Linux-Advocacy Digest #135, Volume #31 Sat, 30 Dec 00 10:13:02 EST
Contents:
Re: Advocacy: A Definition from Webster ("Adam Warner")
Re: Operating Systems? Where would you go next? (John Rudd)
"Think tank warns that Microsoft hack could pose national security risk" ("Adam
Warner")
Re: Why Advocacy? (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why Advocacy? (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why Advocacy? (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why Advocacy? (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why Advocacy? (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why Advocacy? (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why Advocacy? (Pete Goodwin)
Re: "Think tank warns that Microsoft hack could pose national security
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Why Advocacy? (mlw)
Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge ("Otto")
Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge ("Otto")
Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge ("Otto")
Re: Why Advocacy? (Gary Hallock)
EXCLUSIVE: Hacker Steals Redhat Linux Source Code ("Adam Warner")
Re: Who LOVES Linux again? ("MH")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advocacy: A Definition from Webster
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 23:10:20 +1200
Hi Form@C,
> I completely agree here. It is especially true of Linux that lively
> discussion should take place. Without it there would be little to push the
> development along as there is no real commercial development.
The statement that there is no real commercial development of Linux is
completely false (even with you using the subjective term "real").
<snip>
> I'm not sure that this newsgroup would be such a good place to ask advice
> on choice of OS, or anything else for that matter! The place is full of
> extremists on all sides and unbiased opinion is in *very* short supply...
>
> It *is* a good place to just see what people say about OSs before going
out
> and looking closer though. Don't ask specific questions - just look.
So let's get this right:
1. This newsgroup is not a good place to ask anything.
2. In fact don't ask any specific question.
3. Only look at the newsgroup.
Mick, I'm looking at an empty newsgroup :-)
My advice is opposite: if you need to know about the specific capabilities
of Linux in a real-world environment this is a good place to ask. It's
easier to tackle a specific question (e.g. "How does ext2 file system
compression compare to NTFS?") rather than "Is Linux better than NT?"
Regards,
Adam
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:28:47 -0800
From: John Rudd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.inferno,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Operating Systems? Where would you go next?
israel raj thomas wrote:
>
> > NT, 2000Pro, 2000Server, 2000Advanced
> >> Server, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux
>
> >> OS's on the market. OS/2 has a better GUI than any of the above by
> >> far. OS/2 can multitask and multithread better than any OS on the
> >> list. OS/2 is faster and manages resources better than any OS on the
> >> list. OS/2 is more secure than any OS on the list except maybe Open
> >> BSD. All of the BSD's and Linux are excellent OS's but OS/2 is
> >> better.
>
> OS/2 with its famous "lock-up intermittently" GUI is better than the
> unices that come with KDE , Gnome, Enlightenment ?
> What are you smoking ?
While I wasn't a fan of WPS, trying to brag about KDE, Gnome, or
Englightenment on any level is just silly.
Enlightenment is just a pretty veneer on top of a crappy imaging model (X).
Gnome and KDE at least offer some services, but they're no more useful than
Linux was in 92 ... and usable doesn't even enter the picture.
The only decent Unix GUI that was ever released was Nextstep/Openstep (it
remains to be seen whether or not Mac OS X will ruin this with Macisms).
It wasn't just pretty with a few services, it provided an overall
integrated platform upon which to build applications that interacted with
eachother in a complete and well designed platform. Compared to that, KDE
and Gnome are tinkertoys.
WPS, while it had its problems, also provided a complete platform. More
than can be said for any X based environment.
As for the crack about "theory and practice of operating systems" ... there
hasn't been an interesting new theory or implimentation in any popular
operating system in over 10 years. I'm a freebsd fan, but to claim that
any of the unices have made anything other than a refining advance in that
period shows a great deal of ignorance.
To even discuss theory in the same paragraph with MS platforms is beyond
silly ... it begs the question of "are you just trolling?" They don't care
about theory, they care about sales, and their platform shows it.
