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Linux in the newsRecommended Reading GPL 3 won't split projects, Moglen says (News.com)News.com looks into GPL v3 concerns. "Eben Moglen, general counsel of the Free Software Foundation, said Thursday that there shouldn't be a problem in persuading Linux developers to migrate to GPL 3, as the license will be developed with their input. "I don't think it will be a difficulty," Moglen said. "When the FSF finishes its work to produce the first discussion draft of GPL 3, there will be an extended comment period, which will be a chance for everybody to have their say. We will take as long in listening as people need to take.""
A History of Free and Open Source - Introduction ~ by Peter H. Salus (Groklaw)Groklaw introduces "A History of Free and Open Source". "Historian Peter H. Salus is writing "A History of Free and Open Source", and I'm delighted to tell you that he is going to be publishing it in serialized form here on Groklaw. We thought that, with ADTI back with its Grim Fairy Tales, it would be useful to tell the FOSS story truthfully and in a scholarly way, so readers now and historians in the future can rely on the facts. Here's the first installment, the Introduction, and I know you will enjoy it. Look for the next episode on the 6th or 7th of April and every Wednesday or Thursday after that."
Trade Shows and Conferences Evidence that Python is advancing into the enterprise (NewsForge)NewsForge presents a report from PyCON 2005. "Mission-critical development organizations often regard only a handful of languages -- C#, Java, XML, SQL, and few others -- as safe enough for serious projects. From this perspective, Python has been traditionally lumped with "experimental" or "toy" languages. Over and over, however, speakers at this conference presented evidence to the contrary."
The PyCon BlogA PyCon Blog site is online with coverage of the recent PyCon (Python Conference) that was held in Washington DC.
The SCO Problem IBM's Memo in Support of Proposed Scheduling Order (Groklaw)For the curious: the back-and-forth continues in SCO v. IBM. Groklaw has IBM's memo in support of a scheduling order that might actually bring an end to the whole show at some point. "For example, if SCO were to identify Linux code that it contends is derived from AIX, Dynix, or UNIX System V and was improperly contributed to Linux, then IBM would need to take discovery to determine the facts relating to the code in question, including but not limited to (i) who wrote the code, when, how, and why, (ii) whether and to what extent it is in the public domain and (iii) whether and to what extent it is protectable by contract or copyright."
Companies EDS: Linux 'strategically important' (ZDNet)ZDNet covers a reversal of position on Linux from EDS. "Outsourcing specialist EDS said it was "proactively engineering" Linux into its product portfolio, backtracking on previous statements that the open-source software was insecure and unscalable. EDS' management in the United States moved to clarify its position on Linux in a statement issued to ZDNet Australia today after Robb Rasmussen, the vice-president responsible for alliances, unleashed a storm last week by denigrating the open-source platform's readiness for large enterprises."
The reinvention of Progeny (NewsForge)NewsForge has published a study of how Progeny survived the dotcom crash. "Not that Progeny Debian was a failure in the end, [Progeny founder Ian] Murdock hurries to add. Admittedly, the product failed in the stores. However, the simple fact that the company had built the distribution provided proof that it understood Debian and could develop a product that would be downloaded by thousands of people. If Progeny had not developed Progeny Debian, he now believes, then the company would have had no tangible proof of its skills to secure new custom development contracts."
Linux Adoption Brazil: Free software's biggest and best friend (News.com)News.com is carrying a New York Times article on Brazil's support for free software. "By the end of April, the government plans to roll out a much-ballyhooed program called PC Conectado, or Connected PC, aimed at helping millions of low-income Brazilians buy their first computers. And if the president's top technology adviser gets his way, the program may end up offering computers with only free software, including the operating system, handpicked by the government instead of giving consumers the option of paying more for, say, a basic edition of Microsoft Windows."
Legal Microsoft Patent Too Close to IPv6, Lawyers Say (eWeek)eWeek looks at a dispute over a Microsoft-held patent. ""We are aware that the patent should not have issued in view of the prior art available to the patent office but not cited by Microsoft in its application," Moglen said. The patent in question, USP 6101499, filed in 1998 and issued in 2000, concerns automatic generation of IP addresses to facilitate simple network connections. The technology described therein bears "more than a passing similarity" to IPv6, one of the backbones of the Internet, according to Frank Bernstein, a lawyer with Kenyon & Kenyon, a San Jose, Calif., firm."
