Archive | 2006

Microsoft keeping secrets from the good guys

From Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley: Is Microsoft’s Silent Treatment Appropriate for Patches?. “Microsoft says it is withholding certain details on security vulnerabilities to protect customers from bad guys. But critics say Microsoft’s cone of security silence only increases the risk for everyone.”

An interesting article. It claims that Microsoft is keeping its bug count artificially low by silently slipstreaming multiple bug fixes into the patches and, worse, not disclosing the details even to their “trusted partners.” The bad guys know what’s patched. Why shouldn’t we? Shouldn’t “Trustworthy Computing” require more transparency than this?

A New Bubble or Continuing Evolution?

InfoWorld: Top News reports Open source goes big time with Red Hat-JBoss Deal.

(InfoWorld) – “Red Hat’s surprise announcement that it’s acquiring JBoss could upend accepted wisdom about both the size and function of open source software companies. Still, some customers are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the deal.”

I wonder if this is a new bubble of irrational exuberance, or the ongoing business as usual. Red Hat’s not the only one making news…

Slashdot post: MySQL to Adopt Solid Storage Engine. hmart writes “As seen on ZDNet’s Open Source Blog MySQL is taking another step to defend from Oracle’s recent acquisitions of InnoBase and Sleepycat. From the article: ‘MySQL responds by getting Solid Information Technology, a proprietary database vendor, to take its solidDB Storage Engine for MySQL open source, under the GPL, starting in June.’

CentraLUG, May Day: What We Saw at LinuxWorld Boston

CentraLUG next meets on Monday, May 1, 2006 7pm at NHTI

The monthly meeting of CentraLUG, the Concord/Central New Hampshire chapter of the Greater New Hampshire Linux Users Group, occurs on the first Monday of each month on the New Hampshire Institute Campus starting at 7 PM. This month, we’ll be meeting in Room 146 of the Library/Learning Center/Bookstore, marked as “I” on that map. Directions and maps are available on the NHTI site. Open to the public. Free admission. Tell your friends.

This month’s meeting will feature GNHLUG members who attended the recent LinuxWorld conference and expo in Boston in an informal panel discussion “What We Saw at LinuxWorld.” Members of all GNHLUG chapters (as well as the general public) are encouraged to attend. As always, we’ll have some time to network and to ask that FOSS question that’s been bothering you. Tell your friends! Tell your co-workers! More details about the group are available at http://www.gnhlug.org. Hope to see you there!

Happy Patriot’s Day!

Happy Patriot’s Day!

LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year…

Read the rest at The Paul Revere House website.

Spolsky on Management

Joel Spolsky: “Management’s primary responsibility to create the illusion that a software company can be run by writing code, because that’s what programmers do.” Yet another insightful essay. Man, can this guy write!

Definitely not OK

Joho the Blog writes “Microsoft writes bill for Oklahoma authorizing wholesale spying. According to the Oklahoma Gazette, the state legislature has passed a bill that Microsoft helped write that gives vendors of software the right to check around your computer, delete files they consider unauthorized, and turn you into the local authorities if they don’t like the way your computer smells. This is all being done to keep you secure. Yes, you can refuse to agree to the end user license agreement, but more likely you’ll just click on it without reading the fine print. And if you refuse to sign the EULA, you don’t get to use the software. OK not OK…”

Ten Worst Ways to Communicate with End Users

Over at fiat volpes, Rick Borup points to “The 10 worst ways to communicate with end users”. “Great article by Becky Roberts over on TechRepublic this morning. “The 10 worst ways to communicate with end users” is a short but valuable read for anybody who deals with end users (and who doesn’t?). Originally spotted on the TechRepublic Downloads feed.” I agree with Rick, it’s a well-written, short piece that all of us techies ought to review.

Powered by WordPress. Designed by Woo Themes

This work by Ted Roche is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.