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Linux Developer On Trial For Murdering His Wife

Hans Reiser, the owner of Namesys, which offers file systems for Linux, is on trial for murder charges related to his wife's disappearance last year.

Reiser developed ReiserFS, the default file system on Suse Linux/openSUSE, Slackware, Xandros, Yoper, Linspir, and Kurumin Linux. Free software advocates hold Reiser's work on the program, which manages files on hard drives with Suse Linux Enterprise systems, in high regard.

Reiser's defense lawyer characterized the developer, during an ABC television interview, as an exceptionally intelligent man who can read 9,000 pages of court documents and recite portions back, complete with the pages and line numbers he references.

Reiser married a Russian woman who advertised in a mail-order bride catalogue. The woman, Nina Reiser, had two children with the developer, obtained citizenship, and filed for divorce. During the couple's separation, she obtained restraining orders and complained that Hans Reiser had shoved her. Nina Reiser also complained of her son, who was 4 or 5 at the time, being exposed to violent video games and movies.

Nina Reiser was last seen dropping off her children at Hans Reiser's mother's home, where the developer was living, in September 2006. Police found her car, full of groceries, in a grocery store parking lot not long before the couple was scheduled to appear in court for a child support dispute.

Police never found a body. Hans Reiser's attorney argued in an Oakland, Calif., court that Nina Reiser fled to Russia and is in hiding, possibly because her estate stands to benefit financially from a murder conviction, according to published reports on the trial. Nina Reiser's divorce lawyer said that Hans Reiser's company, Namesys, has no value.

Police did find Hans Reiser's car missing a seat, blood spots in his home and car, and books on murder investigations, which they contend the accused bought days after his wife disappeared.

People who knew Nina Reiser said the 31-year-old mother, who had full custody, would never disappear without her children. The children now live in Russia under their maternal grandmother's care, and the son has returned to testify in the murder trial.

In court on Tuesday, Nina Reiser's divorce lawyer read e-mail messages the woman had turned over. Hans Reiser's attorney disputed the authenticity of the documents, which appeared to contain statements from Hans Reiser about therapists implanting his children with false memories. The attorney portrayed Nina Reiser as promiscuous and asked the divorce lawyer if the woman had discussed her sexual preferences or attempts to find male companions on Craigslist.

Nina Reiser's lawyer said that Hans Reiser owed more than $50,000 in child support and learned he would face trial on contempt charges, one week before Nina Reiser disappeared.

Judge Says SCO, Novell Trial Can Proceed

A judge overseeing The SCO Group's bankruptcy proceedings has ruled that a trial to determine how much the company owes to Novell for improperly selling Novell's Unix software may proceed prior to the completion of SCO's Chapter 11 hearings.

Acting on a request from Novell, District of Delaware bankruptcy court judge Kevin Gross on Tuesday ruled that the trial may proceed.

The trial was originally scheduled to begin in September in Utah federal court -- but was postponed pending the outcome of SCO's bankruptcy petition. In ruling, Gross effectively agreed with Novell's contention that further delaying the trial could harm its interests.

SCO recently asked the bankruptcy court for permission to sell off certain UnixNovell and IBM told the court that SCO's ownership of the assets is questionable. IBM called SCO's description of the assets it has agreed to sell to York "impenetrably vague." IBM also contended that it holds copyrights in some of SCO's Unix-based products and that SCO, therefore, does not have the right to sell them. assets to York Capital Management, a private investment group, but withdrew the request after

Following a long running legal dispute between the two companies, a Utah federal court judge in August ruled that Novell, and not SCO, owns the copyrights to the Unix operating system. As a result, the judge further ruled that SCO must remit to Novell revenues it earned from selling Unix licenses through a program known as SCOSource.

The total could exceed $25 million -- more than the combined worth of SCO's current assets. SCO filed for bankruptcy shortly after the August ruling.

Law Center Steps Up GPL Defense, Seeks First U.S. Test Case

Software Freedom Law Center is again seeking a test case of the provisions of the GPLv2. It's filed suit against two firms, High-Gain Antennas and Xterasys Corp. for not disclosing the code included in their antenna and signal booster devices.

