Linux in the news

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LinkSys courts Linux hackers with WRT54GL (LinuxDevices)

LinuxDevices.com reports that LinkSys has released a new version of its WRT54G router intended specifically to be hacked on. "LinkSys last month switched the standard model of its ubiquitous WRT54G wireless router from Linux to VxWorks, starting with the 'series 5' version. Now, LinkSys is shipping a Linux-based WRT54GL model that it says it created specially for Linux hobbyists, hackers, and aficianados. The L version is identical to the 'series 4' WRT54G units that Linux hobbyists have long enjoyed hacking, according to the company."

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Venezuela Open Source (O'Reilly)

The O'Reilly Radar site has a report from the Worldwide Free Knowledge Forum, just held in Venezuela. "The stuff that is happening with 'Software Libre' in Venezuela is really mind-boggling. In January the Venezuelan open source law goes into effect, mandating a two year transition to open source in all public agencies. This massive undertaking will involve the training of hundreds of thousands of government employees and migrating of the software that runs not only their public agencies, but also their oil industry (which accounts for 70% of the country's economy and is one of the largest business enterprise in Latin America). They are talking about a huge country-wide move to open source that dwarfs anything I've heard about anywhere else."

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Strong Growth for Debian (Netcraft)

Netcraft has published a report on web server operating systems which shows that Debian is growing faster than the others. But it doesn't stop there: "The most successful newcomer is CentOS, which repackages the same software as commercial rivals, while offering free community-based support... In fact the non-commercial distributions are growing faster than the commercial Linux distributions across the board at present. Fedora is growing almost as fast as Debian. Gentoo continues to grow strongly, passing 100,000 active sites in November, while SuSE and Mandriva are making relatively small gains."

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Trade Shows and Conferences

Notes from the AMIA Symposium (LinuxMedNews)

LinuxMedNews mentions a recently published event report from the AMIA 2005 Fall conference. "During the conference, the federal Commission on System Interoperability released a report, Ending the Document Game. We were fortunate to hear details of the report directly from those on the Commission on the day it was made public. The report contains the Commission's strategy for the adoption and implementation of electronic health records (EHR). It outlines fourteen steps to achieving interoperable health records, divided into three categories of adoption, interoperability and connectivity."

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OSDL Desktop Architect meeting, Dec '05

Dan Kegel has been taking notes at OSDL's Desktop Architect meeting. "[Novell Linux Desktop] was a quick test. Turned out to be wildly successful. Next version will be more serious. Gap-filling needed to hit basic office user. We do usability testing during development (betterdesktop.org). We even send usability testers out to different countries to avoid country bias. Test ten tasks per week. Actually have developers for those bits on hand. Evening after the tests, developers try to address the issues. Sometimes this lets us improve rapidly during the week. Other times it's too hard, hopefully the videos on the web site will let others do the improvements later."

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OSDL-sponsored conference targets Linux desktop development (NewsForge)

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier covers the Desktop Architects meeting hosted by the Open Source Development Labs' Desktop Linux (DTL) working group. "According to developers at the meeting, the number one priority should be to make it easier for independent software vendors (ISV) to develop applications for the Linux desktop. The second priority chosen by developers was hardware support on the Linux desktop -- drivers and the "plug and play" experience for desktop users. Finally, the developers pointed to relations between projects as another area where improvements could be made to benefit desktop development and adoption."

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Companies

Philips shares Linux patents, royalty-free (People's Daily Online)

The Chinese publication People's Daily Online notes that Philips Electronics China Group is joining the Open Invention Network. "Philips Electronics China Group announced Wednesday that the company, together with Sony, IBM, Red Hat and Novell, has decided to join funds to create a joint venture-- the Open Invention Network (OIN), to purchase core patents of Linux operation system and offer them, free of charge, to any institutions or individuals. The effort is meant to aid the advancement of Linux and break the global dominance of Windows by Microsoft."

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SCO Raises $10 Million in Private Placement (Groklaw)

Groklaw reports that SCO has just sold $10 million worth of stock. "See what happens when I go out shopping? SCO announces it has closed a $10 million private placement of 2,852,449 shares of common stock to "existing SCO institutional shareholders" and a member of the board, true believers to their dying day. What, nobody new wants to buy this stock, or what? You didn't really think they'd be allowed to go bankrupt, did you? I checked to see if they'd filed anything with the SEC, to try to fill in some blanks, but I find nothing yet. There is only the S-1 Recission Offer filed earlier this month."

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Linux Adoption

Linux in Italian Schools, Part 6: GPL e-learning in Turin (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal has published part six in a series on Linux in Italian schools. "What makes Peano different from the other schools I featured in this series are its regular contacts with local Linux Users Groups (LUG) and, above all, its e-learning portal. Nowadays, the school board knows that LUG members have the experience and technical skills needed to provide advanced technical support for the school's IT projects. In addition to the technical reasons, the partnership also is an excellent opportunity for the department to be exposed to fresh ideas and to absorb some of the passion and enthusiasm that usually emanate from LUGs."

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Irish Eyes Are Smiling on Open Source

eWeek covers initiatives to create an Open Source Center of Excellence across Ireland. "Momentum NI, a trade association representing some 170 of Northern Ireland's ICT (Information Communications and Technology) companies, is spearheading the initiative and wants the center to span Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. "We are also planning to hold 'the great open-source debate' next year, which will look at how free and open-source technology, as a disruptive technology, has changed the way the software industry does business and the new opportunities it has spawned," Ian Graham, Momentum NI's chief executive, told eWEEK here Monday."

