LWN.net Weekly Edition for December 05, 2002
Coming soon: gnucash 1.8
When attention turns to what Linux needs if it is ever to attain desktop World Domination, the first thing that comes to mind is usually office suites. But personal and business finance software is also an important part of a desktop system. The state of the art for Linux financial applications has always lagged far behind what can be found in the proprietary world, and that deficit certainly does not help get Linux onto more desktops.The leading free finance package for Linux is gnucash. LWN has looked at gnucash a couple of times in the past, and your editor has used it for his (depressing) finances for almost three years. Gnucash gets the job done, but it long lacked the features found in commercial finance programs; it has also never been something that could challenge small business packages like Quickbooks. The gnucash developers have not been idle, however; much work has gone into the 1.8 release, which is due to hit the net on January 5. When the 1.7.4 beta release was announced, your editor grabbed a copy to see what the gnucash team has been up to.
![[Scheduled transaction window]](https://static.lwn.net/images/ns/st-sm.png)
gnucash 1.8 will have quite a few new features, including:
- Scheduled transactions have long been at the top of the
gnucash wishlist. At last, gnucash will keep track of upcoming
transactions and help you put them into the register (or do it
automatically) when the time comes. The gnucash interface for
scheduled transactions takes a little getting used to, but it's highly
functional. About the only feature your editor missed is the ability
to generate a projection of future account balances based on the
scheduled transactions.
- gnucash finally understands mortgages and other loans.
Combined with scheduled transactions, this feature makes it easy to
track loan balances, escrow accounts, etc.
- Small business accounting is now part of the gnucash
feature set. gnucash will now track customers and vendors, run
payable and receivable accounts, generate and track invoices, etc.
There is also basic support for per-customer terms and tax tables.
LWN is currently looking for a Linux-based accounting package
(suggestions, anybody?), so we are highly interested in the new
gnucash features in this area. Unfortunately, it does not seem that
gnucash is really ready to run businesses quite yet. Documentation of
the business features is lacking (though that may be fixed up by the
1.8 release), numerous problems remain (i.e. you can't put your
company's address onto invoices in anything but image form), and
important features (i.e. payroll) are lacking. But things are heading
in the right direction.
- Open Financial Exchange (OFX) support - at least for import.
gnucash 1.8 also support the Home Banking Computer Information
protocol, which is used in Germany. We were not able to test out
these features.
- Improved documentation, which is now packaged separately.
The quality of the documentation is improving, but numerous holes
remain.
- More and improved reports. You want pie charts, or nice listings of just how much your stock portfolio has lost? gnucash will do them for you better than ever.
As a personal finance application, gnucash 1.8 is truly ready for prime time. All it needs is a few rough edges filed off, and a small set of additional features (i.e. budgeting), and it will be fully competitive with the proprietary packages.
As a business accounting package, gnucash has some ground to cover yet. This is actually an interesting state of affairs: gnucash has had many of the basics, such as double-entry accounting and an (almost undocumented) PostgreSQL backend, for a long time. Conversations with the gnucash developers indicate the the new gnucash business features are the results of a single developer's efforts. Can it be that the free software community is unable to come up with the resources to build a top-quality business accounting package on top of a proven platform? We should be able to do better than that.
gnucash will eventually be able to address the business market - the code has been slowly but steadily getting better for years. In the mean time, there really is no need to use proprietary packages for personal finance; gnucash 1.8 will be more than good enough.
Linux and mobile telephony
The cover article from the November 21 issue of The Economist argues that the future of computing is to be found in the combination of handheld systems and cellular telephones. Together, the two provide mobile, convenient access to applications with worldwide communication capabilities. It is easy to see how, if the applications are available and the user interface issues are solved, this type of system would become the computer of choice for many users. Servers and desktop systems will not go away, but personal handheld units may well outnumber them.One might ask how this is relevant to Linux. At a first glance, it's not: there are no Linux-based mobile telephony systems. The embedded Linux vendors seem to be far more interested in set-top boxes than telephones, and the mobile industry has its own options for operating systems. Linux, it seems, runs the risk of being left out of a large sector of the future computing market.
This market, instead, looks to be the site of a battle between Microsoft and Nokia. Microsoft has a version of Windows which has been tweaked for the mobile environment. The company does not, however, have a whole lot of customers at this point. The mobile phone makers, for some reason, are reluctant to give Microsoft a toehold in their market. The fact that the Windows source is not available to licensees also does not help. Microsoft has an uphill road ahead of it, but it also has the resources to stay the course for a long time.
Nokia, interestingly, is not pushing a mobile operating system of its own. Instead, along with Ericsson, Matsushita (Panasonic), Motorola, Psion, Siemens and Sony, Nokia is a part owner of Symbian, which licenses its software to all of them. Symbian OS is developed with the needs of its owners in mind, and comes with source code. In other words, the mobile handset makers appear to have set up their own little private, members-only open source-like community to handle their operating system needs. It seems to have worked; Symbian is the dominant operating system in mobile handsets.
How could Linux push its way into this market? Much work has been done to make Linux work well on handheld systems; see, for example, the Familiar distribution. What's missing, however, is any sort of telephony support. Getting Linux to the point where it can make a call on a mobile telephone will require a great deal of work interfacing with proprietary hardware, and, perhaps, dealing with numerous regulatory bodies worldwide. It will not happen, in other words, without strong support from one or more handset manufacturers. That support does not appear to be present at this point.
It is not that hard to imagine a future world where mobile handsets have become a commodity item (i.e. cheap even without a service plan), and handset manufacturers have been reduced to producing low-margin platforms for Windows. In such a world, there would likely be sufficient interest to inspire funding of a Linux-based alternative. It sure would be nice, however, to not have to wait that long. All of us who have worked on free software have not, after all, done that work just to carry a proprietary operating system in our pockets.
LWN Status Update
Here is this week's report from LWN.net; read on for the latest in subscriber counts, and for information on potential opportunities for those who might like to write for LWN.
The LWN individual subscriber count still stands a little shy of 2400, almost unchanged from a week ago. That is mixed news - the frequency of subscription expiration has gone up, but, so far, new subscriptions have kept the overall count from dropping. We have, however, definitely hit a plateau with regard to subscription levels.
If you are still trying to solve you holiday shopping needs, you could maybe help yourself and LWN by giving LWN.net gift certificates.
Parts of this week's Weekly Edition may be a little thin due to one editor being distracted by (non-LWN) issues. Things will hopefully be back to normal next week.
Partly inspired by these issues, we are looking for ways to bring more authors into the LWN.net fold. We are in no position to hire anybody, to say the least, but, with luck, we should be able to split out a small amount of money to pay for externally-written articles. If you have good English language writing skills, are interested in writing about free software topics, can deal with short-term deadlines, and are willing to deal with extremely picky editors for very small amounts of money, we would like to hear from you. Please drop us a note at authors@lwn.net, and we'll talk. Please don't submit actual articles until we've come to an agreement.
Thanks, as always, for supporting LWN.net.
