Slashback: Vista Rewrite, Tuttle Travesty, Mac Botnets 269
Microsoft denies Vista rewrite. moochfish writes "Contrary to a heavily doubted feature earlier this week, Business 2.0 magazine reports that Microsoft will not be rewriting large portions of its operating system. From the article, 'Microsoft's own blogger Robert Scoble checked into the story and got a denial from an executive at Microsoft's PR firm, who says he's not aware of any Xbox programmers working on Windows.'"
Tuttle Oklahoma city manager still doesn't get it. gEvil (beta) writes "The Register has posted a followup to this past week's wonderfully humorous story about Tuttle, Oklahoma's technically inept city manager, Jerry Taylor. It appears that Mr. Taylor is not pleased with the publicity he has received due to the incident, despite his prior statement of, 'I have no fear of the media, in fact I welcome this publicity.' He sent an email to the Register's marketing team asking that people stop emailing him and making fun of him."
MS Virtual Server Slips and VMWare fills in the gap. nizo writes "On the heels of the announcement that Microsoft Virtual Server is slipping to 2007, VMware has announced the beta release of the VMware Virtual Machine Importer, which has the capability to convert system images stored in 3rd party formats (including Microsoft Virtual Server images) to VMware virtual machines. The good news is VMware released the importer as a free download."
Samsung execs plead guilty to price fixing charges. bdotcdot writes "Electronics News is running a story on Samsung executives who have plead guilty to the price fixing of DRAM. From the story 'According to the one-count felony charge filed in federal court in San Francisco, at various times during the period from April 1, 1999, to June 15, 2002, these three Samsung employees conspired with unnamed employees from other memory makers to fix the prices of DRAM sold to certain computer and server manufacturers in the U.S., in violation of the Sherman Act. The conspiracy directly affected sales to U.S. computer makers Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, Compaq Computer Corp., International Business Machines Corp., Apple Computer Inc. and Gateway Inc., the charge said.'"
Tux in retail part 2. silentbob4 writes "Mad Penguin brings us the second and final installment in their 'Tux in Retail' series, in which they interview Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony; Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos; Mepis Linux founder Warren Woodford; and Kevin Jones, Micro Center Vice President of Merchandising, to get their take Tux's jump into big box retail. The first installment was run as an earlier Slashdot article."
Renewed bid to register Linux trademark in Australia? daria42 writes "A renewed bid to register the word 'Linux' as an Australian trademark must meet an early April deadline or face defeat." From the article: "'The deadline to file a response to the Examiner's rejection has not yet passed, and LMI and its attorneys are still determining if they will respond,' a spokesperson for the body told ZDNet Australia in an emailed statement."
OpenSPARC.net, shades of the past. Andy Updegrove writes "In what must have seemed to many as a bold move, Sun Microsystems recently announced that it would release the source code for its UltraSparc T1 processor under the GPL, supported by a new organization that it calls OpenSPARC.net. But to those that have been around for a while, the announcement had an eerily familiar sound to it, and that sound was the echo of an organization called SPARC International. Formed 18 years ago to license the SPARC chip design to multiple vendors to ensure second sourcing for the hardware vendors that Sun hoped would adopt it, SPARC International seemed to be every bit as revolutionary for its time as Sun's new initiative does today. Motorola launched a somewhat similar group called 88open to support its own RISC chip design, and later IBM, Motorola and Apple launched the PowerOpen Association to promote the PowerPC. The Websites of the PowerOpen Association and 88open are long gone, and seem to have escaped even the WayBack Machine's reach. But SPARC International's site, looking very retro and neglected, can still be seen - at least for now."
Follow up on Mac botnets. An anonymous reader writes "Washingtonpost.com has an interesting follow up to skeptical claims as a result of a previous Slashdot story. Mac OS X systems have indeed been spotted in botnets, thanks largely to several worms going around that take advantage of Web-based applications running vulnerable PHP software. From the article: 'By leveraging this PHP flaw, the attackers were able to seed the Mac systems with several tools designed to turn them into drones for use in waging destructive distributed denial of service attacks.'
"Mac" botnets are nothing more than *NIX botnets (Score:5, Informative)
A php-based web application (forum, blog, CMS, etc.) that has an exploit, usually php injection, whereby various script/botnet kiddie tools and irc-related items are installed, usually in
This is nothing new, and doesn't really have anything to do with "Macs". It has more to do with php and people not keeping their php-based web applications up to date than anything[1]. It is interesting, though, that since Mac OS X is essentially a UNIX, that it's certainly vulnerable to a whole slew of this family of exploits.
