LWN.net Weekly Edition for December 19, 2002
The Creative Commons launches
Lawrence Lessig (and others) first start talking about the Creative Commons Project some months ago. It took until December 16, however, for the formal launch![[Creative Commons]](https://static.lwn.net/images/ns/ccommons.gif){kind=small}
of the project. Now that Create Commons is live, it's time for a good look
at what they are up to.
The Creative Commons is a reaction to the steady increase in the power of copyright holders over their creations. By allowing creators to lock up their work indefinitely, the expansion of copyright protection is impoverishing the intellectual "commons" -- the pool of ideas and works in the public domain from which all can draw. By denying the growth of the commons, content producers are denying the basic fact that the work they would lock up also has its roots in that commons. Disney may have done children a great service by cleaning up the gory and depressing parts of "The Little Mermaid," but the foundation of the company's work lies deep within the commons where the original Mermaid lives.
The copyright battle is being fought on many fronts, including in legislatures and courts. The Creative Commons is taking a different approach, however: it is attempting to create an explicit commons to which creators of copyrightable works can donate their output. This effort has, for now, two components.
The first is the Licensing Project. This project aims to move works into the commons immediately by providing a whole set of licenses for releasing works with varying degrees of freedom. Content producers can select a license by answering three basic questions:
- Should people redistributing the work be required to credit the
original author?
- Can others make commercial use of the work?
- Can others distribute (and perform, display, etc.) derived products of work, or may it be used only in unaltered form? In the case where changes are allowed, must the changes be distributed under the same license?
The answers to those questions map onto a list of eleven licenses that reflect the author's wishes. (The twelfth case - the one with no restrictions - is apparently deemed as being equivalent to releasing the content into the public domain). The more restrictive licenses would not be considered truly "free," since they restrict commercial use and the ability to make changes. On the other hand, the "Attribution" license is fairly BSD-like, and "ShareAlike" takes its cue from the GPL.
Not everybody wants to make their work freely distributable from the beginning, however. For those who want to enjoy the benefits of copyright protection for a while, but who would still like to see their work pass into the commons in a timely manner, there is the Founders' Copyright project. Essentially, the Founders' Copyright attempts to take copyright law back to 1790 by way of a contract which will release a given work into the public domain after 14 years. O'Reilly & Associates, which has funded the Creative Commons, has pledge to put some (currently unspecified) works into the public domain under these terms.
The path ahead of the Creative Commons project looks difficult; how many content producers will really be interested in giving away their current legal rights in order to nourish an amorphous "commons"? Twenty years ago, however, one could have reasonably asked why any sane programmer would donate code to a seemingly infeasible project to create a free operating system? As people become more aware of the costs of freezing the growth of the true intellectual commons, there may well be room for the development of a privatized version. We need that commons, one way or another.
As an aside, those who are interested in U.S. copyright law and its expansion over the years may want to have a look at The Progress of Science and the Useful Arts, a lengthy report from the Free Expression Policy Project.
The report looks at copyright from the beginning through to current issues (copyright extension, DMCA, etc.). It's a long but worthwhile read.
ElcomSoft gets off
The ElcomSoft trial is over, and the verdict is in: not guilty. In the end, the jury decided that ElcomSoft did not willfully violate the law, and should not be punished. In other words, the court agrees with much of the community that the U.S., last year, violated the rights of an innocent man when it arrested and detained Dmitry Sklyarov.The outcome of this case is good news for ElcomSoft, but it has little to offer others who face possible DMCA prosecutions. As a low-level jury trial, the ElcomSoft case would have had little precedent value in any case; the judge in this case also went out of his way to ensure that the validity of the DMCA itself was not called into question. The issue of whether or not ElcomSoft's software was illegal was not much discussed; what decided the case was the jury's assessment of whether ElcomSoft knowingly and intentionally violated U.S. law.
So ElcomSoft was acquitted, which is good news for the company. But the DMCA itself remains unchallenged, and companies that might consider distributing a "circumvention device" have seen that the DMCA can lead to expensive criminal trials and arrests, even if they win in the end. The DMCA's chilling effect will thus be undiminished, and, for those who remain unchilled, there will certainly be other criminal DMCA trials in the future.
Metrowerks acquires Lineo
Remember Lineo? This company initially was spun out of Caldera as Caldera Thin Systems, but switched over to Lineo shortly thereafter. Lineo received vast amounts of venture capital, went on an acquisition spree (FirePlug, INUP, Moreton Bay, USE, RT-Control, Zentropix, ...), and filed for a $60 million IPO - in May, 2000. Needless to say, things didn't work out that way.Denied its IPO cash windfall, Lineo went into decline. The hardware businesses it had picked up were unacquired. Then, last April, the company was "recapitalized" - from the details that have been made available it seems that the company was foreclosed upon and reincarnated (as "Embedix, Inc.") in the hands of the Canopy Group - the company's venture capital firm. Now Lineo/Embedix has been sold to Metrowerks, which hopes to make a compelling product out of the combination of Embedix and CodeWarrior. Of the 200+ people employed by Lineo when it filed for its IPO, about 30 remain to move to Metrowerks.
Lineo is a relic of the Linux Bubble Days; perhaps the only surprising thing is that it lasted this long. The company certainly had worthwhile products in its Embedix system, development tools, and embedded web browser. But they got caught up in the hype of those days and went off buying big trade show booths, acquiring companies of marginal use, and generally trying to tread the high-flying IPO-bound path. When the IPO failed to happen, there really just wasn't a whole lot left.
Lineo pursued a path that appeared to be rational and lucrative at the time; it's hard to put (too much) blame on the company's management. It has taken years, however, to divest the pieces of a company built around the dotcom business model. What's left, finally, is the core of a real Linux business, which, as part of a bigger structure, will be doing its part for Linux World Domination in a more realistic way. The end of the dotcom bubble has brought hard times to many Linux companies and developers, but it has also brought a new focus on creating products and services that customers actually want to buy. That change will, in the long run, do far more good for Linux and free software than the Bubble Days ever did.
News from LWN
We'll start with the most fun news: the LWN.net 2002 Linux Timeline is now available. For the fifth straight year, we have gone through and pulled out the most interesting news from the last twelve months. The result is a concise, and, we hope, fun summary of what's been going on.And...there's more! As some of you may know, LWN.net will turn five years old next month. In a bit of early celebration, we have put together the the LWN.net Five-Year Timeline, giving a condensed view of what has happened while LWN has been watching.
There are now just over 2400 individual LWN.net subscribers. The number continues its slow, steady growth despite an increase in the number of expiring subscriptions. With luck, that trend will continue, but we remain distant from our short-term goal of 4000 subscribers. (Meanwhile, the kind soul who subscribed "cypherpunks" needs to renew, as it has expired...).
This is the last LWN Weekly Edition for 2002; there will be no Weekly Edition during the Christmas week. We will return to our regular schedule on January 2, 2003 (the front page will continue to be updated during this time). Hopefully our readers will forgive us if we're still a little hung over at the time.
This has been a challenging year, to say the least. Through all of our ups and downs, we have continued producing LWN because we have such a great set of readers. Best wishes to all of you for great holidays and a happy new year from the folks at LWN.
