Showing headlines posted by PaulFerris

Have you ever found yourself logging into several servers, serial fashion, just to do the same repetitive task and found yourself wondering why the login process itself couldn't be automated? If so, this software may be for you...

A few months ago I wrote an article about how I suspected it would be a Wal-Mart like entity that would make desktop Linux a reality. This is a revisit to that same subject. Never one to take myself entirely too seriously, all I can say is that possibly I took the wrong direction about the right subject. See, I've recently changed my mind.

In an effort to be more competitive with other Linux news sites, LXer.com has improved the site interface and added more visually appealing graphics and advertising. Editors Note: The author of this story (Paul Ferris) wishes to apologize to the members of the Linux Community that were unintentionally offended by this article.

Yes, What if? Is Sun the next SCO? Is this another company, paid off by the big boys in Redmond to play out yet another pointless FUD-oriented scam, to drag out in the marketplace and courtrooms of the future?

This is just a summary of responses to the questions from last week:

1. "In general, how do you react to outsiders that offer to present at your Linux User Group (LUG)?"
2. "What about commercial interests presenting to your LUG?"
3. "What would you do if a Microsoft employee showed up at your LUG?"
4. "If you allowed a Microsoft employee to present, just what kind of topics would you allow?

Diplomacy is an important aspect of communication -- but this article outlines the opposite end of the spectrum. Please take it for what it is; A juvenile thought experiment run completely amok. Other disclaimers: I cannot be held responsible for people dumb enough to utter these incantations in public. Keep hands and feet away -- don't use these on Microsoft employees that show up at your LUG.

Let's start off with some questions that may have answers that are harder than you would expect:

1. "In general, how do you react to outsiders that offer to present at your Linux User Group (LUG)?"
2. "What about commercial interests presenting to your LUG?"
3. "What would you do if a Microsoft employee showed up at your LUG?"
4. "If you allowed a Microsoft employee to present, just what kind of topics would you allow?

Now for the really tricky part: The questions, especially that last one, aren't hypothetical.

It's hard to find a comprehensive source of pending Linux virus threats these days. Ominous warnings can be found in the press that as Linux and other Free Software projects get more popular, the threat of infection will be on the rise. Still, deep research on the subject yields very little in the way of credible results. You can turn up a lot of talk about anti-virus software and vendors selling solutions for Linux. Still, nothing could be found that really summed up the current and coming threat of viruses for someone using desktop or server Linux in a network setting.

A senior Linux community member, speaking exclusively to LXer.com, has dismissed Windows' reputation as a secure platform as a "myth", claiming that the proprietary development process, coupled with a lack of corporate accountability creates fundamental security problems.

Today dawns a new era of discussion. In the past, Paul Ferris and Dean Pannell (FeriCyde and DinoTrac) sparred impromptu in the talkbacks of many a respectable (and otherwise :) website. Today, for the first time, they make it official. The format is called Penguin Counter Penguin, and the subject random. Today the debate is on the slighter side of the Linux Desktop. Is the Linux desktop really ready for prime-time? Who knows for sure, but you can bet that Paul and Dean have their flamethrowers tuned for the finer points of the debate!

This is a response to Subhasish Ghosh's editorial entitled "Free Software in Reality Isn't Free". If I come across as kind of harsh here, I apologize. I know Solaris and and SunONE rather well, so this is familiar territory. Some of the concepts in Ghosh's editorial were quite baffling to me, so this editorial in fact raises more questions than it may answer. Such is discourse in the digital age :)
-- FeriCyde

Locally exploitable flaws have been found in the Linux binary format loaders' uselib() functions that allow local users to gain root privileges.

Paul Ferris is at it again. Someone is bashing the Linux command-line (pun intended), and the misconceptions are many. This article takes a swing at a few of the many dimensions that make Enterprise-class Linux capabilities a hard thing for Microsoft to thwart in the long run.

It's that time of year, folks. Industry pundits are out shooting off predictions like so many mortars and who knows where they will land? Paul Ferris can predict with the best of them, but here's some advice: Keep hands and Feet away...

Paul Ferris speculates that the time is ripe for a couple of heavy-hitting retail vendors to embrace GNU/Linux in the sales arena. This FeriCyde Chat continues last weeks rant, suggesting that there's cash on the table for the first vendor that matches todays security opportunity with a Linux desktop alternative.

Here we are, December of 2004. Roughly 6 years after the government brought suit against Microsoft for blatant anti-trust violation. They had gotten into trouble for bolting Internet Explorer into Windows 98, remember?