The world needs more people like Screaming Lord Sutch. RIP.

The local (to both me and Red Hat) business rag expresses some doubt about the viability of the Red Hat IPO, and their business model. I haven’t read any stories about the IPO that mention cheapbytes.com, which sells an exact copy of the latest version of Red Hat Linux, minus the snazzy art on the CD, for a whopping $1.99. I don’t know how Red Hat is supposed to compete with that.

Recent rumors seem to indicate that Hewlett-Packard isn’t going to hire Jim Barksdale as their CEO, no matter what I say on this page.

java.apache.org has been replaced with jakarta.apache.org. It’s a merger with the old Apache Jserv code with some servlet code that Sun is donating. The jury is still out on whether this is a good thing; it depends on whether Sun provides any support beyond the initial code they’re dumping on the project.

Crypto-guru Bruce Schneier posted an interesting essay to Risks Digest about the larger issues exposed by malware like Explorer.Zip and Melissa.

Idiot.

The attempt to trademark the term “Open Source” has met with failure, thank goodness. It was a pretty silly idea in the first place, and they really should have stuck with the original term, “free software,” anyway.

Microsoft has issued a workaround for the massive security hole in IIS 4 that I linked to previously.

I thought I’d link to Web Page Design for Designers today because Joe Gillespie is a genius, and anyone who is developing Web sites without having seen this site is heading into battle unarmed.

Does anybody else think that maybe Sun’s singleminded obsession with Microsoft will hurt them in the long run? Am I one to talk?