From IDG News Service: “File-swapping service Napster is reportedly in
talks with Microsoft to use the software
maker’s music copyright protection
technology. The Los Angeles Times Friday
reported that Napster hopes to use Microsoft’s
antipiracy technology to persuade the music
industry to allow songs it has restricted the
file-trading service from listing.”

In case you’ve been off the grid for the past couple of days, here’s a Reuters report on a Microsoft executive’s speech Thursday. “Microsoft Corp. on Thursday took aim at the Linux operating system and other rival
software that share their basic instruction codes with the public, saying such freely distributed ‘open source’
software poses a threat to commercial intellectual property rights.”

From a column at ZDNet: “I must confess, however, that it’s not entirely clear to me what Microsoft aims to get out of such
pronouncements. Mundie’s treatise comes across primarily like a finer tuned beta of a Microsoft
policy statement, but far short of any kind of coherent strategy.”

ZDNet follows up on reports about Microsoft’s
security hole in IIS 5.0.
“A hacker has announced that time’s up for system administrators who
haven’t patched Windows 2000 Web servers vulnerable to a flaw
revealed by Microsoft two days ago. The hacker — using the handle ‘Dark Spyrit’ — released a program
on Wednesday night designed to exploit the security hole and give
anyone with limited technical knowledge the ability to completely
control a Windows 2000 server running version 5 of Microsoft’s
Internet Information Server (IIS) Web software.”

Oreillynet.com has an article disputing a ZDNet column, which said that Apple isn’t giving back to the Open Source community as much as it’s taking. “Apple has given back exactly what was asked of them by the BSD community. Evan
is asking them to give back more than they have taken.

He wrongly asserts that they haven’t given anything back. The Darwin project is an
open source project started by Apple to allow the source code for the project to be
available to the community. The code they have taken is made available via the
Darwin project. They also have paid developers working on the project, which in my
opinion is giving back to the community.”

InfoWorld reports that the Gartner Group is bearish on quick industry adoption of Microsoft’s .Net plans. Gartner called Microsoft’s .Net marketing campaign “remarkably confusing.”

From ZDNet UK: “Linux NetworX and Ebiz Enterprises have called off their merger, the
second time this week Linux companies have backed off from plans to
join forces.

Ebiz announced in March that it had agreed to acquire Linux
NetworX, which builds low-cost supercomputers made of networked
Linux machines. Ebiz sells a host of Linux products, including
inexpensive PCs, other companies’ servers and software and
doo-dads such as Linux keychains.”

InfoWorld reports on IBM’s deal with a Venezuelan bank to run Linux on a mainframe for its Web serving, firewalling, and Internet domain serving needs.

Wired.com follows up on earlier reports about a bill in Argentina that would require all government offices to use Open Source software. “More than 60 percent of the computer programs in Argentina are illegal, costing the software industry about
$200 million a year, according to the vendor trade association Software Legal. Until the country’s intellectual property law was modified in November 1998, it was
perfectly legal to copy software in Argentina. Today, anyone caught with pirated goods
faces fines and up to six years in the slammer.”

tjhanson writes, “Here’s Linus’ reply to Mundie’s comments.” The Torvalds response to Thursday’s Open-Source basing speech by the Microsoft executive is at SiliconValley.com.