Both firms embed the BusyBox tools and utilities that are frequently used to create wireless and set-top box products. BusyBox is produced by independent developers Erik Andersen and Rob Landley under GPLv2. Dan Ravicher, legal director of the center, said his non-profit organization tries to resolve differences with commercial companies to bring them into compliance with the GPL. "If they are unwilling to work with us, then our only choice is to go to court," he said in a statement announcing the suits.

Xterasys produces broadband and Wi-Fi boosters, Ethernet cards, and Bluetooth transmitters. The SFLC announcement didn't name the products in which BusyBox is used. High-Gain produces multi-directional antennas and signal detection devices for wide and local area networks.

The Software Freedom Law Center previously challenged the use of BusyBox by Monsoon Multimedia for its use of BusyBox in a set of products sold directly to consumers by Best Buy, Fry's Electronics and CompUSA. They were also in products resold by Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Nokia, HP, Dell, Siemens and Toshiba.

That case was settled out of court Oct. 30, with Monsoon paying an undisclosed sum to the plaintiffs and agreeing to make its modifications of the code available to other developers.

The two suits, filed Nov. 19, are the second and third issued on behalf of the GPL in the U.S. So far, no GPL case has gone through the courts in the U.S.

The GPL requires an adopter of GPL code to publish to the public or "give back" to the developer community any changes or modifications to GPL code. GPLv3 was issued at the end of June with provisions written more expressly to ban the practice of embedding GPL code in a device without disclosing the changes made to it. Richard Stallman, head of the Free Software Foundation which issues the GPL license, said the practice amounted to the "Tivo-ization" of the GPL, or the undermining of its intent to keep code public.

The Software Freedom Law Center makes legal resources available to free software developers to defend their work. It is headed by Columbia law professor Eben Moglen.

GroundWork: Something old, something new

San Francisco - Zenoss Core isn't the only open source monitoring tool making waves. GroundWork Monitor Open Source is an excellent example of Zenoss' competition from other open source players.

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Although GroundWork and Zenoss have similar business models, their products are quite different. GroundWork is built around the very popular Nagios monitoring system, an excellent monitoring and alerting platform that can monitor anything you want it to. Its one glaring drawback is that it is incredibly time-consuming to configure unless you use a third-party configuration tool or write your own configuration management scripts. There are several tools available that provide a graphical, Web-based means to add and remove devices, but these typically have serious limitations in flexibility.

GroundWork has taken the concept of supercharging Nagios much further, by wrapping Nagios within an entirely new Web interface that covers both viewing Nagios output data and managing the Nagios back end. The result is a nice blend of an already successful monitoring package, a feature-rich Web front end, and the availability of a more capable professional edition with commercial support. Although GroundWork may not have been engineered from scratch as Zenoss was, these three factors together make GroundWork a strong player in the open source monitoring arena.

All Eyes on Japan - Solving the Underpopulation Crisis

Japan has a problem that is likely to face most of the developed world soon enough – underpopulation. That’s not to say that there aren’t enough people in Japan, there are plenty. The problem the Japanese face is not having enough children. They have the lowest young-to-elderly population ratio in the world.

With the current population hovering around 150 million people, Without an abundance of young people in the work place, a crucial factor in the stability of social programs providing assistant to the elderly, Japan will have to choose between the dangerous path of humanely phasing out those government assistance program or finding a way to increase birthrates amongst native Japanese (like Poland and Russia are attempting) while battling to assimilate immigrants into one of the least welcoming populations in the world.

However they decide to go about solving their population crisis, and many local governments in Japan have already begun to take steps to battle it, it would serve the Western world to watch them carefully. The West, after all, will be confronted with the same set of problems a decade or two after Japan, with many of the same stumbling blocks.

With birthrates falling across Europe, government assistance and pension programs already beginning to strain the fiscal solvency of government budgets, and record numbers of immigrants struggling to find a place to fit into countries like France, Britain and Italy, Western Europe will have to find some way to restore a more sustainable proportion of youths.

