Industry News

The maker of Blaster.B, a teen, faces arrest. He did not make the original worm or probably the latest variants. Read here or here or here.

The EU is considering adopting the US's obviously flawed software patent legislation. In protest, many sites are shutting down to show what that could do to the software world.

SCO says they won't sue Linux companies. Ever get the impression that the lawyers and PR people just get togther and drink alot when making decisions??

Symantec adds product activation. Hmm, no more uninstalling and reinstalling to get another year's worth of updates? Seriously though, I'm not sure how wise this is, given the dire need for AV on Windows boxes.

IE will have to change because of the recent patent ruling claiming that the use of embedded objects in website had no prior art. (yes, that means the jury thought that the idea of putting a picture, sound, etc on a webpage was thought up by a single person. Crazy, huh. Theoretically this could mean that all browsers will have to pay for a license for the use of plugins, flash, active-x etc etc.

Speaking of browsers, Opera and Mozilla have new betas out. Also, Arstechnica has a browser tete-a-tete on the Mac platform. While I think the conclusion is a bit misguided (i.e. it generally is: b/c Apple makes Safari we should all use it instead of a 3rd party app) the numbers and commentary are interesting. There is also some productive discussion on their forum.

Open source education seems to be doing well. The solution to piss-poor public education? (sorry, I'm a bit bitter from my forray into the public school system). Maybe. Only time will tell.