[1] Just as a Mac sitting on the internet with apache and ssh open doesn't really test anything beyond the security of the default configurations of apache and OpenSSH on that OS and architecture. And that's exactly the point.
Re:"Mac" botnets are nothing more than *NIX botnet (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"Mac" botnets are nothing more than *NIX botnet (Score:4, Informative)
I can't count the number of terrified middle managers who scream bloody murder to me about PHPNuke or PHPBB bugs, thinking that the flaws are in PHP itself.
Again, this boils down to keeping your software up to date. Careful pruning of your php.ini file also helps.
Re:"Mac" botnets are nothing more than *NIX botnet (Score:3, Informative)
Whether or not this is PHP's fault, or the fault of a programming community that doesn't think enough about security, is left as an excercise for the reader
Re:"Mac" botnets are nothing more than *NIX botnet (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that the real problem here lies in the fact that many PHP apps are coded incredibly sloppily... like most web content... ignoring even basic coding common sense.
How often would injection attacks take place if every coder obeyed one of the most basic tenants of web application development?
"THOU SHALT N
Re:"Mac" botnets are nothing more than *NIX botnet (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be stupid. It has everything to do with "Macs" and any other unix-like operating system that runs perl & php.
Its worth knowing that that there is people attacking OS X in the wild and the vectors they are using.
Too many Mac users believe they're invlunerable & start to play around with internet facing services without adequately firewalling themselves.
Articles like this are a good reminder that any unix-like system can be made vulnerable, even if its its pretty well hardened by default.
Re:"Mac" botnets are nothing more than *NIX botnet (Score:2)
PHP is not actually CGI--it is run as an Apache module. And yes, Apache has its own account (www) on OS X (and even *nix system to the best of my belief). If you've got some magical way to prevent privilege escalation, though, I'm sure everyone would love to hear it.
OS X has certainly had its own security flaws: file forks accessible over Apach
Mr Tuttle (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, the publicity isn't so great when it's not the local ABC affiliate oohing and aahing over your latest plan to put a new tree in the city park, is it?
Re:Mr Tuttle (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately it has been removed.
Looks like Mr Taylor wasn't bluffing about his FBI connections.
Re:Mr Tuttle (Score:3, Informative)
There was also concern that the page was an attack on Taylor. There were some sections that could have been reworded, but he's gotten more than his share of Warhol time [wikipedia.org].
Re:Mr Tuttle (Score:2, Informative)
(From wikipedia) "Taylor earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from University of Texas at Arlington, a BA in management from National-Louis University's McLean, Virginia campus, and a MBA from Averett University in Danville, Virginia.[1]
Taylor worked for 22 years with E-Systems as a program manager, 17 of those years working on a classified government contract in Virginia. He later ran his own computer business and worked as an Internet technol
Re:Mr Tuttle (Score:2, Informative)
Let's add him to the language (Score:4, Interesting)
Or is a verb phrase more appropriate, such as "pull a Jerry Taylor", "Jerry Taylorize", or "go totally Jerry Taylor on $INNOCENT_TARGET"?
Or should the winning entry be an adjective, as in "that email was *so* Jerry Taylor"?
Re:Let's add him to the language (Score:2)
Re:Mr Tuttle (Score:2)
so, great, this is the future of the internet, only the geek elite will be allowed to use it and everyone who is scared, suspicious or even somewhat ignorant will have to make do with two polystyrene cups and a bit of string for their communications
Did you actually read the series of emails? The CentOS devs repeatedly explained to him what was the most likely cause of his problem and went out of their way to solve it for him when he would not listen despite his continuou
Tuttle Oklahoma city manager: next step (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Tuttle Oklahoma city manager: next step (Score:4, Funny)
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Ftu
Re:Tuttle Oklahoma city manager: next step (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Tuttle Oklahoma city manager: next step (Score:5, Funny)
I thought it was Buttle who was affiliated with terrorits, not Tuttle.