Most Western European countries have birthrates well below 2.05 children per woman, the necessary rate to sustain a steady population as the elderly make their way off this mortal coil. Some dip as low as 1.5. Europe’s solution, by and large, has been to bring in immigrants from either Turkey or from former colonies. The resulting tensions have been displayed front and center, from the angry complaints of immigrants and immigrants’ children to the resurfacing of neo-Facists in countries like Germany, aiming to “keep Germany German”.

Even if Japan can’t solve its current population problems, the rest of us can learn from their mistakes, and hopefully their successes, as we spend the next century trying to square the problems confronting the modern, developed nation state.

Soap Updates for November

Due to the Thanksgiving Holidays all the soaps were not aired today. Here are today’s updates for Days of Our Lives and yesterdays updates for As The World Turns. Today’s show on The Young and The Restless was a repeat of the day of the collapse.

Days of Our Lives

Doug tells Shawn that Bo and his grandma had to take Big Shawn to the hospital with chest pains but they are sure he is ok. He tells Shawn that Bo said to tell him he will get back there for the wedding as soon as he can.

In the brides’ room, Belle is getting dressed. Hope and Sami and Marlena are in there with her. Belle asks Hope to check her phone because she was waiting on Brady to call her. When Marlena gives Belle the gifts she is giving her Belle’s phone rings. Thinking it will be Brady calling her she answers and it is Phillip. She pretends that it is Me-Me and when everyone walks out the room she tells him she is not going to do this today. She says she is going to marry Shawn and he can’t stop her. Hope comes back in and asks for the truth, who was that really on the phone.

Lucas is ready to announce the name of his and Sami’s daughter to everyone. He says they named the baby Alice Caroline Horton. Everyone is so happy to hear it.

Billie meets Phillip at the bar and she tells him she wanted to be with her little brother because she knew he would be down today knowing that he is still in love with Belle. He tells Billie he would be upset if he thought she was going to go through it. Billie asks what does that mean. He says when Belle walks down that aisle she will be thinking of him not Shawn.

As it happens as Belle is walking down the aisle and she is thinking back of times with Phillip. Marlena assumes Belle’s hesitation is because she misses her father, so she assures Belle that John is right there with them. She continues down the aisle to Shawn and notices the new watch he has on his arm. She whispers, New Watch? To him, he says it’s a present from Victor. They start saying their vows to one another. Shawn tells her that their love has always been pure to each other. She stops him and says she can’t do this. She then changes her mind again and says she can’t do this if he keeps interrupting her, she can’t remember what she was going to say. They finish their vows and are pronounced husband and wife.

Lucas comes in at the Pub and tells Billie and Phillip that the wedding is over, that Belle and Shawn are finally hitched. The wedding happened and everyone would be there for the reception soon. Phillip says that’s it, he is out of there.

Stephanie and Cordy are at Kayla and Steve’s apartment having a girl’s day out when suddenly Ford comes banging on the door wanting her to open the door. She tells him to go away and if he doesn’t she is going to call security. He tells her she better quit passing those fliers around town about him or she will be sorry.

At Stefano’s house Marlena shows up. Stefano asks her what took her so long coming there. He asks her why she has come to see him. She asks him to give Sami her freedom. Stefano asks her, Her Freedom? She says he knows what she means. Sami married EJ to protect her family. He says he heard Sami tell EJ how she feels about him. Marlena tells him he is wrong, Sami loves only one man. She wants him to set Sami free and let her alone. She tells him if he ever felt anything for her, he would do this for her. He says yes he will Marlena, but for a price. She asks him what his price is. He says the same thing he has always wanted, the Queen of the Night. He tells her she has brought him joy, she says he has made her his queen but he has also made her his killer.

At the reception Doug announces that Big Shawn is fine, turns out to be a little indigestion. He then goes on to make a toast to the new couple. He makes a mention of John, saying they all miss him, and the new twins in the family. And now he says they welcome John and Marlena’s daughter into the family, saying they couldn’t ask for a better addition. He asks that everyone raises their glass and join him in his toast.

