News from PANUG  - July 23, 2001
http://www.panug.org

SIRCAM VIRUS
by Bruce D. Yatvin, Master CNI, Master CNE
Yatvin Computer Consultants

The Sircam virus is starting to spread and it has hit
some machines at OHSU.  It has an interesting way of sending
email out too.  If you are interested here are a couple of
links:

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/sircam.shtml

http://vil.nai.com/vil/virusSummary.asp?virus_k=99141


MICROSOFT-ENGLISH DICTIONARY
Thanks to Thomas Gibson for pointing out the
Microsoft-English Dictionary. You can access it at:

http://www.infowarrior.org/articles/2001-04.html


RESPONSE TO PANUG SURVEY 1
by Taij J. Devon
PANUG member

The bind sysadmins are caught in is between unreasonable and
oppressive licensing for Microsoft products and lack of critical
applications for Linux like office suites, AutoCAD, and Photoshop.
Clearly, the "stiffles innovation" stuff from Microsoft is pure
unadulterate FUD; Microsoft themselves use BSD code (their TCP/IP
code, for example) and just don't like the GPL becausethey can't
resell it as proprietary.

Microsoft's stupendous clout with management is another problem.
They've done a very good job of marketing to executives. Our
MIS department has already been flatly over-ruled when management
wanted to install Windows 2000 SQL Server that was more expensive
and less compatable than the alternatives we proposed.

All this aside, Linux seems to be making progress in the server
market, if not the desktop.


RESPONSE TO PANUG SURVEY 2
by Roberta Flinn

My opinion of Microsoft has changed. I will not put XP or office
XP on any of my computers. I am not renewing my MCSE. I was really
offended by the letters that the BSA and Microsoft sent out.

I try hard to make sure I use only licensed copies of any software
but I don't have time to go back through 3-5 years of receipts and
find copies of software purchases. If they pursue the matter any
further I will fdisk all my computers and start over with Linux.
I understand Sun Microsystems has a killer Linux office suite for
free. I am thinking of moving our whole operation to Linux.


FUTURE PANUG MEETING TOPICS

Alan Spaeth has agreed to do presentations at monthly meetings that
keep us up-to-date on Microsoft-related issues such as licensing,
OS obsolescence, and support. In particular, he'll keep an eye on
the hardware-based licensing of XP that will do away with disk
cloning and make third-party software distribution - such as
ZENworks - far more difficult.

Open Source Software (OSS) is not limited to Linux. Many significant
OSS packages are multi-platform and run on Windows as well as
Linux/Unix. Gregg Berkholtz and Ed Sawicki will demonstrate some of
these starting next month.