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LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 13, 2005A pair of desktop initiativesWhether or not they agree that Linux is "ready for the desktop" or not, most observers will allow that there remains plenty of room for improvement. And while some of those improvements will take the form of slick new applications, there is also quite a bit of less glorious work to do. So it is encouraging to see a couple of new efforts aimed at improving the quality of the desktop we already have.Novell has sent out a press release announcing the launch of the Better Desktop initiative. This effort, part of the OpenSUSE project, intends to provide information to developers which will help them to make the Linux desktop a better experience. User-oriented proprietary software companies have many techniques for improving the usability of their products. One of those is to film users trying to fight their way through an application, then lock the developers in a room and force them to watch the users struggle. No popcorn provided. Developers know their software, so they will not wander into the traps and dead-ends which confuse the rest of the world. Watching others run afoul of usability problems shines a light on those problems which cannot be denied. Once the problems are seen and understood, the developers can start to think about solving them. The Better Desktop project cannot lock developers in a room, and it cannot deprive them of the refreshments of their choice. What it can do, however, is provide the films. As a start, the project has posted video streams of several users as they attempt to accomplish a set of objectives. Also posted is a small set of reports drawing conclusions from the videos. These conclusions are relatively simple (users want to see the username and password fields together on the login screen, for example), but they do demonstrate the sort of issues that developers tend not to see on their own. The research results posted are just a beginning; one assumes that the project will run more experiments over time. Your editor suggests "figure out how to make betterdesktop.org display reports in firefox without popping up new windows" as a nice place to start. As this body of data grows, implementing usability improvements indicated by the results should be a relatively straightforward task. In usability, as in many other areas, the real challenge is figuring out what problems to solve, rather than implementing the solutions.
The Tango Project has taken on a different goal: get rid of visual inconsistencies between desktop applications, regardless of their source. In particular, Tango has targeted icons as an area needing improvement. So, the project has posted a set of style guidelines on how icons should be created and a specification on how they should be named. If applications adopt both, the result should be applications that look the same everywhere. The Tango icon gallery gives a good demonstration of the guidelines in action. These guidelines call for bright colors and well-defined perspectives on objects. Not everybody will like the relatively cartoonish approach taken by Tango, but use of these icons will undoubtedly create a lively desktop. Tango may or may not succeed in the real world. It is important, however, as a cross-desktop effort to improve the overall user experience. If the Linux desktop is to continue to get better, a great deal of usability and consistency work will have to get done. The fact that projects are coming together to make a start on that work can only be a good thing.
Single-company free softwareThis has been an interesting week for those who watch how free software and the business world interact. Oracle's acquisition of Innobase, Check Point's acquisition of Sourcefire, and the closing of the Nessus source all raise some fundamental questions. Free software users are secure - even smug - in the knowledge that the software they use cannot be yanked out from under them. Is that really true, however, in situations where an important component is owned by a single company?Oracle has announced the acquisition of a Finnish company named Innobase. This company is the creator of the "InnoDB" storage engine used by the popular MySQL relational database management system. MySQL has a number of storage engines, but InnoDB is the one which seems to meet the needs of a large portion of MySQL's users. So those users may well have cause to wonder about language like the following, from the Oracle press release:
InnoDB is not a standalone database product: it is distributed as a
part of the MySQL database. InnoDB's contractual relationship with
MySQL comes up for renewal next year. Oracle fully expects to
negotiate an extension of that relationship.
MySQL AB has put out a cheery press release "welcoming" Oracle to the free database market. Behind the smile, however, there may be some worry in the MySQL office. Oracle, after all, does not have a reputation for being a particularly pleasant company to negotiate with. MySQL is almost certainly paying Innobase for the right to include InnoDB with the proprietary versions of its software; it may be that the price is about to go up. Should MySQL users worry? The current version of InnoDB is licensed under the GPL, and Oracle cannot take that away. What might happen is that development for the freely-licensed InnoDB may slow or stop. Nothing can prevent the user community - or MySQL AB itself - from forking the project and continuing development should Oracle take things in an undesirable direction. But MySQL AB's motivation to do so may be small if it is unable to include InnoDB in its commercial products. Meanwhile, Sourcefire has been acquired by Check Point, a security firm. Sourcefire is the company created around the free Snort intrusion detection system. Snort users depend on it to catch and respond to attempts to compromise systems on their networks. So the idea that this code could go proprietary is of concern. Check Point claims to be "fully committed" to the Snort open source community, so, presumably, Snort will remain free for a while. In the case of Snort, however, the users who truly depend on it are already paying for additional services. Among other things, a tool like Snort requires regular updates to its rule set to keep up with the latest attack signatures. Quick rule updates were already a value-added service, and that is unlikely to change. With luck, the free rules will continue to be updated regularly. If that fails to happen, and there is sufficient interest in the community, those updates will come from outside the company in the future. Users of the Nessus security scanner were recently surprised by a Nessus roadmap posting. The upcoming 3.0 release will include a number of improvements, especially in performance, but it will no longer be licensed under the GPL. It will, instead, carry a "free beer" license which makes the distribution of binaries difficult or impossible. Tenable Software, the company behind Nessus, cites two reasons for the license change. The first is that other companies are using Nessus to compete in ways that Tenable sees as unfair:
A number of companies are _using_ the source code against us, by
selling or renting appliances, thus exploiting a loophole in the
GPL. So in that regard, we have been fueling our own competition
and we want to put an end to that. Nessus3 contains an improved
engine, and we don't want our competition to claim to have improved
"their" scanner.
The exact nature of this "loophole" is unclear; selling an appliance loaded with GPL-licensed software does not change the GPL's requirements, as several router appliance vendors have found to their detriment. That said, it is clear that Tenable believes that distributing Nessus under the GPL is costing it business. When that belief is combined with the company's other claim - that the wider community has failed to contribute any worthwhile code to Nessus anyway - the reasoning behind the change becomes clear. Why bother with a free license when it hurts business and does not bring in any contributions from outside? It is hard to say, from a distance, why there has been so little community contribution to Nessus. Certainly there is nothing readily visible on Nessus.org encouraging contributions. But there does not appear to be any indications that Tenable went out of its way to discourage or reject contributions. This may be one of those cases - certainly not the only one - where an outside development community has simply failed to come together for a particular project. Once again, the current version of Nessus is licensed under the GPL, and nobody can take that away. Tenable has even said that it will continue to support the GPL version with bug fixes. So if the Nessus user community is truly upset by the licensing change, it will be able to fork the free version and carry it forward. It's worth noting that many Nessus plugins, which perform the actual security checks, have been covered by a different license for some time, however. Tenable requires third-party plugins to be distributed under the GPL, which indicates that the company sees those plugins as being derived from Nessus itself. How such plugins can be legally used with a non-GPL Nessus would be an interesting question for the lawyers. All three of these cases illustrate a particular hazard associated with free software projects which are entirely owned by one company. Any such project can turn proprietary at any time, leaving users scrambling for a new solution. This risk is worth keeping in mind, but it should also be kept in perspective. Proprietary software is no more reliable; indeed, it can vanish altogether leaving users with no recourse at all. Free software, at least, cannot be taken away. Users have the option of carrying it forward, should they choose to do so. OpenSSH is a good example of how this freedom can work. A bigger risk with single-company free software might well turn out to be that it has a harder time attracting developers. This may be especially true in cases where developers are required to assign their copyrights to the owning company on any contributions. It is hard to justify giving away your code when some company might just turn around and make it proprietary. For this reason, a number of companies based on free software projects have created independent foundations to own the copyrights and manage development. For both users and developers who are evaluating free software projects, the existence of such a foundation will provide a higher degree of assurance that the freedoms they count on will remain available in future releases of the software.
