Slashdot

WebCowboy writes "SCO Group has hit the reset button again on its restructuring plan to emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy. The $5M cash injection and $95M line of credit offered up by SNCP is no longer on the table. Instead, SCO is hoping to have SNCP simply purchase SCO's remaining assets. The trustee overseeing this case must be getting impatient, and an independent fiduciary may be brought in to take over SCO operations outright, which at that point would probably mean Chapter 7 liquidation was not far off..."

draevil writes "Britain's National Consumer Council has completed an investigation into the practice of software End User License Agreements(EULAs) with the conclusion that many consumers are signing away their legal rights and agreeing to unfair terms, which they could never have scrutinized before purchase. The report also acknowledges that even if the EULA were available prior to purchase, it would be unreasonable to expect an average consumer to understand the terms to which they were agreeing. Here are the full report (PDF) and a summary." The NCC recommends that the European Commission bring softwre licenses under the same consumer protections that apply to other products in the EU.

beuges writes "The Associated Press is reporting that Microsoft will make full versions of their development tools available to students. "The Redmond-based software maker said late Monday it will let students download Visual Studio Professional Edition, a software development environment; Expression Studio, which includes graphic design and Web site and hybrid Web-desktop programming tools; and XNA Game Studio 2.0, a video game development program. Gates said students will want to try Microsoft's tools because they're more powerful than the open-source combination of Linux-based operating systems, the Apache Web server, the MySQL database and the PHP scripting language used to make complex Web sites. But Gates said giving away Microsoft software isn't intended to turn students against open source software entirely. Rather, he hopes it will just add one more tool to their belt.""

BSDer writes "An Israeli security researcher published a paper few hours ago, detailing attacks against Mac, OpenBSD and other BSD-style operating systems. The attacks, says Amit Klein from Trusteer enable DNS cache poisoning, IP level traffic analysis, host detection, O/S fingerprinting and in some cases even TCP blind data injection. The irony is that OpenBSD boasted their protection mechanism against those exact attacks when a similar attack against the BIND DNS server was disclosed by the same researcher mid 2007. It seems now that OpenBSD may need to revisit their code and their statements. According to the researcher, another affected party, Apple, refused to commit to any fix timelines. It would be interesting to see their reaction now that this paper is public."

It appears that there are still enough people out there deluded enough to see value in SCOs UNIX operations. York Capital Management has put in a $36 million bid for SCOs UNIX operations. The offer includes coverage of up to $10 million for payment of legal fees and York Capital would assume ownership of the disputed UNIX IP as well as what is left of the lawsuits. Interestingly, SCO has offered this up for competitive bid (who would want to though?). Upon completion of the transaction, should bankruptcy court approve, SCOX would become solely a mobile applications provider (which is the only part of SCOs offerings that have undergone any meaningful development for quite some time).

mjasay writes "CIO Magazine reports that open source software development fixes bugs much, much faster than proprietary software development does. Days faster, in fact. Under eight hours (open source) instead of 6.7 days (proprietary software vendors). However, as the data shows, this is not because open source is perfectly developed from the start, but rather because open source's transparency and source code availability contributes to developers more easily and efficiently finding their way to both a bug and its fix. This correlates nicely with Forrester's survey indicating that CIOs are adopting open source because it gives them freedom to code (including to fix bugs) beyond the restrictions of their vendors."
http://advice.cio.com/esther_schindler/enterprise_developers_programming_speed_check_time_to_fix_bugs_not_so_much?page=0%2C1

Another day, another misuse of law to censor the web. Retail giant Lowe's is suing an irate customer over his use of trademarks and the word Lowe's in a url. A modified logo is now visible but no one should be mislead by something with a big scratchout and "You will be ripped off" written on it.

The dust-up is the latest example of large companies using the legal system to quell internet postings they find damaging. Once upon a time, people who were unhappy with a company's products or service had few recourses. With the emergence of the net, they now have a gigantic megaphone with which to complain. Last week a software developer sued the owner of a site called Whirlpool for allowing comments in forums that criticized its products.

The complaint itself is trivial and it's hard to imagine why Lowe's bothered. It would be cheaper to buy a new $3,500 fence or send out better contractors than it would to launch a lawsuit.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A federal judge in Tampa, Florida, has ruled that an RIAA defendant's counterclaim against the record companies for conspiracy to use unlicensed investigators, access private computer records without permission, and commit extortion, may move forward. The Court also sustained claims for violations of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as well as a claim under Florida law for deceptive and unfair trade practices. The decision (pdf) by Judge Richard A. Lazzara in UMG v. DelCid rejected, in its entirety, the RIAA's assertion of "Noerr Pennington" immunity, since that defense does not apply to "sham litigations", and Ms. Del Cid alleges that the RIAA's cases are "sham"."
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/

xzvf writes "In a lengthy editorial, BusinessWeek advocates allowing users in China and India to pirate Microsoft software so that it can obtain the same level of market share there as it has in the US and Europe. From the piece: 'If Microsoft succeeds in discouraging piracy of Windows in China and India, it is far more likely to drive the user of the pirated software into the Linux camp than it is to steer them into the land of paid-up Windows users. Microsoft's IP management strategy in China and India should instead focus on securing the victory of Windows on the desktops of all PC users. That may require deliberately lax enforcement efforts against pirated copies of Windows for the short and medium term. Only after the Linux threat lessens might Microsoft have the luxury of tightening up piracy protections, as it is now doing in the West. Microsoft can afford to be patient.'"