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According to a press release issued earlier this month by Finjan, a security research firm, compromised Web servers are infecting thousands of visitors daily with malware that turns their Windows machines into unwitting bots to do the bidding of an as yet unidentified criminal organization. Security firms ScanSafe and SecureWorks have since added their own takes on the situation, though with varying estimates on the number of sites affected. All reports thus far say the compromised servers are running Linux and Apache. According to an article on ServerTune.com, the exploit involves a rootkit installed on the compromised server that replaces...

What you can - and cannot do - with your software is often determined by the code owner's license. From not using open source APIs with closed-source digital rights management (DRM) to being barred from fiddling with Windows source code, we've seen it all. Or have we? Joining the open source and commercial melee is a document that pretty much rules out using a new JavaScript tool by anyone working in - or associated with - the pharmaceutical, farming and food, and some manufacturing industries. Oh, and certain universities are out, too. ExtTLD, for developing components on the open source...

It’s one small step for Dell, and another great leap for Asterisk — the open source VoIP phone system. Dell plans to promote Fonality (a major Asterisk proponent) to small business customers seeking IP telephony systems. It’s a landmark development, folks, that benefits Dell in multiple markets (open source, VoIP, unified communications, and managed services). Here’s why. While most people are zigging, Michael Dell continues to zag. In mid-2007, Dell announced the surprising decision to pre-install Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux on selected desktops and laptops. Red Hat and Novell were the obvious choices for that deal (and Dell maintains partnerships with...

How can an open source software company with $70 million or so in revenue and no profits to speak of be worth $1 billion? That's the question Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz has been trying to answer since he bought MySQL last week. The question is not how can Sun make any money from MySQL – this is after all a commercial company that already has an established business selling enterprise support subscriptions – but rather, how can Sun make enough money to justify that incredible price? To get a feel for what a reasonable answer to this question would look...

KDE 4.0 Released FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE KDE Project Ships Fourth Major Version of cutting edge Free Software Desktop With the fourth major version, the KDE Community marks the beginning of the KDE 4 era. January 11, 2008 (The INTERNET). The KDE Community is thrilled to announce the immediate availability of KDE 4.0. This significant release marks both the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0 and the beginning of the KDE 4 era. The KDE 4.0 desktop The KDE 4 Libraries have seen major improvements in almost all areas. The Phonon multimedia framework provides...

The Five Open Source Business Models Posted by Andy Dornan, Jan 2, 2008 02:03 AM »  Print»  Write To Editor »  Slashdot Open source has become standard in Silicon Valley, with nearly every software startup planning to release at least some code. So far, they've found five main business models:1. Sell support services. This is the traditional Linux model, prototyped by Red Hat. It's still a part of most open-source business plans, but on its own it's rarely enough for startups trying to grow. The problem (for the startups) is that anyone can redistribute the code and sell support or...

Misconceptions about open source software have made many U.S. Defense Department sectors reluctant to employ this technology. Although a 2003 department policy allows its use, many still believe that open source software poses an increased security risk to networks and that it is not supported as well as commercial products. An example of such software is the U.S. Joint Forces Command's (JFCOM's) J-9 Joint Futures Laboratory redact tool. JFCOM developed a free open source software redaction tool to remove changes from standard office documents. "Secure Save" uses OpenOffice.org software to redact non-viewable text, images, metadata and other undesired elements of...

Over the years I have been an active participant in the ongoing fight for open and interoperable Web standards. I have always opposed those who would force proprietary technologies where open alternatives, often superior, exist. From 1994, I worked at CERN and W3C to help make sure there were good specifications for the Web. In 1999, I joined Opera to make sure there was at least one browser that implemented those specifications right. We have worked hard to do that. Unfortunately Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the biggest browser of all, did not. Today we have taken a stand. Opera has filed...

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) recently released a software toolkit designed to help universities detect instances of potentially illegal file-sharing on school networks. The toolkit is based on the increasingly popular Ubuntu Linux distribution and includes the Apache web server as well as custom traffic monitoring software created by the MPAA. Although the toolkit was previously available from a web site set up by the MPAA, the software was removed last night after the organization's ISP received a DMCA takedown notice from Ubuntu technical board member Matthew Garret. Many of the components in the Ubuntu Linux distribution, including...

The SCO Group, working to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, hopes to sell its Unix assets to York Capital Management for up to $36 million, the company said this week in regulatory and bankruptcy court filings. Through the deal, York would provide SCO with $10 million in cash; up to $10 million in credit to fund its Linux-related legal fight and to get 20 percent of revenue from that action; $10 million for a 20 percent stake in the company; and $6 million to license the Hipcheck products from SCO's Me mobile device software effort and to share revenue...

Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat & Novell - Just Like Ballmer Predicted Thursday, October 11 2007 @ 09:41 PM EDT IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state. The first ever patent infringement litigation involving Linux. Here's the patent, for those who can look at it without risk. If in doubt, don't. Here's the complaint [PDF]. And now let's play, where's Microsoft? You...

The head of the Open Invention Network (OIN) has dismissed Microsoft's claims that Linux violates over 200 of its patents. OIN chief executive Jerry Rosenthal said that Microsoft's assertions are simply an attempt to undermine the open source movement. Rosenthal added that it is time for Microsoft to reveal the patents that are supposedly being infringed, or to drop the claims. "The FUD is clear. If you have a patent that you are proud of, then disclose it," he said. "If your patent is a good patent then you are not worried about revealing it before going to court because...

When it comes to launching online attacks, criminals are getting more organised and branching out from the Windows operating system, says eBay's security chief. eBay recently did an in-depth analysis of its threat situation, and while the company is not releasing the results of this analysis, it did uncover a huge number of hacked, botnet computers, said Dave Cullinane, eBay's chief information and security officer, speaking at a Microsoft-sponsored security symposium at Santa Clara University. Cullinane, who one year ago downplayed the role of organised crime in phishing ("It's not the Sopranos," he said), believes that online attackers are indeed...

open.NET? Microsoft To Make .NET Libraries Available Under "Open Source" One minute ago Microsoft made one of its first "open source" moves under the new Microsoft Reference License: the team in Redmond announced they'll make some .NET libraries available.  I say "open source" because to me, open source means you can easily access a .tar or .zip of the code.  Microsoft's effort is a bit more cumbersome. What does that mean for you?  Is .NET open source now?  I wouldn't call it that quite yet.  This is the first step on a much longer journey.  The license indicates that developers...

iFAX, a commercial company that is built on open source fax server software HylaFAX, was recently included in Inc. Magazine's 2007 list of the top 500 fastest growing companies in the United States. iFAX founder Darren Nickerson says one of the keys to iFAX's success has been its commitment to the open source community behind HylaFAX. "Our success is tied to the openness of the software." iFAX provides value-added services, support, and hardware to the HylaFAX open source facsimile server software. HylaFAX uses a client-server architecture that allows users to send documents through fax modems from any computer on the...

Way back in January, I announced a program to write Linux drivers for companies for free. When I did that, I never expected the response to be as large as it was. It turns out that there were two large groups of people who responded to the announcement, companies wanting drivers, and developers wanting to help out. I never imagined that so many different people would offer to help out. There is a real need for a place where developers can find a "real" project to work on in the Linux kernel. The Kernel Janitors project is a great place...

Novell's Linux business has soared 243 percent since last November when the company signed its controversial deal with Microsoft. "The affect on sales year over year, for Novell's first three quarters of our fiscal year, which ends Oct. 31 -- our Linux business was up 243 percent year over year," said Justin Steinman, director of marketing at Novell, who, along with executives from both companies, spoke at a program hosted by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. And, that growth doesn't seem to be short-lived. "We're continuing to see above market growth year [over] year and that clearly has resulted in...

The first U.S. GPL-related lawsuit appears to be headed for a quick out-of-court settlement. Monsoon Multimedia admitted today that it had violated the GPLv2 (GNU General Public License version 2), and said it will release its modified BusyBox code in full compliance with the license. Spread the word:digg this story Monsoon Multimedia has stated that it is currently in settlement negotiations with the BusyBox project to resolve the matter without going to court. The company also said in a statement that it intends to fully comply with all open-source software license requirements. The company plans to make its modified BusyBox...

This is very good news. We've long needed real competition in the e-mail market, given how much time people spend in e-mail. Now the organization that gave us competition in the browser market has decided to get serious about e-mail. This is a Very Good Thing. Mozilla (on Monday) announced a new initiative to stimulate innovation in Internet mail and communications. Mozilla plans to develop Internet communications software based on the Thunderbird product, code and brand. The new initiative also aims to nurture a robust developer ecosystem in order to drive improvements through open source and community innovation, in the...

Recently, Free Pascal (FPC) version 2.2.0 was released. This open source Pascal compiler has - since its initial release in 1993 - grown to be one of the most sophisticated open source compilers available today. Daily, more programmers discover FPC and develop their applications in Object Pascal. Specifically, the development of Lazarus has contributed to this phenomenon: Lazarus is a graphical open source IDE for FPC, with an extensive tool kit to design graphical (GUI) applications. What is FPC's strength? For many programmers, the renewed interest in Pascal is surprising. Many think of Pascal as an old language, no longer...