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The Debian project's maintainer, Luke Claes, announced in an email Saturday that he will freeze the "testing" or "Lenny" tree, in preparation for a new stable release of Debian Linux in.... September! The freeze means that open source software developers have only a couple more days to package any applications that they want to be included in the next release of Debian — and by extension, in the inner sanctum source lists of distributions such as Ubuntu that are based on it. After the freeze starts next week, Debian maintainers will turn their attention to 364 release-critical bugs, and half-a-dozen high-priority goals. Given the work to be done, is Sept. really feasible? Lenny always was a little slow getting back to his right place...
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2868263273.html

jger_13 writes "Turns out this guy didn't plan on running for very long... Given the amount of money involved in his operation, I'd still like to see DNA evidence proving it was really him."
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_9985333

Iddo Genuth writes "Research carried out at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy has shown there has been practically no variation in the proton-electron mass ratio over the last six billion years. The research was based on studying the spectra of light emissions from a quasar six billion light years away. This result complies with the Standard Model of particle physics and reinforces similar results obtained by earth-bound experiments showing that the fundamental constants of nature are indeed constant in both time and space."
http://thefutureofthings.com/news/1254/proton-electron-mass-constant-for-6-billion-years.html

MojoKid writes "Microsoft has disclosed some details regarding the next iteration of its gaming and graphics API, DirectX. The initial DirectX 11 features and specifications disclosed at this point include things like a new compute shader technology that lays the groundwork for the GPU to be used for more than just 3D graphics, so that developers can take advantage of the graphics card as a parallel processor. In addition, multi-threaded resource handling is coming that will allow games to better take advantage of multi-core processors, which should hopefully result in a performance boost. DX11 is also compatible with DirectX 10 and 10.1 hardware, and will support future DirectX 11-class hardware as well."
http://www.hothardware.com/News/Microsoft_Discloses_DirectX_11_Features/

Sfing_ter writes "Seems Eddie Davidson walked away from a Colorado Federal Prison Camp the FBI is looking for him, if you see him give them a call. So now, he is a convicted spammer and a fugitive, perhaps he too was framed by a one-armed man who spammed all those people..."
http://denver.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/2008/spamking072208.htm

nasor writes "Hubpages has an interesting writeup on the four greatest spaceships that were seriously worked on, but never built. The list includes Sea Dragon, a massive sea-launched rocket that could launch the entire mass of the ISS into orbit at once, the U.S. Air Force's failed X-20 space fighter, NASA's ill-fated VentureStar single-stage-to-orbit shuttle, and the Soviet Buran shuttle that managed a single unmanned orbital flight while only partly completed before being crushed by its own hanger."
http://hubpages.com/hub/Spaceships-That-Never-Were

destinyland writes "After nearly 70 years, Archie comics is modernizing its storylines with new technologies. But besides web sites and text messages, they've also included an overt message about file-swapping bankrupting the teenager's band. (And in the latest issue, a massive network of cell phone cameras is used to spy on Archie — as Archie complains that Big Brother turns out to be his jealous girlfriend Veronica.) But ironically, the musician behind the original "Archies" band in the 1960s says that he's not worried about mp3 piracy, and argues instead that online music distribution is "an evolution... We have to go through this.""
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2008/07/22/archie-comics-fights-mp3-pirates/

An anonymous reader writes "The City of Memphis and Memphis Police Chief Larry Godwin have filed a motion under seal in Tennessee Chancery Court seeking (apparently successfully) a subpoena compelling AOL to reveal the owner of an email address associated with an anonymous blog critical of the Memphis Police Department. The bloggers unsurprisingly decry the subpoena as an abuse of power by Godwin and speak of plans for legal action of their own. Local talk radio has talked about this having the potential to become a landmark first amendment case. The bloggers are seeking help from the ACLU, the First Amendment Center, and are selling t-shirts to raise money for a defense fund."

Mikee writes "An American mother has filed a court case against Universal after a video of her child dancing to a song by Prince was removed from YouTube. Stephanie Lenz posted a 30-second clip on YouTube of her 13 month-old son dancing to the tune of Prince's Let's go crazy. Universal issued a takedown notice under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but Lenz is fighting the order in what could be an important test case for the fair use of music."
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/117556,mum-fights-universal-over-youtube-clip.aspx

An anonymous reader writes "Thirteen months after a judge threw out a jury's verdict against former substitute teacher Julie Amero, supporters of the accused woman have turned up the heat on Connecticut prosecutors to drop all charges. While the judge vacated the ruling, and gave the prosecutors the option of retrying the case, the state's attorneys have put the case on the back burning, leaving Amero in limbo. We've covered this story before, but now the defendant seems to be sitting in limbo while the prosecutors sit on their hands. This makes me sick, yet another case of malware asshats getting away scott free while the real people of society clean up after them. There's a petition online now seeking justice for the innocent school teacher."
http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/778

Duncan Blackthorne writes ""New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who has pressured Internet service providers to block access to child pornography, on Monday said his office would pursue legal action against Comcast Cable Communications LLC if it did not quickly agree to reforms."


I'm no big fan of Comcast, but I know blackmail when I see it."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUKN2221424020080722

LinucksGirl writes "Linux loadable kernel modules are on of the most important innovations in the Linux kernel. They provide a kernel that is both scalable and dynamic. Discover loadable kernels, the ideas behind them, and learn how these independent objects dynamically become part of the Linux kernel."

Anonymous writes "I would like to get opinions on how software project directory structures should be organized. Where I work I've seen examples similar to the Waterfall Model in which directories are labeled: requirements, design, implementation, integration, etc. I've also seen in many free software projects directories labeled: src, doc, testing, etc. What in your opinion has been the most effective organization of directory structure for developing and maintaining software projects?"

Channel Intelligence is now suing everyone from Lemonade to Remember the Milk for infringing on patent 6,917,941 which covers storing lists in a database. Amazon is just about the only service notable in its absence, even though it very likely stores users' wishlists in its database. With any luck, perhaps one of the defendants will get to use that precedent PJ found the other day from In re Lintner, which said, '[c]laims which are broad enough to read on obvious subject matter are unpatentable even though they also read on nonobvious subject matter.'

Editors: "In re Lintner" should be underlined, but Slashdot strips out every tag from U to SPAN.
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6917941&safe=active

Antiglobalism writes "It used to be that finding a PC with pre-installed Linux was harder than finding a needle in a haystack. Now, though, all the major PC vendors are offering Linux-powered PCs.

Last week, for example, Dell announced that it was selling PCs with the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, Ubuntu 8.04 installed. What they didn't point out was that Dell will soon be offering Ubuntu Linux on six different systems, including its forthcoming UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) Dell E line. In the past, Dell usually offered Ubuntu on no more than three systems."
http://blogs.computerworld.com/pc_vendors_want_to_sell_you_desktop_linux