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Linux in the newsRecommended Reading Linux Inc. (Business Week)Business Week has taken a lengthy look at how Linux is developed. "Linux Inc. has become so mature that it's clear it could continue to thrive even without Torvalds. Already his chief lieutenant, Andrew Morton, shares leadership duties and makes all the public appearances. From 1997 to 2003, when Torvalds worked for chipmaker Transmeta Corp., putting out Linux wasn't even his full-time job -- yet its market share in servers rose from 6.8% to 24%." There's a picture of Linus and a penguin on the cover as well.
Open Source Database - Will Proprietary Databases Survive? (IT-Director)Robin Bloor notes that the open source database scene is getting crowded. "Can so many Open Source database products survive? I personally doubt it, but I may be wrong. They may all generate a healthy and sizable submarket that justifies their existence and, with Open Source products, it doesn't really matter how big the user base is, as long as it is big enough to generate the support network necessary to keep the product evolving and relevant. (CA is already reporting that it is making a profit from its "open sourcing" of Ingres - which probably means that Ingres has a brighter future as an Open Source product than it had as a proprietary solution)."
Trade Shows and Conferences Third Osnabrueck PIM Meeting (KDE.News)KDE.News covers the annual meeting of KDE PIM hackers. "With over 40 bugs fixed, some interesting features implementented, the Kolab hackers participating, and the draft for GroupDAV revised with Helge Hess from OpenGroupware.org, this meeting was not only a successful boost of KDE PIM development, but also for PIM client-server interoperability in general." The meeting overview is online with more information.
Guido van Rossum at Amazon DevConGuido van Rossum's presentation at the Amazon DevCon event on January 25 is online with part one and part two.
The SCO Problem The Wells Discovery Ruling - Grants in Part, Denies in Part (Groklaw)There has been a ruling on SCO's discovery motion against IBM; the text is available on Groklaw. "Accordingly, the court HEREBY ORDERS IBM to provide in a readily accessible format all versions and changes to AIX and Dynix. In essence, the court is ordering production of the information contained within the CMVC and RCS systems without granting SCO complete access at this time."
SCO's outlook is a bleak house (ZDNet)ZDNet sums up the state of SCO v. IBM. "More importantly, the relevance of this case to open source software in general has been demonstrated to be small or nil, SCO's intemperate blustering notwithstanding. Forget Darl McBride's sabre rattling about the GPL being against the US constitution: the case is as it seemed when everything kicked off in 2003, a result of SCO's affronted sensibilities at the way IBM ditched Project Monterey."Also worth a note: Netcraft has put up a brief article poking fun at SCO for taking 10 months to put out an OpenSSL patch.
The Tables Are Turned - SCO Objects to IBM's Discovery Demands (Groklaw)As seen on Groklaw, the latest episode in the SCO drama has SCO complaining that IBM's discovery demands are excessive. "And we now have the hilarious opportunity to watch SCO tell the court how burdensome it would be for SCO to have to produce to IBM every product Caldera distributed for the past 6 years. These are the same folks who whined until they got not only every released version of AIX and Dynix going back to the '80s but every *unreleased* one also, in their own discovery demands."
Companies Intel lets Linux into Centrino camp (News.com)News.com covers Intel's move to allow Linux laptop vendors to use the Centrino logo. "Although Linux can run on existing Centrino notebooks, Intel until now wouldn't permit companies to sell Linux laptops using the Centrino logo. The reason for the change: With the release of the 2.6.8 Linux kernel, the open-source operating system's power management abilities now meet Intel's requirements for Centrino notebook battery life, said Karen Regis, manager of mobile programs and promotions at the chipmaker."
Ben Goodger Going to Google (MozillaZine)MozillaZine covers the move of Ben Goodger from Mozilla to Google. "Ben Goodger announced today on his weblog that he has left the Mozilla Foundation to take a position at Google, but will continue his roll as leader of the Firefox project. He gives no details of his or Google's plans, but we expect things like support for Mozilla in Google's desktop search and a Google toolbar for Firefox can't be far off."
Linux Adoption Vienna takes the boldest step of all - asking the users (ZDNet)ZDNet UK looks at Vienna's approach to free desktop deployment. "The decision to switch -- or not -- will be made on the unholy trinity of practicality, lack of hassle and lowest expense; these are base desires, but commendable. They are precisely the mundane reasons on which any grand design will eventually prosper or founder. For this reason, Vienna will be a bellwether, and we should watch the results carefully."
