An anonymous reader writes "The question isn't whether Linux can be certified as Unix. At least some distributions no doubt can. But who would pay for it? And is it worth the trouble? Jem Matzan asks these questions on NewsForge, and reminds us that the Open Group, not SCO, owns the Unix trademark,"

LordNite asks: "Here is the situation. I am maintaining a piece of source code which is written in K&R C. One of the original goals of this code was to be as portable as possible to as many platforms as possible. The code runs on UNIX and its clones as well as OS/2. The code avoids POSIX functions such as mmap(2) since at the time it was initially written (early 1990s) POSIX was not very wide spread. The code is well written, but in need of some serious fixing. As I go around fixing parts of the code I would also like to modernize it a bit. Since it is now 2004, can I rely on ANSI C89 and POSIX routines without sacrificing the portability of this code? (Yes, I do realize that the purpose of POSIX is code portability...) I am not really interested in the OS/2 port at this time. I am just interested in keeping portability with UNIX clones. To put my question another way: Are there any UNIX-like OSes in common use, which are currently developed and supported by some entity either OSS or proprietary, that do not support POSIX and ANSI C89?"

Ghost in the Shell Game writes "We've long known that SCO has had a twisted view of UNIX history, sometimes pretending to be oldSCO when it suits them, and a separate business entity when it does not. However, according to this piece on Groklaw, they're now registering the UNIX System Laboratories trademark in what looks like an attempt to confuse history further. If you're wondering how they can do this, the USL trademark was abandoned in 1993, when USL was bought out by Novell. Hopefully, no one will be fooled by this name game, any more than we were when the spyware maker Gator changed their name to Claria."

qazwsx789 writes "The first public release of bash-3.0 is now available via ftp and from the usual GNU mirror sites. For the official release notes by the author, Chet Ramey, check his usenet post."

Kelly McNeill writes "The reaction one gets when attempting to get a manager in a corporate environment to consider an alternate operating system can sometimes be likened to a typical dilbert comic strip. Joseph Mallett contributed the following editorial to osOpinion/osViews which suggests that if you present the case properly, your pointy haired boss will make the right decision when choosing a Unix operating system to run the business."

andrew_ps writes "Amit Singh has published on his KernelThread.com a paper (mini book really) on computer security. A Taste of Computer Security is a VERY comprehensive paper in what it covers, but is remarkably easy to read. This is not some list of "sploits" though! Topics covered include popular notions about security, types of mal-ware, viruses & worms, memory attacks/defences, intrusion, sandboxing, review of Solaris 10 security and plenty of others. Most notably it includes probably one of the most fair and intelligent analysis of the Unix-Vs-Windows security issue that I have ever seen."

GMan00 writes "A flurry of BSD UNIX-related (Berkeley Software Distribution) books have hit the bookstores during the recent past, and more are on the way. From books specific to Secure Architectures with OpenBSD in April 2004 and the reissue of The Design and Implementation of the BSD Operating System for FreeBSD 5.x (expected in August 2004), to Michael Lucas' series of BSD Books from NoStarch Press, print documentation is certainly available for those interested in learning about the free, open source UNIX system which powers operations such as Yahoo! portal and Sendmail.org website, Verio and Pair hosting, not to mention web server survey site Netcraft. Dru Lavigne's BSD Hacks (O'Reilly and Associates, May 2004), is the latest book in these releases, and is an enormously useful resource for system administrators and end-users alike." Read on for the rest of George's review.

Dave B writes "There's a nice article on Economist.com about Dennis Ritchie, the genesis of Unix, and the C programming language."

An anonymous reader writes "Project GoneME is the first attempt to try moving the GNOME Desktop into a new direction. The intention is to create a community of people, who are willing and interested to help fixing issues brought up by people for a very long time and make the vision of a usable Desktop in the means of good old Unix fashion become true. In case you are interested to help, please join the project. Plenty of people have shown interest and welcome this step and the IRC channel got filled up within a short time." Update: 07/26 02:33 GMT by T : A project mailing list has been set up for anyone interested in taking part in this endeavor.