Security
Brief items
When being explicit is too much hassle
One of the cardinal rules for security-oriented programming is to deny anything that you have not decided, explicitly, to allow. The Linux Security Modules project, which has its code partially merged into the 2.5 development kernel, was designed around this rule: the author of a security module is required to provide an implementation for every one of the (many) hooks provided by LSM. The LSM designers were worried that module authors could miss the addition of new hooks in the future, and thus unwittingly allow actions that their security regime was intended to prevent. By requiring an implementation of every hook, LSM ensured that module authors would always see - and deal with - any changes.The real result, however, was that real-world security modules were bloated by boilerplate stub implementations of dozens of unused hooks. It also was difficult to make modules portable across multiple kernel versions. Greg Kroah-Hartman finally got tired of all this, and posted a patch which removes the "implement all hooks" requirement. There has not been any real opposition to this change; it will likely go to Linus soon.
Security issues often go this way. The real-world costs of proposed security regimes reach a level where they outweigh the benefits. At that point, the best thing to do can be to back off before people start to develop unofficial ways around overly onerous requirements.
Quarterly CERT Summary
The latest quarterly CERT Summary is out; this advisory points out what CERT sees as the most significant outstanding security issues. Four of the five listed issues relate to free software: the mod_ssl worm, the sendmail and tcpdump trojans, and the BIND vulnerabilities. Evidently, the current problems with IE and IIS, and which expose a large portion of the net, are less significant than trojan horses which persisted for a few days (or hours) and affected very few users.
New vulnerabilities
freeswan: Denial of Service
| Package(s): | freeswan | CVE #(s): | |||||
| Created: | December 4, 2002 | Updated: | December 4, 2002 | ||||
| Description: | Bindview discovered a problem in several IPSEC implementations that do not properly handle certain very short packets. IPSEC is a set of security extensions to IP which provide authentication and encryption. Debian's FreeS/WAN package contains this vulnerability, which can lead to kernel crashes. | ||||||
| Alerts: |
| ||||||
IM: creates temporary files insecurely
| Package(s): | im | CVE #(s): | CAN-2002-1395 | ||||||||||||
| Created: | December 3, 2002 | Updated: | March 6, 2003 | ||||||||||||
| Description: | Tatsuya Kinoshita discovered that IM, which contains interface
commands and Perl libraries for E-mail and NetNews, creates temporary
files insecurely.
| ||||||||||||||
| Alerts: |
| ||||||||||||||
pine: buffer overflow parsing "From:" addresses
| Package(s): | pine | CVE #(s): | CAN-2002-1320 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Created: | November 27, 2002 | Updated: | January 3, 2003 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Description: | A malicious user could send a message with a specially crafted "From:" address and cause a segmentation fault on the client. Pine 4.50 fixes this vulnerability (CAN-2002-1320) and several others. Read the full advisory here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alerts: |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
Resources
Linux Security Week
The December 2 Linux Security Week newsletter from LinuxSecurity.com is available.
Events
Annual Computer Security Applications Conference
The Annual Computer Security Applications Conference is happening December 9 to 13 in Las Vegas; click below for more information.
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
Kernel development
Brief items
Kernel release status
The current development kernel is 2.5.50, which was released by Linus on November 27. Changes in this kernel include an ACPI update, lots of fixes from the -ac and -dj trees, some latency-reducing scheduling points, a Linux Security Module update, a big ISDN update, and a NEC v850 architecture update. The long-format changelog has all the details.Linus's pre-2.5.51 BitKeeper tree includes a new, generic compatibility layer for providing 32-bit system calls on 64-bit systems, an XFS update, some performance improvements from the -mm patchset, lots of fixes from the -ac tree, a number of module fixes (see below), better SCSI disk hotplugging support, and numerous other fixes and updates.
The current stable kernel is 2.4.20, which was released by Marcelo on November 28. The 2.4.20 patch is large - 21MB - and it touches almost 3500 files. Even so, it is mostly dedicated to fixes and updates, and generally making the stable kernel even more so. Those looking for new features will not be entirely disappointed, however; 2.4.20 includes new e1000 and eepro100 drivers, the JFS journaling filesystem, the new wireless API, the "block I/O from high memory" patch, the BeOS filesystem, the NAPI high-performance networking code, a number of VM tweaks, and support for the x86-64 architecture. It also includes, of course, the fix for the recent x86 denial of service vulnerability.
Unfortunately, 2.4.20 also contains a bug which can corrupt ext3 filesystems mounted with the data=journal option. This bug is described in this posting by Andrew Morton (but the included fix does not work and should not be applied). A real fix for the problem is still forthcoming; until then, be careful with data=journal.
Alan Cox has released 2.4.20-ac1, which adds a few fixes and a PA-RISC update to the 2.4.20 release.
For 2.2 users, Alan Cox has released 2.2.23. It contains a number of fixes including, of course, the denial of service patch.
Kernel development news
The state of 2.5 module support
As of 2.5.50, support for loadable modules in the kernel remains broken. As a result, there continues to be a low level of grumbling about the module changes, along with calls for their removal. Most developers seem to accept that the issues will eventually be worked out, however, and are meanwhile suffering in silence.One problem that was the source of much complaining was the requirement that every module provide a module initialization function, or else include an explicit no_module_init line. This "feature" was set to force changes to large numbers of drivers, which were otherwise working just fine. The real purpose behind this requirement was to get the name of the module into the compiled code. Kai Germaschewski came up with a fix that allows the module name to be given at compile time; this fix was merged for 2.5.51.
A separate patch, also merged for 2.5.51, restores the generation of the USB and PCI hotplug tables.
Then, there is the little problem that module parameters do not work. Rusty Russell has been working on this issue for a while, and has produced several sets of patches, none of which have been merged as of this writing. The latest patch creates a new macro for the establishment of module parameters:
module_param(name, type, perm);
Where name is the name of the local variable to receive the value given for the parameter, type is the type of the variable, and perm is a set of permissions flag that will be used in the future when parameters are exported via sysfs. module_param is slightly misnamed, in that it sets up parameters to be set at module load time, or, for compiled-in code, at boot time. But suggestions for other names (like simply "param") did not pass the Linus test.
There is also a compatibility layer which lets modules using the older MODULE_PARM declarations work until they are updated.
Finally, work continues on the new module tools (which may be found in this directory). These tools provide the usual module functionality, along with a script to convert the standard modules.conf file into the new modprobe.conf format.
Shaking out all of the module issues will doubtless take some time yet. But the worst problems are being solved; soon it will be time to find something else to complain about.
Making the DMA subsystem bus-independent
The Linux kernel has an elaborate set of support routines for performing DMA I/O operations. The DMA layer makes it possible to do high performance I/O without worrying (much) about the underlying, architecture-specific details. Some processors have cache-coherent memory (so that devices see data written from memory immediately), while others require explicit cache flushes. Some require the use of bounce buffers for some memory regions. Others can do nice scatter/gather operations through the use of bus mapping registers. By using the DMA layer (documented in the kernel source in DMA-mapping.txt and in Chapter 13 of Linux Device Drivers), driver writers need not worry about any of that stuff.At least, they need not worry if their hardware is on a PCI bus. The DMA layer was written with broader applicability in mind, but the current implementation is PCI-specific.
James Bottomley has sent out a proposal to change all that. Why not, says James, fold the DMA code into the generic device model subsystem and make it more broadly available? The biggest part of his patch is concerned with renaming; the pci_* functions become dma_* instead, and they take a struct device argument, rather than struct pci_dev. The patch also includes some changes to make it easy for suitably-written drivers to fall back to inconsistent (non-cache-coherent) memory when consistent memory is not available.
