Saturday, March 8, 2003

The Ascent of the Software Civilization. In his incisive, panoramic book on the history of the software industry, Martin Campbell-Kelly delivers context, insight, and even occasional humor. By Steve Lohr. [New York Times: Technology] 10:42:20 PM

In a Digitally Animated World, Oscar Stands Rigid. The computer has revolutionized movies, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seems stuck in an analog past. By Dave Kehr. [New York Times: Technology] 10:41:45 PM

Temporal Symbolism in Human Communication. For the past couple of days I've been reading a book called The Manticore by Robertson Davies, a Canadian author I've only just discovered. It's an odd thing about a rich lawyer visiting a Jungian therapist to sort through his recent breakdown, but something in the character and tone of the writing keeps me entranced, no matter how dry the story becomes..... [kuro5hin.org] 10:31:11 AM

Fire in the Bazaar: SCO v. IBM. The SCO Group has fired the first broadside in an intellectual property war that could shake the foundations of Linux, one of the world's most widely used free operating systems. In a $1 billion lawsuit filed on March 7th against IBM, SCO asserts that Big Blue "made concentrated efforts to improperly destroy the economic value of UNIX, particularly UNIX on Intel, to benefit IBM's new Linux services business." The complaint, filed in a Utah state court, accuses IBM of misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, breach of contract, and tortious interference with SCO's business. SCO is basing its action on intellectual property rights it claims it acquired when it bought UNIX System V from A. T. & T. in 1995. [kuro5hin.org] 10:30:29 AM