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Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
Prior art won't solve the software patent problem (NewsForge)
Richard Stallman criticizes the OSDL prior art project. "Such a project cannot really protect programmers from software patents, because it focuses only on absurd software patents -- those that could be legally denied or invalidated based on prior art. However, the greatest danger comes from patents that are not absurd, those for which we have no prior art."
Open source unlocks options for many small-to-medium sized businesses (LinuxWorld)
LinuxWorld looks at the increasing use of Linux and open-source software in a number of small companies. "Lamonica deployed an open source monitoring system from GroundWork and says that moving forward he’ll weigh open source options along with commercial software packages in any buying decision. “We’re past the point in time where we have to say, ‘Well, I won’t get fired if I buy Cisco,’ or ‘I won’t get fired if I buy Microsoft.’ I think that fear has gone away and open source has matured a great deal so that now people are no longer afraid of it,” he says."
Companies
Linspire tempts white-box vendors with CNR royalties (Linux-Watch)
Linux-Watch looks at Linspire's partner program. "Linspire Inc. launched a revamped partner program on September 14 that will pay system builders a percentage on all commercial Linux software and services purchased by users of either Linspire or Freespire pre-installed desktop and laptop computers using the company's CNR (Click N' Run) technology."
Novell to launch quick-response Linux (ZDNet)
ZDNet reports on Novell's plan to release a real-time version of SUSE Enterprise Linux. "The product won't be purchased the same way as Novell's other Linux versions, however. 'Setting it up does require a consulting engagement' from Novell, which installs and tunes the software, [marketing director Justin] Steinman said. 'It isn't something you can take off the shelf and get up and running.'"
Business
Who are the Hacker Bloggers? (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal looks at the business of blogging. "If you look at the font of all wisdom - no, I don't mean Wikipedia, but Amazon - you will find stacks of books with titles like The Corporate Blogging Book, Blogging for Business, Blog Marketing and the rest. Whatever the title, the basic message is the same: if you're in business, you've got to be blogging. Because if you aren't, you're not "having the conversation" with your customers, which means, in turn, that you're not getting your message out or valuable comments back."
Linux Adoption
University dumps Cisco VoIP for open-source Asterisk (LinuxWorld)
LinuxWorld covers the switch to an open-source telephone PBX by Sam Houston State University. "Some organizations consider taking the plunge off of big iron PBX platforms into IP telephony as being pretty daring, but that's nothing compared to what Sam Houston State University (SHSU) is doing. The south Texas school is boldly moving thousands of users off a Cisco VoIP platform to an open-source VoIP network based on Asterisk. SHSU is in the process of moving its 6,000 students, faculty and staff off of Cisco CallManager IP PBXs and a legacy Nortel Meridian PBX over to Linux servers running Asterisk, which includes call processing, voicemail and PSTN gateway functionality. The driver for this project was cost, says Aaron Daniel, senior voice analyst at Sam Houston State University."
Linux at Work
NASA tests Linux-based planetary surface exploration robots (Linux Devices)
Linux Devices covers NASA's test of its Linux-based K-10 lunar rover. "The K-10 robot is being exercised this week by a NASA working group called "D-RATS" (desert research and technology studies). Comprised of both NASA and non-NASA scientists, D-RATS aims to give next-generation engineers, scientists, technicians, and astronauts hands-on experience expected to be of use in realizing the goals of NASA's Constellation Program, which is tasked with creating Crew Exploration Vehicles (CEV), Crew Launch Vehicles (CLV), and related exploration architecture systems for manned and unmanned planetary exploration."
Interviews
Confessions of a Recovering NetBSD Zealot (O'ReillyNet)
O'ReillyNet talks with Charles M. Hannum about NetBSD. "Charles M. Hannum: I'm one of the creators of the NetBSD Project, and served as its de facto technical lead for a long time. I was also involved in creating the NetBSD Foundation, and served as its president and chairman of the board. (Note: I was never the Foundation's secretary or treasurer.)"
Daniel Holbach (Behind Ubuntu)
Behind Ubuntu interviews Daniel Holbach. "In what way are you involved in Ubuntu? I'm currently spending most of my Ubuntu time in Ubuntu's DesktopTeam, doing package maintenance, working on Desktop bugs and geting on Sebastien's nerves. Apart from that I'm involved in a lot of Ubuntu's teams: the MOTU team, the Bug Squad, the Accessibility team, I got started helping out the Art team. Let's see which team is next. It's amazing to see the Ubuntu community growing and to be part of that all."
People Behind KDE: Allan Sandfeld Jensen (KDE.News)
KDE.News has announced the latest interview in the People Behind KDE series. "Tonight in the two-weekly People Behind KDE series we are featuring Allan Sandfeld Jensen. He is a KDE core developer, mostly active for KHTML and KDE multimedia. After reading the interview you will know what his personal "carewolf" looks like, together with all other personal things you have to know about this developer."
