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LWN.net Weekly Edition for December 23, 2004Looking back at 2004LWN, like many publications, is not immune to the temptation to make predictions as the new year comes. We also like to look back at the end of the year to see how well our crystal ball actually worked. Predictions offer a clue to how the world appeared to us one year ago, and can thus help us to understand how our view has changed.Besides, there's usually at least one hilarious error which is good for a smile. So, without further ado, let's look back at LWN's 2004 predictions. Enterprise Linux. We concluded that the "enterprise Linux" business would do well in 2004 - not a particularly difficult prediction to make. Red Hat's business has indeed done well, and SUSE/Novell is coming along too. The future still looks bright for the enterprise Linux field. We also predicted a growing backlash against enterprise Linux and their supporting business models, and the possible emergence of free alternatives. Certainly, resentment toward the enterprise distributors continues to exist in some parts of our community, and some of those people are doing something about it. But many of the projects which aim to undercut the enterprise Linux business model - CaOS, Whitebox Linux, UserLinux, etc. - appear to have made little progress over the last year. Perhaps the largest surprise in this area is the emergence of Ubuntu Linux, which is an attempt to provide the best of a 100% free Linux distribution with longer-term support options. Ubuntu has succeeded in making a big initial splash; whether that will turn into a successful business remains to be seen. Desktop Linux. From our viewpoint, it looked as if the KDE/GNOME flame wars of the past could return, driven by the distributors' need to minimize their support costs and choose one desktop or the other. Certainly that commercial pressure continues to exist, as witnessed by Ubuntu's choice to offer very much a GNOME-oriented distribution. But the desktop development projects have little interest in fighting with each other, and the flame wars show no real sign of returning. What we are seeing instead is increased cooperation over bits of infrastructure which are useful to both projects. And when a distribution emphasizes one desktop over the other, the community tends to fill in the gap. See, for example, the Gnoppix and Kubuntu efforts. One year ago, we failed to fully appreciate the maturity of the desktop development projects. They are far too busy creating great software to be bothered with fighting each other. We also made the obvious prediction that desktop Linux would make great progress and amaze us. We failed to see some of the specifics, however, especially the mainstream attention attracted by the Firefox browser. Firefox has arguably become the best browser available on any platform and the world is beginning to notice. The SCO case. We figured that SCO might find a "backbone-challenged" Linux user who would choose "licensing" over a court fight; SCO found such a user in the form of EV1Servers.net. The EV1 agreement did not help SCO much, however, in terms of public relations, stock price, or cash flow. Neither did SCO's other suits, launched against DaimlerChrysler and AutoZone. The DaimlerChrysler case appears to have died outright, and the AutoZone suit (which has little to do with Linux) looks weak at best. We predicted that "by the end of 2004, the SCO cases will probably still be alive in some form, but the end will be in sight." That much seems about right. If IBM's summary judgment motions and Novell's copyright ownership attacks do not do the job, SCO's cash situation may well bring the whole show to a quick end. The GPL. We suggested that the GPL might finally be tested in court in 2004. That happened in Germany as the result of an enforcement action by the Netfilter project. The GPL was upheld by the German court; its detractors can no longer say that no court has ruled on its validity. Meanwhile, SCO has backed off from its attacks, saying that it never meant to question the GPL's validity as a license. It seems that the company has, belatedly, figured out that nothing else gives it the right to continue to distribute GPL-licensed software. Security. We worried that the string of attacks against free software development sites would continue into 2005. Certainly there were problems, such as the recent compromise of freedesktop.org, but the attack on the community as a whole - if that's what it was - appears to have stopped for now. Our prediction that hardened Linux systems would be more widely deployed by the end of 2004 now looks optimistic. Work continues toward that end, but hardening a Linux system (while keeping it usable) is a difficult task, and progress has been slower than many people had anticipated. Kernel. The prediction that the 2.7 development series would start seemed obvious, but it was wrong. We did sense that the development process was changing, however, and predicted that the next development series would differ from 2.5. The pressures which might lead to a new development series still seem to be mostly absent - mostly because the 2.6 development model tends to prevent those pressures from building up. What we missed: LWN would like to apply a small patch to its 2004 predictions to fix a few bugs. So we now predict that, in 2004:
And so on. We did get one thing right, though: 2004 was an interesting year in the free software world. We may just have to reuse that prediction for 2005 as well.
James Barry Corbet 1936 - 2004James Barry Corbet, your editor's father, passed away on December 18, 2004. To say that he will be greatly missed is an understatement; he lived a life which was full in the extreme, and he touched the lives of a great many others. This is a sad time.
Barry grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia. He attended Dartmouth
College, but never completed his degree; instead, he moved to Wyoming to
pursue his great loves of that time: skiing and mountaineering. He married
He was in the group which performed the first ascent of the Southwest Rib of Denali. He was a member of the 1963 American Everest expedition, where he helped place the highest camp on the West Ridge ascent and lost one of his best friends to an avalanche; he also helped to film the whole exercise. With John Evans, he made the first ascent of Mount Tyree in Antarctica. If certain accounts are to be believed, he participated in an expedition to plant surveillance hardware in the Himalayas to monitor China's nuclear missile tests. Barry also worked as a ski instructor in Jackson Hole; the infamous ski run Corbet's Couloir was named after him. He started the Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, and a mountaineering store as well. He joined Roger Brown's Summit Films, and the two of them created a classic series of ski movies, including the seminal Ski the Outer Limits. Much of this came to an end in 1968. While filming a ski event in Aspen, his helicopter crashed, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Many people would have responded to such an event with depression and surrender; Barry Corbet was never one of those people, however. He built a new life for himself in a new house in the Colorado mountains. He continued making films, traveled around the country, and, increasingly, began to write. He learned to kayak, to the point of being able to roll up even without the vital hip muscles normally required for that maneuver. He spent three weeks rafting down the Grand Canyon, got dumped into the Colorado River when his raft flipped in Lava Falls, and swam his way out. He went to Korea to watch his daughter compete in the Olympics. Disability was another mountain to climb. Barry accepted that challenge without hesitation, despite his full knowledge that he would have to climb for the rest of his life and still never catch sight of the summit. He wanted to show the world how far he could get. As time went on, however, he left this phase (which he called "supercrip") behind and turned his attention to helping others cope with disability. He traveled across the U.S., talking to spinal cord injury victims and learning how they had rebuilt their lives; the result was a book called Options, a concentrated distillation of experience with spinal cord injury. The message from Options was clear: it is possible to live a good life with disability. Other books and films followed, along with a long period as the editor of New Mobility magazine. He feared no topics; his article on life with ventilators attracted much attention, but the annual issue on sex and disability was often the most controversial. Consider this classic quote from the Associated press:
Barry Corbet and Larry Flynt have at least three things in
common. Both use wheelchairs. Both are in the magazine
business. And both have been accused of peddling filth.
New Mobility has put up a collection of Barry's articles which is worth a read. Barry's end came sooner than he had expected, but far later than anybody would have predicted after his injury in 1968. He ended his life as he lived it: in his own house, surrounded by family and dear friends, and on his own terms. In a letter sent to people he loved, he wrote:
I've had love overflowing, impassioned careers, a life of adventure
and everything I've ever wanted. Nothing missed and no regrets.
Barry's accomplishments in his life are amazing. But what your editor remembers most is a loving father who insisted that his children be prepared and willing to follow their dreams, wherever they may lead them, and despite any obstacles that may appear in the way. He was an example of what life can be when it is truly lived without compromise. There is a huge empty space where Barry Corbet used to be, but the memories live on in the minds of the many people whose lives he touched. A web site is being created at BarryCorbet.com for stories and photos.