Security
Brief items
Guest article: Germany sees security in free software
[This article was contributed by LWN reader Burt Janz]
Earlier this month, Schwäbisch Hall began an IBM-hosted initiative to convert hundreds of its city-run computers to Linux. With Sony announcing that it would be dropping Microsoft Office in favor of StarOffice on most consumer systems sold in Europe, the availability of OEM-hosted Open Source desktop applications may be prompting the next step in the adoption of Linux as an alternative to Microsoft - especially in government.Now, another initiative to convert Germany's government computer operations to Linux has been announced. Joachim Jacobs, the Federal Commissioner for Data Security, apparently feels that Open Source provides a more secure set of network management tools than those available under Windows, and will begin the conversion by moving mail, file services, DHCP and DNS, and other network services to Linux. Additionally, up to 75 desktop systems will also be converted to Linux.
In his announcement, Mr. Jacobs addressed one of the primary issues cited by anti-Linux advocates: training. Herr Jacobs knows that there will be a certain amount of retraining necessary in moving to Linux, but also knows that Linux is sufficiently close to UNIX in most of his required operations so that these retraining costs should be minimal.
However, Mr. Jacobs also attacks the retraining issue in another realm: the desktop. This is the one area where Linux opponents are most vocal, and the place where Microsoft is placing its largest bets. Mr. Jacob's response to the issue is simple: since he has to retrain people every five years or so, and since he has to have a budget to do it, why not retrain them to use Open Source instead of Windows? This is a compelling argument, and could be used to make the case for "test conversions" to Linux in the corporate world.
(See also: this Heise News article (in German)).
December CRYPTO-GRAM Newsletter
Bruce Schneier's CRYPTO-GRAM Newsletter for December is out; it looks at counterattacks, the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Internet's next big thing: "I think the next big Internet security trend is going to be crime. Not the spray-painting cow-tipping annoyance-causing crime we've been seeing over the past few years. Not the viruses and Trojans and DDoS attacks for fun and bragging rights. Not even the epidemics that sweep the Internet in hours and cause millions of dollars of damage. Real crime."
CERT advisory on SSH vulnerabilities
CERT has issued an advisory describing a number of SSH vulnerabilities which can lead to remote root exploits. OpenSSH is not affected by these problems; neither is lsh.
New vulnerabilities
exim: format string vulnerability
| Package(s): | exim | CVE #(s): | |||||
| Created: | December 17, 2002 | Updated: | December 17, 2002 | ||||
| Description: | Versions of exim prior to 4.10 have a format string vulnerability which may be used, in certain limited circumstances, for a local root exploit; see this advisory for details. | ||||||
| Alerts: |
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fetchmail: buffer overflow
| Package(s): | fetchmail | CVE #(s): | CAN-2002-1365 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Created: | December 17, 2002 | Updated: | October 20, 2003 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description: | Versions of fetchmail prior to 6.2.0 have (yet another) buffer overflow vulnerability which can be exploited remotely via a suitably crafted message. See this advisory for details. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alerts: |
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micq: Denial of service
| Package(s): | micq | CVE #(s): | |||||||||
| Created: | December 13, 2002 | Updated: | April 24, 2003 | ||||||||
| Description: | Rüdiger Kuhlmann, upstream developer of mICQ, a text based ICQ client, discovered a problem in mICQ. Receiving certain ICQ message types that do not contain the required 0xFE seperator causes all versions to crash. | ||||||||||
| Alerts: |
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MySQL: multiple vulnerabilities
| Package(s): | mysql | CVE #(s): | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Created: | December 13, 2002 | Updated: | April 10, 2003 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description: | The MySQL database server has several buffer overflow and integer bounds checking vulnerabilities which can lead to denial of service attacks, and, possibily, remote code execution. See this e-matters advisory for details. Version 3.23.54 fixes the problems. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alerts: |
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net-snmp: denial of service vulnerability
| Package(s): | net-snmp | CVE #(s): | CAN-2002-1170 | ||||||||
| Created: | December 17, 2002 | Updated: | November 7, 2003 | ||||||||
| Description: | The SNMP daemon included in the Net-SNMP package versions 5.0.1 through 5.0.4 can be caused to crash if it is sent a specially crafted packet. | ||||||||||
| Alerts: |
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Resources
Linux Security Week
The December 16 Linux Security Week Newsletter from LinuxSecurity.com is available.Paper: Session Fixation
ACROS Security has published a white paper on a new class of vulnerability that they call "session fixation." Essentially, some web applications allow a form of session "pre-hijacking," where an attacker can create a known session and cause the victim to log in to it.
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
Kernel development
Brief items
Kernel release status
The current development kernel is 2.5.52, which was released by Linus on December 15. It consists mostly of fixes and updates, of course, but there's also a bunch of changes from Andrew Morton's "-mm" tree (including the long-term fix for the ext3 data=journal corruption bug), XFS and JFS updates, more module fixes, and a kconfig update. See the long-format changelog for the gory details.The current stable kernel is 2.4.20; Marcelo released the second 2.4.21 prepatch on December 18. This large patch is mostly made up of ia-64 updates, but it also includes some NFS fixes, a couple of ext3 fixes, a bunch of stuff from the "-ac" tree, a new megaraid driver, and various other fixes and updates.
For those using very stable kernels: Alan Cox has announced the first 2.2.24 release candidate. It contains a handful of bug fixes, including one for a new denial of service vulnerability caused when somebody runs mmap() on a /proc/pid/mem file.
Kernel development news
How to speed up system calls
It all started with an observation that system calls on a modern Pentium 4 processor are far slower than on older CPUs. It seems that, for whatever reason, software interrupts generated with the int instruction are very slow with the P4 processor. Since x86 Linux invokes system calls with "int $0x80", that slowness makes itself felt - especially with system calls (like getpid()) that would, otherwise, be very fast.There is an obvious solution to this problem: use the sysenter instruction instead. sysenter is quite a bit faster on modern Pentium processors. There are just a couple of problems: not all x86 processors support sysenter, and sysenter steps on registers in ways that can be hard to work around.
The lack of across-the-board support for sysenter is a problem. The kernel maintains a set of flags telling it what capabilities a given processor has; other processor-specific options are set at configuration time. System calls, however, are not invoked from the kernel - that is the C library's job. The last thing glibc needs is to be trying to figure out, at run time, the right way to invoke system calls.
Linus's solution to this problem is a patch which brings back a variant of an old idea. As of 2.5.53, the kernel will map a global, read-only page at the top of every process's address space. That page contains the optimal code for executing a system call on the current processor. Whenever glibc needs to call into the system, it simply sets up the registers and, rather than doing the old int $0x80, it jumps into the new page. The C library still needs to do a runtime test (since older kernels will lack this "vsyscall" page), but it need not concern itself with the detailed capabilities of different processors.
Keeping the registers straight turned out to be a trickier problem. The
way sysenter steps on registers makes it hard to invoke system
calls with more than five parameters. Various schemes were looked at,
including creating a new "extra argument block" or simply requiring that
six-argument system calls be invoked the old way. Linus finally came up
with a tricky solution that makes it all work, however; those of you who
like digging through x86 assembly may want to peek at his "absolutely wonderfully disgusting solution" to
the problem. "I'm a disgusting pig, and proud of it to boot.
"
The result of all this: the gettimeofday() system call runs in just over half the time on a P4 processor. The speedup on Pentium 3's is less - a factor of 1.2 - but is still worthwhile.
Now that the vsyscall page is in place, will it be used for other things, such as implementing gettimeofday() entirely in user space? The answer, for now, appears to be "no". Getting a user-space gettimeofday() right is, seemingly, harder than it looks; there are synchronization issues, especially on some SMP systems where the clocks may not be synchronized by the hardware. So a user-space gettimeofday() appears to not be in the works, for now at least.
Whatever happened to the feature freeze?
