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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."
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