Business

This 30 page document analyzes many of the differences between the GNU GPL and Microsft's current EULA, represented by the Windows XP EULA.

As you read through it, there does seems to be a bias towards the GPL, however I'd have to say that the facts speak for themselves. The GPL is very simply less restrictive than any Microsoft EULA.

To quickly summarize:

... the majority of the Microsoft EULA appears to protect Microsoft and limit the choices, options and actions taken by the users... In contrast, the majority of the GPL is designed to apportion rights to the users ... with a secondary emphasis on protecting the originating developers of that software... In all, a marked contrast to the EULA.

A marked contrast, indeed.

Read the full .pdf

Earlier today I came across this interesting interview with SCO CEO Darl McBride, in which he quite righteously defends his company's lawsuite against IBM. Honestly, not since the last interview with Steve Balmer did I here such nonsense. There are several choice quotes in the interview, but this one is probably my favorite:

Everyone just says we're a company going out of business, and throwing a Hail Mary pass, but once we get to court, those who say that will look as strange as the Iraqi information minister on TV saying the infidels are defeated and did not get into Baghdad.

Riiiiiight. In the middle of all that, he also threatened other Linux-friendly companies, including Red Hat and SuSE by name.

Darl, do the world a favor and get a life. And a real name.

Full interview

The author of this article makes the case that there's no longer any question of whether Linux is ready for the corporate desktop (it is), but whether corporations are ready for Linux. The author brings up some valid points, and while there are not revelations, it does counter some of the many arguments agains Linux on the desktop.

To sum up: The only area Linux may not yet be mature enough in is application and document format compatability. I reluctantly have to agree with this. While OpenOffice, as an example, may be fine for anything a company has to do from this point on, it may not be compatable with all existing documents, especially those with complicated templates, macros, etc. Reimplmenting all of these templates and macros in OpenOffice would be possible, of course, but the prospect of doing it is certainly discouraging.

Full Story

It looks like the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA) is no more, although that's not necessarily a good thing. The new Trusted Computing Group is basically composed of the same members of the TCPA, but now instead of focusing on the design and specifications of "trusted computing" (AKA Palladium), they're now focused on bringing it to market as soon as possible.

"TCG is a more formal group with licensing policy, a marketing budget, and a mission to push the trusted computing technology into a variety of devices."

Okay, now let's summerize:

• "formal licensing policy" => ream the end users
• "push the trusted computing technology" => force Microsoft's plan for total market dominance upon unwilling users
• "variety of devices" => there's no escaping it!

Crap.

Full story

I just read an intersting article on osOpinion about the Microsoft's file format lock-in tactics. Basically, it discusses Microsoft's current dominiation of the Office Suite environment, how it is largely due to their proprietary file formats that prevent people from switching to other suites (hence the term "lock-in"), and where this is headed in the next versions of Office and even Windows. Hint: It's not good.

The bottom line is that now is the time to begin looking at and switching to alternatives. I recommend OpenOffice to get started. You can and should read the full story below.

http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/20982.html#story-start

Known as 802.11g, the specification increases the bandwidth of wireless networks from 11Mbps, under the 802.11b standard, to 54Mbps. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers said Friday that a consensus had been reached to establish the latest version of the 802.11g specification, version 6.1, as the standard to be used in the industry

Now maybe we wont have the same problems like we did with 802.11a and 802.11b...

Link to Article

According to this c|net article, on Thursday, London-based market intelligence firm Mi2g said that the worm caused between $950 million and $1.2 billion in lost productivity in its first five days worldwide. That puts the worm at No. 9 on the company's list of the most costly malicious code, behind the likes of the Code Red worm, with its average of $2.6 billion in productivity loss; the LoveLetter virus, with $8.8 billion; and the Klez virus, with $9.0 billion.

And you wonder what systems the majority of these viruses are infecting :P