While most people seem to think that the new system call mechanism makes sense, the question has come up: what kind of feature freeze are we in if we're adding things like a whole new way of doing system calls? Alan Cox, perhaps, had the most direct comment:
Given the high hopes that have been placed on this feature freeze actually working, this sort of remark is something to be concerned about.
Linus has acknowledged the concern, and started a discussion on how patches should be reviewed. Looking ahead:
There seems to be fairly widespread agreement, however, that this approach could be overly bureaucratic for now. Each development kernel release still contains hundreds of patches (636 for 2.5.51; in 2.5.52 there were "only" 153); people are understandably nervous about having that many patches go through a committee. Or even worse, being on the committee. Of course, Larry McVoy has an elaborate approach involving BitKeeper all planned out, but, given that a couple of people on the short list don't use BitKeeper, things will probably not go that way.
Andrew Morton has suggested simply adopting a set of guidelines for what can be accepted. The suggested list:
- Bug fixes
- Speedups
- In-progress features (or those Linus had already said would be merged)
- New drivers or filesystems
Anything outside of that list would not be included at this point. As the freeze gets harder, items are dropped off the list, until only bug fixes are left.
Given everybody's time constraints, the relatively informal approach is the most likely one to be adopted at this point. The important thing, in the end, is that everybody agrees that the feature freeze is important and is keeping an eye out for violations. As long as that continues, things will hopefully not get too far out of control.
Supporting hardware crypto in the kernel
Now that the kernel has its own cryptographic API, James Morris is thinking about how to support cryptographic hardware. A number of cards which perform cryptographic functions exist, and it would be nice to be able to make full use of these cards with a Linux system. Quite a few issues need to be considered on the way there, however, including:
- How should multiple cards be supported? This gets tricky, especially
for session-oriented crypto operations.
- How should card failures (and resource exhaustion) be handled? The
current crypto API isn't designed around this sort of failure.
- Some network cards can do their own IPsec processing; taking advantage
of that capability may require a higher-level interface.
- User space may want to be able to use cryptographic devices as well,
meaning that some sort of interface needs to be designed.
- Many devices lack useful programming documentation, which will make creating a Linux driver harder (or impossible).
And so on. Now is the time to get these decisions right; anybody who is interested in the interface to cryptographic hardware should probably have a look at James's posting and join the discussion.
Elks Distribution Edition 0.0.5 released
Don't throw away that old 80286 system yet - with the just-announced release of EDE (Elks Distribution Edition) 0.0.5, that system, too, can run Linux. EDE comes with a bleeding-edge 0.1.1 kernel and a new elkscmd package; click below for the details. (Thanks to Alan Cox).
Patches and updates
Kernel trees
Architecture-specific
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Documentation
Filesystems and block I/O
Janitorial
Memory management
Benchmarks and bugs
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
Distributions
News and Editorials
Happy Holidays
Another year has passed, and Linux distributions have gotten more numerous than ever before. For many years analysts have predicted a consolidation of distributions, but instead we continue to see growth. Even UnitedLinux is more of a collaboration than a consolidation. Our first issue in January, 2003 will take a long look at the distribution news of 2002, a year of many changes.We at LWN.net appreciate the opportunity to bring you news on the diversity of Linux distributions. We would like to thank all of you that contributed to LWN's survival and we look forward to bringing you more news in the coming year.
Happy holidays to everyone.
Distribution News
Debian Weekly News - December 17th, 2002
Here's the latest issue of the Debian Weekly News. This week David Graham, leader of the Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) talks about how OFTC manages itself; David Welton asks whether the Debian project has reached a state where it is no longer manageable; and lots more.Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r1 released
The first update to Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 has been released. It adds a (large) set of security updates and a few other bug fixes to the base Woody distribution.Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter - Issue #71
The Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for December 12, 2002 is out. This week the newsletter covers MandrakeSoft's "OS Refugee Offer"; the PPC Cooker; financial results for 2001/2002; and much more.Slackware Linux
Slackware users may have noticed that the Slackware website has been down. This note, dated December 18, 2002, explains why. "Due to a series of DDoS attacks which began on Dec 11 and continued until yesterday afternoon, it has been difficult or impossible to reach our website for nearly a week. We're glad that it seems to have stopped, but have no idea who is behind the attacks, why they're doing it, or if they will start again. We apologize for the downtime. An investigation into the source of the attacks is ongoing, and we ask that anyone with any information that may help contact the Slackware Security team at security@slackware.com. Thanks for your patience."
Now that the site is back up you can check out all the latest changes to slackware-current on the change log.
Terra Soft Launches YDL.net Online Community for Yellow Dog Linux Users
Terra Soft Solutions has announced "YDL.net" an online community for Yellow Dog Linux users.
New Distributions
Embedded Freedom Linux
Embedded Freedom Linux is a bootable Linux CD, to help new users see the power of Linux. It is built with BBLCD, WhiteDwarf, and Slackware packages. It works on PCs and laptops, supports wireless PCMCIA cards and almost any network, video, and sound card, and features software from many open source projects such as fvwm95 ( familiar windows 95 look and feel) gftp, GTK-Gnutella, centerICQ, Dillo, sylpheed, airsnort, SSH, and more. Freedom joins our list with version 1.Skolelinux
Skolelinux is a Norwegian distribution, where it is used as a server with thin clients. Since its used in the educational system, it joins the Educational section of our list. Thanks to Morten Sickel
Minor distribution updates
CRUX
CRUX has released v1.0 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: Basic support for JFS and PCMCIA were added. GNU locate was replaced by slocate. About 50 other packages were updated, such as Linux 2.4.20, Glibc 2.3.1, and GCC 3.2.1."
KNOPPIX
KNOPPIX has released v3.1-12-12-2002 with major bugfixes. Changes in 3.1-10-12-2002 include an updated Mozilla, cloop support using the kernel's zlib_deflate function, and an updated mount-aes. Also clara was replaced with gocr, and knx-hdinstall 0.35 was included to give filesystem choices and initrd support.Lycoris ProductivityPak ships
Lycoris has announced a new office suite featuring simple installation coupled with Word, Excel and PowerPoint compatibility for Desktop/LX users.MontaVista Linux
Xilinx, Inc.and MontaVista Software announced that MontaVista Linux Professional Edition has been certified for the new Xilinx Virtex-II Pro ML300 development platform.Altera Corporation and MontaVista Software announced that the MontaVista Linux Professional Edition now supports Altera's Excalibur EPXA1 Development Kit.
NSA Security-enhanced Linux
NSA SELinux has updated its web site including the mail list archive. The site includes a new release of the LSM-based SELinux prototype. The base kernel versions have been updated to 2.4.20 and 2.5.51. Initial SID and context for SCMP packets has been added. Additional policy enhancement and patch contributions have been merged. The logrotate patch has been updated to 3.6.5-2. The private file oversight in LSM, inode_doinit bug in SELinux, and selopt compile problems have all been fixed. Also version 2002121210 has been released with minor feature enhancements.RxLinux
RxLinux has released 1.2.2 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: Three new packages have been added: Jboss, Tomcat, and Jdk. Jdk as been bundled as a compressed ISO file (ziso), and can be mounted directly from the CDROM or installed in a RAMdisk. Rxlinux can now be customized as a diskless Web application server. A few minor bugs have been fixed. More code cleanup was done."
xbox-linux
xbox-linux has released v17-12-2002 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: A new XBE file format description was added. Ed's ISO 0.0.9 is available, as is the first beta of the 'Cromwell' BIOS."
NeTraverse and Xandros Form Strategic Partnership
NeTraverse Inc. and Xandros announced a strategic partnership which will combine Win4Lin with the Xandros Desktop.
