Germany drops plan to tax PC use

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October 19, 2000

Author: JT Smith

Germany’s Finance Ministry has definitively ruled out taxing personal
use of workplace computers and phones, reports IDG News Service. The ministry is preparing a
draft law that will create an income tax exemption for use of the
devices, it said in a statement Wednesday.

AOL using Linux in an anti-competitive way?

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October 19, 2000

Author: JT Smith

LinuxPlanet reflects on a pair of news items that played out this week and asks “is AOL using Linux in an anti-competitive way?”

Category:

Linux

IBM gets a Real deal for Unix

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October 19, 2000

Author: JT Smith

IBM Corp. will offer audio and video software made by RealNetworks, Inc. to users of IBM business computers running the UNIX operating system, including the RS/6000, the workhorse that
serves up Web pages, under an agreement
announced by the companies Thursday, from ZDNet News.

Category:

Unix

Yet more SDMI fallout

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October 19, 2000

Author: JT Smith

Salon revisits the controversy surrounding whether the “watermarking” system that SDMI was testing as a way to protect digitally distributed music would actually work.

Category:

Linux

New IT website launched to proliferate Open-Source in China

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October 19, 2000

Author: JT Smith

Open Source Online (OSO), http://www.oso.com.cn, was launched to serve
and promote Open-Source IT in China, according to this report on Linux PR. OSO offers industry outlooks,
lectures, source codes, program downloads and forums to members at all
levels of computer literacy.

Category:

Open Source

Asia catching up on Java development

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October 19, 2000

Author: JT Smith

IDG News Service reports, Asian companies are one to two years behind the U.S. in adopting
advanced Java software technologies, but growth in the Java market
in Asia is faster than in the U.S., according to software tools vendor
Inprise/Borland.

IE 5.5 hole lets crackers read files

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October 19, 2000

Author: JT Smith

A veteran bug hunter has detected a security hole in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 5.5, Outlook and Outlook Express. CNET.com reports.

Gates to Digital Dividends: make them healthy before you give them PCs

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October 19, 2000

Author: JT Smith

TechWeb reports that Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates
challenged participants at the Creating Digital Dividends
conference, saying that direct technology investments in
developing countries might be useless if the population
isn’t healthy or literate.

Category:

Linux

O’Reilly and Bezos are in business together – no, really

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October 19, 2000

Author: JT Smith

A new company encourages people to dig up pre-existing technology that helps debunk bogus patents. And guess who started it? Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the man who claims Amazon’s 1-Click Shopping patent is a crock. From Wired.com.

An interview with ICANN’s new German hacker

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October 19, 2000

Author: JT Smith

Wired.com: A German hacker from Berlin’s famed Chaos Computer Club is voted to the board of ICANN, which oversees domain issues on the Internet. He wants people to understand that “hacker” is not a bad word.