Gripe Line: Ed Foster kicks off his latest installment with a warning: this product contains DRM. “Shouldn’t a vendor be required to inform customers that a product they’re about to buy contains technology designed to disable it?” he asks. Thing is, the only U.S. laws relating to DRM are to prevent tampering with it. So Foster takes up the cause: “Instead of vendors and the politicians who serve them telling us not to touch the DRM, we need to send them a warning of our own — those companies that use DRM do so at their peril.” Notes from the field: The fat lady may not be singing just yet, but Robert X. Cringely sure is belting out the saga of SCO vs. The World. Cringe’s lil’ diddy: SCO long, it’s been bad to know ya. The latest in this open source wrinkle comes by way of reports indicating that the trial to determine damages — as in what SCO has to pay Novell — will come in January. “With any luck, the SCO farce will be just a bad memory by mid February.” Columnist’s corner: Even though it seemed that IT’s indirect sales was withering for a while there in lieu of e-commerce, Ephraim Schwartz espouses that the channel is making a comeback. “There is an obvious reversal of fortune,” he writes, referring to Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and SAP, all announcing channel-related moves. One industry analyst says that everyone is waking up to the enormous opportunity. “At the same time there is an interesting change taking place among channel partners,” Schwartz adds. Ultimately, even while products get simpler, the buying experience gets more complex. Careers: Often when applying for a job prospective employers essentially demand salary history. But that doesn’t mean you, as an applicant, have to provide it. Instead, professional headhunter Nick Corcodilos advises, Just say no to the salary question. Revealing your salary with intent to then negotiate, in fact, is akin to showing your poker cards, then playing out the round. “The game is already over because the other players have decided how much they’re going to bet, based on your hand.” You have more negotiating power when the company doesn’t know salary history. Databases