As of this writing, there had been no public reaction to the proposal. The patch clearly heads in the direction the developers want to go, however, and it also includes the obligatory compatibility layer. One would assume that any objections would be based on details, and not the general idea.
The OSDL Scalable Test Platform
The Open Source Development Lab has announced version 2.0 of its Scalable Test Platform (STP). STP is both a development project (available from SourceForge) and a service which has been made available to the kernel development community. Most developers are probably able to arrange for testing on their own systems, so the STP service is likely to be of the most interest.Essentially, STP manages the building and testing of patched versions of the Linux kernel. The OSDL STP implementation has a set of systems which are available to do this testing. For now, at least, all of these systems are Intel-based; the largest box has eight processors and 8GB of memory. Interested developers can load their patches into STP, and select a system type of interest. When the hardware becomes available, a kernel is built with the developer's patches, and any of a set of tests are run; the results are then passed back to the developer.
The STP overview page suggests that STP testing can help get code accepted into the kernel. So far, there has not been a flood of developers using STP results to promote their patches. STP is, however, a useful tool that can help provide serious testing of patches on hardware that is not available to many developers.
Patches and updates
Kernel trees
Architecture-specific
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Documentation
Filesystems and block I/O
Memory management
Networking
Security-related
Benchmarks and bugs
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
Distributions
News and Editorials
Specialized Distributions
A question that comes up from time to time is, 'Why are there so many Linux distributions?' Distributions are created for many reasons. There are probably almost as many reasons as there are distributions. Some are created as school projects, allowing a student to explore the internals of an operating system. Many more are created to serve a particular purpose. Older hardware and limited disk space? No problem. Want something that boots from a floppy or CD-ROM? Several are available. Some want the functionality provided by proprietary products, while others want their system to be completely composed of free software. There are firewalls and security enhanced versions, servers and desktops, multimedia and clustering distributions, seemingly something for everyone. Except that not everyone agrees on just what it is that makes a distribution perfect.Thanks to the GNU GPL anyone can download a Linux kernel, some GNU packages and libraries and create their vision of the perfect OS. Of course it also takes some knowledge of computers and programming, some hardware, and of course plenty of time. Still, LWN announces a new distribution almost every week. Some have been in existence for a while, only new to LWN. Others are fledgling distributions, created to fill a perceived void in existing systems. Some are built from scratch, but many start with an existing distribution and add or subtract software to create that perfect distribution. Today's crop contains old and new but they were all created to meet a specific need.
- RUNT (ResNet USB
Network Tester) is Slackware Linux designed to run off of a 128 MB USB
pen drive. It consists of a boot floppy image and a zip file, similar to
zipslack. It is intended to be a fairly complete Linux installation for
use as a testing tool capable of booting on any x86 computer with a USB
port and a bootable floppy drive. The initial version is RUNT 0.92.
- BBIagent.Net
provides a suite of applications to create the software for booting a
computer as a broadband router and firewall. Based on the hardware
configurations and connection type, you can download your own boot file
which is written into a single 1.44MB diskette. Router software can be
downloaded to the same diskette to complete the system. This is a Linux
based system which uses Java tools to create a bootable floppy with
router software. The software utilites provided by BBIagent.Net are free
to use. Version 1.5.0 was released November 7, 2002.
- The folks at NPACI offer the Rocks Cluster Distribution. This
special purpose distribution starts with Red Hat Linux 7.3 and adds tools
to make clusters easy to manage, configurable and secure.
- LinuxMedNews reports on the first demo CD for GnuMed. This project is based on KNOPPIX, in cooperation with Debian-Med.
Distribution News
Debian GNU/Linux
The Debian Weekly News for December 3, 2002 is available. This week, read about the recent Bug Squashing Party for sarge in which several release critical bugs were fixed; and much more.In last week's LWN we had no status report of the Debian services qa.debian.org and non-us.debian.org. In fact qa.debian.org was restored within hours after the fire. Non-us has also been restored.
Also last week's LWN was published too early to include Debian Weekly News for November 26, 2002. This issue looks at a study going on in Japan which asks the questions, "Is Free Software suited for governmental use? Can it replace the systems currently used?"
There is a new Debian User Worldmap showing the location of Debian developers around the world.
Translation of debconf templates is in progress. Here is a status report.
Branden Robinson discusses the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2 and its compatibility with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
Mandrake Linux
MandrakeSoft has launched an operation called "Operating System Refugee Offer". This enables anyone who purchased a commercial license of any operating system to get access to Mandrake Linux at a very low price.The Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for November 28, 2002 is available. This week: MandrakeSoft welcomes new CEO; product special on MYSQL products & services; Mandrake 9.0 speeds into the installation lead; and much more.
The Mandrake Team looks at the first year of
MandrakeClub. "MandrakeClub.com is turning into a major
multilingual news and discussion forum for everything related to
MandrakeSoft and Mandrake Linux
"
The everybuddy package released with Mandrake Linux 9.0 had broken support for the MSN and Yahoo protocols. This update fixes those problems, as well as some other minor bugs that caused random crashes.
A bug in the lm_sensors scripts prevented lm_sensors from loading all required modules. This off-by-one error would load all modules less one module, resulting in problems. This update corrects the problem.
A bug exists in the galeon web browser when using it with EHWM -compliant window managers such as metacity. When galeon is in fullscreen mode, the GNOME panel is below the fullscreen window and is not readable. This update fixes the problem.
Red Hat Linux
Red Hat has issued a couple of press releases from Enterprise Linux Forum Conference & Expo. This announcement says Red Hat plans to extend support for carrier-grade Linux applications on Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, the company's high end distribution designed for mission critical workloads. The company also announced a new enterprise workstation offering to be released early next year. This article in the Register also covers these announcments.
Use Perl notes
that Red Hat Linux 8.0 comes with Perl 5.8.0. "Nice that even a
mostly Python shop like Red Hat is keeping up.
"
SCO Linux 4.0, Powered by UnitedLinux
Here's a press release from the SCO Group announcing the planned implementation of SCO Linux 4.0, powered by UnitedLinux, in 325 stores of Pearle in Belgium, The Netherlands and Italy.Slackware Linux
Slackware Linux has another round of upgrades and fixes in the slackware-current branch. See the change log for full details.
Minor distribution updates
MoviX
MoviX has released v0.7.0 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: The MoviX package has been now split in two different projects: eMoviX and MoviX. eMoviX is a micro Linux distro to be embedded in a CD and able to boot from CD and automatically play any audi/video file you put inside [DivX, avi, mpg, mp3, ogg and so on]. MoviX is a mini-Linux distro that loads in RAM a small Linux distro able to play through a simple configurable console menu DVD, VCD, Audio CD, DivX, Avi, Mpg, Mp3, Ogg, network streams if you have a NIC and also TV if you have a TV card."
PXES Linux Thin Client
PXES Linux Thin Client has released v0.5.1-12 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: ICA session support was (almost) finished, and the remote configuration was changed and improved."