Linux at Work Penguin power serves up Aus open scores (Computerworld)Computerworld looks at the use of Linux in the Australian Open tennis tournament. ""This year, for the first time we have installed an eServer i5 520 running the Internet scoring system and the Web site staging server on Linux," Simpfendorfer said. "At the core of the technology used to deliver the official Australian Open Web site are IBM's iSeries i5 running Linux on a Power chip, IBM Intel-processor based xSeries servers running Linux, and IBM pSeries servers running AIX.""
Legal Decision about software patents postponed (Heise)Heise Online catches up with the current state of the software patent fight in Europe. "In the meantime, the EU Council has also officially confirmed that the concerns that Poland still has about the directive for software patents will not be on the agenda of the meeting of agricultural ministers in the Council of Agriculture and Fisheries, nor does the directive appear on the list of the items to be resolved without discussion ("A items"). In other words, the official adoption of the paper has once again been postponed unless there is some last-minute attempt within the Council this Monday to have the measure voted on." It could still come back next week, apparently.
Interviews FireFox Rising (Red Hat Magazine)Red Hat Magazine interviews Chris Blizzard. "Chris Blizzard has been with Red Hat since 1998. He also sits on the board of the Mozilla Foundation. We asked him to share some of his insights about Mozilla's remarkable return to prominence."
FreeBSD's SMPng (O'ReillyNet)Here's an O'ReillyNet interview with Scott Long, one of FreeBSD's core developers. "Over the past five years, the FreeBSD developer team has worked very hard to improve performance on multiprocessor systems. Their goal was to remove the big kernel lock used in the 4.x branch, and replace it with fine-grained SMP support. This project, often referred to as SMPng ("SMP next generation"), was a very big effort and took four releases (from 5.0 to 5.3) to reach stable status. Federico Biancuzzi interviewed FreeBSD Core member Scott Long about the SMPng technology, the current implementation status, future goals, and plans."
Interview: Timothy Miller (KernelTrap.org)Jeremy Andrews interviews Timothy Miller, of the Open Graphics Project, on KernelTrap.org. "Timothy Miller is a long time developer of graphics chips and drivers. He has observed that there is a growing trend by graphics hardware vendors to provide less and less information to free and open source operating system developers. Without this information, it is becoming more and more difficult to purchase new graphics hardware that is stable and reliable on Linux and other free and open source operating systems. In response, Timothy worked with his employer, Tech Source, to form the Open Graphics Project."
Resources Networking in NSA Security-Enhanced LinuxJames Morris has written an article on protecting a network server with SELinux. "In this article we take a look at how SELinux can help increase the security of networked systems, as well as the design and implementation of its network-specific security controls. We then walk through an example of using SELinux policy to lock down a simple network application."
Rolling with Ruby on Rails (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet shows how to build a simple web application using Rails. "Maybe you've heard about Ruby on Rails, the super productive new way to develop web applications, and you'd like to give it a try, but you don't know anything about Ruby or Rails. This article steps through the development of a web application using Rails. It won't teach you how to program in Ruby, but if you already know another object-oriented programming language, you should have no problem following along (and at the end you can find links on learning Ruby)."
USB Wi-Fi adapter support in Linux (NewsForge)Keith Winston sets up USB Wi-Fi adapter support in Linux, on NewsForge. "I needed to connect my new desktop PC wirelessly from my second floor office to my first floor network. As I started researching the options for wireless USB adapters, I realized I might have some work ahead of me. Wireless USB in Linux is still in the early stages of development. But a little searching and some trial and error led to a successful connection."
Design by Wiki (O'Reilly)Jason R. Briggs shows how to use a wiki site for collaborative design of documentation. "Eventually I decided HTML was the obvious way to go and began writing specifications with carefully designed (standards compliant!) style sheets; with hrefs linking them together rather than oddball references in a Word doc. When a colleague installed MediaWiki for various other documentation requirements, it was a head-slapping, Homer Simpson-style Doh! moment."