Distribution reviews
Review of Xandros Desktop 1.0 (DistroWatch)
DistroWatch puts Xandros Desktop through its paces. "The review will be split into four parts. First, I'll take a brief look at installation. Next, I'll poke around the desktop, test the available applications and take a more detailed look at Xandros-specific tools and utilities. The next section will be devoted to pleasures and annonyances of general usage. Finally, and this is something new, a general purpose FAQ of those questions that have been asked on public forums and not answered elsewhere. The reason for this section is that, unlike Corel Linux, Xandros Desktop is not available for free download so consumers are naturally hesitant to spend money on a product that has yet to prove itself."
SuSE, Red Hat in Linux shootout (ZDNet)
ZDNet compares SuSE 8.1 Profesional with Red Hat Linux 8.0 Professional. "Analysis: Windows users thinking of switching to Linux--either as an alternative or as an adjunct in a dual-boot system--should turn to SuSE due to its ease of use. But more seasoned users will find the stability and stronger font control of Red Hat more to their taste."
Sharing Broadband Internet Access with SmoothWall 0.9.9 (Linux Orbit)
Linux Orbit plays around with SmoothWall 0.9.9 (the latest free release). "So, you want to share your Internet connection with more than one computer in your house, and you want it to be secure. You're in the right place. SmoothWall 0.9.9 (the latest free release) is a small Linux operating system that allows you to do that, and much more."
Libranet 2.7 - Debian Made Easy (DistroWatch)
DistroWatch reviews Libranet GNU/Linux 2.7, a commercial Linux distribution based on Debian. "A key feature of Libranet is its proprietary system administration tools, the text-based Adminmenu or the graphics-based Xadminmenu. Sysadmin duties you can accomplish with this very easy-to-use utility include hardware reconfiguration, adding and removing Libranet's DEB packages, configuring X-Window, recompiling the kernel, setting the time and date, and pretty much anything else you could have done during the installation procedure itself. One thing still missing from Adminmenu is group administration - for this you must use old-fashioned command-line tools such as "addgroup" and "delgroup". Almost certainly, group administration will be added to the next rendition of Adminmenu, but for now it's a noticeable omission."
Santa Tux's Corner: The Gift of Linux, Part 2 (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal puts Knoppix on the gift list. "Loading Knoppix is as easy as cookies and milk. Make sure your PC is set to boot from the CD, pop the disc into the drive and reboot. Knoppix boots up to a nice, graphical screen with a simple boot: prompt. Quite honestly, you can simply press Enter here and let Knoppix do the rest; this is an amazingly simple install. Consequently, it makes for a spectacular Linux ambassador. But I digress."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
Development
Aegir CMS 1.0 beta3 released
Version 1.0 beta3 of Aegir CMS has been announced.
The
Aegir CMS home page
describes the system as follows:
"Aegir CMS is a versatile and user-friendly Web Content Management System. It provides site managers with MS Word compatible tools for maintaining site information, approval system for controlling the publication process, and a separate layout management system. Aegir CMS is available for free under Open Source licensing.
"
Aegir is considered a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl) system, O'Reilly's ONLamp site is a good place to read up on LAMP. Aegir CMS is based on the Midgard open source application server platform.
The primary features of Aegis CMS are listed as:
- An MS Word compatible content editor.
- A dual-mode staging/live setup for testing site changes.
- Multi-company hosting support.
- A flexible templating and layout system.
- A full Midgard based content management framework.
New features in version 1.0 beta3 include:
- The NemeinLocalization framework for language translations.
- An image gallery that provides a centralized image repository.
- The ability to symlink articles.
- A themeable user interface for customizing the site appearance.
- The AegerAddOns system, which allows custom applications to be plugged in.
System Applications
Audio Projects
Ogg Traffic
The December 15, 2002 edition of Ogg Traffic is out with news on the Ogg Vorbis audio compression software. Discussion topics include Corrupted Ogg Vorbis Files, Music in Ogg Vorbis format, Ogg Standard Drafts submitted to IETF, and more.
CORBA
MICO Snapshot available
A new snapshot of MICO has been announced. "we are pleased to announce the second public snapshot of our "integrated" MICO version. It is based on the current MICO CVS, and contains multi threading, Portable Interceptors, CSIv2 Level 0 and CORBASec Level 2."
Database Software
Cooking with MySQL (O'Reilly)
O'Reilly has published some excerpts from Palu DuBois' book, MySQL Recipes. "Paul DuBois has selected sample recipes from the hundreds you'll find in his book, MySQL Cookbook. In this second in a three-part series showcasing these recipes, learn how to manage simultaneous AUTO_INCREMENT values, as well as how to use AUTO_INCREMENT values and related tables."
Education
Linux in Education Report
Issue #85 of the Linux in Education Report is out. Topics include Schoolnet Namibia's Shoolnet wireless system, fostering free software in education in the Washington DC area, The GLUE CD collection of educational software and documentation, the Armenian SpiTux Project, and a long list of new and updated educational software.
Electronics
Icarus Verilog 0.7 released
Version 0.7 of the Icarus Verilog electronic simulation language compiler has been announced. "Besides the usual tons of bug fixes and performance improvements, this stable release introduces good quality synthesis, and some initial code generators."
Networking Tools
POE 0.24 Released (use Perl)
Use Perl mentions the release of POE 0.24, a "networking and multitasking framework for Perl". This version has had a major restructuring and includes bug fixes and new features.
Printing
OMNI version 0.7.2 is released
Version 0.7.2 of the OMNI printer driver is available. Changes include new Ghostscript patches, Autotools build fixes, a security fix, an HP LaserJet PCL media insertion fix, a Foomatic printer XML fix, a linking fix, updated Epson Blitter code, better backwards compatibility with GhostScript, and more.
Web Site Development
Dynamic Creation of Reports with Apache Formatting Objects (O'Reilly)
Kevin Hartig talks about Apache Formatting Objects on O'Reilly. "This article describes the architecture, design, and implementation of a reporting tool framework that uses XML standards and tools. The implementation demonstrates how reports are dynamically created using XML, XSL, XSLT, Java, and the Apache XML Formatting Objects Processor (FOP)."
Programming with Mason
Dave Rolsky writes about Mason on O'Reilly's Perl.com. "Mason is a powerful framework for generating dynamic text, and is especially useful when creating complex, featureful Web sites. For those (hopefully few) folks who haven't yet heard of Mason, it is a Perl-based templating framework comparable to frameworks such as Apache::ASP, Embperl, and Template Toolkit. Like the first two, and unlike the latter, Mason operates by embedding Perl in text."
mnoGoSearch-php-extension-1.68 available
mnoGoSearch-php-extension-1.68, a PHP extension to the mnoGoSearch web site search engine is available.Zope Members News
The most recent headlines on the Zope Members News include: Strip-o-Gram 1.3 Released!, CMF OpenOffice Document 0.1 released, NeoPortal Content Pak 0.9a has been released, NeoBoard 1.1b has been released, NeoPortal Library 0.9a has been released, DocFinderEverywhere 0.4.1 Released, A Boy and His Catalog: Taming ZCatalog for 2.6.1 and Beyond, ASP404 1.0-beta1 Zope+IIS Connector, Zope 2.6.1 Beta 1 Released, and more.Zope Newbies
The latest Zope Newbies topics include: Latest Zope Victim, Zope 2.6.1 beta 1, Tim Perdue Interview, and Itamar on Zope3.
