Nuke Site Converted Into Green Data Center 125
1sockchuck writes "If you had 100,000 servers, would you put them on top of a former nuclear fuel facility? One of the world's largest web hosts, 1&1 Internet, is building a new data center on a site in Hanau, Germany previously used by Siemens to produce mixed oxide rods made from enriched uranium and plutonium. The site has been cleaned up, and 1&1 is converting it into a 'green' data center powered by renewable energy and using free cooling to save on air conditioning costs."
Fedora 9 Would Cost $10.8B To Build From Scratch 293
ruphus13 writes "The Linux Foundation's recently released report claims, '... it would take approximately $10.8 billion to build the Linux community distribution Fedora 9 in today's dollars with today's software development costs.' The article states why this might actually understate the value of the distros, though, since it doesn't include the power of the brand and the goodwill value. 'There were several approaches that the Linux Foundation employed to reach the $10.8 billion dollar figure, including calculating the number of lines of code in Fedora 9 (204,500,946), and using an average programmer's salary of $75,662.08 — as determined by the US Department of Labor — to measure development costs ... On the balance sheets of Coca Cola and many other huge corporations, you find goodwill listed as a major asset.'"
MS-Funded Study Attacks GPL3 Draft Process 206
QCMBR writes "A new Microsoft-funded study by a Harvard Business School professor concludes that developers don't want extensive patent licensing requirements in the GPL3. There are significant problems with the study, however, especially given the very small sample size. 'Although 332 emails were sent to various developers, only 34 agreed to participate in the survey — an 11 percent response rate. Of the 34 developers who responded, many of them are associated with projects like Apache and PostgreSQL that don't even use the GPL.' Ars points out that the GPL3 draft editing and review process is highly transparent and inclusive 'to an extent that makes MacCormack's claims of under-representation seem difficult to accept given the small sample size of the study and the number of respondents who contribute to non-GPL projects.'"
Sort Linked Lists 10X Faster Than MergeSort 326
virusfree tells us about a new algorithm that has been developed that the author claims can sort a linked list up to 10 times faster than MergeSort. "BitFast," a member of the Hash algorithms family, is available in C and C++ under the GPL.
John Dvorak On Vista's Launch 382
An anonymous reader writes "John is at it again, this time with his take on the launch of Microsoft's Vista operating system. John covers the reality from a market perspective, looking at whether the release will affect PC sales, peripherals ... or even Microsoft." From the article: "While there is no way that Vista will be a flop, since all new computers will come with Vista pre-installed, there seems to be no excitement level at all. And there does not seem to be any compelling reason for people to upgrade to Vista. In fact, the observers I chat with who follow corporate licensing do not see any large installations of Windows-based computers upgrading anytime soon. The word I keep hearing is 'stagnation.' Industry manufacturers are not too thrilled either. One CEO who supplies a critical component for all computers says he sees a normal fourth quarter then nothing special in the first quarter for the segment. Dullsville."
John Dvorak's Eight Signs MS is Dead in the Water 711
j79 writes "John Dvorak has written an opinion piece on why he believes Microsoft is dead in the water. He discusses Vista, Office 2007, MSN and MSN search, the Xbox 360, Pad-based computing, .Net, and Microsoft's obsession with Google. "
Comment The article is misleading (Score 1) 378
I read about this in the local newspaper a few days ago. Their angle was that because he used small pieces of paper as the only means of communication he was able to prevent being caught by the police (implying that had he used modern technology it would have been much easier for the police intercept his messages and catch him). That article didn't even bother mentioning his use of "cryptography".
