compm375 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Public buildings don't get intellectual protection (nytimes.com)

Submitted by TuringTest on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @02:17PM

TuringTest writes: Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, of international fame, recently sued the city of Bilbao (Spain) for violation of intellectual property after his Zubizuri bridge was modified by the city council to add a new footbridge on its side. Now a judge has sentenced against Calatrava saying that public right prevails over intellectual property. Altough the ruling acknowledges that the building design has intellectual property, it also concludes that a bridge is to walk on it. (Beware, some links are in Spanish. Translate at your own risk.)

Submission + - Mandriva Regains Nigeria Deal From Microsoft

Submitted by techavenger on Sunday November 11, 2007 @02:06AM

techavenger writes: A decision to wipe 11,000 machines of their shipped Mandriva Linux operating system and replace it with Windows XP for Nigerian schools received a reversal that should please Mandriva's CEO.
Someone break out the champagne for Francois Bancilhon, CEO of Mandriva. He had blogged his anger with Microsoft counterpart Steve Ballmer over what Bancilhon suggested were dirty tactics in gaining business with Nigeria.

Submission + - OpenDocument Foundation closes down

Submitted by

Munchkinguy

on Sunday November 11, 2007 @12:23AM

Munchkinguy writes: "First, they dropped support for their namesake OpenDocument Format and switching to W3C "Compund Document Format". Then, W3C's Chris Lilley says that CDF is "was not created to be, and isn't suitable for use as, an office format". Now, the Foundation has mysteriously shut down, leaving the following message:

The OpenDocument Foundation, Inc. is closed. We sincerely wish our friends and associates in the OpenDocument Community all the best and much success going forward. Good-bye and good luck.
"

Submission + - Is Human Cloning Inevitable : A UN Report (techluver.com)

Submitted by

Tech.Luver

on Saturday November 10, 2007 @11:59PM

Tech.Luver writes: "The international community faces a stark choice: outlaw human cloning or prepare for the creation of cloned humans, U.N. researchers said Saturday. A report by the United Nations University's Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) says a ban on human cloning, coupled with freedom for nations to permit controlled therapeutic research, is the global community's best option. Despite widespread consensus amongst nations regarding the desirability of banning reproductive cloning, efforts to negotiate an international convention ground to a halt due to fundamental divisions regarding so-called research or therapeutic cloning. Research cloning, viewed by some as a possible source of new therapeutic remedies for degenerative diseases, see by others as unethical where it involves the production of embryos as a source of stem cells upon which such therapies are based. ( http://techluver.com/2007/11/10/is-human-reproductive-cloning-inevitable-a-un-report/ )"

Submission + - Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else (news.com) 1

Submitted by

Brian Knotts

on Saturday November 10, 2007 @10:40PM

Brian Knotts writes: "News.com reports that congressional Democrats have introduced a bill creating a new corporate welfare program, which would force colleges into subscribing to music services, or else lose $100 billion of federal financial aid programs.

Unsurprisingly, the MPAA is on board with the bill.

"We very much support the language in the bill, which requires universities to provide evidence that they have a plan for implementing a technology to address illegal file sharing," said Angela Martinez, a spokeswoman for the MPAA.
"

Comment Re:Why.. (Score 5, Informative) 335

by compm375 on Sunday August 26, 2007 @12:09PM (#20362607) Attached to: Skype Linux Reads Password and Firefox Profile

Well, I just searched the source of Pidgin (because it is open source) and found it does indeed access /etc/passwd through getpwuid(getuid()) for use in Bonjour, Silc, and Zephyr protocols. There is no direct access to /etc/passwd and no use of getpwuid without using the current users uid through getuid. Skype may be doing the same thing, but there is really no way to know, is there?

Submission + - Does Comcast hate Firefox? (blorge.com)

Submitted by

destinyland

on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @11:00PM

destinyland writes: "Comcast is the largest ISP in America. And they're requiring Internet Explorer for installations — even if you're using a Mac. The Comcast homepage even species that the page is optimized for IE 5.5 (which was released in 2000), and "is not optimized for Firefox browsers and Macs." With 13 million subscribers, you'd think they could spring for a web developer who could handle multiple browsers. (From the last line of the article: "I'm afraid to ask how Comcast handles Linux...""

