Almanac: 20 October 2000

By J.D. Hildebrand

Greetings!

Today is the 293rd day of 2000; 72 days remain in the year.

• On this date in 1803, the U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase, perhaps the greatest real estate deal in history. Under terms of the agreement, the United States acquired 828,000 square miles of land from France for 60 million francs -- about $15 million. The purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States.
• Today we celebrate the 146th birthday of French poet Arthur Rimbaud. To celebrate, set your imagination adrift on a river of ideas like a drunken boat. Bob gently in the current, nudge against the sides, and set down your travelogue in the richest possible language.
• Rapper Snoop Dogg, the Doggfather himself, turns 29 today. Happy birthday, Dogg!
• English mathematician and inventory Charles Babbage died 129 years ago, in 1871, at age 78.
• IBM released PC DOS v. 2.1 17 years ago today, in 1983. Where did the time go?

FOLLOW THE MONEY. Linux Today has published an intriguing analysis of corporate investments in Linux and open source companies. These investments don't raise eyebrows anymore -- it's as if we expect established high-tech companies to help fund Bazaar-style startups. But why are the larger companies investing? Do the investments reflect growing confidence in Bazaar-style business models, or are the larger companies simply hedging their bets? Author John Wolley doesn't have all the answers, but it's about time someone asked the questions.

LOVE FOR SALE. It's one of those ideas that must have looked good on paper.

Let's say you're involved in Microsoft's Pocket PC initiative, the latest incarnation of Windows CE. You're proud of the work the engineers have done, but you're getting the stuffing knocked out of you in the marketplace, because the darn Palm platform is so popular.

What do you do? Why not invite authors, reviewers -- heck, even frequent newsgroup posters -- up to Redmond for a feel-good event. Show 'em what you've been up to, treat 'em right, let the marketing team at 'em. And send each one of 'em home with a couple brand-new handheld computers running Pocket PC OS, $1,400 worth of goodies. Once they try it, they'll never go back to the Palm.

Reads like a paranoid fantasy, doesn't it? But according to this article by ZDNet's Richard Shim, "Pocket PC Wireless and Beyond" really happened. Maybe the freebies will get the journalists, reviewers, and opinion leaders to adopt and promote the new platform, and Pocket PC can grow beyond its current 9.7 percent market share.

ORACLE PULLS PLUG ON NETWARE SUPPORT. In a surprise move, Oracle has apparently resolved to end "error correction support" for Oracle products on Novell Netware at the end of next year. Oracle will recommend that customers upgrade to Linux, Solaris, or HP-UX. Read all about it here. 

TECH INDUSTRY OUT OF IDEAS? In this USA Today Tech Report, Kevin Maney says this year's Agenda conference didn't serve up the usual bounty of hot new ideas. Is the industry headed into a lull? Where are the new ideas coming from?

INTERNATIONAL TREATY PROPOSAL MEETS CRITICISM. The international cyber-crime treaty I told you about a few days ago is generating the anticipated outrage among thoughtful people everywhere. The proposed treaty -- read it here in .DOC form -- would criminalize a whole set of activities across all signatory companies, and it would even set recommended penalties, extradition policies, and procedures for international cooperation in prosecution. Criticism of the proposed treaty is summarized here and here.

SDMI BROUHAHA CONTINUES. In other Old Business, we find that the did-they-or-didn't-they speculation about SDMI is continuing.

SDMI, remember, is an organization that exists to create watermarks for digital music files, making the files traceable. SDMI developed a set of six proposed watermark-encoding schemes and posted encoded files at its Web site, challenging hackers to break the encoding. Leaders of the open source movement urged programmers to boycott the challenge, charging that SDMI was counting on them to take on unpaid QA responsibility for a project whose goals were contrary to the open source ethos..

In due course, Salon published a report stating that all six watermarks had been cracked, based on information from anonymous sources. SDMI denied the report, saying that it had only begun to evaluate the submitted hacks.

In response to an Inside.com interview in which SDMI director Leonardo Chiariglione declared that Salon's story was "completely wrong, unfounded, anonymous slander," Salon went back to its sources for further information. The updated report appears here. The Register, meanwhile, is reporting that Salon was right the first time, and that the watermarks have certainly fallen under hacker attack.

I'll continue to cover this bizarre story as it develops.

TEST-DRIVING ALLAIRE'S JRUN STUDIO. eWeeks Labs has published this report on Allaire Corp.'s JRun Studio 3.0, which it describes as a first-rate JSP development environment for programmers who don't mind writing their own HTML code. Some important features don't work under Windows 9x, however.

OK, YOU DOWNLOADED IT. NOW WHAT? Have you grabbed the source and binaries for OpenOffice yet? Wondering what's next? How to contribute to the code base, sign up to hear about updates, participate in the community? Check out the "Hackers Guide to Participating in OpenOffice.org," a white paper at the OpenOffice Web site.

Keep hacking.