Flexispy release causes legality debate
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Trojan row A piece of software which allows a user to track another person's mobile phone use would be almost impossible to use in the UK without breaking the law, according to a surveillance law expert.â¦
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In the digital age, there are few black-and-white rules. Rather, we live in an era of gray when it comes to technology and the law.  A federal case that was recently dismissed before it reached trial is the latest example.
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Antony Dovgal has pointed out the updated packages that have been released to the snaps.php.net website by Derick Rethans.   He also includes a list of things that will be included in this upcoming release like:   Namespaces Late static binding Accessing static members through $foo::myFunc() Improved OpenSSL extension PCRE 7.4   Grab your copy of these latest snapshots from the snaps website and get to testing them on your system to see what happens before the release.
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Travis Swicegood is teasing us with some output from a script in his latest blog post:   So my free time of late (what there is of it) has been spent on a project that's getting really close to v0.1 release. In other words, its first functional release. If you've ever run a test using the PEAR installer or know what a .phpt file looks like, you might be able to guess what I've been up.   Keep an eye on his blog for more information on his "secret project".
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The software monolith extends an intellectual property plan to all.   Also: U.S. opposes the WTO's online gambling plan & hellip;.  Microsoft will offer a long awaited preview of its search-engine technology & hellip;. and more.
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Macromedia promises to speed development of Internet applications with a new tool for its Flex platform. With Flex, enterprises can add interfaces to strategic applications, including visual
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Microsoft today released its third open-source offering called the FlexiWiki project on SourceForge.net. FlexWiki is a collaborative web-based authoring environment implemented on the Microsoft .
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Not surprisingly, the company advises against using vLite, or other tools that make changes to which components of the OS are installed. Such changes could make a system unstable or prevent future updates from installing properly, it says.
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Blog: Is version 3 of the GNU General Public License asking for too much?
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JavaScript development goes to the dogs What you can - and cannot do - with your software is often determined by the code owner's license. From not using open source APIs with closed-source digital rights management (DRM) to being barred from fiddling with Windows source code, we've seen it all.â¦Learn &amp; Contribute, Live &amp; Online - The Register Debates Green Computing
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A licensing agreement currently in the final stages of negotiation may provide consumers with the right to legally make copies of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc movies they've purchased. Such an arrangement would address a primary concern of DRM critics, who argue that consumers deserve the right to create backups without being accused of piracy.
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Tell us how you see the RIAA's attack on the mild reforms in the Fair Use Act. Is the organization protecting consumers? In GadgetLab.
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I'm back, with a very interesting topic too!  Joel Spolsky, ex-Microsoft Manager and software engineering guru has a new essay, How Microsoft Lost the API War that is creating quite a big storm in the blogging communitiy.  Joel posits that the priests in the holy Temple of Microsoft have lost their way, because it has split into two factions, and the wrong faction is winning. One faction worships on the alter of backward compatibility, while the other is led by fervent priests who are proselytizing to raise up the new gods of .NET and Longhorn. Joel suggests that the new gods will cause the destruction of the holy Temple because Microsoft's great victories were built on the altar of keeping customers happy with backward compatibility. Furthermore the old gods of the Windows API continue to grow more grotesque and cruel with the passing of time, driving former worshipers into the arms of the friendlier gods of World Wide Web.  This story sounds extremely plausible. I must admit that i fit the profile of the developer who used to develop on the Window's API, is familiar with COM and Win32 who now develops mostly using PHP and Python. However I continue to develop and maintain Windows apps that keep our customers happy, and we still plan to develop new Windows apps. Some points:  Temple of the Blind? Firstly, Microsoft is still a compelling place to work for to people who feel that they can make a difference. The Temple continues to attract talented people with a Unix background. For example we have the recent hiring of Ward Cunningham, author of the Wiki.  Microsoft is still able to keep talented people like Raymond Chen, and others like him who continue to look after the Windows API, and Longhorn apparently will still give high priority to backward compatibility. Open sourcerers like Miguel Icaza are sufficiently attracted to the .NET vision to stake their careers on Mono. Longhorn and .NET are compelling technologies, so even if Win32 is not so cute anymore, M'soft is providing something that remains very attractive.  What i do see M'soft doing wrong is that they aren't disseminating the .NET runtime fast enough. It remains an optional install in XP Service Pack 2 for example. Also their IE dev team appears to be hog-tied due to political reasons; nevertheless IE remains good enough, particularly when I can embed IE as an activeX control, something I cannot do with Mozilla (AFAIK) - Update: I'm wrong.  Temple of the Spider?  Secondly, people don't merely use a web browser. They run the web browser in the OS.  So let me ask you, if you are using DreamWeaver or HomeSite or Photoshop or vi or emacs or Gimp, how many of you are willing to give it up for a java applet (or whatever your favorite technology is) running in your web-browser? Precisely.  Temple of the Abandoned?  Third, Joel makes the claim that developers are not developing to the Windows API. Well he could be right. But I bet a lot of them are still calling Win32.  If you are using a framework or IDE like Delphi or wxWindows (or .NET or VB) then you certainly are insulated from the Windows API, but that doesn't mean that you're not calling the Windows API all the time. I don't see Borland dropping their Windows version of Delphi at any point in time.   In fact, the fact that many developers are using some form of framework is a compelling argument for Microsoft to enhance the .NET framework to attract developers who are using other frameworks.  Today, not that many students learn x86 assembler, but that doesn't mean that Intel lost the CPU wars. Just because fewer people are learning Win32 doesn't mean Microsoft has lost the API wars, if the frameworks run predominantly on Win32.  Temple of the Lost  Joel even warns you in the beginning that "because I'm talking about big trends, I need to exaggerate and generalize". But you still get sucked in because Joel Spolsky is a first-class writer, in the same order as Philip Greenspun or Eric Raymond. That makes him so persuasive and plausible. But this is not Indiana Jones and doomed temples, but Steve Jobs and reality distortion fields.  Other opinions:  Harry Fuecks (PHP is ASP's upgrade path),  Dennis Hamilton (M'soft is just covering all bases), Robert McLaws (Joel is wrong in 7 points), Oliver Travers (the web is not good enough), One Run-time to Rule them all....
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Ponders withdrawing support for non-stickered product
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Mike Potter points out that the code from the previous PHP/Flex e-seminar [zip] has been posted and is ready for download.   f you have any questions, or are new to Flex and PHP, you should download the Flex / PHP Test Drive from flex.org/php. That page also has a link to the PHP FlexCoders email list, where you can post questions about Flex and PHP. If you have any questions about the code in particular, you can post them to this blog entry, and I'll be happy to answer them.   Also included in his post are instructions on getting things compiled and working to be able to use the example code on your system.
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Two more distributors of allegedly -- if not obviously -- unlicensed content are facing civil prosecution by the Motion Picture Association of America this afternoon. YouTVpc and Peekvid are the subjects of civil suits in US District Court in Los Angeles, not only for hosting unlicensed content but linking to other sources for unlicensed content as well.
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"Copyright officials recommended on Thursday that U.S. law be amended so that companies that rely on copyright infringement to make a profit can be held liable for their actions."  Which of course applies only to US companies.  Kazaa should be free and clear.  ...  Should have supplied a link.  I'm a BAD blogger!