There's a short comparision of Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux kernels: scheduling, memory management and file systems.
It's quite short, so if you want details, you need to dig deeper. As an overiview -- very good.
It's easy to see that the author prefers Solaris and knows it best, but it doesn't have much influence on the text.
KDE 3.4.3 has been just released. There are not many changes: mostly bug fixes (Quanta, kpdf, JuK, kdeedu programs).
If you're using 3.4.2, you won't find many changes in the new version. If you have older (3.3.x or older), it's worth an upgrade.
There's an interesting discussion on Bugrtaq about the time it takes Oracle to fix bugs. One of security researchers has list of bugs not fixed for more than 700 days...
It's not a new problem, there were articles about the same subject in July and September. The time they release security fixes is comming, it'll be interesting to see what they decide to release.
New version of Nessus (3.0) will not be released under GPL. The code will be closed. It looks that it's because other companies selling the product without paying for development and/or patches and lack of developers.
Version 2 stays GPL and there's a possibility (probably only a theoretical one) that someone will make a fork and include new functionality.
NaNoWriMo has started its registration period this year and got such a number of queries that I can call it a DDoS. Registration is now off. The server couldn't handle the load.
It's interesting when it happens to someone else. With a dynamic site 1000 people at the same time is too much, so DDoS for a small (or medium-size) site is not that hard. Sometimes just because it's too popular.
Bugs in Thunderbird are (maybe it's just how I see it) found less often than in Firefox (or maybe there are just fewer places where programmers can make a bug). This time, we have something rated by Secunia as 'extremaly critical'. The bug is rather standard: wrong method of parsing user input.
There's an updated version, 1.0.7. Download recommended.
KDE 3.4.3 release is comming shortly (official data: Oct 12). Not many new features, just bugfixes and new translations.
Also, Oct 12 is also a release date for KDE 2.5 beta 2. Final version is moved to a later date. First release candidate will come at the end of November.
It all means that also 4.0 schedule is changing (hard to say how much).
It's hard to believe for someone who knows both apps that KOffice and OpenOffice use the same code. It looks, however, that it's possible. Interesting, especially when I think about the incompatibilities the two had for years.
There's an interview with RMS. There are many things discussed. RMS explains certain ideas from GPL3 (many things are still undecided) and talks about compatibility issues (GPL3 patch into GPL2 code). What's more? A number of questions about GPL popularity, licensing terms, software patents and so called Trusted Computing. Interesting read, but don't expect new things.
There were interesting software releases in the last two weeks. For me Firefox 1.5 beta is something worth trying. Especially the automatic update feature -- missing for so long. So far, beta works OK for me.
There's a story about new GPL version, dirst draft by December. The article says it will be agains DRM and software patents. I'm wondering how it will be done. Nw GPL mey be controversial, but probably an interesting read.
Jon Johansen has reverse-engineered NSC (used in Windows Media Player) and shows the code. Interesting thing that it's very simple and doesn't use encryption (no key).
This month I find anumber of strange referer entries in my server log. Access to one of my pages comes from an unknown IP and is usually the only one from that address. They refer to non-existing sites or ones clearly advertising something.
I made a search and it's called referer spam. There are texts about it. Such spam is here for quite a long time.
It makes no sense at first. Web server logs are only seen by site administrator. So how can it work? The obvious solution is that administrator may be curious and click the link. The number of visits gained this way is small. There should be something more. And there is. Blogs.
Quite many blogs have dynamic list of sites refering to them. Referer spam changes such lists. That's not the main reason, however. Search engines browse sites and count refernences. The more sites link to yours (from referer spam or not), you get higher rate by the engine. That's how referer spam works. It places spammers sites higher in the ranking.
Having static pages has good points.
The fact that there are not so many female developers ine the FLOSS world is clear for everyone. Reasons? Well... complex. Apache has now a list that is intended to help them start, as ZDNet writes. It's third such initiative I know, after Debian Women and KDE Women.
I have mixed feelings about such initiatives. They, however, help those with not enough self-confidence to jump into FLOSS development on their own. I'm wondering about the effectiveness, but it's very very hard to check.
I've read a number of articles (like the one on internetnews or news.com) about licensing the Linux trademark. It's only for companies and only for trademark -- not for using Linux. A number of people panic, but the price is low. What's more, it's clear to me that someone naming their product 'Linux' should have an agreement with Linus.