O'Reilly Network Developer News

We are shutting down the O'Reilly Developer News page as of 4/26/2004. Thank you for visiting this page, but unfortunately the level of interest did not justify the resources required to maintain it.

For other news resources on the O'Reilly Network, visit:
OSDir.com
MacDevCenter.com
WindowsDevCenter.com
LinuxDevCenter.com
ONJava.com
ONLamp.com
ONDotnet.com
Perl.com
XML.com

Look for the Today's News sections in the right hand column of most of our sites.

April 23, 2004

Perl 5.8.4
The fourth maintenance release of Perl 5.8 has been released. "The Perl 5 developer team is pleased to announce the Perl Release 5.8.4, the fourth maintenance release of Perl 5.8. ...is a maintenance release for perl 5.8, incorporating various minor bugfixes and optimisations. This release updates Perl to the Unicode Character Database, Version 4.0.1, and fixes some minor errors in Perl's UTF8 handling. It provides optimisations for Unicode case conversion functions, map and sort, and on most platforms now provides protection against memory wrapping attacks. Please see the perldelta for the full details."
[use Perl; | Permalink]

Sony Launches Actual E-Paper Device
Sony has launched the first e-paper device in the form of the LIBRlé. "The Electronic Paper Display is reflective and can be easily read in bright sunlight or dimly lit environments while being able to be seen at virtually any angle - just like paper. Its black and white ink-on-paper look, combined with a resolution in excess of most portable devices at approximately 170 pixels per inch (PPI), gives an appearance similar to that of the most widely read material on the planet - newspaper. Because the display uses power only when an image is changed, a user can read more than 10,000 pages before the four AAA Alkaline batteries need to be replaced. The unique technology also results in a compact and lightweight form factor allowing it to be ideal for highly portable applications." Caution: downloaded content becomes unreadable after two months!
[E Ink | Permalink]

IBM Search Tool Masala
IBM is set to roll out a new, non web-based, database, application and web search tool named Masala. "...a new version of its DB2 Information Integrator software that will let corporate employees retrieve information from databases, applications and the Web at the same time. Subsequent improvements will include a data-mining component code-named Criollo."
[C|Net News | Permalink]

April 22, 2004

TCP Flaw Researcher: Threat Over-Stated
The researcher who uncovered this week's TCP security flaw has said that the posed threat has been over-stated. "Widespread reports about a flawed communications protocol making the Internet vulnerable to collapse were overblown, according to the researcher credited with uncovering the security problem. A flaw in the most widely used protocol for sending data over the Net--TCP, or the Transmission Control Protocol--was addressed by most large Internet service providers during the last two weeks and presents little danger to major networks, said Paul Watson, a security specialist for industry automation company Rockwell Automation. If left unfixed, the weakness could have allowed a knowledgeable attacker to shut down connections between certain hardware devices that route data over the Net."
[C|Net News | Permalink]

China Agrees to Drop WAPI Wireless Sec Spec
China has bowed to pressure from US WiFi business interests to drop its WAPI wifi security standard in favor of WAP. "The turnaround was announced yesterday at the end of a day of talks between US and Chinese trade officials. The two countries are attempting to resolve a number of differences, most notably the tax rebates China offers to local chip makers."
[The Register | Permalink]

BayStar: SCO Needs New Management
From the 'no-kidding' dept, BayStar Capital, financial backers of the SCO Group, has come out criticizing SCO's management. "'We think they need to strengthen the senior team to get people with experience and background in the legal issues,' McGrath said. If SCO addresses BayStar's concerns, McGrath added, the investor is open to reversing its redemption request. After nearly a week of silence, BayStar Capital said Wednesday its move to retrieve a $20 million investment in SCO Group is part of an effort to induce major changes at the Linux litigator--including new senior management and a withdrawal from the Unix product business."
[C|Net News | Permalink]

April 21, 2004

Bad Faith Fair Use
A small victory for fair use was won yesterday in a Second Circuit Court of appeals. "Fair use is not a doctrine that exists by sufferance, or that is earned by good works and clean morals; it is a right--codified in § 107 and recognized since shortly after the Statute of Anne--that is "necessary to fulfill copyright’s very purpose, ‘[t]o promote the Progress of science and the useful arts . . . ."
[Corante | Permalink]

Lindows Inc. Registers for IPO
Lindows Inc. (now known as Linspire) has filed registration papers with the SEC to proceed with an IPO. "Lindows, Inc. announced today that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the initial public offering of its common stock."
[OSDir.com | Permalink]

TCP Flaw Could Cripple Entire Net
A potentially crippling flaw has been found in the internet's underlying protocol, TCP/IP. "Researchers found a serious security flaw that left core Internet technology vulnerable to hackers, prompting a secretive effort by international governments and industry experts in recent weeks to prevent global disruptions of Web surfing, e-mails and instant messages.

