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Businesses

Bill Gates Takes the Stand In WordPerfect Trial 472

Posted by Soulskill from the apparently-some-people-still-care-about-wordperfect dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Remember WorldPerfect? Bill Gates took the witness stand to defend his company against a $1 billion antitrust lawsuit that claims Microsoft duped Novell into thinking he would include WordPerfect in the new Windows system, then backed out because he feared it was too good. Gates testified Monday that Microsoft was racing to put out Windows 95 when he dropped technical features that would no longer support the rival's word processor. He said that in making the decision about the code, he was concerned not about Novell but about one element of the program that could have caused computers to crash. That code, technically known as 'name space extensions,' had to do with the display of folders and files. Novell attorney Jeff Johnson concedes that Microsoft was under no legal obligation to provide advance access to Windows 95 so Novell could prepare a compatible version but contends that Microsoft enticed Novell to work on a version, only to withdraw support months before Windows 95 hit the market. 'We got stabbed in the back.'"
Education

Ask Slashdot: What To Tell High-Schoolers About Computer Science? 315

Posted by timothy from the like-whatever-you-want-man dept.
First time accepted submitter lsllll writes "I got drawn (without my intention) into three 20 minute sessions, talking to high school students about computer science and programming, and am wondering what are some of the things I should talk to them about. I have previously done the same thing for a forty minute period, and all the students wanted to talk about game programming. My only game programming experience dates back to the late '80s and programming a few games (some which ran on top of Novell's network) in Turbo Pascal. Since then I have done lots of database design, web interface programming, and systems configuration and integration. I am pretty fluent with Windows and Linux, but my contemporary programming skills are somewhat limited to Coldfusion, PHP, Javascript, SQL and bash scripts. Should I talk to them about different aspects of computer science, what it's like to work full-time in the computer industry, or do I make the sessions just question and answer, since 20 minutes might not allow me to talk and do question and answer?"
Novell

Novell Wins Against SCO Again 152

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the case-finally-closed dept.
duh P3rf3ss3r writes "The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has just affirmed the District Court ruling in SCO v Novell (PDF) in its entirety. The decision is quite a good read and lays out the reasons why the court has rejected, in toto, SCO's attempt to re-argue the case before the Court of Appeals. Is this the last gasp for SCO or will they try to appeal this to the Supreme Court? The betting lines open at 11..." Realistically this is the end of the line for the case.
Blackberry

BlackBerry Server Can Be Hacked With Image File 51

Posted by timothy from the image-of-the-emir-perhaps dept.
Trailrunner7 writes "There are remotely and easily exploitable vulnerabilities in the BlackBerry Enterprise Server that could allow an attacker to gain access to the server by simply sending a malicious image file to a user's BlackBerry device. The vulnerabilities are in several version of BES for Exchange, Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise, and Research in Motion said that an attacker who is able to exploit one of the bugs might also be able to move from the compromised BES server to other parts of the network."
Microsoft

Microsoft Extending Linux Patent Deal With SUSE 68

Posted by Soulskill from the shades-of-gray dept.
darthcamaro writes "No big surprise, but Microsoft has now officially extended their patent, interoperability and Linux resale deal with SUSE. This was the deal that Novell had originally signed. Now, with the Attachmate sale, Microsoft is bringing the deal back to SUSE. The deal is being extended until 2016 and Microsoft is set to invest another $100 million into SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates. This is on top of the $300-million-plus they've already brought since 2006."
GNU is Not Unix

Miguel De Icaza Forms New Mono Company: Xamarin 286

Posted by CmdrTaco from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed dept.
rubycodez writes "After being thrown out on the streets by Attachmate, the purchasers of Novell, Miguel De Icaza has formed a new company Xamarin to make .NET development tools for Android and iOS. The company will also provide commercial international Mono support. There are those who would say Mono poses a risk of drawing Microsoft patent or other IP litigation for its inclusion in some major Linux distributions, and that these recent events might be the beginning of the demise of widespread use of Mono and other .NETiness in open source software, a good thing."
Novell

Attachmate Fires Mono Developers 362

Posted by timothy from the and-there-there-were-none dept.
darthcamaro writes "Love it or hate it, Novell's open source Mono project has inspired a lot of debate over the last 7 years. Mono brings .NET to Linux, with some interesting patent connections. The project is now at a crossroads, with news today that Attachmate had laid off the US based development team for Mono."
Networking

Novell Completes Sale 202

Posted by samzenpus from the so-long dept.
symbolset writes "Today Novell completed its sale to Attachmate. The company will be a wholly owned subsidiary and be delisted from the stock exchange. Novell was once a dominant player in network software, and its passing signals the end of an era."
Microsoft

DOJ Limits Microsoft's Purchase of Novell Patents 35

Posted by samzenpus from the not-so-fast dept.
itwbennett writes "Novell, distributor of the SUSE Linux OS, has agreed to change its proposed deal to sell patents to CPTN Holdings, a Microsoft-organized consortium of companies, in order to satisfy DOJ concerns about the impact on open-source software, the DOJ said. The agreement will require Microsoft to sell the Novell patents back to Attachmate and Microsoft will receive a license to use those patents and patents acquired by the other three owners of CPTN."
Android