Re:Tuttle Oklahoma city manager: next step (Score:2)
^^ GOATSE WARNING ^^ (Score:4, Informative)
Kinda figured it might be, personally, but I decided to click it anyway
The Scoop (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Scoop (Score:2)
Re:The Scoop (Score:2)
I thought the same - how strange it seemed. But it all makes sense really. The PR/Marketing department has been running Microsoft for a long time - Apple have shown that the smoke and mirrors, done well, really helps the sales figures - so I suppose it's not surprising that they are giving it a go. Still, odd that Scoble, supposedly the
Re:The Scoop (Score:2)
Yeah, but you have to actually have something to reveal enticingly through the smoke, or reflect dazzlingly in the mirrors. Apple has elegant hardware and OSX. Microsoft has ... "uh, XP, yeah XP, but, y'know, better, and coming Real Soon Now. Don't buy anything else!".
Sorry everybody, but Vista became nothing more than "XP: The Unnecessary Update" the moment they dropped WinFS from the feature list...
Re:The Scoop (Score:2)
Precisely. Having beautiful products helps with the whole mystique thing, and Windows "Fisher Price" XP on some cheap shitty HP or Dell box doesn't really have quite the same impact.
Anyway, I'd go as far as to say that even WinFS wouldn't have been worth, what, four...five years of waiting.
(Disclaimer: I use a Mac, so...)
iqu
Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:5, Interesting)
Sir,
I appreciate that you were frustrated that your city website was
non-functional, but it appears to me that the people to whom you
complained were not responsible, and that the tone of your messages tended
to be combative.
The folks from CentOS were being polite and helpful, based on my read of
the messages. I believe that you owe them an apology. they had
absolutely NOTHING to do with the problems you experienced, and tried to
assist you anyway. For you to respond with "I am sorry that we had to go
through the process and accusations to get the problem resolved" They did
nothing wrong. You accused them, and frankly it was uncharitable on your
part.
Please extend an official apology to those folks at www.centos.org. They
deserve it.
Please also note that I am not affiliated with CentOS in any way (except
that I use their Linux distribution quite happliy.) I read about this
spat on a technology-focused website known as slashdot
http://www.slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org]
Respectfully,
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:2)
If this guy had simply eaten a huge helping of crow after he acted like a total jerk, you can bet that this story would never have made The Register or Slashdot. Who wants to re
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:2)
the guy still thinks that they (the evil hackerorrists) `helped' him after he threatened them with the FBI -- which is total bullshit, as anyone who read the email exchange [centos.org] can clearly see.
FTA: "I asked for the strange website to be removed because it blocked my City web site and I could not post public information. I only got help after threatening to contact the FBI."
so yeah
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:2)
He needs to be canned - he is incompetant not only from a technical standpoint, but as a manager in general.
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:5, Interesting)
To the Honorable Lonnie Paxton and members of the Town Council of the City of Tuttle,
You may want to consider hiring a new town manager, replacing Mr. Jerry A. Taylor who recently earned the City of Tuttle worldwide embarrassment with his legal threats against Centos.
Mr. Taylor claims to have been a "Computer Systems Engineer" with 22 years of experience. However, upon discovering an extremely simple problem with the City of Tuttle web site, rather than proceeding to work with the hosting company responsible for the management of the City of Tuttle web site, Mr. Taylor chose to publicly harass and attempt to intimidate the developers responsible for designing a free operating system called CentOS.
What is CentOS? Like the well-known Microsoft Windows, it is an operating system. More specifically, CentOS is a FREE operating system built by volunteers, largely based on the also-free GNU and Linux projects.
Transcripts of the Mr. Taylor's juvenile threats toward CentOS are posted publicly on the Internet, and those transcripts underscore Mr. Taylor's utter incompetence, unwillingness to accept FREE help from folks who provided a FREE operating system, even though the CentOS developers have NO responsibility whatsoever to clean up Mr. Taylor's mess.
When Mr. Taylor FINALLY agreed that the Centos folks had nothing to do with the misconfiguration problem (the problem is actually due to two parties: the company hosting the City of Tuttle web site, and Mr. Jerry A. Taylor himself) he not only was not apologetic, but downright insulting in his response.
The City of Tuttle has earned worldwide ridicule in the face of this issue, and the dated and sophomoric appearance of Tuttle's now-well-publicized web site has earned widespread harsh criticism and ridicule as well.
Please consider replacing Mr. Jerry A. Taylor. Many of us feel sorry for the City of Tuttle as we believe that there are many people more deserving of his salary and who can perform a much better job were they given the opportunity to fill his position. Jerry A. Taylor's salary is money wasted right now.
