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LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 6, 2005The broadcast flag returnsThe broadcast flag is an attempt to mandate the use of digital restrictions management (DRM) technology with U.S digital television and radio broadcasts. In short, the broadcast flag regulations, as adopted by the Federal Communications Commission, would require that reception equipment honor a "do not copy" bit in a digital signal. The end result is that, among other things, free TV and radio systems would not be allowed, since they would fail the "robustness" requirement in the regulations. Happily, a federal court threw out the broadcast regulation last May, ruling that the FCC was not authorized to regulate what a piece of equipment does with a signal after reception.The return of the broadcast flag was inevitable; the commercial interests behind this sort of regulation never give up that easily - or at all. Even so, the return of the broadcast flag has been surprisingly quick. Twenty U.S. members of Congress are now pushing for legislation which would give the FCC the regulatory authority it currently lacks. Susan Crawford has posted the proposed language:
The Federal Communications Commission (a) has authority to adopt
such regulations governing digital audio broadcast transmissions
and digital audio receiving devices that are appropriate to control
the unauthorized copying and redistribution of digital audio
content by or over digital reception devices, related equipment,
and digital networks, including regulations governing permissible
copying and redistribution of such audio content....
This language is quite broad - the FCC would be empowered to regulate "digital networks" in whatever ways it sees fit to keep the entertainment industry happy. It does not take much imagination to foresee heavy-handed rules which are not particularly friendly to free software. This legislation needs to be defeated; BoingBoing has a list of offending "congressjerks" and their contact information. We don't doubt that they would be delighted to hear from their constituents on this matter. The broadcast flag looks like a U.S. problem, but the situation in Europe is similar. The EFF has just posted a report on the activities of the Digital Video Broadcasting project, a body which sets television standards for use in Europe, Australia, and even parts of Asia. The upcoming DVB standard contains some familiar provisions:
This project is called Content Protection and Copy Management
(CPCM), and the DVB has put it centre-stage in its plans for DVB
3.0, the forthcoming version of the DVB standard. The scope of the
U.S. broadcast flag regulation was relatively narrow -- the
redistribution control flag could only be present or absent. DVB
CPCM, by contrast, is specifying remarkably fine-grained and
elaborate means by which broadcasters can control the detailed
functionality of receiving devices. In effect, CPCM and its
constituent specifications amount to a complicated, lengthy, and,
at present, secret body of private law that describes rules and
restrictions potentially applicable to all manufacturers of DTV
devices.
The CPCM includes provisions for "proximity control" and such, regulating just how far a digital signal can be propagated. It includes a revocation feature allowing existing hardware to be disabled should the industry conclude that it has been compromised. The inevitable "robustness requirement" will make it impossible to create digital television systems with free software. The CPCM, in other words, is the broadcast flag, only worse. A broadcast flag for Europe is not inevitable. The process which CPCM will have to follow is long: it must be adopted as a European telecommunications standard, then mandated by law in each nation. There is plenty of warning, and no end of good reasons to fight back. With effort - and luck - our ability to create free television systems can be preserved on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Battle for Wesnoth hits 1.0At linux.conf.au 2005 in Canberra, kernel hacker Rusty Russell was heard to voice a complaint. It seems that he had discovered The Battle for Wesnoth, and his productivity had suffered ever since. He mentioned it again some months later in Ottawa, so one presumes that the problem had not yet gone away. Rusty is![[Wesnoth screenshot]](/images/ns/wesnoth.png)
not the only developer who has been afflicted by the Wesnoth disease over
the last year. If the pace of free software development appears to have
slowed recently, Wesnoth may well be to blame.
Battle for Wesnoth 1.0 was released on October 2. Your editor, being a serious type, does not normally see fit to play computer games (those past episodes with DND, rogue, empire, netrek, nethack, etc. were just aberrations, honest). But a 1.0 release of a popular, GPL-licensed game calls out for investigation; journalistic ethics require it. So your editor pulled down the new release and checked it out. For a while. In fact, the LWN Weekly Edition almost did not happen this week, and it's all Wesnoth's fault. Wesnoth is a two-dimensional swords, sorcery, and strategy game. In its most basic form, the player must lead an army of elvish fighters against the enemy (played by the computer), occupy villages, rape, pillage, and wipe out the opposing leader. There is a variety of different character types with different capabilities, and characters grow with experience. The game includes a tutorial which makes getting started easy. There is also a pleasant set of musical tracks and (sometimes less pleasant) sound effects that go with the game. Your editor did not know, previously, that ghosts would grunt when struck.
It has often been said that gaming is one area where free software will never come close to the proprietary competition. The high expense and hit-oriented nature of the commercial game industry simply sets the bar too high. And, in fact, Wesnoth is still a far cry from commercial battle games available for proprietary platforms. The turn-oriented play, relatively simple animation, and hexagonal-grid landscape all look primitive compared to a high-budget commercial game. But the gap is closing. Wesnoth as a game is engaging, challenging, and visually and aurally pleasing. Wesnoth may not be able to compete with the latest commercial blockbuster, but it does demonstrate that the free software community is getting better at creating games. In this area, as with many others, our reach is increasing. There is another important aspect to Wesnoth's success which was also pointed out by Rusty. There is plenty of good programming in Wesnoth, but it doesn't stop there. Somebody has spent quite a bit of time designing graphics and animated effects. Others have contributed music which one is tempted to leave playing even after one has been crushed by the opposition and seen one's castles go up in flames. As free software develops, there will be more need for people who can make these kinds of contributions. Wesnoth has set an example - applicable to a much wider range of development projects - on how non-code contributors can be welcomed. For that, if nothing else, the Wesnoth 1.0 release deserves hearty congratulations. Now your editor must go off and retry The Eastern Invasion one more time...
Security Complete coverage in Linux security modulesThe Linux Security Module (LSM) framework is intended to allow security modules to lock down a system by inserting checks whenever the kernel is about to do something interesting. A security module hooks into those check points and, for each operation, convinces itself that the operation is allowed by the security policy currently in force. This approach can work well if checks have been placed in all of the relevant locations. A missing check could open a door allowing a user-space process to do something which the site's policy would disallow.Kostik Belousov recently noticed this sort of problem in the 2.6 kernel: it seems that the readv() and writev() system calls ran without calling the associated LSM hook. The missing check means that a process which uses these calls (rather than read() or write()) could perform file I/O which was not subject to oversight by any security modules currently loaded in the system. The practical effect of this vulnerability is minimal: any security module worth its bits will have done its access checks when the file is opened, so the ability to do unchecked reads and writes should not open any gaping holes in the system. The more important point is how easily this sort of opening can come about. When the security modules patch was originally merged into the kernel, it included checks on readv() and writev(). But those system calls were later rewritten, and the LSM hooks fell by the wayside. This change apparently happened around 2.5.47, but it only came to light now. Most kernel developers are only peripherally aware of the LSM system. Very few of them know how to code an LSM call, and the rules for the insertion of LSM checks are not particularly well documented. Code which is missing an LSM call still appears to work just fine in normal testing and use. The end result of all this is that it is trivially easy to omit an important check, or to delete one by accident. Such mistakes can then go unnoticed for years. Anybody who depends on a Linux security module (such as SELinux) is depending on comprehensive checking within the kernel. But, as has been demonstrated here, it is hard to feel sure that the LSM checks are, indeed comprehensive. There are many code paths through the kernel. When a relatively simple system call can go unprotected for so long, how secure do we feel about the more complex paths? It would seem that a thorough audit is called for. An automated audit might even be better; it may well be possible to adapt a tool like sparse to detect unchecked paths through the kernel. Some work in this area could do a lot to increase the level of trust which can be placed in LSM-based modules.
New vulnerabilities abiword: buffer overflow
apachetop: insecure temporary file
arc: temporary file vulnerabilities
backupninja: insecure temporary file
Berkeley MPEG Tools: multiple insecure temporary files
cfengine: insecure temporary files
dia: missing input sanitizing
gopher: buffer overflows
gtkdiskfree: insecure temp file
Hylafax: insecure temporary file creation in xferfaxstats
mod-auth-shadow: authorization bypass
ntlmaps: wrong permissions
prozilla: arbitrary code execution
squid: authentication handling
texinfo: temporary file vulnerability
uim: privilege escalation
unzip: race condition
Updated vulnerabilities a2ps: input validation error
apache information disclosure if modssl=yes
httpd: off-by-one overflow and cross-site scripting
awstats: command injection vulnerability
bzip2: race condition and infinite loop
clamav: multiple vulnerabilities
common-lisp-controller: design error
courier: missing input sanitizing
cpio: directory traversal
cups: denial of service
cyrus-imapd: buffer overflows
elm: buffer overflow
emacs21: format string vulnerability in "movemail"
enscript: arbitrary code execution
ethereal: dissector vulnerabilities
evolution: format string issues
firefox: multiple vulnerabilities
Foomatic: Arbitrary command execution in foomatic-rip
gaim: buffer overflow
gdb: multiple vulnerabilities
gtk-pixbuf, gtk2: denial of service
gedit: format string vulnerability
gettext: Insecure temporary file handling
ghostscript: symlink vulnerabilities
glibc: tempfile vulnerability in catchsegv script
grip: buffer overflow
groff: insecure temporary directory
gzip: arbitrary command execution
HelixPlayer: arbitrary code execution
htdig: cross site scripting
imap: buffer overflow in c-client
imlib2: buffer overflows
junkbuster: heap corruption and settings modification
kdebase: local root vulnerability
kdelibs: kate backup file permission leak
kernel: DoS vulnerabilities
kernel: buffer overflow
kernel: multiple vulnerabilities
krb5: double-free flaw
libconvert-uulib-perl: arbitrary code execution
libdbi-perl: insecure temporary file
libgadu: memory alignment bug
libgd2: buffer overflows in PNG handling
libnet-ssleay-perl: weakened cryptographic operations
libpam-ldap: authentication bypass
libTIFF: buffer overflow
libxml2 - arbitrary code execution
libxml2: multiple buffer overflows
libXpm: new buffer overflows
lm-sensors: insecure temp files
Mailutils: format string vulnerability in imap4d
masqmail: input sanitizing and symlink vulnerabilities
mod_python: remote access vulnerability
mozilla: buffer overflow
mysql: buffer overflow
mysql: low-impact security fix
ncpfs: multiple vulnerabilities
nfs-utils: arbitrary code execution
ntp: uses wrong gid
openssh: GSSAPI credential disclosure
OpenSSL: information leak
OpenSSL: denial of service vulnerabilities
openvpn: multiple vulnerabilities
opera: script insertion attacks
pam_ldap: plain text authentication leak
pcre3: arbitrary code execution
perl: setuid vulnerabilities
perl: symlink vulnerability
php: arbitrary code execution
phpsysinfo: cross-site-scripting
postgresql: database initialization errors
Pound: buffer overflow
pstotext: remote execution of arbitrary code
Py2Play: remote execution of arbitrary Python code
qt: buffer overflow in zlib
rp-pppoe, pppoe: missing privilege dropping
ruby: arbitrary command execution
shorewall: rule bypass vulnerability
slocate: long path bug
smb4k: temporary file vulnerability
squid: DoS issues
sudo: race condition
sysreport: insecure temporary file
File overwrite vulnerability in tar and unzip
tcpdump: denial of service
tcpdump: multiple DoS issues
ucd-snmp: denial of service
util-linux: unintentional grant of privileges by umount
vixie-cron: crontab allows any user to read another users crontabs
webmin, usermin: remote code execution through PAM authentication
XChat 2.0.x SOCKS5 Vulnerability
xine-lib: buffer overflows
xine-ui - insecure temporary file creation
xorg-x11: heap overflow
xpdf: buffer overflow
xpdf: denial of service
zlib: buffer overflow
zlib: buffer overflow
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Kernel development Brief items Kernel release statusThe current stable 2.6 release is 2.6.13.3, announced on October 3. It adds a handful of fixes, many in the networking subsystem.The current 2.6 prepatch is 2.6.14-rc3, released by Linus on September 30. This prepatch is fairly large; most of the patches are small fixes, but there's also some key management improvements, a SCSI update, some netfilter patches, and an InfiniBand update. See the long-format changelog for the details. Linus's git repository contains a relatively small number of fixes added after -rc3. The current -mm tree is 2.6.14-rc2-mm2. Recent changes to -mm include the (temporary) dropping of a big set of PCMCIA patches, some memory management work, a workqueue change (uses per-CPU allocations now), and various fixes.
Kernel development news Quotes of the week
visionary [n]: onanist with strong exhibitionist tendencies; from
"visions", the source of inspiration they refer to when it becomes
obvious that they have lost both sight and capacity for rational
thought.
-- Al Viro
A "spec" is close to useless. I have _never_ seen a spec that was
both big enough to be useful _and_ accurate.
-- Linus Torvalds
And I have seen _lots_ of total crap work that was based on specs. It's _the_ single worst way to write software, because it by definition means that the software was written to match theory, not reality.
Nested classesThe device model/sysfs "class" subsystem is a mechanism which allows different kernel subsystems to export device-independent interfaces to user space. With a recent kernel, a number of interesting class hierarchies can be found. For example, /sys/class/net represents all of the network interfaces in the system, /sys/class/sound shows the audio devices, and /sys/class/graphics can be used to find frame buffers.
This issue recently came to a head when Dmitry Torokhov reworked the input subsystem to make use of sysfs. The input class tree also fails to fit neatly into the class subsystem, though for slightly different reasons. The input layer can export multiple interfaces to the same device; a touch screen can show up as a serial device, as an event generator, or as a mouse, for example. Even a straightforward mouse can appear by itself, or as part of the multiplexed "mice" device. As a way of representing the structure of the input subsystem, Dmitry implemented a "subclass" mechanism. Various objections to the implementation were raised, however, and Greg Kroah-Hartman went off to design a solution he liked better. His patch has now been posted for review; it is also part of the -mm tree. Greg's solution does not involve subclasses at all; instead, the class_device structure has acquired a new parent field. The function which creates class_device structures has a new prototype:
struct class_device *class_device_create(struct class *cls,
struct class_device *parent,
dev_t devt,
struct device *device,
char *fmt, ...);
The parent argument is new. If it is non-NULL, the new class_device will be placed under the parent class_device in sysfs, rather than directly under the class itself. Needless to say, this change breaks all users of the class subsystem; if it goes into the mainline, all out-of-tree code using classes will have to be updated. This interface should work reasonably well in the block case, where partitions can truly be thought of as child devices. Dmitry is less pleased with it for the input subsystem, however. He would like to be able to set up different hotplug handlers for lower-level entries, but, since those handlers are set up at the class level, an implementation without subclasses does not provide that capability. There are other objections as well; the parent mechanism makes it a little harder to set up the sort of hierarchy Dmitry would like to create, for example. As of this writing, there has been no further discussion of the interface. There is a distinct chance that it could change before it makes its way into the mainline. In one way or another, however, support for a deeper /sys/class is likely to be merged.
On the value of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPLWhen a loadable module is inserted, any references it makes to kernel functions and data structures must be linked to the current running kernel. The module loader does not provide access to all kernel symbols, however; only those which have been explicitly exported are available. The export requirement narrows the API seen by modules, though not by all that much: there are over 6,000 symbols exported in the 2.6.13 kernel.Exports come in two flavors: vanilla (EXPORT_SYMBOL) and GPL-only (EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL). The former are available to any kernel module, while the latter cannot be used by any modules which do not carry a GPL-compatible license. The module loader will enforce this distinction by denying access to GPL-only symbols if the module's declared license does not pass muster. Currently, less that 10% of the kernel's symbols are GPL-only, but the number of GPL-only symbols is growing. There is a certain amount of pressure to make new exports GPL-only in many cases. It has often been argued that there is no practical difference between the two types of exports. Those who believe that all kernel modules are required by the kernel license to be GPL-licensed see all symbols as being implicitly GPL-only in any case. Another camp, which sees the module interface as a boundary which the GPL cannot cross, does not believe that GPL-only restrictions can be made to stick. In any case, GPL-only symbols can be easily circumvented by patching the kernel, falsely declaring a GPL-compatible license, or by inserting a shim module which provides wider access to the symbols of interest. Linus, however, believes that GPL-only exports are significant.
I've talked to a lawyer or two, and (a) there's an absolutely _huge_
difference and (b) they liked it.
The fact is, the law isn't a blind and mindless computer that takes what you say literally. Intent matters a LOT. And using the xxx_GPL() version to show that it's an internal interface is very meaningful indeed. One of the lawyers said that it was a much better approach than trying to make the license explain all the details - codifying the intention in the code itself is not only more flexible, but a lot less likely to be misunderstood. He also points out that circumventing a GPL-only export requires an explicit action, making it clear that the resulting copyright infringement was a deliberate act. Regardless of any legal significance they may have, the GPL-only exports do succeed in communicating the will of the large subset of the kernel development community which wants to restrict the use of non-free kernel modules. The outright banning of such modules may not be on the agenda anytime soon, but the functionality available to them is not likely to grow much.
