Linux in the news

Recommended Reading

Richard Stallman's Tin-Foil Hat (Bruce Perens' Journal)

Bruce Perens reports from the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia. "Richard [Stallman] is opposed to RF ID, because of the many privacy violations that are possible. It's a real problem, and one worth lobbying about. At the 2003 WSIS in Geneva, there was objection to the RF ID cards that were used, resulting in a promise that they would not be used in 2005. That promise, it turns out, was not kept. In addition, Richard was given a hastily-produced ID with a visible RF ID strip. Mine was made on a longer schedule, it seems, and had an RF ID strip that wasn't visible. I knew it was there because they clearly had us put our cards to a reader at the entrance gate."

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That's Linux on the Line (BusinessWeek)

BusinessWeek has run an article by OSDL chief Stuart Cohen on the use of Linux in mobile phones. "But Redmond critics forget sometimes why Microsoft won. Hardware makers rushed into a market with products that were compatible with Windows. By building "open systems" on Windows, IBM, Compaq, and others were able to compete with and beat Apple on the desktop. Open won over closed. Linux holds the same promise for the mobile industry, with none of the downside. No single vendor owns Linux, so you won't hear that horrible sucking sound of all the value flowing to one monopoly operating-system supplier. What crimped innovation on the desktop will not happen with mobile phones running Linux."

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Companies

CMP Media Buys Black Hat (eWeek)

eWeek covers the sale of Black Hat to CMP Media. "Jeff Moss has sold his Black Hat security think tank to technology publisher CMP Media LLC in a deal valued in the range of $14 million. The deal gives the Manhasset, N.Y.-based CMP Media the assets and intellectual property of Black Hat Inc., one of the most prominent security conferences on the calendar. The DefCon underground hacker meet-up, which is also owned by Moss, was not included in the deal."

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Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit (Wired)

Bruce Schneier writes about Sony's rootkit in Wired. "What do you think of your antivirus company, the one that didn't notice Sony's rootkit as it infected half a million computers? And this isn't one of those lightning-fast internet worms; this one has been spreading since mid-2004. Because it spread through infected CDs, not through internet connections, they didn't notice? This is exactly the kind of thing we're paying those companies to detect -- especially because the rootkit was phoning home."

Comments (29 posted)

Linux Adoption

Linux in Italian Schools, Part 5: Slackware in Sardinia (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal continues looking at Linux use in Italian schools, with this article about the island of Sardinia. "Before installing Slackware, the only free software regularly used in Villacidro ran on Windows. The school ran Firefox and, on machines with at least 64MB of RAM, OpenOffice.org. In May of this year, the situation changed completely, thanks to two separate events."

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Legal

Massachusetts: The ODF Battle Gets Ugly (Groklaw)

Groklaw follows the OpenDocument Format adoption issue in Massachusetts. "Does it get any uglier than what we are witnessing in Massachusetts? Serial killers are worse, I grant you. But watching the politicos in Massachusetts try to kill off OpenDocument Format is surely Top Ten ugly. Guess what they are now trying? I'll refer you to Andy Updegrove's blog, where he gives us the latest icky chapter. It seems opponents of ODF have come up with a new amendment to a new bill, since they couldn't get S 2256 passed this session, and ODF has become a political football in an old-fashioned power play."

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The State of Texas v. Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Groklaw)

The folks at Groklaw have already posted a copy of the state of Texas's complaint against SonyBMG in text format. It charges SonyBMG with violating the state's anti-spyware act, with particular attention to the cloaking aspect of Sony's software. "Despite Sony BMG’s assertions, various news sources have recently reported the spread of newly created viruses which exploit Sony BMG’s cloaking technology. As a result, a consumer without knowledge of the installation of the Aries.sys file on their computer may be vulnerable to new security risks, and given the cloaked nature of these files, and the extremely burdensome impediments to removing them, that consumer may find it difficult or impossible to protect themselves from future risks."

Also of interest: this BoingBoing posting suggesting that this episode might just be resulting in the acquisition of some clue by Sony's management.

