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Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
The 100 Best Products of 2005 (PC World)
PC World has posted its list of the top 100 products of 2005. Firefox appears at the top of the list; other entries include Thunderbird, Ubuntu 5.04, Wikipedia, and Tor (which was covered on this week's LWN Security page).
GPLFlash lives again (NewsForge)
NewsForge covers the GPLFlash project. "If you've seen the recently redesigned Free Software Foundation Web site, you may have noticed that the FSF has listed three projects that it says the community is in "vital need" of help with: GPLFlash, GNU Classpath, and the GNU Compiler for Java. The reason listed for their importance is the allure of using proprietary Java and Flash browser plugins and proprietary operating systems that include them. A competent, free replacement for Macromedia Flash Player would remove a significant hurdle in the FSF's goal of encouraging a complete desktop GNU/Linux operating system that is devoid of proprietary software."
Report on fisl 6.0 (KDE.News)
KDE.News has a report from the International Free Software Forum in Porto Alegre/RS, Brazil. "The event is a combined exhibition and talks, an exhibitions which this year big companies wanted to be and are present, like IBM, Sun, UniSys. There are also a number of booths belonging to the Brazilian federal and local government. For free software groups and organizations free booths were offered, so there is a small KDE booth as well, mainly run by local KDE enthusiastic and developers, like Helio Chissini de Castro and Thiago Macieira as well. Helio participated on a discussion about object oriented programming, while I gave a presentation about how can one adapt Quanta Plus for his own needs. The slides for my presentation are downloadable in KPresenter format."
Trade Shows and Conferences
LinuxFest Northwest 2005: Wrap-Up Report (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal has a report on this year's LinuxFest Northwest. "LinuxFest Northwest is a non-commercial one-day conference and exhibition of open-source technology with an emphasis on Linux. It is held in the city of Bellingham, Washington, which is about 90 miles north of Seattle and about 20 miles south of the Canadian border. It is run by the Bellingham Linux Users Group (BLUG) with the help of other users groups. Admission is free and open to all."
Red Hat Summit Day 2: Good collaboration and more (NewsForge)
NewsForge covers day two of the Red Hat Summit in New Orleans. "Michael Tiemann, Red Hat's vice president for open source affairs, kicked off the second day of the Summit with an academic and historical explanation of the open source phenomenon. Tiemann drew parallels from works like "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond and "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville, and discussed the impact of collaborative software development on today's software industry."
Red Hat Summit Day 3: Fedora is free (NewsForge)
NewsForge covers the third and final day of the inaugural Red Hat Summit. "Rik van Riel gave a Thursday afternoon session for programmers on how to get involved with open source development work. He talked about how best to submit a patch to an existing project -- such as the Linux kernel -- and also about how to make your own closed project open."
Red Hat Summit: Overview and Reflections (Linux Journal)
The Linux Journal reports from the Red Hat Summit. "When I sit through the keynote speeches at these conferences, it amazes me how these top executives can come up with the most bizarre looking graphs and charts to explain the open-source development trend thus far, thereby attempting to predict accurately where it's heading. These executives seem to be trying to take data they've accumulated on the open-source industry and squeeze it into traditional business models so they can explain it in ways they as business managers can understand. From that, they hope to be able to control or at least to predict future trends."
Mozilla at XTech 2005 (MozillaZine)
MozillaZine covers talks concerning Mozilla at the recent XTech 2005 Conference. "There were several Mozilla-related talks at the XTech 2005 Conference, which took place in Amsterdam in the last week of May. All the Mozilla XTech presentations can now be viewed online and papers for most of the other XTech talks are also available."
The SCO Problem
SCO's Conference Call and AutoZone Report (Groklaw)
Groklaw covers the latest SCO conference call and follows developments in the AutoZone case: "They announced at the beginning that they would only take questions about their "core Unix business". Blake Stowell, Darl McBride and Bert Young attended. They increased revenues in their Unix business this quarter slightly, so they are cash flow positive in that area. They are launching their new product later this month. They made money from selling their TrollTech stock. They had lower expenses this quarter. There were only two questions. Mr. McBride seemed a little startled that there were no further questions. Maybe the last conference call left a bad taste in people's mouths."
