Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Linux Business

Submission + - Linux kernel worth $1 billion USD by April, 2009 (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "Charles Babcock, writing in Information Week's Open Source Weblog, quotes Linux security pro David A. Wheeler as saying that, if the Linux kernel project continues to grow at its current rate, it will contain 6.6 million lines of code within the first 100 days (mid April) of 2009. Babcock quotes Wheeler as estimating that, at current fair market value for Linux kernel developers' time, when the kernel hits 6.6 million lines of code, it would have cost $1 billion USD to pay developers to create that much code. Depending on how you count code lines, Wheeler's conservative estimate is that the 2.6.23 version of the Linux kernel, which came out on 9 October 2007, has 5.5 million lines of code. Wheeler estimated that the 6.6 million line mark would be crossed sometime in the first 100 days of 2009, at current growth rates. Of course, with the inclusion of GNU code, that 6.6 million line mark would have been crossed long ago, not to mention X and all the other packages we have come to associate with our Free Software desktops."
Supercomputing

Submission + - India: the new supercomputing super-power (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by
inkslinger77
inkslinger77 writes: "India has just built the worlds fourth most powerful supercomputer, according to the Top500 supercomputer list. The company is a spin-off of an IT offshore services firm and its supercomputer, built with Hewlett-Packard servers using Intel chips with a total of 14,240 processor cores, went operational last month and achieved a performance of 117.9 teraflops."
Software

Submission + - Teacher finds $1,000 message hidden in software (pcpitstop.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Stuart Wallace, a 23 year old traveling English teacher, stumbled across a message hidden in the code of PC Pitstop's new product — Driver Alert. Much to his surprise, the message buried inside the software code was worth $1,000.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - SCO found guilty of lying about Unix code in Linux (linux-watch.com)

Submitted by
mlauzon
mlauzon writes: "In the United States, SCO's Linux/Unix litigation has been stalled out while the company's bankruptcy trial is being dealt with. In Germany, however, several court cases have found SCO Group GmbH, SCO's Germany branch, guilty of lying about Linux containing stolen Unix code.

In the first case, reported on by Heise Online, the pro-Linux German companies, Tarent GmbH and Univention found that SCO was once more making claims that Linux contained Unix IP (intellectual property). Specifically, SCO GmbH made the familiar claims that "As we have progressed in our discovery related to this action, SCO has found compelling evidence that the Linux operating system contains unauthorized SCO UNIX intellectual property (IP)." This was followed by the usual threat "If a customer refuses to compensate SCO for its UNIX intellectual property found in Linux by purchasing a license, then SCO may consider litigation."

The German Linux companies had already successfully protested against these statements in 2003. Then they were granted an injunction against SCO from making its claims that Linux contains illegally obtained SCO IP, a.k.a. Unix source code. If SCO violated this injunction, SCO would have to pay a fine of 250,000 Euros.

Since Tarent and Univention brought the matter to the attention of the courts, SCO has taken down the offending page with its claims.

Of course, in the U.S. court system, it has already been ruled that SCO has no Unix IP. Novell, not SCO, owns Unix.

Tarent's managing director told Heise Online that he found "It disconcerting, though not surprising, to see SCO trying to do towards the end what it is really being paid for by its supporters: spreading falsities as disparaging as possible about Linux." Unlike 2003, where Linux companies had to nip things in the bud, exercising vigilance is due now where things are coming to an end: "Even though SCO has reached the end of the line in our opinion, one should not let them get away with this."

In a similar case, Andreas Kuckartz, a German Linux advocate, had been publicly stating since 2003 that "SCO IP Licenses for Linux" amounted to little more than "protection money pricelists" and that SCO is "spreading rumors about copyright violations in Linux." Further, Kuckartz claimed that "The SCO Group Inc. is probably is involved in crimes such as stock manipulation and filing a fraudulent complaint against IBM."

SCO took him to court over these claims and SCO has lost (German PDF document). The Higher Regional Court in Munich ruled, Kuckartz said in e-mails to Linux-Watch, "that my statements are allowed because none of the factual statements I made to support those accusations are false. I can now even go to a business partner of The SCO Group GmbH and tell him or her that SCO is probably involved in the named crimes."

Kuckartz claim that he believes is the most important one is that in the four years the case has dragged out, SCO never objected "to my statement that SCO has not presented any proof of copyright violations in the lawsuit SCO vs. IBM."

In the United States, however, SCO, even now, continues to drag out its unsubstantiated claims that IBM has stolen SCO's Unix IP. In the SCO bankruptcy hearing, SCO attorney Arthur Spector once more claims, "Our litigation is a tremendous asset" and "Our litigation with IBM could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars.""
Security

Submission + - Enigma machine still up for grabs (rhul.ac.uk) 1

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Ever wanted to own your own piece of crypto history?

A genuine WWII Enigma machine, potentially worth thousands of US dollars, is up for grabs in a code-breaking competition associated with the book "Can you crack the Enigma code?" by author Richard Belfield (ISBN-10: 0752875264, ISBN-13: 9780752875262).

As part of the book, Richard worked with a team of experts from the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway, University of London to create a challenging collection of puzzles. These "Enigma puzzles" are designed to test even the most experienced puzzle addicts. The puzzles have been designed in such a way that ingenuity and lateral thinking will be as important as having access to a computer in solving them. The prize: a genuine Enigma machine, potentially worth thousands of pounds.

The competition has been running for over a year, and so far, it seems that the puzzles have defied even the most determined attempts to break them. There's been plenty of discussion on the on-line forum at http://enigma.isg.rhul.ac.uk/ but so far it seems that only the first three of the six puzzles have been cracked.

Time to sharpen your pencils and get to work..."
Communications

Submission + - Quantum Cryptography makes first wireless link

Submitted by
QuantumCrypto
QuantumCrypto writes: "In quantum cryptography, using a stream of single photon to transmit message is considered to be the gold standard, as there is no way to intercept the message without alerting the messenger. A team of European physicists has just done that. They have successfully transmitted a secure quantum 'key' between two of the Canary Islands, opening the possibility of long-distance, wireless quantum cryptography. The bandwidth was a "blazing" 2.37 bits per second."

Slashdot Top Deals

Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success.

Close