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Linux in the newsRecommended Reading UK holds Microsoft security talks (BBC)Here's a BBC article describing British concerns about the (DRM-inspired) encryption features in the upcoming Windows release. "Windows Vista is due to be rolled out later this year. Cambridge academic Ross Anderson told MPs it would mean more computer files being encrypted. He urged the government to look at establishing 'back door' ways of getting around encryptions. The Home Office later told the BBC News website it is in talks with Microsoft." That's the sort of thing that could inspire interest in free software desktops.
Is ODF an Open Standard? ~ by David A. Wheeler (Groklaw)Groklaw has an article by David A. Wheeler on the openness of the open document format. "But is OpenDocument really an open standard, or not? For example, can anyone implement it? Was its development process completely controlled by a single party (which would not be open), or is there evidence that it's a consensus result by many? It's generally accepted that OpenDocument is an open standard, but recently I've been told that some people are claiming otherwise. So let's figure out what the criteria are for an open standard, and then see if OpenDocument meets those criteria."
Trade Shows and Conferences Report from the Open Document workshop at SCALE by Mathfox (Groklaw)Groklaw has a report from SCALE, the Southern California Linux Expo. "The first day of the Southern California Linux Expo was dedicated to the Open Document Format. All of the speakers at the workshop stressed the importance of an Open Standard to achieve vendor-independence and create conditions where innovation and competition can flourish. Peter Quinn, the former CIO of Massachusetts, opened the workshop with a summary of the events that surrounded the Massachusetts decision to standardize their document formats."
The SCO Problem Intel Calls SCO a Liar in Utah Court Filing (Groklaw)Groklaw covers the latest movement in the SCO case. "Well, *now* SCO's really gone and done it. They got used to IBM's restraint, I guess, and told a story to the Utah court, and now they are being called on it. First, we saw Oracle dispute SCO's story about the subpoenas in its motion to quash in California, and now Intel has filed in Utah a Nonparty Intel's Response to SCO's Motion For Leave to Take Certain Prospective Depositions, and they are hopping mad. Mad enough to tell Judges Kimball and Wells that what SCO said about Intel is "unfair and untrue": Although Intel takes no position on whether SCO's Discovery Extension Motion should be granted, Intel is compelled to respond to SCO's misrepresentations about Intel's conduct."
Companies Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption (SearchOpenSource)SearchOpenSource explores Microsoft's strategies for undermining Linux adoption efforts. "Two themes dominate the stories I hear about the tribulations of using and adopting non-Microsoft business desktops: the difficulty in finding compatible hardware and the stranglehold Microsoft Word has on users. In the last week, IT pros have shared their experiences with these two adoption inhibitors. They're representative of other stories I've heard."
Gentoo Linux founder quits Microsoft (ZDNet)ZDNet reports that Gentoo founder Daniel Robbins has quit his job at Microsoft. "Robbins told ZDNet UK in an e-mail Monday that he decided to leave because he was not able to use all his technical skills in his role."
XenSource gets new CEO, direction (ZDNet)ZDNet reports on some changes at XenSource. "Although Xen's influence has been spreading, making a business out of the software is a different challenge. Although IBM, Hewlett-Packard and other industry allies are helping XenSource to improve the Xen foundation, they become potential competitors when it comes to selling management tools such as XenSource's XenOptimizer."
Linux Adoption Open-Source Users Break Free From Commercial Software (Fox News)Fox News looks at the adoption of Linux by non technical users. "Danny and Linda Lee, who are both in their mid-50s, know as much about computers as they do about gangsta rap. Yet Mr and Mrs Lee's computer at their home in Bedhampton, Hampshire, England, doesn't run Microsoft Windows. Nor is it a newbie-friendly Mac. "I gave my parents a machine running Linux, and they know no different," says their son Wayne." (Thanks to Peter Masiar.)
Linux at Work Outdoor WiFi router runs x86 Debian Linux (LinuxDevices)LinuxDevices has a brief look at the Meshnode router. "The Meshnode router includes two WiFi radios, and supports mesh configurations based on OLSR (optimized link state routing). Because it runs a normal Debian Linux distribution, the device might be a good platform for WiFi hackers and developers interested in running fairly full Linux environments." More information can be found on meshnode.org.
Legal Digital Copyright Issues in Academic Publishing (Groklaw)Groklaw presents an article by Roy Bixler entitled Digital Copyright Issues in Academic Publishing. "As technology affects publishers of all kinds, whether the medium is video, audio or print, it is interesting to see how the publishers adapt to the changing environment. The primary challenge lies with the ease of making digital copies of works and the implications that has for the application of copyright law. Laws like the Digital Millienium Copyright Act in the US, which enforce technical restrictions on making copies, are well-known and are primarily associated with the music and film industries. However, due to the market failure of e-books, technological change has not been as quick to affect the print medium."
The Agenda for the USPTO Meeting on Feb. 16 (Groklaw)Groklaw looks at the agenda for a for Public Meeting of the US Patent & Trademark Office and the Open Source Software Community. " The USPTO has posted the day's agenda for the February 16th meeting regarding the Open Source as Prior Art and Open Patent Review initiatives. It begins at 10 AM and runs until 2 PM. Directions. You can't just show up, though, and be sure of getting in. You must register by email to guarantee a seat. The Open Source as Prior Art segment begins at 10:15, so please don't be late. That is the one I am most interested in hearing about. One of the things listed for that segment is the following goal: "Identify interest and resources for ongoing effort." The Patent Review segment is at 11:15."
