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Linux in the newsRecommended Reading The Microsoft VerdictFor anyone who hasn't heard yet, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has made a decision in the case of the United States v. Microsoft Corp. There is quite a bit of press about it, naturally. It is even possible that LWN.net will have more to say in our upcoming weekly edition. In the meantime here are a few links.
Europe's Microsoft Alternative (Washington Post)The Washington Post details Spain's conversion from Windows to Linux. "Vazquez de Miguel is the minister of education, science and technology in a western region of Spain called Extremadura, a mostly rural expanse of olive trees and tiny towns with 1.1 million inhabitants. In April, the government launched an unorthodox campaign to convert all the area's computer systems, in government offices, businesses and homes, from the Windows operating system to Linux, a free alternative." Thanks to Eric
SchoolNet rebuffs M$The SchoolNet Namibia project has released some of the correspondence between Microsoft and SchoolNet. "Based on your earlier blatant assertions, Microsoft is very keen on harnessing major publicity along the lines of "Microsoft replaces Linux at SchoolNet Namibia". I'm afraid that is simply not going to happen. I have, from the very beginning made it VERY clear that SchoolNet has NO desire to REPLACE Linux with Microsoft..." Thanks to Ashwin N
Trade Shows and Conferences High-Tech Firm Aims to Push Further into Mainstream (Nando)The Raleigh, N.C. News & Observer reports on a Red Hat road tour. "Four Red Hat employees will embark on an RV tour of the country today in a grass-roots campaign orchestrated to reassure the T-shirt and sandal-clad base of Linux fans that Red Hat is still cool and simultaneously lure new users to the open-source computer operating system."
Security Fueling Open-Source Adoption (eWeek)eWeek reports from Red Hat Inc.'s Open Source Security Summit. "Much of the early enthusiasm for Linux and other open-source operating systems was sparked by the software's low cost and adaptability. But, with a growing emphasis on security in the overall IT marketplace, many customers are looking at open source as a more secure alternative to proprietary software."
Companies Borland thinks Mono for open source .NET challenge (Register)The Register covers Borland Software Corp's investigation of Project Mono. "Scotts Valley, California-based Borland is investigating use of Ximian Inc's Project Mono in Kylix, as a possible means for Windows developers to move .NET applications to Linux."
Can free source-code stop Microsoft? (The Economist)Here are a couple of articles from the Economist. The first looks at RealNetworks' open source announcement. "RealNetworks' move is another sign that the software industry is going hybrid. Mixing elements of proprietary software, where the source-code is tightly controlled, with open-source programs enables firms to expand a market, harvest the ideas of others and, they hope, still make money."On the fun side here's the theory of Tetris. Thanks to Thomas Blankenhorn
Windows cheaper than Linux, says Microsoft (vnunet)Vnunet reports from the Gartner Symposium, where Microsoft claims that Windows is cheaper than Linux over its total lifecycle. "When asked by Gartner about Microsoft's intensifying battle against the open source operating system, European president Jean-Phillipe Courtois claimed that Linux is in fact more expensive to run than Windows."
NEC unveils fault-tolerant Linux server (Register)Here's an article in the Register about NEC's new fault-tolerant offering. "The product's Linux operating system is based on Red Hat Inc's Linux 7.1 but features 'significant changes' to the kernel, device drivers, storage management and memory management to enable it to support the fault tolerant features. NEC's UK business development director, Paul Evans, stated that the modifications made to the Linux operating system would be released to the open source community via NEC's involvement in the OSDL Open Source Development Lab."
Simputer Linux handheld for developing world finds builder (Register)The Register reports on the progress India-based PicoPeta Simputer Private Ltd has made bringing the Simputer to the people. "The Simputer is designed to be a cheap, mass market computing device which will fill a yawning gap in developing countries, such as India, where traditional PCs are still beyond the reach of the population. But PicoPetas' ambitions had seemed set to come to naught, as it struggled to find backing for the project."
Yahoo shifts to open-source scripting (News.com)News.com reports on Yahoo's adoption of PHP for its web site scripting language. "With an eye toward its bottom line, Yahoo has decided to jettison its own proprietary scripting language in favor of the open-source alternative PHP. The scripting switch will affect the way Yahoo creates a wide array of features and functions, from serving advertisements to designing applications like its calendar and e-mail applications. While Yahoo won't rewrite pages that currently use the proprietary language, the shift will ultimately affect virtually every Yahoo page and reflects a broader development philosophy toward open-source technologies."
Yahoo Expands Commitment To Open Source (TechWeb)TechWeb looks at Yahoo as it switches to PHP for its server-side Web scripting. "Yahoo is using PHP for new properties, such as the remember.yahoo.com site for Sept. 11, 2002 [sic], and for internal tools, such as content management. Most Yahoo properties are integrating PHP slowly, and there are no plans to rewrite the entire site. Early adopters include PayDirect, Yahoo Classified, the personalized news page, and almost the entire travel Web site."