LWN status - a followupThe LWN status update posted two weeks ago generated quite a bit of feedback. We have also received quite a bit of mail; it has all been read, though we have not had a chance to respond to every message. Once again, we offer our thanks to all of you, who clearly care about keeping LWN going and making it better.One of the most commonly-suggested ideas was a "send a link" feature for subscribers. Using this feature, a subscriber could generate a link which would enable a non-subscriber to access an article which is still behind the subscription gate. The idea would be to let our readers spread limited access to subscription content, thus helping to hook more readers. We will probably implement this idea, though the specific shape of it remains to be worked out. Stay tuned. Other promotional approaches are being looked at and tried out. Ad campaigns run on That Big Search Engine have been disappointing so far, though we have not yet given up on that approach. What seems more effective is targeted trial subscription offers; a trial offer sent to the GnuCash and KMyMoney lists (so they could read the recent Grumpy Editor article) got quite a few takers. LWN does not need a reputation for spamming developer lists, however, so much care will have to be taken with this approach. The idea of extending the subscription period did not inspire a great many replies, one way or another. We may try a modest extension (to two weeks, perhaps), maybe in conjunction with the "send a link" feature. A few people have asked for a higher-priced subscription option or the ability to simply make donations. We may eventually add the higher level, though we expect that the uptake - which would be necessarily less than we see now for the "project leader" level - would be relatively small. There will not be a donation option added, however. Those of you who were with us when we first decided to try subscriptions will remember that we went through a major hassle with our credit card merchant bank. Donations are a red flag which, it seems, creates major anxiety in merchant bank risk management departments. Our current bank has proved to be far more rational than the one we had back then, but the ability to accept credit cards is our lifeline, and we cannot do things (like accepting donations) which put it at risk. We do have a couple of options for anybody who would like to send more money LWN's way: (1) buy a gift certificate for a friend, or (2) buy a text ad promoting your favorite free software project. A few users have suggested that the site could use a redesign to give it a more professional look. No doubt that is true, and a site makeover has been on the "to do" list for some time. Any such redesign, when it happens, will preserve the core philosophy of the current site: LWN is about high-quality text without a lot of distracting decorative material. So there is no need to worry that we'll be going to a frame-based, flash-encrusted, image-heavy presentation in the future. Thanks to all of you for your support and feedback. LWN has truly been blessed with the best group of readers we could ever have hoped for.
Security Mail filtering in Thunderbird 1.5Your editor recently had a chance to try out the second beta Thunderbird 1.5 release. There are a number of nice additions in this release of Mozilla's mail client - and a few not-so-nice subtractions, in the form of broken extensions. This article will concentrate on a couple of security-related features.Thunderbird has had spam filtering for some time. Your editor has never given it a full test, however. Happily, an ideal resource exists for this purpose: your editor's 4000-spam-per-day mail stream. A quick config file tweak directed a copy of this stream, unfiltered, into Thunderbird to see how it would react. The bayesian filter built into Thunderbird turns out to be a quick learner. After 100 messages or so, it was busily marking most messages itself. The speed with which it learns tempts the user to turn on automatic spam-canning of marked mail early in the process; it is such a delight to see that stuff simply disappear. Training a SpamAssassin filter takes quite a bit longer. Unfortunately, the Thunderbird filter appears to learn too quickly, with the result that false positives become a problem. As long as Thunderbird is not configured to automatically refile spam, the false positives can be corrected with, one assumes, an appropriate tweaking of the filter. Once spams have been diverted, however, there appears to be no way to tell Thunderbird that it made a mistake. So new Thunderbird users would be well advised to look over its spam classification decisions for some time before empowering it to refile mail automatically. SpamAssassin's more conservative approach may well turn out to be better for people who cannot afford to lose mail. Happily, Thunderbird 1.5 includes an option which causes it to defer to SpamAssassin on filtering. Thus, the system administrator can use SpamAssassin to add headers to mail, and individual users can have Thunderbird act on those headers if desired. A truly new feature in 1.5 is phishing detection. A few simple rules have been added to detect phishy links; essentially, a message will be flagged if a URL contains a numeric IP address or the link text contains an address which fails to match the link destination. In these cases, clicking on a suspect link will result in a dialog explaining the situation and asking if the user wishes to proceed. Thunderbird will also mark such messages with a line saying "Mail/News thinks this message might be an email scam." This capability is a step in the right direction, but it has some obvious shortcomings. It failed to detect a number of random phishes found in your editor's mailbox. The "this might be junk" message also overrides the phishing warning; arguably the scam warning should take priority. The real risk, though, is that users might think that, if Thunderbird does not flag a message, it must be legitimate. Remember, these are people who fall for phishing scams in the first place. The best way to avoid that possibility would be to improve the detection of phishing messages. One wonders if the bayesian filter could be trained to this purpose as well as detecting spam. There is also ample opportunity for cooperation with anti-phishing groups which maintain lists of known phishing sites - though one would have to be careful to preserve a user's privacy when checking links. Quibbles aside, Thunderbird 1.5 is a step in the right direction toward a more secure email environment. More work clearly remains to be done - but that is likely to always be the case. Meanwhile, tools which help to reduce the spam and phishing problems can only be a good thing.
New vulnerabilities graphviz: insecure temporary file
kernel: multiple vulnerabilities
koffice: KWord RTF import buffer overflow
libuser: denial of service
mason: open firewall vulnerability
mozilla: symlink attack
openssl: protocol rollback
ruby: bypass object flags
squirrelmail: cross-site scripting
up-imapproxy: format string vulnerabilities
uw-imap: buffer overflow
weex: format string vulnerability
xine-lib: arbitrary code execution
xloadimage: buffer overflows
Updated vulnerabilities a2ps: input validation error
abiword: buffer overflow
apache information disclosure if modssl=yes
httpd: off-by-one overflow and cross-site scripting
apachetop: insecure temporary file
arc: temporary file vulnerabilities
awstats: command injection vulnerability
backupninja: insecure temporary file
bzip2: race condition and infinite loop
cfengine: insecure temporary files
common-lisp-controller: design error
courier: missing input sanitizing
cpio: directory traversal
cyrus-imapd: buffer overflows
dia: missing input sanitizing
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
glibc: tempfile vulnerability in catchsegv script
gopher: buffer overflows
grip: buffer overflow
groff: insecure temporary directory
gtkdiskfree: insecure temp file
gzip: arbitrary command execution
HelixPlayer: arbitrary code execution
htdig: cross site scripting
Hylafax: insecure temporary file creation in xferfaxstats
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: 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-auth-shadow: authorization bypass
mod_python: remote access vulnerability
mozilla: buffer overflow
Berkeley MPEG Tools: multiple insecure temporary files
mysql: buffer overflow
mysql: low-impact security fix
ncpfs: multiple vulnerabilities
nfs-utils: arbitrary code execution
ntlmaps: wrong permissions
ntp: uses wrong gid
openssh: GSSAPI credential disclosure
OpenSSL: information leak
OpenSSL: denial of service vulnerabilities
openvpn: multiple vulnerabilities
pam_ldap: plain text authentication leak
pcre3: arbitrary code execution
perl: setuid vulnerabilities
perl: symlink vulnerability
phpsysinfo: cross-site-scripting
postgresql: database initialization errors
Pound: buffer overflow
prozilla: arbitrary code execution
pstotext: remote execution of arbitrary code
Py2Play: remote execution of arbitrary Python code
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
squid: authentication handling
sudo: race condition
sysreport: insecure temporary file
File overwrite vulnerability in tar and unzip
tcpdump: denial of service
tcpdump: multiple DoS issues
texinfo: temporary file vulnerability
ucd-snmp: denial of service
uim: privilege escalation
unzip: race condition
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 2.6.13.4, released on October 10. It contains a small number of security-related fixes, a fix for the elusive Sparc FPU bug, and a few other patches.The current 2.6 prepatch is 2.6.14-rc4, announced by Linus on October 10. This will be, he says, the last -rc release before 2.6.14 comes out. It contains mostly fixes, but there's also some driver updates, a new Megaraid SAS driver, and a new gfp_t type which has caused a prototype change for many internal functions which perform memory allocations (see below). The details may be found in the long-format changelog. There have been no -mm releases since 2.6.14-rc2-mm2 came out on September 29.
Kernel development news Quote of the week
In general, if you act like I've got all the attention span of a slightly
retarded golden retriever, you'll be pretty close to the mark.
-- Linus Torvalds
Two new web sitesThose of you who were watching in the early days of Linux kernel development will remember a series of web sites which consisted of a list of kernel releases and the changes to be found in each. Maintaining such a site is a considerable amount of work, however, and no such site has been operating for some time now. That has just changed, however, with Diego Calleja's announcement of his LinuxChanges page, hosted on the KernelNewbies site. The entries go all the way back to 2.5.1 (released almost four years ago) and provide a list of relevant changes for each release. It is a useful site which, one hopes, will be kept current for a long time to come.For those who are interested in the many projects underway in the networking subsystem, a visit to the new linux-net wiki may be in order. Visitors cannot help being struck by the amount of work which is going on in this area.
Introducing gfp_tMost kernel functions which deal with memory allocation take a set of "GFP flags" as an argument. These flags describe the allocation and how it should be satisfied; among other things, they control whether it is possible to sleep while waiting for memory, whether high memory can be used, and whether it is possible to call into the filesystem code. The flags are a simple integer value, and that leads to a potential problem: coding errors could result in functions being called with incorrect arguments. An occasional error has turned up where function arguments have gotten confused (usually through ordering mistakes). The resulting bugs can be strange and hard to track down.A while back, the __nocast attribute was added to catch these mistakes. This attribute simply says that automatic type coercion should not be applied; it is used by the sparse utility. A more complete solution is on the way, now, in the form of a new gfp_t type. The patch defining this type, and changing several kernel interfaces, was posted by Al Viro and merged just before 2.6.14-rc4 came out. There are several more patches in the series, but they have evidently been put on hold for now. The patches are surprisingly large and intrusive; it turns out that quite a few kernel functions accept GFP flags as arguments. For all that, the actual code generated does not change, and the code, as seen by gcc, changes very little. Once the patch set is complete, however, it will allow comprehensive type checking of GFP flag arguments, catching a whole class of potential bugs before they bite anybody.