Resources
Scalable anonymity with I2P (Linux.com)
Linux.com looks at the Invisible Internet Project (I2P). "In I2P, each participating peer keeps a secret pool of inbound, or data-receiving, and outbound, or data-transmitting, tunnels it chooses itself. A tunnel consists of a configurable number of routers in sequence, where longer tunnels mean more anonymity, at the expense of performance. When a peer sends data, it is passed through one of its outbound tunnels, at the end of which it enters an inbound tunnel of the recipient. For each router that is part of the chosen tunnel, a layer of encryption based on the router's key is added. This technique, the main feature of "onion routing," prevents compromised routers from eavesdropping."
Create your own Planet (Linux.com)
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier shows how to set up Planet in a Linux.com article. "Major open source projects like GNOME, KDE, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and Apache all have something in common -- they all have Planet feed reader sites set up to aggregate developer blog feeds. The Planet software was developed to power Planet GNOME and Planet Debian, but now it's being used by dozens of open source projects. With just a few simple steps, you can set up a Planet aggregator to watch your favorite blogs or to help publicize your favorite project."
Animate the Desktop with Xgl and Compiz (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal presents a book excerpt from Using SUSE Linux on Your Desktop by Chris Brown PhD. "Given the rapid pace of software development in the Linux world, it is inevitable that some topics that are bleeding-edge as this book goes into production will be mainstream technology by the time you get to read it. One such is the Xgl X server and the compositing window manager compiz. Together with a modern graphics card, these components (which are shipped with SUSE Linux 10.1) offer some stunning visual desktop effects comparable (dare I say this?) to the best that the Mac has to offer. These effects include transparent windows, fade-in/fade-out of windows and menus, animated window minimization, and the ability to put four desktops onto four faces of a cube and spin the cube (in 3-D) to switch desktops. The overall result is to give the desktop a more fluid, organic feel."
Reviews
Alacarte: GNOME's long overdue menu editor (Linux.com)
Linux.com looks at the Alacarte menu editor in GNOME 2.16. "The Alacarte menu editor is one of the major additions in GNOME 2.16. Already previously available in Ubuntu and other distributions, Alacarte adds a degree of customization that has been generally lacking since GNOME dropped its previous menu editor more than five years ago during the early 2.x releases."
FreeDOS 1.0 born after 12-year gestation (NewsForge)
NewsForge covers the release of FreeDOS 1.0. "FreeDOS was originally slated for release at the end of July, but Hall says he decided to take a few extra weeks to make sure everything was just right before making 1.0 available for download. "Nothing very unusual came up in the last weeks, except a tiny problem in our preliminary FreeDOS 1.0 distros where we could make your hard drive unbootable if you happened to have Win32 on it," said Hall. "We figured it would be bad to make a 1.0 release until we fixed that. Based on all the downloads we've gotten since the announcement, I'm really glad we decided to give it a few more weeks to get things right.""
My Gentoo odyssey (Linux.com)
Joe Barr concludes that Gentoo is not for everyone. "Gentoo is a popular, powerful, well-crafted distribution that panders to your geek side to the nth degree. You want control? Gentoo hands you the reins and wishes you good luck. How much luck you need depends on how much you know. But it's simply not for me. Like a good programmer, I'm lazy. While it was once fun to compile the kernel and mention it the next morning while grabbing a cup of coffee, these days I want to use my machine for things other the care and feeding of the operating system."
Helicopter Simulator: Really Real-time Linux (Dr. Dobb's Portal)
Dr. Dobb's Portal takes a look at a Linux-powered helicopter simulator. "Every now and then, you stumble across a software system that you never think about. Such is the case with a Linux-powered helicopter simulator being developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. And no, you can't run it on your PlayStation 2."
KToon: Simple 2D animation (Linux.com)
Ben McGrath looks at KToon in a Linux.com article. "If you are running Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows, you have access to many different animation applications, ranging from Adobe Flash to Anime Studio. That is not so for Linux. While many think of animation in Linux as a lost cause, there are alternatives. The relatively new KToon calls itself "the open source animation revolution." KToon has a small learning curve and an intuitive interface, making it an excellent choice for simple animation within Linux."
Red Hat expands 'stack' with JBoss (ZDNet)
ZDNet takes a look at the Red Hat Application Stack. "The bundle includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the JBoss Application Server, database-access software called Hibernate, and the Tomcat Web application server. The stack is certified to run with open-source database PostgreSQL and includes MySQL, another popular open-source database."
DIY document management system with Simple Groupware (Linux.com)
Linux.com looks at the Simple Groupware package. "But what sets Simple Groupware apart from similar applications, is its own XML-based language called sgsML, which allows you to customize the existing modules and create new ones even if you don't have any prior programming experience. For example, the default file manager is fine as it is, but you can also turn it into a simple document management system using the tools provided by sgsML."
Miscellaneous
Growing pains for Google's Summer of Code (Linux.com)
Linux.com looks at some lessons learned from the second Summer of Code. "As the second Google Summer of Code (SOC) winds down, most participants agree: the program, which pays selected students to work on a free or open source software (FOSS) project for three months, is a unique and exciting opportunity, but needs to continue efforts to become more organized. Those who were previously involved tend to agree that this year was less chaotic than last year. However, whether they are organizers at Google or students or members of mentoring organizations (the projects accepting students), most participants this year also see the need for more structure. Many of them also offer concrete advice about how participants can get more out of the program if it happens next year."
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