Reviews OpenOffice.org database application: A first look review (NewsForge)NewsForge takes a look at a new database application for OpenOffice.org. "This story will discuss the OpenOffice.org Base and how it can be used in your business. I'll touch on the similarities (plus differences) with the OpenOffice.org database program and Access. I'll continue with a little commentary on migration issues. We'll finish up by building a basic contact database, a form, a query, and a report using the wizards. If you are already an OpenOffice.org believer, you can just skip down to the "build a quick database application" section to see how it works."
In-depth review of Inkscape (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop points to a long and detailed review of the current release of Inkscape on Stopped Clock. "I thought that if I have to do the icons in SVG ever again, I may as well revisit the river. Since I just upgraded to Ubuntu Hoary (Gnome 2.10 is slick!), I gave Inkscape a try again. Since I'm an old Illustrator junkie, I knew it's going to be tough getting used to especially since I've tried and failed before. I expected being disappointed, I was surprised in many areas though. Looks like a lot of good stuff happened while I wasn't watching :) I'm actually confident that it's usable to create less complex artwork."
Pyrex extends and speeds Python apps (developerWorks)developerWorks takes a detailed look at Pyrex, a language specifically designed for the creation of Python extension modules. "In well-chosen cases, a Pyrex module can run 40-50 times faster than a Python version of the same module. But in contrast to writing the module in C, per se, the Pyrex version will hardly be any longer than the Python version, and the code will look much more like Python than like C."
Innovations in window management (NewsForge)This NewsForge article searches for extensible window managers. "In the past year, a number of small window managers have appeared that emphasize scriptable extensibility. My favorite is Kahakai, a Waimea derivative with support for Python scripting. Unfortunately, Kahakai is no longer under active development. Many of the former Kahakai developers have contributed to the Aegis project, which is still not mature enough to adequately assess. I have also looked at PyEvilWM, a Python-enhanced derivative of the lightweight keyboard-oriented window manager EvilWM. Fluxbox users may be interested in FluxSpace, a Fluxbox derivative with support for Python scripting."
Reviewing the Architecture of the World Wide Web (O'Reilly)Harry Halpin reviews the W3C document Architecture of the World Wide Web on O'Reilly. "The most significant networked application development yet is the World Wide Web, which has made the the personal computer a must-have item, and a web address as crucial as a phone number for a successful business. This is only the beginning; from web services to the Semantic Web, the web is changing fast. Yet no matter how fast things change, some things remain the same; this holds true for the principles of web architecture. Publication of the "Architecture of the World Wide Web" by the W3C hopes to codify these principles."
Miscellaneous Retail geeks aren't geeky enough (NewsForge)Jay Lyman describes the dismal Linux support experience he received from mainstream vendors Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, and Dell. "Calls to three local stores in Oregon proved somewhat disappointing, as the dreaded Linux (incorrectly pronounced L-eye-nux) bewilderment continued. The first store, in Portland, routed my call to computer support, which rang indefinitely with no answer. The second call was to the Best Buy in Beaverton, home to the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL). However, during regular store hours on a regular business day, there was no answer, no answering service, no re-route -- nothing but ringing."
Firefox 1.0 Launch DayMozilla Foundation president Mitchell Baker has posted a blog entry about the release of Firefox 1.0. "After a while the anticlimactic feeling faded as we began to get information about the number of downloads and the general reception of Firefox. As best we can figure it, around 1,000,000 people came to download Firefox on the first day alone. That's an astonishing number, far beyond what we had seen before. As Chris Hofmann put it, the building at the Mozilla Foundation might seem quiet, but the wires were burning up at Oregon State!"
PHIELD - Publc Health Integration and Exchange of Lab Data (LinuxMedNews)LinuxMedNews looks at the PHIELD project. "The PHIELD project implemented a first generation solution by developing an end-to-end model comprised of Open Source software and documentation for filtering and reporting from a local LIS to the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS) implementation in Nebraska utilizing the Public Health Information Network (PHIN) architected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."
Debian developer to head Linux Australia (Sydney Morning Herald)The Sydney Morning Herald covers the election of Jonathan Oxer as President of Linux Australia. "Also voted in during the elections which concluded on January 15 were Pia Smith (vice-president), Anthony Towns (secretary), Mark Tearle (treasurer), Andrew Cowie, Geoffrey Bennett, and Stewart Smith (ordinary committee members)."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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