Hard drive protectionOne of the many features which will be shipped with the 2.6.14 kernel will be a driver for the "hard drive active protection system" found in some ThinkPad laptops. This system provides a set of sensors, and, in particular, an accelerometer which can report on the position of the laptop - and how quickly that position is changing. There are a number of applications of such device - such as a version of neverball played by tipping the laptop. The real purpose, however, is to enable the system to react to a fall and attempt to protect the hard drive.The next step in the implementation of that purpose is the hard drive protection patch recently posted by Jon Escombe. This patch adds two new callbacks to the block request queue which drivers can provide:
typedef int (issue_protect_fn) (request_queue_t *);
typedef int (issue_unprotect_fn) (request_queue_t *);
If the driver provides these functions, the request queue, as seen in sysfs, will contain a new protect attribute. If a value is written to that attribute, the block system will interpret it as an integer number of seconds. The issue_protect_fn() will be called, and the request queue will be plugged for the indicated number of seconds. When that time expires, issue_unprotect_fn() will be called and the queue will be restarted. The theory of operation here is that a user-space daemon will be monitoring the status of the system, as reported by the accelerometer. Should this daemon note that the laptop has begun to accelerate, it will quickly write a value to the protect attribute for each drive in the system. The drives will respond by parking the disk heads, and, in any other possible way, telling the drive to crawl into its shell and prepare for impact. Once the event has transpired, the shattered remains of the laptop can attempt to resume normal operation. The idea seems reasonable, but block maintainer Jens Axboe has turned down the patch for now. Says Jens:
We have far too many queue hooks already, adding two more for a
relatively obscure use such as this one is not a good idea.
The number of request queue callbacks is indeed large. Some of them have little to do with drivers (there's one which is called whenever disk activity happens, for example; it can be used to flash a keyboard LED in the absence of a hardware disk activity light), but others, such as the ones discussed here, are direct requests to the underlying block driver. The use of callbacks seems a little redundant in this situation, given that the request queue is, fundamentally, a mechanism for conveying commands to block drivers. The right solution might thus be to use the request queue to carry commands beyond those requesting the movement of blocks to and from the drive. To an extent, the request queue is already used this way. Packet commands, ATA task file commands, and power management commands can be fed to drivers through the queue. In each case, the flags field of struct request is used to indicate that something special is being requested. The use of flags in this way is getting a little unwieldy, however, leading to the consideration of a new approach. That approach, as seen in a patch held by Jens, is to add a new field (cmd_type) to struct request which indicates the type of command embodied by each request. Currently-anticipated types include packet commands, sense requests, power management commands, flush requests, driver-specific special requests, and Linux-specific, generic requests. Oh, and the occasional request to move a disk block in one direction or the other. The addition of cmd_type turns struct request into a generic carrier of commands to a disk drive. With this mechanism in place, the "brace yourself, we're falling!" message becomes just another Linux-specific block request type. When such an event happens, the kernel need only place one of those messages on the queue - preferably at the head of the queue - and call the driver's request() function. The driver can then prepare the drive for the coming catastrophe and plug the queue itself. No additional callbacks required. This approach does involve some significant changes to the block layer, however, and would include a driver API change. So it is not likely to take a quick path into the kernel. The hard drive protection mechanism, which will require the new API, thus looks likely to wait in line for a while yet.
Adaptive file readaheadReadahead is a technique employed by the kernel in an attempt to improve file reading performance. If the kernel has reason to believe that a particular file is being read sequentially, it will attempt to read blocks from the file into memory before the application requests them. When readahead works, it speeds up the system's throughput, since the reading application does not have to wait for its requests. When readahead fails, instead, it generates useless I/O and occupies memory pages which are needed for some other purpose.The current kernel readahead implementation uses a window 128KB in length. When readahead seems appropriate, the kernel will speculatively bring in the next 128KB of file data. If the application continues to read sequentially through that data, the next 128KB chunk will be brought in when the application is part-way through the first one. This implementation works, but Wu Fengguang thinks that it can be made better. In particular, Wu thinks that the fixed readahead window size should, instead, adapt to both the application's behavior and the global state of the system. His adaptive readahead patch is an implementation of this thought. It is a work of daunting complexity, but the core ideas are reasonably straightforward. The adaptive readahead patch tries to balance two constraints: readahead should be performed aggressively, but not to the point that the system starts thrashing or readahead pages get recycled before the application uses them. Every time a readahead decision is to be made for a specific file, the adaptive code looks at how much memory is available for readahead and how quickly the application has been working through the file. If memory is tight, or if the disk holding the file is congested, readahead will not be performed at all. The code also looks at the pressure on the inactive page lists and tries to figure out whether any readahead pages are in danger of falling off that list and being reclaimed. In that situation, the readahead pages will be moved back up the list, keeping them in memory for a bit longer. This "rescue" operation helps to keep previous readahead work from being wasted; since it is only performed when the application consumes data from the file, it will not happen if the reading process has stalled entirely. But, when the application is working through the data, it will get another chance to benefit from readahead which has already been performed. No more readahead will be started in that situation, however. If, instead, the application is making use of its readahead pages and the memory is available, the readahead window can grow up to 1MB. For streaming media or data processing applications which work their way sequentially through large files, this enlarged window can lead to significant performance gains. In fact, Wu claims results which are "pretty optimistic." They include a 20-100% improvement for applications doing parallel reads, and the ability to run 800 1KB/sec simultaneous streams on a 64MB system without thrashing. The page cache hit rate is claimed to be 91%, which is quite good. The adaptive readahead patch might, thus, be a worthwhile addition to the Linux memory management subsystem. There has been little discussion (none, actually) of the patch on the list, however. Complicated patches working in an obscure corner of memory management do not receive the same level of review as, say, new filesystems, it would seem. In any case, a patch of this nature will require a good deal of testing before it can be considered for any sort of merge. So, while adaptive readahead may indeed make its way into the mainline, it's not something to expect to see in the very near future.
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 How many is too many?It was recently suggested that there are too many Linux distributions. Apparently Michael Dell of Dell Computers agrees. But is it true?As of this writing the LWN Distributions List contains 431 active(*) distributions. (*)Some portion of those are not, in fact, even remotely active projects. However we are very conservative about removing projects, and on several occasions when we moved a project to the non-active section of the list we received email saying the project was indeed active, just really slow. This leaves us with some questions. Do we need hundreds of Linux distributions? How much overlap is there in all those distributions? Why do people want to create their own Linux distributions? We probably don't need hundreds of Linux distributions, but there is actually less overlap than it might seem. Many distributions are created for a specific purpose. Regardless of the purpose, there is usually more than one way of doing something so there's likely to be some overlap in even the most specialized of categories as different projects take a different approach to solving the problem. Many distributions are highly customized for a particular organization. The chances are no one outside of that organization will be all that interested, but they are open projects so we list them. Likewise there are many distributions that have been localized for a particular country or language. There are a wide variety of embedded distributions for an equally wide variety of hardware and applications. There are distributions that focus on security or the desktop or education (for children of all ages), or multimedia experience. The media tells us that we are "not there yet" on the desktop so we obviously do need the competition there. Some projects work only with certain types of hardware, and it is projects like these that allow our mainstream distributions to support more processors. When we eliminate the specialized categories we are left with only seventy distributions. Not hundreds at all. There are several different philosophies on package management; RPM- based, .deb types, source-based, and few others like Conary and Pacman. There are many small consulting firms, who sell and support their own brand of Linux. If these consulting firms are making a living, more power to them. For hardware manufacturers like Mr. Dell, focusing on the leading distributions should be sufficient. If that's still too many, chose a subset. If Linux runs well on the hardware, then the other distributions can be installed by those whose tastes are less than mainstream. Natural selection will take care of the rest, one way or another.
New Releases OpenLab 4 (Perdita) - Release AnouncementOpenLab International has announced (click below) the international release of OpenLab4. OpenLab4 is an all-encompassing GNU/Linux software distribution, catering to desktop, power and server users alike. OpenLab4 allows for the use of varied computer technologies, ranging from obsolete to state-of-the-art, from stand-alone PC, fat-client to diskless workstation configuration.
SuSE 10 Arrives (eWeek)eWeek takes a look at SUSE Linux 10.0. "Like Linux Pro before it, SuSE Linux 10 is designed both to be a cutting-edge Linux distribution for enthusiasts while providing the easy-to-use KDE and GNOME interfaces for less-experienced desktop users. This distribution comes with GNOME 2.12 and KDE 3.4.2. In addition to its desktop, SUSE Linux 10.0 includes more than 1,500 open-source Linux applications and packages that can be optionally installed for Web hosting, application development and home networking." Here's the official announcement.
