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Linux Business

Will the support business model survive?->

Submitted by
AlexGr
AlexGr writes "By Savio Rodrigues (InfoWorld): A while ago Shaun Connolly at JBoss posted an entry titled "What's in a Subscription". Shaun states: "Put simply, a Subscription is comprised of: 1. Software bits 2. Patches and updates to the bits 3. Support in the use of the bits 4. Legal assurance" I am beginning to wonder if, in the long term, the only truly scalable business model for OSS is one that incorporates #1 & #2 on Shaun's list. When you think about it objectively, purchasing a 'subscription' to get "Software bits" and "Patches and updates to the bits" is the model the software industry has been using for decades. The only difference with OSS is that 99% of your users are doing so without paying for the product. http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/11/will_the_suppor.html"
Link to Original Source
Security

TD Ameritrade customer details stolen by spammers

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "In an announcement sent out via email at 10AM EST, TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation (part of TD Bank Financial Group) sent an announcement to it's customers saying it "..has discovered and eliminated unauthorized code from its systems that allowed access to an internal database. The discovery was made as the result of an internal investigation of stock-related SPAM. .... Information such as email addresses, names, addresses and phone numbers was retrieved from this database and affects TD AMERITRADE retail and institutional clients. While more sensitive information like account numbers, date of birth and Social Security Numbers is stored in this database, there is no evidence that it was taken." The investigation was performed by ID Analytics which claims to have "...found no evidence of identity theft related to TD AMERITRADE clients as a result of this issue" At the time of writing, there are no details available on the number of people affected by the breach, who was responsible, or how the breach occurred."
Displays

360 Degree Light Field Display

Submitted by
Gary
Gary writes "Designed by USC's Institute for Creative Technologies the Interactive 360 Degree Light Field Display won the Best Emerging Technology Award at SIGGRAPH 2007. The system is capable of producing 3D images which can be viewed by multiple users. The display uses a standard programmable graphics card to render over 5,000 images per second of interactive 3D graphics, projecting 360-degree views with 1.25 degree separation up to 20 updates per second. As the video shows it is capable of Star Wars styled Holographic Style Projections."
Education

A Visit from MPAA Senior VP Rich Taylor

Submitted by tedswiss
tedswiss writes "Fate has dropped a unique opportunity upon my lap: I teach at a moderately small independent school who has as one of its alums Richard Taylor. Mr. Taylor is both speaking at our start-of-year festivities and being honored with this year's "Distinguished Alum Award." Having followed and been disgusted by the MPAA's corporate practices regarding DRM and government lobbying in the past (Anyone remember DeCSS?), I would love to make his visit help to truly educate our student body, not just indoctrinate them. The school administration is sympathetic to my plight, but I want to present them with more than just my complaints. To the /. community: How would you best make use of this opportunity if you found yourself in my shoes?"
Music

Judge: use P2P, you're stealing music-> 1

Submitted by
JonathanF
JonathanF writes "If you were hoping judges would see reason and realize that just using a program that could violate copyright law was about as illegal as leaving your back door unlocked, think again: an Arizona district judge has ruled that a couple who hosted files in KaZaA is liable for over $40K in damages just because they "made available" songs that could have been pirated by someone, somewhere. There's legal precedent, but how long do we have before the BitTorrent crew is sued?"
Link to Original Source
Businesses

Bachelor's Degree of Uselessness? 1

Submitted by DarkMorph
DarkMorph writes "I have received my bachelor's degree in computer science back in May, and it's nearly September now, and my job search seems to be entirely in vain. So far I have had only one opportunity in California, which ended up being a big group interview and it was a dud. Lately I've found an online business that distributes resumes to thousands of recruiters nationwide. I received from them the list of 569 recruiters (with jobs in Florida where I live and California where I want to be) that they contacted with my resume and I still sit in silence after two weeks. My college degree doesn't seem to be very rewarding at all, and I don't know what to do about getting a job that pays enough for me to move out. The Slashdot community would be the best to address regarding employment due to the variety and quantity of readers, and I was wondering what would be a good step for me to do next? I know a handful of programming languages, and web languages, but I find C/C++ and Linux-related stuff the most interesting."
Role Playing (Games)

Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Announced

Submitted by
Anthony Boyd
Anthony Boyd writes "The official D&D page over at the Wizards of the Coast site now has a counter running with a few hours left (as I write this). It hints at something having to do with the number 4. Well, the cat's out of the bag. One company published an article a day early. And Wizards itself apparently left a hidden forum open to the public for an hour or two. By the time this hits the Slashdot front page, much more may have been revealed: 4th edition of D&D is coming. Nerds, get out your d20s. It's a whole new party."

In the long run we are all dead. -- John Maynard Keynes