At the reception Hope finds Belle’s phone knowing something is going on. She listens to her voice mail and it is from Phillip. He tells her she can’t marry Shawn, he knows she is still in love with him. He mentions that they were together the night before the wedding which really upsets Hope now.

As The World Turns

Katie goes to the diner where Kim is shooting a promo shoot for the TV station. She is furious with Brad for not telling her and Jack about Carly. She can’t hold in her frustration so she ends up pouring mashed potatoes and gravy all over him.

Carly goes home and imagines life with Jack and the kids. She daydreams of the kids coming in and all being happy wanting to start decorating for Christmas and then Jack comes in talking about them all having Thanksgiving Dinner together and how they all have so much to be thankful for. Then she comes to reality and realizes it was only a dream in her mind when her microwave goes off. She sits down to eat her TV dinner when Brad knocks at the door mad as hell at her, telling her Katie now knows he knew about her lies. She swears she didn’t tell Katie anything. He doesn’t want to accept any excuses from Carly. He tells her thanks for ruining the best thing that almost happened to him in his life, and then he leaves.

Jack goes to Katie’s hotel room and she yells at him to go away thinking it is Brad at the door. When he keeps knocking she opens the door telling him to go away and was shocked to see Jack standing there instead. He asks what Brad has done to her to make her so mad at him. She finally confesses to him that she found out Brad knew about Carly all that time and never told either of them.

Jack is furious with Brad now and goes back to the farm and ends up fighting with Brad outside. They both go back inside with black eyes and Emma is swatting them both with a spatula telling them they are both acting like children. They end up apologizing for interrupting everyone’s Thanksgiving Dinner and shake hands together.

Carly goes to see Katie. She explains to her that Brad begged her to tell the truth to Jack but she just couldn’t. She wants Katie to know that the only reason he didn’t tell them himself is because after it went so far he was afraid Katie would never forgive him and he would lose her forever.

When Carly goes home she notices a jacket in her living room that smells. She realizes someone is in her house. She takes a hockey stick out and screams for whoever is there that she has a gun and for them to come out right now. A woman comes out the back and it was Kit, asking Carly didn’t she remember her. Carly says yeah she is the woman who kidnapped her boy and wants to know why she isn’t in jail. They start talking after Kit asks where Jack is. Carly tells her they aren’t together. Kit doesn’t have anywhere to go and Carly starts feeling sorry for her so she offers her a TV dinner for Thanksgiving. As they are eating Kit explains to her how she wants to open a bar there but she doesn’t have the money it takes to open a new business. Carly thinks about it and then thinks of the money she has. She offers it to Kit to start the new business and tells her they can be partners.

Meg meets Craig at the bridge. He tells her she is too late, Paul is already gone. She tells him she didn’t come there for Paul. He asks her if she is happy that she is pregnant and she says yes. Then he says but she would be happier if it was Paul’s baby. She asks Craig to forgive her for being with Paul. She says this baby will love him and if he can forgive her for what she has done then they can be a family together. She tells him she wants him to make something for their baby. She wants him to make them a family. She turns and walks away after that.

Katie goes to the farm to talk to Brad. They go outside and she tells him she is not mad at him anymore. She says that even if he had told her the truth it wouldn’t have stopped Carly anyway. She says she is giving him a second chance, for the sake of the show of course, but warns him to never lie to her again.

Craig arrives at the farm to let Meg know he wants them to be a family and that he will forgive her. He wants to be a good father for their baby. Meg hugs him and tells him thank you. He then turns away and she asks him where he is going. He says it is her family gathering, he doesn’t want to interrupt. She tells him he is family now too and invites him to have dinner with them all as a family. Emma and all the rest welcome Craig and they all sit down to eat.a

Another shot at the Second Amendment

In seemingly less time than it takes to say “ready on the firing line,” the U.S. Supreme Court will be embroiled in the firearms culture wars as it rules on what the Second Amendment really means when it comes to gun ownership. Six residents of the District of Columbia have filed suit to lift the ban on keeping handguns in their homes. Briefs are to be filed by January, arguments are set for March, a decision is expected by June.

Washington, D.C. has one of the most restrictive gun laws on the books. Handguns in the home are prohibited in the nation’s capital, and although rifles and shotguns are allowed, they must be unloaded, disassembled, and the triggers locked. In other words, if an intruder breaks into your home in D.C., you might as well defend yourself with a nine iron - if you happen to play golf.

Those who support the status quo say the Second Amendment [A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed] really doesn’t guarantee the right of an individual to have a gun. It only guarantees a collective right to have a gun in a militia - the military force that has evolved into today’s National Guard. But Judge Lawrence Silberman said in his opinion that since militias of the colonial era no longer exist, gun ownership based on “a well-regulated Militia” is meaningless.

Keep in mind that Washington, D.C. has one of the highest and most violent crime rates in the country. It has held the title of “murder capital of the nation” on more than one occasion. A recent phenomenon is the practice of a felon shooting a victim whether he or she complies with the felon’s demands or not. If you don’t hand over your wallet, you are shot. If you hand over your wallet, you are shot. And the shootings are frequently execution-style: several shots to the head at close range.

So given the likely outcome of a confrontation with a criminal, what is the rationale for prohibiting possession of handguns and other firearms for private use in the home? So far, no one has addressed this question directly. Instead they have played philosophical games with the meaning of “militia” rather than discuss the right of individuals to privately possess and bear their own firearms. One should also remember that in colonial times members of the militia were “civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.” And when the states called these individuals to serve, they were often expected to show up bearing arms supplied by themselves. In these instances the state did not provide weapons for the militiamen.

No one is quarreling with the practice of prohibiting felons and the mentally deranged from owning guns. To use a timeworn example, we have freedom of speech, but are prohibited from shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. Most who favor private gun ownership also agree that certain types of guns - military weapons mostly - should also be strictly regulated, and have indeed been so since 1934.

Those who have examined the tendencies of the Supreme Court justices to vote one way or another believe the outcome of the upcoming Second Amendment vote will tend to be on the conservative side. That is, the justices, for certain Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, will interpret the amendment as embracing individual rights rather than the rights of states or the militia.

One legal scholar, Leonard W. Levy, has even proposed in his book, Origins of the Bill of Rights, that a new Second Amendment be proposed. The current Second Amendment would be repealed, and in its place the following language would be substituted: The right of the people to keep arms reasonably for hunting, sport, collecting, and personal defense shall not be infringed. Note that the term “militia” is removed from the resolution. The rewritten amendment would more accurately reflect how firearms have become an ineradicable part of our history and culture through their lawful use in personal defense and sport.

It is also well to remember that every other section of the Bill of Rights deals with individual liberties. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the Second Amendment also focuses on the self-protection rights of the individual as well. Perhaps, at a later date, the court might consider whether the founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment to make certain that the people had the wherewithal to confront a tyrannical government. In view of some of the recent machinations of the current regime, the accession of executive power, and the suppression of certain freedoms, their fear doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

Another consequence, intended or not, is that the upcoming ruling by the Supreme Court, expected, as we noted, in June occurs just months before the 2008 presidential election. So like it or not, whoever has survived as a contender in the race at that time will be faced with yet another “third rail” issue. Because the Supreme Court’s review is both rare and noteworthy (the first such review in 70 years), no candidate will be able to sidestep their way out of reporters’ questions. On the other hand, the D.C. government did its own soft-shoe dance by declaring that having a handgun in the home “comes at the expense of the safety of those who may be victims.” Whatever rights the Second Amendment guarantees, the Washington officials continued, “it does not require the District to stand by while it citizens die.” The affront and insult of that statement are evidenced by the first three stories on every evening TV newscast: another citizen gunned down by thugs in the victim’s home or nearby neighborhood.