Ubuntu 5.10RCThe final release candidate for Ubuntu 5.10 ("Breezy") is now available; here's your chance to test things out before next week's release. Inside the announcement (click below) you'll find download information, a list of important new features in 5.10, and information to sign up to get free CD mailed to you. The Kubuntu Breezy Release Candidate is also available.
Mandriva Linux 2006 available to Club membersMembers of Mandriva Club are probably already aware of the release of Mandriva Linux 2006, currently only available to club members. "2006 is the first version after the merger of Mandriva, Conectiva and Lycoris. It is the most user-friendly, ergonomic and yet most powerful Mandriva Linux ever. Starting today Club members and offical contributors to the distribution are entitled to download various editions of the distribution, all including commercial applications and plugins such as Flash, Java and the graphics drivers from NVIDIA and ATI."
Distribution News Ubuntu launches "The Fridge"Ubuntu Chief Refrigeration Engineer Jeff Waugh has sent out an announcement for The Fridge, intended to be "an information hub for the Ubuntu community, bringing together news, grassroots marketing, advocacy, team collaboration, and great original content."
Debian Project newsThe official Debian Wiki has been announced. "The original wiki pages from wiki.debian.net have been converted and moved to wiki.debian.org. Thanks to Michael Ivey for hosting the previous wiki for the last four years and to Don Armstrong and various others for assisting in the migration."The Board of Directors of Software in the Public Interest, Inc. will hold its quarterly meeting on Tuesday, October 18, 2005, at 19:00 UTC in #spi on irc.oftc.net. The public is welcome at all SPI meetings. Bill Allombert covers the Debian menu transition, part 2.
Distribution Newsletters Debian Weekly NewsThe Debian Weekly News for October 11, 2005 looks at a Debian-based underwater vehicle, a series of articles on using a Debian-based firewall, wiki spam, reviving the Debian FAQ, and several other topics.
Fedora Weekly NewsFedora Weekly News #17 covers the release of Firefox 1.5 Beta 2, OOoCon Interviews & Keynotes, Dogtail, Fedora Security Basics, Yumex 0.42-6 released for FC4, setting up Linux iSCSI on FC4, updated Fedora Core 4 ISO for PPC, and more.
Gentoo Weekly NewsletterThe Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of October 10, 2005 is out. Topics this week include Gnome 2.12 moving to unstable, Gentoo at the Linux World Expo London, Oberhausen GUM, and more.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 121The DistroWatch Weekly for October 10, 2005 is out. "A very busy week of exciting new releases is behind us, but that doesn't mean that this week will be any less interesting - in fact, we expect a new KDE 3.4.3 on Wednesday, while the "Breezy Badger" family of Ubuntu Linux and its partner projects are scheduled for release on Thursday. Also in this issue: we'll analyse the events of the past week, introduce Mandriva 2006 Discovery Live, feature WIENUX 1.0, continue with the usual release summaries, and conclude with a handful of interesting new distributions."
Minor distribution updates Ark Linux 2005.2 Release Candidate with KDE 3.5 Beta 1 (KDE.News)KDE.News looks at Ark Linux 2005.2. "Ark Linux is a very KDE centric desktop Linux distribution, aimed at making Linux easily usable to everyone while remaining technically sane. Aside from the move to KDE 3.5, this release features even more KDE integration including OpenOffice.org KAddressBook integration, and the usual round of speedups and bugfixes. The Ark Linux team are planning to release 2005.2 final at the same time as KDE 3.5 is released."Ark Linux 2005.2 rc3 was released this week.
Pie Box Enterprise Linux 3 AS U6 now availablePie Box Enterprise Linux 3 Advanced Server Update 6 has been announced (click below). This update includes improved support for dual-core processors, kernel and user support for 2 terabyte partitions on block devices, driver updates, security updates, bug fixes and more.
64 Studio 0.4.0 alpha releasedRelease 0.4.0 alpha of 64 Studio, an audio distribution aimed at 64 bit platforms, is out. "Our latest monthly release of 64 Studio, version 0.4.0 alpha, is now available by apt. The distribution is now based mostly on Debian Etch, but the Etch installer is not yet available, so please use the 0.3.0 iso image as an installer and then run the 64studio-upgrade script, as root, to pull the 0.4.0 update from our apt server."
Package updates Fedora updatesFedora Core 4 updates: mysql (update to MySQL 4.1.14), nut (update to 2.0.2), mc (bug fixes), cdrtools (fixed mkisofs), udev (bug fixes and features), wget (update to 1.10.1), xpdf (apply upstream patch to fix resize/redraw bug), cman-kernel (rebuilt against kernel-2.6.13-1.1526_FC4), dlm-kernel (rebuilt against kernel-2.6.13-1.1526_FC4), GFS-kernel (rebuilt against kernel-2.6.13-1.1526_FC4), gnbd-kernel (rebuilt against kernel-2.6.13-1.1526_FC4).Fedora Core 3 updates: libwpd (fix import that causes glitches on export), nut (update to 2.0.2), mc (bug fixes), udev (fix issues with recent kernel updates), wget (update to 1.10.1), xpdf (apply upstream patch to fix resize/redraw bug).
Mandriva updatesMandriva has updated freetype2 (fix an invalid subpixel rendering), mozilla-thunderbird-nb (corrects a packaging bug), shorewall (fixes a bug in the way chkconfig handled shorewall upgrades), postgresql (bug fixes), ghostscript (bug fixes), drakxtools (new version of the HPLIP driver suite).
Distribution reviews Review: Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger (Linux.com)Linux.com reviews the Ubuntu (and Kubuntu) 5.10 release, also known as Breezy Badger. "The default set of applications includes Firefox, Evolution, OpenOffice 2, Gaim, a BitTorrent client, Gnomemeeting, the GIMP, and a number of other productivity and entertainment applications for desktop use. The odds are good that this set of applications will be sufficient for many users -- and if not, it's easy enough to add new ones. Ubuntu includes two GUI package management tools, Synaptic and Gnome App Install. Synaptic is a front end for the Advanced Packaging Tool (APT), and is somewhat complex. It's simpler than using apt-get for many users, but it still may be a bit arcane for users who aren't familiar with Linux package management."
Review: MitraX live CD (Linux.com)Linux.com reviews MitraX, a live CD from Serbia. "MitraX 0.3.1 is based on Slackware Linux, with the 2.6.9 kernel, and uses FVWM-95 as its window manager. Nenad Mitrovic, the creator of MitraX, has carefully selected the software packages. If you look at the software that comes with this distribution, it's clear that MitraX is a tool for network administrators, but also well-suited for desktop use. You can watch a movie, listen to music, write a document, send an email, create a spreadsheet, process a photo, or back up data from your hard disk. It is perfect for burning to a wallet-size CD, and could be used in many situations. It is incredible what can you do with this live CD, which only takes up 50MB."
Wolvix: Leader of the Pack (TuxMachines)TuxMachines.org has a review of Wolvix. "In summation, Wolvix is all that it claims and more. I found the entire experience quite enjoyable and easy. Despite its small size, it's complete with wonderful assortment of included applications and utilities. It's fast and stable! I didn't experience one lockup, freeze, or crash. The unified desktop experience gives it polished look and feel. I was highly impressed with this offering and can recommend it to anyone. In fact, I suggest you download and try it out for yourself today. It is definitely at least a 9 out of 10!"
