Linux in the news

Recommended Reading

OpenOffice: A legal Trojan horse--but for whom? (ZDNet)

Here's a lengthy ZDNet article about the agreement between Sun and Microsoft which protects StarOffice users - but not OpenOffice users - against Microsoft patent suits. "It's a message from Microsoft and Sun to companies like Red Hat and IBM that they will allow and, in Sun's case, even promote the benefits of open source for the open-source community. But, they're not willing to be IP benefactors to competitors like Red Hat and IBM that would just as soon destroy them with their own IP. If you doubt this, allow me to remind you of what Steve Ballmer said on the day that Microsoft and Sun went public with their watershed agreement: 'It's an agreement that comes from two companies that believe in intellectual property, that develop intellectual property and that are respecting intellectual property.'"

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What the open source industry stands for (ZDNet)

Con Zymaris expresses some observations about the open-source community. "Let's establish another truism while we are at it: all open source software is commercial. Open source licenses are not anti-commercial; they are anti lock-in. There is a big difference. Removing the possibility of vendor lock-in is good for end-users. Support this stance when you see it. Furthermore, there have been open source vendors selling solutions in this space for over 15 years. Open source is not suddenly going 'commercial'--it always has been."

Comments (5 posted)

Trade Shows and Conferences

Extreme Markup 2004 (O'Reilly)

O'Reilly covers the Extreme Markup Languages conference. "What we like most at Extreme is the opportunity for networking, controversy, and intellectual challenges. From Usdin's opening keynote, "Don't Pull Up the Ladder Behind You," to Sperberg-McQueen's "Runways, Product Differentiation, Snap-Together Joints, Airplane Glue, and Switches that Really Switch," the latest edition of his eagerly awaited annual wrap-up, the focus was once again on what makes markup work and how we can stretch its limits."

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The SCO Problem

SCO v. IBM hearing report (Groklaw)

Groklaw has an early report from today's hearing in the SCO v. IBM case. "Frank's impression is that [Judge] Kimball had made up his mind by the time it was over, and if he had to guess, he'd guess that he is going to rule against SCO on its motion and for IBM on its motion." It looks like we get to wait a week or so for a ruling.

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SCO Reaps What It Sows - A Supplemental Memo on Discovery Boomerangs (Groklaw)

Groklaw reports on a legal blunder by SCO. " Here is SCO's supporting memorandum. What it tells us is priceless. It seems that when SCO filed its Supplemental Memorandum, with the permission of Judge Wells, another in a long series of the paper blizzard they have been showering on the court, regarding their alleged need for all of AIX since the founding of the world, they shot themselves in the foot. SCO presents the "emergency" as dire indeed, brought on by IBM's litigation tactics, as they put it, and which -- unless the Court will help -- means IBM will win, they say, based on tactics and not merits."

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SCO asks IBM for 'road map' (Salt Lake Tribune)

The Salt Lake Tribune reports from the SCO v. IBM hearing. "However, in a hearing that began at 2 p.m. and continued more than an hour after the courthouse's 4:30 p.m. closing time, the judge repeatedly cut off SCO's attorneys to keep them narrowly on the issues at hand. 'Unix is yours and Linux everybody can get hold of it, right?' [Judge] Kimball asked at one point, and later, visibly frustrated, the judge pressed further: What is it you think you need?'"

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Dr. Randall Davis's 2nd Declaration - I Found No Identical or Similar Code (Groklaw)

Groklaw reports that MIT's Dr. Randall Davis has been unable to find any infringing code in Linux. "Dr. Davis looked at all the code Sandeep Gupta listed as allegedly infringing, and this world-famous expert concludes thus: "Despite an extensive review, I could find no source code in any of the IBM Code that incorporates any portion of the source code contained in the Unix System V Code or is in any other manner similar to such source code. Accordingly, the IBM Code cannot be said, in my opinion, to be a modification or a derivative work based on Unix System V Code.""

Comments (5 posted)

Companies

Mandrakesoft positions for the future (NewsForge)

NewsForge takes a look at Mandrakesoft. "Mandrakesoft, the Parisian Linux company known for its stylized penguin, is persistent. A new release of its flagship Linux operating system and some interesting financial news suggest the company, which filed for bankruptcy only last year, is back on track."

