Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:SSD (Score 1) 611

by chriseh (#28751433) Attached to: Best Home Backup Strategy Now?

Wow, you really have no understanding of how this technology works. Even if a rapper were to have 3 second segments on an audio track, it sill has to be pressed in a linear fashion. Also, stop/start has no impact on the data of disks, since there is no physical contact with the data portion of the disk in any way. It's simply a laser that scans the surface.
Software

Submission + - LedgerSMB turns 1 year old (metatrontech.com)

Submitted by
einhverfr
einhverfr writes: "LedgerSMB, an open source accounting system, has turned 1 year old today. The past year has seen three major releases, a few problems, and a lot of support from the community. Read below for more information on the last year's accomplishments and the plans for the next year.

LedgerSMB began as a fork from SQL-Ledger by developers who were unhappy with the security of that codebase.

The last year has seen 3 major releases and 21 minor ones. The major releases have added better Point of Sale support, local sales tax support, and many other features, and have also included structural security enhancements. The minor releases have continued to address security issues as well as other bugs in the software. Every major release to date has had at least moderate structural security enhancements, and we expect the next major release (1.3) to be the final release in that trend.

When 1.3.0 is released, we expect it to finally create a stable and robust security architecture. Additionally, the contact management portions of the application will be re-engineered and rewritten on the new architecture. This framework is designed to allow people to write applications in other languages which integrate with the application using any of a number of options (from database stored procedures to web services). 1.3.0 is close to feature freeze at the moment.

Following 1.3.0, we expect to move all the rest of the financial logic over to the new framework. Following that, we will implement any additional outstanding areas into the mew framework. clean it up, and address user interface and workflow issues."
Censorship

Submission + - SQL-Ledger Relicensed, Community Gagged

Submitted by
Ashley Gittins
Ashley Gittins writes: "Users of the popular accounting package SQL-Ledger are being kept in the dark about a recent license change. Two weeks ago a new version of the software was released but along with it came the silent change of license from GPLv2 to the "SQL-Ledger Open Source License" — presumably in an effort to prevent future forks like LedgerSMB. As it turns out, the author is making deliberate attempts to prevent the community from finding out about the license change. All posts to the SQL-Ledger mailing lists asking about the license change are being censored and direct questions to the author are going unanswered. This behaviour is not a first for this particular project, and is part of the reason for the original LedgerSMB fork. So, does a project maintainer have an ethical obligation to notify his or her community of a license change? What about a legal obligation?"
Businesses

Submission + - End of Peak Oil? Shell Oil Patents Oil Technique.

Submitted by
Oil guy
Oil guy writes: "The weekly standard is running an article about Royal Dutch Shell. The oil company is patenting a technique to convert shale reserves in Alaska and other areas to petroleum at a cost of only about $30/barrel. If it works, the world's single largest source of oil would be the United States Of America. Amazingly the claimed method is cleaner than conventional drilling, and generates the highest grade of light-sweet crude oil, which burns cleaner than other varieties. The other big deal? Oil would only be $30 a barrel."
Republicans

Submission + - White House: E-mail on Fired Lawyers was Deleted

Submitted by
narramissic
narramissic writes: "In another apparent case of 'oops that incriminating e-mail was deleted,' officials for President Bush have claimed that an unknown number of e-mails regarding the firing of eight government lawyers have gone missing. White House spokesperson Scott Stanzel said that the authors of those e-mails may have used accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee to discuss official government business. Here's the rub: The Republican National Committee has a policy of deleting e-mails from its accounts approximately once a month — although e-mails from nonpolitical White House accounts are automatically archived."
Software

Submission + - Sourceforge used for non-FOSS?

Submitted by
einhverfr
einhverfr writes: "Recently the argument over SQL-Ledger's change of license has taken an interesting turn. Apparently people who feel that this is no longer open source or free software have filed a complaint with Sourceforge asking that the project's mailing list and hosting be shut down. Sourceforge's response seems to be that since the developer isn't actually hosting the packages on Sourceforge anymore, that this is within the terms of use. Some seem to note that this would allow any proprietary software vendor to use Sourceforge for non-Free projects as long as they don't actually host the downloads there. What do you think? Where should the line be drawn?"
Software

Submission + - Gaim Forced to Change Name

Submitted by Thib
Thib writes: Gaim has settled out of court with AOL over the trademark "AIM", and as a result has been renamed Pidgin. The threat of lawsuits has been secret and is described in a news post to the new Pidgin website. The developers announced that they will finally be able to come out of 2.0.0 beta limbo where they have been for years. From the article: "On legal advice, we have refrained from any non-beta release during this process as a show of good faith, and to keep AOL from giving up on it. Again, on legal advice, we have also kept this information closely controlled. At long last, I am pleased to announce that we have a signed settlement and can release our new version." Gaim-text has also been renamed Finch, and libgaim has been renamed libpurple.
Software

Submission + - SQL-Ledger relicenced to non-free licence

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After over seven years under the GPL, SQL-Ledger has switched to a home-grown, non-free licence: the SQL-Ledger Open Source License. This new licence came into effect when version 2.8.0 was released, and contains terms that appear to have been written to remove the ability for a fork to happen to the new series.

Could it be that the recent fork of LedgerSMB was too popular for the author of SQL-Ledger?
Networking

Submission + - What you need to know about NAC

Submitted by jcatcw
jcatcw writes: Computerworld's feature about choosing the correct network access control technology is the best NAC article that Alan Shimel's read in a long time. Achieving network access generally involves passing one of three types of tests. The first is requiring users to agree to an acceptable use policy. The second test validates user identity. The third validates machine posture — the state of the computer as it relates to an established security policy. Generally, commercial systems have more features than their open-source counterparts but that's not always the case.
Books

Submission + - Linux to help the Library of Congress

Submitted by flakeman2
flakeman2 writes: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/03/26/11572 12 "We're part of the 'open world' through and through — we use open source software, we generate open source software, we generate open content," says Kahle. "We're trying to take this open source idea to the next level, which is open content and open access to cultural materials, which means 'publicly downloadable in bulk.' I think we're really seeing the next level up of this whole movement — we had the open network, then open source software, now we're starting to see open source content."
Space

Submission + - Tatooine's Double-Sunset a Common Site

Submitted by anthemaniac
anthemaniac writes: Thirty years ago, Luke Skywalker saw what scientists are just now realizing, that double sunsets are likely common in the universe. Astronomers have long known that binary star systems are common. And models suggested that planets could form in these systems, even though there's a double-tug of gravity on the material that would have to form a planet. Observations from NASA's Spitzer telescope, show that binary systems are just as likely to be surrounded by planet-forming debris disks are are lone stars.
Security

Submission + - MS Confirms Zeroday Flaw, Drive-by Exploits

Submitted by Automatic Pow
Automatic Pow writes: Microsoft has issued a security advisory with confirmation of a zero-day Windows vulnerability in the way animated cursor (.ani) files are handled. The threat is caused by insufficient format validation prior to rendering cursors, animated cursors, and icons. Drive-by exploits against Internet Explorer users have already been picked up in the wild. Windows Vista is confirmed vulnerable.

Slashdot Top Deals

Saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time. -- George Carlin

Close