Interviews Kalzium Wins Award; Carsten Niehaus Interviewed (KDE.News)KDE.News looks at Kalzium, KDE's interactive periodic table, and points to a People Behind KDE interview with Carsten Niehaus. "I am the main author and maintainer of Kalzium, KDE's periodic table of the elements. I have also represented KDE at several exhibitions, for example last year I was at Systems, LinuxTag, Wikimania and LinuxInfoTag Dresden."
Resources Introduction to CalDAV (NewsForge)NewsForge takes a look at calendaring software. "A number of high-profile open source applications use CalDAV, chief among them the Mozilla Calendar project. Given its association with the Mozilla suite, it is likely the most widely deployed and tested CalDAV client. The Calendar extensions for Firefox and Thunderbird, the standalone Sunbird calendar app, and the in-progress Mozilla Lightning groupware client are cross-platform and all support CalDAV."
Network Monitoring with Ethereal (Linux Journal)Linux Journal looks at Ethereal for network analysis. "Besides basic monitoring, Ethereal offers a lot of analyzing options. In my example at the start of this article, I could have used a filter to pull out the expected traffic. For example, adding tcp.port != 80 to the filter window and clicking the Apply button would have excluded any port 80 (HTTP) traffic from the display." Originally published in Linux Gazette issue 98.
Health, nutrition, and diet apps for Linux (Linux.com)For those who say that Linux doesn't have good application support, Linux.com covers several diet and nutrition applications that run on Linux. "Fitday calculates your basic caloric needs from your weight and activity levels, and displays graphs to show your progress (or lack of progress). There's also a database of fitness activities from which to choose; enter your activity and the length of time you performed it, and Fitday calculates the calories burned. Now if I could only find a Linux program that cooks the food...." ...and cleans the kitchen.
CLI Magic: MultiTail follows files in style (Linux.com)Linux.com uses MultiTail to follow log files. "Troubleshooting often involves having to watch logfiles in real time. That means using tail or a similar utility to see new messages that are added to a logfile by Apache, MySQL, X.org, or whatever program you're trying to deal with at the time. While tail is usually readily available on *nix systems, I prefer to use MultiTail whenever possible. It has some features that you won't find in tail, such as filtering and a color display, and MultiTail allows you to follow the output from a command as easily as following a logfile."
Reviews Artech Offers Akshar Naveen On Linux (EFYTimes)The EFYTimes looks at the release of Akshar Naveen on Linux (ANL), a multilingual office suite (English, Hindi, Bangla, Gujarati and Punjabi) using the open document format. "Akshar Naveen on Linux comes loaded with features, such as independent office suite including text editor, spreadsheet, presentation, HTML editor, drawing and database. It is compliant with ODF and Unicode formats. ANL incorporates an enhanced dictionary, e-mail facility, different keyboard settings, a number converter, an inbuilt PDF converter and database support. It facilitates Indian language web publishing as well."
Test drive: Chandler PIM (NewsForge)NewsForge reviews the Chandler 0.6 release. "Manipulating calendar events in Chandler is exceptionally fluid. Events are represented as colored blocks that can be stretched, compressed, or dragged and dropped with the mouse, each change automatically updating the start and end times. You interact with calendar events as if they were tangible objects, which is a tremendous boon. This is the first calendar application to implement this behavior usably in Linux."
Powerful Remote X Displays with FreeNX (O'Reilly)Tom Adelstein looks at FreeNX on O'Reilly. "Imagine X server technology with compression so tight that GNOME and KDE sessions yield impressive response times when run over modems with SSH encryption. FreeNX is an addition to the remote desktop line with stunning performance. Thin clients use small amounts of bandwidth while handling audio and video, printing, and other heavy applications, and permit the use of session suspension instead of termination. As long as you wish to primarily use Linux, FreeNX provides real virtual KVM switches without hardware."
Coming next to the Mac: Linux and Windows? (PC World)PC World examines the issues of getting Linux to run on the new Macs. "Moshe Bar, a technology entrepreneur, said he has been able to run both FreeBSD Unix and Debian Linux on a new Mactel machine using virtualization software from XenSource, which he co-founded. But Apple's protectiveness of its hardware specs has so far prevented Bar from getting the graphics, sound or Wi-Fi to work."
Miscellaneous Free Software Foundation launches Gnash (NewsForge)NewsForge follows the progress of Gnash, an open-source player for Adobe Shockwave/Flash files. "Gnash currently works as a standalone application, implementing almost all of Flash 7. The project is developing a test suite to ascertain what remains to be done, and Savoye hopes the suite will prove valuable to other free Flash implementations as well. Adapting the standalone player into a Mozilla/Firefox plugin is more challenging, Savoye says. Although detailed resources are available for developers creating browser extensions, Savoye reports that there is little documentation for plugin creators."
OpenSolaris on XenTim Marsland introduces OpenSolaris on Xen in his weblog. "We wanted to start the conversation with working code. So we have a snapshot of our development tree for OpenSolaris on Xen, synced up with Nevada build 31. That code snapshot should be able to boot and run on all the hardware that build 31 can today, plus it can boot as a diskless unprivileged domain on Xen 3.0. While we were in our final approach to this release, we got live migration to work too, which is one of the key features we've been working on." (Thanks to Eric Boutilier)
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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