SCO ends another yearSCO's teleconference on Tuesday may be more significant for what wasn't discussed during the call, rather than what was discussed. Darl McBride, SCO's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Bert Young, SCO's Chief Financial Officer, handled the call for SCO. McBride and Young discussed the company's fourth quarter results, provided a very brief summary of the company's legal situation, and answered a few softball questions from a handful of reporters and one private investor. Once again, LWN's reporter was not among the chosen few graced with an opportunity to ask a question.What wasn't discussed during the call? Plenty. There was no mention of the Change of Control Agreement filed with the SEC by SCO on December 10, 2004. This agreement would allow "any stock, stock option or restricted stock" granted to listed officers to vest immediately upon takeover of the company. Officers listed in the filing include: Sr. Vice President and General Manager of the SCO Source Division, Chris Sontag; Sr. Vice President and General Manager, of SCO's UNIX Division, Jeff Hunsaker; SCO's Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, Ryan Tibbits as well as McBride and Young. The fact that Thomas Raimondi, President and CEO of MTI Technology Corp., resigned from SCO's Board of Directors, was not mentioned during the teleconference. The Canopy Group shakeup that forced CEO Ralph Yarro and CFO Darcy Mott out over the weekend was not discussed. The Canopy Group is SCO's parent company. Both Yarro and Mott are on SCO's Board of Directors, Yarro is the chairman of SCO's board. Yarro has been replaced by William Mustard, formerly a managing director at the Smooth Engine consulting firm. At this point, there's no way of knowing what effect, if any, Yarro's removal will have on SCO. Perhaps even more telling, McBride was even more subdued during this conference call than during the Q3 teleconference held at the end of August. In August, McBride was still taking the occasional potshot at Groklaw and blustering that IBM had not delivered all documents that the company had been ordered to deliver by the court. The tirades against the GPL, Linux and IP "theft" are gone, and McBride sounded -- at least to this reporter -- quite deflated. In fairness, perhaps McBride is only suffering from the same cold that has plagued this reporter for the past week and a half. It's also interesting to note that the company's teleconferences are getting shorter over time. The June teleconference was 65 minutes and 52 seconds, according to the SCO website. SCO's August teleconference was a mere 47 minutes and 22 seconds, and Tuesday's teleconference was only 36 minutes and 58 seconds. So what was discussed during the call? SCO's dismal financial results were trotted out by McBride and Young, though the pair tried to put the best possible spin on the results. The company's revenue dropped to $10,075,000, compared to $24,290,000 during the fourth quarter in 2003. This includes a drop in SCOSource revenue, from $10,316,000 in 2003 during the fourth quarter, to $120,000 in 2004. The $120,000 is not from a new licensee, but holdover from the EV1 deal. In short, SCO realized no new revenue from SCOSource during the fourth quarter. Overall, SCO's 2004 revenue is $42,809,000, compared to $79,254,000 for 2003. McBride also announced that the update for OpenServer, code-named "Legend," will be released in the second quarter of 2005. Previously, the company had said Legend would be released in the first quarter of 2005. SCO's UNIX product revenues were about $8.3 million. It would seem the only source of revenue for SCO in the immediate future is the Unix products line. SCO did pocket $500,000 recently, thanks to a deal with Vintela, though it won't show up on the books until the first quarter of 2005. Back in April 2003, SCO sold everything related to its Volution product to Center 7 in exchange for a $500,000 promissory note. Center 7 has become Vintela, a company that provides products that allow organizations to manage Unix, Linux and Mac systems with Windows technologies like Active Directory. Vintela has been in the news lately due to a deal with Microsoft that puts about $10 million into the company. Canopy is also an investor in Vintela, though it's hard to tell from the Canopy Group website, which no longer proudly lists companies it has invested in. In fact, it's only a short walk from the Vintela offices to the SCO offices. Apparently, both companies are housed in the Canopy complex in Lindon, Utah. SCO's Unix business brought in about $8.2 million, after expenses of $1.7 million. The company continued its "restructuring" during the fourth quarter, which has reduced head count to less than 200 employees. It's worth noting that SCO's head count in 2002, prior to filing suit against IBM, was about 340 with revenue of about $15.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2002. SCO is not the cash-rich company it once was. The company has had to place about $5 million in escrow, and owes Boies, Schiller and Flexner about $24.3 million at the end of this quarter. The company had a closing cash balance of $31.4 million at the end of the quarter, according to Young, leaving SCO with about $7 million going forward. McBride was sure to emphasize, several times, that the company had capped its legal fees with Boies, Schiller & Flexner. The company has also increased Boies, Schiller & Flexner's contingency fees. Should SCO prove successful in any of their legal attacks, Boies, Schiller & Flexner stand to get between 20 and 33 percent of the booty. McBride offered a very succinct summary of their legal position with IBM, and said "we feel our case is developing well, and the specifics of this are laid out in our filings with the court." It's worth noting that, in past teleconferences, McBride has been significantly more upbeat and effusive about SCO's legal developments. McBride essentially admitted there was little left to the DaimlerChrysler case, saying that "we determined that it would not be a wise use of resources to pursue the timeliness claim alone." The court has denied SCO's motion to stay the case, and the case has been dismissed without prejudice with approval of SCO and DaimlerChrysler. For those interested in listening to the teleconference in its entirety, there is an archive of SCO teleconferences on the SCO website. Groklaw also has a transcript of the call.
Security Responsible disclosureThis week's "new vulnerabilities" section is somewhat longer than usual; a rather large number of packages have been revealed to have vulnerabilities. This surge in updates is a result of the posting of 44 vulnerabilities found by students in a security class taught by Daniel J. Bernstein.There is no doubt that Mr. Bernstein has done us a favor by having his students find these problems, and by disclosing them. With luck, he is also teaching his students to avoid the creation of such vulnerabilities. Not everybody is pleased with how the problems were disclosed, however. The usual, accepted technique is to alert the maintainer of the affected software first, and to give them a bit of time in which to prepare and distribute a patch. In this way, the full, public disclosure of the vulnerability can be accompanied by an update. That was not the path followed by Mr. Bernstein; instead, he opted to dispense with the prior notification to the maintainer, and to simply disclose the vulnerabilities publicly from the outset. The result has been a major scramble on the parts of maintainers and distributors who have found themselves trying to deal with a large pile of problems which have already been broadcast to the world. Mr. Bernstein is not known for being apologetic in general, and he certainly was not in this case. In fact, he regretted that it took the reports one day to make it to Bugtraq: "It certainly wasn't my intention to give the authors an extra day of self-delusion." In a different discussion he has made his opinion clear:
On the contrary. Immediate full disclosure, with a working exploit,
punishes the programmer for his bad code. He panics; he has to rush
to fix the problem; he loses users.
You're whining that punishment is painful. You're ignoring the effect that punishment has on future behavior. It encourages programmers to invest the time and effort necessary to eliminate security problems. So, it seems, the real solution to security problems is to punish programmers who release insecure code. There could be something to be said for this point of view: programmers who have been burned in this way might well find themselves inspired to pay more attention the next time around. The unfortunate side effects of immediate disclosure, however, include the punishment of users and distributors, and the possible creation of rushed, inadequate fixes. Compassion for people - other than the original developer - who are affected by vulnerabilities might suggest that allowing the developer to prepare a fix prior to disclosure might be the better approach.
Brief items Critical phpBB vulnerabilityThe phpBB bulletin board package contains an input validation problem which can allow the hosting site to be compromised. This vulnerability is being actively exploited, and there is apparently a worm in circulation as well. Click below to read the CERT advisory this problem; upgrading to version 2.0.11 fixes the problem.
New vulnerabilities abcm2ps: buffer overflow vulnerability
acroread: buffer overflow vulnerability
cscope: insecure temporary file
cups: multiple vulnerabilities
cvstrac: cross-site scripting vulnerability
ethereal: multiple vulnerabilities
groff: insecure temp file
htget: buffer overflow
kdelibs: konqueror window injection vulnerability
kerberos5: execution of arbitrary code by authenticated user
kernel: amd64 root privilege escalation from setuid binaries
libtiff: buffer overflow
mpg123: playlist buffer overflow
MPlayer: multiple overflows
nasm: Buffer overflow vulnerability
perl information leak
php: multiple vulnerabilities
phpMyAdmin: multiple vulnerabilities
samba: integer overflow vulnerability
xine-lib: arbitrary code execution
xzgv integer overflows
Zwiki: XSS vulnerability
Updated vulnerabilities a2ps: input validation error
aspell: bounds checking problem
cdrecord: failure to drop privilege
cyrus-sasl: remote buffer overflow
dhcp: format string vulnerability
Filename disclosure vulnerability in fam
flim: insecure file creation
Foomatic: Arbitrary command execution in foomatic-rip
FreeRADIUS: denial of service
gaim: buffer overflow in MSN protocol
Gallery: cross-site scripting vulnerability
gtk2, gdk-pixbuf: buffer overflows
gettext: Insecure temporary file handling
ghostscript: symlink vulnerabilities
glibc: Information leak with LD_DEBUG
glibc: tempfile vulnerability in catchsegv script
gnome-vfs: backend script vulnerabilities
groff: insecure temporary directory
gtkhtml: malformed messages cause crash
imlib: buffer overflows in image decoding
imlib2: buffer overflows
iptables: missing initialization
kernel: IGMP and scm_send vulnerabilities
kernel-utils: setuid vulnerability
libgd2: buffer overflows in PNG handling
libpng: multiple vulnerabilities
libxml2 - arbitrary code execution
libxml2: multiple buffer overflows
libxpm4: stack and integer overflows
logcheck: symlink vulnerability
lvm10: creates insecure temporary directory
Midnight Commander: extfs vfs vulnerability
mikmod: buffer overflow
mozilla products: arbitrary code execution and other vulnerabilities
mpg123: buffer overflow bug
mpg321: format string vulnerability
mysql: several vulnerabilities
ncpfs: buffer overflow
netkit-telnet: invalid free pointer
netpbm: insecure temporary files
nfs-utils: denial of service
openssl: der_chop script temp file vulnerability
OpenSSL: denial of service vulnerabilities
php: remotely exploitable memory errors
PostgreSQL: Insecure temporary file use in make_oidjoins_check
ProZilla: Multiple vulnerabilities
qt3: BMP image parser heap overflow
rp-pppoe, pppoe: missing privilege dropping
ruby: infinite loop
sharutils: arbitrary code execution
sox: buffer overflow
SpamAssassin: Denial of Service vulnerability
SquirrelMail: cross-site scripting
Subversion: Remote heap overflow
sudo: environment variable sanitizing
File overwrite vulnerability in tar and unzip
tiff: buffer overflows
unarj: buffer overflow vulnerability
viewcvs settings not honored
vim: modeline problems
WordPress: HTTP response splitting and XSS vulnerabilities
wv: buffer overflow
XChat 2.0.x SOCKS5 Vulnerability
xine-lib: buffer overflows
xine-ui - insecure temporary file creation
xorg-x11: integer overflows
xpdf: integer overflows
zip: arbitrary code execution
zlib: denial of service
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Kernel development Brief items Kernel release statusThe current 2.6 prepatch remains 2.6.10-rc3; no 2.6 prepatches have been released since December 3.Patches continue to accumulate slowly in Linus's BitKeeper repository; patches since 2.6.10-rc3 include the disabling of token-based thrashing control (by default), an x86-64 security fix, a CIFS update, an IDE update, some networking fixes (including a fix for the IGMP vulnerabilities), a DVB update and various other fixes. There have been no -mm tree releases over the last week. The current 2.4 prepatch is 2.4.29-pre3, which was released by Marcelo on December 22. Recent prepatches (2.4.29-pre2 came out on December 16) have emphasized bug fixes and some security fixes.
