Both lobby groups have lost theirheads

Music and movie industry lobby groups seeks permanent antimonopoly exemptions
The MPAA and the RIAA have simply lost their heads. There's absolutely no way that they'll get such exemptions- even if they tried to sneak the revelant articles in a recent bill.
Slwoly but surely there'll be such a backlash from the ordinary consumers who'll be fed up with the threats, the antics, the sheer stupidity of industries that simply can't compete and are terrified of competition. The music and movie industries are hollow and offer no new ideas or innovations.

FSF's Lawyers Speak About SCO

There's a traditional definition of a shyster: a lawyer who, when the law is against him, pounds on the facts; when the facts are against him, pounds on the law; and when both the facts and the law are against him, pounds on the table. The SCO Group's continuing attempts to increase its market value at the expense of free software developers, distributors and users through outlandish legal theories and unsubstantiated factual claims show that the old saying hasn't lost its relevance.

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FSF wants Microsoft vouchers for Christmas

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Aren't MS programmers the best in the world?

Open souce NT a threat to LINUX
I'm rather skeptical myself because MS will take whatever improvments open source programmers make and incorporate them to the other Windows variants without giving anything back. Further, the NT licence won't be GPL or another type that allows for the improvments/modifications to be left in the pool for all to use.

Which is most embarassing, being an FSF zealot, an OSS pawn, or a Legal System Parasite?

I just finished reading ESR's response to the SCO lawsuit alleging stolen free software. If the GNU/Linux vendors can't keep from suing each other for copyright, we must be doomed. Thankfully, Eric set the record straight in his persistent, eloquent way. He makes their case look amateur. Since their sense of community is as pathetic as their legal strategy, they don't seem like much of a threat .
Today's noteworthy development was that Micro$oft ran out to buy a SCO licence so that it could show its support for proprietary software. Truly sad.

Phone software too prone to fail

MS suffers new blow

T Mobile, which is a subsidary of Deutches Telekom- has decided to drop cellphones that use MS' Smartphone software. Apparently, the softare was so problematic that it caused high failure rates.
This isn't totally suprising given past experiences with MS software.

Wonders never cease

Coursey actually looks at the Office alternatives
This is a rather surpring turn of events. I wonder what suddenly has prodded Coursey to take a closer look at the Office altrnatives and be positive about them?

Buy four tires and get a free Zire

Michelin man gives away Plams
Nope it's not an April Fool joke. It's simply a business relationship to entice customers to buy tires. Not a bad idea but who's going to buy 4 tires?
NY times article requires free registration

IBM responds to SCO-Caldera's suit

Today we look at the accusations SCO-Caldera makes about IBM and alleged IBM misconduct that would have IBM contributing contaminated code to the Linux community and giving SCO-Caldera trade secrets to Linux distribution providers. So far in our Caldera v IBM lawsuit coverage we have focused on SCO-Caldera's Linux-related claims that belittle the Linux kernel, the GNU/Linux operating systems, Linux developers, Linux distribution providers, and just about the entire Linux community. Some Caldera v IBM Complaint Linux-related allegations attempt to paint a picture of the Linux kernel, the GNU/Linux operating system, Linux developers, and Linux distribution providers as a rag-tag, intellectually deprived, resources deprived, uncoordinated, band of code-thieves. They are depicted as floundering with a toy-like, bicycle-like, wholly unfit for commercial or enterprise use, operating-system -- until IBM stepped into the picture -- thus bailing-out and rescuing Linux from such a dismal undertaking. In so doing, it appears that SCO-Caldera has angered just about everyone in the Linux community that it had not already alienated.

Early reviews starting for Mandrake 9.1

OSNews was privileged to an early access to the final version of Mandrake Linux 9.1 Standard Edition and we were able to test it for almost a week now. Here is our review.

Sun rethinks its strategy - yet again.

In a major strategy shift, Sun Microsystems Inc. officials said it will stop offering its own customized version of Linux and will instead turn to several other standard Linux distributions. "Yes, this is a change in strategy. Our Sun Linux distribution is essentially Red Hat Linux with a few minor tweaks," John Loiacono, vice president of Sun's operating platforms group, told reporters at a "town hall" meeting in San Francisco Friday morning. "But our customers told us they didn't want a standard distribution that had some tweaks, so I decided to fix the problem by simply supporting between two and four standard Linux distributions, though I have not as yet decided which these will be.

ZDNet.au: ``Open source may not be right for every dev platform, but you should compare it with paid licence options. Here are pros and cons of using open source.''

A lot has been said in recent years about the relative merits of open source software (OSS) vs. single-vendor, proprietary software. The sheer volume of discourse is owed in part to the disparate groups involved in the discussion. Business leaders trying to build empires are arguing with radicals trying to change the world, who in turn are cajoling project managers just trying to ship on time. I maintain that, politics aside, for most software projects, some level of openness makes good business sense. The reasons for selecting openly specified platforms, patent-unencumbered technologies, and open source tools are numerous and unequivocal. They range from vendor flexibility to security to support to life cycle self-determinism—and finally, to total cost of ownership. Let’s look at each of those in turn.