fymidos writes "SCO has finally spoken. According to this linuxworld article, they claim that linux illegally uses the ELF binary format, the JFS filesystem, the init code and some more 'copyrighted Unix header and interfaces'. Finally SCO makes its move. The JFS part was expected of course, but according to the article, as far as the ELF format is concerned 'the Tool Interface Standard Committee (TISC) came up with a ELF 1.2 standard' and 'granted users a "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license" to the stuff'. Oh, and of course 'both Novell and the old SCO - as well as Microsoft, IBM and Intel - were on the committee'."

mcovey asks: "Unix shell accounts used to be easy to find, with quality applications installed and free web space. Nowadays the only free ones left are either not accepting new accounts, have limited applications or send you on a wild goose chase to register. Does anyone know any free or low-cost shell accounts that include compilers, IRC, background processes, FTP, a decent editor and an email app (preferably pine, since I have a config file already on my IMAP server)?"

Omega1045 asks: "I am a software developer, writing client/GUI software in C# (.NET) on Windows and server software in a UNIX environment. I have used Linux in the past as a firewall, server and more but have never used it seriously as a desktop. What Linux distro and tools should I look to for a switch? I definitely still need to run Win2k (in a VM would be preferable) for testing and other purposes, but want to live as much of my monitor facing life as I can in Linux. I also need the best laptop and Wireless PC Card support (D-Link in my case) from the distro I choose. Have any Slashdot readers gone this route? What are your recommendations?"

An anonymous reader writes "VNUnet has a story about Longhorn having the ability to run unix or linux code via SFU." Microsoft's site has a lot more information about SFU itself. Regardless of ideological bent, it's an interesting piece o' technology.

Anton Chuvakin writes "When I first got this little book called Network Security Hacks, I was unimpressed by its idea: a seemingly random collection of network security tips combined under the same cover. However, when I started reading, more and more often I exclaimed "Ah, that's how it is done!" as well as found better ways of doing what I was doing." Read on for the rest of Chuvakin's review.

Dozix007 writes "Sitepoint reports an interesting article on the increasing interconnection between Apple's recently released Tiger, and the open source community. Tiger includes improved releases of Apple's directory services (LDAP), secure authentication (Kerberos), mail server (Postfix), web server (Apache) and many more features, nearly all based on existing open source software. Most significant may be the release of Rendezvous for Java, Linux/Unix and Windows. This is a zero-configuration tool for networking that includes network protocols, identification and configuration of devices and services such as printers and local/remote servers, and was based on open source technology."

sympleko (Matthew Leingang) writes "PHP5 has hit its third release candidate, so get used to the idea of using it. George Schlossnagle has written a great book on PHP programming which ought to generate some enthusiasm. But it's not just about PHP5: the book includes great information on everything from coding style to high-level problem-solving. I met George through a friend of mine who works for the Developers Library, and I'm glad to have finally gotten a look at his book." Read on for Leingang's review of Advanced PHP Programming: A practical guide to developing large-scale Web sites and applications to PHP5.

mac-diddy writes "Someone on Apple's mailing list for Xgrid, Apple's clustering software, just announced an 'Xgrid agent for Linux and other Unix platforms' available for download. There are still some issues being worked on like large file support, but it does allow you to simply add a Unix node to your existing Xgrid cluster. Just goes to show that when companies embrace open standards and code, the world doesn't fall apart."

chasingporsches writes "Today Apple released Apple Remote Desktop 2, a major upgrade of their network management software. New features include new software management support, and VNC support, which allows you to control and view any VNC-enabled Mac, Windows, or UNIX-based machine. Unlimited client price is $499, 10-client $299. It's not available as a free upgrade, but you can get a discounted price if you purchased the previous version today or later."

ansak writes "In the latest scoop from Groklaw, Groklaw user talks_to_birds pointed out an error in SCO's version of the famous Levenez Unix Timeline. The important error is the green dotted line which shows Minix to be a derivative of Unix. If this were accepted, and if Linux was shown to be a derivative of Minix, then SCO's lawsuits would be more likely to have merit. As it turned out, even MS called Samizdat unhelpful, but at least now there may be a plausible reason why someone would try to make the link between Minix and Linux in the first place."

Read on below for tonight's edition of Slashback, with followups to several previous Slashdot stories, including the Linux-in-Munich saga, Harlan Ellison's feud with AOL, Hotmail's response to the growing space for webmail, and more. Read on for the details.