Here are some of the web pages covering this story that you may wish to check out:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/tuttle_ce
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/27
http://www.digg.com/security/Why_every_city_counc
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/27/tuttle_em
Mr. Taylor's outbursts and threats toward the generous CentOS folks may be seen here:
http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.php?st
As you will note, Mr. Taylor's outbursts are unbecoming of a city official and earn little respect for the City of Tuttle. Even after realizing that the CentOS representatives were not to blame, but he and his web hosts are, and even after having received hundreds of emails from kind folks all over the world who are attempting to explain to him that the CentOS developers are not to blame, he is insisting that the CentOS folks would only help him after he threatened to contact the FBI. This is not only patently false, but downright slanderous and such statements could earn a defamation of character suit from CentOS. I know if I were that developer I would consider filing suit against Tuttle over such false statements made to the media.
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:2)
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:2)
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:2)
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:2)
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:3, Funny)
How much of your life did you waste writing that? Are you such an asshole that you actually believe you will get a response or better yet an apology? Keep firing off those letters, Sparky. You'll change the world someday. Fucking dipshit.
How much of your life did you waste writing that? Are you such an asshole that you actually believe you will get a response or better yet an apology? Keep firing off those letters, Sparky. You'll change the world someday. Fucking dipshit.
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:2)
Re:Sent to citymgr@cityoftuttle.org (Score:3, Funny)
Best part of this whole Tuttle thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I am being flooded with emails from CentOS users that after knowing the answer say the problem was simple.
What I can't stand more than anything is someone that can't admit that they were wrong, even at this stage of the game.
This guy is the biggest tool ever (Score:5, Funny)
And I can't believe this twiddle dick STILL hasn't apologized. He shoots back with "there should have been better directions". It is mind boggling that in 20 years of his supposed IT experience he's never run into a default webserver page. I really think this ass clown is deserving of any and all harassment he gets. In fact, he is deserving of a bill for CentOS's wasted time. If I had go-go gadget balls, I'd teabag that butthole surfer from 12 states away.
Re:This guy is the biggest tool ever (Score:2)
Go visit OK some time, it's an interesting sociological learning experience.
Considering that I grew up in that state... (Score:2)
Nahh... This guy's just flipping clueless and doesn't understand that he just shoved a stick into the hornets' nest.
As someone who grew up as an Okie... (Score:2)
To be sure, there's a raftload of idiots in the state that seem dead bent on perpetuating the stereotype of being bassackwards folks- but the people pointing them out keep forgetting that the only difference between Oklahoma and the rest of the neighboring states is the state lines...
Oh, and you forgot about Will Rogers...
Re:This guy is the biggest tool ever (Score:4, Informative)
Fuck man, if you want OK to look good don't tell people to go to that shithole of a town. Tulsa maybe, OKC maybe but Altus?? No freakin way. Having said that even Tulsa is nothing but a sea of white conservative suburbia occationally broken up by strip malls. I have never met so many rabid republitards and religious fundamentalists in my life. Man those people think BBQued bologna is gourmet!
Oh and while there are plenty of stupid people in my state it's nowhere near as many in OK.
Re:This guy is the biggest tool ever (Score:3, Funny)
If I'd been the Centos guy fielding his rant... (Score:2)
Re:If I'd been the Centos guy fielding his rant... (Score:2)
60% of an operating system in 6 months - NO WAY (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:60% of an operating system in 6 months - NO WAY (Score:2)
If so, the scope falls dramatically and the estimate might be on target, but 60% rewrite of anything* is a pretty big effort (* where anything is defined as 'software ready for the retail market')
Re:60% of an operating system in 6 months - NO WAY (Score:4, Informative)
FWIW, according to this article [cigital.com] (PDF - sorry) from CyberDefense Magazine, Microsoft Word alone was 2 million lines of code... in 1995.
It also says that Windows 2000 had 35 million LOC, and XP has 40 million.
Assume that the growth between XP and Vista is the same: that means 45 million LOC for Vista. So 60% is 27 million lines of code. It would be ridiculous to re-write that much - let alone impossible.
Re:60% of an operating system in 6 months - NO WAY (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:60% of an operating system in 6 months - NO WAY (Score:4, Funny)
Easy!
Re:60% of an operating system in 6 months - NO WAY (Score:2)
Re:60% of an operating system in 6 months - NO WAY (Score:2)
Vista is proportadly around 50 million lines of code. Rewriting 30 million lines of code in 9 months is, quite frankly, impossible. You can't just throw
VMware URL wrong (Score:3, Informative)
OpenSPARC (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:OpenSPARC (Score:2)
Re:OpenSPARC (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's why other people would want to make SPARC chips: Linux. Oh no, here comes the zealot talk. Actually, not quite. Linux runs on the three leading server architectures, x86 (+AMD64), POWER, and SPARC. From a deployment and administration standpoint, you don't really care what CPU you're running on. With the T1, Sun released the CPU with the highest performance per Watt on the market (for some tasks). This is an attractive chip, but buying from Sun is not always appealing. Sun gear is pretty expensive.
Today, there are many Taiwanese and Chinese motherboard makers, and they sell lots and lots of hardware. But their chips must always come from Intel or AMD (or Via, who's never been competitive). They would love nothing more than to have a standard CPU architecture that they can manufacture (TSMC or PMC can fab these for them) and take the profit cut from instead of handing that business to Intel. With Sun's release, they now have the tools to make a chip that is not only competitive with x86 and Power, but is actually top of the line, and at no additional cost to them. It already runs Linux, it's ready for blades, they know it will sell.
Sun benefits by having cheaper SPARC CPUs on the market, driving down their costs and increasing their architecture share. The manufacturers benefit by being able to sell at the high end, and sell cheaper. Server buyers benefit, because there is now a cheap source for high end machines. Now, if these chips really move, don't be surprised to see Texas Instruments (who doesn't have a server chip, but does have the fabs and experience with SPARC) and even IBM (who will make whatever sells) start to make these.
CityManager Email (Score:3, Informative)
city manager at citymgr@cityoftuttle.org [mailto],
mayor at mayor@cityoftuttle.org [mailto].
Enjoy!
Great, look at what you just did. (Score:5, Insightful)
Worse, the e-mail address will be still available AFTER he resigns or his government period finishes. Will the next mayor have to cope with this?
Re:Great, look at what you just did. (Score:2)
Re:Great, look at what you just did. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great, look at what you just did. (Score:2)
No, it's not.
Read the page - he believes that he got the problem fixed because he ranted and screamed and threatened. This is mutually exclusive with being a good manager.
Re:Great, look at what you just did. (Score:2)
I'd just like to point out that he is *A* public official, not *YOUR* public official. The only people who really have a say in this are the townsfolk of his own electorate.
Re:Great, look at what you just did. (Score:2)
I refuse to intentionally make communica
Re:Great, look at what you just did. (Score:2)
I've found that form mail is the most effective balance of easy access to protection from spammers. I have never received spam from my web site's contact form, yet the link is easily found at the bottom of every page.
(If any Slashdotters try it, rem
Re:Great, look at what you just did. (Score:2)
Re:Great, look at what you just did. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Great, look at what you just did. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but I don't agree on harassing someone over e-mail.
The poster GP post didn't call for harassment, he only posted his email for people to give replies to. Do you really think that the only possible use for email is harassment?
His public shame is enough, don't you think?
Not really. His latest responses of trying to deny he was responsible for the whole mess only show that he doesn't get it. He still thinks threatening to call the FBI is a Good Thing. Clearly the man has learned little through publi
Re:CityManager Email (Score:2, Insightful)
To me, this is a classic example of how ignoring can be much more powerful than not. If the CentOS people had just ignored this guy after trying to help at first, he would have called the FBI and received his due justice from them for wasting their time. Instead, CentOS wasted time, slashdot readers wasted time, ta
Vista (Score:2)
Re:Vista (Score:2)
Re:Vista (Score:2)
Tuttle NBC video (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not linking directly to it, because we've already crushed their bandwith enough for one week, but feel free to check it out.
It's not at all flattering to the City Manager...
Re:Tuttle NBC video (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tuttle NBC video (Score:2)
Re:Tuttle NBC video (Score:2, Informative)
That's not quite true. The video can be accessed with WMP if you open this URL (watch for /. adding spaces)
http://www.kfor.com/Global/Video/WorldnowASX.asp?o s=&vt=v&clipid=734082 [kfor.com]
I watched the video in WMP 6.4 on Win2000, and no version of WMP higher than 6.4 has ever been installed... so I feel this video will probably be viewable in MPlayer, for example (i.e. this stream isn't DRM'd up).