Miscellaneous
Ganymede 1.0.11 released
Version 1.0.11 of Ganymede, the GPL'ed metadirectory system, is available. "This is a maintenance release of the Ganymede directory management software. The biggest bug fix pertains to a problem in permissions handling where an owner group contains other owner groups. In addition, the runServer script for Java 1.2 and later has been modified so that the Ganymede server only runs full-heap garbage collection once an hour, rather than the once a minute default of the RMI system. This will significantly reduce the CPU loading on the Ganymede server."
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
GNUsound 0.4.1 released
Version 0.4.1 of GNUsound, a multi-track sound editor for Linux/x86, has been released. New fewatures include more flexible waveform scaling, "Center on Selection Start|End", LADSPA support updates, bug fixes, and more.Meterbridge 0.9.0 available
Version 0.9.0 of Meterbridge, a JACK audio plugin which simulates a number of volume meters, has been released. This version adds better readability to the basic VU meter, AES level conformance, reduced CPU usage, bug fixes, and more. A new scope display has also been added recently.Rosegarden-4 0.8.5 released
Version 0.8.5 of Rosegarden-4, a MIDI and audio sequencer and score editor, has been released with lots of new features.
Desktop Environments
KDE-CVS-Digest for December 13, 2002
KDE.News has an announcement for a new KDE CVS Digest. Check it out to see what KDE developments are in progress.GNOME Summary for 2002-11-31 - 2002-12-14
The latest GNOME summary is available. Topics this week include: the resurrection for the GNOME Network; GTK2 VIM; GNOME 2 browsers; and much more.FootNotes
Headlines on the GNOME desktop FootNotes site include: FOSDEM Interviews, Anjuta 1.0.1 released!, Evolution Offers Outlook Experience, GIMP 1.2.4-pre2 available for testing, GNOME Summary for November 31st to December 14th, GNOME Installation Guide 12/2002 has been launched, Evolution 1.2.1 Is out, Gnumeric 1.0.11 released, Bluefish 0.8 Released, GNOME 2 Desktop System Administrator's Guide published, Rhythmbox 0.4.1 is out, and more.
Graphics
Gimp News
The latest Gimp News items include: GIMP 1.2.4-pre2 available for testing, and GIMP Development Version hits the Big 1-0.
GUI Packages
New FLTK Software
New items for FLTK, the Fast, Light ToolKit includes: flPhoto 0.9, Mplot++ 0.84, and fltdj - The Daily Journal 0.6.7.
Interoperability
Samba 2.2.7a released
Samba version 2.2.7a has been released. "This is the latest stable release of Samba. This is the version that all production Samba servers should be running for all current bug-fixes. The primary reason for this release is to correct problems with large file (>2Gb) support."
Kernel Cousin Wine
Issue #148 of Kernel Cousin Wine is out. Topics include: News: TransGaming Update, CrossOver Office Server 1.3.1, Shared Memory Wineserver, Special (Accented) Characters / Dead Keys, Why Have a wpp?, Garbage Collection With Wine, Registry Editors / Configuration Programs, and MS Installer or Lack Thereof.
Office Applications
AbiWord Weekly News
Issue #120 of the AbiWord Weekly News is out with the latest AbiWord word processor development news.Kernel Cousin GNUe
Issue #59 of Kernel Cousin GNUe is out with the Gnu Enterprise development news for the week. Included are articles on the GNUe Architecture Diagram, GNUe in Argentina, GNUe and Bayonne at eGovernment Conference?, the Security framework for GNUe, the Preferred database back-end for GNUe, Debian packages for 0.4.2 release, and much more.KOffice 1.2.1: Stability Release Available
The KDE Project announced the release of KOffice 1.2.1. KOffice 1.2.1 is a stability and enhancement release, with the principal improvements over KOffice 1.2, released last September, occurring in the spreadsheet program (KSpread).LyX 1.2.2 is released
Version 1.2.2 of LyX, the GUI extension of the TeX documentation system, is out. This is a maintenance release with a number of bug fixes.
Web Browsers
Alternative Web Browsers (NewsFactor)
The NewsFactor Network looks at Mozilla in an article entitled Revenge of the Lizard, and explores Opera and Konqueror in Divide and Konquer. These articles were found on KDE.org.mozillaZine
The latest mozillaZine topics include: AutoScroll Extension for Phoenix and Mozilla, Contest: Design a Better Sound for Type Ahead Find, No Surprise: MozillaZine Readers Don't Like Spam, Mozilla's Global Usage Share Now at 1.1 Percent, Classic Mac OS Builds of Mozilla Transitioning to Port Status, Mozilla Browser of Choice for Playboy Lifestyle, Mozilla 1.3 Alpha Released, and CNET News.com Notices Netscape 7.01.
Languages and Tools
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The Caml Weekly News for December 10-17, 2002 is out. Topics include: opengl bindings without tcl/tk, Resource acquisition is initialization, mod_ocaml, maintainers for www.ocaml.org?, ocaml embedded scripting language, and a BDBFS version 0.3 release announcement.The Caml Hump
This week, the new software on The Caml Hump includes the amalthea Io interpreter, the BDBFS user-level fileserver, mod_ocaml, the Htree tree browsing library, and Luo, which performs average-case complexity analysis of algorithms.
Eiffel
SmartEiffel 1.0 released
Version 1.0 of SmartEiffel, the GNU Eiffel compiler, has been announced. "SmartEiffel is complete implementation of Eiffel with eight years of development behind it. SmartEiffel includes many new language features such as agents and tuples, an extensive standard library, and many support utilities. The compiler supports over 20 operating systems, including Linux."
FORTRAN
Java
From black boxes to enterprises, Part 3: Hands-on JMX integration (IBM developerWorks)
Sing Li shows how to work with JMX Agent on IBM's developerWorks. "In this third and final article of the JMX series, Sing Li will use an actual Network Management System (NMS) to monitor a Java application instrumented with JMX, revealing the typical techniques used in NMS/JMX integration, as well as some of the common difficulties that may be encountered when deploying JMX."
An Introduction to the Eclipse IDE (O'Reilly)
Scott Storkel introduces the Eclipse IDE on O'Reilly. "If you closely follow open source or Java programming, you may have heard some of the buzz surrounding Eclipse. Eclipse is an extensible, open source IDE (integrated development environment). The project was originally launched in November 2001, when IBM donated $40 million worth of source code from Websphere Studio Workbench and formed the Eclipse Consortium to manage the continued development of the tool."
Using the Validator Framework with Struts (O'Reilly)
Chuck Cavaness illustrates the use of the Validator Framework on O'Reilly. "Every application has a responsibility to ensure that only valid data is inserted into its repository. After all, what value would an application offer if the data that it relied upon were corrupted? For applications that use a formal database, like a RDBMS, for example, there are rules or constraints that can be placed upon the fields, which help to guarantee that the data stored within it meets a certain level of quality. Any and all applications that utilize the data within the repository have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the data that they submit."
Lisp
OpenMCL 0.13.2 released
Version 0.13.2 of OpenMCL has been released. "This is mostly a maintenance/bugfix release, whose only new feature is support for connection-oriented Unix domain sockets."
Perl
ActivePerl 5.8 Released (use Perl)
Use Perl reports on the release of ActivePerl 5.8, following last week's beta 1 release.This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)
Use Perl has published This Week on Perl5-Porters for the week of December 9-15, 2002. Topics include Deparse barewords with leading hyphens, Debugger regression, %z in strftime(), Compile-time hints, goto and redo, and more.
