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Submission + - Why No Billion-Dollar Open Source Companies? (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by Glyn Moody
Glyn Moody writes: If open source is such a success, why aren't there any billion-dollar turnover open source companies? A recent briefing by Red Hat's CEO, Jim Whitehurst, to a group of journalists maybe provides an answer. Asked why Red Hat wasn't yet a $5 billion company, as he suggested it would be one day, he said getting Red Hat to $5 billion meant “replacing $50 billion of revenue” currently enjoyed by traditional computer companies. If, as is likely, that's generally true for open source companies, it means they will need to displace around $10 billion of proprietary business in order to achieve a billion-dollar turnover. Few are likely to do that. Perhaps it's time for managers of open source startups to stop chasing the billion-dollar dream. If they don't, they will set unrealistic ambitions for themselves, disappoint their investors and allow opponents of free software to paint one of its defining successes – saving money — as a failure.
Space

Submission + - The Mystery of the Missing Methane

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Astrobiology Magazine reports that NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered something odd about GJ 436b a distant planet about the size of Neptune located 33 light-years away circling the star Gliese 436. The mystery? GJ 436b lacks methane, an ingredient common to many of the planets in our solar system. Methane is present on our life-bearing planet, manufactured primarily by microbes living in cows and all of the giant planets in our solar system have methane too, despite their lack of cows. “In this case, we expected to find methane not because of the presence of life, but because of the planet’s chemistry,” says Joseph Harrington of the University of Central Florida. "This type of planet should have cooked up methane. It’s like dipping bread into beaten eggs, frying it, and getting oatmeal in the end." Spitzer was able to detect the faint glow of GJ 436b by watching it slip behind its star, an event called a secondary eclipse. As the planet disappears, the total light observed from the star system drops and the drop is then measured to find the brightness of the planet at various wavelengths. Eventually, a larger space telescope could use the same kind of technique to search smaller, Earth-like worlds for methane and other chemical signs of life, such as water, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Adam Showman, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, says the "provocative result" raises questions about the evolution of this planet, as well as the possibility that its atmosphere might represent an entirely new class of atmospheres that has never been explored. “It’s a big puzzle,” says Kevin Stevenson. “Models tell us that the carbon in this planet should be in the form of methane. Theorists are going to be quite busy trying to figure this one out.”"
Security

Submission + - Spam Wars: Windows Worm Builds Massive Botnet (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "The worm exploiting a critical Windows bug that Microsoft patched with an emergency fix in late October is now being used to build a fast-growing botnet, said Ivan Macalintal, a senior research engineer with Trend Micro. Dubbed "Downad.a" by Trend, "Conficker.a" by Microsoft, and "Downadup" by Symantec Corp., the worm is a key component in a massive new botnet that a new criminal element not associated with McColo is creating. "We think 500,000 is a ball park figure," said Macalintal when asked the size of the new botnet. "That's not as large as some, such as [the] Kraken [botnet], or Storm earlier, but it's still starting to grow." Meanwhile, one spam-spewing botnet shut down with McColo, which had resurfaced last week, was shut down today by an ISP in Estonia."

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