Kernel development news Rethinking four-level page tablesAndi Kleen's four-level page table patch has been in the -mm tree for some time; it is widely understood to be one of the first things in the queue to be merged once 2.6.10 is out. For those who are not familiar with this patch, why it matters, and how it works, a look at this LWN Kernel Page article from last October might be helpful in understanding the following discussion.The three levels of page table currently implemented by the kernel are, from top to bottom, the PGD, PMD, and PTE. Andi's patch extends the hierarchy by adding a new top-level directory called PML4 (from the x86-64 specification). A system which currently has a single PGD (per virtual address space) will have, instead, a single PML4 directory which may contain pointers to many PGD directories. In the current implementation, the PMD vanishes transparently on systems which only have two-level page tables; as a result, the kernel can treat all systems as if they had three-level page tables. Andi's four-level patch works in a similar way, causing the new PML4 level to be optimized out on hardware which does not support it. Nick Piggin has recently posted a new, alternative four-level patch. Nick is not hugely upset by Andi's patch set, but he thinks he has a better way. Essentially, Nick thinks that it would be better to keep the PGD as the top-level page directory, and to insert the new level in the middle, next to the PMD. With this organization, all architectures would have an active PGD at the top of the hierarchy, and active PTEs at the bottom, but the PMD and the PUD (Nick's name for the new level) would be optimized out on systems which do not use them. Andi would prefer to stick with the current patches; he sees Nick's approach as being mainly an exercise in renaming which could delay the merging of the four-level capability. The current patches have been shaken down well in the -mm tree and seem to work; thrashing them up now would require a new round of testing before they had the same level of confidence. Andi has other work which is waiting for the four-level patch to be merged, so he would rather not see the whole process slowed down. Others are in less of a hurry, however, and see merit in Nick's patches. In particular, Linus prefers placing the new level below the PGD as the least intrusive way of extending the page table hierarchy.
Basically, by doing the new folded table in the middle, it _only_
affects code that actually walks the page tables. Basically, what I
wanted in the original 2->3 level expansion was that people who
don't use the new level should be able to conceptually totally
ignore it. I think that is even more true in the 3->4 level
expansion.
Andi has not yet given in, but there seems to be a strong wind blowing in favor of Nick's page table arrangement. So four-level page tables might not be the first thing to go into 2.6.11 after all.
Patches and updates Kernel trees
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Documentation
Filesystems and block I/O
Janitorial
Memory management
Networking
Security-related
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Distributions News and Editorials Distributions in 2004With this being the last issue of LWN in 2004, let's recap some of the more interesting events of the past year on the Linux distribution scene.Red Hat's Fedora Core continued its successful transformation from Red Hat Linux, despite worries in some circles that it would be a (possibly broken) test bed for the company's main commercial product - Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Although Fedora Core 2 was indeed somewhat buggy, this was due to an ambitious move to kernel 2.6 combined with the inclusion of SELinux functionality, rather than sloppy work, and most of the problems were ironed out before the release of version 3. The current stable release has formed the base for the upcoming Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (currently in public beta testing), which is expected to go gold during the second quarter of 2005. An interesting side effect of the split between Red Hat's community and enterprise products was the emergence of several distributions developing "new" products by recompiling source RPMs that were used to build RHEL 3 - these include CentOS, Lineox Enterprise Linux, Scientific Linux, Tao Linux, White Box Enterprise Linux, and a few others. Mandrakesoft continued its financial recovery after the disastrous previous two years that almost saw the popular distribution maker going out of business. This was at the expense of the distribution's status as a truly free product in both senses of the word - now those users who cannot or do not want to join the €60/year Mandrakeclub have to wait weeks before they can put their hands on (a limited set of) Mandrakelinux ISO images. The company also implemented a new development model, whereas a final and bug-fixed "Official Edition" is released about a month after a "Community Edition"; however some users tend to view the latter as just another (potentially buggy) release candidate, despite frequent explanations and claims to the contrary by Mandrakesoft's officials. Nevertheless, the new release model seems to be working and both Mandrakelinux releases of the year - versions 10.0 and 10.1 - received positive reviews in the media. Despite the company's acquisition by Novell in late 2003, SUSE continued in its usual twice-per-year release cycle of SUSE LINUX. Somewhat unexpectedly, it also released a full and installable ISO image of SUSE LINUX 9.1 Personal for free download, and although the company has not repeated the generous giveaway after the recent SUSE 9.2 release, this exercise probably helped SUSE gain much market share, especially among home users. Version 9.1 also formed a basis for the all-new SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server (SLES) 9 and Novell Linux Desktop, both of which targeted enterprise users. SLES 9 was seen as the first viable alternative to Red Hat's own enterprise range of products, with full support for all popular processor architectures and backed by a large company. Novell Linux Desktop is currently being used and tested by Novell in a large-scale internal migration of its desktop computers to Linux. For a second year in a row, the developers of Debian GNU/Linux failed to produce a new stable release. This has resulted in heavy criticism of the release process - not only by users and fans of the distribution, but also by some of the Debian developers. Although the argument that Debian's stable releases are designed primarily for servers and therefore do not need frequent upgrades is valid, the fact that the time needed to produce a release is getting longer is worrying (hamm to slink - 7.5 months, slink to potato - 17 months, potato to woody - 23 months, woody to sarge: 29+ months). Nevertheless, development continued at high speed and Debian has now become the most widely-used base for new and remastered Linux distributions, overtaking Red Hat/Fedora in this role. One of those was Ubuntu Linux, a new project funded by Mark Shuttleworth, a South African Internet millionaire. Ubuntu Linux was probably this year's most pleasant distribution surprise; after promising stable and up-to-date biannual releases based on Debian Sid, its user base increased rapidly in a very short time. Following a dramatic growth in popularity during the previous two years, the source-based Gentoo Linux has now matured into a mainstream, yet unique distribution that appeals to many technical users. Its adoption might be slowing down, though - not because Gentoo's founder Daniel Robbins is no longer with the project, but rather because most binary distributions have improved their package management to the point that dependency issues are no longer as annoying as they used to be. Also, some users have found that maintaining and updating a Gentoo system is time-consuming and not entirely fool-proof. Still, Gentoo has emerged (pun intended) as one of the most prominent and innovative Linux community projects, with unparalleled documentation, active community involvement, and ongoing work on support for new hardware architectures. Other popular distributions continued with regular releases. Slackware Linux 10.0 came out in the middle of the year and indications are that 10.1 (still based on the 2.4 kernel series) is not far off. There were concerns about the state of health of Slackware's founder and maintainer Patrick Volkerding, but according to a recent update in the current change log, he is feeling much better and is able to continue work on the distribution. In the meantime, Knoppix has further solidified its position as the king of Linux live CDs, prompting many articles in the media and even catching the eyes of publishers at O'Reilly Media, who brought out a book called Knoppix Hacks. Earlier this month, Xandros put out the third release of Xandros Desktop OS in as many years and, like the previous two versions, reviewers seem highly impressed. However, Xandros's own code remains proprietary and closed, and with a price tag attached to the product, many users find it more acceptable to install and use one of the other user-friendly, but free distributions, such as MEPIS Linux or PCLinuxOS. What is there to look forward to in 2005? Fedora, Mandrakelinux, SUSE, Ubuntu and Gentoo are likely to continue with their twice-per year release schedules. Debian 3.1 Sarge will hopefully come out early next year, soon to be followed by other Debian-based products, such as Linspire 5.0 (currently in heavy development), Progeny Debian 2.0 (incorporating Componentized Linux), as well as the inaugural release of UserLinux. Another project worth watching is Specifix Linux founded by former executives and developers at Red Hat. Many of the leading distributions have been providing AMD64 ports of their main products and the support for this fast growing platform is expected to increase considerably during the course of the year - not only on the application level, but also by improved support for AMD64 binaries in the new GCC 4.x compiler series. Now that the challenges associated with migrating to kernel 2.6 are mostly a thing of the past, focus will be on integration of new applications, such as the upcoming Qt/KDE 4.0 or OpenOffice.org 2.0. As always, expect a few pleasant surprises along the way.