Comments (10 posted)

Interviews

People Behind KDE: Christoph Cullmann (KDE.News)

KDE.News mentions the latest interview in the People Behind KDE series. "This man maintains KDE's text editor Kate and the associated KTextEditor interface. He also keeps three cats and disappears from his girlfriend for a week each year in the name of KDE. The star of tonight's People Behind KDE interview is Christoph Cullmann."

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Resources

CLI Magic: Simple backup is Mirdir (Linux.com)

Linux.com shows how to create mirror directories with Mirdir. "Mirdir is licensed under the GPL. You can download your choice of an executable RPM, source RPM, or a source tarball. To install it on my SUSE 10 desktop box, I chose the executable RPM, used su to install as root, and entered rpm -Uvh mirdir-2.1-1.i386.rpm. On my Ubuntu Breezy machine, I decompressed the tarball, entered the Mirdir subdirectory, ran ./configure and make."

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Run Python Scripts on Your Nokia Smartphone (O'ReillyNet)

Here's an O'Reilly book excerpt on Python hacks for the Nokia Smartphone. "The current Nokia phones do not come with the Python runtime environment preinstalled. You have to download and install Python yourself. You can download the Python for Series 60 package from the Forum Nokia web site under the Series 60 Platform --> Tools and SDKs category. The download package is a zip file with the .sis installation files, documentation, and example code. Make sure you read the Getting Started document in the download bundle to choose the correct .sis file for your phone."

Comments (2 posted)

16 papers on real-time and embedded Linux (Linux Devices)

Linux Devices is hosting 16 papers on real-time and embedded Linux. "LinuxDevices.com is pleased to publish the proceedings from the Seventh Real-Time Linux Workshop held in Lille, France, November 3-4, 2005, at the University for Science and Technology of Lille (USTL). The papers span a broad range of topics, ranging from fundamental real-time technologies to applications, hardware, and tools. "

Comments (2 posted)

Ruby the Rival (O'ReillyNet)

Chris Adamson queries a number of bloggers and prominent developers about the viability of Ruby as a successor to Java. "Bruce Tate's Beyond Java argues that Java's reign as the top enterprise development language must eventually come to an end and that, for the first time in a decade, major enterprise innovation is occurring outside of the Java realm. In the book, he looks at the unique traits that has allowed to Java to achieve its unprecedented level of success, and then considers what new languages would have to do and be to succeed Java. Later chapters look at specific languages contending in this space, and clearly favors Ruby as the front-runner."

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Installing and Configuring Ubuntu on a Laptop (O'ReillyNet)

Jeremy Jones writes about installing Ubuntu Linux on a Dell Inspiron laptop, on O'ReillyNet. "When I received the laptop, Hoary was the current version of Ubuntu. I have since upgraded to Breezy. I popped in the Ubuntu Hoary install CD (disk 1 of 1) and powered on the machine. Of course, I had to set the BIOS to boot from CD. The installer came up and started asking me questions."

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Reviews

The What, Why and When of Free Software in India (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal looks at the Free Software Foundation - India. "Some of the Free Software Foundation India's (FSF-India) accomplishments include helping to fight patent threats in the country and promoting the use of free software in schools, government and other cultural institutions. In mid-2005, FSF-India put together an ambitious four-nation meeting in Kerala, India, which featured representatives from Venezuela, Brazil, Italy and India."

Comments (3 posted)

MIT's Free Patent Online Course (Groklaw)

Groklaw takes a look at an online patent course. "Dr. Robert Rines, who has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, taught the class from his book, Create or Perish, and the book is available, by chapters as PDFs. The course homepage has a graphic showing Thomas Edison's 1879 patent application for an "Improvement in Electric Lights." The final chapter is interesting, because he talks about some of the problems with the patent system, but you know about all that already. What is probably the most valuable chapter for us to read is the one on how patent law works, chapter 3. It explains what can and can't be patented. They keep stretching that line, of course."

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