a_nonamiss writes "Doesn't look like Sirius and XM are going to merge any time soon. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Logically, I know that competition is a good thing for consumers, and monopolies are generally only good for companies. Still, I don't like having to choose a car based on which satellite radio service comes pre-installed, or considering whether I'd rather have Howard Stern or Oprah, because there is no practical way to get both. Frankly, it's probably all this exclusivity that has caused me not to purchase either system." From the article: "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told reporters after an FCC meeting that the Commission would not approve a merger between satellite radio rivals Sirius and XM Radio... When the FCC initially licensed the two satellite radio companies in 1997, there was language in the licensing barring one from acquiring control of the other... Even if the FCC were to have a change of heart..., it would still have to pass antitrust scrutiny by the Department of Justice."

Since late last month, I've been playing with the Xbox 360 title Star Trek Legacy. The fact that it is not a great game should be no surprise. Despite some entertaining plot elements, the title's gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. What is confusing, and troubling, is that this is just the latest in a long line of disappointing Trek games. Looking back on the history of Star Trek gaming, games like Elite Force or A Final Unity stand out from a disturbingly large field of titles that over-promise and under-deliver on the well-loved Trek universe. Why is it so hard to make a good Trek game? Why do developers keep trying and failing? Why is there a Vulcan leading the Borg? Read on for consideration of each of these questions, and a review of Star Trek Legacy to boot.

Many readers found stifling Judge Richard P. Matsch's decision yesterday that Cleanflix, a service selling versions of popular movies edited (some would say censored) to remove violence, nudity and other elements, was in violation of U.S. copyright law for selling these edited versions, while others welcomed the decision as appropriately respecting the intent of those who made the original movies. Read on for the Backslash summary of the conversation, with some of the best comments of the more than 1200 that readers contributed to the story.

Wednesday's press-release-borne message from security firm Sophos that the best way for Windows users to compute untroubled (or less troubled) by malware is to switch to Mac OS X drew more than 500 comments; read on for the Backslash summary of the conversation.

You posted a lot of great questions for Mike Nash last week, and he put a lot of time into answering them. As promised, his answers were not laundered by PR people, which is all too common with "executive" interviews with people from any company. Still, he boosts Microsoft, as you'd expect, since he's a VP there. And obviously, going along with that, he says he likes Microsoft products better than he likes competing ones. But this is still a great look into the way Microsoft views security problems with their products, and what the company is trying to do about them.

The Moose at Dr.MOZ writes "The Goodfather, 'for the baby he can't refuse.' The Goodfather is a custom-boxed CD-ROM that teaches new dads hundreds of baby skills and baby related definitions through a fun parody of a famous American gangster epic (The Godfather). The baby/parenting topics in The Goodfather CD-ROM were selected for men by experienced dads and grandfathers, and edited by licensed nurse-midwives to ensure the material is medically sound. In addition to the hundreds of baby skills lessons and definitions, The Goodfather also has a Baby Name Book with approximately 15,000 baby names and a Baby Card Maker which allows new dads to make and print their own baby cards. New dads choose from dozens of "new dad" card-types with provided art, or they are able to import JPGs to create their own customized baby cards! The Goodfather runs on both Windows® and Macintosh® systems and is proving to be the next 'must have' gift for the sometimes ignored new dad on the baby shower list."

Spacefaring races always seem to get into trouble, and game designers love to put us into the shoes of the explorers and soldiers of tomorrow. Unfortunately, futuristic titles can be just as tiresome as Dungeon Crawl #457. Both MechAssault 2 and Nexus: The Jupiter Incident are examples of this truism. Both games are well conceived, with fine pedigrees behind them, but neither manages to deliver satisfying gameplay or long-term enjoyment. Read on for my analysis of these two titles...in spaaaaaaaaace.

We passed on your requested questions for Martin Taylor, Microsoft's global general manager of platform strategy, and we got a slew of them. Instead of emailing your questions to Martin, we did this interview by phone and added in a few follow-up questions. You can listen to an MP3 of the call, read the transcript (below), or both.