RxLinux
RxLinux has released v1.1.0 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: Support has been added for USB mice, USB mass storage (tested with Zip-250), and PCMCIA wireless network cards (tested with Cisco Aironet 340). vncviewer and rdesktop thin clients have been added for remote access to Unix and Windows NT/XP. Smbmount was missing from the Samba package. Packages can now be deployed from a local HD. A new command line (pkgtool) has been added for package management. Software in RAMdisk can be installed and removed on the fly. There are a couple of bugfixes regarding HD support for data (/var). The base system still fits in 25 MB."
uClinux
uClinux has released v2.5.50-uc0 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: This is the latest 2.5 merge, with some cleanups."
Distribution reviews
Langa Letter: Lindows: Beyond Windows, Before Linux (TechWeb)
Fred Langa test-drives the latest version of Lindows in this TechWeb article. "Lindows version 3.0 offers the same level of compatibility as previous versions, but you'd almost not know it because the issue has been played down so significantly. Now, instead of encouraging users to install their native Windows applications under Lindows, the operating system tries to steer users to install and use native Linux applications that offer file-level compatibility with Windows applications."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
Development
Mozilla Developments
It has been a fairly busy week for Mozilla browser development news.Mozilla 1.2 came out with a number of new features, here are some of the main additions:
- Type Ahead Find for speedy navigation within a page.
- The ability to show toolbars as text, icons, or both.
- Improvements to the native look and feel of the browser.
- The ability to launch the Browser with preloaded tabs.
- The addition of new accesskeys.
- Support for page prefetching.
- XML prettyprinting support.
- Mail "filter after the fact" capabilities.
- Mail support for copying text from message headers.
- Much More.
Some compatibility issues with dynamic HTML coding on some sites showed up under version 1.2. The Mozilla team quickly fixed the problem and released version 1.2.1.
The mozilla.org
site said:
"This is our latest stable release and users of all previous versions are encouraged to upgrade to this release for features, as well as performance, stability, and security fixes. It contains the fix for the DHTML bug that prompted us to pull Mozilla 1.2.
"
The Mozilla 1.2.1 release notes have the details for this release, most of it is a recap of the version 1.2 release notes, with the addition of the DHTML bug fix.
In addition to the new Mozilla releases, new versions of Galeon and Phoenix minimalist browsers are also out, both browsers are based on the Mozilla code. see below for more information.
System Applications
Audio Projects
Ogg Traffic for December 1, 2002
The December 1, 2002 edition of Ogg Traffic is out with development news for the Ogg Vorbis audio compression package. Discussion topics include Bitrate Peeling and Cutting Vorbis Files.
Database Software
MySQL 4.0.5(a) released
Version 4.0.5 (a) of the MySQL database is available. "This is a new beta development release, adding new features and fixing recently discovered bugs. This will be the last release labelled as "beta""
PostgreSQL v7.3 Released
Version 7.3 of the PostgreSQL database has been announced. The list of changes includes:- Support for the SQL 92 Schema specification
- Enhanced dependency tracking for complex databases
- Prepared queries for maximized performance on common requests
- Expanded logging options
- Supports data in many international characters sets
- Dozens of performance enhancements to maintain PostgreSQL's leading position in ORDMBSs
Class::DBI
Tony Bowden writes about the use of Perl's Class::DBI for interfacing to databases. "Several articles on Perl.com, including the recent Phrasebook Design Pattern, have discussed the problems faced when writing Perl code that interacts with a database. Terrence Brannon's DBIx::Recordset article attempted to show how code dealing with databases can be made simpler, and more maintainable. In this article, I will try to show how Class::DBI can make this easier still."
Education
Linux in Education Report
Issue #84 of the Seul/Edu Linux in Education Report is avilable. Topics include an open-source software survey, the cost savings of open-source software in a K12 environment, the Passepartout desktop publishing application, recycled PCs, an Indian government effort for IT in the schools, a report from an OSS in education conference in the Ukraine, an assistave technology research project on Linux, and more.
Electronics
Xcircuit development release 3.0 announced
Development version 3.0 of Xcircuit, an electronic schematic drawing package, is available. The documentation has also been updated for stable version 2.5.5, which came out last summer. The history of code changes has a partial listing of the changes, see the source code for the full list.If the main xcircuit page is down, there is a slightly out of date mirror available on SourceForge.
Networking Tools
The PacketFlow firewall generator
The initial release of PacketFlow is out. PacketFlow is described by author Paul Frieden as a "free command line XML based iptables firewall generator". Feedback is welcome.
Printing
AFPL Ghostscript 8.00 Released
Version 8.00 of AFPL Ghostscript has been released. New features include DeviceN color space support, Spot color and Separation color spaces, native rendering of Overprint, Well Tempered Screening, and DiskN file resources within PostScript.CUPS 1.1.17 released
Version 1.1.17 of the CUPS print system has been released. See the release notes for a long list of new features and bug fixes.LinuxPrinting news
This week, the LinuxPrinting.org site lists several new additions to the Foomatic printer support database including foomatic-gswrapper support for systems without /dev/fd, new support for the HP DeskJet 3325 and LaserJet 1000 printers, and new font capabilities for the PostScript driver.
Web Site Development
Analog 5.30 released
Version 5.30 of the Analog web server logfile analyzer package is available. New features include built-in support for gzipped logfiles, better host inclusions and exclusions, user-configurable decimal place support, a RISC OS port, Indonesian and Slovak language files, and bug fixes. Analog is a very useful tool for looking at what's happening on your web site, it can really help to figure out where your development time is best spent.mod_python 3.0.1 available
Version 3.0.1 of mod_python is available. This version adds support for Apache 2.0, and requires Python 2.2 or later.Midgard Weekly Summary
The November 28, 2002 edition of the Midgard Weekly Summary is out. Topics include Editors Notes, Developer Tools Overview, German Midgard Installation Tutorial (Mandrake Linux) available, New Modules in the Midgard CVS, Bugtracker Summary, and Mailinglist SummaryZope Members News
The most recent headlines on the Zope Members News include: PA Blog Tool 0.7 released, ZWeatherApplet v1.50 is out, ZopeTestCase 0.6.0 Released, ZWiki 0.13.0 released, DocFinderEverywhere 0.4.0 Released, JTracker issue tracker released, First LDAPUserFolder 2.0 beta released, OrderedObjectManager 1.2.4 released, TextIndexNG 1.07 released, and Silva 0.8.6.1 released.Zope Newbies
This week, Zope Newbies has articles on the following topics: Zope 2.6 and gzip, a new Zope Weekly News, Are Rich Clients Taking Off or Tanking?, Configuring SSH, and Inside United Linux.
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
AlsaPlayer 0.99.73 released
Version 0.99.73 of the AlsaPlayer audio file playing utility is available. "This release has better support for CDDA (CD) audio playback. Some bugs were fixed." See the ChangeLog file for the details.
Audacity 1.1.1 documentation update
A documentation update is available for version 1.1.1 of the Audacity sound file editor.
Desktop Environments
GNOME Development Series Snapshot 2.1.3
Snapshot version 2.1.3 of the GNOME Development Series is out. "This release is an UNSTABLE development series snapshot. It is intended for testing and hacking purposes ONLY. Like the Linux kernel, GNOME uses odd minor version numbers to indicate development status, so this 2.1.x series will eventually become the official 2.2 release."