PHP
PHP 4.3.0RC3 released
PHP 4.3.0RC3 is available. This is the last release candidate prior to the release of PHP 4.3.0, please submit any bugs that you find back to the developers.PHP Weekly Summary
Topics on this week's PHP Weekly Summary include: PHP 4.3 RC3, php-cgi vs. php-cli, PECL netools, Distributing PECL binaries, uniquid() enhancements, and make clean for single extensions.Working with Files in PHP, Part Two (O'Reilly)
John Coggeshall continues his series on working with files in PHP on O'Reilly. "Last time I introduced you to the basic file access methods available to PHP: fopen(), fputs(), and fgets(). Although very useful, these functions work only with strings. This week I'll introduce to you more advanced file access functions that read and write binary files. We'll talk about fread() (used for reading), fseek() (used to find specific parts of a given file), along with a few other useful file access functions."
Python
Guide to Python introspection (IBM developerWorks)
IBM's developerWorks has an article by Patrick K. O'Brien on Python introspection. "This article introduces the introspection capabilities of the Python programming language. Python's support for introspection runs deep and wide throughout the language. In fact, it would be hard to imagine Python without its introspection features. By the end of this article you should be very comfortable poking inside the hearts and souls of your own Python objects."
Python-dev Summary
The Python-dev Summary for December 15 is out; it looks at a new import mechanism, inheritance of __getstate__ in the presence of slots, and several other topics.This week's Python-URL
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for December 18 is out, with the latest from the Python development community.The Daily Python-URL
This week's Daily Python-URL article topics include: A Python & XML Companion, The Daily Chump Bot, PyRapi version 0.2 has been released!, and more.
Ruby
The Ruby Weekly News
Topics on this week's Ruby Weekly News include: Vim like ruby interpreter, ruby-lang.org site re-design, Ruby tutorial madness, The return of RubyCentral, and un-extending objects. New Ruby software includes: ruby-locale 0.1, Spreadsheet/Excel 0.2.0, RTrans 1.0, ratlast 0.1, RAA 2.1, GridFlow 0.6.3, RubyInline 2.0.0, installPkg 0.0.1, RBit 0.1, and pcre 0.1.
Scheme
Scheme Weekly News
The December 16, 2002 edition of the Scheme Weekly News is out. Topics include Guile 1.6.1, ReadScheme Online Bibliography additions, SISC 1.7.0 beta, Quack.el 0.16, MoshiMoshi 0.6, GNU TeXmacs 1.0.0.25, and Gauche 0.6.6.
Tcl/Tk
This week's Tcl-URL
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL for December 18 is out; it looks at creating LED widgets with Tk, C++ extensions, and several other Tcl/Tk topics.
XML
Running Multiple XSLT Engines with Ant (O'Reilly)
Anthony Coates explores Ant on O'Reilly's XML.com. "Ant is a build utility produced as part of the Apache Jakarta project. It's broadly equivalent to Unix's make or nmake under Windows. make-like tools work by comparing the date of an output file to the date of the input files required to build it. If any of the input files is newer than the output file, the output file needs to be rebuilt."
A Python & XML Companion (O'Reilly)
Uche Ogbuji reviews Python & XML by Christopher Jones and Fred Drake, on O'Reilly's XML.com. "As you would expect from such a team, this book is detailed and handy; however, I have a few notes, amplifications, and updates (the book was released in December of 2001) to offer -- all of which are distinct from the errata that the authors maintain. In this article I will provide updates, additional suggestions, and other material to serve as a companion to the book. You don't have to have the book in order to follow along."
Automatic Numbering, Part Two (O'Reilly)
Bob DuCharme continues his series on XSLT numbering with part 2. "This month we'll learn how to gain real control over section numbering, and we'll look at a more efficient alternative to xsl:number that's sometimes better for simple numbering."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
Linux out-Googles Microsoft (ZDNet)
ZDNet searches the search engines for what's hot.. "The top technology search term for 2002 was MP3, indicating a continued demand for the compression technology. The mobile phone texting format, SMS, was in second place, followed by the compression tool Winzip, and Linux at number four, beating ninth-placed Microsoft in the Google stakes."
Companies
Mandrake flirts with non-open source (News.com)
MandrakeSoft releases a firewall product with a non-open source license, according to this News.com article. "It's not the first time an open-source company has made philosophical adjustments for pragmatic reasons. The fervor for the collaborative-programming model has yielded to bottom-line concerns at many companies. Indeed, as the Internet mania of the late 1990s was replaced by recession pessimism, many free-lunch ideas expired."
Microsoft set to reveal Windows source code in India (The Inquirer)
The Inquirer reports that Microsoft is thinking about opening up Windows source code to a select band of government bodies in India. "Other sources indicate that Microsoft is already engaged in working out the logistics of sharing the code and that Jason Matusow, the Vole's worldwide program manager for shared source program, has been in India to work out the details of the arrangement." Thanks to Jaye Inabnit
Business
Open-source group broadens its reach (News.com)
News.com covers the latest members of the open source Eclipse project. "Eclipse members, which now number 30, operate on under an open-source model of a common public license, in which the software is developed in a sort of communal effort rather than behind closed doors. New board members include heavyweights Hewlett-Packard, SAP and Oracle, as well as smaller companies such as AltoWeb, Parasoft, Flashline and MKS Software."
Linux Adoption
Linux is Microsoft's biggest competitive challenge ever (The Inquirer)
The Inquirer talks with Rick Belluzzo, a former Microsoft exec now with Quantum. "Asked if he's now a Linux advocate, Beluzzo responds: "I consider myself an advocate of whatever allows us to achieve our goals most effectively. And today, for us, that certainly is Linux because it's free; it has a good modular design; you can modify it to meet your needs. There is nothing else that can meet our needs like that."" Thanks to Alexander Stohr
Legal
Deadline nears for DMCA exemptions (Register)
Here's a Register article about an upcoming deadline for challenging the DMCA. "One of the quirks of the Act is that the Library of Congress provides administrative oversight. A strange decision, since this is a job usually left to the courts. But every three years the Librarian gets to review requests and decide which cases are causing serious harm."
DMCA critics say reform still needed (News.com)
News.com talks with congressman Rick Boucher who will try again this year to push through legislation that would rescind parts of the DMCA. Referring to the ElcomSoft case: "While this jury reached a commendable decision, another jury in a future case that involves similar facts could well convict. The law clearly contemplates conviction in circumstances where no infringement occurs, but the technology facilitates bypassing a technological protection measure."
Racing Against Time (CIO Insight)
CIO Insight has an article by Lawrence Lessig on copyright law. "Copyright law is a crucial part of the system of incentive necessary to spur creative work. But the law affects creativity differently in cyberspace than in real space. Content owners have been quick to argue that cyberspace weakens copyright protection, since digital copies are so easy to make and distribution costs are so low. That may be true. But it is also true that the Internet can strengthen the power of copyright owners far beyond anything imagined by the framers of our copyright act."
ElcomSoft Case in Jurors' Hands (Wired)
Wired covers the ElcomSoft trial, where the jury is in deliberations. "Jurors are being asked to render a verdict in five separate counts against ElcomSoft. The first is that the company "willfully conspired" to provide a technology that would allow users to circumvent protections on copyrighted works."
ElcomSoft verdict: Not guilty (News.com)
News.com reports that ElcomSoft has been found Not Guilty in its DMCA trial. "After much wrangling among attorneys over the definition of the word 'willful,' the judge told jurors that in order to find the company guilty, they must agree that company representatives knew their actions were illegal and intended to violate the law. Merely offering a product that could violate copyrights was not enough to warrant a conviction, the jury instructions said."
