]
] Mozilla's Firefox keeps chipping away at Microsoft's
] massive lead in browser usage, two Web metrics firms
] reported Monday.
]
] San Diego, Calif.-based WebSideStory, which last released
] usage numbers in January, said that in the last five
] weeks, Firefox has gained an additional 0.74 percent to
] account for 5.7 percent of all browsers used in the U.S.
] Microsoft's Internet Explorer, meanwhile, now stands at
] 89.9 percent, a drop from January's 90.3 percent, and the
] first time WebSideStory pegged IE as falling under the
] 90-percent mark.

Firefox Nips IE Ankles Again

]
] Since that time, the situation has changed. Today the
] BIOS is no longer burned in ROM; it is stored in
] nonvolatile writable memory that users can rewrite. Today
] the BIOS sits square on the edge of the line. It comes
] prewritten in our computers, and normally we never
] install another. So far, that is just barely enough to
] excuse treating it as hardware. But once in a while the
] manufacturer suggests installing another BIOS, which is
] available only as an executable. This, clearly, is
] installing a non-free program--it is just as bad as
] installing Microsoft Windows, or Adobe Photoshop, or
] Sun's Java Platform. As the unethical practice of
] installing another BIOS executable becomes common, the
] version delivered inside the computer starts to raise an
] ethical problem issue as well.

FSF is starting to make a stink about BIOS now.

FSF - Campaign for Free BIOS

]
] FSF President and founder, Richard Stallman, presents
] this year's award to Theo de Raadt.

From one crank to another...

FSF - Theo de Raadt presented with the 2004 Free Software Award

] Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) said yesterday
] that it has developed a prototype fuel cell that it hopes
] to commercialize within three years at a size small
] enough to fit inside mobile phones and other portable
] consumer electronics devices.

NTT develops hydrogen fuel cell for mobile phones

]
] I read Steven Henry's remarks he gave at LinuxWorld, and
] I believe if I had been there when he said it, I could
] have overcome all shyness and stood up to answer him on
] the spot, lawyer that he is notwithstanding. His remarks
] didn't make much of a media splash, so I seriously
] debated whether to answer him on Groklaw or not, because
] I am aware anything on Groklaw gets more publicity than
] he otherwise would receive. But I decided to answer him,
] finally, because his view is not unique to him, and it's
] important to help people who think like that to
] understand things better.

All good stuff. There's some discussion and links down in
here to talk about the next version of the GPL that's going
around. Eben Moglen, RMS, and company, are apparently having it out... not only about patents but also about TCPA (RMS' Treacherous Computing) stuff as well.

Groklaw on Steven Henry at LinuxWorld, GPL3

] You know those movies? The ones where the ultimate,
] bloody ending is played through painful slow-mo? Will the
] protagonists get their bullets? Of course. It's just a
] matter of waiting. In the meantime, try not to wince too
] much at the graphic carnage.

SCO's Slow Death Spiral

]
] Nasdaq noticed that SCO failed to timely file its 10K,
] and it has sent them a delisting notice. This is a notice
] of potential delisting, as SCO's press release urgently
] lets us know.

Heh... SCOX got back out of the $3.50 range a few weeks ago and has
been hovering around $4 for awhile...

U: They've been delisted from NASDAQ!

Nasdaq may delist SCO

] Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn have been awarded the Turing
] award for the TCP/IP protocol. Or in plain English, for
] making the Internet possible. One of the reasons given
] for the adoption of the TCP/IP protocols was they were
] unencumbered by patent claims, because Cerf and Kahn
] didn't file for any. This was open source at its purest:

Interesting take...

GrokLaw: Cerf and Kahn Win Turing Award

Decius wrote:

] This isn't going to result in a bunch of practical attacks
] right away, but its time to move to another algorithm.

I may have heard some mumbling that the entire class of hashes
built on "iterated compression functions" is suspect at this point.

Whirlpool, on the other hand, is based on the Rijndael transformation:

http://www.memestreams.net/thread/bid14922/

RE: Schneier on Security: SHA-1 Broken

] SHA-1 has been broken. Not a reduced-round version. Not a
] simplified version. The real thing.

Yow!

Schneier on Security: SHA-1 Broken