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Linux in the newsRecommended Reading Free software? You can't just give it away (Times) The Times Online has an article by Gervase Markham of the Mozilla Foundation, who recently had an interesting discussion with a British government official. "'I can't believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case?' she asked. 'If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted.'"
What Corporate Projects Should Learn from Open Source (O'ReillyNet) O'ReillyNet looks into project management. "[It] is rare to find a corporate environment where the project team has anything approaching the level of planning, documentation, or review found in successful open source projects. For some reason, as soon as a budget and a deadline are involved, all of the lessons we've learned over the years and applied successfully to open source projects seem to fly out the window."
A survey of free font licenses (NewsForge) Bruce Byfield presents a survey of free font licenses. "Suddenly, it's free font license time. The Bitstream Vera license, the starting point for most free font licenses, is several years old. In late January, SIL International's Non-Roman Script Initiative announced the SIL Open Font license. A new draft of the STIX License is due in March, with fonts scheduled to be released in beta in April and in final form in June. Each of these licenses has been developed in consultation with the free and open source software (FOSS) communities and strives to balance the philosophy of the communities with the concerns of font designers."
Trade Shows and Conferences KDE at FOSDEM 2006 (KDE.News) KDE.News takes a look at the Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM), with a focus on KDE developers. "Last weekend, the Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting took place in Brussels. KDE was present there with a lot of developers, a devroom and several interesting talks. Among the speakers were Jonathan Riddell from the Kubuntu Distribution, Sebastian Kügler from the KDE's Marketing Working Group, Bart Coppens from the Krita development team and Raphael Langerhorst & Sander Koning from the KOffice teams."
PyCon Day 2 coverage Ted Leung covers day 2 of the PyCon Python conference in his blog. "As far as the new features of Python 2.5, Guido said that 2.5 will have the most new stuff in it since 2.2. There's a fair amount of stuff related to expanding the usefulness of generators for coroutines and for managing various kinds of resources."
SCALE4x, Los Angeles 2006: Attack of the Corporate Coders? (FedoraNews) Oisin Feeley covers the SCALE4x conference on FedoraNews. "But there was a dearth of strong voices advocating the importance of Freedom and Openness. A prevalent (although minority) voice was one of expedience and collusion with one of the main causes of the retarding of software development: proprietary hardware and software. This was expressed both by the first keynote speaker who confessed honestly that she didn't know the difference between free beer and free speech, and by Novell's beautiful demonstration of Xgl which is currently limited to proprietary nVidia hardware."
The SCO Problem IBM vs. SCO: Now It's IBM's Turn (eWeek) eWeek notes that IBM has filed a number of discovery motions in the SCO case. "For years, it's all been about what The SCO Group could discover about IBM, Linux and Unix. The shoe's on the other foot now, as the U.S. District Court in Utah has revealed that IBM has launched discovery motions against Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and BayStar Capital. In general, IBM is looking for detailed information about each company's recent dealings with SCO. This includes their financial relationships, and any access or use of Unix source code by their programmers."Also, Groklaw examines a subpoena from IBM to Houlihan Valuation Advisers, a company that performed a secret evaluation of Caldera in 2001. "It's looking very bad for SCO."
SCO's Motion to Depose Denied (Groklaw) Groklaw has coverage of a bad day in court for SCO. "Judge Wells asks 'How can you interpret my order in any other way than how it was phrased?'" In the end, SCO's attempts to depose various third parties were rejected, and one of the many "motions to compel" was denied for now.
Companies Software, as a service, on a client (ZDNet) ZDNet looks at the novel way in which rPath makes money from open-source software. "Want to rent out a Linux application that can run on an ordinary Windows box with VMWare? Keith Boswell has a deal for you. Boswell is vp-marketing with rPath, a company that has turned $6.4 million in venture capital into rBuilder, which does what I just described. Let's let Boswell explain it himself. "rBuilder takes a look at the application, combines the files it needs with our version of Linux and turns it into an application image. It’s an enabling platform." The kernel comes from the company's own rPath Linux."
HP picks Red Hat for AdvancedTCA Blade Server (IT Manager's Journal) IT Manager's Journal covers an announcement from HP. "Hewlett-Packard has announced that it will certify Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4 as the preferred operating system for its new AdvancedTCA Blade Server, which the company debuted last week at the 3GSM World Congress. The new blade server is HP's most recent addition to its Advanced Open Telecom Platform (AOTP) blueprint, a line based on the Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) industry standard created by the PCI Industrial Manufacturer's Group (PICMG). The AOTP is HP's suite of hardware, carrier-grade Linux, and software that supports the ATCA standard."