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Microsoft to take direct shots at Linux rivals (News.com)

News.com reports on a change of strategy in Microsoft's campaign against Linux. "Taylor's methods include funding analyst firm studies, launching a "Get the Facts" advertising campaign and discouraging Microsoft executives from making any more inflammatory comments that open-source software is a "cancer" or "un-American." Taylor meets with customers worldwide and has begun expanding the Microsoft attack to Europe. Taylor said he expects that targeting Linux sellers such as Red Hat and Novell will be persuasive to software customers."

Comments (36 posted)

Sun Close to a Linux Purchase (InternetNews.com)

InternetNews.com speculates that Sun is about to announce a Linux acquisition. "Sources close to the discussions said they expected that company to be embedded Linux player MontaVista, but cautioned that the deal wasn't finalized and talks could still break down."

Comments (10 posted)

Business

Linux small business servers (NewsForge)

NewsForge takes a look at two Linux based server products. "At least two companies, ClarkConnect and Cybernet, directly challenge the notion that Microsoft has a lock on the small and medium business server market."

Comments (3 posted)

WINE will set you free, hardware vendors told (The Age)

The Age covers WINE advocates within Australia's Open Source Industry Association. "OSIA spokesman Steven D'Aprano said if WINE was nurtured then Linux would be able to run most Windows applications and could deliver higher margins and more control to the PC vendors." (Thanks to Con Zymaris)

Comments (12 posted)

Linux Adoption

Linux can give kids an edge (NewsForge)

Here's a NewsForge article about teaching kids Linux skills. "A standard Linux CD set gives a young person just about every imaginable computing tool. While your youngsters may not need to be a super techno whiz when it comes to computers, giving them a view of the multi-user networked world at a young age puts them that much farther ahead of kids that were brought up on, shall we say, less capable platforms."

Comments (13 posted)

Linux at Work

Linux in Government: Navy Sonar Opens New Opportunities for Linux Clusters and IBM G5 servers (Linux Journal)

Yellow Dog Linux powers naval sonar systems, from Linux Journal. "Lockheed Martin delivered a High Performance Computing (HPC) solution to the US Navy last year to run sonar systems in nuclear submarines. The solutions involved Apple Xserve systems using G4 processors and a Red Hat Linux-based operating system. While few people noticed the announcements made by Terra Soft, makers of Yellow Dog Linux, the event triggered ripples in the industry."

Comments (9 posted)

Interviews

Why The Open-Source Model Can Work In India (Information Week)

Information Week talks with professor Deepak Phatak about free software in India. "The fact that the open-source community offers users a direct dialogue with the developers of a particular application provides particular appeal in India. This direct connection is something that's been lacking for Indian businesses, many of which must resolve software problems through system integrators rather than the vendors themselves, Phatak says."

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Interview with Jaanus Kase from Skype (KDE.News)

KDE.News interviews Jaanus Kase, a member of the Skype internet telephony project's project management team. "Today we know have just over 10.5 million registered users on Skype as we also track this information. The concurrent online users figure, which you can see in the Skype client, is approaching half a million. These are very significant numbers and they are growing all the time."

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Man in the middle: Jack Messman talks to vnunet.com (vnunet)

Vnunet interviews Jack Messman, Novell CEO, at Novell BrainShare Europe in Barcelona. "Ximian taught us some new ways of thinking about software development. I guess the biggest opportunity is to change our culture to be more customer-focused and open source-oriented. Some old habits continue and we're slowly eliminating those. Novell has always been an engineering-driven organisation that created great products, some of which nobody wanted or were created ahead of the marketplace."

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Resources

A Linux graphics project that could be a good opportunity for the right developer(s) (NewsForge)

Robin "roblimo" Miller is looking for better video screen-capture software, on NewsForge. "So far the two most likely Linux video screen capture programs I've found are vnc2swf and Xvidcap. The problem with vnc2swf is that it produces only .swf files without sound, so to make narrated videos in MPEG format requires a format conversion step, possibly using transcode, a utility neither I nor several friends have managed to get working correctly. But if we can get transcode working correctly, once we convert our swf videos to MPEG we should theoretically be able to add a soundtrack recorded before we started making our screen capture video or one recorded at the same time -- or record and add a new one after the fact. This would work, but it would lengthen production time considerably."

