Anonymous Comrade submits:

SCO plans court attack on Linux GPL
By Matthew Broersma
ZDNet (UK)
August 15, 2003, 7:43 AM PT

SCO Group is planning to argue in its court battle against IBM that the General Public License (GPL) covering Linux and other open-source software is invalid, according to a report.

SCO, owner of several key copyrights related to the Unix operating system, has been aggressively defending its intellectual property holdings connected to Unix System V, and filed a $3 billion lawsuit against IBM earlier this year. The suit claims that IBM has committed trade-secret theft and breach of contract for allegedly copying proprietary Unix source code into its Linux-based products.

Anonymous Kumquat submits:

"USA Developing "Quasi-Nuclear" Gamma-Ray Weaponry"

David Hambling, New Scientist, 16th August 2003

An exotic kind of nuclear explosive being developed by the
US Department of Defense could blur the critical
distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons. The
work has also raised fears that weapons based on this
technology could trigger the next arms race.

directvdefense

jim submits :

"Debian Celebrates Its 10th Birthday"

Martin Schulz

On August 16th, the Debian Project will celebrate its 10th birthday
with several parties around the globe. The Debian Project was
officially founded by Ian Murdock on August 16th, 1993. At that time,
the whole concept of a "distribution" of GNU/Linux was new. Ian
intended Debian to be a distribution which would be made openly, in
the spirit of Linux and GNU. The creation of Debian was sponsored by
the FSF's GNU project for one year.

nolympics writes

Karmabanque is a funny and informative site devoted to the propagation of destructive financial instruments by ordinary punters who would like to hurt deviant capitalist interests by encouraging and participating in the short selling of their stocks. This is essentially a way of betting (and so encouraging) that their stocks will decline in value. In theory this should force institutional investors to follow suit. Combined with boycotts of products (promoted by this bank), short selling is a means of punishing 'bad' market practices and registering this in markets. They encourage that any 'profits' be redistributed to countries and projects in need of diverted funds, while conceding that some should be pocketed for beer and pizza's.

Its also a great way of learning something about finanacial and stock markets hygenically.

fuck a company

Anonymous Comrade submits:

The following text was written on July 1st, 2003 and appeared on Giap #8, 4th Series, 07/15/2003. In the following weeks, the RIAA and a clique of Republican motherfuckers have prompted a further crackdown against file sharing and "piracy", perhaps the fiercest bombing blitz so far. Nevertheless, we believe that the record industry's "Shock & Awe" strategy is doomed to failure, no matter the casualties they inflict in the short term. Guerrilla warfare is the perpetual spanner in the works of the corporate war machine, and collective intelligence is already at work on more secure swap platforms. "Piracy" is a social thing, and it's already deeply rooted in contemporary behavior patterns. The bosses of corporate entertainment don't understand. Of course they don't: their brains no longer work; the more they get close to the trashcan of history, the more they get intoxicated by the stench.


"Lawrence of Arabia and the Fight Against Copyright"

Wu Ming 1, 01/07/2003


A few months ago Stampa Alternativa released a new booklet of their collection "Gli Euro" [The Euros: each booklet costs exactly 1 euro, t.n.]. It is a simple and agile text on guerrilla warfare which Sir Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888-1935, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia) wrote for the 14th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (first published in 1929).



Lawrence's explanation is both accurate and picturesque, and goes to the heart of the matter by reflecting on the Arab Revolt against the Turks (1916-1918), which Lawrence himself took part in instigating and directing on behalf of the British Empire.

It is important to stress that this latest attack on file-sharing is sparked by the private initiative of a lawyer representing intellectual property owners. The State has not yet tipped its hand with regard to the attitude that it will assume, and indeed it is difficult to envisage a European Court convicting individiuals under criminal charges in advance of a US determination to similar effect.

In early June, for example, rumours of a swoop on Italian sharers circulated, claiming that 180 people were under investigation for copyright infringements relating to their use of p2p networks. This scare prompted a clarification by the police involved (Guardia di Finanzia) that the targets of the raid were active in commercial counterfieting rings that used p2p and ftp servers as part of their business, and that those who eployed the tools to share files were not the target of the operation. Elsewhhere in Europe during 2002 six eDonkey servers were shut down in Denmark were shut down by police under-pressure from industry groups, and letters of warning were issued to numerous German broadband users, who were informed that their traffic logs would be preserved in case of subsequent litigation by copyright owners.

As yet, however, there have been no state-instigated prosecutions of individuals for the collaborative sharing of media and knowledge that they call 'piracy.'


Spanish Firms Target File Traders

In what is being touted as the largest legal action of its kind, a Spanish law firm has announced plans to file a copyright-violation complaint against 4,000 individuals who allegedly have swapped illegal files over peer-to-peer networks in that country.

hydrarchist submits "
The following a revision of an article commissioned by Mute Magazine and was published in their most recent issue.

Dissembly Language: Unzipping the World Summit on the Information Society

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has already attracted the attention of the
critical media community. Here, A.T. examines what's at stake at the Summit and how its agenda reflects changes in the post-
industrial location of power, describing some working strategies for intervention in the WSIS
process from 'independent' and contestatory communications groups formed outside last year's
European Social Forum

A TALE OF TWO TERMS

We begin with a tale of two terms: the well aired and well known 'Information Society', and its
rather furtive and less well known relation, 'intellectual property' (IP). One of the decade's great
shibboleths, 'Information Society' was a phrase recycled throughout the '90s by policy hacks,
academics and gurus alike. Employed variously to herald the expansion of digital networks, the
permeation of labour by information processes, and the shift from tangible to intangible goods,
'Information Society' seemed to imply something inexorable, a consequence of the massive
mediatisation of the preceding years, outside any one set of strategic interests - something, we
were constantly reminded, 'we would all have to adapt to.'

Stephen Cataldo writes "SpaceShare is a new environmental partnership. We've developed a set of web sites for rideshares and hotel accommodation matching for events & conferences.



What we're doing: we're looking for activist and cultural events that should have rideshares, and setting up sites for them (usually at no cost.) Let us know if you're setting up an event!



What we want to do: This project was started by two people. We've protyped it, beta-tested it, run it for a few events. Now, we want to find others to start an activist organization, where we can be the tech-team but others will help us make the contacts to get the sites into widespread use.



Anyone interested?



Contact Stephen:

cataldo-(at)-boutell.com

www.spaceshare.com"

Anonymous Comrade submits:

"Microsoft Plans Largest Full-Timers Lay-Off in Company's History"

Jeff Nachtigal, WashTech News

Hundreds of Call Center Jobs to be Offshored to India
and Canada

When Eric Poore began working as a customer service
representative for Microsoft's technical call-routing
center in 1997, he was told his advancement
opportunities were endless.

Two years into his Microsoft career Poore's hard work
paid off with a promotion to Outlook Technical Router,
where he managed technical questions about Microsoft?s
email program. But less than a year later, the
position was outsourced -- a handy euphemism for being
sent to India or elsewhere to cut labor costs -- and he
was demoted back to his original customer service job.

Four years after Poore lost his first position to
outsourcing, he is about to lose his six-year career
because Microsoft is in the process of a massive
relocation of Customer Central call center jobs to
India and Canada.

Employees estimate that Microsoft is planning to
eliminate at least 800 jobs in the next fiscal year at
the company's Las Colinas facility outside of Dallas,
Texas and shift the work offshore.

If this outsourcing goes as expected, it will be the
largest one-time firing of full-time Microsoft
employees in the company's history.

[...] full story at Techs Unite