Legal Patent terrorists ruin an industry (ZDNet) Ed Burnette covers the rejection of a wireless email patent in the Blackberry case in a ZDNet editorial. "Look at all the harm patents have done to our industry. Look at GIF. JPG. ZIP. FAT32. Linux. MPEG-4. Developing a video compression format is like walking through a minefield. Patent holders fight over future hi-def DVD royalties, resulting in years of delay and increased cost to the consumer. And so forth. Holding companies with no products are the worst as they extort money from real developers just doing their job. And now, we have the so called "defensive patents"."
Interviews Breaking down barriers to Linux desktop adoption (SearchOpenSource) SearchOpenSource.com interviews Jono Bacon about Linux desktop adoption. "People reject Linux desktops for illogical reasons, says IT consultant and developer Jono Bacon. For example, they fault Linux OpenOffice desktops for not having all the features in Microsoft Windows Office, even though few actually use all of the Microsoft stuff. So, in essence, they're saying they want desktops cluttered with unnecessary features."
People Behind KDE: Boudewijn Rempt The "People behind KDE" series interviews Krita maintainer Boudewijn Rempt. "If even KDE people like Mirko Boehm can say that we've proved by now that the one thing KDE cannot do is create an office suite, then KOffice has a problem... Because actually, we've shown that we can do it! KOffice 1.5 is going to be so great -- from little changes like the new guides in KPresenter and Kivio to big changes in Krita. Even KWord, which had languished for a long time, has received a lot of work and is now much, much more robust."
John the Ripper 1.7, by Solar Designer (Security Focus) Federico Biancuzzi interviews Solar Designer, creator of the John the Ripper password cracker. "Solar Designer: For the past 9 years I've been spending much of my time on computer and network security. In particular, I've been developing free Unix security tools and other (non-security) software designed to be safe to use, as well as making existing software and technologies safer to use (discovering, dealing with, and sometimes publicizing vulnerabilities whenever that seemed appropriate). This is what the Openwall Project is about."
Resources Running Apache2 With PHP5 And PHP4 At The Same Time (HowtoForge) HowtoForge has a tutorial that shows how to install and configure Apache2 with PHP5 and PHP4 enabled at the same time. "This tutorial shows how to install and configure Apache2 with PHP5 and PHP4 enabled at the same time. Because it is not possible to run both PHP5 and PHP4 as Apache modules, we must run one of them as CGI, the other one as Apache module. In this document I will use PHP5 as Apache module and PHP4 as CGI, and I will describe the setup for the Linux distributions Debian Sarge (3.1) and Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger)."
Making apt Work for You: A Book Excerpt (Linux Journal) Linux Journal presents a book excerpt on the apt utility from the book Linux Patch Management: Keeping Linux Systems Up to Date by Michael Jang. "One of the popular Linux patch management systems is based on the Advanced Package Tool, known as apt. While it was developed for Debian Linux, it is the standard patch management tool for a number of Debian and Red Hat-based distributions, including Knoppix, Xandros, and even the Lineox rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. But if you prefer apt, the associated tools can be installed on most Linux distributions. In this chapter, you'll learn the fundamentals of apt, including some of its more useful commands."
AMIA oswg releases Open Source EHR Review (LinuxMedNews) LinuxMedNews mentions a new Open Source Electronic Health Records review site. "The American Medical Informatics Association Open Source Working Group is presenting Review of Open Source Electronic Health Records (EHR). This review will cover the top Open Source projects that posses Medical Practice Management, Medical Billing Software, and Electronic Health Records. To start with, three systems will be evaluated; MirrorMed/ClearHealth, FreeMED and OpenEMR."
Free Linux handheld app stack to gain easier porting (LinuxDevices) LinuxDevices covers an application environment for Linux-based handheld and mobile devices. "The GPE (GPE palmtop environment) project is planning a "device abstraction" layer aimed at simplying (sic) new device ports, according to maintainer Florian Boor. The GPE project integrates a variety of free software components, including the X window system, GTK+ graphics toolkit, matchbox window manager, and MiniMo browser. It also maintains its own login and configuration programs, as well as widget and type libraries, screenshot and other utilities, and a PIM (personal information manager) application suite."
