ZDNet asks if Hotmail and Yahoo, among others, are part of the problem rather than the solution with regards to spam. Are they blocking all spam when they offer to block spam, or just spam from their competitors?

ZDNet reports that Microsoft has halted downloads of its Internet Explorer 5.5 browser pending a service pack, which neither includes bugfixes nor any new features.

CNet reports that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has warned his employees that they must keep fighting to hold on to their market share.

OS Opinion ponders the potential result of a mass increase in Linux’s operating system market share. Could the community that is Linux become the users that are Windows?

International Data Group reports that the Ramen Linux worm, first reported a week ago, is in the wild. The worm attacks known vulnerabilities in the Red Hat distribution, and the problem can be solved by staying on top of Red Hat’s patches.

PC World reports that after a day of being inaccessible due to router failure, Microsoft’s sites were down again on Thursday due to denial of service attacks.

Kelly McNeill writes “When Microsoft’s recent investment in Corel was announced, one part of the deal confused me. The contract specified that Corel must port .NET to Linux if Microsoft should ever asked them to do so. Does Microsoft want .NET on Linux, or not? If they do, why not just require the port as a part of the contract? Otherwise why bother including the addendum to the contract? I thought it odd that a shrewdly managed company would leave such an important part of its overall strategy undecided. Gates himself has suggested that .NET was a “bet the company” initiative. How could they be so unsure?“

LWN.net posts: “”icecast” is a server used to distribute audio streams to compatible
clients such as winamp, mpg123, xmms and many others.
The “Packet Knights” group has found a format string vulnerability on
this program that could be used to remotely execute arbitrary code on
the server with the privileges of the user running it, normally root.
This can lead to remote root compromise.”

Kelly McNeill writes “Belonging to the Linux community was something special. This tightly knit group of individuals all work in unison to meet a common goal. Without trying to sound overly corny, the Linux community aims for a brighter future for all computer users alike. But is there a future possibility that Linux might expand outside what many consider its back room server-side confinement? How would this increased
exposure affect the community to which so many volunteers have become a major force?”

SecurityFocus.com has details of a FreeBSD security issue that may allow some users to override any ipfw packet filtering rules, neutering firewalls in the process.