Copyright verdict, new technology are reasons to hope (SiliconValley)
Here is Dan Gillmor's take on the ElcomSoft verdict. "Judge Ronald Whyte, presiding over the case, upheld the U.S. government's right to prosecute the Russian company. His holding that the law itself was constitutional, despite its killing of fair use rights, was even more disturbing. But he was following Congress' dictates -- or, to be precise, Congress' enacting of what it was told to do by the entertainment and software barons. That's the biggest shame of all, and we should all be grateful that the San Jose jury did its duty." The column also talks a bit about the Creative Commons project.
DVD-copying program sets stage for legal showdown (Daily Camera)
LWN's hometown newspaper (the Daily Camera) has an article about a completely different DMCA case: 321 Studios is suing the MPAA for the right to sell "DVD X Copy," a (proprietary) DVD copying utility. "Seldom does a new product land in court before it lands on store shelves. But that's the case with DVD X Copy, a new software program that gives consumers a relatively easy way to burn a backup copy of a prerecorded, copy-protected DVD movie. What's even more unusual is that the lawsuit was brought by the program's maker, Missouri's 321 Studios Inc., in an attempt to get a definitive ruling that making personal copies of DVDs is a legal activity under U.S. copyright laws."
Interviews
An interview with Jim Kent (O'Reilly)
O'Reilly has an interview with James Kent, developer of GigAssembler. "Stewart: What is your view on open source in bioinformatics?"Kent: Yea! Go. The genome is hard enough to decompile. Don't make me have to decompile your source as well.
Resources
LinuxDevices.com Newsletter for Dec. 12, 2002
LinuxDevices.com has just published its weekly Embedded Linux Newsletter, with all the latest news and info from the world of Embedded Linux and Linux-based gadgets.EJLonline publishes 10 additional embedded Linux articles
LinuxDevices.com has announced that that ten new articles have just been added to its Embedded Linux Journal Online ("ELJonline") repository for your reading pleasure.Pick up a penguin - Linux explained (vnunet)
Vnunet has a lengthy article on Linux, with plenty of resources to help people get started. "In this feature, we'll be reporting on the background and history of Linux, and showing you how it looks and works. If you fancy having a go, we'll also be telling you how to get it and install it, and how to find your way around it."
Advantages of OpenMosix on IBM Linux xSeries (IBM)
IBM is running a 3-part series on the advantages of OpenMosix on IBM Linux xSeries. Part 1 provides an introduction to the current clustering technologies available for Linux and and an introduction to openMosix. Part 2 shows how to get a fully-functional openMosix cluster configured and running. Part 3 shows some ways to use openMosix to tackle computing challenges with clusters built on IBM xSeries servers running Intel Xeon, making use of performance-enhancing technologies such as Intel's Hyper-Threading Technology.
Reviews
Alternative Web Browsers: Revenge of the Lizard (NewsFactor)
Yahoo has picked up this NewsFactor article which explores the features of Mozilla. "Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's chief lizard wrangler, told NewsFactor that the software's open source nature also helps the browser development team avoid Internet Explorer's many security issues. "We've learned that openness makes our product better, and that includes security. We benefit enormously from community involvement in identifying possible security issues, in tracking the progress of those bugs, and in implementing fixes."" Thanks to Elijah P Newren
CodeWeavers targets Citrix with CrossOver Server Edition (Register)
The Register covers CodeWeavers CrossOver Office Server Edition. "While version 1.3.1 of CrossOver Office Server Edition enables applications to be hosted on Linux and deployed on Linux or Solaris, an interesting turn of events will see a later version of CrossOver Office Server Edition supporting Windows as a thin client operating system. This could see users deploying Microsoft applications on Windows-based thin clients via Linux-based servers."
The Web Wizard's Guide to PHP (Linux Journal)
The Linux Journal reviews "The Web Wizard's Guide to PHP" by David A. Lash. "If you're looking to learn PHP or to teach a course on PHP, check out The Web Wizard's Guide to PHP by David Lash. This is an excellent book for learning PHP, even if you have no programming skills. If you're like me and have experience in another language, such as Perl, you'll find that Lash's book makes it easy to rapidly get up to speed in PHP."
The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source: a Book Review (Linux Journal)
Here is a book review on Linux Journal for "The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source" by Martin Fink. "The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source is written for executives whose companies produce software and for IT managers who must choose and/or deploy this software within their companies. It introduces both free and open-source software (OSS), but predictably, the book focuses mostly on the latter. In spite of this, actually, for these reasons, I'd also recommend the book to hackers, for reasons that will be clear later in this review."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Announcements
Commercial announcements
Mandrakesoft: Multi Network Firewall simplifies administration of advanced VPN networks
MandrakeSoft annonced a new network-product - "Multi Network Firewall" - which can be used to deploy a complex and secured network infrastructure (including VPN - Virtual Private Network - and DMZ - DeMilitarized Zone). It also includes network traffic management, and - as usual for MandrakeSoft products - offers a very friendly user-interface.Metrowerks acquires Embedix Inc. (aka Lineo)
Metrowerks has sent out a press release stating its intent to acquire "the key assets" of Embedix, Inc., the company formerly known as Lineo. "The acquisition of assets from Embedix and the addition of the Embedix team will enable Metrowerks to provide Linux OS-based development tools and platforms for creating applications for PDAs, smart handheld devices, residential gateways and digital TVs.".
NVIDIA's graphics announcements
NVIDIA Corporation has announced a series of new corporate initiatives that include a technical support program for end users and professional customers; a new software driver package that includes performance enhancements and new features for NVIDIA's advanced graphics features, including NVIDIA's CineFX(TM) architecture delivered by NVIDIA's Unified Driver Architecture (UDA); and support for the latest PC technologies, including AGP 8X and OpenGL(R) 1.4.Red Hat's quarterly results
Red Hat. has announced its third quarter results. The bottom line is a $300,000 profit - without excluding various losses this time.Arkeia Light v5 Now Available as Backup Solution for Open Source Environments
Arkeia Corp.announced the release of Arkeia Light, a fully enabled free version of Arkeia v5 enterprise software for open source environments. Arkeia Light is designed to provide Linux-based PCs and small networks with enterprise-caliber backup capability at no cost for personal or commercial use.Sony and Matsushita to develop Linux-based system
According to this Dow Jones article, Sony and Matsushita will be getting together to develop a new Linux-based operating system. "Based on the results of the joint development, Sony and Matsushita are considering setting up an industry forum group for digital home appliance-use Linux." (Thanks to Maya Tamiya).
STORServer Ships Hot Backup for Oracle on Linux
STORServer has announced STORServer Data Protection (SDP) for Oracle on Linux is now shipping."PHP Cookbook" Released by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has announced the release of the PHP Cookbook, by authors David Sklar and Adam Trachtenberg."Designing Embedded Hardware" Released by O'Reilly
"Designing Embedded Hardware" is a book about designing small machines for embedded applications, written by John Catsoulis and published by O'Reilly.
Resources
Free documentation database ready.
The GFDD (GNUtemberg! Free Documentation Database) has reached a stable version. GFDD is online, and some documents have already been indexed. The classification is based upon Dublin Core and OMF.Protux0.14.x : A first approach using Protux (QuickToots)
Reinhard Amersberger has put together a Protux howtoot that introduces Protux, a keyboard/mouse-based utility that is aimed at efficient audio production tasks.Announcing the creation of a global bioinformatics grid (Bioinformatics)
A new global bioinformatics grid has been announced. "The Bioinformatics Organization (Bioinformatics.Org) announces the creation of a global bioinformatics grid. The Bioinformatics.Org Grid (BiO Grid) is a loosely networked cluster of heterogeneous computing technologies that can be accessed by members of the Organization free of charge (membership is also free). The BiO Grid expands the services of The Open Lab, a collection of free and/or open services for bioinformatics research, development and education. It will augment the mission of the Bioinformatics Organization: to lower the barrier to entering and participating in the field of bioinformatics."