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Legal

The Complete Story of the Vienna Declaration ~by Georg C. F. Greve (Groklaw)

Groklaw has this article by Georg C. F. Greve, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) representative at the WSIS conference. "During the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, one of my trips brought me to the Austrian booth in order to pick up some copies of the Vienna Conclusions to spread and advertise. When flipping through the text, I was quite shocked to find references to Free Software removed and a pro-DRM statement inserted in the findings of the "Digital Rights/Creative Commons" workshop ("To ensure ongoing innovation, Digital Rights Management (DRM) development and deployment must remain voluntary and market-driven."). Also, references to the cultural and social significance of software as "digital cultural technique" were watered down."

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Open Source Forges Ahead in the Enterprise - User Experiences (Groklaw)

Groklaw reports on a meeting of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council's Open Source Software Special Interest Group. "The Fidelity people talk about why they use Open Source, why they like it sometimes more than similar products that are proprietary (it's not because of the lower up-front cost), and how they determine what to let in, how they do training, etc. This presentation will be of interest to anyone using or considering using Open Source in their company. There were lots of questions from the attendees, many of whom are lawyers and consultants."

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EULAs, indemnification, and user protection (Linux.com)

Linux.com covers the changing nature of End User License Agreements. "Until recently, EULAs in GNU/Linux have been short and to the point. As far as legally possible, they offer no warranty, and liability is never mentioned. Many non-commercial distributions and projects, such as the Debian Project, continue to be released under such licences. The idea of adding language about indemnification, says Branden Robinson, the Debian Project Leader, simply "hasn't been prominent on Debian's radar screen." He suggests that such language is probably unnecessary for non-commercial distributions, because they don't provide commercial service contracts. He adds, "Debian couldn't substantively back up an indemnification offer anyway.""

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Interviews

I'm amazed at how far Python has come (PythonThreads.com)

PythonThreads.com interviews Mark Lutz. "Mark Lutz, one of the most well known names in Python, tells us why he feels Python is now a major programming language. He speaks about the things he likes about Python and the various areas where Python is being used today. He also elaborates on why Python seems like the right answer to some major issues in software development."

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Resources

User-Mode Linux: A Book Excerpt (Linux Journal)

The Linux Journal has reprinted an introductory chapter on user-mode Linux from Steve Best's book Linux Debugging and Performance Tuning. "Each UML instance is a complete virtual machine that's all but indistinguishable from a real computer. All of them run as a normal user on the host. They give you root-level access, the ability to start daemons, the ability to run text and graphical applications, full networking, and almost all of the other capabilities of a Linux system."

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Reviews

Media Coverage of Firefox 1.5 Release (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine has published a lengthy list of new articles about the recently released Mozilla Firefox 1.5 browser. "The article at CNET News.com talks about a better security update System, drag and drop tab reordering and support for new programming standards such as AJAX . eWeek mentions performance gains, usability enhancements and support for new web graphics standards. San Jose Mercury News ran a print article (also viewable online), contrasting Mitchell Baker with Bill Gates. Reviewing the new release, Newsforge likes faster browsing, new preferences, SVG support, Tab reordering and Update system."

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Mozilla Bloggers on Firefox 1.5 Release (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine looks at the Blogger chatter relating to the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.5. "Mitchell Baker talks about a new search relationship with Yahoo in Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea. Firefox Lead Engineer, Ben Goodger talks about notable improvements in Mozilla Firefox 1.5, including SVG, CSS columns, ability to reorder tabs, easier extension development and improvements to update system. Chris Beard informs us that more than two million people downloaded Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on the first day, exceeding the number of downloads of Mozilla Firefox 1.0 on the day of its launch."

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Review of Nokia's Linux Based 770 Internet Tablet (MobileBurn)

MobileBurn reviews the Nokia 770 internet tablet. "Nokia's 770 is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to the company's device line-up. The 770 simply is not a phone (though it can connect to one). And while it offers a lot of PDA-like functionality, it isn't a PDA (though you could install the needed apps). Nor does it run a Series XX user interface on top of the Symbian OS, which Nokia owns a large portion of, instead relying on the new open-source Maemo platform, which itself uses Debian Linux for its operating system needs. So if it isn't a phone, and it isn't a PDA, what exactly is it? It is what Nokia hopes to establish as a new category of home electronics device: the Internet Tablet." Thanks to Joergen Ramskov.

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Secure All Around: Mini Book Reviews (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal reviews three security books. "I recently picked up three security-related titles that I thought were worth reviewing: Linux Server Security, 2nd Edition, by Michael D. Bauer; Hardening Linux, by James Turnball; and Hardening Apache, by Tony Mobily. O'Reilly and Apress books feel different from each other. I like both publishers' products, but it's worth trying different flavors to see which appeals to you more than the other on any given topic."

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Opening Solaris opens door to community, derivative distros (NewsForge)

NewsForge covers OpenSolaris derivatives. "Since the OpenSolaris community was launched in June, at least three derivative distributions -- SchilliX, BeleniX, and Nexenta -- have been created and released. Parts of OpenSolaris are also making their way into other operating systems. A port of DTrace is in the works for FreeBSD."

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My sysadmin toolbox: second helping (Linux.com)

Linux.com looks at netcat, tcpdump, Ethereal, nmap, and other useful system administration tools. "Most admins are already familiar with using tail -f logfile to watch system, application, and error logs when they're troubleshooting. However, the tail utility only follows one file at a time. If you need to watch two or more logfiles at the same time, which is fairly common, the MultiTail utility by Folkert van Heusden is an excellent tool to have handy."

Comments (3 posted)

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