44BSD writes "The folks at OpenBSD have announced OpenNTPd, a BSD-licensed implementation of the NTP protocol. As with OpenSSH, there are two teams responsible for the code, which, like OpenSSH, is available in pure OpenBSD and portable versions." TLA FYI: This Wikipedia entry offers a quick overview of the Network Time Protocol. Read on below for some more on OpenNTPd.

atkulp writes "The convergence of PC media with the home entertainment system is something that has been promised for several years now. Tech-savvy computer users can easily have gigabytes of music, images, and video on hard drives, locked away from the living room setup. Many of us are looking for a simple solution that will allow our stereo/TV equipment to simply become network devices so they can consume any shared content. On the surface it sounds like a simple proposition - yet few devices can achieve this goal, and of those even fewer do it well. Some people resort to just plugging a computer into their setup so they have all of the features and media support, but finding good 10-foot interfaces can be challenging." Read on for atkulp's review of Oritron's networked DVD player to see how well it meets the all-in-one ideal.

Thanks to IGN Cube for their story that Nintendo of America have reached an agreement for AOL to be the 'official preferred ISP' for GameCube. Nintendo have apparently informed IGN that "...developers who choose to create online games for GameCube will be licensed AOL connectivity software that will enable their games to connect online through AOL", but Nintendo also clarified that "...this does not indicate the unveiling of a new online gaming approach from Nintendo", making this partly an oddly cryptic co-marketing announcement, rather than any major breakthrough.

We ran the "Call for questions" Monday, January 13, under the headline, Discuss BIOS and Palladium Issues With an AMIBIOS Rep. Note that Brian Richardson, AMI sales engineer, is a real engineer, not just a salesperson, and is also a staunch Slashdot reader who knows we have low tolerance for PR whitewashes around here. Brian's answers are real, not laundered, and he responded not only to the 10 questions we sent him but also to some he felt deserved answers even though they weren't moderated all the way up. Please note that in much of this interview he is speaking as "Brian Richardson, individual," and that his opinions do not necessarily reflect those of AMI's management. With that said, be prepared to learn a lot about the BIOS business, and how TCPA and Palladium relate (and don't relate) to it.

Many people have noted that there has been a reaction (see also this AP story) to the story posted a few days ago about the GPL in government. (More links: Wired, Newsforge.) This is good, I guess: Congress should consider carefully how the government licenses the code it funds, because it's an important public policy question: it shouldn't be decided by a backroom push from business lobbyists (the lead Representative listed, Adam Smith, represents a district fairly close to but not including Microsoft headquarters). There are certain things that bother me about this whole story though, and I'm going to try to trace the trajectory of it below.

Y'all didn't pull any punches in the questions you asked, and Janis didn't pull any in her answers. But then, the word "outspoken" has been used to describe Janis ever since she recorded Society's Child at the age of 15, back in 1965.

We put up the original Talk to Sun's 'Open Source Diva' call for questions on January 10, 2002, which makes this the longest lag we've ever had betweeen a set of Slashdot quesions and their answers, a record previously held by the late Douglas Adams, whose question post went up on May 2, 2000, but didn't get his answers to us until June 21, 2000.

We sent 10 of your questions to IBM Linux exec Scott Handy a while back. Here are the answers. As is common with corporate types these days, a PR person had a hand in what was said, so please take that into account as you read on. But I don't think anything much was changed (I can usually tell) in this case, though.

Quite a while back we asked Dan Ravicher, a young attorney who is personally interested in Open Source and Free Software licensing issues, a bunch of questions on the subject. We waited and waited for his answers, and the wait turned out to be worthwhile because Dan ended up writing what amounts to a legal FAQ for Open Source and Free Software developers. This is important reading for anyone involved in any way with Open Source or Free Software development.

Doug Miller (no relation) is an amazingly affable and unflappable man. This interview came about because I asked Doug face-to-face if he'd do it when we met after a panel discussion he was part of in Washington DC a few weeks ago. He said "sure" without even a second's hesitation, let alone checking with PR people. His answers to the 10 selected questions we sent him are 100% straight-up. You may not like everything he says (devout Free Software people probably won't like any of it), but Doug Miller deserves your respect (and courtesy) for telling it like it is -- at least from Microsoft's point of view -- without a hint of weaseling.

Olmy's Jart writes: "Tatu Ylonen has just posted the following message to the Openssh developers mailing list, openssh-unix-dev@mindrot.org. He is claiming OpenSSH, http://www.openssh.com, is infringing on his trademark on the terms "SSH" and "Secure Shell" and demanding that the OpenSSH project change their name." Thanks to Olmy's Jart for attaching the message - I've included it in the text below. The e-mail provides the background and thinking behind the letter.

Last Tuesday you asked Ingo Molnar, Red Hat kernel hacker, about the means by which his TUX Web server recently achieved such fantastic results in SpecWeb99 . He was kind enough to respond with at-length answers addressing licensing, the reality of threads under Linux, the realism of benchmarks, and more. Thanks, Ingo!