GNOME Summary for 2002-11-10 - 2002-11-30
The GNOME Summary is now available, covering the last half of November 2002. This issue covers new GNOME documentation; the release of GNOME 2.0.3 and 2.1.3; Sodipodi 0.28; Film Gimp; and much more.FootNotes
Headlines on the GNOME desktop FootNotes site include: Gnome2 to become the standard DE on Solaris 10, GNOME Foundation Elections: Preliminary results, GNOME Summary for most of November, Announcement: GnuCash 1.7.4 beta: ''The water of life'', GNOME System Tools 0.22.0 is OUT!, GNOME Dev Series Snapshot 2.1.3 released, Galeon 1.2.7 Released, Pumpkin BugDay Pie, GNOME Desktop 2.0 User Guide updated, GNOME 2.0.3 Desktop and Developer Platform Released!, Mozilla 1.2 released, and more.Kernel Cousin KDE
Issue #46 of Kernel Cousin KDE is out. Topics include: SMS plugin for Kopete, Debugging JavaScript, Improving tabs in Konqueror, Gold Medal for Sweden, Introducing kexi to KOffice, KSpread speaking better Excel, KOffice 1.3: Usability Aspects, Service for KOffice 1.2, No Money Handling in KOffice, and Dev. Newsflash.KDE-CVS-Digest for November 29, 2002
Derek Kite has announced that he will be doing weekly reviews of the kde CVS updates. For an example, see the November 29, 2002 review.
GUI Packages
FLTK updates
The following new software is available for FLTK, the Fast, Light ToolKit: AntiPaint 0.95, and fltk-dos 1.1.1.
Interoperability
Samba 3.0 alpha21 Snapshot released for testing
Recent changes in the Samba file and printer sharing utility include the release of the Samba 3.0 alpha21 Snapshot, which is documented in the WHATSNEW document, and an updated Samba Roadmap to 3.0 document.Kernel Cousin Wine
Issue #146 of Kernel Cousin Wine is available. Topics include: Wine-20021125, WineX on FreeBSD, Porting Apps With Winelib, Porting to a Standalone App, Submitting Multiple Patches, Debugging wineserver, Shortening Debug Logs, OpenGL & Double Buffering, Wine Under Cygwin, and Quick Response to SwitchToThread() Problem.Vstserver v0.2.0 announced
Version 0.2.0 of Vstserver has been released. Vstserver works in conjunction with Vstlib, which allows Windows vst audio plugins to be run under Linux.
Office Applications
LyX Development News
The LyX Development News for November 30, 2002 is available. Topics include the LyX 1.2 series, LyX 1.3 CVS, and future developments for LyX.
Web Browsers
mozillaZine
The latest mozillaZine topics include: Trunk Frozen for Mozilla 1.3 Alpha, Mozilla 1.2.1 Released, Renamed Phoenix 0.5 Set for Release Next Week, Bugzilla 2.17.1 Released, and more.Phoenix 0.4 available
Version 0.4 of the Phoenix web browser has been announced. The list of changes includes: improvements to pop-up blocking, improvements to toolbar customization, improvements to tabbed browsing and shortcut keys, type ahead find returns, addressbar gets smarter, bug fixes, and themes!Galeon 1.2.7 Released
Version 1.2.7 of Galeon is available. "This is a minor bugfix release of the stable branch that fixes a few bugs and adds support for Mozilla 1.2". Version 1.3.0 of the unstable release of Galeon is also available.
Languages and Tools
C
Open64 0.15 Released
Version 0.15 of the Open64 compiler and development tools for Intel Itanium(TM) is available. "The new version includes ORC 1.1 and the LaTeX files for the WHIRL documentation created by John Mellor-Crummey and his team at Rice University."
Caml
The Caml Hump
This week, the new software on The Caml Hump includes ara: A utility for doing boolean regexp queries on the the Debian package database, headache: A simple and lightweight tool for managing headers in source code files, TrxGeneric: an RPC transaction manager, Stred: Provides an ability to interactively edit/navigate arbitrary Ocaml data structures, and Ocamaweb: software that produce LaTeX documentation on MATLAB files with some special comments, and more.Caml Weekly News
The November 26 - December 3, 2002 edition of the Caml Weekly News looks at the OCAMAWEB release, and features discussions on why Ocaml doesn't support operator overloading and arbitrarily large integers.
Java
Diagnosing Java code: Killer combo -- Mixins, Jam, and unit testing (IBM developerWorks)
Eric E. Allen covers a number of Java debugging techniques on IBM's developerWorks. "The safety of single-inheritance programming in the Java language comes at a price: sometimes code must be copied along multiple paths in the inheritance hierarchy. To regain much of the lost expressiveness in single-inheritance Java code, we can integrate mixins as one extension. This month, Eric Allen explains the notion of mixins (classes that are parameterized by their parent class) and how they can aid in unit testing."
SashXB lends mini-RAD to Linux (IBM developerWorks)
Wing Yung and John Corwin write about SashXB on IBM's developerWorks. "SashXB extends JavaScript with objects that wrap native functionality -- and provides all the necessary tools for writing applications from scratch. In this article, the developers of SashXB explore its inner workings and demonstrate how SashXB simplifies the development, download, and installation of applications."
Inside RelativeLayout (O'Reilly)
James Elliott explains RelativeLayout on O'Reilly. "As promised in my first article, "RelativeLayout: A Constraint-Based Layout Manager," here's a look inside the RelativeLayout package. This article explains how the layout manager works, and discusses how to extend it to support new kinds of constraints."
Programming Jakarta Struts: Using Tiles, Part 3 (O'Reilly)
O'Reilly has an excerpt from Chuck Cavaness' book on Jakarta struts "In part 3 in this series of book excerpts on using tiles from Programming Jakarta Struts, learn how to use the tile tag library (which contains the following tags: insert, definition, put, putList, add, get, getAsString, useAttribute, importAttribute, and initComponentDefinitions)."
Lisp
SBCL 0.7.10 released
SBCL version 0.7.10 is available. "This version improves CLOS and MOP conformance in PCL, provides initial support for building SBCL on MIPS platforms in little-endian mode, changes the behavior of TRUENAME and LOOP's NAMED clause, changes the way the location of source files is recorded in PCL method definitions, and fixes several bugs."
CL-BibTeX 0.2 released
Version 0.2 of CL-BibTeX has been released. "CL-BibTex is a replacement written in Common Lisp of the BibTeX bibliography database tool. It allows users to format bibliographic entries using Lisp programs rather than the stack language of BibTeX style files."
New Lisp tutorial in French
Francis Leboutte has put together an introduction to Lisp (in French) that is aimed at the novice level programmer.
Perl
The 2002 Perl Advent Calendar
The 2002 Perl Advent Calendar has been published. Check it out for daily Perl tips through most of December.This Week on perl5-porters
The November 25 - December 1, 2002 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is out. The list of topics includes: Reference to an undefined value, Fun with syntax, MakeMaker PREFIX regression, Restricted hashes bug, and more.This week on Perl 6
The November 26 - December 1, 2002 edition of This week on Perl 6 is out. Topics include: C#/Parrot Status, NCI stuff (mostly) done, Changes to parrot/docs/jit.pod, Befunge-93? No! Befunge-98!, This week's patches, Multiarray usage, Meanwhile, in perl6-language, Dynamic Scoping, Status Summary; next steps, and more.
PHP
PHP Weekly Summary
Topics on this week's PHP Weekly Summary include: 4.3.0 RC 2, C++ based extensions, PHP 5 not yet scheduled, IRCG 4 details, vpopmail improvements, 4.3.0 IIS ISAPI, Java fixes, ImageMagick extension merged, RADIUS extension.Internationalization and Localization with PHP (O'Reilly)
Adam Trachtenberg shows how to internationalize PHP on O'Reilly. "While everyone who programs in PHP has to learn some English eventually to get a handle on its function names and language constructs, PHP can create applications in just about any human language. Some applications need to be used by speakers of many different languages. PHP's internationalization and localization support makes it easier to make an application written for French speakers useful for German speakers."
Python
Python-dev Summary
The Python-dev Summary for the second half of November is out. It looks at the status of modulefinder.py, preallocation of dictionary space, new string formatting ideas, new assignment syntax, and several other topics.Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Nov 26)
Here is the Python-URL for November 26, 2002. This week's issue contains a recommended security-related reading; leading Pythoneers explain their use of the language with RSS; and lots more python resources.The Daily Python-URL
This week's Daily Python-URL article topics include: BitTorrent, Andrew Kuchling on Python and Parrot, Python power: Growing respect for an open-source integration tool, What's new in Python 2.3?, and more.
Ruby
The Ruby Garden
New topics on the Ruby Garden include: Statement to this forum, What ever happened with 'Design by Contract' being implemented in the Ruby inter(preter), Templating Lib?, Enhanced Readline?, and more.The Ruby Weekly News
Topics on this week's Ruby Weekly News include: each_with_index & collect_with_index?, RCR: Stack, Queue alias methods in Array, A Lesson Learned, Numerical Ruby, WeRDS, the Weekly Ruby-Doc Summary, for 2002-12-01, ruby-dev summary #18924-18973, and Last week's meeting. New Ruby software includes: Spreadsheet/Excel 0.0.1, xregex-0.02, MiniRubyWiki has struck again.
Scheme
Scheme Weekly News
The November 28, 2002 Scheme Weekly News is out. Topics include Additions to the readscheme library, SWIG 1.3.17, Gauche-GTK 0.2.3, Quack 0.15, and TinyScheme for the Zaurus.
Tcl/Tk
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The November 29, 2002 edition of the Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL is out. Topics include Tcl conference proceedings, making GUI details identical across platforms, byte-code management, Wiki changes, GUI resources, using "dispatch", and more.
XML
new XML.com articles
This week's articles on O'Reilly's xml.com inclulde: Michael Fitzgerald on XOM, a new easy-to-use Java API for XML, John Simpson explores XUL and WXS-driven transformations, Shelley Powers reviews the new batch of RDF specifications, and XML Versus the Infoset by Rich Salz.
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
Windows Refund Day II: a Call for Action (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal calls for a Windows Refund Day, a second WRD event to coincide with LinuxWorld Expo New York, January 2003. "Why is there a call for action: Computer manufacturers must be held accountable for their refusal to provide consumers with a refund for unused copies of the Windows operating system shipped with today's computers."
Group urges limits on open source (News.com)
News.com looks at the latest round of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) from the MS-backed Initiative for Software Choice. "This week, the Initiative for Software Choice counterattacked, telling the Defense Information Systems Agency that the Pentagon should not "openly promote the use" of open-source software, arguing that proprietary products are not inherently less secure."
Trade Shows and Conferences
A Losing Bet: the Last Days of Comdex, Part 2 (Linux Journal)
Comdex was not well attended this year, but Doc Searls went and has written a report for Linux Journal. "I hadn't planned on being at Comdex this year.... But a few months ago I was approached by some of the folks at Key3Media, the company that puts on the show, about participating in a new Comdex feature--a Great Debate. The bait was terrific: somebody had to take on Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. There might be a couple other people in the debate, I was told; but it would probably be something of a Microsoft vs. Linux thing. I was selected to hold up the Linux end of the contest. How could I refuse?"
The Real Battle at Comdex: Intellectual Property vs. Internet Protocol (Linux Journal)
Doc Searls continues his Comdex coverage in this Linux Journal article. "As I said in my first show report, this year Comdex was mostly a Microsoft show, a place where the company and its most compliant hardware OEMs could showcase the new Tablet PC. But in a larger sense, it also was an arena where marketing fought markets, where the hares of intellectual property raced the tortoises of internet protocol, where those that want to own the world confronted those that want to make a world that can't be owned."
Guess Who's Coming to Speak (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal covers LinuxBangalore/2002, where computer scientist Tarun Anand, of Microsoft, is a surprise entrant among the dozens of speakers that take the podium. "Special focus at the event will be given to Indianisation efforts for GNU/Linux, a field lacking the progress made by other non-English, non-Latin script languages. Progress in this field could take affordable computing to possibly hundreds of millions of people in this talent-rich, resource-poor nation."
Father of Java Sounds Off (eWeek)
eWeek covers Java inventor James Gosling's keynote at the Software Development Conference and Expo East 2002. "Following his stint with the press, Gosling delivered his keynote on "The Future of Open, End-to-End Software Systems, where he highlighted a few of his favorite Java systems. One was for the Brazilian National Health system, which Gosling said contained "a big pile of Enterprise JavaBeans." He said the system runs on five national server farms that look at 12 million people in 44 cities, he said. The Brazilian National Healthcare system has about 10 million lines of code, Gosling said, and the organization plans to turn its software over to the open-source movement."
Companies
Computing Pioneer Joins HP Labs (TechWeb)
TechWeb covers computing pioneer Alan Kay, who has recently become a senior fellow at HP Labs. "Kay, 62, will research and develop new software platforms, the company said Tuesday. Underlying code will be shared in the same fashion as the open-source Linux operating system."
MandrakeSoft looks for ''Refugees'' (OfB.biz)
Open for Business covers a new offer from MandrakeSoft. "The developers of Mandrake Linux have announced a new offer targeted directly at those using proprietary operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS, or BeOS. The "Operating System Refugee Offer," as it is known, is reminiscent of proprietary competitors' competitive upgrade offers, only it boasts an even more dramatic discount."
MS targets Linux defectors with 'special' price discounts (Register)
Here's a Register article about Microsoft's next campaign against open source - discounts. "Savage discounts and easy payment terms available on Microsoft software, should you look like you're about to jump ship for Open Source? We all know that this kind of thing happens, but from what a Yankee Group analyst has been telling Newsfactor, this semi-ad hoc procedure has been formalised as part of a new 'Open Value' licensing programme, to be launched next year."
Business
Server market stabilises (but competition is fierce) (Register)
The Register covers the latest IDC report, which says Unix-based machines are losing ground to Linux and Windows-based boxes. "IDC found the strongest growth in the entry lever server market, where sales were up 5% both sequentially and on the year. At the same time, Linux machines grew 26.7% year on year, while Windows servers grew 3.2%, largely on the back of Intel-based shipments. Unix servers slipped 10% on the year."
TCO - How low can you go?
Here's a Yahoo article about a Microsoft funding study by IDC, which predicably finds that Windows has a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than Linux. Thanks to Elijah P NewrenThe Register examines the study, and comments on the findings.