Interviews Mitchell Baker on NPR 'Science Friday' (MozillaZine)MozillaZine mentions several interviews with Mitchell Baker. "Today, we reported on Mitchell Baker's Slashdot interview. However, that's not the only interview the Mozilla Foundation's Chief Lizard Wrangler has been doing recently: earlier this month she appeared on the National Public Radio programme Talk of the Nation as part of their Science Friday segment. Speaking in fairly general and non-technical terms, Mitchell talked about Mozilla Firefox and the work of the Mozilla Foundation and took a couple of questions from callers."
Jim Fulton Interview (ZopeMag)ZopeMag interviews Jim Fulton, CTO of Zope Corporation. "Of course, Zope 3 has many things to offer too that are not found in Zope 2. As far as maturity is concerned, we are being very careful to provide backward compatibility for released features. You can build on features and application programming interfaces (APIs) released in Zope 3.0 knowing that they will work in Zope 3.1 and 3.2, and that, should they change, there will be plenty of early-warning."
Robert Sutor on the IBM patent commons initiative (IBM developerWorks)IBM developerWorks has an interview with Robert Sutor. "Find out why the recent release of 500 IBM® patents will help fuel innovation in open source technology through this detailed interview with Dr. Robert Sutor. At IBM, Dr. Sutor has been a member of IBM Research, and Director of Web Services Technology, and is now the Vice President of Standards. He has been involved in open standards actively since the earliest days of XML, and is a frequent speaker on standards and open source, and Web services, and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)."
Resources make for Nonprogrammers (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet takes a look at make from a BSD perspective. "This article covers some make basics so you have an idea what is happening behind the scenes. It also examines some of the options you have available when issuing make commands."
Syncing the Treo 650 with Bluetooth (Linux Journal)Dovid Kopel shows how to connect a PalmOne Treo 650 smartphone to a Linux machine over a Bluetooth link. "The Treo 650 is capable of accessing all aspects of the Internet, providing one has a data plan, at a reasonable speed and cost. Until the release of the 650 model, you had to connect the Treo to your computer in order to communicate with it. With the addition of Bluetooth, however, the process has become significantly easier. With the touch of a single button, I now can hotsync my Treo or surf the Web without ever touching a wire."
Reviews Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community (NewsForge)NewsForge examines OpenOffice.org 2.0 and its dependence on a Java Runtime Environment. "One of the few technical arguments against OpenOffice.org's use of Java is that it undermines the project's goal to be a cross-platform office suite. Many operating systems currently supported, including FreeBSD and GNU/Linux for the PowerPC, have no official version of Java. Those who wish to use OOo 2.0 on such platforms must use GNU/Linux emulation or work with an often incomplete free Java implementation. Either way, the new requirement places new pressures on the already overworked teams of OpenOffice.org volunteers working on these ports."
Open source Mambo CMS succeeds admirably (NewsForge)NewsForge reviews Mambo, an open-source web content management system. "Mambo is not a portal-oriented CMS. You can use it to run a portal, of course, but Mambo is much more versatile. In fact, Mambo is targeted at the corporate market. All content pages are dynamically generated from a MySQL database. The look of a Web site running on Mambo is defined by a template. Three templates are provided with Mambo, and there are many free templates that you can use, which you can find at sites such as MamboHut and MamboPortal."
Linux Desktop Improves Search (eWeek)eWeek takes a look at Novell's Linux Desktop. "Among the new features Novell hopes will draw the masses to the new desktop operating system, due next year, is Beagle, a desktop search and metadata technology that indexes all the content on a user's hard drive, including Web sites visited and instant messaging conversations, making this content all instantly searchable."
Miscellaneous With Linux, enough is sometimes too much (InfoWorld)Here's an InfoWorld article that says that most Linux distributions come with too much other stuff. "You could argue that it never hurts to have too many options, but I disagree. Under the hood, any Linux PC is a system of incredible complexity. Adding more applications to the mix only increases that complexity and gives the end-user more blind alleys to wander down. Anything that raises the barrier of entry to Linux is harmful, no matter how good the intentions."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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