The Linux Kernel PrimerYour editor recently received a copy of The Linux Kernel Primer, by Claudia Salzberg Rodriguez, Gordon Fischer, and Steven Smolski, published by Prentice Hall. This volume describes itself as "the definitive guide to Linux kernel programming"; it has chapters on processes, scheduling, I/O, filesystems, memory management, and the bootstrap process. It appears to be a guide to internal kernel APIs for the 2.6 kernel.Reviewing kernel-related books is a difficult task. Your editor could easily be seen as having a conflict of interest in such cases, with any criticism viewed as an attempt to steer purchasers toward his own, possibly competing work. So, in the interests of full disclosure, let it be said: the author of this review is an author of a different, kernel-related book, and anything found here should be viewed with suspicion. Because the simple fact is that your editor cannot recommend this book. It shows every sign of having been put together in a hurry, with basic grammatical errors being a frequent occurrence. The material is disorganized, with no clear ordering of concepts. Factual errors are not hard to find. The sample code provided is visibly buggy. The book does not say, anywhere, which version of the kernel is covered - something any serious reader will want to know. Various hints through the text suggest that the authors were working from the 2.6.7 kernel at the latest, however, making the book somewhat obsolete before it hits the shelves. The version of struct file shown in the book is from 2.6.1; struct page comes from 2.6.4. The list of I/O schedulers does not include CFQ - added in 2.6.6. The fundamental fault in this book, however, is this: there is no mention, anywhere, of concurrency issues. Even the few pages devoted to interrupts fail to mention race conditions or the primitives used to control interrupt delivery. Spinlocks and semaphores do not merit coverage until page 409 - and, even then, the API for working with them is not discussed. There is no way to write code for the 2.6 kernel without taking concurrency into account. Your editor cannot understand why the authors felt that this topic could be passed over. More documentation for the kernel is a good thing. The kernel is a complex program, and kernel hackers can certainly benefit from a variety of views of how the kernel API works. In this case, however, your editor would recommend staying with the other books in this field, including Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love, and Understanding The Linux Kernel by Bovet and Cesati (third edition due in November).
Patches and updates Kernel trees
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Documentation
Filesystems and block I/O
Memory management
Networking
Architecture-specific
Security-related
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Distributions News and Editorials A Look at EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0EnGarde Secure Linux is a relatively old name in the world of Linux distributions. In development since 1999 by Guardian Digital, the product was originally based on Red Hat Linux, but reduced in size to include server-only applications and enhanced with a web-based system administration utility called "WebTool". Besides its high-end enterprise range of products, the company has also released several "Community" editions - somewhat limited in features but free for non-commercial use. EnGarde's previous versions were frequently praised by reviewers so when the company announced a new version 3.0 late last week (its first new release in over two years), we were eager to take it for a test drive.EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0 "Community" comes on a single CD available for both the i386 and x86_64 architectures. Its default installation method starts rather unconventionally - with setting up the root password and networking, before proceeding with package installation. This might seem like an odd sequence for a "secure" distribution; given that all the necessary packages are on the CD, why would anyone want to perform a system installation with networking enabled? Soon the reason becomes apparent: the EnGarde installation CD also serves as a live CD so users can evaluate the product without having to install it to their hard disks. Since all system configuration is performed remotely through a web browser, having functional networking on the system running EnGarde is essential. Nice idea in theory, but in practice we couldn't get it to work. While we had no trouble connecting to the EnGarde system with https://ip_address:1023, after typing in the user name ("admin") and password ("lock&%box"), we were greeted with an error message - an undefined subroutine in sysstat.pm. So much for trying to evaluate EnGarde Secure Linux in a "live CD" mode! Next, we decided to do a full installation, hoping for better luck. Disappointingly, bugs continued to plague us here as well; although the installer detected both hard disks, it did not acknowledge the presence of any of the several Linux partitions on the first one, claiming "no partitions defined" and forcing us to create new ones. However, not wanting to repartition the first disk, we couldn't find a way to create new partitions on the second disk - the installer insisted on creating /dev/hda1, no matter which hard disk we had selected! Only after physically unplugging the power supply from the first hard disk and disabling it in the BIOS, we were finally able to install EnGarde on the second disk (/dev/hdc). Granted, most users who intend to use EnGarde Secure Linux in a production environment are unlikely to dual boot their system so they won't face these kinds of problems. Nevertheless, if the installer has options which they don't work as advertised, then something is not quite right. Eventually we installed the system where we wanted it. The package selection screen gave us an option to select one or more installation classes from a short list containing "Databases", "DNS", "Firewall", "Mail Services", "Network Intrusion Detections" and "Web Services", before proceeding to the network configuration part. Here, the opening screen promised support for network configuration with a static IP address, DHCP or PPPoE, but once we pressed the "next" button, we were forced to set up a static IP address, with options for DHCP or PPPoE nowhere to be seen (presumably because the machine only had one network card, which would have a static IP address in most common configurations). After this final step, we were prompted to reboot the system. Up until this point our experiences with EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0 were mixed at best. Fortunately, things improved dramatically once the system was installed and when we finally had a chance to investigate the distribution's web-based administration interface - Guardian Digital WebTool. Written in Perl, WebTool has obviously been inspired by Webmin, although it sports a considerably different (and arguably more pleasant) user interface (see screenshots). After the first login, we were required to change the system's root password and WebTool's login password, set up IP address(es) with permissions to connect to the EnGarde system, and effect a few other configuration changes. Once completed, we had the first taste of what it feels like administering a remote system from a web browser when we rebooted the system with a single mouse click. Shortly afterward we were once again logged into WebTool. Due to a few early bugs reported on the distribution's mailing lists (and impressively fast responses by EnGarde developers), we decided to start with updating the system. This can be done through the free and convenient Guardian Digital Secure Network (GDSN), but before we were allowed to proceed, we had to obtain an activation number and password by registering the product on the company's web site. After the update, we continued looking through the user interface and checking out all the configuration and reporting options. Although not as comprehensive as we had expected, WebTool had pages for most important server administration tasks, including a backup and restore utility, a UPS configuration module, as well as the usual pages for managing DNS, web, mail, SSH and FTP servers. Certain services had extensive configurations options (we especially enjoyed the Firewall configuration page), while others were very basic (e.g. the Apache configuration page only allowed adding, modifying and deleting Virtual Hosts). What does the word "Secure" represent in EnGarde Secure Linux? By default, the distribution installs in "secure" mode, with SE Linux and Mandatory Access Control (MAC) enabled. It has carefully tuned file permissions of important system, configuration and log files so that they are not accessible to unprivileged users who might login to the system. There are other small enhancements, such as the unavailability of a "single user mode" and the presence of several intrusion detection and network monitoring tools, with real-time reporting facilities in WebTool. The company also maintains the very useful LinuxSecurity.com portal. On the negative side, the documentation on the distribution's web site has not been updated since version 1.5, so most new features in the latest release are not yet documented. Overall, EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0 "Community" is a mixed bag. Obvious bugs in the installer and lack of up-to-date documentation are two big negatives. On the other hand, the developers have been very responsive to bug reports and the updated WebTool, combined with new security enhancements in the distribution, will appeal to those users who need an intuitive and easy-to-administer server system. Perhaps the product could have been much more impressive if it had been given a longer beta testing period, rather than just one rushed week between the only release candidate and the final release. With version 3.0 looking more like an unfinished and poorly tested beta release, perhaps a bug fix version won't be too far away; hopefully, by that time the developers will have also updated their documentation and completed the help files.
Distribution News Debian Project newsThe Debian project has split the public frontend of security.debian.org. "After the release of an update to XFree86 (Debian Security Advisory 816) it became obvious that the old machine was not able to properly serve the needs of the large number of users anymore. The outgoing 100MBit/s connection was totally saturated during 70% of the day and the machine was throttling."The release team is requalifying existing ports for etch. "To that end, I would like to invite you to join Anthony Towns and myself on IRC this Sunday, October 9 from 0000-0200 UTC in the #debian-tech channel on irc.oftc.net. The goal of this two-hour session is to come up with a "qualification declaration" for as many architectures as possible, and to further refine the architecture criteria as necessary."
New Distributions amaroK Live 1.3 Released with Open Music (KDE.News)KDE.News introduces the amaroK Live CD, version 1.3. The amaroK Live CD was developed as a way to demonstrate the features of the amaroK music player, not as a complete system. "Most of the music on the CD has been provided by Magnatune, a revolutionary music label which aims to reinvent the music business, applying the lessons learned from the open source movement to the recording industry. Fair use, remix rights, and musicians actually being paid!"
FreeMED Live CD 0.1 available (LinuxMedNews)LinuxMedNews introduces the first release of the FreeMED Live CD, version 0.1. It is based on Kubuntu 5.04 (Hoary) with FreeMED 0.8.0 and REMITT 0.3 configured for test use.
Distribution Newsletters Debian Weekly NewsThe Debian Weekly News for October 4, 2005 is now available. This issue covers the rise of GNU/Linux, Debian at work in the Australian Taxation Office, the DPL Team Status Issue Tracker, changes to the release team, a report from the Darmstadt QA Team Meeting, and several other topics.
Fedora Weekly NewsThe latest edition of the Fedora Weekly News covers the release of Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7, RealPlayer 10.0.6 and Helix Player 1.0.6 Security Update, /proc/acpi/sleep obsoleted and removed, an overview of Fedora based distributions, an updated Fedora Core 4 ISO for PPC and more.
Gentoo Weekly NewsletterThe Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of October 3, 2005 looks at the Python upgrade to 2.4, Gentoo/ALT revisited, the Kansai open-source conference in Japan, and several other topics.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 120The DistroWatch Weekly for October 3, 2005 is out. "We are at the start of an exciting week, with Mandriva Linux 2006, SUSE Linux 10.0 and Ubuntu Linux 5.10 RC all expected within the next few days. Fans of certain other distributions might not be so lucky, though, as last week's announcement about Libranet's "restructuring" leaves many wondering about the future of this once popular Debian-based project. Our featured distribution of the week is Puppy Linux, but we also introduce amaroK Live, a PCLinuxOS-based live CD that combines the power of the amaroK media player with Free Music."
