Patrick Mullen writes: “The Duke of URL has just posted its Linux Distribution Round-Up. The guide covers everything in choosing a distribution from information on each distribution, how to identify the specifications (kernel, XFree86 version, GLIBC version, etc), and even links to full looks into many of today’s distributions.”

Anonymous Reader donated this link: “ZDNET: “America Online Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have reached a tentative
agreement under which the AOL 6.0 client will be bundled into
Windows XP, sources close to both companies said late Thursday.”

LinuxSecurity: “Samba up to version 2.0.7 uses mktemp(3) for creation of temporary
files. This allows malicious local users to alter contents of
other files on the system, and potentially gain superuser privileges.

This was originally thought fixed in Samba 2.0.8, but as it turns out,
that was not the case.”

An anonymous reader writes: “Digital music is going main stream and it will be hard for the record companies to convince the electronic manufacturers otherwise. There is money to be made with these products and money and market share to lose if manufactures don’t act timely to satisfy consumer demand. The Rio Volt is the first MP3/CD portable that MP3 Newswire has reviewed and it turns out to be a winner. By this time next year we expect most if not all CD and DVD players will have MP3 capability added. More at MP3Newswire.“

Wired: “Spam touting preternaturally nubile lasses and dubious penile enhancement techniques is, without question, clogging inboxes, vexing
companies and alarming parents.

So nobody was surprised when the House Judiciary Committee overwhelmingly approved a bill on Wednesday that backers say will shield America’s inboxes
from the tacky carnality of spambots. Nobody, that is, except legitimate businesses that suddenly realized sending even legitimate sex-related e-mail might soon be a federal
crime.”

Wired: “Britain’s Guardian newspaper caused quite a sensation recently with its poetry contest.

It was the method, as well as the madness, that caught the eye. Keats, Byron and Shelley are probably spinning in their graves.

In the first major competition of its kind, the Guardian awarded cash prizes to people who wrote the best poetry on their mobile phones, using the popular
short text message service (SMS). People on their way to work, people on their way home, and people just out and about, banged out poems and shot them
to the newspaper at an incredible rate.”

The Register: “A Russian pensioner has been arrested after allegedly masterminding a scam
geared to lifting the credit card number of Western tourists visiting Moscow cyber
cafes.

According to a report by the Moscow Times, the unnamed 63 year-old was a
programmer who turned to Internet crime after becoming disaffected about his
meagre state pension and royalties from the software he developed.”

The Standard: “Shares of TiVo Inc.
(TIVO.O) soared more than 70 percent on
Thursday, fueled by news the company had won
a patent for technology that allows the pausing
and recording of live television broadcasts, and
on higher first-quarter revenues.

The company’s shares spiked to a session-high
of $8.75, the highest level since January,
although it remains far off its 52-week high of
$37.50. The stock closed at $8.50, up 72
percent.”

– By Tina Gasperson –
In a move that it calls a radical change to its business model, ArsDigita is
planning to market “proprietary extensions” to its free ACS software,
beginning this fall.ArsDigita, a company which has built its reputation on providing top quality
open source software for companies like America Online to build web
applications upon, is developing its own response to the economic downturn and
its resulting impact on Linux and other Open Source companies.

They’re putting together a hybrid model, a cross between the completely free
as in beer Open Source track they’ve been on since 1997, and the
closely-guarded secrecy of all-proprietary companies like Microsoft, Adobe,
and others.

The core software, ArsDigita Community System (ACS) will remain free and
open. Up to this point, the company’s revenue has come only from the fees charged for support on this system. Now, because of widespread expectations of lowered income, the company is trying to add cash avenues to its bread and butter main street. “It’s about margins,” says Jim McManus, ArsDigita’s director of corporate marketing. “Services models traditionally have lower margins than pure license vendors. Our goal is to provide customers with the highest quality solutions, while maintaining an attractive margin for our employees and investors.”

So, beginning this fall, ArsDigita is adding proprietary extensions to its line of products. These pre-packaged extensions will be designed to help customers using ACS integrate the software with other widely used resource planning applications like SAP and PeopleSoft. Or, they will provide more data according to companies’ needs.

“It’s important to note that we will not be closing off any features that currently exist,” says McManus, “and in fact, with the release of ACS 5.0 this fall, there will be much more functionality in the GPL version than currently exists.”

McManus points out that ArsDigita has consulted with customers about the change, and that their findings have been positive. “[Our] customers have no problem with the concept, and in fact it eases some of the initial reluctance to talk with an Open Source vendor like ourselves, since they’ll know they’re getting enterprise quality code.”

Apparently, according to McManus, one of the objections that ArsDigita’s potential customers raise is their concern that “Open Source comes from a bunch of hackers,” and he says that the licensed extensions help to show buyers that “someone is responsible for the application — meaning they are getting an ArsDigita product.”

And, he says, ArsDigita asked the Open Source community for their blessing on the proprietary extensions. “The community seems to realize that in this tight market, we need to explore all methods of generating revenue. As long as we continue to provide our core platform and applications as GPL–and not take away any functionality–they seem to understand our reasoning.”

McManus says that ArsDigita hasn’t decided the exact licensing terms for the extensions, only that the customer will be licensed to use the code, but it will still belong solely to ArsDigita. “We are exploring other Open Source licenses for the extensions,” he says, “or we may release them under our own license.”

By definition, Open Source software must follow certain guidelines, for instance, it must be freely redistributable, must allow derivative works, and must allow either modification of the source code or patches.

According to McManus, the use of the extensions does not affect the GPL’ed status of software that the company makes freely available, nor are the extensions required to also be under the GPL, because they are not derivative works.

“IDG: “Launch joins a growing list of online music companies that have been sued
by the RIAA, which began its legal brawls more than a year ago by taking
on Napster and MP3.com. In addition to adding Launch to the list of
defendants it will face, the association also sued Napster knockoff Aimster in
a separate suit on Thursday.”