Upcoming Events
LinuxWorld conference program announced
IDG World Expo announced that the conference program for LinuxWorld Conference & Expo has been expanded to provide dedicated tracks for specific industries, including financial services, telecommunications, government and defense.FOSDEM interviews: David Faure and Michael Meeks
The Third Free and Open Source Developers' European Meeting will happen February 8 and 9 in Brussels. Once again, the FOSDEM is publishing a set of interviews with people who will be speaking at the event. The first two have been published:- David
Faure. "
I see work going on in that direction [GNOME-KDE compatibility]. Mailing-lists and meetings are happening to this effect. RedHat pushes this a lot, but it seems that other people are also interested in this.
" - Michael
Meeks. "
Ultimately I think Gnome 2 provides an excellent environment to work in now - we have to focus on ensuring every application integrates with the others intelligently, that we have a coherent look and feel etc. (I applaud the Red Hat initiatives there).
"
OSS in Healthcare: Call for Speakers and Participation
LinuxMedNews has an announcement for the OSS in Healthcare conference, to be held in Washington, DC from March 17-19, 2003.Linux.conf.au 2003 announces Sun Microsystems(tm) Regional Delegate Program Recipients
The candidates for the Sun Microsystems Regional Delegate Program have been announced at Linux.conf.au 2003.FSIJ Free Software Symposium 2002 Tokyo
Transcripts are availble from the Free Software Initiative Japan, which was held in Tokyo.Events: December 19, 2002 - February 13, 2003
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| December 19 - 20, 2002 | UMeet conference | On IRC |
| January 21 - 24, 2003 | LinuxWorld Conference & Expo | (Jacob K. Javits Center)New York, NY |
| January 22 - 25, 2003 | Linux.conf.au 2003 | Perth, Australia |
| January 27 - 31, 2003 | SAINT-2003 | Orlando, Florida, USA |
| February 3 - 6, 2003 | O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference | (Westin Horton Plaza.)San Diego, CA |
| February 10 - 14, 2003 | The fifth NordU/USENIX Conference(NordU2003) | (Aros Congress Center)Västerås, Sweden |
Web sites
Deep Space 6 Initiative
The Deep Space 6 initiative is a new Linux based IPv6 portal site, designers of IPv6 software should contact the site authors for inclusion.
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
German City switches to Linux
IBM has sent out a press release about the German city of Schwäbisch Hall, which moving its computing systems from Windows and Office to SuSE Linux and OpenOffice.org. The town of 36,000 eventually plans to have 400 desktops running Linux.
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Letters to the editor
Slight correction for LWN 5 December 2002
| From: | Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> | |
| To: | letters@lwn.net | |
| Subject: | Slight correction for LWN 5 December 2002 | |
| Date: | Tue, 17 Dec 2002 10:49:50 +1100 |
Hi guys, I'm way behind in reading LWN, but I came across this from two weeks ago: > 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. That's not really true: I've been working on the userspace tools mainly. The parameter patch (surely a core part of module functionality!) was submitted with the original module rewrite, and supported even for the very first release of the new userspace utilities. The patch was retransmitted several times before Linus asked for a namechange of the new "unified" parameters (on which the old-style MODULE_PARM macros are rebuilt). Then it was retransmitted several times more (there were two trivial fixes along the way). It finally went in just before 2.5.52 was released. Why did it take so long? The most likely reason, I think, is simply that Linus doesn't use modules. I would like to thank those who *have* reported bugs to me, most of which were trivial and easily fixed (or already fixed, and pending inclusion by Linus). Hope that clarifies! Rusty. -- Anyone who quotes me in their sig is an idiot. -- Rusty Russell.
CAAST and FLOSS - Acronym Wars
| From: | Leon Brooks <leon@cyberknights.com.au> | |
| To: | Please forward to Jackie Famulak for response <webmaster@caast.org> | |
| Subject: | CAAST and FLOSS - Acronym Wars | |
| Date: | Sun, 15 Dec 2002 00:39:36 +0800 | |
| Cc: | Linux Weekly News - Letters <letters@lwn.net>, Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca> |
Quoting Jackie Famulak, board member of
Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST):
> "First, a large percentage of free, open source software out there
> is Linux-based; it's not products such as a photo management
> software suites," Famulak says.
At last count, there were several score FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source
Software) photo management packages available for Linux, such as:
http://www.easysw.com/~mike/flphoto/ (local application)
http://photomanager.sourceforge.net/ (web-enabled application)
So, yes, Linux users can and do run photo management software (my 30yo
mother-of-four sister-in-law is an avid digital photographer and likes to use
Kuickshow for this on her Mandrake Linux system).
> "If you look at the users of software, there's not a lot of people out
> there that are ready to begin programming their own software.
You don't have to. Enormous amounts have already been developed, and most
Linux distributions come with hundreds to thousands of packages. See these
sites for examples of the many available packages:
http://freshmeat.net/ (lists 26,000 packages)
http://sal.kachinatech.com/ (lists 3,000 scientific packages)
http://www.sourceforge.net/ (hosts 53,000 packages)
> Companies don't always have the resources (to develop software)
They don't need to. Firstly, as mentioned, it's already provided; secondly,
it's simple to outsource. In fact, with many projects you can just ask nicely
for this or that feature and it gets added, free of charge.
Mandrake did this with their Linux distribution for me, and the developers of
the sysmond monitoring daemon did likewise (so I reciprocated by adding more
features for them).
On the other hand, companies using the software produced by CAAST members
don't have that option, in most cases can't even see the workings of the
software, to know for themselves how it does what it does.
When was the last time Microsoft added a feature to MS-Office, or AutoDesk
added something to AutoCAD for you? At any cost?
> they can't afford the downtime or provide the necessary support that a
> manufacturer can give them 24/7.
They generally have considerably less downtime, because FLOSS and the
platforms it runs on are often considerably more reliable than those supplied
by your members.
They automatically have assurance (which CAAST members do not offer them) that
should the supplier go bust, elect to discontinue a product, or begin
attaching unacceptable conditions to the continued use of the product, they
can reasonably expect to continue using and developing from the existing
product.
They also have a substantial, worldwide, polylingual, cross-timezone support
base which doesn't cost them an arm and a leg, and is often personally
interested (not just interested in a detached, corporate sense linked to a
bottom line) in seeing their problems resolved.
> When you consider it in that regard, we already are providing a service."
No, you are not. You are occupying a place which could be better occupied by a
body not limited representing such a narrow range of interests, one which
truly provides a service to Canadians, not just a service to its own members.
This tactic is called "dog in a manger" and I do wish you'd stop talking down
products and services which you clearly do not even understand.
FLOSS is not some two-bit operation. Saudi Aramco uses Linux to search for
oil, Google runs on Linux, the European Union is about to settle on the
OpenOffice.org file format as a document interchange standard, the 5th
fastest computer in the world is a Linux cluster, the most popular webserver
in the world (Apache) is under a BSD licence, and my 12yo daughter's
favourite coputer games are FLOSS.
You may wonder at the Australian internet domain; consider me an expatriate: I
was born in Merritt, British Columbia and exported, so I am both a Canadian
and an Australian citizen.
Cheers; Leon
--
http://www.cyberknights.com.au/ Modern tools, traditional dedication
http://slpwa.linux.org.au/ Member, Linux Professionals West Aus
http://conf.linux.org.au/ THE Australian Linux Technical Conf:
22-25 January 2003, Perth: be there!
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet