yet available. MSIE was 98% unsafe. There were only 7 days in 2004 without an unpatched publicly disclosed security hole. Firefox was 15% unsafe. There were 56 days with an unpatched publicly disclosed security hole. 30 of those days were a Mac hole that only affected Mac users. Windows Firefox was 7% unsafe. Opera was 17% unsafe: 65 days. That number is accidentally a little...

Apple's 'Switch' campaign was addressed to Window users. And indeed, according to stats, many Windows users - aided by the iPod halo effect, Apple's reduced hardware prices, and the Mac mini - switched to Mac OS X. But something unpredictable happened. Even before Windows users started switching to Macs, Linux users were coming to OS X in masses. That wasn't in the plan, was it? The switch campaign was focused on Windows users. The numerous conversions from Linux to OS X are not publicised in the way the corresponding Windows conversions are - maybe because Linux was never the...

IBM's Motion Granted - 1st Report from the Courthouse -UPDATED Tuesday, December 20 2005 @ 02:49 PM EST Frank Sorenson made it to the hearing, thank heaven. IBM's Motion to Compel Documents on SCO's Privilege Log was granted. Frank's full report will be arriving soon, but in the meantime, here is the brief message he sent right after the hearing: Hearing over. IBM's Mot. to Compel Prod of Docs on SCO's Priv Log GRANTED. SCO's Mot. to Compel Docs from Execs GRANTED/DENIED in PART. As soon as I have more, I'll share it with you. I hope any readers in...

Blake Stowell, SCO's PR guy, is trying to turn all the bad news about SCO around and counter the impression that they are on the skids. In an article in Information Week about the latest money transfusion, he is quoted as saying this:A SCO representative, however, said the company's legal prospects were excellent and that investors would be well-served by helping the company to persist in its offensive against IBM and others. "Any open-minded individual who has read all of the public filings and court rulings, and attended every hearing would have a difficult time [casting doubt on SCO's prospects]...

Apple Computer has quietly voiced its concerns about the growing threat it faces from Linux in the desktop market. The Californian manufacturer's concerns emerged in its Form 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late last week. The 10-K is an annual report on the company's business, and an effective disclaimer on factors that may affect the company's future performance

The KDE Project Tuesday released the long-awaited KDE version 3.5, which will serve as the final iteration of the KDE 3.x line. Since being taken over by a new developer team, KDE Kicker -- KDE's much-improved desktop application-launcher menu bar -- has seen a wealth of small but useful improvements, the project spokesman Tom Chance said. The pager now shows the application icons of each window to help distinguish between them, and allows users to drag and drop windows from one desktop to another, the project said. In response to user feedback, the pager and taskbar now have three default...

November 28, 2005 08:47 AM US Eastern Timezone Lockheed Martin Selects Concurrent's RedHawk Linux for THAAD Missile Defense Program; Concurrent's Real-Time Linux System Supports Mission-Critical Missile Defense Testing DULUTH, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 28, 2005--Concurrent (NASDAQ: CCUR), a leading provider of integrated computer solutions for mission-critical applications, today announced that Lockheed Martin Space Systems has selected Concurrent's RedHawk(TM) Linux operating system for their United States Army Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program. Lockheed Martin's selection of Concurrent technology is expected to serve as a launchpad for additional international partnerships in winning and executing global programs for global defense and civil government...

As far as the general user experience and graphical user interfaces are concerned, overall I put MacOS first, Linux/KDE second, Windows third. For networking and operating systems, it's Linux first, Apple second, Windows third. Since Apple appears to follow Microsoft's mindset closely, I don't see Apple's OS ever catching up to Linux. With this background, I don't see Apple making big inroads into the server market, but they have everything that is needed to win the desktop, something Linux has not been able to do because it only recently achieved a coherent GUI with the KDE desktop. If Apple would...

If you want a desktop or laptop and you want to move to Linux then you're cooked. You have very few options and retailers have used low-cost Linux systems to bait and switch users. So, why don't the major Intel vendors offer Linux? Short answer: Microsoft. The old monopolist still commands and makes demands on its OEM vendors. What's worse? Unsuspecting PC buyers will be faced with the need to upgrade to Vista in the near future. So, that bargain PC from Dell will probably keep on costing you money. Do alternatives exist? We like to think so. Diggable Linux...