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol Development GIMP 2.4 Moves Toward Better UsabilityThe GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) has long been dogged by criticisms of its user interface. Among the complaints are the program's heavy reliance on popup menus and the behavior of its multiple windows. To be fair, a bitmap image editor is probably by nature very hard to design well: witness Adobe Photoshop (to which the GIMP is often unfavorably compared) and the training-and-documentation industry that has grown up around its complexity.And the GIMP, whatever its shortcomings, has a large and dedicated user base. So the development team could be forgiven, perhaps, for simply giving up on usability. But just the opposite is happening. The latest development release incorporates a number of enhancements aimed at improving usability. These changes alone will probably do little to attract new users or discourage existing ones. But beyond the incremental improvements, the GIMP project seems committed to finding a better design process. I will have more to say about process issues shortly. But first, let's examine some of the user interface improvements in GIMP 2.3.4. This release is a preview of GIMP 2.4. There have been several changes for better compliance with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines. These are mostly minor alterations like changes in capitalization of menu items and the labeling of buttons with appropriate action verbs instead of "OK." Menus have been reorganized; particularly noteworthy is that the Script-Fu menu has been merged into the Filters menu, eliminating a long-standing source of confusion. There is also a new rectangle selection tool which, rather like the current crop tool, uses a two step process where the user creates a "proposed selection" that can be resized either with the mouse or by entering numerical parameters before finalizing the selection. Also like the crop tool, the unselected area is dimmed for improved visual feedback. Drag and drop capability has also been enhanced, both internally and between the GIMP and other applications. It is now possible, for example, to select a brush, pattern, or gradient by dragging it from its palette to a Script-Fu dialog. With the addition of XDS (Direct Save Protocol) support, you can save images by dragging them to any file manager that supports XDS, as shown in this image. Finally, developers are addressing one of the most common interface gripes: the multitude of separate top-level windows. It is now possible to set "helper" windows--palettes and dialogs--to be transient to the image window. This means that if you minimize an image window, all the helper windows, and the main toolbox, are minimized with it. This behavior becomes problematic when there are multiple images open, but given that users have widely varying expectations for window behavior, there is probably no perfect solution to this problem. But what does this all mean for the user experience as a whole? Not much. The changes are in my opinion, mostly useful. Yet the new usability fixes do not represent a unified vision of the GIMP experience (before anyone starts writing nastygrams, let me point out that I don't consider the GIMP team particularly at fault here--but more on that in a moment). I believe that there are two larger issues that need to be resolved. One of these is inconsistent UI behavior. Take drag and drop, for example. Suppose you have discovered that you can save an image by dragging its thumbnail from the GIMP Image dialog to a ROX-filer. Knowing this, you might expect to be able to open an image by dragging it from ROX to the Images dialog, but ... no such luck. It turns out you *can* open an image with drag and drop, but you have to drag it to the main toolbox. There are other issues with drag and drop, not necessarily the fault of the GIMP, but nonetheless problematic for GIMP users. For example, you can open an image in the GIMP by dragging it from Firefox or Epiphany, but not other way around. XDS support is nice, but there are few file managers that support it. Another sore point is the tradeoff between functionality and simplicity, and there appears to be no consistent approach here. Some of the changes in the new GIMP tend towards simplicity, such as combining the Script-Fu and Filters Menus, while others introduce complexity, such as the new rectangle selection tool. What underlies both of these issues, I suspect, is that up to now there has been no real vision of who the users are and what they need. Enter OpenUsability.org. OpenUsability is a Web-based project portal that "... brings Open Source Developers and Usability Experts together." The site provides a structure and tools for gathering usability data and discussing design issues; a growing number of projects are participating, some of the more prominent ones being Wikipedia, WordPress, Anjuta DevStudio, and a number of KDE projects. Simply registering your project at a portal guarantees nothing, of course, but the GIMP team appears committed to really using the process. Among the forty-plus registered participants for GIMP-OpenUsability are lead developer Sven Neumann and at least 6 other active GIMP developers. Moreover, in less than two months the GIMP forums have racked up about 350 posts; based on a quick non-scientific survey of the projects at the site, these numbers make the GIMP by far the most active project at OpenUsability.org. Looking at the content of the discussions, we find a bit of the perennial "Why can't GIMP be more like Photoshop?" complaining, but also a good deal of thoughtful consideration of what a more usable GIMP would look like, and how to improve the design process. Those who are hoping for revolutionary changes in GIMP will have to wait a bit longer. Based on the current release, GIMP 2.4 will offer some significant improvements, but the overall experience will be more or less unchanged. For the long term, who knows? OpenUsability is an experiment, and there is no proven model for integrating user-centered design into an open source development process. Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see the GIMP team take this initiative. If the effort succeeds, we may have a new model for open source development.
Resources
System Applications Audio Projects Oggz 0.9.3 releaseddVersion 0.9.3 of Oggz, a collection of command line tools and a library for handling Ogg format audio files, is out with some new features and bug fixes.
Clusters and Grids Java Parallel Processing Framework version 0.5.4 released (SourceForge)Version 0.5.4 of the Java Parallel Processing Framework has been released. "Java Parallel Processing Framework is a set of tools and APIs to facilitate the parallelization of CPU intensive applications, and distribute their execution over a network of heterogenous nodes. This release [adds] 2 major features, related to integration with existing applications."
Open MPI 1.0 release candidates availableRelease candidate 1 of Open MPI version 1.0, an MPI-2 high performance computing implementation, has been announced. "We will likely have a few more candidates before publishing 1.0 "final." The software is considered feature complete for 1.0 (although many more features are planned for post-1.0), but we would love to have 3rd parties test the software in their own environments and send feedback on their results."
Database Software PostgreSQL point releases 7.3.11, 7.4.9 and 8.0.4Three new point releases of the PostgreSQL database have been announced. "In order to address several issues identified since our last Point Releases, we have just released the following new versions of PostgreSQL: 7.3.11, 7.4.9 and 8.0.4."
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe October 9, 2005 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is out with the latest PostgreSQL database articles.
Printing PyKota Print Quota System 1.23Version 1.23 of PyKota, a print quota system for CUPS, is out. Here is the change notice: "Many small bugs were fixed. The documentation was greatly improved, as well as translations. The Web site now contains a WiKi, which amongst other things contains an ever-growing list of supported printers."
Web Site Development COPL 0.4.0 (SourceForge)The initial release of COPL, the Convention Plaintext Language, has been announced. "COPL 0.4.0 contains the COPL interpreter 0.4, the COPL cache 0.3 and a COPL interface via CGi and one via PHP. The COPL interpreter is the program which converts plain ASCII text into HTML code. The COPL cache creates temporary files out of already-converted COPL files and thus caches them."
Eclipse Web Tools (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly introduces the The Eclipse Web Tools Platform. "The Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP) project aims to make web application development easier by attacking the problem from the tool side, providing Eclipse-based tools for creating and manipulating EJBs (optionally exposed as web services), data stores, and JSPs. Committers Jeffrey Liu and Lawrence Mandel introduce this new toolset."
funkload 1.1.0 releasedVersion 1.1.0 of funkload, a Python-based functional and load web tester, has been announced.
LogMiner 1.5 released (SourceForge)Version 1.5 of LogMiner, an Apache logfile analysis package, is out. "In release 1.5, an option has been added to prevent LogMiner to resolve the IP address of clients, allowing for faster processing in case you're not interested in TLD statistics."
Midgard 1.7.2 released.Version 1.7.2 of the Midgard Open Source Content Management System is available. "Midgard's 1.7 branch is a major overhaul of the whole Content Management System. Besides the stable and mature Content Management features of first generation Midgard, it also ships a preview version of second generation Midgard capabilities, allowing developers to have a glimpse at the new day of Midgard2. 1.7.2 is a bugfix release."
Whitebeam web-application server 0.9.37 released (SourceForge)Version 0.9.37 of Whitebeam is out. "Whitebeam is a complete web application server built as an Apache module. Application development is very similar to client-side technologies - based around XML, JavaScript and a server-side DOM. The PostgreSQL database provides high-performance data storage. Release 0.9.37 adds a new mechanism for storing site-wide global data such that it can be quickly retrieved from any server instance. Enhancements to performance for catalogue and contact data have also been added."
Desktop Applications Calendar Software Nuxeo releases CalCore 1.3Nuxeo has announced the release of CalCore 1.3, a Python-based calendaring component. "CalCore is an advanced, flexible calendaring component for Python. It allows the Python developer do write advanced calendaring applications either using their own event storage or integrating with external calendar servers."
Desktop Environments Gnome 2.12.1 releasedGnome 2.12.1 has been released. "The first point release of the stable 2.12.x series of Gnome has been released. This release includes the latest bugfixes and other improvements such as updated translations and is the first in a series of point releases."
GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced this week:
Tango project announced (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop looks at new the Tango project. "Tango aims to address a problem of visual inconsistency between applications commonly running on user's desktop when she/he is running a GNU/Linux distribution. Different projects have their own style that is consistent with itself (mostly), but the final user experience on the "linux desktop" is not so smooth. Just like there is a lot of standards people have been able to agree on across free software projects, Tango tries to propose a few building bricks to make the consistent visual experience possible."
Electronics FlowDesigner 0.9.0 releasedVersion 0.9.0 of FlowDesigner has been released. "FlowDesigner is a free (GPL/LGPL) data flow oriented development environment. It can be used to build complex applications by combining small, reusable building blocks. In some ways, it is similar to both Simulink and LabView, but is hardly a clone of either. FlowDesigner features a RAD GUI with a visual debugger. Although FlowDesigner can be used as a rapid prototyping tool, it can still be used for building real-time applications such as audio effects processing. Since FlowDesigner is not really an interpreted language, it can be quite fast."
XCircuit 3.4.3 releasedVersion 3.4.3 of XCircuit, an electronic schematic drawing package, is available. Changes include several bug fixes.
Financial Applications SQL-Ledger 2.6.1 releasedVersion 2.6.1 of SQL-Ledger, a web-based accounting system, is out. See the What's New document for details.