Companies
Microsoft v. Linux: Execs Talk Detente (eWeek)
eWeek tells us relations between Microsoft and the open-source community are thawing. "In continuing its outreach to the most prominent members of the open-source community, Microsoft has invited Michael Tiemann, president of the Open Source Initiative and vice president of open-source affairs at Linux vendor Red Hat, to meet and start a constructive dialogue."
Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win? (Working Knowledge)
Working Knowledge (a Harvard Business School publication) talks with two professors who have attempted to apply economic models to the competition between Microsoft and Linux. "Our main result is that in the absence of cost asymmetries and as long as Windows has a first-mover advantage (a larger installed base at time zero), Linux never displaces Windows of its leadership position. This result holds true regardless of the strength of Linux's demand-side learning. Furthermore, the result persists regardless of the intrinsically better design and potential differential value of Linux. In other words, harnessing demand-side learning more efficiently is not sufficient for Linux to win the competitive battle against Windows."
US Health Department Signs Major Linux Deal With Novell (InformationWeek)
InformationWeek covers an agreement between Novell and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has signed a multi-million-dollar, multi-year enterprise deal to use Linux and identity management products from Novell Inc., the vendor revealed on Tuesday. Financial terms of the deal between Novell and HHS weren't disclosed. However a Novell spokesman says the agreement is the first "enterprise site license" between a large federal department and a Linux vendor."
Red Hat Creates Fedora Foundation (eWeek)
eWeek reports that Red Hat has decided to put the Fedora project under the control of an independent foundation. "Asked if there was any Fedora technology or patented technology that would not be available to the community, [Red Hat counsel Mark] Webbink said there was not at this point, but 'as we go forward, non-technology-related things like business method patents we register will not be available to the community.'"Meanwhile, it's worth noting that the release of Fedora Core 4 has been pushed back to June 13.
Interviews
A good morning with: Theo de Raadt (TuxJournal)
TuxJournal interviews OpenBSD and OpenSSH creator Theo de Raadt. "Q:Are you scared from the latest SSH-1 security problems for your OpenSSH ? In which way could worry the security of your package? A:Since I understand the actual problems that exist in the SSH-1 protocol, at a technical level, and do not simply pander to ridiculous fears, no, I am entirely unafraid of the CRC issues. I would be far more worried about any other unknown issue than something which is known, but boring, and very difficult to exploit."
An Interview with Dr. Ari Jaaksi of Nokia (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal talks with Dr. Ari Jaaksi about the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. "Nokia is encouraging external development for the 770 with the release of the maemo platform. Furthermore, the company actively is supporting mainstream open-source applications, while encouraging maemo developers not to fork from these foundational applications."
Resources
The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin: Chapter 11 (Groklaw)
An excursus on UUNET and Chapter 11 of the online book "The Daemon, The GNU and the Penguin" by Dr. Peter H. Salus is online at Groklaw. Chapter 11 looks at OSF and UNIX International.
Linux Gazette Issue 115
Issue #115 of the Linux Gazette has been published. The contents include: The Mailbag, News Bytes, Python for scientific use, Part II: Data analysis, Piercing Firewalls with OpenSSH, Gmail on Home Linux Box using Postfix and Fetchmail, HelpDex, Ponders Corner, Exploring procfs, Staying Connected, Introduction to Shell Scripting, part 5, WSGI Explorations in Python, and Design Awareness.
Linux on board: Linux gives new life to old boxes (developerWorks)
IBM developerWorks begins the Linux on board series with this look at Linux and old hardware. "People say Linux can make old machines useful. Can it really? In this new series, Peter Seebach takes a busted laptop and a $50-a-month budget and builds a household appliance that actually does something worthwhile."
OOo Off the Wall: Tabling the Notion, Part 2 (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal presents part two of an article on OOo Writer table formulas by Bruce Byfield. "Table formulas--or should I say formulae?--are one of OpenOffice.org Writer's unique features. Writer uses a formula bar similar to the one in OpenOffice.org Calc, but with a more limited set of options. The syntax for table formulas is similar to spreadsheet formulas, with just enough differences to be frustrating to a spreadsheet expert. Yet, despite these apparent shortcomings, table formulas are a welcome addition to the Writer toolbox. As a practical example can show, with a little planning, you can use Writer's table formulas to build surprisingly complex documents and, more importantly, to reduce the boredom of routine tasks. By Bruce Byfield on Wed, 2005-06-01 23:00."
I, Xen: a tutorial for Xen under SUSE
A new Tutorial is available for the Xen virtual machine monitor. "consider this version 0.1 ... an OpenSkills tutorial to start using Xen on Suse 9.3 Professional. an I, System short story, a tale of graphical madness, the first chapter of a interactive story for Xen configuration and understanding... ... or just another half born fun project."
Reviews
Application of the Month: amaroK (KDE.News)
KDE.News picks amaroK for the application of the month. "The overview takes a look at functionality including Audioscrobbler, cover management and scripting. We also have an interview with amaroK's team of developers covering their development process, usability and accusations of being hopeless IRC junkies."
Introduction to ClearHealth (OS News)
OSNews takes a look at ClearHealth, an open source medical application for scheduling, billing, EMR, HIPAA security, and accounts receivable. " Day to day operations in a medical clinic have a lot to do with the capabilities of the scheduling package used. ClearHealth was designed for clinics large and small, but has several features applicable to multi-facility organizations." (Found on LinuxMedNews)
Linux in Government: Major Breakthrough in Linux Technology (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal looks at FreeNX. "For technically inclined people, imagine X server technology with compression so tight that GNOME and KDE sessions run over modems with SSH encryption. Image lightening-fast thin clients that use tiny amounts of bandwidth and handle audio and video, printing and session suspension instead of termination. Imagine real virtual KVM switches without hardware. Say goodbye to SunRay servers and all the thin clients that never lived up to their promise. Think about real heterogeneous interoperability on PCs and devices that scale."
The Qt 4 Resource Center
A second-edition review of QT Designer, a user interface design tool, has been published. "When writing this article I used the open source Qt 4 snapshot from 2005-05-28. Figure D2-1 shows how Designer looks without any project loaded. Since the last time the resource editing window and the connections' window have appeared. Apart from that the interface looks the same, which suites my working multi-head environment well. For those of you who want the old approach with a single surrounding window, check out figure D2-2. It is back!"
Miscellaneous
LinuxFund account grows but developers get no funds (NewsForge)
NewsForge does a follow-up on the LinuxFund, the fund that was supposed to support Linux through credit card use. "Where has the money gone? It has been adding up in the LinuxFund bank account, with minimal overhead costs and no payments to developers coming out. The project's executive director, Jerritt Collord, reported the organization's funds -- checking and savings accounts totaling $126,155.29 -- have been sitting idle since he stopped running the largely one-man organization last June. In an email response to NewsForge, Collord added, "Of course F/OSS will get the money." To get those funds to Linux coders and supporters, however, some other individual or group will have to take up the cause, since the current participants have given up."
DARPA GC Team GPLs Drive-by-Wire Code (robots.net)
robots.net covers the release of Python-based drive-by-wire code by DARPA. "This code is a simplified, early version used during testing to control the Pegasus robot remotely from a Laptop by using keyboard commands to accelerate, brake, and turn."
Open Source Goes Gaelic (eGov monitor)
eGov monitor is running an article about the deployment of a Gaelic translation of OpenOffice.org in Scotland. "A version of the OpenOffice suite specially adapted to the Gaelic language was launched on 2 June. The open source software was said to have performed well in trials at a school in North Lanarkshire, with the complete product due to be distributed to Gaelic language schools in the Autumn. The translation project was funded by the Scottish Executive through the education body, Learning and Teaching Scotland." Thanks to Ian Cuddy.
Linux dispute boils over to MySQL, other projects (ComputerWorld)
ComputerWorld notes that the kernel is not the only project affected by the end of the BitKeeper era. "As the July 1 deadline approaches, BitMover is trying to work with as many projects as it can to either come to licensing terms or move their source code onto another system, [Larry] McVoy said. Still, some may be in for a nasty surprise a month from now, when they can no longer add software to their source code repositories. 'As July 1 approaches and people start to realize that it's not just about the kernel, it's about these other projects, there's going to be some crap hitting the fan,' McVoy said."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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