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Will Stallman Kill the "Linux Revolution?" 741

Posted by Zonk from the penguin-vs-penguin dept.
frdmfghtr writes "The October 30 issue of Forbes Magazine has an article speculating that Richard Stallman's efforts to rewrite the GPL could threaten to 'tear it apart.' The article describes how the GPLv3 is expected to be incompatible with the GPLv2, causing trouble for Linux vendors such as Novell and Red Hat. The article wraps it up: 'And a big loser, eventually, could be Stallman himself. If he relents now, he likely would be branded a sellout by his hard-core followers, who might abandon him. If he stands his ground, customers and tech firms may suffer for a few years but ultimately could find a way to work around him. Either way, Stallman risks becoming irrelevant, a strange footnote in the history of computing: a radical hacker who went on a kamikaze mission against his own program and went down in flames, albeit after causing great turmoil for the people around him.'"

Google or Wikipedia - Which is Your First Stop? 171

Posted by Cliff from the depends-on-the-topic-but-google-still-the-king dept.
dwarfking asks: "Over the last several months I have noticed that more and more often, when I am searching for information on the web, I find myself starting at Wikipedia instead of Google. It used to be that the first hit on many of my Google searches linked to Wikipedia articles, so I started going there first. I've found that except for searching for current events, by starting with Wikipedia I get a good explanation of the topic of interest and the pages generally have links to other good resources that are right on topic (without the need to scroll through dozens of hits). Are others of you seeing similar shifts in your search usage and if so, do any of you think this could become a trend for the larger community? If so, then what could that potentially mean for Google?"

A Hands-On Zune Review 279

Posted by Zonk from the zunetastic dept.
jayintune writes "2old2play.com got the chance to sit down with Microsoft's new media player, the Zune, to give some comments and insight into the players User Interface, Video Playback, Music Sharing, as well as software and setup." From the article: "I had expected the player to be fairly heavy, but after holding the Zune in my hand it was clear that I was wrong. It is not as light as the latest video iPod, but compared to my fourth-generation iPod, the Zune was lighter. The top of the Zune had a clear glass layer while the exterior had a tactile feel to it, nothing like the hard metal and plastic of the iPod devices. The 'skin' of the Zune was a 'rubberized' material that had a smooth seductive feel to it. I found myself unable to stop stroking the device, so much that the demo assistant asked me to put it down."

EU Considering Regulating Video Bloggers 351

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the license-to-speak-just-a-small-additional-fee dept.
Aglassis writes to tell us that recent proposed EU legislation could require anyone running a website featuring video content to acquire a broadcast license. From the article: "Personal websites would have to be licensed as a "television-like service". Once again the reasoning behind such legislation is said to be in order to set minimum standards on areas such as hate speech and the protection of children. In reality this directive would do nothing to protect children or prevent hate speech - unless you judge protecting children to be denying them access to anything that is not government regulated or you assume hate speech to be the criticism of government actions and policy."
User Journal

Journal Journal: BSG got lower ratings too 1

Journal by WilliamSChips
The Battlestar Galactica premiere got a 1.6 rating. Last season and the season before got 2.6 ratings on premieres, and last season finale was a 1.9. Considering how heavily advertized BSG was compared to Stargate(which got a 1.5 or so for the premiere this season) the ratings will probably go down from here. It is completely obvious that the seperation of Stargate and BSG was a bad idea. And yet somehow Bonnie Hammer and Mark Stern keep their jobs.

Weakness In Linux Kernel's Binary Format 281

Posted by kdawson from the get-right-on-this dept.
Goodfellas writes, "This document aims to demonstrate a design weakness found in the handling of simply linked lists used to register binary formats handled by the Linux kernel. It affects all the kernel families (2.0/2.2/2.4/2.6), allowing the insertion of infection modules in kernel space that can be used by malicious users to create infection tools, for example rootkits. Proof of concept, details, and proposed solution (in PDF form): English, Spanish.

Hollywood Says Piracy Has Ripple Effect 309

Posted by Zonk from the truly-important-research dept.
ColinPL writes to mention a Washington Post article about a new study backed by Hollywood on intellectual piracy. The study, which they're presenting to lawmakers today, claims that piracy has a ripple effect on the economy. According to the study, lost revenues may have as much as three times the impact previously imagined. From the article: "Lawmakers and federal agencies such as the Justice and State departments have helped Hollywood battle physical piracy -- specifically, counterfeit DVDs. But now the stakes are especially high for entertainment companies as they sell more of their products online in the form of digital songs, movies and other intellectual property. Internet piracy may be tougher for lawmakers to conceptualize, entertainment companies fear."

A Look Inside the PlayStation 3 86

Posted by Zonk from the dark-in-there dept.
LifesBlood writes "GameDaily has a peek at an upgraded PS3 development kit, and gives hints as to how the final hardware will shape up. So, what can gamers expect? Robert Workman takes you through the controller, DVD player, GUI and pricing options for the two packages of the PS3."
User Journal

Journal Journal: Console Wars 2

Journal by WilliamSChips
This post has two replies that show the community has grown an irrational kneejerk hatred(Sony, and before you say rootkit, that was BMG) that exceeds the power of the (mostly) rational kneejerk hatred(Microsoft). One is claiming he's a Sony shill for even claiming to dispute the holy fact that PS3 sucks. Here's my original post to him which I can't post because for some reason I'm banned:
User Journal

Journal Journal: Can't...post... 2

Journal by WilliamSChips
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner . If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email moderation@slashdot.org with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are [BALEETED] and [BALEETED] and (optionally, but preferably) your IP number [BALEETED] and your username "WilliamSChips".
GAH! I don't understand why I'm getting

Atlantis Expected to Launch Today 104

Posted by CowboyNeal from the at-long-last dept.
PreacherTom writes "Following recent delays, NASA makes its fifth attempt to get Atlantis off the launchpad at 11:15 a.m. EDT today. NASA stopped Friday's launch try only 45 minutes before its scheduled departure for a faulty fuel tank sensor: the same glitch that thwarted two previous missions. The launch delay cost NASA $616,000, and if the mission is scrubbed again, the space agency must abandon for a few weeks its efforts to send the shuttle off on a construction mission to the International Space Station."
User Journal

Journal Journal: Microsoft Windows to be open-sourced

Journal by WilliamSChips
And now that I have your attention, I'm going to talk about something completely unrelated. I stole this technique from squiggleslash who used the same headline but about OS X to talk about the plotholes in a movie he(?) didn't like. This should be interesting. I wonder how it'll play out.
And in a completely unrelated note, I'm incredibly excited about the upcoming episode of Stargate SG-1. As anyone who has watched the (US) Sc

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