Making the Case for PHP at Yahoo!Michael J. Radwin has put together a presentation on choosing open-source software for Yahoo.com. "Abstract: Running a high-performance dynamic website is a daunting task. The short development cycles needed to stay ahead of the competition demand a web-centric scripting language that is easy to maintain and update. We'll explore a case study of one company (Yahoo!) that is making the transition to PHP from a proprietary server-side page language written in C/C++."
Business Understanding open-source licenses (ZDNet)ZDNet is carrying a Gartner Group pronouncement about open source licensing. "By 2005, warranties and additional maintenance for at least the 100 most-popular open-source software products will be offered by commercial software vendors, service providers, or insurance companies (0.7 probability). In the meantime, users can minimize any 'fitness for purpose' risks through evaluation and testing, and by only using production releases of well-known, mature products from reputable distributors."
Is Microsoft losing ground to Linux? (News.com)News.com looks at a couple of areas in which Linux has scored recent victories. "Open-source software gave Microsoft a one-two punch this week, with the European Union and an African nonprofit educational organization showing preference for Linux systems."
Interviews Scratching an itch: a KDE developer speaks (Sydney Morning Herald)The Sydney Morning Herald interviews Sirtaj Singh Kang, a.k.a. Taj, official KDE Spokesperson for Australia on the topic of KDE.
Resources Embedded Linux Newsletter for Oct. 31, 2002 (LinuxDevices)The October 31, 2002 edition of the LinuxDevices Embedded Linux Newsletter is out with the latest Embedded Linux news.
Advanced filesystem implementor's guide, Part 12 (IBM developerWorks)This IBM developerWorks article introduces the Enterprise Volume Management System (EVMS) for Linux. "Have you ever stopped to think about how many powerful storage-related technologies are available for Linux? Consider just our options for a journaling filesystem: ReiserFS, ext3, XFS, and JFS. Several years ago, Linux didn't even have a journaling filesystem. Now, we have plenty of them and find ourselves in the luxurious position of being able to choose the best filesystem for our needs. Choice is definitely a good thing."
Reviews Corporates eye OpenOffice (vnunet)Vnunet eyes OpenOffice. "A new beta version, dubbed Build 643, was launched last week, making it easier to migrate to the open-source suite by simplifying the way users create macros. A macro recorder now lets users create macros by recording their keystrokes and mouse movements as they navigate through dialog boxes."
Bricolage: A Good Open-Source Option (eWeek)eWeek has reviewed Bricolage, an open-source Perl-based web content management system.
Miscellaneous European Commission eyes Linux (vnunet)Vnunet covers Netproject's pilot contract to examine deployment of open source software in government departments. "The investigation will consider Linux and open source applications for both servers and desktops and in both local and central government. It will include authentication of users and authorisation of what resources can be accessed."
Latest Linux kernel to control access (vnunet)The vnunet article looks at features that will be included in the 2.6 version of the Linux kernel. "Recent developments to improve task scheduling and the handling of threads mean that Linux has just about solved the scalability problems that have prevented many IT departments from using Linux on high-end hardware. These updates are also set to debut in version 2.6."
What I Learned on Linux Lunacy (Linux Journal)Doc Searls covers the second annual Linux Lunacy Geek Cruise in this Linux Journal article. "I had high expectations for the trip, and all of them were exceeded. I won't go into the details of what went on; see the Linux Journal web site on Friday for a nice long report. But I will give you a brief summary of what became a lot clearer to me--and to everybody else, I think--by the end of a week on a ship with Linus, Guido van Rossum, Eric Raymond, Ted Ts'o, Randall Schwartz, Steve Oualline and a star chamber of other alpha geeks. The short of it is Linux is an even bigger phenomenon than it appears to be, and so is the open-source development model that produced it."
Geeks on the Half Shell 2.0: Cruising the New Dominion with Linus and Friends, Part 1 (Linux Journal)Doc Searls provides a travel log of the Linux Lunacy Geek Cruise. "Day Three (Tuesday) began at Cozumel, an island off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, not far from Cancún. There we dispersed to a variety of towns, beaches and Mayan ruins before reconvening on the ship for talks on filesystems (Ted), Perl (Randall), "Vim for Vi Users" (Steve Oualline) and "Preparing for Incident Response and Forensics" (Brian Carrier). I gave the pre-dinner keynote, "The Silent Majority: How Linux Got to Be Everywhere While Nobody Was Watching". It was a fun talk for a fun crowd. The only criticism came from one guy who said, "There weren't enough laughs at the end." Which still means he was entertained for nearly an hour."
Linux Lunacy II: Geek Cruise Photo Gallery (Linux Journal)For those of you who have been following Doc Searls account of the second Linux Lunacy cruise, here are the pictures, and here is the slideshow for Doc's keynote presentation. Also part 2 of "Geeks on the Half Shell 2.0".
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