eWEEK reports that the “kinder, gentler face” of Microsoft shown during last year’s antitrust decision seems to have vaporized as the Redmond company ramps up its software bundling efforts and Linux attacks. One IT industry veteran says that Microsoft’s aggressive new tactics remind him of the IBM of days gone by.

Today Open-Source Directory has published a Social Contract with the contributors to the database of stable, open-source applications.

“”We’ve published this social contract in response to contributor’s questions about what we are going to do with the entire content of the site,” states Steven Mallett, co-founder of Open-Source Directory (OSD). I’ve been investigating the idea of how to make this kind of statement to the contributors by looking at the GFDL and the OPL. These are both content licenses, but neither really address the unspoken agreement that takes place when someone registers a product listing with us or any other open-source developed content.” “After reading the recent dmoz announcement about their Social Contract I realized the simplicity of the solution. I was looking for a formal license when what was needed was a simple, two-way, promise; a Social Contract .

Open-Source Directory is a community driven repository of just stable, open-source applications.
It was launched in April of 2001.
Find out more about Open-Source Directory at: http://www.opensourcedirectory.org

– By Tina Gasperson –
Jean Francois Martinez, the project leader for Independence Linux, announced last week the release of the first snapshot for the distribution that calls itself Linux for the masses.According to Martinez, this pre-release snapshot accomplished the following goals:

• Robustness – “We cannot assume a user who does not make mistakes. The
  introduction of XFS makes Indy resilient to untimely powerdowns or resets. There is also a last chance editor (lpe), an editor for really tough situations that will allow easier repairs than with VI.”
• Bloat removal – “Most users use only one tool for a given task so it makes little sense to include dozens for the same task. It is good for sales of commercial distributions but it is not in user’s best interest because they will only serve to confuse them. In addition, if a user stumbles upon several mediocre or user hostile programs he will get a bad impression of Linux. That is why programs like Twm or exmh have been withdrawn from Indy.”
• Easier administration – “Postfix replaces sendmail, Cups replaces LPRng
  as printer spooler, Cheops, ethereal and etherape help with getting information about the network. There is also kups for configuring printers.”
• Coolness – “I want Linux being used for doing cool things instead of just serving data while the real action occurs on Windows boxes. That is why Indy comes with a gimp on steroids, its PDF manual for user getting more out of it, Blender and povray for creating ray traced images, the very latest drivers, and xpp for changing printing parameters on the fly (a la Windows). Also there is SoundStudio in the multimedia area, and Gtksee because it is a great viewer.”
• Games – “What better use for computers? I have added FlightGear, a flight simulator look-alike but with greater emphasis on realism. There is also chromium, an arcade game.”
• Practicality – “As long as Linux will be seen as something basically useless for normal people it will not reach them. That is why Indy includes gnucash for personal accounting, gnome-pm for portfolio management, and gtktalog for CD management.”
• Integration in Windows networks – “Samba 2.2 is included, which is far easier to administer than Samba 2.0. There’s also LinPopUp, where the user will get messages from other windows like the ones sent by print servers; Linnneighborhood: the only explorer of Windows networks that really works, and it also allows mounting of shares on the fly.”
• Security – “Usage of acls allowed by XFS provides better security than the primitive Unix permissions.”
• Networking – “There is pptp for people using that protocol over ADSL; also included are gnome-icu (a clone of ICQ) and curl (an improved wget).”

Independence Linux is based on Red Hat, and “designed by users for the users.” If you’d like to volunteer to help out with the project, visit the Independence Linux Web site for more information. To download Independence Linux, visit this page.

Wired: “Napster’s new filtering technology is about to get better. That’s good news for the company as it prepares to launch its subscription service this summer — but bad news for consumers used to getting all the music they wanted.”

LinuxSecurity: “Passwords — the first line of defense and the oldest form of security on Unix systems — might seem a very
tired topic. You might even think there would be nothing left to say about passwords but, even today, people
are making the same basic mistakes — choosing obvious passwords, writing passwords down, or sharing
passwords — that they were making 10 years or more ago. When even a systems administrator is likely to
set a user’s password to “password” whether by intention or because the user has requested it, one has to
wonder how much of our new awareness of the importance of system security has impacted day-to-day
operations.”

LinuxSecurity: “This week, the most interesting news items include “ICMP UsageIn Scanning v3.0,” “Securing The New
Perimeter,” “Recovering froman attack,” and “The Social Engineer.” With the exception of thefirst article
mentioned, the articles provide a good introduction to each topic and are intended toward novice readers.”

Abisource: “It’s been a slow week again (by AbiWord standards anyway) due to finals/exams. Martin has however been very active and has fixed
more rendering problems and made some major improvements to the performance of AbiWord. This will make the next release of
AbiWord the best ever for sure!”

Kelly McNeill of OSOpinion writes: “A common subject often discussed by industry observers in recent months is whether Apple Computer will re-enter the mobile computing market. Analysts have been suggesting that the mobile computing industry is ready for explosive growth. Because of this potentially reinvigorated market, some have suggested that Apple create a mobile handheld device based on Apple’s newly released operating system, OS X. Others have suggested that Apple take advantage of the growing market for mobile devices by breathing new life into the company’s ill-fated Newton project. Being a diehard Apple aficionado, I thought it would be fun to play armchair CEO for a day and design a digital device that takes advantage of an upcoming new streaming video mobile communications technology called 3G, while using Apple’s sense of style, simplicity and core strengths in mind. I’ve created a downloadable blueprint and PhotoShop-generated color composite of my design which I’ve since titled the ‘eRing'”

Kelly McNeill of OSOpinion writes: “Napster has a problem: There is no solution that respects end-users’ right to copy any music they bought as many times as they like for their own use, and still prevents them from giving it away to all of their friends. To sum it up, what the record companies need is a technology that allows them to sell music to a consumer once and that consumer can then use that music whenever and wherever he or she wants for personal entertainment. Consumers should be able to play the digital music on their digital stereos, their laptops, in their cars and on their computers. Even if they are limited to only playing on one of these devices at a time, things would be just fine — most people can only listen to one piece of music at a time anyhow.”

The BBC resports that the European Union is going to examine DVD pricing and distribution, to see why the prices in Europe are higher for a different selection of encoded DVDs than North America. Hopefully some positive results will stem from the investigation.