2004 Linux Timeline: August [LWN.net]

What it boils down to is that Linux has patent risks; but they can and will become conventional insured risks, just an everyday cost of doing business.

-- OSRM will help you out.

GNU bash 3.0 is released.

Open Source Risk Management states that Linux violates 283 patents, though none of them have been validated in court (press release).

Munich's Linux conversion is put on hold as a result of patent concerns; the holdup does not last for long.

AJ Towns, the Debian release manager quits; his replacement proposes a September 15 (2004!) release (announcement).

When people say SCO is just a litigation company, it really bugs me.

-- Darl McBride

IBM contributes its Cloudscape database to the Apache Software Foundation (announcement).

IBM pledges not to initiate patent attacks against Linux, or at least against the kernel.

Computer Associates releases Ingres as free software (press release).

The 2.4.27 kernel is released (announcement).

Traditional software is like witchcraft. In history, witchcraft just died out. The same will happen in software. When problems get serious enough, you can't have one person or one company guarding their secrets. You have to have everybody share in knowledge.

-- Linus Torvalds

Circuit City begins deploying Linux-based point-of-sale systems in over 600 stores (press release).

The 2.6.8 kernel is released, followed quickly by 2.6.8.1 after a fatal bug turns up (announcement).

Lindows gives up on its IPO (press release).

SCO finally makes peace with BayStar clearing the way for BayStar to sell its holdings.

KDE 3.3 is released (announcement).

An appeals court rules in favor of Grokster, saying it is not liable for copyright infringements by users of its service.

Summary: the kernel developers all like how this is working. No stable internal-kernel API, never going to happen, get used to it (syscalls won't break). Drivers outside of the tree are on their own (quote: "you're screwed") (conclusion: get into the kernel, quick before it runs crazily away in a big honking yellow bus of ever-accelerating development.)

-- Danny O'Brien

The Philips Webcam driver is removed from the 2.6 kernel on its author's request (FAQ).

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 is released (announcement).

Sendmail releases a SenderID test implementation, but concerns about Microsoft's patents overshadow the release (coverage).

Debian considers releasing sarge with a 2.4 kernel (DWN).

<== July

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September ==>

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