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Thursday, March 11 2010 @ 01:41 PM PST

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The Alexandria Project, Chap. 8 – Face Off with Fearless Fosdick

Alexandria Project (an eNovel)

Our story so far:  Now under surveillance, Frank begins to plan his escape.  Read the first chapters here, and you can also follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter.

To Frank’s disgust, it was love at first sight for Lilly when Carl Cummings arrived to collect Frank’s passport.  But Frank’s distaste turned to glee when he realized that the CIA agent hated dogs.  Frank stepped back to better appreciate Carl’s futile efforts to fend off the obese corgi’s surprisingly energetic advances.

Predictably, Mrs. Foomjoy  popped just then like a jack-in-the-box out of her door across the hall.  Frank thought she looked magnificent in her full regalia of housedress, fuzzy slippers and curlers, as she fiercely admonished Cummings for his lack of appreciation for canine perfection.  With an effort, she pushed past him and snatched Lily up, lighting into the startled Cummings with a vengeance all the while.  And then, as suddenly as she had appeared, Frank’s apparition of a neighbor disappeared with Lilly behind her energetically slammed door.

The agent turned to Frank, a helpless look on his face.  But Frank simply smiled and tucked his passport in the agent’s pocket.  “Sorry for my bad manners, Carl.  Next time I’ll introduce you.”   He closed the door gently in the bewildered agent’s face.

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Elliott Associates and Novell: All About a Game of Cat and Mouse

General News

Have you discovered the Alexandria Project?

By now you've probably read endless takes on the news that Elliott Associates, one of the oldest hedge funds, with over US $16 billion under management, has made an unsolicited offer for Novell.  Almost all of these articles have focused on whether Elliott means business, what they'll do to Novell if they are successful, and whether another (and perhaps ultimately successful) bidder will enter the scene. 

I haven't seen any article yet, though,  that describes in detail how the high stakes game of tender offers is played, and how the usual process maps (and doesn't) to a high tech company like Novell.  So I thought I'd provide an overview for those that haven't had occasion to follow a tender offer in the past, and also my thoughts on what may happen over the next several months in this particular game of cat and mouse.

So here goes.

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The Alexandria Project Chap. 7: What a Difference a Day (and a Decision Tree) Makes

Alexandria Project (an eNovel)

Our story so far:  At the end of an “interview” with a CIA agent, Frank realizes he may have become the prime suspect in the investigation of the ongoing hacking of Library of Congress.  Now what?  Read the first chapters here, and you can also follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter.

Decision Tree - public domain -  Thanks to PolyextremophileFrank struggled to organize his thoughts as he left the fiasco of an “interview” he’d just endured at the hands of CIA agent Carl Cummings.  Time to be logical, he thought, not emotional.  If he didn’t start getting a hold of himself, at this rate he’d find himself in jail. 

So what should be at the top of the decision tree, he asked as he walked back to his cubicle.  Well, the first gate appeared to be whether Cummings really thought Frank was the culprit.  If no, then Frank could relax, but if yes, then Frank could be in real trouble.  Frank weighed the possibility that Carl was just jerking everyone around, to feel self-important.  Negative, Frank decided.  Everyone else thought the disappearing documents were part of a test, not a real exploit, and Carl would have wanted to keep it that way. 

So that means I’m in trouble, Frank told himself.  See?  I'm making progress already.

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The Alexandria Project, Chap. 6: The Perils of Profiles

Alexandria Project (an eNovel)

Our story so far: Our hero, Frank Adversego is trying to catch a hacker threatening the Library of Congress, whose motives remain obscure. But the pursuer is about to become the pursued. Read the first chapter here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter.

While Frank was enjoying himself spear phishing venture capitalists, back at the Library of Congress files were flashing out of virtual view like fireflies on a summer’s eve. One by one, documents important and banal, short and long, drifted silently off in the digital darkness to points unknown, leaving only Alexandria Project contribution screen code behind.

Thus it was that at 10 on Friday morning, Frank’s office phone buzzed, and he heard the receptionist say, “Your turn, Frank. Conference room two.”

Frank logged off his computer and stood up with a thoughtful look on his face. Just enough time for a little self-coaching as he walked down the hallway. Stay cool, he thought. Be calm. You don’t have anything to worry about, so just tell the news.

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A Big Victory for F/OSS: Jacobsen v. Katzer is Settled

Intellectual property Rights

Have you discovered the Alexandria Project?

