Sean Michael Kerner

FreeBSD 6.2, one of the most popular  versions of the free BSD Unix operating system, is out with new features and updates. It plugs holes and, in addition to the usual route of installing directly to a hard drive this time around, offers a LiveCD that can be used to rescue a broken system. Developers […]

Less than three months after its official release, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) 7 browser has crossed the 100 million installation threshold. Tony Chor, group program manager at Microsoft , said the milestone was officially reached on January 8. While the industry likes to position Mozilla’s Firefox browsers as IE 7’s top competition, it is technically […]

How do you circumvent the copyright laws of the United States? Apparently you buy your own country. Swedish site Piratebay.net, which is well known as a host tracker for countless pirated items of content, has launched a bid to buy its own country called Sealand. Just off the coast of the United Kingdom, Sealand is […]

In a letter sent to SCO customers, SCO President and CEO Darl McBride assured his customers that the company is still doing all right. In the letter, written in advance of SCO’s Jan. 17 fourth-quarter earnings report, McBride assures customers that SCO is not done yet. “Although we have had a few setbacks in the […]

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is considering a proposal for a .xxx top level domain (TLD). It’s a situation that has been on again off again for more than six years. A revised agreement for the administration of the .xxx registry by vendor ICM Registry is now available for a public […]

Five years after its creation, the open source Java tools group Eclipse Foundation is joining the Sun-led Java Community Process (JCP). The price of admission? A measly $2,000, which also comes with improved relations between the two groups, which have been at odds in the past few years. The JCP is the formal process by […]

The race to pick holes in Microsoft’s newest operating system and browser is on. VeriSign’s iDefense Labs has kicked off its Vulnerability Contributor Program (VCP), a challenge to find remote arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities in Vista and Internet Explorer 7.0. VCP will pay $8,000 for the first six confirmed vulnerabilities. It will pay an additional […]

High-speed 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) is not yet a standard, but at least one vendor is already looking for patents. And getting them. Networking vendor Force10 said that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded it U.S. patent number 7,124,502 titled, “Method of fabricating a high-layer-count backplane.” The invention described in the patent is […]

Opera Software is calling accusations made by Mozilla staffer Asa Dotzler regarding Opera’s security disclosure policies, “dangerous and irresponsible.” The issue at hand revolves around a pair of security vulnerabilities that were recently discovered by Verisign’s iDefense division. Dotzler alleged that since Opera did not immediately alert users that there was an update available to […]

Open source is as much about the ability to collaborate and participate as it is about the code that is open. Sun Microsystems understands this. Sun is moving to open up its OpenSolaris project to allow for even more participation from its community of users and developers in terms of both governance and technology contributions. […]

Red Hat’s next release of its community Linux distribution will sport a slightly modified name, more packages and a longer supported life. Since its inception in November 2003, Red Hat’s community Linux project has been called Fedora Core; starting with version 7, it will be known simply as Fedora. The name change comes as the […]

Opera Software may well be putting its browser users at risk by not properly disclosing security vulnerabilities to vulnerable users. At least that’s the allegation made by Mozilla Corp.’s Asa Dotzler. According to the security research firm that discovered the recent Opera vulnerabilities, Opera’s security disclosure practices are no better (or worse) than most vendors’. […]