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Linux in the newsRecommended Reading Stallman Calls for Action on Free BIOS (Groklaw)Groklaw has the text of Richard Stallman's FOSDEM talk, which was about freeing the BIOS. "But once in a while the manufacturer suggests installing another BIOS, which is available only as an executable. This, clearly, is installing a non-free program--it is just as bad as installing Microsoft Windows, or Adobe Photoshop, or Sun's Java Platform. As the unethical practice of installing another BIOS executable becomes common, the version delivered inside the computer starts to raise an ethical problem issue as well."
The ups and downs of life with Linus (ZDNet)ZDNet reports from Alan Cox's FOSDEM talk. "'One of the hard problems to fix are design errors,' said Cox. 'These are a pain because they need a lot of refactoring. Linus' approach is to re-write it to a better design. But to get a stable kernel you tend to do small horrible fixes. Linus is very keen to have maintainable code, while to have a stable kernel I'm keen to have code that works.'"
Trade Shows and Conferences New FSF Europe fellowship program announced (NewsForge)NewsForge covers an announcement from the Free Software Foundation Europe on a new Fellowship program. "The Fellowship program was officially launched at FOSDEM -- the Free and Open Source Developers' European Meeting -- with the call to "stand up to protect our freedom to shape and participate in a digital society that respects liberty and privacy." Its logo encapsulates the aims of the program: a person, representing the freedom for individuals, that looks like an addition symbol, reflecting the community as a sum of its parts, with each fellow adding something."
SCALE 3x Wrap Ups, Articles, and Presentations Now Online. (LinuxMedNews)LinuxMedNews has complete coverage of the SCALE 3x conference. "Wrap up reports and reviews are in and SCALE 3x, the third annual Southern California Linux Expo appears to have been a huge success, with over 900 attendees, 30 seminars and 42 booths on their exhibit floor."
Report of Paris Solutions Linux 2005 (KDE.News)KDE.News reports on Solutions Linux 2005. "Solutions Linux trade show is the French annual rendez-vous of Free Software technologies and their commercial applications. This year, it ran from February 1st to February 3rd. Like preceding years, KDE-France was present and benefited of a free booth in the "Associative Village"."
The SCO Problem SCO and The Titanic (IT-Director)Robin Bloor writes off SCO in this IT-Director article. "From a legal perspective, Open Source licenses and intellectual property may be a valid point for debate and legal action, but from a fashion perspective, taking on Linux and Open Source is a stupidity, and severely damaging to an organization's brand as SCO has proved quite comprehensively. Open Source is an idea whose time has come."
Companies IBM project pushes for OS efficiency (News.com)News.com considers the effects that IBM's source code release for their Research Hypervisor (rHype) software may have on the open-source Xen virtual machine monitor project. "But given rHype's open-source nature and IBM's actions so far, rHype is more likely to be a help than a hindrance to Xen. Specifically, it could help Xen move from its current base of x86 chips to IBM's Power. "We've spent quite some time talking to its authors," Xen founder Ian Pratt said. "Now that the rHype code is open source, it's a great starting point for a port of Xen to Power.""
Big Blue backs PHP for Web development (News.com)News.com covers a partnership agreement between IBM and Zend Technologies. "The two companies intend to devote programmers to make PHP work better with corporate databases and Web services protocols. IBM also plans to establish an area dedicated to PHP on its developer Web site, which will include technical resources such as white papers. Zend Core will be available as a free download in the second half of the year."
IBM tests new ways to support open source (News.com)News.com looks at a couple of IBM initiatives aimed at increasing the pool of open source developers - or, perhaps, job applicants. "The database is scheduled to launch in the third quarter, cataloging the resumes of university students who have open-source expertise. People eligible for inclusion in the database will include those who attend a post-secondary institution covered under IBM's Academic Initiative and pass IBM's professional certification exams in open source. The database will be searchable by IBM customers and business partners."
Linux Adoption Current Problems with Linux (CoolTechZone)CoolTechZone has some suggestions on how Linux could be made more attractive to Windows users. "Which one is Linux? The single most confusing thing about Linux is this. What is Linux? Yes, we know that it's a kernel coupled with other utilities, but what in tarnation is a kernel? We can understand it if you tell us that Windows 95 is different from Windows 98, but what do you mean by saying that Fedora Core 3 is similar to Debian testing, but is better than Core 2. And of course, Mandrake 10.1 is better than 10.0, but SuSE is only on 9.2. All this gets very confusing after a while."
The Hard Truth About Linux on the Desktop - The Benefit Side (OSDir)OSDir concludes its "hard truths" series with this look at the benefits of desktop Linux, which are deemed to be insufficient. "I argue that an excess of software choice actually operates to reduce ease of use. The presence of a lot of alternatives means choices must be made, and while it is great to have choice if you know how to choose, novices finds it at best baffling, and at worst mind-numbingly complex."