Comments (2 posted)

Using Extensions in Firefox (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet plays with Firefox extensions. "If you are a web application developer, then the Web Developer extension is a godsend. Web Developer adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools such as converting POSTs to GETs, hiding and disabling images, outlining block-level elements, disabling styles, and so on."

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Formatting documents with OpenOffice.org Writer macros (NewsForge)

Micha Kosmulski discusses OpenOffice.org Writer macros in a NewsForge article. "This article presents some macro "building blocks" you can use to modify a document's formatting or to generate well-formatted documents from plain text files."

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Open Source and Free Documentation Licenses, Part 1: The GNU FDL (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet begins a series on licensing for software and documentation. "The licenses discussed in this series of articles--the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), the Open Publication License, and the Open Gaming License--are directed at documents in particular. They reflect a fundamental split in licensing philosophies associated with different groups of open source licenses. The GNU Free Documentation License, described in this article, applies to documents the same requirements of reciprocity applied by the GNU General Public License to software."

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Open Source Wireless Tools Emerge (IBM developerWorks)

IBM developerWorks covers some tools for wireless computing. "Though open source projects are beginning to bloom, wireless tools and apps are emerging more slowly than open source applications in other significant networking and telephony categories. At present, the mobile development world is largely controlled by major handset manufacturers, companies that generally make money by licensing copies of their own operating systems. And wireless LANs, for their part, have not become critical enough to attract the interest of the corporate sponsors who can give large open source projects a kick start."

Comments (1 posted)

Reviews

Beowulf Cluster Computing with Linux, Second Edition (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal reviews the book Beowulf Cluster Computing with Linux. "This book is valuable for three audiences: management, system administrators and developers. For management, it provides enough information to become familiar with the concept of a Beowulf cluster and determine whether the effort and cost of a cluster is worthwhile. It provides you with enough information to evaluate vendor proposals, and it should provide enough information to assist in making the build/buy/lease decision."

Comments (1 posted)

Hot LyX (NewsForge)

NewsForge reviews LyX. "LyX's primary benefit is that it takes the work of typesetting completely out of your hands. Since I spend a lot of time writing without knowing what the target format will be, I found LyX to be exactly the right tool at the right time for me. I find that even after I've written something in one format I frequently have to provide the same stuff in other formats, and LyX handles that beautifully."

Comments (5 posted)

Miscellaneous

Linux blunder Down Under could land MPAA in court (ZDNet)

ZDNet Australia covers an MPAA screwup. "Linux Australia president Pia Smith told Builder AU the MPAA had issued Linux Australia with a notice of claimed infringement demanding the group cease providing access to two copyrighted movies -- one called 'Grind' and the other 'Twisted' -- and ordering it to 'take appropriate action against the account holder'. However, the files in question had nothing to do with those movies. The file entitled Twisted is a download of the popular framework written in Python and Grind refers to a download of Valgrind, a tool for developers to locate memory management." Linux Australia looks set to have some fun with this one.

Comments (16 posted)

Mozilla Press Roundup (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine has put together a press roundup with numerous article links. "Lots of press on one of the biggest Firefox releases to date, starting with a profile of Ben Goodger, in the New Zealand Herald. News.com had 4 different articles covering Mozilla news, with the first 3: "Mozilla burns to prove Firefox worthy"," Firefox drawing fans away from Microsoft IE", and "Firefox browser to hit 1.0 milestone", covering Firefox's release and marketshare, and the final one Latest Mozilla releases fix 10 security flaws, covering the security holes that were fixed in the latest release cycle."

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The Nazgul, A Derivative Work of the Intellectual Property of Edgar Allan Poe, by Alanyst (Groklaw)

Groklaw presents a parody of Edgar Allan Poe's the Raven.

Comments (1 posted)

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