Hokkaido (Northern Japanese island) has been hit by the strongest earthquake worldwide since 2001, at 4:50 this morning. At least 243 people were injured, 16,000 homes were left backed out, and 41,000 people were evacuated. Fishing boats also capsized, a train derailled, a fire started in an industrial plant, etc... The city of Kushiro was hit by a 1 meter tsunami.

I could even feel it in Tokyo!

This earthquake was centered in Pacific Ocean, 100 kilometers east of Hokkaido's eastern coast and 800 kilometers north-northeast of Tokyo.
Its magnitude was 6 on Japan Scale (out of 7) and 8.0 on opened Richter's scale.

It was followed by some aftershocks, a few hours later. One of them was 6 on Japan Scale (7 on Richter's). These aftershocks could go on for up to 10 days.

Really a good time to leave Japan, isn't it?

All these worlds are yours - except Europa. Attempt no landing there.
-- Arthur C. Clarke (2010 - Odyssey Two)

Galileo, launched in 1989, passed away by hitting the dense atmosphere of Jupiter three days ago, on September 21.

The decision has been made quite a long time ago, to prevent any possible collision with Europa, which salted water could hide some form of life.

For more information, read the details of Galileo's last day, and watch the End of Mission webcast (very interesting!), from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Galileo page.

According to this article, a Japanese scientist thinks that a big earthquake (magnitude of 7 or more) is likely to hit Tokyo today or tomorrow.

The last big one in Tokyo made 120,000 casualties in 1923. Even if building are surely stronger than 80 years ago, they would probably not resist a magnitude 8 earthquake.

This article has a sentence that I don't like very much: Officials and scientists agree that Tokyo is overdue for a huge earthquake.

The good news is that I go to Singapore tomorrow morning, for one week ;-)

Just in case you feel not ready, you better should read this survival guide and this one... This cannot hurt, at least (some kind of Pascal's Wager!).

I already discussed about SCO claims about Linux, but many events came since then, especially since the beginning of this week.

For instance, on Monday, RedHat filled a lawsuit against SCO.

This could be a non-event, as RedHat looks much smaller than SCO, and the SCO-IBM battle seems more important, but I was surprised to learn that SCO market capitalization is no more than 120 millions USD, ten times less than Redhat (and 1,000 times less than IBM). This probably means that RedHat has the power to fight.

Yesterday, SCO announced the Linux runtime licence prices. Are they smoking again? I have a personal server at home and I should pay 700 USD (1,400 after Oct 15th), just because they ask me to do so?

Imagine that someday this story happens in litterature domain: An SCO-like publisher would attack readers for buying a copy of an hidden book, and ask them a $10 licence to read.

But let's come back to SCO adventures... Then answered yesterday to RedHat with this letter:

Matthew J. Szulik
CEO
RED HAT, INC.
1801 Varsity Drive
Raleigh, NC 27606

Dear Matthew,

Attached is the letter I discussed with you during our July 31, 2003 telephone conversation. Instead of actually sending the letter, I thought it was best to telephone you and speak in person to see if we could resolve the issues between our companies short of litigation. We left the conversation with a preliminary agreement to meet and continue our discussions further.

To my surprise, I just discovered that your company filed legal action against The SCO Group earlier today. You, of course, mentioned nothing of this during our telephone conversation. I am disappointed that you were not more forthcoming about your intentions. I am also disappointed that you have chosen litigation rather than good faith discussions with SCO about the problems inherent in Linux.

Of course, we will prepare our legal response as required by your complaint. Be advised that our response will likely include counterclaims for copyright infringement and conspiracy.

I must say that your decision to file legal action does not seem conducive to the long-term survivability of Linux.

Yours truly

Darl C. McBride
President & CEO

Of course you noticed the last sentence. Ooops! I am really afraid!

Stupidity is the great constant in this universe.

You maybe don't know Phoolan Devi, the Bandit Queen, even if she was really famous in her country, India. Here are a few words about her life:

Born in 1963, in a poor low-caste family, she was married at 11 to a man who was 3 times her age. After being abandoned by him, she was raped on a number of occasions, and eventually was kidnapped by bandits.

At the age of 20, she became quickly a legend when she became the "Bandit Queen", and the leader of a group of dacoits (robbers) in north and central India. On Feb 14th, 1981, as she was 18 years old, she attacked the Behmai village, and killed 22 people with the help of her band; One of the victims previously raped her and killed her own lover.

She became the number one police target, but, helped by the population, she always avoided to be captured.

She eventually managed a deal with the government, and, before a crowd of 10,000, she surrendered in 1983 (left picture) to the authorities. She spent the next 11 years in prison without any trial, three more than she negociated.

After being released, she became Member of Parliament in 1994, and tried to fight for the oppressed people. She was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997!

She was shot dead by three men on Wednesday, 25th July 2001, outside her residence in New Delhi... She was 37.

Here are some links:

BBC News article and biography
goodbyemag.com biography
Philip's Phoolan page (good starting point)
Articles about events following her death
Biography and interview (1996). Read only this one if you are lazy!

According to netcraft , some corporates switch from Linux to Windows Server 2003. Colt.com is one of them, and made this clever move in May. I will make no comment about the uptimes shown on the above graph...

...

I changed my mind, I will make one: Haa-Haa-Hoo-Hii-Hiiii... One reboot a day... Huummphrrrrr....

LOL!

Do you remember the famous Munich decision to switch 14,000 desktops from Windows to Linux, on May 28?

USA Today reported two days ago in this article what Microsoft tried to prevent this switch to the Open-Source OS. This deal was so important for M$ that were really able to give a lot! Here are some examples:

• They authorized Munich to have a new upgrade only after 6 years, instead of the usual 3 years contracts.
• They offered to install only Microsoft Word on some PCs, instead of their usual forced bundling of all Office applications.
• They were going to offer the City millions of dollars for training and support.
• Steve Balmer himself went to meet the mayor end of February, in order to explain why Microsoft had the best solution, and to make some special offers.
• They made a final offer of $21.7 million (from the original $36.6 million proposal).
• And much more!

But the City, mostly for strategic reasons, eventually decided to go for the more expensive Linux solution ($35.7 million against Microsoft's $21.7).

One interesting part is this quote from Christine Strobl (Munich council member): "And the more Microsoft discounted, the more it underscored the notion that as a sole supplier, Microsoft could - and has been - naming its own price".
I know very well some Corporates which did not get that point at all, and prefer to go the opposite way, wrongly thinking that an unique supplier means cheaper prices ;-)

Linus Torvalds announced today in an email to the Linux Kernel Mailing List that the test1 version of the 2.6.0 kernel is ready for testing!

He also asked people, especially the Linux vendors, to start testing it, to make the release of 2.6.0 quicker than the last one - "2.4.0 took about seven months from the pre1 to the final release" - and to have everybody ready when the 2.6.0 comes out.
You can download the test1 version on the kernel.org site. You will also find a small readme file there ;-)

Japan Government is going to switch its 800,000 employees payroll system to a Linux system, designed by Fujitsu Ltd, IBM Japan Ltd, and Oki Electric Industry Co.
The design contract is worth 188 million yens, and the development itself could cost between 2 and 3 billion yens. The new system is supposed to halve the operating costs of the network.

This weblog section will be reserved to the Linux switchs around the world.
As I started it only today, let's start with a June 6th The Register article, which explains the recent Linux moves in Europe.