It should be noted that the spokesman for Handgun Control, Inc. - also known as the Brady Campaign - urged the District of Columbia government not to appeal the issue of its restrictive gun control laws because it was feared the issue would be defeated. So the individual right to keep and bear arms, all but outlawed in D.C., will have its day on the national stage of the Supreme Court. Depending on the outcome, other cities that have restrictive gun laws, such as Chicago, will be watching closely, for obvious reasons.

Some presidential candidates have already jumped on the gun control bandwagon. Rudy Giuliani praised the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case, saying the D.C. law should be reversed. Barack Obama says he believes the existing gun ban in Washington is constitutional and that local communities have the right to enact gun control laws. Whatever candidates are still in the race in January will also have to take a stand. It could just be the most decisive issue of the campaign.

Enabling Directx 9.0 in Linux using Wine

It is a foregone conclusion that Linux has made deep inroads into the Windows arena and has succeeded in providing a robust user friendly Desktop which any lay person can use. But there are still a few areas where Linux lags way behind Windows.One of them is Games.

The problem is that most commercial games worth their name are developed using a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft called DirectX. It is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video. And as with all things Microsoft, DirectX too runs only on the Windows platform.

The latest version of DirectX is ver 10. But there is hope around the horizon for those die-hard gamers who would love to run their favorite game in Linux. Now it is possible to install DirectX libraries albeit version 9.0 in Linux using Wine.

The Wine review blog has an elaborate article giving step-by-step details of how to install DirectX 9.0c in Linux under Wine. Finally you will be able to play those fabulous games which you have stored in your attic by installing them in Linux.

Hungarian railway workers stage nationwide strike

BUDAPEST, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian railway workers went on a six-hour nationwide strike on Wednesday against the planned closure of 38 spur lines and the ensuing layoffs, state-run news agency MTI reported.

Inter-city bus drivers joined the strike in Bekes county, southeastern Hungary and Vas county in the country's west.

The strike, which began at 6 a.m. local time (0500 GMT), was initiated by the Liga trade union's alliance led by Istvan Gasko, head of the Railway Workers' Free Union.

Railway workers were also protesting against the planned privatization of healthcare facilities and new pension rules which are to take effect early next year, Gasko said.

About 10,000 railway workers were involved in the work stoppage on the lines of National Railways MAV and Gyor-Sopron-Ebenfurth Railway.

Some 1,200 to 1,300 passenger trains were being affected by the strike, MAV spokesman Imre Kavalecz said.

Freight train operations were also disrupted and international trains were being held up at the border stations.

As many as 136 organizations have voiced support for the strike against the government's reforms on healthcare and pension systems, Liga spokesman said a day earlier.

A total of 82 Liga members and 20 other organizations would stage strikes on Wednesday, as well as trade unions, civil organizations and some political parties, the spokesman added.

The strike came in the wake of a two-hour warning strike on Nov. 7 and abortive talks between management and the unions on a viable compromise.

Emerging Young Artist Pratul Dash


When I asked the most debated emerging young artist Pratul Dash about his artistic journey, he replied me with a quote ‘There will be a vital role of an artist to uplift the society’. He said although I live with my family with all responsibility, I always well aware of my real mean of living and Standing between the Heaven and the ground , Wanting to move forward and to stay down. Yes, he was absolutely right with his word, this year he has exhibited his works at several major exhibitions worldwide,and also become a happy father with a very sweet and cute baby girl, besides many exhibitions at India, his works are exhibited at USA and UK thrice this year with a great response. Every time works are just sold out at the first day of opening. His works are filled with fine detail, looks at life through various different levels, his bird, living in the hollows of the scaffolding claims this space as much as his home as any human does. Pratul Dash graduated with a BA & MA in Fine Art and was awarded an art Scholarship. He was also awarded by the Industrial Literature Society, Italy, won the M F Hussain Award, Delhi, Silver Jubilee award Orissa to name a few. His works are amongst many prestigious collections, both private and corporate throughout the world.Once he said,” i am a response, a series of other colors strung together tied by reaction and emotion, memory and experience, resisting or embracing, based on my days on earth....” Pratul works and lives in New Delhi, India.