Games Phil's pyGame Utilities 0.5 releasedVersion 0.5 of Phil's pyGame Utilities has been announced. Changes include bug fixes, new features and more.
GUI Packages Announcing dogtail: a GUI automation and test frameworkDogtail is a new a GUI automation and test framework. "Dogtail is a GUI test automation framework written in Python that uses Accessibility (a11y) technologies to communicate with desktop applications. Dogtail scripts are written in Python and executed like any other Python program."
Interoperability Wine TrafficThe October 7, 2005 edition of Wine Traffic is out with new Wine project articles. Topics include: Wine-20050930, Stabilizing for Wine 0.9 Release, Summer of Code Update: MSHTML, Thinking Toward Future Releases, QA & Bug Triaging, Font Issue (Fixed), Lotus Notes 6.51 on Wine 20050930, Test Harness for winedbg, Undocumented API Reference.
Mail Clients Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 Beta 2 Released (MozillaZine)Version 1.5 Beta 2 of the Mozilla Thunderbird email client has been announced. "This release does not contain any major new features since Beta 1. Improvements to mail auto complete (sorting the results based on how popular the recipients are), automated update system, performance, and several security fixes are included in this release."
Multimedia Linux Multimedia System 0.1.1 releasedVersion 0.1.1 of LMMS, the Linux Multimedia System, is out. LMMS is a Pygame-based window manager with a joystick interface, it is useful for games, movie players and more. "This release fixes a few bugs and changes the message system. A front end for the NGPC emulator NeoPocott is now available. The documentation is up-to-date."
Music Applications Smack 0.2 releasedVersion 0.2 of Smack has been released. "Smack is a drum synth, 100% sample free. It's built with LADSPA plugins and the Om modular synth. New in this release are Noise and resonate filter based metallic percussion, ring modulation based drums, velocity sensitivity, control ports for all drums and random other goodness."
WhySynth DSSI softsynth launchedThe new WhySynth project has been announced. "WhySynth, as in 'Y'-synth, the super-sized, frankensteinized, evolved and mutated, still rather dorky younger sibling of Xsynth-DSSI. WhySynth, as in (I sometimes ask), "_why_ am I working on another softsynth instead of on paying gigs?""
Office Suites KOffice 1.4.2: Improved OpenDocument SupportThe KDE Project has announced the release of KOffice 1.4.2. This version features improved support for the OASIS OpenDocument file format and interoperability with OpenOffice.org. See the change log for more details. (Found on KDE.News)
Science GDBI 13 released (SourceForge)Version 13 of GDBI is available. "GDBI is a genealogy program integrator. It includes an editor and the lifelines report language. It interfaces to 3 GEDCOM databases: phpGedView, GenJ, and jLifelines. At the core is a common Java API to simplify adding more databases and editors. This release adds an import feature for reading in another GEDCOM. It also has fixes for the merge feature added in the previous release."
Web Browsers What the Flock? it's a new kind of browser (Linux-Watch)Linux-Watch mentions the new Flock browser project. "Here we go again. Another ground-breaking IT development coming from the general vicinity of Stanford University -- and it's being built in a garage, just like HP was. This one is a new open source browser called Flock. It's built on the Mozilla Gecko HTML rendering engine, like Firefox. However, Flock's intended user market isn't just anybody -- it's designed for bloggers."
Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 Released (MozillaZine)Version 1.5 Beta 2 of Mozilla Firefox has been released. "Also known as the 1.8 Beta 5 milestone, this is the last beta release of the next major Firefox update and is aimed at testers, extension/theme authors and Web developers. The final release of Firefox 1.5, which will be widely promoted to end-users, is scheduled for later this year."
SiteBar 3.3.5 released! (SourceForge)Version 3.3.5 of SiteBar has been released. "SiteBar is an online bookmark manager intended to be used as a general bookmark server with versatile browser and import/export support. Keep your bookmarks on your server and access them from anywhere! SiteBar can now serve (using an XBELSync plugin) as a backend for Bookmarks Synchronizer - a favorite Firefox bookmarks extension".
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe October 11, 2005 edition of the Caml Weekly News is online with the weekly assortment of Caml language articles. Topics include: ocamldap 2.1.5, Automatic interfacing of ocaml to c?, the shootin is not the shootout, Looking for a configuration file library, and where is GMain.
Java This week on harmony-dev (Oct. 2 - Oct. 8 2005)The October 2-8, 2005 edition of This week on harmony-dev covers the latest from the Harmony open-source Java implementation.
What Is Spring, Part 1 (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly introduces Spring, a Java lightweight container. "In this first of a two-part series excerpted from Spring: A Developer's Notebook, authors Bruce Tate and Justin Gehtland help you understand how you can use Spring to produce clean, effective applications. In part 1, they take a simple application and show you how to automate it and enable it for Spring."
Lisp OpenMCL 1.0 releasedVersion 1.0 of OpenMCL, an open-source Common Lisp implementation, is out. "This major version provides many new features including support for 64-bit mode on G5-based systems, an improved "Demo Cocoa IDE", better ANSI compliance, and more."
Practical Common Lisp formatting tools releasedSome new Lisp resources are available. "Peter Seibel has released the source code of the formatting tools he used for writing his book "Practical Common Lisp". The tools, which are written in Common Lisp, can generate HTML, PDF and RTF output from a custom markup language."
PHP File Manage 0.9.5 Released (SourceForge)Version 0.9.5 of File Manage has been released. "Bobb's File Manage System 0.9.5 is an easy-to-use, 100% plug-and-play PHP-based system that can display lists of specified files and directories, as well as allow files to be created, edited, renamed, copied, moved, or deleted. This release contains exciting new features, namely support the use of EXIF embedded information in images. It also contains important bug fixes and is therefore suggested for all current users."
GeSHi version 1.1.0 (unstable) released (SourceForge)Unstable version 1.1.0 of GeSHi, a syntax highlighting PHP class that supports over 50 languages, has been announced. "Version 1.1.0 marks the end of the first release cycle on the way to a 1.2.0 stable release. Implemented at this time is the new syntax highlighting engine, and support for PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript, CodeWorker and Delphi. I encourage anybody who is interested in GeSHi and don't mind installing experimental software to give this version a try, to find out what the improvements are over the 1.0.X series."
Python Pyflakes 0.2.1 releasedVersion 0.2.1 of Pyflakes is out with minor bug fixes. "Pyflakes is program that analyzes Python programs and detects various errors. It works by parsing the source file rather than importing it, so it is safe to use on modules with side effects. It's also much faster."
Ruby Ruby Weekly NewsThe October 9th, 2005 edition of the Ruby Weekly News looks at the latest discussions from the ruby-talk mailing list.
Scheme Schemer's GazetteIssue #9 of the Schemer's Gazette is online with the latest Scheme language news.
Tcl/Tk Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!The October 11, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with the weekly collection of Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
Bug Trackers Deskzilla 1.0 Released (MozillaZine)Version 1.0 of Deskzilla has been announced. "ALM Works announces the availability of Deskzilla 1.0, a desktop client for the Bugzilla bug tracking system. Deskzilla delivers features for greater productivity and an improved working environment for the users of Bugzilla."
Miscellaneous SWIG 1.3.26 releasedVersion 1.3.26 of SWIG, the Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator, has been released. SWIG interfaces C and C++ with numerous high-level programming languages. Changes include: "New language modules: Lua, CLISP, and Common Lisp with UFFI. A big overhaul to the PHP module. A change to the way 'extern' is handled. Minor bugfixes specific to the C#, Java, Modula3, Ocaml, Allegro CL, XML, Lisp s-expressions, Tcl, Ruby, and Python modules. Other minor improvements and bugfixes."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Linux in the news Recommended Reading Declaration of InDRMpendence (ZDNet)ZDNet's David Berlind is beginning to understand the problem with DRM schemes. "You shouldn't take any of this to mean that I don't believe in compensating content copyright holders with whatever royalties they're due (DRM's other role is to assure such compensation to some extent). But as long as DRM technology stands in the way of legitimate use of the content that I've paid for, I as an informed buyer will vote with my dollars by going elsewhere for my content (for example, sites where the artists offer their music for free). You should too."
Nessus 3.0 to abandon GPL licensing (NewsForge)NewsForge talks with Ron Gula and Renaud Deraison from Tenable Network Security about a licensing change for Nessus, a vulnerability scanner. "Nessus -- once billed as "the open-source vulnerability scanner" -- is changing its ways as of the 3.0 release, which is expected shortly. According to a recent post on the Nessus Announcements mailing list "Nessus 3 will be available free of charge, including on the Windows platform, but will not be released under the GPL." On its Web site, Nessus now just bills itself as "the network vulnerability scanner.""
