Fnord Systems is now selling the
Fnord 90, a new rackmount server that shoehorns four independent 1GHz Pentium
3 servers into only 1U of rack space. Fully loaded (P3-1GHz/512MB/100GB) each
node costs $1,344.

BELLINGHAM, Wash., September 6th 2001

Fnord Datacenter Systems (http://www.fnordsystems.com)
proudly announces the Fnord 90, a breakthrough in high density rackmount server
design. For the first time ever, four independent 1GHz Pentium 3 servers can
fit in only 1U of rack space. Each Fnord 90 contains two seperate 1GHz servers
in a single 1U, 15.75 inch deep chassis. Two shallow-depth Fnord 90s can be
mounted back-to-back in standard 36″ depth colocation cabinets, racking
four 1GHz servers in 1U.

Each server has its own 866MHz or 1GHz Pentium 3 processor, 256 or 512MB of
RAM, and 40 to 100GB of 7,200rpm ATA/100 IDE storage. Three Intel Pro/100+ Ethernet
interfaces are standard on every server, facilitating interlinked clustering
without need for a switch.

The unique single-sided connector design places all data and power connections
on the front faceplate of the server, greatly simplifying cable management.
One hundred sixty-eight (168) servers can be mounted in a single 42U cabinet,
making the Fnord 90 perfect for Beowulf clusters, web hosting farms, mathematical
simulation, rendering, and other node-distributed processor intensive tasks.

The most compelling feature of the Fnord 90 is its price, less than half that
of expensive “blade” style high density servers. In a P3-866MHz/256MB/40gb
configuration, it costs $1,070 per server, while fully loaded P3-1GHz/512MB/100GB
servers are only $1,344.

Fnord Systems specializes in servers designed for Open Source software, and
offers every server with the customer’s choice of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
or various distributions of Linux. The Fnord 90 also has
full device driver support in Windows NT 4 and 2000.

One of Washington State’s leading datacenter infrastructure firms, Fnord offers
a full product line ranging from $1,000 1U Firewalls to massively powerful quad-processor
Xeons.

For more information, please contact:

Eric Kuhnke
Lead Engineer / Operations Manager
http://www.fnordsystems.com
Phone: (360) 527-3301

From ZDNet: “Apple Computer was sued Thursday for alleged infringement of two computer patents owned by a small company called Biax. According to papers that Biax filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, three Colorado-based inventors of the 1996 patents assigned their rights to Biax.”

ZDNet reports that the HP-Compaq merger could cost one of the companies $675 million if it causes the merger deal to fall through, and the value of the deal has fallen more than 20% to under 20 billion dollars as shareholders express their disapproval.

CNet reports on layoffs at Caldera after the company’s third-quarter financial report. The report detailed a loss of $18.8 million, and the company is doing a reverse stock split to stay listed at Nasdaq.

vnunet: “Security companies are warning Linux users
over a new and dangerous Trojan that may
have originated in the UK.
The Trojan contains self-replicating virus-like
capabilities and has similarities to the
Windows-based Back Orifice tool, putting Linux
boxes at risk of remote control.”

James Tauber writes “We are delighted to announce the release of Redfoot 1.0. Today marks the one year anniversary of the initial project submission to SourceForge and so what better way to celebrate Redfoot’s first birthday than by releasing version 1.0? Redfoot is an open source framework for building distributed data-driven web applications with RDF and Python. It can be used to develop personal or workgroup information environments, community web sites or any kind of web application that involves managing the relationships between different information objects in a consistent yet extensible manner. Redfoot is distributed under a BSD-style license and is available at http://redfoot.sourceforge.net/

CNET News.com: “Two well-known computer security experts pulled down their works from the Internet this
week for fear of being prosecuted under 1998’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Along with the threatened lawsuit of Princeton computer-science professor Edward Felten, and
the arrest of Russian encryption expert Dmitry Sklyarov, the incidents are the latest to point at
what is quickly becoming a touchy environment for security experts.”

Posted at PR Newswire: “In a joint announcement, MontaVista
Software Inc., the company powering the embedded revolution and Tensilica, the
leading supplier of configurable processor cores for embedded systems, today
disclosed a wide-reaching technical and marketing agreement. The pact leads
to the porting of MontaVista Software’s Hard Hat(TM) Linux(R), one of the most
widely used embedded Linux products to Tensilica’s Xtensa(R) processor
architecture.”

“Jail chroots an
environment and sets certain restrictions on processes which are forked from within. For example, a jailed process cannot affect processes outside of the
jail, utilize certain system calls, or inflict any damage on the main computer. Jail is becoming the new security model. People are running potentially
vulnerable servers such as Apache, BIND, and sendmail within jails, so that if an attacker gains root within the Jail, it is only an annoyance, and not a
devastation. This article focuses on the internals (source code) of Jail and Jail NG. It will also suggest improvements upon the jail code base which are
already being worked on.” Read the article at Daemon News.

– By Grant Gross –

As promised, On2 Technologies is Open-Sourcing the code to its VP3 video compression technology as of tonight.

The source code is available tonight at the VP3.com Web site, according to Ed Gillespie, director of corporate communications at On2. The code is released under the VP3.2 Public License, based on the Mozilla Public License. You must register with VP3.com to download the code.

On2 will offer consulting services with the Open Source release of VP3, and the Open Source project looks to be off to a good start with Apple and Real Networks using the technology. On2 announced the Open Source plans about a month ago.

On2, which isn’t Open-Sourcing its newest VP4 compression codec, says it is opening up VP3 to drive adoption of it as a video compression standard on multiple platforms. CNet quoted On2 chief executive Douglas McIntyre as saying the VP4 technology is how the company plans to continue to make money.

Gillespie adds: “VP4 was released earlier this year and it’s very versatile — working
well over the Internet and set-top boxes alike. We feel VP4 is a
couple of years ahead of the current market. VP4 has been licensed by
RealNetworks and a couple of other companies, so we wanted to continue
to hold on to those opportunities.”

But Gillespie hopes VP3 will become the standard for video compression with the Open Source release. “We decided to Open Source the codec in order to promote a true common
format that is open, documented and freely available to all,” he says. “While
MPEG is open, it is also standards-based, license fees are customary, and
any changes have to be approved by a board. This can take several months,
and technology moves quicker than that … We want software developers to be comfortable and familiar with the VP family of products.”

On2 promotes VP3 as a high-quality video compression technology, at “significantly lower data rates than our competitors,” Gillespie says. Over
the Internet, VP3 can deliver VHS-quality video at about 200kbps, and the technology can work with RealPlayer, Apple’s QuickTime 5.0, and Windows Media Player.

The On2 stable of VP3 products don’t include a Linux player, although the beauty of the code being Open Sourced, of course, is that developers can build VP3 tools for Linux or other operating systems, as long as the code is registered and shared, Gillespie says. The Windows and QuickTime versions are open for someone who wants to port the technology to Linux.