The LWN.net 2002 Linux Timeline - April

[Posted December 14, 2002 by corbet]

[Apache] Apache 2.0.35 is released, and is the first 2.0 server to presented as ready for production use. The world does not rush out and upgrade, however; 1.3 works well enough for many users. (Announcement here).

However, the rarity of security breaches in the Linux environment is illustrated by the fact that 78% of respondents to the survey have never experienced an unwanted intrusion and 94% have operated virus-free.

-- Evans Data Corp. press release.

An attempt to get the ElcomSoft trial dismissed fails after the U.S. court decides that it does, indeed, have jurisdiction over the case.

Microsoft licenses its "Royalty-Free CIFS Technical Reference" with terms that prohibit distribution of CIFS implementations under an "intellectual property impairing license."

MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition 2.1 is released, being, it is claimed, the first "carrier-grade" distribution available (announcement).

KDE 3.0 is released (announcement).

More accurate kernel build, easier to write and understand Makefiles, 30% faster than kbuild 2.4. Now the nay-sayers will have to find something else to complain about!

-- Keith Owens, kbuild 2.5 v2.0 announcement. It still didn't get in.

The EFF first calls attention to the FCC "broadcast flag" proposal, which would outlaw free digital radio and TV systems in the U.S (announcement).

Credit Suisse First Boston moves its "Agora" trading system to Linux (Red Hat announcement).

Lindows distributes its "preview" version under NDA, without source. The usual grumblings are heard from the community.

The EFF announces its annual Pioneer Awards; the winners are Dan Gillmor, Beth Givens, and the authors of DeCSS (announcement).

[Debian] Bdale Garbee is elected as the new Debian Project Leader (vote results).

Sendmail Inc. raises $14 million in investments (announcement).

Matthew Szulik takes over as chairman of the board at Red Hat announcement).

2.4 kernel maintainer Marcelo Tosatti is deported from the U.S. after he tries to use a tourist visa for a business trip.

Quite frankly, I don't _want_ people using Linux for ideological reasons. I think ideology sucks. This world would be a much better place if people had less ideology, and a whole lot more "I do this because it's FUN and because others might find it useful, not because I got religion".

-- Linus Torvalds

EBIZ emerges from bankruptcy in the hands of Caldera and Canopy (SEC filing). EBIZ was the home of LinuxMall.com, among other businesses.

AbiWord 1.0 is released.

Whitfield Diffie becomes Chief Security Officer at Sun (announcement). [SOT]

BEST Linux renames itself (back to) SOT Linux and releases "SOT Linux 2002".

Conectiva Linux 8.0 is released

PHP 4.2.0 is released (announcement).

While as an open-source purist one can see the disadvantages of [BitKeeper], I also have to note the kind of improvements it brought. Patches are now getting into the Linux kernel in a more predictable way, and also in a faster way (than say a year ago) - and this is clearly due to BK giving Linus more flexibility

-- Ingo Molnar (December)

Complaints about use of BitKeeper for kernel development continue and a patch is posted which removes BitKeeper documentation from the kernel source. Nothing actually changes, though.

Lineo is foreclosed upon, and is reincarnated as "Lineo 2" (article). [LPI]

SuSE Linux 8.0 is released.

The Linux Professional Institute delivers its 10,000th certification test (announcement).

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