WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
The weather here is still unseasonably warm. There seem to be a lot of ladybugs (ladybirds to my UK readers) around. In fact, I was thinking of asking Hewlett Packard to help get rid of them. After all, HP are the experts at handling bugs!
Tonight is Guy Fawkes Night here in England. We light bonfires and let off fireworks to celebrate the failure of the gunpowder plot to blow up parliament 401 years ago.
The current miserablist government is doing its best to quash the festivities (in the UK we mainly celebrate failures rather than successes - it's something to do with the national psyche) on the grounds that fireworks and bonfires are dangerous. I can't decide whether the real reason is that they object to people enjoying themselves, or whether they fear that people might get ideas about the utility of blowing up politicians. It's probably both.
Story: Microsoft and Novell - Long Spoons at Dawn
This week Microsoft and Novell announced that they would work with one another to make Windows and Linux play nicely together, and that they would push one another's products to customers that wanted to use both Windows and Linux.
This is something of a turnaround for both companies. In the past Microsoft has described Linux as 'unAmerican' and a cancer. Legend even has it that Microsoft at one stage included code in its products to check for Novell products and cause crashes if a Novell programs were found
Novell's ex-CEO, Ray Noorda, blew Novell's dowry - built up in the years where it was the only networking game in town - on buying products that he believed would help Novell defeat Microsoft on the desktop. A few years ago the company bought SuSE Linux and has since struggled to build its profile in the open source market place.
So why are these long standing foes now cuddling up to one another?
There is a saying, 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' And in this case the enemy is top Linux provider Red Hat! Novell is fighting to take the top spot from Red Hat. Microsoft is fighting to beat the challenge to its business model represented by open source, and Red Hat is its most dangerous opponent.
Shoring up Novell makes perfect sense to Microsoft. Novell have already shown they are a company that can blow everything at the crucial moment, and can probably be trusted to do the same again after Red Hat has been trounced. In the meantime they are likely to become increasingly dependent on Microsoft's support.
The deal makes sense for Novell, because they are getting nowhere with Linux - they may be the second largest Linux distribution vendor, but that is because SuSE was already number two when they took it over. Novell have some good ideas, but in general their people don't understand open source, and since they took SuSE over, most of the key players in the old SuSE company have departed.
Significantly, the agreement includes an undertaking to share intellectual property and Microsoft has undertaken not to enforce its patents against individual, non-commercial SuSE Linux developers. This is something which will reassure companies who have hung back from using open source because of patent and copyright concerns.
Of course, alliances of hereditary enemies are notoriously unstable - especially when the common enemy is vanquished. Will this be any different? Probably not - I would guess that both sides are already developing their strategies for the break up, and I, for one, don't fancy Novell's chances, though by then Novell may well be just Microsoft's Open Source Division.
And what of Red Hat?
Red Hat are behaving just like a traditional Microsoft foe. Feeling secure in their market leadership they are being arrogant and snotty, and not working to keep themselves in their current position. The history of Microsoft is littered with the corpses of foes that blew it while Microsoft avoided making stupid decisions.
To be candid, I don't forsee a big change this time round :(
http://newsletters.zdnetuk.cneteu.net/t/159619/921984/213366/0/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/03/microsoft_novell_suse_linux/
http://www.physorg.com/news81778212.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/02/microsoft_novell_linux/
http://ct.news.com.com/clicks?t=17075901-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
Shorts:
The UK Court of Appeal has ruled that you can't patent business methods or pure computer programs in the UK. Although this is UK Patent Office policy already, it is an important decision which confirms the Patent Office position.
The joy created by this ruling wasn't completely unalloyed, though. A second ruling indicated that a patent on a program running over a network was valid, because it created a new network infrastructure, and that could be considered a hardware change. This is not a good precedent, given that most programs are at least network capable these days!
As the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Illych Lenin once said, "One step forward, two steps backwards."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/27/software_patents/
The Australians are starting to take a harder line on spammers. The courts there have just zapped Wayne Mansfield and his company Clarity1 for A$5.5 million (US$4 million) for sending out an estimated 230 million spamming e-mails over a two year period. The only problem with the fine is that it probably only represents a small part of the profits of Mansfield's anti-social activities. Hopefully the next case to come before the courts will result in increased punishments.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/27/oz_spam_fine/
And while we are in the subject of spam, have you noticed a massive rise in the quantity of it recently? I have. The amount I'm getting has doubled or even tripled over the last month or so. And that's not all. My filters are having much more difficulty identifying it than they used to.
The word out on the net is that spammers have struck a deal with bot-net owners to use the massive networks of compromised computers to send out the spam. Since each of the zombie computers is only sending out a dozen or spam e-mails it's virtually impossible to detect the perpetrators at source.
I think it's going to be a bad time until the techies come up with a way to deal with this new menace to our in-boxes :(
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/31/botnet_spam_surge/
If anything was needed to highlight the dangers of ID theft caused by databases full of identity information, a recent case in New York is a classic. The CEO of managed service provider Compulinx, Terrance D. Chalk, has been accused of using his access to the personal information of company workers - names, addresses and social security numbers - to try to obtain US$1 million in credit! (It's not clear from the article whether the scam was actually successful.)
Compulinx has only 60 employees. Now imagine a similar situation with one of the massive personal information databases being built up by both private companies western governments. Scary, isn't it...
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/11/02/ceo_id_theft_arrest/
More doom and gloom. Analysts are predicting a severe shortage of batteries for laptops over the holiday period.
Not surprising really, when you consider that Sony is replacing up to 9.6 million batteries in existing laptops (the final total will be less because many people won't bother to take up the offer). That means that most of Sony's production capacity will be tied up with replacements, leaving little for batteries for new machines. So, get your Xmas pressie laptops now - or you may only be able to use you shiny new laptop plugged into the mains!
http://ct.techrepublic.com.com/clicks?t=16383201-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
Tuppence the half elf 394th level paladin, paused from slaying the forces of evil and rested his hands of the hilt of his trusty +29 broadsword of ultimate smiting. Beside him the heraldic design on his shield was nearly obliterated by the blood of the vanquished. He looked around at the carpet of fallen enemies and wondered if there would be more to fight this session.
Almost directly in front of him there was a shimmer in the air as a new demon started to materialise. Reacting with the dexterity for which he was famous, Tuppence swung his sword through an arc, building up the momentum to cut the devil spawn in half.
Unfortunately, it didn't work, and he nearly dropped the sword as it bounced off a protective black aura about two inches from the beast's body. "Gazzzooks!", he exclaimed, "Odds bodkins, what manner of deviltry be this?."
The apparition appeared to be human and was wearing what a different culture might have recognised as a dark business suit with an old school tie and patent leather shoes. Reaching into its briefcase it produced a scroll which it handed to the bemused Tuppence, politely raised it's bowler hat and vanished.
Tuppence unrolled the scroll - as a paladin he could read runes, albeit slowly. Carefully he deciphered the scroll. It read 'Sale of virtual character - tax assessment A$10,421.89. At the bottom was a scrawled signature and the legend, "Inspector, Australian Tax Office".
http://www.theage.com.au/news/biztech/virtual-world-tax-man-cometh/2006/10/30/1162056925483.html
Scanner: Other stories
Surprises inside Microsoft Vista's EULA
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/29/microsoft_vista_eula_analysis/
Britain is becoming a 'Big brother' society
http://www.physorg.com/news81778097.html
British police fail to record e-crime
http://Mail.computing.co.uk/cgi-bin1/DM/y/exMz0BsjfA0UCK0DVZQ0Ea
Spanish court drops music 'piracy' case
http://www.physorg.com/news81709498.html
Is Google legal?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/27/is_google_legal/
IBM still profits from giant mainframes
http://www.physorg.com/news81449683.html
More Microsoft:
Windows Vista for biz will be out 30th November
http://www.physorg.com/news81709601.html
Bug causes another delay to Vista
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/27/vista_delayed/
Microsoft launches global crackdown of software 'pirates'
http://www.physorg.com/news81513537.html
Old bugs blight shiny new browsers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/30/ie_firefox_vulns/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barbara and Fi for drawing my attention to material used in this issue. Please send suggestions for material to alan@ibgames.com.
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
5 November 2006
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist. His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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