A long running case of great significance to the legal underpinnings of free and open source/open source software (F/OSS) has just settled on terms favorable to the F/OSS developer.  The settlement follows a recent ruling by a U.S. Federal District Court judge that affirmed several key rights of F/OSS developers under existing law.

That case is Jacobsen v. Katzer, and the settlement documents were filed in court just after 9:00 AM this morning.  Links to each of them can be found later in this blog entry.  The brief background of the case, the legal issues at stake, and the settlement details are as follows.

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The Alexandria Project, Chap. 5: So how do ya like them iBalls?

Alexandria Project (an eNovel)

Our story so far:  Our hero, Frank Adversego now understands where the name "Alexandria Project" comes from, but hasn't been able to figure out much else yet about the mysterious cracker whose exploit threatens the Library of Congress.  Read the first chapters here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter.

Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic - Thanks to Chris BuechelerFrank fidgeted by the cheese and crackers, looking helplessly for his daughter Marla in the crowd.  He hated social events with a passion, and especially having to speak to people he didn’t know.  He was sure that every phrase that came out of his mouth came across as a non sequitur. 

But fair was fair.  Marla had kept him company at the Library of Congress holiday party the weekend before, and this Wednesday it was his turn.  Marla was finishing up an internship with a local high tech company, and at the last minute, her date had come down with the flu. 

“Please, Dad,” she’d said over the phone, “There’s this guy at work that’s been hitting on me all week.  It’ll do you good to get out of your crummy apartment, and how can you turn down a request to protect your little girl?”

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Please Welcome MeeGo

Wireless

Have you discovered The Alexandria Project?

I don't usually post twice a day, but today was opening day in Barcelona of the Mobile World Congress, the biggest mobile show of the year, and the announcements were popping thick and fast.  One of those announcements unveiled a new mobile platform called MeeGo - a new open source contender in the race to power the broad array of devices that are rapidly proliferating in the mobile marketplace.  And, I'm happy to say, MeeGo will be hosted by The Linux Foundation. 

We've been working for some time on this,  and we're very pleased that the project has now gone public. The LF press release can be found here, and the Intel version of the joint Intel-Nokia release is here.  As usual, both are also pasted in below for archival  purposes.  I think you'd also find LF Executive Director Jim Zemlin's blog entry worth a read, and I'll quote from it below.

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Alexandria Project Chap. 4: Beware of Greeks bearing Trapdoors

Alexandria Project (an eNovel)

Our story so far:  Security expert Frank Adversego comes under suspicion when the Library of Congress is hacked by a mysterious cracker with motives unknown and a taste for the bizarre; to protect himself, Frank had better get to the bottom of things.  Read the first chapters here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter.

Graham Manning - GNU Free Documentation License.  Thanks, GrahamBack in his cube again, Frank powered up his computer and reflected on what he’d just learned, which was both not much and a lot.   Not much, in that he still had no idea who was behind the attack, or what he was trying to accomplish.  But a lot because the only people targeted besides himself were George and Rick, and because only the files in one directory had been affected.  That meant that what had hit the Library of Congress was no virus unleashed against Web sites generally, bent on spreading random mayhem.  Instead, it was obviously an attack targeted just at the LOC.  And once it had made its way through the LOC firewall, the attack had  been manually controlled rather than automated. 

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Let your inner Video Director loose: "We're Linux" Video Contest 2010

General News

As you may recall, the Linux Foundation last year ran a video contest that drew a lot of entries, many of which were not only entertaining, but had surprisingly high production values as well.  Last year's invitation was to use the popular "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ad series as an inspiration, and you can see the winning videos here (all of last year's entries can be found here).

Well, it's that time again, and LF has just annnounced this year's contest theme, rules and deadline.  The announcement is here, and also pasted in at the end of this blog entry.  This year, the invitation is to submit what a Super Bowl ad for Linux might be like, if there was ever to be such a thing.

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CodePlex Foundation Picks Paula Hunter as Executive Director

Open Source/Open Standards

Have you discovered The Alexandria Project?

UnitedLinux logoAs you may recall, the CodePlex Foundation indicated in January that it expected to name a permanent Executive Director within a few weeks' time.  That has now happened, and in the "small world" department, the new ED happens to be Paula Hunter - someone I've known for years, and worked with several times in the past.  The full press release is below.  Paula is someone I like and respect a lot, and a great choice for CodePlex.

As you'll see from the announcement, one of Paula's prior jobs was as the Executive Director of UnitedLinux.  UL was a client of mine, and that's where I first met Paula.  And if you've never heard the saga of UL, it's a rather fascinating story.