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From guterman@mediaunspun.imakenews.net  Tue Aug 13 14:27:29 2002

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US Airways scored a $500 million bankruptcy court bailout.
American Airlines announced a re-org. United Airlines' parent
company's stock sank on speculation that UAL is next in line for
Chapter 11. It's a wonder none of this happened last September,
but it's not much consolation to airline employees,
shareholders, and customers that it's happening now.
The Wall Street Journal had the most extensive coverage of
American's plan as of Unspun's deadline. The airline will lay
off 7,000 workers, ground some jets, cut back on flight
amenities such as food, and retool its hub operations to make
for longer layovers. "In the past, airlines were loath to have
longer connection times because flights were listed in travel
agents' computers by elapsed time," said the Journal. "Now,
online booking tools and search engines most often list flights
by price, not time." In this age of penny-pinching, American's
worried about low-cost carriers, not the big guys like, um, US
Speaking of United, it's hard to come up with a verb for its
parent company's stock that doesn't invoke an air disaster.
Let's just say it didn't go up yesterday. The $3.80 share price
may be the least of UAL's worries while it waits for an
increasingly unlikely $1.8 billion loan from the Air
Transportation Stabilization Board. "The ATSB expects an
applicant's workers, suppliers and creditors to make concessions
to help the airline repay the loans and thus protect U.S.
taxpayers' interests," said the L.A. Times. Sounds nice for
uninvolved taxpayers but not so good to some of United's unions,
which are balking at a wage cut. Workers did enough by deferring
$498 million in retroactive pay this year, said the
36,000-member machinists' union. Analysts moaned in anti-labor
The basic problem here is too many empty airplane seats, and
non-U.S. outlets didn't have a lot of sympathy. "The U.S.
government has bailed out carriers with insurance subsidies and
federal loan guarantees" while "European authorities have acted
more wisely," letting Swissair and Sabena "go to the wall," said
the Financial Times. Canadian pundits agreed that America should
let a couple of airlines wilt, since the Canadian airline
industry benefited from the demise of Canadian Airlines and
Canada 3000. Paging Charles Darwin to the white courtesy
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The LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, which opened yesterday in
San Francisco, will host two of the strangest bedfellows ever to
lie down with a stuffed penguin: Microsoft and Sun. These are
companies that once referred to Linux as a "bathtub of code"
(Sun) and "a cancer" (Microsoft), according to Sun's hometown
Both companies are taking Linux seriously despite the absolute
numbers. By January 2, 2001, Microsoft had made as much on
server software as all Linux vendors put together would reap in
Honors for the best attention-grabber on Microsoft's presence at
the show go to Brier Dudley, who opened his piece for the
Seattle Times this way: "Microsoft executive Peter Houston
wasn't too worried about the reception he'd get at LinuxWorld
... until he heard about the pie cannon."
Wired informed us that the section of LinuxWorld where Microsoft
will be holding the fort is dubbed the Rookery -- "a place where
you can watch companies hatch and grow right before your eyes,"
deadpanned reporter Michelle Delio, quoting Microsoft's Houston:
"Hatching isn't exactly on the agenda, but I certainly hope to
Turning to Sun, Unspun notes that five years ago a joke press
release circulated on the Net claiming that Linux creator Linus
Torvalds, then still living in Finland, was moving to Silicon
Valley to work for Sun. The joke was that Sun had decided to
scrap its Solaris operating system and instead concentrate on a
version of Linux, to be called "Solinux." How time does make
April fools of us all: Linus Torvalds is now thriving in Silicon
Valley (at Transmeta), and yesterday Sun Microsystems
demonstrated Sun Linux 5.0. and introduced its first
The Merc ran a comprehensive wrap of Sun's evolving attitude
toward the upstart operating system. Sun has little choice but
to embrace Linux, wrote reporter Therese Poletti, because some
of its traditional Wall Street customers were deserting it.
"Several investment banks have tossed out whole sections of Sun
servers and replaced them with Intel-based servers running
Linux," Poletti reported. And you thought Microsoft hated Linux?
Microsoft changes its tune toward Linux (Seattle Times)
Sun Microsystems flexes Linux to jab at Microsoft (Seattle
Microsoft and Free Software at the Same Show? It's True
Linux begins its descent into the enterprise
Ex-CEO Pleads Not Guilty to ImClone Fraud
Security flaw found in Microsoft Web browser (Reuters)
Gates Foundation Walks Fine Line As It Increases Its Cable
Damn the Constitution: Europe must take back the Web
Japanese Drop Out of New ID System (Newsday, AP)