Package updates Fedora updatesFedora Core 4 updates: rp-pppoe (bug fix), nc (update from OpenBSD upstream CVS), squid (some minor fixes), system-config-users (require rhpl), kernel (big rebase, this time to 2.6.13), vino (keyboard handling fix), util-linux (bug fix), gtk2 (bug fix), unixODBC (bug fixes), pyrex (add patch to fix pyrex distutils), setools (bump for FC4), cpuspeed (use ACPI as a fallback driver), microcode_ctl (upstream 1.12 release), gnome-utils (update to gcalctool 5.6.31), ruby (fixed file list), termcap (new descriptions), policycoreutils (update to rawhide version), selinux-policy-targeted (bug fixes and merge from rawhide), selinux-policy-strict (bug fixes and merge from rawhide), system-config-users (fix variable names), postgresql (update to latest PostgreSQL community release), ncpfs (bug fixes), nfs-utils (bug fixes).Fedora Core 3 updates: rp-pppoe (bug fixes), squid (some minor fixes), gtk2 (bug fix), ruby (fixed file list), system-config-bind (bug fixes, updated translations), ncpfs (bug fixes).
Trustix Secure Linux Bugfix Advisory TSL-2005-0052Trustix has fixed bugs in net-tools, php, time, xdelta and zsh.
Newsletters and articles of interest Installing Debian (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet takes a look the Debian installation. "This article walks you through the Debian installation process. If you have special requirements, it almost certainly won't cover those, but it will tell you how to cater for them."
Mark Shuttleworth: FAQs: Why and Whither for Ubuntu?Mark Shuttleworth talks about Ubuntu and other projects on the Ubuntu wiki site. "Why are you funding Ubuntu, instead of giving the money to Debian? I spent a lot of time thinking about how best to make a contribution to the open source world, and how best to explore the ideas I am personally interested in, such as the best ways to deploy open source on the desktop. One option was to stand for the position of DPL (I'm a DD, first maintainer of Apache in 1996 blah blah) and drive those ideas inside Debian. In the end I decided to create a parallel distribution, and invest in the infrastructure to make inter-distro collaboration a lot more efficient."
Ubuntu carves niche in Linux landscape (News.com)News.com covers Ubuntu and its growing pains. "There are some lumps, though. "Perhaps the worst of Ubuntu is that we are still a relatively young project, and having moved so quickly to the forefront of Linux, it's been a challenge to stay focused on our vision," [Ubuntu CTO Matt] Zimmerman said. "There is now a vast user community around Ubuntu, full of energy and excitement about a wide variety of different ideas, while realistically we can only pursue some of these at once.""
First Linux Beta with Debian Core Arrives (eWeek)eWeek reports that MEPIS has released the first distribution based on the Debian Common Core. "MEPISLite is an entry level version of desktop MEPIS designed for home users. It has been used successfully with as little as a 2GB hard drive and a Pentium 2 processor with 128MB of RAM. The distribution comes with a full complement of software including KDE's Koffice office suite and the Firefox Web browser."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol Development Wine to Reach A Major MilestoneIn just a few weeks, Wine will be reaching a major milestone: a beta release. Until now, Wine has been one of the largest projects under development that has never seen a beta. Wine's codebase is approaching 1.5 million lines, contributed by nearly 700 individuals over the past 11 years. Two successful commercial products are based on the code, and it is used in a production environment by several large corporations. While Wine often catches flack within the open-source community for bringing Windows compatibility to Linux, there are two facts that are undeniable:
Wine's acronym paradoxically comes from both the phrases WINdows Emulator and Wine Is Not an Emulator. Don't worry, Wine's developers really don't care (much) which you prefer since it fits both descriptions to some degree. At its core, Wine is an implementation of the Win32 API designed to run on top of Unix-like operating systems. KDE, of course, relies on Qt and GNOME on GTK, and in this regard Wine simply implements yet another API. The difference is, Win32 was designed by Microsoft and happens to be one of the most widely used APIs in existence. The Wine beta release will come at an interesting time. Microsoft is not planning on releasing any major new API components until Windows Vista ships. Even then, it will be a while until any major applications require the new API. As a result, Wine has a few years to stabilize the existing APIs. Besides implementing the Win32 API, Wine contains several unique features for running Windows programs on Linux. On Linux, the ELF binary format describes executables and libraries. Microsoft uses a different format, PE (Portable Executable), for the same purpose. The PE format is more complex and allows multiple resources to be embedded in one file. Wine implements a special loader to open PE files. Windows also contains primitives, such as threading, that are much different than on Linux. Wine's wineserver is used to synchronize between threads and processes using custom IPC code. It performs many of the low-level functions done by the kernel on Windows. If that isn't exciting enough for you, Wine also comes with winemine, a minesweeper game. Wine's architecture has stabilized quite a bit over the past few years. Items tackled just this summer include:
A lot of things are in the process of being cleaned up for the beta release. Wine's application database, which lists compatible applications, has seen a complete overhaul over the past year. Some new capabilities have been added in the past few weeks. Work is underway to rewrite major portions of the Wine User Guide to bring it up to date. Finally, wine's Bugzilla bug database has been pruned of items that have been fixed. So let's be realistic, how well does it work? Thanks to recent work done by CodeWeavers, most Windows programs now install. For a long time, just getting a program to install was a huge hurdle, things have really improved in that area. Many small to medium-sized programs run just fine, though you may notice little discrepancies. Larger programs, such as Photoshop, Word, Excel, or Quicken can be coaxed into running, but they have traditionally suffered from regressions in Wine. As a work-around, CodeWeavers' CrossOver Office is able to run those programs, so the technology is definitely capable. Games usually don't run out of the box because of copy protection schemes that aren't compatible with Wine. The focus of the beta release is to provide a starting point for stabilizing Wine. Tons of bugs need to be fixed and entire APIs remain to be finished off. The beta release won't be a magic bullet that suddenly makes Wine perfect, but all of the tools and interfaces will be in place. It will also be feature complete from a packaging standpoint, and distributions are encouraged to begin testing integration. For anyone interested in development, there's still a lot of work to be done and plenty of ways to get involved. Stay tuned to WineHQ for announcements.
System Applications Audio Projects Rivendell v0.9.53 announcedVersion 0.9.53 of Rivendell, an audio automation system for use in radio stations, is out with bug fixes and some new features.
Database Software Firebird 1.5.3 Release Candidate 2 releasedVersion 1.5.3 Release Candidate 2 of the Firebird database is out. "The Firebird Project is pleased to announce the second -- hopefully last -- release candidate for the forthcoming Firebird 1.5.3 release, for testing. Download kits are available for Windows and Linux."
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe October 2, 2005 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with new PostgreSQL discussions and resources.
Interoperability Samba 3.0.20a Available for DownloadVersion 3.0.20a of Samba has been announced, it features several bug fixes. Click here for a more detailed list of changes.
LDAP Software LAT 0.7.3 ReleasedVersion 0.7.3 of LAT, the LDAP Administration Tool, is out with new features, bug fixes, and code cleanups.
Libraries Cairo release 1.0.2 now availableRelease 1.0.2 of the Cairo graphics library has been announced. "This is a maintenance (bug-fix only) release in the cairo 1.0 series. It is the first such release since 1.0.0. (There is no 1.0.1 release since that number was used during the development between 1.0.0 and 1.0.2.) This release maintains source and binary compatibility with cairo 1.0.0. We'd like to give particular thanks to the many individuals who have tested cairo since 1.0.0, (and turned up a fair number of bugs)."
Printing How To Restrict Disk, Memory and CPU Usage (CUPS)The CUPS printing project has a short article on tuning CUPS system resources. "If you are running into a performance problem with disk space, memory and CPU usage, editing one or more of the following directives inside the /etc/cups/cupsd.conf file may aid the situation."
Web Site Development Five 1.1 releasedVersion 1.1 of Five (Zope 2 plus 3) has been announced. Changes include Zope 3-style i18n, Zope 3 to Zope 2 interface bridging, more standard ZCML directives, and code improvements.
Zope 3.1.0 releasedVersion 3.10 of the Zope web development platform has been released. "Zope 3 is the next major Zope release and has been written from scratch based on the latest software design patterns and the experiences of Zope 2. It is in our opinion that Zope 3.1 is more than ready for production use, which is why we decided to drop the X for experimental from the name. We will also continue to work on making the transition between Zope 2 and Zope 3 as smooth as possible. As a first step, Zope 2.8 includes Zope 3 features in the form of Five."
LogMiner 1.4 released (SourceForge)Version 1.4 of LogMiner, an Apache logfile analysis package, has been announced. "In release 1.4, configuration has been made simpler by removing the need to list all your sites in the [Logs] section."
webcockpit 1.5.0 released (SourceForge)Version 1.5.0 of webcockpit has been announced, it includes several new features. "Webcockpit is a Web Application generator for realtime charting and monitoring solutions. This minor release improves greatly the tabulation power by using displaytag JSP taglib for runtime HTML table generation. Features include sorting, or grouping by column, pagination, data export to csv, excel and xml formats and having full control of the tables CSS style markup."
Desktop Applications Business Applications faces 0.5.0 releasedVersion 0.5.0 of faces, a project management tool, has been announced. Here is the change summary: "The report definition mechanism has changed significantly. The autocompletion function has been improved. Real online help is now available. A new calendar report has been added. The cleaning mechanism of the HTML generator has been modified."
Desktop Environments GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
Dropline GNOME 2.12.0 released (GnomeDesktop)Version 2.12.2 of Dropline GNOME has been announced. "After several weeks of testing, the latest version of Dropline GNOME is finally available. This release sees updates to virtually every package, and is our first release built specifically for Slackware 10.2. We would like to thank all of the testers that helped in the development of this release. We couldn't do it without you!"
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced this week:
This Month in SVN - October (KDE.News)KDE.News looks at the latest edition of This Month in SVN. "Welcome to the last issue of This Month in SVN for the KDE 3.5 series. As KDE 3.5 is in feature freeze and nearing release, future articles will be focusing on the development of KDE4 and other related projects like Plasma and Appeal. If you've been intrigued by the new features in these issues and are raring to try them out, please consider installing the KDE 3.5 beta packages if your distro has provided them. The more beta testers we have reporting bugs, the better our release product can be!"
Desktop Publishing Scribus 1.3.1 releasedVersion 1.3.1 of Scribus, an open-source page layout application, is out. "The 1.3.1 release is the second development version towards a new stable 1.4. Building on the 1.3.0 version released in July, 1.3.1 brings new features never before available in any open source application."
Electronics XCircuit 3.4.0 releasedVersion 3.4.0 of XCircuit, an electronic schematic drawing package, is available. This release features substantial revisions to the user interface and input mechanism.
Financial Applications SQL-Ledger 2.6 releasedVersion 2.6 of SQL-Ledger, a web-based accounting system, is out with many changes. See the What's New document for details.
Games Atlas-C++ 0.5.98 ReleasedVersion 0.5.98 of Atlas-C++ has been released by the WorldForge game project. "Atlas-C++ is the standard implementation of the WorldForge Atlas protocol. This should be the final release on the development branch, which is working towards the 0.6 series. This release is primarilly aimed at developers, though it is also required by the upcoming Eris release, and will be required by future client releases."
QueriEd 2.4 Released (SourceForge)Version 2.4 of QueriEd is out with support for a new game and bug fixes. QueriEd is: "A Java library to query game servers such as Half Life Source, Battlefield 2 and UT servers to find out the map, number of players, and players scores. There are different game servers with query protocols that can be added to this package."
Interoperability Wine TrafficThe September 30, 2005 edition of Wine Traffic is out with new Wine project articles. Topics include: Summer of Code Updates: Single Sign-On, and Theming, Red Hat/Fedora RPMs, Build Changes, Compile Problems from Wine-20050830, Lotus Notes Breakage and Fix and Finding Stack Corruption.
Mail Clients Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 Released (MozillaZine)Version 1.0.7 of Mozilla Thunderbird, an email client, has been announced. "Amongst other changes, this minor release includes fixes for a return receipt regression introduced in version 1.0.2 (bug 289091) and the Linux command line URL parsing security flaw."
SharpWebMail 0.12 beta released (SourceForge)Version 0.12 beta of SharpWebMail has been announced, it features improvements and bug fixes. "SharpWebMail is an ASP.NET webmail application that is written in C#. It uses a POP3 or IMAP servers as the mailstore and sends mail through a SMTP server. It is very simple to configure (only a few settings in the web.config file). You can compose HTML messages, search your inbox, read complex mime messages, have multiple address books and much more. It fully works under .NET and Mono."
Medical Applications Python X12 Medical Billing Library (LinuxMedNews)Fred Trotter makes note of the pyx12 library on LinuxMedNews. "As the originator of FreeB I am usually up on whats happening in the open source medical billing world. Imagine my surprise when I found out that someone has put out a really excellent X12 parsing and validating tool! John Holland has written and excellent python library called pyx12."
Multimedia mplayer-plugin 3.11 releasedVersion 3.11 of mplayer-plugin, browser plugin that supports various movie formats, is available. This release has a playlist bug fix. (Thanks to Kevin DeKorte.)
Music Applications MMA version 0.16 is availableBeta version 0.16 of MMA, the Musical MIDI Accompaniment, is out for testing. Here are the change notes: "Beta 0.16: Lots of little bug fixes, new SWINGMODE, more note offset and length options, NOTESPAN directive, better KEYSIG support, enhanced VOLUME options, negative offsets (prior bar) in patterns."
Qsynth 0.2.4 releasedVersion 0.2.4 of Qsynth, a fluidsynth GUI front-end, is out with usability improvements and a bug fix.
Office Applications HylaFAX 4.2.2 ReleasedVersion 4.2.2 of HylaFAX, a fax modem interface package, is out with a number of new features. See the release notes for more information.
Office Suites The first OpenOffice.org 2.0 release candidateThe first OpenOffice.org 2.0 release candidate is out. See the product page for information on this release, the features page for a quick tour of enhancements in 2.0, or the download page to get your copy.
OpenOffice.org NewsletterThe September 30, 2005 edition of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter is online. Take a look for new OpenOffice.org resources and events.
RSS Software PenguinTV 0.77 is availableVersion 0.77 of PenguinTV, an improved RSS reader, has been announced "This version fixes many bugs and improves performance. This is a recommended upgrade."
Science JGAP 2.4 released (SourceForge)Version 2.4 of JGAP is available. "JGAP is a genetic algorithms package written in Java. It is designed to require minimum effort to use "out of the box," but is also designed to be highly modular to allow for custom components to be easily plugged in by the more adventurous. JGAP version 2.4 advances and extends the previous release, see the changelog for details. This release contains some few new features and many new unit tests."
Metro 4.06 Released (SourceForge)Version 4.06 of Metro has been announced. "Metro is a tool designed to evaluate the difference between two triangular meshes. Metro adopts an approximated approach based on surface sampling and point-to-surface distance computation. The tool is widely used in the surface simplification research community (approx 200 citations of the tool in scientific papers according to google scolar). Current version uses multiple search structures. Now the mesh comparison can be done exploiting a static uniform grid, a hashed grid or a hierarchy of AA box."
Web Browsers Google Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox Out of Beta (MozillaZine)MozillaZine covers the latest release of the Google Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox. "The official Google Blog has announced that the Google Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox is now out of beta. This first non-beta release of the browser extension integrates the functionality of Google Suggest, which offers a list of possible search queries as you type. This version also works with Firefox's built-in toolbar customisation feature, allowing users to rearrange and place the Google Toolbar buttons anywhere in their toolbar setup."
Gervase Markham Explains Automatic Resolution of Old Unconfirmed Bugs Plan (MozillaZine)MozillaZine reports on plans to automatically resolve some old unconfirmed bugs in Firefox, Thunderbird, Mozilla Application Suite, Core or Toolkit products. Gervase Markham has written a weblog post explaining the thinking behind the plan.
Word Processors AbiWord-2.4 releasedFootnotes carries the news of the AbiWord 2.4 release. New features include on-the-fly grammar checking, equation editing, OpenDocument support, and better GNOME-Office integration. The release notes have the details.
Miscellaneous PyKeylogger 0.6.4 released (SourceForge)Version 0.6.4 of PyKeylogger is out with bug fixes. "PyKeylogger is a simple keylogger written in python. It is primarily designed for personal backup purposes, rather than stealth keylogging (though it can do that, too). It does not raise any trust issues, since it is a short python script that you can easily examine."
Languages and Tools C GCC 4.0.2 ReleasedVersion 4.0.2 of GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection, is available. "This release is a minor release, containing primarily fixes for regressions in GCC 4.0.1 relative to previous releases."
Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe October 4, 2005 edition of the Caml Weekly News is online. Take a look for all new Caml language articles.
Haskell Haskell Weekly NewsThe September 27, 2005 edition of the Haskell Weekly News is online with the latest Haskell news. Topics covered this week include Haskell winning the 2005 ICFP contest and a new independent package providing the GHC API.
Haskell Weekly NewsThe October 4, 2005 edition of the Haskell Weekly News is online with the latest Haskell news. Topics covered this week include a new issue of The Monad.Reader, the Haskell workshop at ICFP, Endian conversion, and the strictness of putChar.
The Monad.Reader wikizineIssue #5 of The Monad Reader is online with the latest Haskell language articles. "For issue five, the subjects are a short introduction to Haskell, generating polyominoes, a ray tracer, number parameterized types, practical graph manipulation, and a short introduction to software testing in Haskell."
Java This week on harmony-devThe October 1, 2005 edition of This week on harmony-dev covers the latest developments in the Harmony open-source Java platform project.
Lisp MIT releases Lisp Machine source code as open sourceMIT has released the Lisp Machine source code. "MIT has released under a 'BSD like' license the source code of the Lisp Machines developed at MIT. Lisp Machines were special-purpose computers designed for running Lisp code. They were popular in the 1980s, especially for AI applications. Improved versions were commercially produced and distributed by companies such as Symbolics, Texas Instruments and Lisp Machines Inc."
Perl The State of the Onion 9 (O'Reilly)Larry Wall has written issue #9 of the The State of the Onion, an amusing read that covers the current state of Perl development. "This last year, we were starting to lose our sense of fun in the Perl community. Though we tried to be careful about not making promises, everyone knew in their hearts that five years is an awfully long time to wait for anything. People were getting tired and discouraged and a little bit dreary. Then Autrijus Tang showed up. Maybe we should call him "Ace" Tang. He basically said, "Look, we'll never get this done unless we optimize for fun." So fun is exactly what the Pugs project is optimized for. Mind you, Autrijus's idea of fun is to learn Haskell and then write a prototype of Perl 6 in it."
The Perl 6 SummaryThe September 25, 2005 edition of The Perl 6 Summary is available with the latest Perl 6 development news.
PHP PHP Weekly Summary for August 1, 2005The PHP Weekly Summary for August 1, 2005 is out. Topics include: PHP-GTK corner, PHP 5.1 RC 1 alert, PHP-GTK 2 back on track, web services vs allow_url_fopen, internals wiki? and NetWare team to come on board.
PHP Weekly Summary for August 8, 2005The PHP Weekly Summary for August 8, 2005 is out. Topics include: libxml2 errors, PHP-GTK corner, Property overloading RFC, libxml2 errors, moving extensions to PECL, International Open Source Database Conference, CVS vs SVN, streams, URI handling and XML, allow_url_fopen and SOAP, and More namespace stuff.
PHP Weekly Summary for August 15, 2005The PHP Weekly Summary for August 15, 2005 is out. Topics include: Property overloading [continued], is_a and instanceof, upgrading to PHP 5.1 and Apache 2.2, PHP 5.1 branched, internal class static properties, memory and multiple exceptions, Unicode support design document, PHP 6.0 wishlist, Mostly Unicode and Whatever happened to gcov?
Ruby Ruby Weekly NewsThe October 2nd, 2005 edition of the Ruby Weekly News looks at the latest discussions from the ruby-talk mailing list.
Tcl/Tk Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!The October 3, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is out with the weekly collection of Tcl/Tk articles.
Version Control Mercurial loses a developerBryan O'Sullivan, a former developer of the Mercurial source code management system (covered here a few weeks ago) has announced that he will not be contributing to the project for a while. It seems that he was contacted by BitMover, the company behind BitKeeper. "However, Larry [McVoy] conveyed his very legitimate worry that a fast, stable open source project such as Mercurial poses a threat to his business, and that he considered it 'unacceptable' that an employee of a customer should work on a free project that he sees as competing. To avoid any possible perception of conflict, I have volunteered to Larry that as long as I continue to use the commercial version of BitKeeper, I will not contribute to the development of Mercurial." Click below for the full message.
Page editor: Forrest Cook Linux in the news Recommended Reading FOX's Anti-MASS FUD is a Dud (Groklaw)Groklaw dissects some FUD From Fox News. "If you go to Fox News, or in my case, if someone sends you the url, you find the following blurb: Wrong Move - Massachusetts adopts a bad technology policy that will cost taxpayers and consumers. Of course, it sends you to an editorial about the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' decision to use the OpenDocument format. And it's our chance to see inside of Microsoft's head, because it's a guest editorial by James Prendergast of Americans for Technology Leadership. The editorial has the hilarious title, "Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument." Like they could close down OpenDocument, even if they had a mind to."
Torvalds' Baby Comes of Age (BusinessWeek)BusinessWeek has an interview with Linus Torvalds. "What about Linux on the desktop? Why hasn't it taken off? Oh, it has absolutely taken off, but some people seem to think that "take off" means that suddenly everybody is running it. That's clearly not true. It's a very slow conversion. There are more people running it this year than there were last year, and it all looks and works a bit better all the time. But did everybody suddenly convert? No. It's one step at a time." (Thanks to Rolf Heckemann)
Cry freedom (Times Online)Times Online has an article by Gervase Markham. "And if you do not understand and value a freedom, it's very easy to lose it, or for someone to persuade you to give it up. You probably will not even notice it's gone until you need it and suddenly find it's not there. The pragmatic "use what's best" approach of Open Source leads to the conclusion that if another program is better, you should use it, even if it's not Open Source. So if Skype is the best software for making telephone calls over the net, you should choose it; after all, it's "free" - it costs nothing - right?"
Trade Shows and Conferences Community converges on Ohio LinuxFest (NewsForge)NewsForge reports from the Ohio Linux Fest. "The LinuxFest had three conference tracks, Userspace, Tech, and Community -- though several of the talks didn't quite fit the track that they were in. It didn't really matter -- most of the attendees were mixing and matching tracks liberally. I bounced among the different tracks, and noticed a lot of the same faces in each talk. The quality of the talks, overall, was very good. A few speakers were obviously a bit green when it comes to public speaking, but most of the people I talked to found the topics engaging anyway."
KDE at the 2005 Ohio Linux Fest (KDE.News)KDE.News covers the KDE presence at the 2005 Ohio Linux Fest. "With over 700 attendees and a speaking track packed full of goodies, the one-day Ohio Linux Fest held this past Saturday in the city of Columbus was an unqualified success. KDE had a booth at the event which was kept exceedingly busy the entire day. Most of the people who visited the booth mentioned that they use KDE and several asked that we pass on their appreciation to the entire KDE team for all the work that they have put into it over the years."
Companies Andreessen joins board of Zend Technologies (News.com)Marc Andreessen and Guarav Dhillon have joined the Zend Technologies board of directors. "Zend Technologies expanded its board of directors with Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and Guarav Dhillon, who was founder and CEO of data integration software maker Informatica. Zend makes development tools for the open-source language PHP."
Linux Adoption Linux misses Windows of opportunity (The Age)An Australian publication called The Age looks at a failed attempt at a transition to Linux. "Mr Horton called in Red Hat-recommended contractors to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux and ensure it was configured according to SAP standards, a process which took two weeks. "You have to be using the right certified components, otherwise SAP won't give you the support. To go through and match everything off was quite tedious," Mr Horton says. "After doing all that, we came to a very interesting situation where the machine would basically, putting it in Windows terms, core dump or blue screen at random. It would run for weeks or so and then just bang, it would stop."" (Thanks to Andrew Kornak.)
French military body to install Linux cluster (Silicon.com)Silicon.com covers plans to install a high-performance Linux cluster for technical and scientific work, at an agency of the French Ministry of Defense. "The Technical Establishment of Bourges (ETBS), which tests and manufactures armaments, has issued a tender for the supply of a 64-bit Linux cluster, according to a document on an EU website. The deadline of the tender was reached on Thursday but it was unclear from the tender document when the ETBS plans to start implementing the cluster."
Legal Patent suits not likely, says IP attorney (IT Manager's Journal)IT Manager's Journal looks at reasons why suing open-source companies over patent issues may be unwise. "Proprietary software companies could sue open source software developers or end users for patent infringement, but they probably won't, says one intellectual property attorney. If they do, the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) plans to be ready. Though the threat of lawsuits is often heard rumbling over the horizon like an approaching storm, the potential benefits for patent holders probably aren't attractive enough to spark litigation, says James Gatto, a patent and intellectual property attorney with Pillsbury Winthrop law firm."
Microsoft's Linux-related patents rejected (ZDNet)ZDNet reports that the U.S. Patent Office has rejected Microsoft's FAT patents (which ZDNet calls "Linux-related"). "The patent office delivered its ruling late last month but made it public this week. With one of the patents, the decision is what's considered a final rejection, while with another it's considered nonfinal. In both cases, Microsoft has the ability to pursue its claims further."
The Idea Economy (Herald Tribune)The International Herald Tribune has taken a look at the patent system. "'In certain cases,' said Elsa Lion, an analyst at the London research firm Ovum, 'technology companies are beginning to realize they have more to gain by releasing patents to the general public than by hoarding licensing income.' By giving away some of their knowledge, companies like IBM and Nokia are not just polishing their image among the Internet generation. They also questioning a business strategy that has become a bedrock of contemporary capitalism: Whoever has the most patents wins."
Interviews David Sugar talks about GNU Bayonne (NewsForge)NewsForge talks with GNU Bayonne developer David Sugar. "Bayonne started as a platform that allows one to create and deploy applications that interact by voice and through TouchTone keypads with people over the telephone network. Bayonne includes its own scripting language for writing telephony applications, which is designed for use in very high port -capacity solutions, as well as offering services to telephony enable Perl, Python, and other common scripting languages."