Legal So, *Now* How Do You Feel About Software Patents? (Groklaw)Groklaw looks at an example of how software patents can wreak havoc in the corporate world. "FT.com has the jaw-dropping story about European futures exchanges, brokers and traders preparing for patent infringement claims from Trading Technologies, a US software company, natch, located in Chicago -- where else? -- which has hit on what it appears to view as a pot of gold for itself by obtaining two patents on its MD Trader software product in August of 2004, patents it is now aggressively enforcing. It settled two patent infringement cases already, under circumstances some are questioning, for some licensing dough, and it is currently suing eSpeed, the electronic arm of Cantor Fitzgerald. eSpeed just had one of its patents ruled invalid in a patent infringement lawsuit it brought in July of 2003, after getting the patent in May, so it's been playing the patent game too. Game? It's like musical chairs. You may also recall eSpeed's Wagner patent."
Interviews Remixing Culture: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig (O'ReillyNet)Here's an O'ReillyNet interview with Lawrence Lessig. "What do you get when you mix P2P, inexpensive digital input devices, open source software, easy editing tools, and reasonably affordable bandwidth? Potentially, you get what Lawrence Lessig calls remix culture: a rich, diverse outpouring of creativity based on creativity. This is not a certain future, however. Peer-to-peer is on the verge of being effectively outlawed. Continuation of the current copyright regime would mean that vast quantities of creative content will be forever locked away from remix artists."
Perl and Mandrakelinux (O'Reilly)Mark Stosberg interviews Rafael Garcia-Suarez on O'Reilly "Besides being heavily involved with Perl at Mandrakesoft, Rafael is also the pumpking for the Perl 5.10 release. Rafael answered my questions about using Perl for GUI programming and how he balances his day job with being pumpking."
Inside the Multiple Emulator Super System (O'Reilly)Howard Wen interviews Nathan Woods on O'Reilly. "Developing code to emulate the hardware and functionality of any computer system is a challenge. Multiply that by over 150 systems and you now have some inkling as to what development is like for MESS, the Multiple Emulator Super System. Started in 1998, this open source program emulates the processors of scores of classic computer systems and video game consoles, all under one program."
Resources Free Software Magazine #2The second issue of Free Software Magazine is available online. Read about the history of SMTP, spam filtering with Postfix, poking at iTunes, a FUD-based Encyclopedia, and more.
Basic button-pushing with OpenOffice.org macros (NewsForge)NewsForge presents a tutorial on using OpenOffice.org macros. "OpenOffice.org is gaining popularity in the corporate mainstream, yet one of its most powerful features, macros, can be pretty intimidating to new users. Let's see how easy it is to create an OpenOffice.org macro and connect it to a simple pushbutton."
Building the Perfect Budget PC, Part 2 (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly has published part two in a series by Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson on assembling a budget AMD Sempron 2400+ PC from the ground up. "In our last article, we detailed our component selections for perfect AMD and Intel budget PCs. In this article, we'll actually build the AMD system. We chose the AMD system as our example because we're more concerned about Linux compatibility on this platform than on the Intel-based system."
Building the PostgreSQL BuildFarm (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet takes a look at the PostgreSQL BuildFarm. "One of the problems that the PostgreSQL project faces, as many other similar projects do, is how to know whether some change has broken things on some platform. We don't have the resources to run every possible combination, nor even a tiny proportion of them. On several occasions it has happened that breakage only became apparent some time after a change went in. We created PostgreSQL BuildFarm to address that difficulty."
Reviews Gammu open source cell phone synchronization tool (NewsForge)NewsForge reviews Gammu. "Gammu is a nice cell phone management tool that simply works. It is open source, stable, intelligent, feature-rich, complex, and at the same time it is fun to experiment with. The Wammu interface, however, will have to reach a stable 1.0 release before I consider it to be a reasonable competitor to any of the commercial counterparts available for Windows. Because of the time and fiddling required to make everything work, I recommend this software mainly to experienced Linux users."
Gentoo Linux Is Coming into Its Own (eWeek)eWeek looks at Gentoo Linux. "Gentoo's non-commercial status, as well as its reputation as a bleeding-edge distribution for Linux system tweakers, has so far dimmed its prospects for enterprise adoption. That said, Gentoo Linux is maturing quickly, and the system's source code-based software installation mechanism makes Gentoo a flexible distribution and a good fit for testing the latest versions of key open-source software components."
Inkscape: Vector Graphics For Linux (Linux Planet)Linux Planet takes a look at Inkscape. "Inkscape is also an open source vector graphics editor that uses the SVG (scalable vector graphics) file format. This is neat because SVG is an evolving standard based on XML that can be massaged via programs, scripts or a simple text editor. In this story we'll do a quick primer on how you can get up to speed on Inkscape."
First look: OpenOffice.org version 2.0 beta (NewsForge)NewsForge takes a look at the upcoming version of OOo. "Although a list of new features in version 2.0 has been posted, some have yet to be implemented. Some may never be implemented. Original plans to rewrite the charting module, for instance, were dropped early in development. Others may still change before final release."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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