Experts said the flaw, disclosed Tuesday by the British government, affects the underlying technology for nearly all Internet traffic. Left unaddressed, they said, it could allow hackers to knock computers offline and broadly disrupt vital traffic-directing devices, called routers, that coordinate the flow of data among distant groups of computers."
[Wired News | Permalink]

Redhat to Judge: We Want a Piece of SCO.
Redhat has asked a federal judge to let their lawsuit continue without being put on hold pending IBM's case. "Arguing that the stay was "inappropriate," Red Hat requested on Tuesday that Sue Robinson, chief judge for the U.S. District Court in Delaware, allow it to move forward with its case. The Raleigh, N.C.-based company is seeking a declaration from the Delaware court that it isn't violating SCO's copyrights or trade secrets.

Robinson issued a hold in the Delaware case in April until a separate but related lawsuit filed by SCO against IBM had been resolved in Utah federal court. At the same time, she rejected SCO's request to have the case thrown out altogether"
[OSDir.com | Permalink]

Apache Axis C++ 1.1 Available [OSDir.com]
AirPort Extreme Base Station Firmware Update 5.4 [Mac News Network]
Internet Speed Record Set [C|Net News]
WebCrawler Turns 10 Today [Slashdot]
A Beginner's Crash Course into Object Oriented Programming [OSNews.com]
Sex.com Settles With VeriSign [Wired News]
Microsoft Hires Key Rival from SuSE Linux [OSDir.com]
YAPC NA 2004 Schedules Available [use Perl;]
The World Wide Panorama Project [Wired News]
Exploit for Windows SSL Flaw Circulating [Internetnews.com]
GCC 3.4.0 Released [GNU.org]
AOL Opens its Doors on E-mail [C|Net News]
Slate: Read My Mail, Please [Slate]
No Wires, No Rules [BusinessWeek]
Cisco Plans Network OS Overhaul [C|Net News]
Report from PyCon DC 2004 [LinuxJournal]
India Gets Out the E-Vote [Wired News]
Why MySQL Grew So Fast [O'Reilly Weblogs]

April 20, 2004

nVIDIA Gelato Hardware Accelerated Film Renderer
nVIDIA, everyone's favorite 3D-chipset maker, has released Gelato, a hardware-accelerated final renderer. "NVIDIA Corporation ... today unveiled NVIDIA Gelato, the first 3D final-film renderer accelerated by industry-standard graphics hardware. ...'We’ve been testing Gelato and are pleased with what we’re seeing,' said Cliff Plumer, chief technology officer at Industrial Light & Magic."
[NVIDIA | Permalink]

Dr. Alan Kay to Receive Turing Award
Dr. Alan Kay, father of SmallTalk the first dynamic object-oriented programming language, will receive the 'Nobel Prize of Computing', the Turing Award, in June. "One man's work to bring a biological model to the computer world has, 34 years later, led to a 2003 Turing Award by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), officials announced Monday. Dr. Alan Kay will receive the 'Nobel Prize of Computing' in a ceremony in June, as well as $100,000, for his pioneering work on Smalltalk, the first complete dynamic object-oriented programming (OOP) language. Today, the language is credited as the model for C++ and Java; Kay is considered the first to coin the phrase 'object-oriented.'"
[Internetnews.com | Permalink]

EFF: Patent Busting Project
The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) is so fed up with insane internet patents that it is forming its own group to hunt down 'prior art' and force the USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) to re-evaluate their merit.

"In light of growing concerns about illegitimate software and Internet patents, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today announced a new initiative to combat the chilling effects bad patents have on public and consumer interests.

'Patents traditionally only targeted large commercial companies,' said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. 'Now bad patents are threatening non-profits, small businesses, and even individuals who use software and Internet technology.' These threats target non-commercial personal use, such as building a hobbyist website or streaming a wedding video to your friends.

The new EFF initiative seeks to document these threats and fight back against them. EFF has pledged to file 're-examination' requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), asking the agency to revoke patents that are having negative effects on Internet innovation and free expression."
[OSDir.com | Permalink]

Netscape Hiring, Manager Calls it a 'Re-start'
AOL is reviving Netscape. The General Manager, Jeremy Liew says, "Netscape is aggressively hiring right now. We are treating Netscape as a 'restart,' with a mandate and a budget to take Netscape in a dramatically different direction, although still focusing on its current businesses as the No. 2 Web browser and No. 3 general audience portal." AOL refuses to elaborate on what the new direction entails.
[C|Net News | Permalink]