This month, SAP's Shai Agassi referred to open-source software as "intellectual property socialism." In January, Bill Gates suggested that free-software developers are communists. A few years earlier, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called the open-source operating system Linux "a cancer."

 Opinion: New Linux study suggests fundamental Microsoft credibility problems Nov. 17, 2005 Another day, another lame attempt by Microsoft to show that Windows is better than Linux. This time around, Microsoft commissioned a study to show that Windows does a better job of serving e-commerce applications than Linux. Of course, in the study, they didn't use the same e-commerce or back-engine DBMSs. OK, right there, without saying another word, anyone who really knows anything about benchmarking knows that the study is fundamentally flawed. You're not comparing apples to apples; you're comparing apples and oranges. It would be a different story,...

TUNIS (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and a leading US IT expert Nicholas Negroponte unveiled the bright green and yellow working prototype of a 100 dollar laptop aimed at millions of schoolchildren in poor countries. The robust wind-up laptop with low power consumption is meant to be the backbone of an educational project to distribute the Internet-connected computers at no cost to their future owners. "It holds the promise of major advances in economic and social development, but perhaps most important is the true meaning of one laptop per child," Annan told reporters at the World Summit...

Let me address the inevitable "Ubuntu vs. OS X" comparison. The thing that surprised me most about using the PowerMac was not that OS X's UI was better than Ubuntu's, which I have known for quite some time having used both regularly, but how small that difference really was. As I said, OS X's UI is a step up from GNOME's. However, I wouldn't say it is in a completely different league. In terms of the fundamental UI elements, GNOME is extremely competitive.

The open standards of Mac OS X have been trounced by open source software in a project to develop a $100 computer to help bridge the digital divide. An organisation, One Laptop Per Child, is developing the machines to bridge the gap between the developed and the developing world. (The link goes to the MIT website, the organisation that got the project off the ground). The project team want to develop a low-cost computer to distribute to millions of school-age children. OS X spurned for Linux The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple CEO Steve Jobs offered to furnish the...

Computers running the Linux OS are continuing to advance into the consumer retail market, with the announcement this week that Micro Center will sell desktops and laptops running Linspire Inc.'s Linux OS. "This is very big for Linux," Linspire Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kevin Carmony said in an interview. "People want the value and the security. It is a viable alternative. For half the people out there, Linux would work for them." Micro Center, which is owned by Micro Electronics Inc. of Hilliard, Ohio, began considering selling hardware systems with Linux preinstalled after competitor Fry's Electronics offered Linux computer systems,...

The major difference between an open source device driver module on Linux and a proprietary one in Windows is transparency in the way it works, the way it's created. This generally doesn't matter while the system is running as expected but can make a huge difference when something unexpected breaks down.

I am a little acquainted with some of the xNIX (UNIX-like) O/S's out there, having used Corel Linux, Fedora Core, Mandrake, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and HP-UX to some degree. I am not afraid of command-line work, but I have a major gripe about all the xNIX's when it comes to non-X work: vi sucks. ed blows. Have any xNIX gurus out there ever used the MS-DOS text editor (edit.com)? For a long-time PC user, that is the standard by which all others are judged. The text editors in Gnome and KDE work very much like Edit.com, but I can't seem to...

For big companies that want to use the Linux operating system and get business-level support, there are only two main options: Red Hat Inc. and Novell. And one of those looked shaky last week. After two years of refocusing, reinvention, and restructuring, Novell is reducing its staff by 10% to save money and suggesting that a change in CEO may be on the horizon. It's all part of trying to deliver on the growth promised when the company staked its future on open-source software in 2003. Novell's profits were up substantially between fiscal 2003 and 2004. But profits have slipped...

New worm targets Linux systems By Joris Evers Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: November 7, 2005, 5:12 PM PST A new worm that propagates by exploiting security vulnerabilities in Web server software is attacking Linux systems, warned antivirus companies on Monday. The worm spreads by exploiting Web servers that host susceptible scripts at specific locations, according to antivirus software maker McAfee, which has named the worm "Lupper." Lupper blindly attacks Web servers, installing and executing a copy of the worm when a vulnerable server is found, McAfee said in its description of the worm. A backdoor is installed on infected...