If you’ve received one of those nastygrams from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) or even if you haven’t, you might be interested in this ZDNet story posted at Yahoo: “What you probably don’t know is that, like so many of the companys that stuff your maiboxes with junk mail, the BSA… has no intention of following up on its letters — regardless of how threatening and personal they may seem. It won’t phone. And it won’t pop in for a surprise audit.” Turns out this is just a marketing campaign crafted to frighten unknowing users into buying more software.

A heads-up from SecuriTeam: “A security vulnerability has been confirmed in Lycos’s Search Engine (other engines are suspected to be vulnerable as well).
The vulnerability allows malicious web site owners to cause JavaScript code (or any other HTML code) to get included in the
search results displayed to the end user by Lycos. A malicious user may create an interface embedded into the engines pages (if the search engine supports PHP this is even
worse; a malicious web site can build up a shell) or start a redirect attack.”

Slashdot: “Findlaw has an editorial today on fashioning a compulsory
licensing scheme (the IP version of the real property eminent domain takings power)to
allow third-party online music distribution to proceed without the RIAA’s permission.
Thoughtful arguments are made about the role of IP in a free society and restoring the
public benefit function of copyright.”

Topics in this edition of news and links for the Python community include an example use of steyp.py, an announcement of Python 2.1.1 for OpenVMS, Python Conference call for papers, and a quick-start tutorial to CORBA use. Posted at LinuxProgramming.com.

It was 40 years ago today (well, this summer) that MIT students taught the computer how to play. Play games, that is. BBC News has an item on “Spacwar!”, the computer game created in 1961 by a group of programmers, including MIT students Dan Edwards, Alan Kotok, Peter Sampson, J. Martin Graetz, and Steve “Slug” Russell.

The 2002 USENIX Technical Conference will take place June 9 through 14 in Monterey, CA. The Conference is seeking original papers about the applications, architecture, implementation, and performance of modern computing systems. Read on for the full announcement.

2002 USENIX Annual Technical Conference
June 9-14, 2002
Monterey, CA
http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix02/

The 2002 USENIX Technical Conference seeks original and innovative 
papers about the applications, architecture, implementation, and 
performance of modern computing systems. As at all USENIX 
conferences, papers that analyze problem areas and draw important 
conclusions from practical experience are especially welcome. Some 
particularly interesting application topics are:

*Cluster computing      *File systems and storage systems
*Complexity management  *Distributed caching and replication
*Mobile code            *Mobile/Wireless computing
*Networking and network services        *Multimedia
*Reliability and QoS    *Security and privacy
*Ubiquitous computing   *usage studies
*Web technologies               *Energy/Power Management
*Interoperability of heterogeneous systems

FREENIX is a special track within the USENIX Annual Technical 
Conference that showcases the latest developments and applications in 
freely redistributed technology. The FREENIX track covers the full 
range of software and source code including but not limited to 
Apache, Darwin, FreeBSD, GNOME, GNU, KDE, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, 
Perl, PHP, Python, Samba, Tcl/Tk and more.

FREENIX is looking for papers about projects with a solid emphasis on 
nurturing the open source/freely available software community and 
talks which advance the state of the art of freely redistributable 
software. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

*Cross-platform source portability and binary compatibility
*Desktop metaphors      *Distributed and parallel systems
*Documentation          *File system design
*Highly-available systems *Graphical user interface tools
*Storage Systems                *Highly-scalable and clustered systems
*Security                       *System and user management tools
*Quality Assurance      *Large scale system management
*Print Systems          *Free Software development/mgmt
*Operating system design *Interesting deployments of free software

Submission guidelines and conference details are available on our website:
http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix02/cfp/

Submissions to the Freenix Track are due on November 12, 2001. 
Submissions to the General Refereed Sessions Track are due on 
November 19, 2001. Join us in developing the best technical 
conference program of 2002!

====================================================================
The 2002 USENIX Annual Technical Conference is sponsored by
USENIX, The Advanced Computing Systems Association. www.usenix.org
====================================================================

Hot topics in the latest summary of linux-kernel mailing list stats and traffic include 16 posts on hash functions, 12 posts regarding GCC 3.0’s new inlining conventions, and ten posts on the status of journaling filesystems. Hot off the presses at kt.zork.net.

National Post: “Anyone following the massive consolidation of the media industries must be asking: What ever happened
to convergence?

Convergence, despite hype about “content” deals, was supposed to bring competition between telephone
and cable TV companies as they upgraded their networks to enter each other’s core business. What
we’ve seen so far, however, is not convergence – but consolidation.”

Avatar writes “Another new review posted today at Evil3D. Today’s fun covers the VR3 PDA from Agenda Computing, its ups and downs, and the community surrounding it. Here is a short blurb:

“While Linux has been making its way into the server market and trying to claw into the desktop market for some time, it has also slipped into the embedded market. As each day passes, more and more devices using Linux are announced. Some of the most notable are TiVo which has been on the market for some time, Nokia’s upcoming Multimedia Terminal, and a soon to be released PDA from Sharp. Developers claim the choice is obvious. Small footprint, open code, free availability, efficiency, and stability all help give Linux the upper hand in embedded development.”

The new review can be found here.”

LinuxNews.pl writes “We have made some software RAID benchmarks. You can look at theme
here
and
here” (Editor’s note: Articles are written in Polish language).