April 19, 2004

GrokLaw Launches Linux Usability Study, GrokDoc
Technical law site GrokLaw has undertaken doing an Linux usability study, GrokDoc."Here's my concept for the first step: all of us (and there are nearly 6,000 Groklaw members, not to mention many, many more who visit regularly but don't sign up for a user account but do participate actively) sit down with our mom or dad or any Windows-oriented friend or relative. Let them try to use GNU/Linux, any distro you have on hand, including Knoppix and its cousins. Don't show them anything. Just watch and record. What do they have problems with? How did they try to resolve the problem? What happened? Did it fix it? If not, suggest they try LDP or Google or the manuals that come with the distro. Watch them try and record the results. What works? What doesn't? If they hit an unmovable wall, then step in and help, but don't leap in until they are about to give up. I do want this to be useful research, but I don't want your mom to hate GNU/Linux either. But let them really try to solve it themselves without input from you until they fail utterly."
[OSDir.com | Permalink]

Rumor of Internet 'Super' Exploit
The Internet Storm Center is investigating the possibility of a super exploit based on vulnerabilities to Windows that were patched last week by Microsoft. "An unconfirmed report from the Internet Storm Center at The SANS Institute indicates the possibility of exploits circulating that target the vulnerabilities patched just last week by Microsoft Corp. The report, titled "Possible combined exploits of MS vulnerabilities," says that there is no general outbreak but that the group is hearing rumors of "super" exploits that "may target several of the vulnerabilities announced by Microsoft on Tuesday."
[eWeek | Permalink]

ICQ Unveiling App. Developers Program
Instant messaging pioneer ICQ will be unveiling developer tools, including APIs, next week in a bid to increase usage of the messaging service. "America Online's ICQ subsidiary is hoping to juice up its popular instant messenger with games and other applications, as part of a major software overhaul to be officially unveiled next week. The Internet pioneer expects to release the latest version of its instant messaging (IM) client, ICQ 4.0, on Tuesday, sources said. At that time, the company will also announce an initiative that for the first time will allow partners to obtain ICQ application programming interfaces (APIs), according to people familiar with the plan."
[C|Net News | Permalink]

BayStar Capital to SCO: We Want Our Money Back
SCO Group's financier, BayStar Capital has requested a stock redemption based on undisclosed contract breaches. "The SCO Group, Inc., the owner of the UNIX operating system, received a letter on April 15, 2004 from BayStar Capital II, L.P. requesting that SCO immediately redeem BayStar's 20,000 shares of SCO's Series A-1 Convertible Preferred Stock. The letter asserts that BayStar is entitled to the redemption of its shares under Article VII.A(vii) of the Certificate of Designation, Preferences and Rights of the Series A-1 Convertible Preferred Stock because SCO has allegedly breached Sections 2(b)(v), 2(b)(viii), 2(b)(viii) and 3(g) of the Exchange Agreement dated February 5 2004 among SCO, BayStar and Royal Bank of Canada, which also holds shares SCO's Series A-1 Convertible Preferred Stock."
[OSDir.com | Permalink]

Free iTunes Over a Browser [Slashdot]
Apple Unveils New Video Editing Tools [C|Net News]
PC Makers win Back Right to Sue Microsoft [The Register]
Spammer Sentencing Guidelines Released [Slashdot]
Howto: Build a Search Engine [ACM Queue]
Mac Voyeurs in a Windows World [Wired News]
Group Hacks Censorship [BBC Tech News]
The OpenBSD Journal Is Reborn [O'Reilly Weblogs]
SEC May Force Google IPO [Silicon Valley]
Search and Seizure: Porn Hunter [Wired News]
Pennsylvania Holds off on Net Phone Rules [C|Net News]
SimChurch [BBC Tech News]
Novell Hints at Further Acquisitions [Salt Lake Tribune]
Apple Set to Update PowerBooks, iBooks Today [The Register]
Hewlett Packard Goes Hollywood [Wired News]
Hollywood's New Lesson for Campus File Swappers [C|Net News]
Perl 5.8.4 RC2 is Out [OSDir.com]
Dive Into Python Rev. [Dive Into Python]

April 16, 2004

Jobs to Real: Nuh Uh!
Steve Jobs has rebuffed Rob Glaser's 'offer' to work together against Microsoft's online music plans. "For his part, Jobs told The Wall Street Journal earlier this week: 'The iPod already works with the No. 1 music service in the world, and the iTunes Music Store works with the No. 1 digital-music player in the world. The No. 2s are so far behind already. Why would we want to work with No. 2?'" Buffering, buffering...
[Mac Minute | Permalink]

Apple Pushes Feds Toward Broader Open-Source Use
Apple might beat Linux to the Government desktop. "Apple Computer Inc. is seeking Common Criteria evaluation of Mac OS X, which could open government doors wider to open-source software.

