Author: JT Smith
In a counter move to the MPAA’s policy of giving cease and decist letters to sites carrying or linking to DeCSS, DeCSS was mass posted all over usenet. Slashdot carries the discussion about the reasons and effects of this action.
High score reference for video games and pinball now online
Author: JT Smith
The high-score database containing the official world records for video game and pinball
playing is now available on the Internet as a free reference source.
It can be found by clicking on SEARCH SCORES at:
http://www.twingalaxies.com.
This body of information is essentially the statistical history of video game and pinball
playing from 1977 to present and has already been used as a reference source by many news
agencies and Hollywood producers, including the Guinness Book of World Records, ABC-TV’s
That’s Incredible and Jeopardy, the TV game show. In the next month, this data will be
supplemented with 15,000 further high scores which represent the new world records on
today’s current game titles.
Avoiding holiday heartaches
Author: JT Smith
“Officials at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) responded strongly, enforcing its 1975 Mail Order Rule — which some e-tailers had not realized applied to them — and fining seven e-tailers $1.5 million (US$) for delivering holiday gifts late.” As reported by EcommerceTimes, it might not be any different this year.
Category:
- Linux
Weekly news wrapup
Author: JT Smith
By Grant Gross
Managing Editor
Free trade is for nations, not individuals, it seemsImagine buying a copy of the popular multi-OS boot program, System Commander, and getting “everything you need to set up a high performance Linux workstation” as part of the deal. Really, it’s true. Check out Editor in Chief Robin Miller’s “Subtle Linux infiltration.”
Want a laptop that gives you comfort and extreme portability? The CyberStar LT98 may not be it, says hardware reviewer Jeff Field.
Venture capitalists are coming back to the Linux fold, it seems. Columnist Jack Bryar finds out why.
In case anyone’s still counting, NewsForge editors posted about 390 stories in the week following Sunday evening, Sept. 3.
Managing Editor
Free trade is for nations, not individuals, it seems
The big story of the week was not exactly an Open Source story, but it was a subject near to many Open Source users’ hearts: File trading over the Internet. MP3.com, one of the heavyweights in the file-trading world, lost a lawsuit brought by music publishing giant Universal Music Group.
A judge ordered MP3.com to pay between $118 million and $250 million in damages to the Seagram-owned music company. The fallout was quick and painful, with MP3.com stock plummeting to a 52-week low Thursday, the day of the ruling.
Several perspectives on the case soon followed. Upside.com called the ruling “lunacy.” Music-trading company Napster immediately tried to distance itself from MP3.com.
If sharing music isn’t your bag, maybe sharing DVDs is. The DeCSS copying software can’t seem to stay out of the headlines. The Motion Picture Association of America has been sending cease-and-desist orders to people who post or link to the from their Web sites. And Copyleft, a company printing the DeCSS source code on T-shirts, was also hit with a lawsuit.
The dangers of doing business
Also controversial this week was Trolltech’s decision to release the 2.2 version of its Qt/Unix under the GNU General Public License, as a way to deflect criticism about the KDE user interface that uses Qt. However, Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman still disputed KDE claims that it was now in compliance with the GPL, and KDE.org fired back. It’s unlikely that we’ve heard the last of this.
In business news, a couple of software companies keep making news, although it’s not always good news. Linux distributor Caldera System’s recent acquisition of the Santa Cruz Operation has gotten mixed reviews, and the company announced this week that SCO will lay off 190 people and take a $5 million to $6 million charge this quarter as part of its sale of Unix operating system software and services to Caldera. The Gartner Group offered Caldera some free advice later in the week, saying the company must articulate a coherent road map for OpenLinux and SCO OpenServer.
Speaking of layoffs, software company Corel plans to lay of 139 people at its engineering operation in Dublin, Ireland, in a $40 million cost-saving move.
Who’s afraid of a little FUD?
You might file this under “no surprise.” ZDNet reported on a Microsoft team charged with keeping an eye on Linux and Unix, but critics charged the Redmond crew with also generating a little FUD.
New in NewsForge
Are we ready for broadband Internet access?
Author: JT Smith
Slashdot has a detailed discussion about the possibility of broad band (100Mbps speed) available to everyone cheaply within the next 10 years. “If you consider that Arpanet had ~56k truck lines (costing thousands) to connect computers in the late 70s and 80s, and today businesses are giving away 56k conectivity for ‘free,’ things move on.”
Home network technologies ripen
Author: JT Smith
Canada.com dicusses home network and related technologies that are lined up to produce a ‘smarter’ home. “Even with wireless technologies, it may take years for most people to gain access to a continuous high-capacity Internet connection that might enable them to control their networked home from a remote location.“
Two security updates from lwn.net
Author: JT Smith
The first one is about a potential xpdf exploit; the second relates to the horde and imp packages. Both were submitted as Debian security advisories, but neither (potential) problem is Debian-specific.
Category:
- Linux
GNOME Foundation FAQ
Author: JT Smith
This is the official 1.0 version of the GNOME Foundation FAQ, not a second-hand article about the GNOME Foundation.
Category:
- Linux
showmelinux.com rates several GNOME games
Author: JT Smith
The headline says it all – showmelinux.com reviews several of the little games that come with GNOME.
Category:
- Linux
NewsForge headlines now available for your Web site
Author: JT Smith
by Robin ‘roblimo’ Miller
editor-in-chief
You can now have the complete NewsForge headline feed on your site, for free, no questions asked. We’ll put out a press release about this sooner or later, but thought we’d give you and other NewsForge readers a little head start.
Get the .xml version from http://www.newsforge.com/newsforge.xml, .rdf from http://www.newsforge.com/newsforge.rdf.
editor-in-chief
You can now have the complete NewsForge headline feed on your site, for free, no questions asked. We’ll put out a press release about this sooner or later, but thought we’d give you and other NewsForge readers a little head start.
Get the .xml version from http://www.newsforge.com/newsforge.xml, .rdf from http://www.newsforge.com/newsforge.rdf.
If you need technical help or advice or have any suggestions on how we can improve this feature, please email our lead programmer, Jamie McCarthy, at jamie@newsforge.com.