ZDNet reports that US Attorney General John Ashcroft is calling for US laws to change to make it easier for spy agencies to tap individuals’ communications.

Kelly McNeill writes, “There is one argument from Richard Stallman, aka RMS, that I’m not sure I agree with, ‘All software should be free.’ Most free software is written in order to scratch someone’s itch. It is written because the author wants a piece of custom software, and then decides to share. Commercial software is written for one primary reason only — making money. Most companies writing software for the mass market do not want the company’s software to be free (as in beer) because revenues would be severely hampered. On the other hand, how many hackers would be interested in the source code of ‘Growing the Perfect Topiary’? I am of the opinion that device drivers should be free (as in speech) because nothing is gained from refusing access to a company’s printer driver source code.” From osOpinion.

CNet reports that the Big Five music labels and music publishers have agreed
on a set of terms that would allow the labels to offer most of their catalogs through an
Internet subscription service.

The Register reports on the FBI’s condemnation of “vigilante” hacker activity after a group was formed to wage electronic warfare against countries they believe
support terrorism.

IBM.com has the how-to article. “With the 2.4 release of Linux come a host of new filesystem possibilities, including Reiserfs,
XFS, GFS, and others. These filesystems sound cool, but what exactly can they do, what are they
good at, and exactly how do you go about safely using them in a production Linux environment?”

Posted at LWN.net: “No Starch Press, publishers of PROGRAMMING LINUX GAMES, is pleased to
announce an SDL GAME DEVELOPMENT CONTEST, open to entries from game
developers worldwide.

Create a complete SDL-based computer game under 1 megabyte, and send it to
games@nostarch.com by DECEMBER 1, 2001 and you could win the entire Loki
Software game library, books from No Starch Press, a subscription to Linux
Journal magazine, and more!”

From the Wall Street Journal: “In the aftermath of Tuesday’s tragedy, the presence of such information (airport security, etc.) on the Internet raises
an important question: Will the terrorist attacks have a chilling effect on what is available on the
Internet, out of fear that terrorists could use the medium to launch future attacks?”

From PRNewswire: Philips Digital Networks, an
industry leader in advanced digital broadcast solutions, and Lineo, Inc., a
leading provider of embedded systems and real-time solutions, today announced
a partnership to provide Philips’ Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) middleware
running on the Lineo Embedix Digital Media platform for digital TVs and
set-top boxes.

Commentary from ZDNet: “Following last week’s terrorist attacks on symbols of U.S. economic and military strength, the IT
community needs to help the nation focus on mitigating future threats-not on closing the doors
that the horse got through. Knee-jerk reactions, all too likely from historically ill-informed
legislators, could easily cripple commercial and personal applications of encryption, wireless
communications, digital cash and media technologies, with little inconvenience to criminals.”

ZDNet Asia has a story about the impact recent airline delays in the United States is having on Asian chipmakers. “Several market research firms estimate that losses could top US$10 million if the situation persists.”