An anonymous reader writes to point out that Stanford's Information Technology Systems and Services "has written a summary of a series of compromises that have been happening at universities, research institutions, and high performance computing centers, for the last month or more. The attackers are using known vulnerabilities in Linux and Solaris, along with compromised user accounts, to gain access and control of systems, from standalone servers to HPC clusters ... (the attacks are still ongoing)."

nasteric asks: "I caught myself in the middle of a very interesting discussion last Friday over Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee. The discussion had to do with usability and security. Many of the Microsoft Administrators I work with argued the more user friendly Linux becomes, the more vulnerable it becomes. They claimed making Linux a friend of Joe User will require it to 'open itself up' and become more susceptible to attack. Needless to say, this became an endless debate between our Microsoft Administrators and our Linux/Unix Administrators that will undoubtedly continue into the morning. Therefore I pose this question to the Slashdot community. Will making Linux more user friendly result in it becoming less secure? Hopefully your expertise will help shed some light on (and bring to and end) our discussion." Does decent usability necessarily imply the presence of vulnerabilities? Macs seem to have this area down pretty well, with little in the way of vulnerabilities. Can Linux software follow the same route?

Struan Robertson writes "With all the controversy surrounding SCO's allegations that its Unix code was copied into Linux, we're running a survey with ZD Net to gauge industry practice on code copying. Do you keep a code library? Do you take it from one employer to another? These are the questions we're asking. All answers will be anonymous. The results - with expert legal analysis - will be published free - we're not doing this to sell reports etc. If you're a developer and happy to help, see our questions on SurveyMonkey.com."

Flxstr writes "Lots of Linux articles in Canada's national newspaper today, starting with Calgary switching from SUN Unix to Red Hat Linux. Another article discusses whether Linux will become a target for viruses as its popularity grows. This article mentions how Linux costs less, so more firms are becoming interested. Finally, an article discusses how pushes by major vendors such as IBM, HP, and others is speeding acceptance of Linux over other alternatives. Altogether, some good articles for any CIO's desk."

rocketjam writes "According to InternetNews.com, Apple Computer is seeing large numbers of UNIX, Java and Open Source developers moving to its Mac OS X platform. Apple Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations Ron Okamoto mentions that, in the three years since the introduction of OS X, 'people who have experience in those areas are showing a great interest in our OS. We're seeing a lot of first timers. It's really impressive.' The company said it has recently surpassed the 300,000 member threshold of registered developers. Apparently, the increase in enterprise code writers has prompted Apple to add more sessions focusing on enterprise and IT to its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference."

Several folks submitted the press release announcing the formation of the X.Org Foundation and the release of X11R6.7 of the X Window System. The XOrg Foundation is the successor to the X Consortium, formed by many of the most notworthy participants in the XFree86 Project. This code release is a tree forked from the last XFree86 release not troubled by that pesky license change. Since Mandrake, Gentoo, OpenBSD, and Debian have already rejected the new XFree86 license, this new code tree will likely become the default X11 for most Linux users. I've attached the press release that explains more details about the code release, as well as the X.Org foundation itself.

Xidus writes "Computerworld is running an article on the technology behind the US Navy's newest HSV (High Speed Vessel), focusing on interfaces designed to reduce the number of personnel needed on the bridge. Lots of pretty pictures. No word on OSes, although Mozilla is mentioned, and UNIX-ish desktops are visible, along with some nifty virtual-reality tactical displays. Would you like to play a game?"

heliocentric writes "As reported in this CNet article. In an effort to make its version of Unix compare more favorably to Red Hat's Linux, Sun Microsystems plans in coming weeks to begin selling its Solaris operating system through a subscription model." On the down side, there was coverage of the announced layoffs, as well as the MSFT case being won. The article makes a good point, that Sun has reinvented itself before, and that no one should write Sun off.

dr3vil writes "eWeek publishes an interview with SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag about the IBM lawsuit. SCO now claim that Linux is a 'nonliteral implementation' of Unix, and compare their claim to those involving Harry Potter rip-offs and Vanilla Ice versus David Bowie and Queen." And ronaldb64 writes "Yahoo Business has a nice summary of the last couple of months of stock movement of SCO, and the reasons why. It contains quotes from business analysts ('Win or lose, the outcome is at least a couple of years away' - 'In the interim, we know the company is going to burn through its cash balance.'), the lack of interest in SCO licenses, the effect the license purchase of EveryOne Ltd. had, and its continuing battle with Novell. The explanation given by pro- and contra-SCO activists is interesting: the pro-SCO group (in the form of SCO CFO Robert Bench) says it is because SCO has been laying low lately, the contra-SCO group (in the form of Eben Moglen) says it is because investors are beginning to understand how weak SCO's case is."

Tin Foil Hat writes "Paul Murphy over at LinuxInsider examines the role IT text books play in business school curriculums and the misconceptions and misinformation that they present to students. If you've ever wondered why your PHB just doesn't get it when it comes to UNIX and Linux, this article is for you."

paul.dunne writes "John Gruber of Daring Fireball has written a long and considered riposte to Eric Raymond's recent lament concerning the poor quality of user interfaces in free software. The core of his argument is that 'developing software with a good UI requires both aptitude and a lot of hard work.' One point that particularly struck me: according to Gruber, 'Unix nerds who care about usability are switching to Mac OS X in droves'!"

tachijuan asks: "I'm an old time hand in the PC world (started with trash-80 in late 70's). Along the way I've gone from the geek in school with the only computer to a CS degree to a position as a senior systems administrator at a major university to industry. And that's where I went to the dark side and became not a geek. About 10 years ago, the corporate rat race caught me and now I'm an exec at a midsize company. After 10 years of no code, it seems like I've never worked on anything serious (still do Perl, PHP, shell, etc scripting at home). Now, I feel the need to change this. How does an old UNIX coder/SysAdmin turned professional corporate cog get back into coding? I've looked at all sorts of languages (C#, C++, Delphi, VB(eh gads), Squeak, IO, etc.) but my problem is that I have unlearned most of the S in CS and the learning curve for the API's to both UNIX and Windows has become...daunting. Short of going back to school, what would you soon to be fellow geeks recommend as a good kick start?"

Some Bitch writes "IBM has filed for declaratory judgement in the SCO case. They want the court to declare that "IBM does not infringe, induce the infringement of or contribute to the infringement of any SCO copyright through its Linux activities, including its use, reproduction and improvement of Linux, and that some or all of SCO's purported copyrights in Unix are invalid and unenforceable.". If the judge grants the motion then SCO effectively has no case and the whole thing is over." spafbnerf notes that "SCO has filed a motion for the patent infringement claim to be split into a separate case." fr0z adds a link to Groklaw's always-excellent coverage.

An anonymous reader writes "Martin Pool is a Canberra-based software engineer working on open source software for HP. In 2003 he won the Australian Unix and Open Systems' Australian Open Souce Award for his work on the distcc distributed compiler. Builder AU recently caught up with Martin to talk about his work, SCO and open source software. Complete story" And, having meet him, and kinda worked with him a bit, Martin's one heckuva guy.

Feneric writes "As noted on FrameUsers.com, FrameMaker for the Mac was officially killed by Adobe. Of course, since one of the primary selling points of FrameMaker is its wonderfully solid cross-platform MS-Windows / Macintosh / Unix support, many are now wondering how long it'll now last for any platform."

jf writes "Gimp 2.0 released! From gimp.org: "This release is a major event, marking the end of a three year development cycle by a group of volunteers and enthusiasts who have made this the most professional release of the GIMP ever. It is the first stable release that is officially supported not only on Unix-based operating systems, but also on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh OS X." Get it from ftp.gimp.org or from the mirror sites."

darthcamaro writes "internetnews.com is running a story about the new Apache 2.0.49 release. They actually got a hold of a pair of Apache Software Foundation members and got them to speak out about the 1.3.x vs. 2.0.49 debate! Also Apache Director Sander Striker told internetnews.com that he expects the Apache 1.3.30 release cycle to begin this week... I still use 1.3.x because I've been using the Apache 1.x series 'forever' and I've never found a solid reason to change. Also, as pointed out in this article, the official PHP documentation clearly states, 'Do not use Apache 2.0 and PHP in a production environment neither on Unix nor on Windows.'"

william_lorenz writes: "With the recent release of KDE 3.2 and KDevelop 3.0, and with the forming of the KDE Quality team as mentioned on Slashdot just days ago, it was an opportune time to read my newest book, C++ GUI Programming with Qt 3. (Qt is of course TrollTech's multi-platform windowing toolkit -- Win32, Linux, UNIX, and the embedded space with Qt/Embedded -- upon which KDE is built. There's a free version licensed under the GPL for non-commercial use and also a commercial version.)" Read on for the rest of Lorenz' review.

joelhayhurst writes "Mac OS X 10.3.3 is now available via Software Update. Full details are available on the Apple site - key enhancements include: 'Network volumes are now available in the Finder sidebar and Desktop for easier access... Improved file sharing and directory services for Mac (AFP), UNIX (NFS) and PC (SMB/CIFS) networks... Improved PostScript and USB printing... Updated Disk Utility, DVD Player, Image Capture, Mail and Safari applications... Additional support for FireWire and USB devices... Improved compatibility for third party applications... Previous standalone security updates and Bluetooth Update 1.5."

tail.man sent in a Linux Insider piece about the difference between Linux and Windows. Quoting the synopsis "So, what's really the difference between a Unix variant like Linux and any Windows OS? It's that Microsoft reacts to marketing pressure to make design decisions favoring running a few processes faster but then finds itself forced first to layer in backward compatibility and then to engage in a patch-and-kludge upgrade process until the code becomes so bloated, slow and unreliable that wholesale replacement is again called for."