Resources First Monday open source specialThe October 2005 edition of First Monday is all about open source. There are several new articles (by Benjamin Mako Hill, Bruce Perens, and others) along with reprints of many older pieces. Even if you didn't want to read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" again, there's some interesting stuff here.
What Is Free Software (O'ReillyNet)Karl Fogel defines "free software" in this O'ReillyNet article. "Free software is software that may be modified and redistributed freely by anyone, with no significant restrictions on how the code may be changed, the uses to which it may be put, or the parties with whom it may be shared. From this simple definition flow many unexpected consequences."
What Is Quartz (O'ReillyNet)Chuck Cavaness introduces Quartz on O'Reilly. "Quartz is an open source job-scheduling framework written entirely in Java and designed for use in both J2SE and J2EE applications. It offers great flexibility without sacrificing simplicity. You can create simple or complex schedules for executing any job. It includes features such as database support, clustering, plugins, prebuilt jobs for EJB, JavaMail and others, support for cron-like expressions, and many more."
What Is Web 2.0 (O'Reilly)Tim O'Reilly introduces Web 2.0. "The bursting of the dot-com bubble in the fall of 2001 marked a turning point for the web. Many people concluded that the web was overhyped, when in fact bubbles and consequent shakeouts appear to be a common feature of all technological revolutions. Shakeouts typically mark the point at which an ascendant technology is ready to take its place at center stage. The pretenders are given the bum's rush, the real success stories show their strength, and there begins to be an understanding of what separates one from the other."
Converting from CVS to Subversion with cvs2svn (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet covers CVS to Subversion conversion with cvs2svn. "Before you start converting, you may need to do a little housekeeping on your CVS repository. First and foremost, make a copy of your CVS repository and work only with the copy--I can't stress this enough. A lot of the cleanup work we're going to do here can be done after you've converted, but I prefer to do the work before converting as it makes for a "cleaner" Subversion repository."
Protecting Files at Home Using Encrypted Containers (Linux Journal)The Linux Journal has posted a tutorial on the use of dm_crypt to create encrypted filesystems within files. "I have read many articles on encrypting entire partitions and drives, but I chose to use containers instead. By using containers, I have the flexibility to move them around, back them up to CD or DVD and not mount them when I don't need them.
Reviews The $100 laptop moves closer to reality (News.com)News.com follows the progress of a project that aims to produce a $100 windup-powered laptop computer that runs Linux. ""This is the most important thing I have ever done in my life," Negroponte said on Wednesday during a presentation at Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT. "Reception has been incredible. The idea is simple. It's an education project, not a laptop project. If we can make education better--particularly primary and secondary schools--it will be a better world." He said a goal of the project is to make the low-cost PC idea a grassroots movement that will spread in popularity, like the Linux operating system or the Wikipedia free online encyclopedia. "This is open-source education. It's a big issue."
AOpen box inspired by Mac Mini (News.com)News.com looks at new Pentium D-based computers from AOpen. "Taiwanese computer maker AOpen is scheduled to release two versions of its Pandora desktop just in time for the holiday shopping season, the company said Thursday. The company said Apple Computer's Mac Mini inspired its latest desktop PC. Pandora is one of several 2-inch-tall computers being sold as home entertainment PCs. A Linux-based version of the mini tower is expected to sell at retail for $399, while the Windows XP-based box will go for $499."
Apache's Beehive 1.0 generates buzz (News.com)News.com notes the Beehive 1.0 release. "Beehive consists of three main parts: NetUI, Controls and Web Service Metadata (WSM). NetUI is an MVC framework built on top of Apache Struts, adding a set of JSP tags for building HTML pages, and more complex UI controls such as data grids. Controls are back-end J2EE classes aimed at providing a consistent interface to different data sources and other resources."
What Is Asterisk (O'ReillyNet)O'Reillynet offers an introduction to Asterisk. "Simply put, Asterisk is the most flexible and extensible telephone system in existence. Full source code is available, so if you need a feature you can add it yourself. Although I must say, they've done a very thorough job with the first release. Try asking your current PBX vendor for full source code for their PBXs. Hell, just try asking them for documentation."
A first look at GIMP 2.4 (NewsForge)NewsForge looks at what's coming with the GIMP 2.4 release. "2.4 is the first GIMP release to support color management, a feature dearly missed by photographers and designers up until now. In the preferences dialog you will find a new Color Management control panel where you can set rendering intent and specify your working colorspace and device profiles."
Radio's Next Generation: Radii (Linux Journal)Linux Journal takes a look at the Linux-powered device called Radii. "Radii is a radio: a box with buttons and dials used to select bands and tune stations in a familiar way. Because this radio receives Internet radio, it provides hundreds of noise-free stations with a wide variety of listening options. The band selection dial, instead of AM and FM, is used to select genres such as News, Sports and Rock. The station selection dial scrolls through station names that can be tuned by clicking the select button."
Trusted Linux will wear a Red Hat (NewsForge)NewsForge looks at Trusted Linux. "Last October, Trusted Computer Solutions announced it would release Trusted Linux, a version of the open source operating system that is hardened enough to meet the requirements of the United States Director of Central Intelligence. This week, TCS said it is instead teaming up with IBM and Red Hat, and that Trusted Linux will now be released as an as-yet-unnamed Red Hat product in 2006."
Darik's Boot and Nuke: A great tool for obliterating your data (NewsForge)NewsForge has a review of Darik's Boot and Nuke. "Do you know what happened to your data when you disposed of your last PC? With identity theft on the rise, it's important to make sure your information is removed before you get rid of that old hard drive. Thanks to the work of developer Darik Horn, there's an excellent tool to wipe data off of a hard disk: Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN)."
The Arrival of NX, Part 5: Using NX (Linux Journal)Kurt Pfeifle continues this series on NX on Linux Journal. "The NoMachine NX Client license says, "Redistribution of NX Client software, including commercial Closed Source packages, is allowed, free of charge, for commercial and non-commercial use...". This enabled Klaus Knopper to include the NoMachine NX Client in Knoppix, versions 3.6 and later, even though it is not free software. It also is included in Kanotix. The NX Client is released in binary form under a free for commercial and non-commercial use license similar to the Adobe Acrobat reader software that we find in most Linux distributions. A KDE-based NX client, kNX, also is available. kNX works and is used by quite a few people daily, but it more of a proof-of-concept implementation, though, and its use is not yet generally recommended."
Miscellaneous Open Graphics Project Status Update (KernelTrap)KernelTrap has a status report on the Open Graphics Project. "I started the Open Graphics Project in October of 2004 at Tech Source, Inc. I suggested to my employer and to the world that a worthwhile product category, which doesn't currently exist, is graphics cards that are designed specifically with Free and Open Source software (FOSS) in mind. Rather than having to beg graphics card vendors for access to their register specs, I thought it would be easier to just ask members of the FOSS community what kind of hardware they need, work with them to develop a specification, and then build that hardware. "Open Architecture" became the main idea, making it easy for FOSS developers to get the information they need to develop FOSS drivers to take full advantage of the hardware." (Thanks to Bernard Bencic)
From the Editor - dmarti:~$ logout (Linux Journal)Don Marti concludes his Linux Journal column with some advice. "Since this is my last column as editor in chief, I get to give a bunch of advice, so I'll cover two great inventions that we should all take a fresh look at and come up with more things like them. First, the most important technology for the Internet isn't on the Internet. Want a hint? 12:00. 12:00. 12:00. The second most important technology has a symbol that you probably look at in a Web browser several times a day."
Linux Licensing: barriers to developers (ZDNet)ZDNet's Paul Murphy is trying to convince us that the GPL is a problem. "The GPL works, and works well, to empower innovation - but also represents a peaceful implementation of Karl Marx's famous dictum that the state should take from each individual according to the individual's abilities, and give to each individual according to that individual's needs. Indeed the GPL doesn't different in principle (although it's certainly dramatically different in practice!) from the communist Chinese policy of state confiscation of intellectual property for state use." It seems he prefers the CDDL.
Page editor: Forrest Cook Announcements Non-Commercial announcements EFF: Trusted Computing Group Helps Lock Down Mobile PhonesThe Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent out a press release that criticizes a new plan for a new cell phone technology. "The Trusted Computing Group (TCG), an industry consortium developing controversial computer security specifications, has released a wish list of applications of TCG technology to cell phone security. Unfortunately, much of this "security" aims to help cell phone carriers cement their control over their customers."
Three New Companies Join The GNOME Foundation's Advisory BoardThe GNOME Foundation has announced the joining of three new members to its advisory board. "The GNOME Foundation today announced three new corporate members -- OpenedHand Ltd., Imendio AB and Fluendo S.L. These young growing companies are eager to support the GNOME Desktop project and become more deeply involved by joining GNOME's advisory board. Based in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Spain, and specializing in different applications of the GNOME platform, they reflect the diversity and optimism of the GNOME community."
New IPI Publication, Intellectual Property Rights and Human RightsThe Institute for Policy Innovation has released a new publication entitled Intellectual Property Rights and Human Rights. "Several internationally recognized documents such as The U.S. Constitution, The American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Men, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economics, Social and Cultural Rights make it clear that those concerned about human rights made a conscious and concerted effort to ensure that intellectual property rights were protected, said IPI President Tom Giovanetti."
KDE e.V. Assembly Meeting 2005 Notes (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced the availability of the notes from the KDE e.V. meeting. "KDE's legal body KDE e.V. held its Annual General Meeting at aKademy 2005 last month. Notes from the meeting are now available. A new board was chosen voting in Cornelius Schumacher and Aaron Seigo, and continuing Mirko Böhm and Eva Brucherseifer. Our thanks to the retiring board members Matthias Kalle Dalheimer and Harri Porten. The meeting decided to create working groups to streamline KDE development and activity, notes from the meeting discussing working groups are also available."
Petition Aims to Improve eBay's Mozilla Firefox Support (MozillaZine)MozillaZine has announced a petition to get eBay to improve its Firefox browser support. "Online auction news site AuctionBytes is reporting that some eBay sellers have started a petition to persuade the auction giant to support Mozilla Firefox and other alternative browsers. According to the article, some features on the eBay Sell Your Item page are optimised for Microsoft Internet Explorer and do not work correctly in Firefox and other browsers. In addition, there is no Firefox version of eBay Toolbar, which is currently only available for Internet Explorer on Windows."
Apply now for DMCA exceptionsThe Digital Millennium Copyright Act includes a provision allowing the Library of Congress to exempt certain activities from the anti-circumvention clause. To that end, the Library occasionally asks for exemption requests and makes its decisions. That process has just started again, with requests due by the beginning of December. For the curious, here are the results from the previous iteration, which happened in 2003. See also Seth Finkelstein's guide on writing DMCA exemption requests.
Commercial announcements DELL NEWS: New Open-Source Ready Consumer DesktopDell has announced the Dimension E510n desktop computer for tech-savvy customers. It comes with a blank hard drive and a copy of FreeDOS to get started. The Dimension E510n is available immediately in the United States. The base configuration starts at $849 with a Pentium 4 630 processor, 512 MB DDR2 memory, 128 MB ATI(r) RADEON X300SE HyperMemory video card, 80 GB SATA hard drive and 1-year limited warranty.
Jataayu and MontaVista partner on mobile phone effortJataayu and MontaVista have announced a partnership. "Jataayu Software, a leading vendor of mobile device solutions, today announced that it has joined the Mobilinux Open Framework Partner Program. MontaVista's Mobilinux Open Framework is a program designed to increase the adoption of Linux within the mobile phone industry by providing handset vendors and mobile operators with solutions consisting of components from best of breed mobile software providers and MontaVista's Mobilinux OS platform. The primary goal of this program is to provide mobile handset vendors and operators with the architectural freedom to create and deliver differentiated products and services."
PathScale and Voltaire Sign Agreement on High Performance Grid BackbonePathScale has announced a partnership with Voltair involving InfiniBand cluster connect adapters. "One of the first Voltaire customers to receive the PathScale adapter is the Sandia National Laboratory's research facility in Livermore, CA. According to Dr. Matt Leininger, computational scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, "We see Voltaire's collaboration with PathScale as a very positive development that will make it easier for us to build extremely large InfiniBand-based clusters based on the OpenIB software stack. The ability to couple the PathScale InfiniBand adapter to Hypertransport has some significant advantages in terms of latency and effective bandwidth for many of our complex applications such as structure mechanics, computational fluid dynamics and combustion codes."
Red Hat Reports Fiscal Second Quarter ResultsRed Hat has announced its second quarter results. The fiscal quarter ended on August 31, 2005. "Total revenue for the quarter was $65.7 million, a year-over-year increase of 42% and a sequential increase of 8%. Subscription revenue was $54.3 million, an increase of 56% year-over-year and 10% sequentially."
Sun makes an OASIS patent pledgeSun has issued a pledge not to enforce its patents against any implementation of the OpenDocument format specification - version 1.0 at least. There is one exception, though: Sun still reserves the right to use its patents against anybody else who asserts patent claims against OpenDocument.
Wind River launches a Linux distributionWind River Systems has announced the forthcoming availability of its Linux distribution for embedded systems. It is, says Wind River, "the first true commercial-grade Linux for device manufacturers." The distribution is based on a "pristine source" 2.6.10 kernel and includes what appears to be a nice development environment and the inevitable pile of service offerings.
New Books Ambient Findability - O'Reilly's Latest ReleaseO'Reilly has published the book Ambient Findability by Peter Morville.
Asterisk: The Future of Telephony - O'Reilly's Latest ReleaseO'Reilly has published the book Asterisk: The Future of Telephony by Jim Van Meggelen, Jared Smith, and Leif Madsen.
Practical Development Environments - O'Reilly's Latest ReleaseO'Reilly has published the book Practical Development Environments by Matthew B. Doar.
Resources The Linux Documentation Project Weekly NewsThe September 28, 2005 edition of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News is available, take a look for the latest new documentation releases.
Linux Gazette #119The October Linux Gazette is out. The edition has Notes from Linux World 2005 - San Francisco, a Book Review of Knoppix Hacks, Optimizing Website Images with the Littleutils, After the Summer of Code and much more.
TUX Issue #7 Now Available (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop.org has an announcement for issue #7 of Tux Magazine. "The latest issue of Tux Magazine is available in PDF format. Once you get past the silly bickering in the beginning of the issue, there are 3 very good articles, one on gThumb, another on GnuCash, and the last on Inkscape."
Contests and Awards CMP Media Announces Winners of 2005 Readers' Choice AwardsCMP Media LLC has announced the winners of its 2005 Readers' Choice Awards. ""We're always looking for ways to recognize the best products and vendors in software development; therefore, we've evolved the Readers' Choice Awards program to look at the different aspects of the development process," noted Software Development magazine Technical Editor Rosalyn Lum. "Last year, the Fortune 500 dominated the winner's list, but this year we're also recognizing lesser-known products from small to medium-sized companies, and we're very pleased with the results.""
Surveys ONJava 2005 Reader Survey Results, Part 2 (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly has published part two of the ONJava 2005 Reader Survey Results. "Is there anything else you'd like to tell our Java editors? Well, 226 people responding to the 2005 ONJava Reader Survey did. In this article, we show what they said and discuss what we're doing with the site."
Upcoming Events Big Nerd Ranch Europe is open for BusinessBig Nerd Ranch has announced the first European PostgreSQL and Cocoa Bootcamps. The events will be held in Italy during December and January. "Following a constant demand the Big Nerd Ranch will be offering their classes in Europe. The Big Nerd Ranch Europe, operated by Stefanie Höfling, is located in Bonn, Germany".
Government Open Source Conference - Portland, OregonThe first annual Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON) will take place in Portland, Oregon on October 13 and 14, 2005.
Marketing and Selling Open Source Software 2005Two Marketing and Selling Open Source Software 2005 events have been announced. The first event will take place in Burlington, MA. on October 6 and 7, and the second will take place in San Jose, CA on November 10 and 11. "Featuring expert speakers on applications, licensing, marketing strategy, legal issues and more, the two-day conference for executives and sales and marketing managers will help companies understand how Open Source is impacting their bottom lines and how to make that impact positive."
Call for Papers - DIMVA 2006A Call for Papers has gone out for DIMVA 2006, The third GI SIG SIDAR Conference on Detection of Intrusions & Malware, and Vulnerability Assessment. Papers are due by January 13, 2006 and the event will be held on July 13 and 14, 2006 in Berlin, Germany.
Events: October 6 - December 1, 2005
Audio and Video programs 'The California Report' Radio Show Profiles Mozilla (MozillaZine)MozillaZine reports that a radio show called The California Report looks at the Mozilla and Firefox browsers. "The profile discusses Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox with an emphasis on explaining the open source development methodology behind the software. Mitchell Baker, Mike Shaver and Robert O'Callahan are all featured." The audio program is available online.
Page editor: Forrest Cook Letters to the editor Open Source is not a "business model"
Cordialia Lee wrote for CNet:
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
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![[Editor screenshot]](/images/ns/wesnoth-editor-sm.png)
![[Network class diagram]](/images/ns/kernel/class-net.png)
The class API has changed little since it was documented in ![[Block class diagram]](/images/ns/kernel/class-block.png)
Consider, for example, the block subsystem, as represented by the
simplified diagram to the left. The block subsystem deals in block
devices, of course, and those are represented in the second layer of the
diagram. Each block device, however, can contain partitions, which are
(virtual) block devices in their own right. Putting all of those
partitions in the
top layer of the block class hierarchy would lose the relationship between
those partitions and the physical devices where they live; the deeper
hierarchy truly does make sense. There are also other
objects, such as the request queue, which need to be present in the class
tree. The fact that the class
subsystem cannot represent this structure is one of the reasons why the
block layer has its own sysfs subtree, under /sys/block, even
though it logically belongs under /sys/class.