CLI Magic: Getting into Motion (Linux.com) Linux.com shows how to keep an eye on your home or office with an old webcam, a Linux box and Motion. "Linux recognizes that the camera has been connected, but you still need to install some drivers. Although this is not difficult, this is the part that can put people off. The drivers aren't hard to install, but you need the kernel source in place before you can compile the drivers. This can be a bit daunting if you haven't compiled drivers before. You'll need to check with your own distribution, but I'll show you how to do it with Debian to give you an idea of how easy it is."
Desktop publishing with Writer and Scribus (Linux.com) Linux.com covers desktop publishing with Scribus and OpenOffice Writer. "Although OpenOffice.org Writer offers many tools that allow you to create sophisticated layouts, you might want to use a dedicated desktop publishing application to lay out a brochure or a book. The latest version of the open source DTP application Scribus, 1.3.2, can import Writer's .odt documents, which makes Writer and Scribus a perfect combo for DTP work. Here's a brief overview of Scribus' essential tools and features from Writer users' point of view."
My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com) Adam Williamson, Mandriva employee and amateur systems administrator looks at a few of his favorite tools. "My first tool is htop. Most Linux users, when they first wanted to find out what was eating all their CPU time, were taught about top. Top tells you what processes are running and how many resources they're using ... in just about the most unfriendly way possible. Htop does exactly the same thing as top, but is much less likely to induce migraines."
Using Wikis and Blogs to Ease Administration (Linux Journal) Linux Journal has a tutorial on TWiki and WordPress and shows how wikis and blogs can be useful for system administration and documentation. "I find that one of the most difficult aspects of system administration is keeping documentation accurate and up to date. Documenting how you fixed a pesky problem today will help you remember how to fix it months later when it occurs again. If you ever have worked with others, you realize how critical good documentation is. Even if you are the only system administrator, you still will reap the benefits of good documentation, even more so if another sysadmin is ever brought on board."
Reviews Ajax Foundations, Ajax at Work: Book Reviews (Linux Journal) Linux Journal has a pair of mini reviews for Ajax Foundations and Ajax at Work. "Foundations of Ajax is the smaller of the two books, and it certainly feels as though it's geared to someone just getting started with Ajax. The first third of the book--three chapters and 74 four pages--covers the philosophy and technology behind Ajax. Then, after a chapter on implementing basic Ajax techniques, the book moves on to another big block--three chapters and 92 pages--covering JavaScript development. The final chapter presents a case study in three parts; introducing patterns, describing a framework (written by the authors) and building an Ajax project. The book closes with two appendices and a good index."
Develop your own filesystem with FUSE (developerWorks) IBM developerWorks takes a look at FUSE. "Before the advent of user space filesystems, filesystem development was the job of the kernel developer. Creating filesystems required knowledge of kernel programming and the kernel technologies (like vfs). And debugging required C and C++ expertise. But other developers needed to manipulate a filesystem -- to add personalized features (such as adding history or forward-caching) and enhancements."
My domains, MyDNS (Linux.com) Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier reviews MyDNS on Linux.com. "Why would you want to use MyDNS rather than the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND), which is pretty much the standard name server? First, BIND is dangerously close to a monoculture when it comes to name servers -- if BIND has a major security issue, most of the Internet suddenly has a major security issue. Several years ago, BIND had a string of vulnerabilities that convinced me that it would be a Good Thing™ if more people used alternatives to BIND."
Using SQL-Ledger in a small business (NewsForge) NewsForge looks at SQL-Ledger for small business accounting. "SQL-Ledger is a Web-based accounting system that does business-class double-entry bookkeeping. It can have multiple users on the system at one time, with individual privileges, using individual forms. Data entry can be audit-safe, with deletion allowed or not. As the project's Web site explains, "Accounting data is stored in a SQL Server. For the display any text or GUI browser can be used. The entire system is linked through a chart of accounts. Each item in inventory is linked to income, expense, inventory and tax accounts. When items are sold and purchased the accounts are automatically updated.""
Accelerated X flame wars! -- Maybe not (Free Software Magazine) Free Software Magazine looks at XGL and AIGLX. "When I first heard about these two competing solutions my immediate response was "Oh no! Not ANOTHER flame war...". But once I examined the two of them, I found that they're not as mutually exclusive as it first seemed. To explain why I'll go through a summary of how each works and the differences and similarities between them." (Found on GnomeDesktop)
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