333031
submission
OSSes Ass writes:
The Open Source initiative has officially approved two Microsoft Shared Source licenses, Microsoft Community (Ms-CL) and Microsoft Permissive (Ms-PL). Ars notes that this was not a surprising decision, given FSF Europe's support, but that significant roadblocks remain for Microsoft in the OSS arena. 'Although OSI validation of Microsoft's licenses is a very big win for Microsoft and the open-source software community, this victory is overshadowed by Microsoft's aggressive attitude towards open-source software. Certain vocal factions of the OSS community will express extreme distrust for Microsoft's open-source licenses, which will make it difficult for the company to build a bridge with the broader OSS community.'
328641
submission
Avantare writes:
QWest did the right thing and rejected the governments request for telephone records. But at what cost? An interesting article from CBS News bringing to light court papers that suggest convicted Exec's rejection of classified project led to loss of goverment business. Makes you wonder what kind of 'rewards' AT&T, Bellsouth and Verizon got from the government.
327147
submission
mm4 writes:
Groklaw reports
IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state.
326789
submission
fredklein writes:
A Minnesota university has suspended one of its graduate students who sent two e-mail messages to school officials supporting gun rights.
"Hamline University also said that master's student Troy Scheffler, who owns a firearm, would be barred from campus and must receive a mandatory "mental health evaluation" after he sent an e-mail message arguing that law-abiding students should be able to carry firearms on campus for self-defense."
When informed that suspending him violated the school's freedom of expression policy, the University changed their tune: Now they claim he's being suspended because of "anonymous allegations" they received, and they can't tell him (or the press) what those allegations are, or who his accusers are. With all the talk of 'Big Brother' throwing people into detention centers without knowing the charges, are we overlooking 'Little Brothers' closer to home?
326701
submission
Stony Stevenson writes:
When 32-year-old Yoani Sanchez wants to update her blog about daily life in Cuba, she dresses like a tourist and strides confidently into a Havana hotel, greeting the staff in German. That is because Cubans like Sanchez are not authorised to use hotel Internet connections, which are reserved for foreigners.
She and a handful of other independent bloggers are opening up a crack in the government's tight control over media and information to give the rest of the world a glimpse of life in a one-party, Communist state. But they face many difficulties. Costs are highly prohibitive (US$6 per hour for Internet access or the equivalent of a fortnight's pay for the average Cuban) and less than 2 percent of the population have access to the internet.
326669
submission
jfruhlinger writes:
You've got a file on your laptop that you need to access — but you don't want to wait for your laptop to boot up to get at it. New technology from SST will make the contents of a hard drive accessible via a computer's USB port even when the computer is powered down.
137185
submission
Scoldog writes:
Hello everyone.
I work in the IT Dept for a large car dealership in Australia with many branches. One of the branches has decided they want an ADSL line installed so that customers can surf the net while their cars are being serviced. I don't mind the idea but I want to be able to monitor the traffic and filter what people are accessing. From what I have seen, a PC with some sort of monitoring software acting as a gateway would be the way to go rather than forking out for commercial gateway hardware
There are a few requirements that I need:
1. I can't see the need for people having to acknowledge they want internet access as we won't be charging for it (Like a hotel getting people to say 'yes' before accessing internet from their rooms). Does anyone disagree with this and would you recommend?
2. I am a Windows Administrator but I don't like the idea of using a Windows box as a gateway (I have dealt with too many malware infested PC's in the past, just imagining hordes of random people plugging their laptops into a common Windows PC is enough to freak me out!) I am currently playing around with Ubuntu and Fedora in my own time, is there an easy way of setting up a gateway using either of these distributions (preferably Ubuntu)?
3. They are looking at adding wireless access for the customers (instead of plugging in to the wall jacks they have already installed). Is there a solution that can handle stuff like stopping after hours access on the access point (stopping people from hanging around outside leeching net time)
4. I would also like to setup a banned list of words, websites and ports so people are only able to go to 'appropriate' websites and get their email.
5. Being able to dial in and monitor off site plus make changes to the settings would be great as well.
What problems have you come across doing this? Do you recommend a software solution (using a PC as a gateway) or is it not worth it and I should recommend a commercial gateway instead?
Thanks for your help
136171
submission
citfor writes:
An article by the BBC about the low availability of HIV drugs got me thinking, "We have open source software. Why couldn't we have open source drugs?" We've heard complaints about the drug companies being greedy. We've also heard celebrities say they want to commit resources to AIDS in Africa, Parkinsons, etc. I'd like to hear from the Slashdot community, greedy companies trying to interfere aside, is this technically feasible?
132661
submission
Ariastis writes:
Bill Gates, in an internal memo, explained how he saw in ACPI an option to go against Linux in his
traditional monopolistic way (PDF Warning) Currently used as an element of proof in an antitrust trial.