Trade Shows and Conferences Web 2.0 Conference: Open source everywhere (NewsForge)Robin 'Roblimo' Miller covers the first day of the Web 2.0 Conference on NewsForge. "Mashups combine other people's work into a new... something. Take clips from videos published on Ourmedia, add music from wherever, and you have a mashup. Think "sampling" -- and remember that lots of DJs and rappers have been sued big-time for using snippets of other people's copyrighted work without authorization. What about all those sites that combine Google Maps with some other cool idea to create something like a crime hotspot map? Or one that shows subway routes and slowdowns? Or whatever? These are all mashups, and this sort of thing seem to be a big deal at Web 2.0."
Web 2.0 launchpad roundup (ZDNet)ZDNet looks at the initial Web 2.0 Conference announcements, including a personalized vertical search engine from Rollyo, the Flock browser, Zimbra's calendar/e-mail application, Joyent's small group collaboration application, the open-sourcing of Socialtext's Wiki code, the zvents local event/calendar, the KnowNow RSS notification service and the AllPeers Web 2.0 applications creator.
Open Source and Web 2.0 (O'ReillyNet)Daniel H. Steinberg covers the Open Source and Web 2.0 session at the O'Reilly Web 2.0 conference. "To start the session on "Open Source and Web 2.0," Tim O'Reilly surveyed the early morning audience at the Web 2.0 conference with two questions he has been asking audiences for the past year or so. "How many of you use Linux?" asked the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media. Less than ten percent raised their hands. He then followed, "How many of you use Google?" Virtually everyone in the room raised their hands. O'Reilly explains that arguing about whether traditional desktop applications run on Linux misses the point. Everyone who raised their hand as a Google user is, by extension, using Linux."
Barry Diller Opens Web 2.0 (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet reports from the Web 2.0 conference. "The second Web 2.0 conference began with a day of workshops on various aspects of the participatory web. After lunch 13 companies showed their new products in the "Launch Pad" session. From an application that allows you to roll your own search to a platform for travellers, the new releases featured the users. As Tim O'Reilly said when he and John Batelle kicked off the keynote, "the framing idea of this conference is the network as a platform.""
Identity 2.0 Gathering: Getting to the Promised Land (O'ReillyNet)Kaliya Hamlin discusses digital identities on O'Reilly. "Kaliya Hamlin (a.k.a. Identity Woman) shares her perspective on the topic and invites people to join her and co-conveners Doc Searls, Drummond Reed, and Phil Windley at the Internet Identity Workshop in October. There were many who thought that an identity solution would emerge to support single sign on (SSO) shortly after the Web's emergence in 1994. An SSO solution has proven very elusive."
The SCO Problem The 8 Remaining IBM Counterclaims (Groklaw)IBM has dropped some of its counterclaims in the SCO suit. Groklaw looks at the remaining counter claims and notes that SCO's request for more documents has been denied by the court. "Not to ruin SCO's Saturday or anything, but after all that, SCO still faces Red Hat's claims, which are merely on hold, waiting for IBM to finish. And as SCO points out in its SEC filings, it is possible the company could face regulatory issues down the road. I'm sure they are very busy right now making sure they didn't misrepresent to the SEC that IBM was violating Judge Wells' discovery orders, now that Judge Wells has told them in a public hearing that IBM correctly understood her orders, not SCO, and that IBM, contrary to SCO's slurs, fulfilled its discovery obligations regarding nonpublic Linux materials."
Linux Adoption China Awards Six-Figure Desktop Linux Rollout (Yahoo.com)Yahoo.com reports that Sun Wah has won a bid for the deployment of over 140,000 machines in China. "Sun Wah Linux will install RAYS LX, its Debian-based Linux workstation distro, as the default operating system on the desktop PCs. According to Minou Nguyen, a U.S.-based Sun Wah Linux spokesperson, although the project at one time specified Microsoft Windows as the desktop OS, Sun Wah "managed to turn these desktops into dual-boot machines with RAYS LX as the preferred loading OS.""
Japanese state aims to boost state use of Linux software (Forbes)Forbes reports on a move towards Linux deployment by the Japanese government. "The government here aims to switch some of its computers to the free Linux operating system and reduce its dependence on Microsoft Corp's Windows, officials indicated. The government is drawing up guidelines for its ministries recommending open-source software such as Linux as an 'important option' in procurement, said an official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications."
Legal Stevens v. Sony Decided in AU: Sony Loses (Groklaw)Groklaw covers Sony's loss in the Australian Sony v Stevens case. "Brendan Scott of Open Source Law, the lawyer who keeps Groklaw up-to-date on legal events in Australia, sent me some news. Here's his email, which he gave me permission to share with you:I'm sure you'll be interested in this. The High Court of Australia (Australia's equivalent of the US Supreme Court) has issued a press release in the Sony v Stevens case. The case relates to Mr. Steven's sale of "mod chips" for the Sony Playstation a couple of years ago."
Interviews Sander Koning (People Behind KDE)The People Behind KDE have an interview with Sander Koning. "How and when did you get involved in KDE? I was assisting some groups in a project in autumn 2004 and noticed that one of them had an email address ending in @kde.nl. I decided to take a look and find out what he would be doing. Some browsing brought me to the "Help us" page and I thought that my earlier experience in translating various things might be of use. So I sent a message to the mailing list, and not long after that, I was translating documentation." (Found on KDE.News)
IBM's top Linux expert (AME Info)AME Info has this interview with Irving Wladawsky-Berger, vice president of Technical Strategy and Innovation at IBM. "Q: What are you hearing from customers about [Linux] value, growth and future? A: You know it's very interesting. When we first started, we had to convince customers that they should pay attention to Linux because it was going to be very important. By 2005, you have to be somebody in a very obscure portion of a very obscure country not to have heard about Linux."
Interview: MySQL AB CEO Marten Mickos (Groklaw)Groklaw has run an interview with Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB. The interview misses the opportunity to ask interesting questions about the Innobase acquisition, and, instead, concentrates on the partnership with SCO. "I cannot disclose the details of the deal. I can tell you that the deal produces revenue to us. And what do we do with revenue? We hire developers who produce GPL code. I don't want to sound hypocritical, but every penny that comes in the door contributes to our ability to produce more free and open source software."
Resources Pass on Passwords with scp (Linux Journal)Linux Journal shows how to use the scp command. "In this article, I show you how to use the scp (secure copy) command without needing to use passwords. I then show you how to use this command in two scripts. One script lets you copy a file to multiple Linux boxes on your network, and the other allows you to back up all of your Linux boxes easily."
Reviews A survey of Linux Web development tools (Linux.com)Linux.com looks at several web development tools. "Of all the Web development programs in this list, Nvu is the only one that really does a lot 'behind the scenes.' With the other programs, you're not very far removed from the actual code, so whether it's standards-compliant is up to the user rather than the program. Nvu generates the code for you, so it's important to consider the code that it generates and whether it's up to snuff. Nvu has a validation tool that submits a page to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Markup Validation Service, and the code generated by Nvu doesn't always pass."
Improved Thunderbird Still Fails Enterprise Test (eWeek)eWeek reviews the Thunderbird 1.5 beta, finds much to like, but is left with one fundamental gripe: "That's all great, but I still can't recommend Thunderbird for large business use. It still doesn't have individual, never mind group, calendaring and schedule management capabilities."
Book Review: Perl Best Practices (NewsForge)NewsForge has a review of Damian Conway's Perl Best Practices. "Perl Best Practices is a good "browsing" book. Have five or 10 minutes to kill? Flip to a random page and read a couple of Conway's guidelines. As Conway mentions in the book, most people develop a style that feels right to them. These habits will be hard to break, so there's not much point in sitting down and trying to read the book straight through. Better to read a few practices at a time and try to improve those habits (if necessary) and move on."
Miscellaneous GNOME to fish in embedded Linux pond (ZDNet UK)ZDNet UK reports that efforts are underway to make GNOME more suitable for embedded applications. "Future versions of GNOME will include improved compatibility with styluses and performance enhancements, according to GNOME Foundation director Murray Cumming on Friday. This will include a focus on the GTK+, a toolkit used by GNOME to create graphical user interfaces."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Announcements Non-Commercial announcements EFF Defends Right to Read Public Web Pages Without Getting SuedThe Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent out a public notice regarding the right to read public web pages. "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a brief this week in support of one of its previous court opponents, DirecTV, arguing that a federal appeals court should throw out a lawsuit against the company for accessing a public website. DirecTV is being sued by Michael Snow, the publisher of an anti-DirecTV website that contained warnings to DirecTV employees that they were not authorized to enter."
EFF: Delaware Supreme Court Protects Anonymous BloggerThe Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent out a press release regarding the protection of a Blogger's identity. "Wilmington, Delaware - The Delaware Supreme Court has protected the identity of a blogger in the case of Doe v. Cahill, finding that the plaintiffs failed to meet the strict standards required by the First Amendment to unmask an anonymous critic. It dismissed the case Wednesday. This is the first state supreme court to rule on a "John Doe" subpoena or to address bloggers' rights. "Bloggers have a strong First Amendment right to speak anonymously," said Kurt Opsahl, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)."