Distribution News Patrick Volkerding returns homeA Slackware changelog notice has gone out with a note from Patrick Volkerding. He is, he says, back in California and feeling much better. "I offer my thanks and gratitude to the many people who sent me kind words and good advice, or indeed anything at all. I figure it was all for a reason, and that there were always lessons to be learned. Hopefully I'll learn them now! ;-)" Another round of updates has been released.
Fedora Extras, Fedora Core CVS Open!The long-awaited Fedora CVS repository is now open. Here's the announcement. There are actually two repositories, one for Fedora Core, and one for Extras. Congratulations to the Fedora team for getting this important piece of infrastructure into place. The Fedora Project has also officially launched Fedora Pre-Extras, to work alongside Fedora Core 3 for i386 and x86_64 based platforms.
Announcing RosettaRosetta, a web-based translation portal for PO files, is available at the UbuntuLinux wiki. "The Rosetta Translation Portal team is pleased to announce that the portal is now ready for widespread use. Rosetta's goal is to make the process of translating free software as easy as possible for both translators and software maintainers. Maintainers can send us PO Templates and PO Files, which will be published through the web for translation. PO Files can then be downloaded at any time."
Debian GNU/LinuxIan Murdock has created a mailing list for the discussion of how Debian can engage the Linux Core Consortium and vice versa. You can subscribe here.Andreas Barth provides a Sarge release update covering kde3.3, upload targets, and infrastructure. "After almost three weeks since the last update, the status of the release is as follows. We would have liked to present sarge as a Christmas present, but regrettably that didn't work out. We still hope that those of you who celebrate Christmas have a Merry Christmas, and we wish you all a Happy New Year."
Fedora Core updatesFC3 updates: selinux-policy-targeted (fix problems with winbind, nscd, apache and others), xcdroast (fixed frozen progress bars), udev (fixed a case where reading /proc/ide/hd?/media returns EIO), postgresql (update to PyGreSQL 3.6), namazu (security fix release), pam (resolves various minor bugs), glibc (work around rpm bug some more), gnumeric (bug fixes), selinux-policy-targeted (several updates to fix problems with Apache, Squid, postgresql), abiword (backport bug fixes).FC2 updates: postgresql (update to PyGreSQL 3.6), namazu (security fix release).
Mandrakelinux updatesUpdates for Mandrakelinux 10.1 kde (lots of bug fixes), wget (fixes a problem with downloading very large data files), urpmi (fixes a bug in the parallel ssh extension), urpmi (previous package was incorrectly signed for x86).
SUSE Linux updatesSUSE Security Summary Report SUSE-SR:2004:005 addresses a buffer overflow in ncpfs. In this update to SUSE-SA:2004:044 missing 9.2 kernel RPMs are explained.
Regarding End of Life on Trustix Secure Linux 2.0Support for Trustix Secure Linux 2.0 ends on December 31. Users should upgrade to TSL 2.2 soon, if you have not already done so.
Trustix Secure Linux TSL-2004-0067A variety of bugs have been fixed in anaconda, mailcap, mkinitrd, vim, postgresql, ntp, sqlgrey, db4, rsync and postgresql. Click below for details.
Distribution Newsletters Gentoo Weekly NewsletterThe Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of December 20, 2004 is out. This edition covers the call for speakers for Gentoo UK 2005, the new mailing list for catalyst, a call for translators, and more.
Debian Weekly News - December 14th, 2004Somehow we missed the Debian Weekly News for December 14, 2004. This edition has links to Bruce Byfield's short introduction to apt-get, Jason Boxman's guideline for using Exim 4 and Courier IMAP on a Debian system, a constructive critique of Debian on DesktopLinux, plus a look at the Debian women sub-project, and more.
Debian Weekly NewsThe December 21 Debian Weekly News is out; this week's topics include a sarge release update, a HURD update, unattended installations, the AMD64 port, and more.
Mandrakelinux Community NewsletterThe 99th issue of the Mandrakelinux Community Newsletter is out. The top story looks at Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official and the second beta Multi Network Firewall is in the cooker. Click below for the latest Mandrakelinux news.
DistroWatch Weekly Issue 80The DistroWatch Weekly for December 20 is the last issue for 2004. "We will look at the newly launched Fedora Extras, newly released PCLinuxOS Preview 8, and newly introduced Ubuntu Rosetta internationalisation infrastructure. The featured distribution of the week is Linux From Scratch. Happy reading!"
Minor distribution updates APLINUX.com.br Mail Server 2005APLINUX.com.br has announced that APLINUX.com.br Mail server 2005 Beta 0.0.2 is available for download.
Aurox 10.1 US BetaAurox Lld. has published a new verion of Aurox 10.1 US Beta. It is available for download from mirrors in the US. "It offers full support for multimedia, special packages for education, internet communicators, office application: OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 and many apps for any purpose: Ximian Evolution, KMail, GIMP, Mozilla, Kget, Psi, Xine, XMMS, OpenSSH..."
Enterprise Linux 4.2.3 for routers availableVersion 4.2.3 of ImageStream's Enterprise Linux is now available as a general availability (GA) release for all ImageStream router customers. Click below for the release notes.
New Quantian release 0.6.9.3 availableQuantian 0.6.9.3 has been released. "Quantian 0.6.9.3 extends the Quantian series based on Knoppix 3.6 and the corresponding clusterKnoppix release. Several new packages (Rpad, clustalw, seaview, iraf) were installed, a number of packages (Octave 2.1.64, Scilab 3.0 among them) were updated, and the CRAN packages were updated as of December 11."
Newsletters and articles of interest Linux in Government: Security Enhanced Linux - The Future is Now (Linux Journal)Tom Adelstein talks with Bill McCarty, author of SELinux NSA's Open Source Security Enhanced Linux, on Linux Journal. "If a must-have, must-know innovation exists for Linux's future viability, you might place all bets on Security Enhanced Linux. Vastly misunderstood and underrated, SELinux provides a marketing differentiator that could carry Linux deep into infrastructures that so far have shown lukewarm acceptance of the open-source operating system. SELinux transforms standard Linux from a cost-effective and secure operating system into a behemoth."
Adding Permissions Using SELinux (O'ReillyNet)Bill McCarty covers adding permissions to SE Linux, on O'Reilly's Linux devCenter. "At this point in the development of SELinux, it's common for policies to contain small bugs that cause operations to fail when applications or programs are used in unusual ways unanticipated by policy developers. As an SELinux administrator, one of the most frequent SELinux policy customizations you're likely to perform is adding permissions to coax the security engine into accepting an operation. Let's consider an actual situation based on Fedora Core 2's SELinux implementation and see how it's resolved. The procedure we'll follow isn't the only procedure or best procedure. Creating new policies typically entails a generous dollop of troubleshooting, which tends to be relatively unstructured. So rather than see our procedure as the universal norm, you should see it as merely an illustrative example."
Distro Quickies: KDE 3.3 on Every Desktop Distribution (KDE.News)KDE.News takes a quick look at some KDE-centric distributions including Xandros Desktop OS 3, Knoppix 3.7, PCLinuxOS Preview 8 and ProMEPIS 2005 Beta 2.