Submission + - The Demise of Physics Education (wellingtongrey.net)

Submitted by TomSun on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @12:08PM

TomSun writes: Wellington Grey is a physics teacher who has been pushed to the edge by the dumbing down of his curriculum. After changes made by the government this year which introduced what he calls 'the vague, the stupid, the political and the non-science' into standardized exams, he wrote an open letter to the government begging for his subject back and asking for your help.

Some of the examples of test questions he gives will make the mathematically minded among us ill at ease with the future of education.

Submission + - Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb'

Submitted by El Lobo on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @11:19AM

El Lobo writes: A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

"The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soliders would become gay," explained Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project.

Submission + - EFF Privacy Advocate Photographed by Google's Stre (lawbean.com)

Submitted by

Spamicles

on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @01:42AM

Spamicles writes: "From the you've got to see it to believe it department, an Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney has been photographed by Google's Street View. The funniest part is, this isn't the first time this has happened!"

Submission + - States rebel against Real ID Act (lawbean.com)

Submitted by

Spamicles

on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @01:03AM

Spamicles writes: "Four states have passed laws that reject federal rules regarding a national identification system. This casts serious doubt on the future of the 2005 Real ID Act that goes into effect in December 2009. New Hampshire and Oklahoma joined Montana and Washington state in the passage of statutes that refute guidelines set forth in the Act. However, these actions could eventually lead to drivers licenses issued in these states to not be accepted as official identification when boarding airplanes or accessing federal buildings. In addition to these four states, members of the Idaho legislature intentionally left out money in the budget to comply with the Act."

Submission + - Selling a software company

Submitted by TogetherGirl on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @12:24AM

TogetherGirl writes: I'm a partner in a small software company that sells 7 software products worldwide. We have been in business for about 5 years and each year sales have increased nicely.

Because of different philosophies / interests / opinions, we have decided to part ways. We have all agreed that it is best to sell the company or all products to a third party and hence, distribute the proceeds according to share ownership.

Since there is interest in our products by our competitors, we are trying to determine what is the best multiple of gross product sales to be used in calculating the 'selling price' of the company or all of the products.

I know there is no exact science but what is the average multiple (of gross sales) used to determine the asking / selling price of a software company?

Can anyone point out some good examples of companies being bought for around $1 million USD?

Thanks

Submission + - Electric Slide Creator Backs Off In EFF Victory (eff.org)

Submitted by chameleon_skin on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @11:13PM

chameleon_skin writes: Richard Silver, purported creator of the Electric Slide, has backed down from his earlier assertion that under the DMCA videos of the dance he supposedly created cannot be shown on YouTube without his explicit permission. In the face of an EFF lawsuit, Mr. Silver agreed in the settlement to release the rights to the dance under the Creative Commons License. Put on your dance shoes and fire up your video cameras!

Submission + - Store Burns Books to Protest Decline in Reading

Submitted by

Frosty Piss

on Monday May 28, 2007 @06:00PM

Frosty Piss writes: "Tom Wayne amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero's Books. But wanting to thin out his collection, he found he couldn't even give away books to libraries or thrift shops, which said they were full. So Wayne began burning his books protest what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word. 'This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today,' Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books. The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit to burn them."

Submission + - Are spaces in filenames worth it?

Submitted by innocent_white_lamb on Monday May 28, 2007 @05:48PM

innocent_white_lamb writes: After yet another episode of having a perfectly good script (this one straight out of a book, in fact) fail due to a space in a filename, I was just thinking.... Do you think that the "convenience" of having spaces as allowed characters in a filename outweighs the special processing that having a space in a filename requires when you are trying to do something from the commandline? Even if you're typing a simple command, you still have to use a \ in front of every space in the filename, which adds characters to what you're typing. And in bash scripting you get into little joys like single and double quotes and so on.

In the day of DOS, you had to work at it to get a space into a filename. (And with 8.3 you generally wouldn't want to waste that character even if you could do it easily.)

My Letter to Aunt Sally.txt is indeed somewhat more readable than MyLetterToAuntSally.txt, but is it sufficiently better as to justify the additional special handling it will require if you're trying to deal with it from a commandline?

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