Meanwhile, this article in ZDNet Australia finds that the TCO depends on many factors and should be determined on a case by case basis. Thanks to Con Zymaris
PostgreSQL, MySQL Tweak Their Wares (eWeek)
eWeek covers new features and support from MySQL and PostgreSQL. "Jason Jacobs, CEO of CoreSense Inc., a New York company that makes e-business software for resellers and manufacturers, said that even though he's not running MySQL on IBM hardware, the IBM support is still welcome because it broadens the pool of users contributing to open-source enhancements. "The larger the user group, the better for all of us," he said. "[Enterprises are] going to look for something to be supported, in order to bet their business on it."" Thanks to Ashwin N.
Linux Is Launchpad For Boeing's Simulations (TechWeb)
TechWeb covers Boeing's Expendable Launch Systems division in Huntington Beach, Calif., as they keep costs down by using a 96-node cluster of PCs with Advanced Micro Devices 850-MHz Athlon processors running Red Hat Linux.
Legal
File swapping in the legal crosshairs (News.com)
Here's a News.com article on today's preliminary arguments in the latest file swapping case to hit the courts. "Any outcome will help shape the future of the file-trading world. The copyright holders' case against Streamcast, Grokster and the successive parent companies of the Kazaa software is widely viewed as potentially even more influential than the suit against the now-defunct Napster, and a full trial could be an important legal milestone for the technology community."
Interviews
No future in proprietary software (ZDNet)
Here's an interview with Richard Stallman on ZDNet. "I don't know what Microsoft might do in the many situations that might develop. What I can say is that Microsoft has enough cash on hand to pay 5,000 programmers to write free software for about a century. There is clearly no need for the proprietary software model."
A CTO gives thanks (InfoWorld)
InfoWorld CTO Chad Dickerson shares some things he is thankful for. "Open-source development continues to make my job easier by providing solid solutions that work both technically and financially. During the boom times, a common job benefit and recruiting tool of the CTO was to sanction work on open-source projects during company time. Now that the economy has tightened, I don't hear much about this kind of arrangement any more, yet the quality of work in the open-source community continues to be impressive because of the passion of developers committed to improving technology despite a harsh macroeconomic environment. Linux may be old hat, but the kernel continues to improve in important ways for large businesses." Thanks to Lenz Grimmer
Tiemann steers course for open source (ZDNet)
ZDNet interviews Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann. "The key discriminating function of the main Linux maintainers--which include Linus Torvalds--is their absolute no-compromise position on clean interfaces and forcing people who want to go two steps forward to not go one step back. What this means is, in many kernel mailing-list discussions I've seen over the last 12 months, when somebody proposes a solution that solves some problems but brings with it other problems, generally that solution is rejected until the other problems are addressed."
How To Get Hired As An Open-Source Developer (TechWeb)
TechWeb has some advice for job seekers in open source development. "What was Todd Cranston-Cuebas, prolific Senior Technical Recruiter for Ticketmaster, doing at the recent Apachecon technical conference in Las Vegas? Searching for open source talent, endearing himself to the Apache technical community and engaging in his own sort of "passive" recruitment. Todd has sage advice for both open-source recruiters and job seekers -- straight from the trenches."
An Interview with Tim O'Reilly
O'Reilly's OpenP2P.com interviews Tim O'Reilly, a variety of topics are covered.
Resources
LinuxDevices.com Newsletter for Nov. 28, 2002
Here's the Embedded Linux Newsletter from LinuxDevices.com, with pointers to the Fall 2002 Embedded Linux Market Survey and much more.LJ Index (Linux Journal)
Doc Searls presents some statistics for all you number crunchers. "Euros the European Union is spending to study migrating EU government computers to Linux and open source: 249,000"
Tools for Linux Clusters (IBM alphaWorks)
IBM alphaWorks covers two tools to help build Linux clusters. The xCAT (Extreme Cluster Administration Toolkit) can be used for the deployment and administration of Linux clusters. ECT for Linux is a set of additional tools for the enhancement of Cluster Systems Management (CSM), which assists an administrator in managing a whole set of Linux machines.Linux in Government (Linux Journal)
In this Linux Journal article, Phil Hughes discusses how Linux is used in goverments around the world, and what can be done to facilitate the spread of Linux in government. "As in most of the world, Linux has made its presence known in Costa Rica. My interview with Guy de Téramond, which appeared in the January issue of Linux Journal, detailed one example of Linux at work in Costa Rica. It also is running on servers at the Casa Presidential (the Costa Rican equivalent of the White House) and CIPET, a branch of the Ministry of Education that provides technical training for teachers."
Linux Gazette #85 (December 2002)
The Linux Gazette for December 2002 is now available. "Linux Gazette is a freely available, WWW e-zine that includes short articles giving tips and tricks, ideas and suggestions for customizing and running Linux. It is a member of the Linux Documentation Project."
Reviews
Hooray for Bluecurve (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal reviews the Bluecurve desktop that ships with Red Hat Linux 8.0. "Personally, I am happy Red Hat melted the two environments together. If nothing else, this could be an excellent opportunity to realize that decently functional, good-looking desktop interfaces can be built on the assumption that KDE and GNOME themselves aren't really necessary and important in the first place."
Red Hat preps Linux for technical workstations (Register)
The Register reports on the upcoming "Red Hat Technical Workstation" distribution. "An early version of Technical Workstation has been used by animation film company Dreamworks LLC as part of its Linux animation and rendering platform, which was used to produce films such as 'Shrek' and 'Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron'."
Miscellaneous
Hackers Fight Censorship, Human Rights Violations (eWeek)
eWeek looks at the Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement (HESSLA). "Under the HESSLA, users are free to make changes to applications covered by the license and redistribute them, but the agreement also gives them the right to sue if they find someone using the application for malicious purposes. There is also a provision that dictates if any government uses the software as part of a scheme that violates human rights, the government thereby waives its right to sovereign immunity from prosecution in foreign courts."
Mozilla pulls latest browser downloads (News.com)
News.com reports on a bug in Mozilla 1.2 that cripples dynamic HTML coding on some sites. "The bug surfaced on Mozilla 1.2, the latest version of the AOL-supported browser that was released Nov. 26. The notice on Mozilla.org was brief, noting developers would release Mozilla 1.2.1 with a software fix "shortly.""
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Announcements
Commercial announcements
Samaritans goes Linux with IBM and Trustix
The emotional support charity, Samaritans, has chosen Trustix and IBM to incorporate Linux based security solutions into the charity's expanding IT infrastructure. The charity is already using SuSE Professional Linux distribution.Open Source Experts, Perens and Ghosh, Join CSPRI
The George Washington University announced that Bruce Perens and Rishab Aiyer Ghosh have joined its Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute (CSPRI).François Bancilhon joins MandrakeSoft as new CEO
François Bancilhon has taken the position of MandrakeSoft CEO."SuSE Linux Names Richard Seibt as New CEO"
Richard Seibt is taking over the position of CEO at SuSE.FSF's Position on Proposed W3 Consortium "Royalty-Free" Patent Policy
The Free Software Foundation has released a position paper on the proposed patent policy from the W3 Consortium. "The proposed policy permits W3C members participating in W3 technical working groups to commit their patent claims "royalty-free" for use by implementers of the standard, but with "field of use" restrictions that would be incompatible with section 7 of the GNU General Public License. Such "field of use" restrictions, in other words, would prevent implementation of W3C standards as Free Software."