Distribution reviews Xandros Desktop OS Version 3.0 - Deluxe Edition Review (LinuxLinks.com)LinuxLinks has a review of Xandros Desktop OS Version 3.0. "Xandros Desktop OS Version 3.0 is billed as "an intuitive graphical environment that works right out of the box and offers unrivaled compatibility with Microsoft Windows". So it's pretty clear what the market of the product is - all the millions of Windows users that are fed up with an unstable operating system, want something for email and web browsing, and be able to create, edit and send the boss their Word, Excel and Visio files."
FreeBSD 5.3 is 'stable' but not production-ready (NewsForge)NewsForge looks at FreeBSD 5.3. "Since the introduction of the FreeBSD-5 branch, FreeBSD enthusiasts have been eagerly awaiting the day when the new codebase would stabilize. After much development and four previous releases, FreeBSD-5 has finally gone stable with version 5.3. But don't mistake a stable codebase with stable software. While the development team will no longer accept major changes to the base system, FreeBSD 5.3 still has bugs and problems."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol Development Stable Version 2.2.0 of the GIMP is outJust in time for the holidays, stable version 2.2.0 of the GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) has been announced.
About nine months after version 2.0 hit the road, another development
cycle has been completed and a new stable GIMP is coming to your desktop.
On the documentation front, a new Help snapshot (version 2-0.6) has been made available for download. The GIMP 2.2 Release Notes gives some upgrade information and hints about what's to come:
You can expect updated versions of gimp-gap, gimp-freetype, gimp-plugin-template and hopefully also gimp-perl to appear over the next weeks. The GIMP source tree will soon be branched so that development can continue towards GIMP 2.4. We haven't yet made up a detailed roadmap, but we will try to publish one soon.
Congratulations to the GIMP developers for their continuing efforts to improve this fine application.
System Applications Database Software MySQL 4.0.23 has been releasedVersion 4.0.23 of the MySQL database has been released. "This is a bug fix release for the previous production series. Future 4.0.x releases will occur very seldom. We encourage users to upgrade to the current production MySQL 4.1.x series."
PostgreSQL 8.0.0 Release Candidate 2Release Candidate 2 of PostgreSQL 8.0.0 has been announced. ".. with this RC looking to be the last one before release, we encourage anyone that is running a platform not listed to please report on any success or failures with Release Candidate 2."
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe December 21, 2004 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is out with the latest PostgreSQL database development information.
Rekall 2.2.3 announcedStable version 2.2.3 of Rekall, a database frontend, is available. "This is mostly a maintenance release with a few odd things added as requested by users. The biggest change is that the build files have been brought up to date."
Building and Configuring Slony (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly is running an article on Slony configuration. "Slony is the intended replication project for the PostgreSQL database. Now that you know what it is, how do you use it? A. Elein Mustain demonstrates how to build, install, and configure Slony."
Embedded Systems PowerPC development from the bargain basement (IBM developerWorks)Peter Seebach works with the inexpensive Kuro Box platform on IBM developerWorks. "The Kuro Box promises something fairly interesting: a usable single-board PowerPC computer, for only US$160 -- when other PowerPC development boards often cost ten times as much. Peter Seebach guides you through setup and install in this developerWorks hardware howto."
Filesystem Utilities GParted 0.0.8 (GnomeDesktop)Version 0.0.8 of GParted, the GNOME partition editor, has been announced. "GParted-0.0.8 includes support for three new filesystems (xfs, jfs, hfs). Besides that a couple of bugs got fixed and some extra checking is done while performing an operation."
Interoperability Samba 3.0.10 Available for DownloadVersion 3.0.10 of Samba is out with security fixes. "This is the latest stable release of Samba. This is the version that production Samba servers should be running for all current bug-fixes."
Libraries Pango 1.8.0 releasedVersion 1.8.0 of Pango, a library for layout and rendering of text, has been released. "This is a stable release providing new functionality as compared to Pango-1.6, while maintaining source and binary compatibility."
Mail Software Sendmail 8.13.2 is outVersion 8.13.2 of the Sendmail mail transfer agent has been announced. "It contains fixes for problems that have been found since the release of 8.13.1 as well as some portability enhancements."
Printing CUPS 1.1.23rc1 is outVersion 1.1.23rc1 of CUPS, the Common UNIX Printing System, has been announced. "CUPS 1.1.23 is a bug fix release which fixes two security vulnerabilities reported by Daniel J. Bernstein (djb@cr.yp.to). The new release also contains other minor bug and documentation fixes that are not security related."
Security Sussen 0.10 ReleasedVersion 0.10 of Sussen, a security scanner, is out. This version has been completely rewritten in C# and is considered the initial public release. "Sussen is a tool for testing the security posture of computers and other network devices. It is in an early stage of development and should be considered experimental. Sussen is improving rapidly on many fronts, but it is not yet stable enough for full-time, everyday use."
Web Site Development Analog 6.0 releasedAfter many months of beta testing, version 6.0 of Analog, a web server log file analyzer, is out. The changes include the addition of Palm OS and Symbian OS to reports, support for ISO 8601 extended dates, and a new stylesheet.
mnoGoSearch 3.2.28 announcedVersion 3.2.28 of the mnoGoSearch web site search engine is available. Changes include numerous bug fixes.
XML Namespace Processing in Apache (O'Reilly)Nick Kew uses Apache to process XML in an O'Reilly article. "The Apache 2 filter architecture serves to transform Apache from a mere web server into a powerful application platform. Applications that previously required a dedicated backend, typically Java-based, can now easily be implemented within the web server itself, with very substantial improvements in system performance."
Use continuations to develop complex Web applications (IBM developerWorks)Abhijit Belapurkar explores the use of continuations in web applications on IBM developerWorks. "If you've ever developed a non-trivial Web application, you know that development complexity is increased by the fact that Web browsers allow users to follow arbitrary navigation paths through the application. No matter where the user navigates, the onus is on you, the developer, to keep track of the possible interactions and ensure that your application works correctly. While the traditional MVC approach does allow you to handle these cases, there are other options available to help resolve application complexity. Developer and frequent developerWorks contributor Abhijit Belapurkar walks you through a continuations-based alternative that could simplify your Web application development efforts."
Web Services Telnet and REST Web Services? (O'Reilly)Bob DuCharme uses telnet to access web services in an O'Reilly article. "Fans of the REST style of web services often point out that the four HTTP commands PUT, GET, POST, and DELETE let you perform the most important operations on a collection of data: Create new data, Read existing data, Update data, and Delete datagiving us the lovely acronym CRUD."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Ardour 0.9beta22 releasedVersion 0.9beta22 of Ardour, a multi-track audio recorder, has been announced. "The last 0.9beta release to include functionality changes unrelated to bug fixes." See the Ardour News page for more information.
flrec 0.9 is outVersion 0.9 of flrec, the Fast Light Recorder, has been announced with the following changes: "Now has a sox effects panel and copy and conversion capabilities Window are now resizable."
CAD Twentieth release of PythonCAD now availableRelease 20 of PythonCAD, a CAD package written in Python, is out. "The twentieth release of PythonCAD improves the undo/redo abilities of the program by making layer creation and deletion actions that can be undone or redone. Also, the addition and removal of chamfers and fillets is now an undoable and redoable action. The code for managing undo/redo operations has been improved, and various bug fixes for these actions have been applied."
Calendar Software pcal 4.8.0 announcedVersion 4.8.0 of pcal, a calendar generation utility which outputs in PostScript and HTML formats, is available with lots of changes. Thanks to Bill Marr.
Data Visualization PyX 0.7.1 releasedVersion 0.7.1 of PyX, a Python package for the creation of encapsulated PostScript figures, has been released. "This release fixes some bugs in the graph system, the canvas module and the kpsewhich support. The tipa package is no longer required to build the FAQ. The index files to sort the examples are now included in the distribution. Two new examples complete this maintenance release."
Desktop Environments GNOME software announcementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week: GLib 2.6.0, GTK+ 2.6.0, gtkmm 2.5.3 + glibmm 2.5.2, Metacity 2.9.2, GNOME-Applets 2.9.3, gnome-panel 2.9.3, gnome-utils 2.9.3, gcalctool v5.5.21, gedit 2.9.3, GNOME Nettool 1.0.0, gtk-engines 2.6.0, SLgtk v0.5.11, gnubiff 2.1.0, and Previews Reader 0.40.
KDE 3.4 Will Talk to You (KDE.News)KDE.News covers new speech synthesis capabilities in KDE 3.4. "The KDE Accessibility team is in the process of integrating speech synthesis into KDE. Not only does this mean better support for visually-impaired and speech-impaired users, but the new features should also prove for a fun desktop experience overall. An important milestone has been reached with the recent release of the KDE Text-to-Speech System (ktts)."
KDE CVS-Digest (KDE.News)The December 17, 2004 edition of the KDE CVS-Digest is available, here's the content summary: "Kdevelop implements profile and language plugins. Digikam adds a ratio-crop tool. Kpdf now does full screen mode. New media kioslave backend for cd insertion detection. KMozilla part committed to kdenonbeta. Konversation adds dynamic theme switching."
digiKam 0.7.1-beta2 and libkexif 0.2.1 announcedNew versions of digiKam and libkexif have been announced as KDE quickie releases.
Electronics Open Collector ReleasesThe latest new electronics applications on Open Collector include KTechlab 0.1, a development and simulation environment for microcontrollers and electronic circuits and Covered 20041210, a Verilog code coverage utility.
XCircuit 3.3.5 releasedVersion 3.3.5 of XCircuit, an electronic schematic drawing package, is out. Here are the changes: "Corrected a fatal error in library copies if no valid object is selected. Corrected a compile error (C++-like syntax fails on many compilers). Added option to print or not to print the ".end" statement at the end of a SPICE deck."
Games Cyphesis 0.3.7 ReleasedVersion 0.3.7 of Cyphesis, a server for WorldForge games, has been announced. "This release is intended for server administrators wishing to run a Mason server or anyone wishing to work on serverside game development." Numerous changes have been added.
GUI Packages Qt 4.0 Beta 1 Released (KDE.News)Qt 4.0 Beta 1 has been announced. "There are five new technologies that are new to Qt, written specifically for Qt 4:
Multimedia MediaLibrary unstable 0.7.9 (0.8pre) released (SourceForge)Unstable version 0.7.9 of MediaLibrary is out. "MediaLibrary is a standalone, multiplatform media (CD, DVD & HD) catalog management software. It allows the user to browse, sort, search and organize them once indexed. The "unstable" 0.7.9 (0.8pre) release is actually more of a 0.8rc1. Henceforth it fully previews the next big stable release of MediaLibrary, and features major improvements (refactored GUI around a pluggable 'Desk' concept, search in comments, filtered search and statistics) and numerous bug fixes (including the 'FFFFFFFF..' undead bug)."
First release of Pitivi (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop.org looks at the initial release of PiTiVi. "Another piece of the puzzle that the GStreamer community hope to solve is in place now with the first public beta release of PiTiVi, a GStreamer based non-linear audio/video editing software for GNU/Linux. Being built on top of GStreamer it will get a lot of development work and bugfixes done for free as it directly benefit from the development work being done for such applications as Totem,Rhythmbox,Flumotion and Cupid. And of course all these applications and many others get to take advantage of the development and bugfixes done for PiTiVi."
Music Applications BEAST/BSE v0.6.4 announcedVersion 0.6.4 of BEAST/BSE, the BEdevilled Audio SysTem and the Bedevilled Sound Engine, has been released. "Outstanding new features include support for skins, many sample file formats, MIDI file import abilities, an improved piano roll widget, the track editor which allows for easy selection of synthesisers or samples as track sources, loop support in songs, mixer support, unlimited Undo/Redo capabilities and MIDI automation."
midi.osc project announcedThe midi.osc project has been announced. "midi.osc publishes MIDI packets on the local host MIDI system as OSC packets over a UDP connection. midi.osc allows any environment that supports OSC to act as a MIDI client, sending and receiving MIDI data, and monitoring and initiating changes to the host MIDI system."
jack.osc announcedThe jack.clock project has been renamed jack.osc. "jack.osc publishes the transport state of the local JACK server as OSC packets over a UDP connection. jack.osc allows any OSC enabled application to act as a JACK transport client, receiving sample accurate pulse stream timing data, and monitoring and initiating transport state change."
Rosegarden 1.0pre1 releasedVersion 1.0 pre 1 of Rosegarden, an audio and MIDI sequencer with musical notation support, is out. "This release is the continuation of beta testing, prior to the nearing 1.0 release."
Office Applications Gnumeric 1.4 is Here! (GnomeDesktop)Version 1.4.1 of the Gnumeric spreadsheet has been announced. "The Gnumeric Team is pleased to announce the availability of Gnumeric version 1.4.1. This is the first publicly announced version of the new stable 1.4 series, part of GNOME Office 1.2. We have worked hard at producing the best available spreadsheet for a wide range of applications from simple numerical scratch pad, financial analytical tool, to scientific number cruncher."
Office Suites OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 releasedOpenOffice 1.1.4 is out; this is a bugfix-only release with no new features. It is "one of the last stages" before the 2.0 release, scheduled for March, 2005.
RSS Software RSSOwl 1.0 is out (SourceForge)Version 1.0 of RSSOwl has been announced. "RSSOwl is a RSS / RDF / Atom Newsreader written in Java using SWT as fast graphic library. Read News in a tabfolder, save favorites in categories, Export to PDF / RTF / HTML / OPML, Import Feeds from OPML, perform fulltext-search, use internal browser. We are very happy to announce that RSSOwl 1.0 is now available. Thanks to the community for giving us feedback on some bugs in the release candidate that was released two weeks ago. Those are now fixed. In addition, all translations are completed and some where corrected."
Streaming Media MuSE 0.9.1 announcedVersion 0.9.1 of MuSE has been released. "MuSE is an application for mixing, encoding, and network streaming of sound: it can transmit an audio signal by mixing together sound taken from files or also network, recursively remixing more MuSE streams." Stability and operability fixes are included in this version.
Web Browsers Lots of Epiphany releasesThe Epiphany browser developers have been busy this week. They have released Epiphany 1.4.7 and Epiphany Extensions 1.4.4 from the stable version, and Epiphany 1.5.3 and Epiphany Extensions 1.5.4 from the development version.
Mozilla 1.7.5 Released (MozillaZine)Version 1.7.5 of the Mozilla browser has been announced. "This latest update from the long-lived 1.7 branch contains a version of Gecko virtually identical to the one in Mozilla Firefox 1.0. New features not found in Mozilla 1.7.3 include the NPRuntime extensions to the Netscape Plugin API and undetectable document.all support."
Independent Status Reports (MozillaZine)The December 20, 2004 edition of the Mozilla Independent Status Reports have been announced. "Brian King writes in with the latest set of status reports covering projects including HTTP serverpost, Add N Edit Cookie, HONcode Status, Launchy, Calendar Help, Habari Xenu, MAF, jsLib, purgecontrol, cuneAform, View Background Plus, ThunderFilter, Mnenhy, QuoteCollapse and AboutConfig."
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe December 14-21, 2004 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with coverage of developments in the Caml language world.
Java Dynamic compilation and performance measurement (IBM developerWorks)Brian Goetz measures dynamically compiled Java performance on IBM developerWorks. "Writing and interpreting performance benchmarks for dynamically compiled languages, such as Java, is far more difficult than for statically compiled languages like C or C++. In this installment of Java theory and practice, Brian Goetz explores a few of the many ways in which dynamic compilation can complicate performance testing."
Quartz 1.4.3 released (SourceForge)Version 1.4.3 of Quartz has been released. "Quartz is an enterprise-class Job Scheduler for use in stand-alone and full-blown J2EE Applications. Quartz is very light-weight, highy scalable, and extremely easy to use within your own applications. This is release contains bug fixes as well as some minor feature improvements. This is release contains bug fixes as well as some minor feature improvements."
Lisp Continuation-based web applicationsPaolo Amoroso mentions an interesting Lisp discussion: "Marco Baringer has posted the transcript of an email discussion between Dave Roberts and him about the UnCommon Web continuation-passing web application framework, and Roy Fielding's REST architectural style."
Perl Help Regenerate the Phalanx 100 (use Perl)Use Perl has a request for help with the Phalanx 100 project. "Andy Lester writes "The Phalanx 100 is a list of the 'top 100' modules on CPAN, and by extension, those that should have the most attention paid to them by the Phalanx project. The first time I generated the P100 was over a year ago, and things are old and stale. Distributions have changed names (CGI::Kwiki is now Kwiki, for example). Some distros have come and some have gone. It's time to be updated."
Perl Code Kata: Testing Imports (O'Reilly)chromatic discusses Perl 5 module importing on O'Reilly. "Perl 5 added the ideas of namespaces and modules, making code reusable and easier to maintain. To allow convenience, it also added an importing mechanism to put code from a module into the current namespace."
PHP PHP Weekly Summary for December 6, 2004The PHP Weekly Summary for December 6, 2004 is out. Topics include: Internals newbies, Memory leak in apache2filter, PHP 5 and file locking, EXPERIMENTAL tags, 5.0.3 RC 1, apache_reset_timeout, Extended class properties, and Suicidal processes.
PHP Weekly Summary for December 13, 2004The PHP Weekly Summary for December 13, 2004 is out. Topics include: mbstring changes, 4.3.10 and 5.0.3 RC2s, isset?, allow_url_include, Memory and arrays, User-specified default umask, iconv compilation, ./configure, PHP, SuSE and the AMD64 revisited, __sleep and hidden variables, session_start, and One out, three in, one floating.
PHP Weekly Summary for December 20, 2004The PHP Weekly Summary for December 20, 2004 is out. Topics include: Call for Papers: International PHP Conference 2005 Spring Edition PHP 4.3.10 and 5.0.3, Downloads cleanup, foreach() in PHP 4.3.10, session.serialize_handler, and Don't forget --prefer-non-pic!.
Python Urwid 0.8.5 releasedVersion 0.8.5 of Urwid, the curses-based UI library for Python, is out. New features include a new tutorial, a new Filler widget class, new ListBox functions, Debian packages, and more.
python-dev SummaryThe latest python-dev Summary is out with coverage of the python-dev mailing list from October 16-31, 2004.
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!The December 15, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is online with the week's Python articles.
Scheme Guile 1.6.7 has been releasedVersion 1.6.7 of Guile, the next maintenance release for the 1.6 stable series, is out. "Guile is Project GNU's extension language library, an interpreter for Scheme, packaged as a library that you can link into your applications to give them their own scripting language. Guile should eventually support other languages as well, giving users of Guile-based applications a choice of languages." Thanks to Steve Tell.
Tcl/Tk Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!The December 20, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with another weekly collection of Tcl/Tk articles.
XML The Cost of XML (O'Reilly)Edd Dumbill examines the cost of XML on O'Reilly. "In this week's column, I cover two debates that consider the cost of XML. In the first discussion, the cost is that of file size and processing overhead. In the second, it's actual dollars charged for access to a web service. Also, watch out for the special twilight zone moment as we find ourselves considering CSV files as a serious option."
IDEs SPE 0.7.0.A releasedVersion 0.7.0.A of SPE (Stani's Python Editor) has been released. "As a christmas present SPE offers you a built-in Python UML viewer. An Uml diagram is hierarchal 2d map of your classes."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Linux in the news Recommended Reading Quickbooks: the missing link for small business Linux (NewsForge)Robin 'Roblimo' Miller suggests that the lack of the QuickBooks accounting package on Linux is preventing many businesses from migrating away from Microsoft platforms. "Last week I was talking with a small business IT consultant who switches clients' servers to Linux (and Samba) all day long without any problems, but finds few clients interested in moving their desktops to Linux. The reason? "QuickBooks," he said. While there are many small business accounting packages that happily run on Linux, including GnuCash, Quasar, SQL-Ledger, and AccPac, QuickBooks dominates this market. And its loyal users don't want to switch to another package even if it's just as good as -- or possibly better than -- QuickBooks."
Students uncover dozens of Unix software flaws (News.com)News.com reports on flaws found in Unix applications by graduate students. "Students of iconoclastic computer scientist Daniel Bernstein have found some 44 security flaws in various Unix applications, according to a list of advisories posted online. The flaws, which range from minor slipups in rarely used applications to more serious vulnerabilities in software that ships with most versions of the Linux operating system, were found as part of Bernstein's graduate-level course at the University of Illinois at Chicago."
Trade Shows and Conferences Linux Bangalore 2004 Wrapup (KDE.News)KDE.News covers the 2004 Linux Bangalore conference. "Scott Wheeler and Sirtaj Singh Kang with much appreciated help from Kabir Husain represented KDE at this year's Linux Bangalore, India's largest Linux and Open Source event. Many of the 2800 visitors stopped by the KDE booth where KDE 3.3, a Knoppix desktop and KDE CVS (on Scott's laptop) were demonstrated or dropped into one of the two talks."
The SCO Problem SCO conference call transcript (Groklaw)For those of you who were unable to have the pleasure of listening to SCO's conference call, Groklaw has posted a transcript.
Companies Microsoft, Autodesk sign patent pact (News.com)News.com reports that Microsoft and Autodesk have signed a patent pact. "Under the pact, the two companies will gain access to each other's patents in a variety of areas, including data management, collaboration, digital effects, digital rights management, project management, computer-aided design and location-based services. Microsoft has been stepping up its activity on the patent front, ramping up its own filings and at the same time trying to ink cross-license deals with other tech companies. Microsoft has been using the combined power as a marketing vehicle against Linux, noting that it indemnifies its customers against potential patent infringement claims."
Legal Poland Comes Through! - Software Patents Off the Agenda This Year (Groklaw)Groklaw carries a press release from NoSoftwarePatents. "This just in. Poland refused to go along with the software patent rubber stamp: "The Software Patent Directive has been withdrawn from the Agenda of the Agricultural Council. Poland's minister Marcinski requested it firmly at the beginning of the meeting. The Commissioner expressed regret, but the A-item has been deleted and will not be decided this year.""
Linux champion Munich welcomes patent delay (ZDNet)ZDNet UK reports from Munich, which welcomes the delay in the European software patent directive. "Christian Ude, the mayor of Munich, has hailed Marcinski's actions and hopes that changes can now be made to the directive. 'Thanks to the courageous action by the Polish representative it has become clear that the concerns that have been voiced [about the directive] have not yet been dispelled, and that a further discussion in the EU Council is urgently required,' said Ude in a statement on Wednesday."
Interviews Torvalds: a Solaris skeptic (News.com)News.com talks with Linus Torvalds about Solaris and many other topics. "Which is not to say that 2.7.x won't happen--it probably will in a few months--but it does mean that the stable release branches are starting to overshadow the development ones. I think that's both a sign of maturity and of the fact that the stable releases are so important to so many people these days that you can't leave them behind as easily."
Linux Music Blossoms with Rosegarden (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet has an interview with the developers of Rosegarden. "When it comes to producing music with Linux on a professional level, Rosegarden includes the basic features that you would expect to find in a commercial music sequencer and scoring package: MIDI and audio recording and sequencing, sound effects and synth plugins, and a score editor. The array of additional stuff this free program offers is staggering when one considers that it is, as of this writing, on the eve of its version 1.0 release."
A Distributed Discussion with Elliotte Rusty Harold (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly has an interview with Elliotte Rusty Harold. "In this interview, Java Network Programming, 3rd Edition author Elliotte Rusty Harold discusses the improvements and hazards of networking in Java, as well as the evolution of Java itself."
Resources Site Review: Loads of Linux Links (NewsForge)NewsForge reviews the web site Loads of Linux Links. "Imagine a Web site that has over 4,000 links to sites of interest to Linux enthusiasts. Forget about dead links, because this site would be vigilantly maintained by a small group of people totally committed to the work of providing useful content. Instead, expect fresh links several times a week with handy accessories like quick links to related pages. That site already exists. Loads of Linux Links (LOLL) lives at Sourceforge.net as a GPLed software project."
Site review: Linux Game Tome (NewsForge)NewsForge reviews the Linux Game Tome web site. "The site has a quirky 1950s television ad feel to it that makes you want to look around, even if you're not a big fan of computer games. Each game's listing shows the author, a screenshot, basic information such as licensing, cost, and type of game, user ratings, and links to the game home page and download page. A comment section at the bottom of each game's page allows users to share opinions and ask questions."
Meet OpenVPN (Linux Journal)Hans-Cees Speel shows how to set up OpenVPN in a LinuxJournal article. "A disadvantage of plain IPsec is its notorious complexity: many, many things can and do go wrong. To the rescue, then, comes OpenVPN, a full-blown open-source VPN solution based on SSL. OpenVPN offers the same functionality as IPsec in tunnel mode; you can tunnel entire networks through it. In this article, I focus on using OpenVPN as a road warrior's VPN solution."
Reviews Ready, Aim, FireFox (IT-Director)IT-Director looks at the Firefox 1.0 release. "One view is that Microsoft will respond to FireFox by achieving feature parity and will maintain its dominant market position simply through the sale of new PCs. Maybe so, but FireFox is not a solo product. There is also the ThunderBird email client and the SunBird calendar. Add Open Office to this and you have a pretty good PC product portfolio. What is happening is that an Open Source stack is gradually developing on the desktop and, if it becomes popular, it really will be a threat to Microsoft's hegemony."
Book Review: Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management (Linux Journal)Linux Journal reviews the book Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management. "Marc Delisle has written Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management as a tightly focused tutorial that is as successful at guiding its readers along its stated path as it is at avoiding the common pratfall of straying off target."
Application of the Month: KPilot (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced a new KDE Application of the Month article on KPilot. "A new issue of the series "Application of the Month" has been released. It covers an application from the KDE PIM suite called KPilot. Besides the application review we interviewed its current maintainer Adriaan de Groot. KPilot is a replacement for the Palm Desktop software from Palm Inc, which makes your Palm/Palm Pilot/Visor handheld capable of exchanging information with your KDE powered computer."
Ease of computing (MaJe Online)MaJe Online looks at the use of smart media cards and digital cameras under Gentoo Linux. "The Gnome project released version 2.8 with support for the Hardware Abstraction Layer, and the D-Bus message support. With this, their ambhition was to make it extremely simplified for the end user to mount and explore volumes, and even perform automated tasks with certain types of volumes. One example being to "import digital photos when a camera is attached". Fortunately, Gnome detects when a volume is mounted that contains only images. Truly, this caught my attention."
Miscellaneous Further Details About the Mozilla Firefox 'New York Times' Advertisement (MozillaZine)MozillaZine covers a few glitches that were encountered in the process of submitting a large advertisement for FireFox 1.0 in the New York Times. "The striking two-page ad ran a little later than originally planned: the team were not happy with the early designs and a late decision was made to move to two pages. The huge number of donor names (all of which had to be verified) and software rendering problems also contributed to the delay. A few donors were disappointed to find that their names were not printed correctly in the advert. Some had their first names and last names transposed, others had their names were misspelt and a few were missed off completely."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Announcements Non-Commercial announcements FSF Europe on Microsoft rulingThe Free Software Foundation Europe has put out a press release celebrating the rejection of Microsoft's appeal in the European Court. "Microsoft now will have to explain how they have arbitrarily modified public standards they use in their servers and work hard to re-establish competition in the small server market. On the other end we are sure that it is an opportunity for the market to compete on quality of code and services, respecting interoperability."
Commercial announcements Arkeia Network Back-up adds PostgreSQL Plug-inA new Arkeia plugin is available for backing up PostgreSQL databases. "The plug-in will support pg_dump and restore of multiple PostgreSQL databases using a point-and-click interface. For users of PostgreSQL 8.0, it will also manage Point-In-Time-Recovery."
Astaro Security Linux V5.1 adds new featuresAstaro Corporation has announced the addition of new features to Astaro Security Linux V5.1. "Astaro Corporation today announced an update to its award-winning flagship perimeter security package that includes major spam protection enhancements - dramatically improving the blocking of unwanted email messages. Astaro Security Linux V5.1 also enables easy integration with network management systems, and adds features that allow customers to monitor bandwidth usage."
BitDefender Pushes Security Updates to Linux Mail ServersA new version of BitDefender for Linux Mail Servers is available. "The 1.6.1 generation of BitDefender for Linux Mail Servers was enriched today with three more dedicated products, BitDefender for Sendmail, Sendmail-Milter and Postfix mail servers, and with a generic SMTP proxy scanner, designed to be compatible with most other mail servers running on *nix systems."
Cyclades Makes Open Source SDK for IPMI Available on OpenIPMI Web SiteOSDL member Cyclades Corporation has announced the availability of its open source IPMI development kit for the creation of proxies, gateways and managers for IPMI-enabled devices.
Eclipse Test & Performance Tools Platform Project Announces Availability of Release 3.2The Eclipse Test & Performance Tools Platform (TPTP) Project has announced that the TPTP release 3.2 will be available on the Eclipse Foundation website this week. TPTP 3.2 is the second significant platform release since the August 2004 creation of the TPTP Project, an evolution of the previous Eclipse 'Hyades' Project.
Mandrakesoft to lead 3.4-million-euro research projectMandrakesoft is participating in the launch of EDOS, a project dealing with complexity management in the field of Open Source software. "The participants will collaborate in the development of theoretical and technical solutions to the management of large-scale, modular software projects. EDOS will receive EUR 2.2 million in European Union funding, in a total budget of EUR 3.4 million." Nuxeo is another participant.
Mandrakesoft closes equity roundMandrakesoft has announced that it was able to raise €3.05 million in new equity; the company was also able to retire a €1.45 million debt on favorable terms.
MySQL Completes Another Record YearMySQL has announced a new record for 2004. "By the end of the month, the MySQL database server will have been downloaded more than ten million times this year, solidifying its position as the world's most popular open source database."
MySQL announces Packaged Consulting SolutionsMySQL has announced their offering of three new consulting packages. "Presented by MySQL certified senior consultants at customer sites, these short-term engagements will provide in-depth application analysis and recommendations around commonly-requested subjects: application architecture and design, performance tuning and optimization, and assistance with migrating legacy databases to MySQL."
Novell and IBM announce TPC-H benchmark speed recordNovell, Inc. and IBM have announced a new speed record in the TPC-H 100GB benchmark test. "The industry standard TPC-H benchmark tests were designed to test a system's ability to handle complex business intelligence processing for clients. One IBM/Novell configuration achieved the world record for the best non-clustered result in the TPC-H 100GB benchmark test. Another IBM/Novell configuration in the TPC-H 300GB benchmark test demonstrated the ability to handle larger databases with clustering the same basic building blocks."
The SCO Group Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2004 ResultsThe SCO Group, Inc. has announced results for its fiscal fourth quarter and year ended October 31, 2004. "Revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2004 was $10,075,000 as compared to $24,290,000 from the comparable quarter of the prior year. The decrease in revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2004 from the comparable quarter of the prior year was primarily due to a decrease in SCOsource licensing revenue to $120,000 from $10,316,000 and from continued competitive pressures on the Company's UNIX products and services." Groklaw takes a look at the numbers here.
Sub300.com Announces the World's Lightest Linux Notebook ComputerSub300.com has claimed to have released the lightest weight Linux-based laptop ever (under $1000). "At just 2.9 lbs, Sub300.com's Ultralite Laptop is featherweight, but weighs in with features such as Linux OS, a 1Ghz VIA processor, 256MB RAM, 40 Gig HD, Ethernet and a crisp 12.1" TFT display, plus USB 2.0 and PCMCIA slots to add the functionality of wireless networking and more."
Cheap Linux laptops from WalmartWal-Mart has announced the availability of a $498 laptop running the Linspire distribution. "Wal-Mart and Linspire worked together to offer a laptop that would give customers the best user experience at the lowest price possible. The Balance notebook is the lowest-priced laptop currently on the market to include a complete operating system and office suite."
New Books 'Practical mod_perl' book goes opensource (use Perl)Use Perl mentions the free release of the book Practical mod_perl by Eric Cholet and Stas Bekman. The book is being distributed under the CreativeCommons Attribution Share-Alike License.
"Managing Projects with GNU Make" Released by O'ReillyO'Reilly has published the third edition of the book Managing Projects with GNU Make by Robert Mecklenburg.
Contests and Awards KDE 3.4 SVG Wallpaper Challenge (KDE.News)KDE.News has an announcement for the KDE 3.4 SVG Wallpaper Challenge. "There are actual prizes to be won, and the first place winner will be able to chose between a nVIDIA GeForce FX5700LE video card or a 120GB hard drive, graciously provided by Core Function. The second place winner will receive a t-shirt featuring their wallpaper, provided by Revelinux Gear. Be sure to check the KDE-Look.org website for the guidelines and rules. This contest closes on December 31st." Also, the amaroK Icon Contest has been extended until December 31.
Upcoming Events 2005 MySQL Users Conference Registration OpensRegistration for the 2005 MySQL Users Conference is open. "Early registration has just opened for the third annual MySQL Users Conference, to be held in the heart of Silicon Valley in Santa Clara, California, April 18 -21, 2005."
Events: December 23, 2004 - February 17, 2005
Web sites The Pootle online translation and translation management systemThe Translate Toolkit team has announced the Pootle project, an online translation and translation management system. "If you are a translator Pootle makes it easy to translate software without you having to learn the intricacies of the tools traditionally needed to translate Free and Open Source Software. But if you already use those translation tools Pootle is designed to enhance your experience and improve your performance."
Announcing the Rosetta Translation PortalThe Ubuntu Linux project has created the Rosetta Translation Portal. "Rosetta's goal is to make the process of translating free software as easy as possible for both translators and software maintainers. Maintainers can send us PO Templates and PO Files, which will be published through the web for translation. PO Files can then be downloaded at any time."
Miscellaneous Seth Spitzer Launches 'Scott and David, Thanks for Thunderbird' Donation Campaign (MozillaZine)MozillaZine mentions the formation of a donation campaign for the main Mozilla Thunderbird developers. "Seth, who used to work alongside Scott and David at Netscape, wants satisified Thunderbird users to donate 1 US dollar to Scott and David via PayPal. International readers may be interested to hear that the US dollar is at record lows."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Letters to the editor Popularity does not equal insecurity
Erica, you wrote
Looking for legal and other info
I have seen various articles from time to time in LWN about efforts to require
Feedback to grumpy editor on email clients
Dear grumpy editor,
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
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The list of changes is numerous, the