Apple wants a Common Criteria Evaluated Assurance Level 3, which 'costs big bucks,' said John Hurley, Apple’s security policy architect. 'It’s a pain in the neck to spend that money.'

But, Hurley told an audience at the recent Secure Trusted Operating System symposium in Washington, the entire open-source community could benefit from the effort. The OS X kernel is based on the Darwin open-source operating system.

'OS X wouldn’t be here without open-source,' Hurley said. 'Everything that isn’t graphical is open-source.'"
[OSDir.com | Permalink]

Influence of Developer Communities [Infoworld]
Patent Office Asked to Review Microsoft FAT Patent [The Register]
FCC Opens Wireless Up [BroadBand Reports]
Key Apple Shareholder Snags Votes, makes Demands [C|Net News]
Memory Bottleneck Limits Intelligence: Brain Cache [Nature]
Wi-Fi on Steroids Heads for U.S. [Wired News]
netfilter Granted Preliminary Injunction vs Sitecom GmbH [netfilter Project]
World Discovers "Shuffle" Button [Wired News]
AT&T Launches Name that Tune Service [MusicPhone]
Sun Does Donald Trump to Server Execs: You're Fired! [C|Net News]
XFce 4.0.5 [Xfce Project]
Florida wants to Tax LANs [Tampa Tribune]
Making the World Safe for Free Software [Salon]
Virtual Trader Barely Misses Goal: Almost Replaces Income [Wired News]
Googling the Genome [Guardian Unlimited]
Business Buying Puts Dell back Atop PC Pile [C|Net News]
Apache Velocity v1.4 Released [Java.net News]

April 15, 2004

Amazon Launches A9 Search Portal
Amazon has launched a new search portal, A9, built on top of Google. With a few neat features like URL search short-cuts and Site History, it looks like mainly a play to introduce the company's book search capabilities into a search engine.
[A9 | Permalink]

U.S. Wants Microsoft to Widen Protocol Disclosures
Strangely, US anti-trust authorities are pressing Microsoft to document more code for their own licensees to allow their products to work well with Microsoft servers. "U.S. antitrust authorities are prodding Microsoft to disclose more to rivals who license key Windows computer code under the company's landmark antitrust settlement, according to court papers filed on Wednesday. Microsoft has agreed to work with the Justice Department and state attorneys general to address concerns that potential competitors are not getting enough back-up documentation when they pay for access to Windows protocols needed to make non-Microsoft server software work well with the operating system, the two sides said in a report filed in federal court. Antitrust enforcers view the protocol licensing plan as key to the 2001 antitrust settlement, hoping it will enable other software companies to compete with Microsoft on a more equal footing." Notice that this isn't for simple rivals, but rivals who license code.
[C|Net News | Permalink]

Forrester Research Offers Advice on Moving to Open Source
A name synonymous with 'weird' Microsoft research 'proving' that Windows has a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) has a column running on C|Net with sound advice for companies that are considering moving to open source applications. "Open-source software's biggest benefit is that it is freely available, which means that smart developers will be constantly experimenting with components that help them build applications faster. But companies putting business-critical applications into production must also know that their open-source components are well-supported and free from intellectual-property concerns. Forrester's open-source "adoption funnel" provides a simple decision framework to help IT executives decide when to put up decision filters, which key stakeholders to include along the way and what additional risks must be considered at each stage."
[OSDir.com | Permalink]

RealNetworks Seeks Musical Alliance with Apple
RealNetworks has appealed to Apple for the two to work together to thwart Microsoft's plans in the digital music business. "The offer to create a "tactical alliance" was made on April 9 by Rob Glaser, chief executive of RealNetworks, the Seattle-based Internet music and video service, in an e-mail message to Steve Jobs, Apple's chairman. But if an alliance with Apple could not be struck, Glaser strongly hinted in the e-mail message that he might be forced to form a partnership with Microsoft to pursue 'very interesting opportunities' because support for Microsoft's media-playing software seems to be growing."
[C|Net News | Permalink]

Microsoft Extends Its JVM to End of 2007
As a result of the new Sun/Microsoft settlement, Microsoft has extended support for its Java Virtual Machine until the end of 2007. "The company posted a notice on its developer Web site April 8 indicating that Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have agreed to extend Microsoft's Java license, which will allow Microsoft to continue support for its JVM. The Microsoft JVM is the software needed to run Java programs on numerous Windows PC applications, such as older versions of Microsoft Office. Microsoft is no longer distributing the Microsoft JVM and is not releasing any enhancements to it, the company said."
[Java.net News | Permalink]

Sponsored by:

Copyright © 2000-2004 O’Reilly Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
All trademarks and registered trademarks appearing on the O'Reilly Network are the property of their respective owners.

For problems or assistance with this site, email