If you want to talk about interesting new operating system theories and
implimentations in the last 10 years, plan 9, inferno, and eros are the
places to look. However, in terms of use outside of the embedded arena, I
don't see inferno having much more than a niche (not because I don't like
it, but because its design has some quirks that I think would keep it from
being a widely adopted/supported general purpose desktop OS).
------------------------------
From: "Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: "Think tank warns that Microsoft hack could pose national security risk"
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 02:31:36 +1200
The report is from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
(www.csis.org).
Here's the article:
http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/stories/0,1199,NAV47-68-84-88-93_STO55656,0
0.html
It also contains a link to the report:
http://www.csis.org/homeland/reports/cyberthreatsandinfosec.pdf
I wonder if this could hurt Microsoft's defence aspirations? Also this is
partially the result of a closed source development process where security
through obscurity is paramount.
Some quotes from the report:
Page 6:
"Almost all the Fortune 500 corporations have been victims. The apparent
ease with which cyber criminals breached the security firewalls of
Microsoft, the world's mightiest software company, and obtained early sight
of unannounced coming products, sent alarms through the industrialized
world's computer dependent economies. If this could happen to Microsoft,
then no company is safe. The FBI, called in by Microsoft, suspects Russian
hackers. Whoever stole proprietary secrets at the heart of the ubiquitous
Windows program can hack into any PC in the world that uses it and is
connected to the Internet."
(Now that's an overstatement--I hope :-)
Page 20:
"A profound concern to both private and public entities becomes whether or
not any of these products will be trustworthy once they are released. It is
doubtful that the millions (sometimes billions) of lines of code required to
power Microsoft's products could readily be sanitized. More troubling still
is the admission that the hackers used a relatively unsophisticated program
(the QAZ Trojan Horse) to penetrate the security perimeter of the world's
most powerful software company. With most military and government systems
powered by Microsoft software and more generally reliant on COTS, this
recent development can pose grave national security-related concerns."
(billions of lines of code???)
Regards,
Adam
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 13:36:36 +0000
Mig wrote:
> Dont turn to me. You are the one asking for consistence and when MS
> violates that it seems to be OK with you. Consequence and consistence is
> the same here.
Yes but Microsoft are consistant with that batch of products on Windows,
like Winamp etc. They're the ones that started the trend, Microsoft
followed it.
> And they should since they are different.
So... you want the difference? You want them to be _so_ different that it
takes a radical change in mind set to use them?
> You will end in serious trouble with Unix one day. A trend seems to be XML
> based interfaces ala Glade/libglade - Qt will have something similar for
> 3.0 as i understand - this will also mean that endusers can change and
> rearrange the interface.. its allready possible with some apps today.
If that gives me the ability to get everything looking the same (but in
_my_ way) then I'm all for it.
> No, but should there be one? I think youre mixing things. The linuxconf
> GUI is just a GUI.. you could write one for Qt without necessarily
> changing any underlying code. Think nmap and nmap Front End that i believe
> is made this way
But the way Qt and Gtk work from an end user perspective is subtly
different. It's those little differences that I'm pointing out.
--
Pete, running KDE2 on Linux Mandrake 7.2
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 13:37:29 +0000
Mig wrote:
> First i was thinking that you was thinkign about me but that could not be
> true could it ? :-)
No!
> Fortunattely i used DejaNews and found Mr. Kuklis... I must send a present
> to my news administrator since Kuklis posts are allways filtered out.
KNode doesn't have filtering as yet.
--
Pete, running KDE2 on Linux Mandrake 7.2
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 13:38:19 +0000
mlw wrote:
> You would have to buy an experimental version which could write to such
> a drive. Would NT's regedit run under DOS?
I don't know - I'm only going on what I was told.
--
Pete, running KDE2 on Linux Mandrake 7.2
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 13:41:30 +0000
mlw wrote:
> You are confusing an OS construct and a setting, i.e.
>
> /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/K[nn][name]
>
> Is a construct, it is something which is documented as part of the OS.
>
> If you wanted to know what K60atd does, you could easily do:
> cat /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/K60atd | more
>
> There are comments within the file.
Taking a few other files (S60cups and S90xfs) the comments are minimalist.
Neither of them mention what dependancies they have (if any) and what
recommended sequence number they should be.
--
Pete, running KDE2 on Linux Mandrake 7.2
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 13:43:18 +0000
Bob Hauck wrote:
> If that's true, then either you're talking about a system you don't care
> about, or you never change your configuration from the default, or you
> have been diligent about keeping backups of key configuration files so
> you don't have to spend hours setting things back they way they were.
After reinstalling both Windows and Linux a few times, I quickly figured
out what I need to backup and restore.
--
Pete, running KDE2 on Linux Mandrake 7.2
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 13:46:12 +0000
Gary Hallock wrote:
> It's handy to install Gtk for lots of reasons. But you can use linuxconf
> from a web browser such as Netscape or konqueror.
If you let the service run - I think I switched it off thinking linuxconf
was enough. The service for Web Admin is called webmin, another name to
remember.
> There must have been more to it than this. rc6.d is for shutdown.
> Without an entry there, the service should still have started properly but
> it might not
> shut down properly. What service was this?
smb (Samba).
--
Pete, running KDE2 on Linux Mandrake 7.2
------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 13:48:18 +0000
Les Mikesell wrote:
> What???? Runlevel 6 doesn't really exist - it is a shorthand notation for
> going down to level 0 (shutdown) then rebooting back to the default
> level (usually 3 or 5). Something else must be going on here.
That's what made it work. Oooh boy, sounds like I guessed wrong. Still it
works, so I'm happy.
> Oh, I thought you meant you added an rc6.d directory.
> My smbd file suggests S91 and K35.
I found K35 ok but not S91. I didn't see any documentation in smbd about
that.
--
Pete, running KDE2 on Linux Mandrake 7.2
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: "Think tank warns that Microsoft hack could pose national security
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 13:47:07 +0000
Adam Warner wrote:
>
> The report is from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
> (www.csis.org).
>
> Here's the article:
> http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/stories/0,1199,NAV47-68-84-88-93_STO55656,0
> 0.html
>
> It also contains a link to the report:
> http://www.csis.org/homeland/reports/cyberthreatsandinfosec.pdf
>
> I wonder if this could hurt Microsoft's defence aspirations? Also this is
> partially the result of a closed source development process where security
> through obscurity is paramount.
>
> Some quotes from the report:
>
> Page 6:
> "Almost all the Fortune 500 corporations have been victims. The apparent
> ease with which cyber criminals breached the security firewalls of
> Microsoft, the world's mightiest software company, and obtained early sight
> of unannounced coming products, sent alarms through the industrialized
> world's computer dependent economies. If this could happen to Microsoft,
> then no company is safe. The FBI, called in by Microsoft, suspects Russian
> hackers. Whoever stole proprietary secrets at the heart of the ubiquitous
> Windows program can hack into any PC in the world that uses it and is
> connected to the Internet."
>
> (Now that's an overstatement--I hope :-)
>
I see no reason why this should be an overstatement. The group in
question probably now know all the security precautions taken in the
windows kernel an so can get around them. Moreover, despite denials
from MS, they may have inserted Trojan code, giving them easy access to
all windows machines.
At the end of the day, it is closed source, so who knows?
--
http://www.guild.bham.ac.uk/chess-club
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 08:59:11 -0500
Pete Goodwin wrote:
>
> mlw wrote:
>
> > You are confusing an OS construct and a setting, i.e.
> >
> > /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/K[nn][name]
> >
> > Is a construct, it is something which is documented as part of the OS.
> >
> > If you wanted to know what K60atd does, you could easily do:
> > cat /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/K60atd | more
> >
> > There are comments within the file.
>
> Taking a few other files (S60cups and S90xfs) the comments are minimalist.
> Neither of them mention what dependancies they have (if any) and what
> recommended sequence number they should be.
I don't have cups, but my xfs has this:
# Version: @(#) /etc/init.d/xfs 2.0
#
# chkconfig: 2345 90 10
# description: Starts and stops the X Font Server at boot time and
shutdown. \
# It also takes care of (re-)generating font lists.
#
# processname: xfs
# config: /etc/X11/fs/config
# hide: true
The chkconfig line manages the sequence.
--
http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
Reply-To: "Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 14:11:14 GMT
"R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:92jdq0$bji$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
: > Most of the internet stocks did not drop as substancially as the Linux
: > stocks did.
:
: Linux stocks were sold when Internet stocks were at an all-time high
: and Financial Advisors and fund managers were desparately looking for
: other places to put "Aggressive Growth Tech Fund" money. There was
: too much money chasing too few stocks, and the flow of Billion dollar
: funds into 6 million share offerings was too quickly diluted into
: roughly 30 million shares. Effectively, the net asset value of "Linux
: Incorporated" (public asset value of all Linux related holdings) has
: actually been increasing in a manner consistent with overall market
: growth.
:
: The question remaining for fund managers is whether the overall shares
: available has stabilized or whether the pool will be further diluted
: through more aquisitions, more stock-swap take-overs, or more IPOs.
: The Law of supply and demand still applies, especially in the Nasdaq.
In another word the demand for Linux stocks dropped on a greater scale than
any other tech stocks. At the same time the supply of the same increased in
a greater proportion than the demand dropped. The blue print of a disaster
in progress.
: > Corporations has been slow discovering Open Source
: > and they are even slower
: > adopting it.
:
: Actually, most corporations are mixing the old (commercial software)
: with the new (Open Source). For example, WebSphere is being offered
: in a package that includes Apache, JDK 1.2, and PERL. It combines
: these Open Source products with DB2, MQSeries, and the Websphere
: EJB servelet package.
:
: Most of the portal vendors are also offering packages that use Apache
: as the primary web server interface with their package connected
: to the Servlet engine.
Don't get me started on WebSphere. Most of the software included in the
package is freeware, including the DB2 personal edition. Wrap some
proprietery code around the Open Source Software and sell it for $7,500/CPU.
Who said it's hard to make money with OSS? The only problem is, that the
people who developed the included packages in WebSphere don't see a red
penny from that money, but IBM will. I tried WebSphere and rather download
the packages separately for nothing.
: > In short, everybody was dumping Red Hat.
:
: In short, Red Hat stocks where being issued to people who had no
: vested interest in long term investment. The "Shareware IPOs" didn't
: even try to hold out for the tax advantages (most cashed out as soon
: as the law would let them).
:
: The duming was triggered by Red Hat's second IPO BEFORE the original
: IPO holders were able to redeem their holdings. Essentially, they
: lost half their investment before they were legally allowed to sell
: (even though many had made as much as 5 times what they paid
: initially.
As soon as Red Hat employess were able to sell their stock option they sold
off in a hurry. What does it tell you?
: > And that would be different from other less
: > desirable company's accusitions how?
:
: It's generally a bad idea for a company who has just issued an IPO
: based on a positive cash flow and expectations of earnings to start
: purchasing a bunch of companies that are running in the red. Many
: of the aquisitions appear to be an attempt to dump bad venture capital
: holdings into public holdings. Most of these companies could not
: have survived as IPOs, but the VC funds wanted to "cash out".
:
: Unfortunately, Red Hat executives were a bit like Lotto winners.
: The suddenly found themselves sitting on nearly $1 billion in net
: worth and were instantly deluged with offers to buy unprofitable
: companies with good VC connections and lousy business plans.
Red Hat executives, I used the term loosely, decisions will have long term
effect. Red Hat might even be gone by year 2010.
Snip...
: > However small that audience might be.
: > Just a reminder small is relative, it
: > depends on what one would compare it to.
:
: Very true. Linux has been installed about 80 million times.
: Microsoft Windows has been installed about 1 Billion times.
Your numbers aren't true if you listen what people say in these newsgroups.
According to them Windows needs to be re-installed on a regular bases, which
makes your "1 Billion times" figure obsolete :).
Kidding aside the ratio between Linux and Windows isn't about 10 to 1, it's
more like 100 to 1.
: Even today, Linux competes as an add-on with Microsoft Windows
: which us a compulsory and exclusive installation for nearly all
: PCs sold in the U.S. today.
The platform sold with the PC is driven by demand. One could just as easily
get Linux on the PC as Windows.
: Ironically, Linux may become an attractive alternative from those
: looking to upgrade from Windows 9x to something other than Windows ME
: or Windows 2000. Most of the third party applications that ran on
: Windows 95 run very nicely under the WINE emulation.
Linux may, but it does not mean that it will. People using WINE keep whining
about the shaky third party applications, which acts the same as they did
running on Windows. That's pretty much validates Windocates claim about
application and not OS problems.
: > And so does Windows 2000's revenues,
: > growing faster than all of the Linux
: > distribution combined.
:
: I'm not so sure that's true any more. Windows 2000 is displacing
: many Windows NT systems, but in the server market Linux holds 30%
: of the market, BSD holds 15%, and Solaris holds about 20%, while
: Microsoft holds about 20% of the market. Keep in mind that this
: is based on License UNITS SHIPPED and does not attempt to factor
: in the fact that Linux allows multiple installations per unit
: shipped.
Although it is true that Windows 2000 is mainly displacing NT system,
however, that does not mean there is no new installations of Windows 2000.
Not to mention the fact that it is a "natural" upgrade path also to NT 4.0.
Your server market share numbers are for web servers only and not for all of
the servers. There is a huge difference and you know it. If you look at the
actual numbers for the server market you'd find NT is the number one in the
server market.
: Windows 2000 is still dwarfed by Windows 9x/ME both in terms of
: units installed and in terms of units shipped in the last year.
: Linux license shipments (UNITS Shipped) actually exceeds Windows
: 2000 today.
I don't have numbers, nor do I have the time to look it up, to contradict
your claim. Nonetheless I doubt that your claim has any merrit.
: Where Microsoft can and does claim bragging rights in in the
: dollar volumes. Even if Microsoft was in a "dead heat" with
: Linux in terms of units sold, Microsoft would have 10 times
: the revenue of Linux. This is simply because Windows 2000 costs
: 10 times the price of it's most expensive comparable Linux rivals.
:
: Linux Workstation costs between $20 and $79 a copy. Linux server
: costs between $20 and $150 per copy. Windows 2000 workstation
: costs $400 per copy (about $200 at OEM prices). Windows 2000
: server starts at $1500 per processor and climbs rapidly depending
: on licensing options used.
Once again your numbers are way off. Not to mention the fact that Linux
licensing cost can escalate also, source http://www.pcnation.com :
229021 OPENLINUX APPLICATION SERVER W/ TARANTELLA MEDIA & 5 USER LIC $580.72
431313 WINDOWS 2000 SERVER W/ 5-CLIENT LIC $836.
Otto
------------------------------
Reply-To: "Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 14:11:16 GMT
"Charlie C. Ebert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
: Beyond 2010 there will be no serious commerical OS competitors
: to Linux of any kind.
"Beyond 2010" is a wide definition, 2050, 2100, 2500, etc....
:
: You could easily say and envision NO commerical OS competitors
: of any kind beyond 2010 due to the enormous cost of bringing
: a new OS forth and attempting to compete with a free one which
: has no flaws.
Does "uber alles deutsch" ring a bell?
Otto
------------------------------
Reply-To: "Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 14:11:17 GMT
"R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:92jgdq$dd7$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
: > That could explain why Microsft platforms
: > are the leaders in the desktop and
: > server market.
:
: We're talking a number of felonies here. Cocain dealers are also
: very profitable.
You seem to think that making profit is a felony, which is the case for the
cocain dealers according to the existing laws. On the flip side, Microsoft
making profit is not against any laws at the present time. Just because Open
Source Software can't make any money it doesn't mean that profits should be
illegal. You as an OSS advocate might like to have profits abolished, but
that's just a pipe dream just like OSS in itself.
:
Needless FUD snipped....
: > He didn't :)?
:
: And the moon is made of green cheese :-).
Wrong, it's yellow american cheese :).
: > Alternatively you could be wrong
: > and P.T. Barnum is still right. Not to
: > mention the fact that you would not
: > be able to come up with a link which
: > would show, that Microsoft tells us not to use Open Source.
:
: You know that the original announcement of Windows NT (circa 1992)
: hasn't been posted to the web in a referencable form. I'd love to
: see the original text of that speech. Do you have a link I could
: reference.
No, I don't have any reference to that text for simple reason, it does not
exist. That fact in itself make your posting nothing more than a useless
flame.
Kind regards and Happy New Year.....
Otto
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 09:22:25 -0500
From: Gary Hallock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Advocacy?
Pete Goodwin wrote:
> Gary Hallock wrote:
>
> > It's handy to install Gtk for lots of reasons. But you can use linuxconf
> > from a web browser such as Netscape or konqueror.
>
> If you let the service run - I think I switched it off thinking linuxconf
> was enough. The service for Web Admin is called webmin, another name to
> remember.
>
No need to remember the name. Just go into linuxconf one last time and enable
linuxconf network access.
Gary
------------------------------
From: "Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: EXCLUSIVE: Hacker Steals Redhat Linux Source Code
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 03:24:44 +1200
"Hacker Steals Redhat Linux Source Code"
By Adam Warner - UAP*
In an act that's widely believed to be in retaliation for the stealing of
source code to an unnamed Microsoft product, a hacker only known as MSRU|Z
broke into the network of Red Hat, Inc. on 13 November 2000 and was able to
remain undetected while downloading the entire source code of Redhat 7.0,
codename "Pinstripe".
"Since I only have a 14.4k modem," says MSRU|Z, "downloading the source code
took rather a long while. Thus I was surprised that I was able to remain
undetected for over one month."
However MSRU|Z was in for a shock when he tried to sell the source code to
the Russian Mafia: "I put out feelers to the underground community saying I
would sell the code for a mere US$100,000 but everyone just laughed at me!
"It just goes to show how unpopular Linux is. Someone offered me $3 so long
as I supplied a blank CD."
At the time of going to press no Red Hat spokesperson would comment. However
off the record Red Hat software engineers are blaming their in-house trial
of new functionality that automatically downloads programs from the Internet
and executes them on clients' computers while surfing the web.
A Microsoft spokesperson responded that such a move by Red Hat was foolhardy
and that Microsoft had no intention of implementing such functionality in
their software products.
=====
*UAP - Unassociated Press ;-)
DISCLAIMER: While all efforts have not been made to verify the inaccuracy of
this news item, Adam Warner cannot be held responsible for the blatant
inaccuracy of this breaking story (for the humour impaired, this story is
satire).
------------------------------
From: "MH" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: Who LOVES Linux again?
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 09:32:42 -0500
> > You CAN'T do an xkill or a killall or any other process terminations
when
> > the user session is LOCKED UP.
> >
> > (User Session=Your interface, period)
>
> Yes, but what is your point? I run Netscape under Linux every day on at
> least three different boxes and leave it running for weeks or months at a
> time. Netscape itself has locked a few times, mostly from hitting some
> broken java code... [snip]...
Ah... The old 'broken java code' thing again. I haven't seen it in awhile.
Are you one of < 15% who doesn't think that NN's handling of java is less
than stellar?
------------------------------
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can send mail to the entire list by posting to comp.os.linux.advocacy.
Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
ftp.funet.fi pub/Linux
tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux
sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux
End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
******************************