SRA announced PowerGres, a multi-threaded Windows port of PostgreSQL 7.3
SRA announced PowerGres, a multi-threaded Windows port of PostgreSQL 7.3, which will be on sale in March 2003. The license has not been specified yet.
Resources
Mail::Audit mailing list (use Perl)
A mailing list has been announced for users of the Perl Mail::Audit module.Installing and configuring ALSA, JACK, & Ardour on Red Hat 7.3
Jan Depner has put together a HOWTO on using the Alsa sound driver with the Jack Audio Connection Kit and the Alsa multitrack recorder under Red Hat 7.3.November 2002 Netcraft Web Server Survey
Here is the Netcraft Web Server Survey for November 2002, with the latest web statistics.I Andago Report on the use of Linux in Spain
The I Andago Report on the use of Open Source technologies in Spain is available in PDF files (in Spanish). According to the report, 25% of Spanish firms use technology based on free software and one of every four firms are thinking of incorporating it in the near future.Evans Data survey on Chinese use of Linux
Evans Data Corporation has announced the results of its latest survey: 65% of Chinese software developers, it is claimed, plan to write a Linux application in the next year.
Upcoming Events
Linux Bangalore/2002 schedule published
The Linux Banglalore/2002 talk schedule is available online. The conference runs from December 3-5, 2002.Government of India endorses and sponsors Linux Bangalore/2002
Government of India has officially endorsed and sponsored the massive Linux/OSS conference Linux Bangalore/2002.Red Hat to Keynote at Enterprise Linux Forum
Red Hat, Inc. has announced that Chairman and CEO Matthew Szulik will give the keynote address at Enterprise Linux Forum, December 3 - 4, 2002, in Boston.Linux Summit in Finland
A group of companies including SOT, F-Secure, HP, and Oracle are organizing a Linux Summit for IT experts. The event will be held in Dipoli, Finland on February 27 and 28, 2003. "This summit includes information aimed at helping business and IT managers assess and deploy GNU/Linux and Open Source solutions. It will also give realistic end-user experiences concerning the TCO and cost savings"
YAPC::Israel::2003 - CFP (use Perl)
A call for proposals has been announced for the YAPC::Israel::2003 conference, to be held on May 12, 2003 in Revohot.CFP for Open Source CMS conference III
The third Open Source Content Management Systems Conference will be held April 16 to 18 in Boston, MA. The call for papers has gone out now, with a submission deadline of January 15.2002 KDE e.V. Meeting Report
A report has been published for the KDE e.V. meeting that was held in Hamburgh, Germany on August 24-28, 2002. "KDE e.V. is a registered non-profit organisation set up to represent the KDE Project in legal and financial matters, by supporting the developers."
Events: December 5, 2002 - January 23, 2003
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| December 5, 2002 | Linux Bangalore/2002 | (J.N.Tata Auditorium)Bangalore, India |
| December 9 - 20, 2002 | UMeet conference | On IRC |
| December 9 - 10, 2002 | Forum du PHP 2002 | Paris, France |
| January 21 - 24, 2003 | LinuxWorld Conference & Expo | (Jacob K. Javits Center)New York, NY |
| January 22 - 25, 2003 | Linux.conf.au 2003 | Perth, Australia |
Web sites
Accessibility.kde.org resurrected
KDE.News has am announcement for some new changes at the accessibility.kde.org site. "After several weeks of technical problems, Accessibility.kde.org is on-line again with a completely renewed and enhanced version of the web site. You can now find a new section with Accessibility Reports, and detailed information on the KDE Accessibility Project's first IRC meeting."
Help Improve perl.apache.org (use Perl)
Use Perl has published a request seeking help filling in the perl.apache.org site. "Back in July a new perl.apache.org site was released. We are quite happy with the new site's usability, though unhappy about several sections of the site. If you use mod_perl we need your help to fill in the gaps. Do you know of any new mod_perl based products that aren't listed already. Do you know of mod_perl training companies, ISPs supporting mod_perl, commercial mod_perl support, etc., which is not already listed?"
Software announcements
This week's software announcements
Here are the software announcements, courtesy of Freshmeat.net. They are available in two formats:
- Sorted alphabetically,
- Sorted by license.
Miscellaneous
Indian localization of OpenOffice.org
A team from NCST, Bangalore is working on the localization and internationalization of OpenOffice.org for the Hindi and Tamil Languages.Petition for Aegir CMS license change
A group spearheaded by Henri Bergius is attempting to get the Hong Kong Linux Center to change the Aegir CMS licensing to the GNU GPL.LinuxQuestions.org weekly contest
LinuxQuestions.org will be holding a weekly contest with prizes including boxed distributions and books.UKUUG - Open Source Award
The UK UNIX User Group recently announced details of its Open Source Award for 2003. This is to be an annual prize, open to current students in UK Education, and will be awarded for a significant contribution to the free and open source community.National Technology Alliance to Define Open Source Strategy Within Federal Government
The National Technology Alliance (NTA) has partnered with the Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) as part of an NTA Open Source Program. The NTA Open Source Program is dedicated to the development and implementation of open source technology for use within the U.S. Government.
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Letters to the editor
DMCA and Fair Use
| From: | "Eric Smith" <eric@brouhaha.com> | |
| To: | <letters@lwn.net> | |
| Subject: | DMCA and Fair Use | |
| Date: | Wed, 27 Nov 2002 08:42:46 -0800 (PST) |
On the front page of the November 27, 2002 issue of LWN, you write:
The DMCA, after all, bans "circumvention devices" without care for
the preservation of fair use
Actually I don't think that's true, although the court chose to interpret
it that way in the 2600 case.
In Section 1201 ("Circumvention of copyright protection systems"),
part (c) specifically states:
OTHER RIGHTS, ETC., NOT AFFECTED- (1) Nothing in this section shall
affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright
infringement, including fair use, under this title.
It also provides several other important restrictions:
(2) Nothing in this section shall enlarge or diminish vicarious or
contributory liability for copyright infringement in connection with
any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof.
[...]
(4) Nothing in this section shall enlarge or diminish any rights of
free speech or the press for activities using consumer electronics,
telecommunications, or computing products.
Don't get me wrong, I believe the DMCA is a terrible law. But if the
courts will take 1201(c) into acount (unlike what happened in the 2600
case), at least some of the more egregious excesses will be curbed.
Eric Smith
Think of Our Kin Overseas
| From: | Nathan Myers <ncm-nospam@cantrip.org> | |
| To: | letters@lwn.net | |
| Subject: | Think of Our Kin Overseas | |
| Date: | Wed, 4 Dec 2002 11:20:05 -0500 |
One way to help LWN and Free Software at the same time would be to pick a group of foreign (to the U.S.) software developers and buy LWN subscriptions for them, as Christmas gifts. That nicely sidesteps their credit card payment problems, and gives each of us a way to kick in something for the cause. If any of them finds him- or herself with more than one subscription, I'm sure LWN would be happy to allow them to pass them on to somebody else deserving.
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet