Almanac: 30 October 2000

By J.D. Hildebrand

Greetings! Today is the 304th day of 2000; 62 days remain in the year. Today is Labor Day (I suppose I should spell it "Labour" Day) in New Zealand, where many programmers are enjoying a day off this spring.

On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles scared the bejezus out of people when his play, "The War of the Worlds," aired on CBS radio. The play, which included fake news reports of Martian spacecraft landing in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, convinced thousands of listeners that the earth was actually under attack by Martians.

Poet Ezra Pound was born October 30, 1885. Pound was a great influence on 20th Century poetry, and he said this: "Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree." His daughter described him as "visibly fighting a wasp nest in his brain." Celebrate his birthday with colorful language of your own!

And while you're celebrating, remember singer Grace Slick, who turns 61 today. Crank up "White Rabbit" in her honor as you write some killer Delphi code.

DOCTORS GET IN ON THE ACT. It's no novelty to read articles in which members of the IT industry take sides over whether or not open source development makes sense. Nor does it make headlines when market research firms say this or that about the future of open source versus proprietary software.

But now the British Medical Journal is getting into the act. And one has to wonder: Isn't enough enough?

In an editorial entitled "Medical software's free future," the journal's editors argue that open source software is just the medicine needed by the UK's National Health Service. "Free software makes particular sense in medicine," asserts associate editor Douglas Carnall. "Once a customer is 'locked into' proprietary software, its makers can demand premium prices, safe in the knowledge that the client would find it even more expensive to change. Much better instead to invest time on a system licensed under the [GNU] General Public License that will always be free."

Open source guru Eric S. Raymond anticipated this argument in "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," of course.

ZDNet UK brought the journal's article to our attention. Read reporter Will Knight's report here.

MICROSOFT HACK ATTACK UPDATE. I can't work up much interest in this story, but evidently I'm the only one. Everybody has an angle -- Redmond-bashers like to watch Microsoft executives squirm, open sourcers like to watch Microsoft executives squirm...hey, a trend seems to be developing.

Here's the latest:

• ZDNet: Qaz.trojan infects networks -- This is an explanation of how the trojan horse works and how to guard against it.
• Sm@rt Partner: Microsoft can't spin this worm -- This Steven Vaughaun-Nichols editorial takes Microsoft to task for its PR response to the break-in. 
• eWeek: What Bill said -- A very slightly humorous Top 10 list of things Microsoft's chairman might have said upon learning of the break-in.
• eWeek: Welcome to the paper house -- Analysis by Peter Coffee.
• eWeek: Industry reaction to Microsoft hack -- it will only get worse
• ZDNet: Microsoft burned by anti-virus tools?
• ZDNet: MS attack takes hacking to new levels
• ZDNet: MS intruder may elude authorities
• ZDNet/MSNBC: New account of Microsoft hack-in
• ZDNet/Wall Street Journal: MS claims hacker was watched
• CNet: Microsoft confirms hackers saw code for upcoming software -- This issue remains in contention. What did the hacker see and when did he see it?
• CNet/Associated Press: Microsoft says it knew of hackers
• CNet Special Report: Hacking the giant -- This is a gateway page to a half-dozen articles at last count.
• Linux Today/VNU Net: Hackers saw Microsoft source code
• Wired: How MS helped with own hack -- Oh, the irony. The Qaz trojan was written with Visual C++.
• Salon: Who cracked Microsoft? -- Salon's coverage is always first-rate. In this article, Andrew Leonard charts the unobvious relationship between the Microsoft crackers and the open source community.
• Linux Journal: Say "no thanks" to offers of illegal MS source code -- Don Marti says real hackers don't steal proprietary code.
• Linux Format: The Microsoft break-in -- Speculation about what may have happened.
• The Register: Redmond strives to cram Great MS Hack back in box
• Upside: Microsoft ought to know better -- Criticism of Microsoft's PR spin by columnist Larry Magid.

If you're interested in today's real Microsoft news, however, you'll check out this Wall Street Journal article published by ZDNet. "Order up MS apps at Internet cafe" covers Microsoft's ongoing efforts to establish a pay-per-use model for software. Microsoft will reportedly rent software to consumers on a per-use basis starting next month. The software-as-service setup will be offered through easyEverything, a chain of Internet cafes.

I'm not afraid of viruses but pay-per-use software strikes me as a bad idea. It is also catching on everywhere with something approaching inevitability. Here are some links to put you in the loop:

• ZDNet: Microsoft considers renting software
• e-coin.net: Demo of pay-per-use software
• Pet Theories on Computer Conspiracy: Pay per use software
• Alamo PC: Dumb terminals and pay-per-use software
• Everything Computers: Pay-per-use software will crank up Internet commerce
• Globetrotter Software: Electronic commerce for software

OPEN SOURCE WORLDWIDE. The pundits are taking a break on predicting the future of the U.S. market; now they've turned their eyes overseas.

FreeOS.com's Madanmohan Rao reports that net activist and some-time Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow is forecasting a rosy future for open source software in India. In this article, Rao writes, "Barlow said that countries which did not have deep ties to the industrial economy would be more unfettered to harness the Information Age. Indians have a particular strength in being able to deal with uncertainty, ambiguity, and chaos...."

Meanwhile, the Register's Tony Smith writes that Linux's growth rate has slowed in Japan, dropping from 666.3% to 144.4% annual growth. Smith cites IDC Japan statistics in his article.

Meanwhile, Asia BizTech used the same statistics to trumpet Linux's success in "Linux seen winning nearly 8% of Japan's server OS market in 2000." I guess it's all how you look at it.

Keep hacking.