Linux Patent Protection Network Lures Facebook, HP 106

Posted by CmdrTaco from the radar-light-keeps-blinking dept.
jbrodkin writes "Facebook, HP, Rackspace, Juniper, Fujitsu and dozens of other organizations have joined a group building a defensive patent portfolio to protect Linux-using members from potential lawsuits. The Open Invention Network (OIN) — founded in 2005 by IBM, NEC, Novell, Phillips, Red Hat and Sony — has acquired 300 Linux-related patents and licenses to 2,000 in total in a bid to protect the Linux community from intellectual property lawsuits. The group added 74 new members this year and is giving a leadership role to Google, which is fighting lawsuits targeting Linux-based Android."
Handhelds

Mono Comes To Android 257

Posted by samzenpus from the here-have-some dept.
A reader writes "After releasing Monotouch for iPhone which allows c# development on iOS, Novell has announced the availability of Mono for Android. Will this give us the 'one language to rule them all' that Java failed to bring, or will the bad blood between the F/OSS groups and Microsoft make this a dead end?"
Upgrades

Linux 2.6.38 Released 159

Posted by timothy from the this-is-your-kernel-on-speed dept.
darthcamaro writes "The new Linux 2.6.38 kernel is now out, and it's got a long list of performance improvements that should make Linux a whole lot faster. The kernel includes support for Transparent Huge Pages, Transmit Packet Steering (XPS), automatic process grouping, and a new RCU (Read/Copy/Update)-based path name lookup. '"This patch series was both controversial and experimental when it went in, but we're very hopeful of seeing speedups," James Bottomley, distinguished engineer at Novell said. "Just to set expectations correctly, the dcache/path lookup improvements really only impact workloads with large metadata modifications, so the big iron workloads (like databases) will likely see no change. However, stuff that critically involves metadata, like running a mail server (the postmark benchmark) should improve quite a bit."'"
Novell

Novell Sale Delayed Due To Patent Investigation 31

Posted by Soulskill from the something-is-afoot dept.
darthcamaro writes "Novell's $2.2 billion dollar acquisition by Attachmate isn't going to close as soon as first expected. A key part of the deal is the sale of 882 patents to a consortium of vendors led by Microsoft. The US Department of Justice is investigating the patent deal and is now pushing out the close until at least April 12th. Does this mean the deal is in trouble?"
Businesses

London Stock Exchange Price Errors 'Emerged At Linux Launch' 168

Posted by timothy from the hiccough-hiccough-hiccough dept.
DMandPenfold writes "Within the first 20 seconds of the London Stock Exchange's new matching engine going live on Monday, price data vendors began displaying incorrect prices, blank prices and wrong trading volumes, according to Computerworld UK sources. Thomson Reuters, Interactive Data and Netbuilder are among the largest data vendors, providing share prices to traders, that have been displaying pricing problems on some stocks throughout the week. Even the LSE's own data vendor, ProQuote, experienced problems. Concerns are being raised that there could be mistakenly setup connections or incorrect software interfaces at some of the large data vendors. Alternatively, there may be a data caching issue at the LSE that means data going out is not properly synchronised between different systems."
Novell

London Stock Exchange Tackles System Problem 237

Posted by samzenpus from the fix-the-glitch dept.
DMandPenfold writes "The London Stock Exchange has taken steps to resolve a system problem that occurred at 4.30pm Tuesday, which saw a delay to the start of the closing auction and knocked out automatic trades during a 42 second period. The problem occurred a day after the high profile launch of its new matching engine on the main equities market, based on the SUSE Linux system from Novell."
Novell

London Stock Exchange Finishes Switch To Linux 106

Posted by Soulskill from the takes-a-while-to-put-on-a-good-tux dept.
DMandPenfold writes "The London Stock Exchange has successfully set into live trading a new matching engine based on Novell SUSE Linux technology, following successful last-step setup procedures on Saturday. The move has been billed as one of the LSE's most significant technological developments since the increasing prevalence of electronic trading led to the closure of the traditional exchange floor in 1986. LSE chief executive Xavier Rolet has insisted that the exchange, once a monopoly, will deliver record speed and stable trading in order to fight back against the fast erosion of its dominant marketshare by specialist electronic rivals."
Intel

Intel Committed To MeeGo Despite Nokia Defection 228

Posted by Soulskill from the keep-the-kid dept.
CWmike writes "Intel put on a brave face Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, insisting that there is continued strong support from it and many companies for MeeGo, the open source software platform that Nokia last week said it would abandon in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7. 'Intel is disappointed at Nokia but life goes on,' said Intel's Renee James. 'Our decision and resolve on MeeGo is only stronger.' She pointed to a long list of companies participating in MeeGo development, including competitors AMD, TI and ST Ericsson; operators including Orange, Telefonica and Sprint; and software companies including Novell and Wind River. Intel expects to see MeeGo tablets shipping this year based on its Atom chip. Handsets will follow, James said. Despite its enthusiasm, however, Intel is sure to be negatively impacted by Nokia's decision."
Open Source

Groklaw — Don't Go Home, Go Big 230

Posted by Soulskill from the if-you-strike-me-down dept.
jfruhlinger writes "You may have caught PJ's Christmas Day post on Groklaw, expressing her anger and frustration that, after she helped save Novell's Unix patents from SCO's clutches, Novell turned around and sold many of those patents to an open source-unfriendly coalition. She's feeling at a crossroads and wondering what Groklaw should become. Brian Proffitt has a suggestion: a bigger, more community-oriented site."

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