Oh, it's embarassing... (Score:2)
Your URL, sir (Score:2)
I can see in the comments that I'm not the only one who was slowed from accessing this by fascist plugin detection
Does the Virtual PC Importer work better now? (Score:2)
I live in Tulsa (Score:2)
Plausable Deniability? (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, like somebody's gonna randomly tell this PR Geek about technical matters? The obvious person to (not) ask (depending on whether or not you want a meaningfull answer) would be an executive in Microsoft's OS development group.
eg: The fact that I've never personally seen George Bush snorting coke or had him tell me about it doesn't tell you much about whether he has or not (given that I've never met the man). Getting that denial from his best friend would mean a little bit more.
Re:Plausable Deniability? (Score:2)
Re:Plausable Deniability? (Score:2)
No. My point is that The quote is not from a Microsoft Executive. It is from an exec for an outside PR firm who has no reason to be in contact with OS programming types -- especially if he wants to deny knowledge of what is happening.
That 60% of the code needs to be ripped out and completely rewritten does relatively preposterous -- but if this 'couple of weeks delay' ultimately gets stretched out to late 2008, then it might not
Re:Plausable Deniability? (Score:2)
That 60% of the code needs to be ripped out and completely rewritten does relatively preposterous -- but if this 'couple of weeks delay' ultimately gets stretched out to late 2008, then it might not be so preposterous.
Ignoring for the moment that this story has no source for the whole 60% thing (so it should be just ignored like any other random rumor), It would absolutely TERRIBLE business practice to outright lie about a two week delay to your system builders (Dell, HP, etc) when it is in fact a year dela
Re:Plausable Deniability? (Score:2)
Check your sources ... (Score:4, Funny)
They are likely not aware of a lot of things
Taylor asks the Register to stop emails. (Score:2)
If Taylor thinks the Register has any control over the internet's mail systems, there's yet another reason to make fun of him. Why doesn't he write the town newspaper to have people stop giving him dirty looks on the street after a disparaging article about him has been published.
Write a letter to Tuttle (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the email I just sent:
To: citymgr@cityoftuttle.org
CC: mayor@cityoftuttle.org
Subject: Apologize to CentOS
Mr. Taylor,
I'm writing in response to your recent letter to The Register [1]. I am appalled to learn of your continued hostility to the Johnny Hughes, the CentOS Team, and the open source community as a whole. I am a member of this community.
You wrote that you "only got help after threatening to contact the FBI" [2]. That's a misleading statement without also mentioning that you threatened to contact the FBI prior to describing the problem or asking for help. I quote from your initial email: "Please remove your software immediately before I report it to government officials!!"
Most organizations would have immediately directed you to their legal department and cut off all other contact. CentOS stuck with you through your lengthy email exchange and resolved your problem despite your threats and ingratitude. That shows a level of dedication and professionalism that you could never achieve. Even more so when you consider that they are volunteers and that you are not a paying customer. They are not obligated to help under even the best of circumstances.
After CentOS provided you with the publicity you welcomed, you apparently discovered that the open source community has no respect for those who abuse our movers and shakers. Realize that an apology is a necessary first step to repair the damage you have done to your city's reputation.
Sincerely,
Scott Lamb
[1] - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/27/tuttle_ema il/ [theregister.co.uk] o ryid=127 [centos.org]
[2] - http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.php?st
City of Tuttle in Microsoft's Adverts (Score:5, Funny)
City of Tuttle saves $ billions by migrating from Linux to Microsoft Windows.
After an extensive evaluation in which the City of Tuttle compared Windows® and Linux, the city selected Microsoft® Windows Server System(TM). Besides the obvious cost savings of moving to Windows, the city manager of Tuttle observed that security was of prime importance in the decision. "Ive worked with computers for 22 years, and Ive seen first hand how an interweb running on linux can easily be hijacked by hackers without MY permission."
Re:MS Virtual Server slips and VMWare fills the ga (Score:2)
Re:MS Virtual Server slips and VMWare fills the ga (Score:2)
Re:MS Virtual Server slips and VMWare fills the ga (Score:2, Informative)
Re:PowerOpen Association and 88open (Score:2)
Re:PowerOpen Association and 88open (Score:2)
Re:PowerOpen Association and 88open (Score:2)
Re:PowerOpen Association and 88open (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:To the Mayor of Tuttle, OK: #2 (Score:2)
hehe ;-)
Re:Google shows MANY Jerry Taylor's out there (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks to the publicity (and to his apparently endless ego) maybe we should say he's
"#6 with a bullet