How do anti-trust laws relate to the modern economy? ZDNet explores the issue.

ZDNet cautions of a recently discovered DDoS attack in “the wild”, a term to mean that it’s on the loose on the internet, which targets irc networks, and linux boxen.

Sun Microsystems Inc.’s decision not to embrace Linux with the same fervor as competitors IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. has sparked concern from at least one analyst firm that believes the company is making a mistake, reports TechWeb.

From a PR Newswire story about the iRobot Corporation multi-purpose domestic robot, which can be controlled through a web browser from anywhere in the world: The iRobot-LE is powered by iRobot Aware Robot Control Software running on a Pentium II class processor with an Apache-SSL web server and Linux Operating System. Priced about the same as a high-end notebook computer, the iRobot-LE is a fully functional mobile computer.

From a story about Monday’s tech stock action: VA Linux continued its momentous climb, up 1 9/16 to 61 1/4. (Disclosure: VA Linux owns NewsForge.)

IBM has demoed a Transmeta-based notebook, but officially the company isn’t committed to shipping it as a product. Naturally nobody actually believes this, and a blab today from Taiwanese notebook manufacturer Quanta Computer confirms that Big Blue will be rolling out quantities of the beasts, under the ThinkPad 240 X-series banner, by the end of the year, according to a story at The Register. More from Bloomberg.

According to a story from The Associated Press: Manufacturers of computer and telecommunications equipment could soon be required to pay fees to benefit authors and other copyright holders under a draft law being considered by the German government.

Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record company, asked a judge today to award it up to $450 million in damages because MP3.com infringed its copyrights, an amount the Internet music company said would put it out of business. The story is from The Associated Press.

Why use Linux? It’s a valid and frequently asked question. Unfortunately there are no good answers. The Linux gurus preach the features as if they were benefits, the zealots preach Linux (or, heaven forbid, BSD) as if it were a religion. But everyone is preaching and no one is providing a useful answer. There obviously is no one single perfect operating system. All the rhetoric about Linux can be confusing since the word “free” comes up a lot. The column is at MaximumLinux.

“Trying to pick a winner between GNOME and KDE is a futile distraction.”
That’s from a column at ZDNet.