EFF: Broadcast flag updateThe EFF has posted an update on efforts to legislate a broadcast flag in the U.S.; this one looks at the push in the House of Representatives. "Fortunately for us, the fact that 20 out of 57 committee members support the Flag sends a message the MPAA doesn't want anyone to hear: the Broadcast Flag is controversial. If it wasn't, no one would be writing open letters to anyone else. And that means this committee has a duty to engage in serious, careful, comprehensive discussion and debate before the Flag legislation goes anywhere."
Rising Stars Sign With GNOME Foundation (GnomeDesktop)The GNOME Foundation has announced the joining of three new corporate members to its advisory board. "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."
FreeMED in Japanese (LinuxMedNews)LinuxMedNews reports on efforts to translate the FreeMED practice management system to Japanese. "A group of physicians in Kuyshu, Japan have set about translating FreeMED into Japanese. One of the difficulties they recognized early in the translation process was difficulty assigning words to some English phrases, keeping the intent or the meaning."
Commercial announcements ControlTower Console Manager Now Available for LinuxCarlo Gavazzi Computing Solutions has released a Linux version of their ControlTower Console Management System, a remote management console for serial communications devices. "ControlTower 3.L provides a reliable time and cost saving solution for monitoring and controlling multiple devices through an RJ-45 or DB-25 interface from a central location or by remote access. It enables a single Linux-based system to function as a common console (monitor and keyboard) for managed devices. ControlTower 3.L is integrated into the distributions of Mandriva, RedHat, and SuSE."
The IBM/Novell blade subscription dealIBM and Novell have sent out a press release (click below for the full text) on their hot new offer: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscribers can now pay a single price covering all blade servers in a single chassis, rather than having to subscribe each blade individually. Doubtless this deal will appeal to some customers, but it highlights the sort of licensing hassles that drove many of us to free software in the first place. Even if the fees are not an issue, the administrative effort involved in keeping everything straight takes a lot of time away from getting real work done.
InterMapper 4.4b2 availableVersion 4.4b2 of InterMapper, a commercial Network Monitoring and Alerting application with a free trial version, is out with several new features.
Merak Mail Server Now Available in Linux FlavorIceWarp has introduced a Linux version of its Merak Mail Server. "IceWarp Software Ltd., makers of the popular and globally deployed Merak E-mail Server Suite for Windows(r), today announced the availability of its award-winning e-mail server for Linux-based networks in SMB, enterprise and ISP environments."
Novell Launches the Better Desktop Initiative for the Open Source CommunityNovell, Inc. has announced the launch of the Better Desktop initiative, a new component of the openSUSE project that provides open source developers with usability testing data and resources they can use to improve the quality of the Linux desktop.
Red Hat Names Brian Stevens CTORed Hat, Inc. has announced the appointment of Brian Stevens to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Vice President of Engineering.
SugarCRM Announces Open Source Developer ContestSugarCRM Inc. has announced the 100th extension to its Sugar Suite open source customer relationship management (CRM) platform and the launching of a developer contest with $2,500 in cash prizes at SugarForge.org.
Xara announces Xtreme Open SourceXara has announced the release of their Xtreme image processing software under an open-source license. ""Few companies can take the announcement that Microsoft intend to get into their market, lying down." says CEO Charles Moir. Xara, developer of popular Windows graphics software, is making a move to defend themselves against Microsoft moving into their market, and at the same time is attempting to change the graphics landscape."
New Books Beyond Java - O'Reilly's Latest ReleaseO'Reilly has published the book Beyond Java by Bruce Tate.
How to Cheat at IT Project Management--latest release from SyngressSyngress has published the book How to Cheat at IT Project Management by Susan Snedaker.
Prefactoring - O'Reilly's Latest ReleaseO'Reilly has published the book Prefactoring by Ken Pugh.
Pragmatic publishes Rapid GUI Development with QtRubyPragmatic Programmers has published the book Rapid GUI Development with QtRuby by Caleb Tennis.
Prentice Hall Publishes "Self-Service Linux: Mastering the Art of Problem Determination"Prentice Hall has published the book Self-Service Linux: Mastering the Art of Problem Determination by Mark Wilding and Dan Behman.
Resources Dr. Dobb's Journal Launches its 'Google Summer of Code' SeriesCMP Media LLC has announced the coverage of the Google Summer of Code in the December, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Journal. "Google awarded $4,500 to each student who completed the project. Dr. Dobb's Summer of Code editorial series will profile student participants, including their bios, schools and technical overviews of their projects."
FSF Europe NewsletterThe October 9, 2005 edition of the FSF Europe Newsletter is online with the latest Free Software Foundation Europe news.
The Linux Documentation Project Weekly NewsThe October 5, 2005 edition of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News is available, take a look for the latest new documentation releases.
The First Chapter of the CUPS BookThe CUPS project has published the first chapter of the CUPS Book, titled: The History of Printing in UNIX. "The same driver supported all MacOS applications, and for a short time the Macintosh ruled the desktop publishing market. Microsoft's first Windows operating environment duplicated this paradigm, and to this day printing and displaying information is handled almost identically in Windows and MacOS. Applications for these operating systems and others like NeXT and BeOS are able to produce professional-quality output with a generic printing interface, yet until recently UNIX has only had its print file spooling system."
Virtual Users And Domains With Postfix, Courier And MySQL (howtoForge)howtoForge has published version 1.0 of the document Virtual Users And Domains With Postfix, Courier And MySQL. "This document describes how to install a mail server based on Postfix that is based on virtual users and domains, i.e. users and domains that are in a MySQL database. I'll also demonstrate the installation and configuration of Courier (Courier-POP3, Courier-IMAP), so that Courier can authenticate against the same MySQL database Postfix uses."
Contests and Awards The Code Project, Mainsoft Announce Winners of 'Race to Linux'The Code Project and Mainsoft Corporation have announced the winners of the "Race to Linux". "The Race to Linux challenged developers to port three of Microsoft's(R) open-source ASP.NET starter kits from Windows to Linux using their cross-platform tool of choice (e.g. Mono, Grasshopper from Mainsoft, PHP or Macromedia). More than 200 developers registered for the competition."
Upcoming Events Speakers from Red Hat and Open ePolicy Group Join GOSCONThe Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON) is taking place October 13 - 14, 2005, in Portland, Oregon. "The upcoming conference has attracted increasing national interest in recent weeks, and the speakers added to its agenda include Oregon Congressman David Wu; Jeffrey Kaplan, founder and director of the Open ePolicy Group based at Harvard University; and Tom Rabon, executive vice president of corporate affairs for Red Hat, Inc."
Free and Open Source Meetings/Presentations at Fall AMIA 2005 (LinuxMedNews)LinuxMedNews has an announcement for the AMIA 2005 conference. "The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Fall conference will be held October 22nd-26th in Washington D.C. Hilton Towers. This is the most complete information that is available so far for the goings-on, exact meeting rooms to be announced: The Open Source Working Group Business meeting will be held in the Hilton Washington - State, Terrace Level 10/24/2005 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM."
Linux Installfest workshops in Davis - Saturday, October 15thThe Linux Users' Group of Davis will hold another Linux Installfest workshop in Davis, California on October 15, 2005.
linux.conf.au 2006: Registrations are openThe 2006 edition of linux.conf.au (lca) is coming up in January. Registrations are open and the early bird discount is available until November 18, 2005. The 2006 edition of lca will be held in Dunedin, New Zealand, at The University of Otago.
CodeCon 2006 Call For PapersA Call For Papers has gone out for CodeCon 2006. The event takes place in San Francisco, CA on February 10-12, 2006. Submissions are due by December 15, 2005.
Events: October 13 - December 8, 2005
Web sites KDETalk, a KDE Jabber server (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced the new kdetalk.net site. "For KDE users and contributors who aren't Jabber addicts yet, a new public Jabber server is available at kdetalk.net. For those which don't know Jabber yet, it's an open Instant Messaging protocol. It has some advantage such as being decentralized, more secure, extensible, and last but not least in our free software world, open and developed by an open community."
Audio and Video programs Beta Broadcast 003: Good and Evil (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet has announced its third audio magazine program. "This week, O'Reilly's audio magazine program Distributing the Future takes a look at good and evil. Tim O'Reilly examines the good coming up in Web 2.0; David Smith and Peter Saint-Andrew work on helping you tell who's good and who's evil on the web; Ian Langworth and chromatic help to make Perl development better for everyone by pushing testing; Danny O'Brien shares what he's done to stop evil and encourage good; and Max Goff brings his law of medians."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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