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LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 19, 2006Free gadgets need free softwareYour editor has occasionally taken time to write about Rockbox, a GPL-licensed firmware system for portable music players. One might think that such articles result from an attempt to disguise time spent playing with gadgets as real work - and not be entirely off the mark. But an incident this week shows why running free software on devices like music players is important.Creative makes some nice players, including the "Zen Vision:M." It includes a large color screen, significant storage, and an FM radio. Like many such devices, it is able to connect the FM radio to that storage space and record radio programs. There are any number of reasons why this feature is useful; one may want to record a radio interview featuring a colleague, timeshift a program for later listening, or grab the DJ's talk to help identify an interesting song for later purchase. This capability certainly is not anything new; people have been hooking up their tape recorders to radios for decades. As of firmware version 1.50.02, however, the Zen Vision:M player can no longer record from its FM radio. An "upgrade" for the Zen MicroPhoto removes the FM recorder feature from that device as well. In both cases, the hardware retains the FM recorder capability, but the new firmware takes it away. It is hard to imagine that legions of Creative customers have been clamoring for the removal of a useful feature from their expensive devices. Instead, this crippling of the hardware has been done to meet the demands of a different group of people: our friends in the entertainment industry. Fortunately for current owners of this hardware, there does not appear to be any mechanism built into the player which forces a change to the newer version. It would not be entirely surprising to see forced-upgrade requirements built into future players, however, especially as the notion of "trusted content paths" gains ground. The gadget you thought you owned may turn into a different device tomorrow, and there is little that you can do about it. Unless, of course, that gadget is running free software. Rockbox users do not have to deal with this sort of trouble; if somebody were to remove the FM recorder feature, somebody else would just patch it back in. Rockbox users enjoy a tangible level of freedom which has been taken away from people running proprietary firmware on their players. This is an important point. Your editor is appalled by the number of AC adapters he must carry whenever he travels - we have a number of gadgets which, increasingly, we see as being entirely indispensable. The functions handled by those gadgets can only grow over time; we will become increasingly dependent upon them for our work, our communications, and our leisure. Whose interests will those gadgets serve? If others control the software on those gadgets, that software will be distorted to serve their interests; the Creative firmware "upgrade" is a strikingly clear example of just how that process can work. If we want to control our gadgets, it behooves us to only purchase those which can run free software. [A postscript for those who are interested in what's up with Rockbox. The project abandoned its plans for a 3.0 release some months ago; the feature freeze was hurting development without bringing solutions to the final remaining problems. So development has been going full-steam ahead, with (usually stable) daily builds available for those who want the latest features. Support for iRiver H10, most iPods, and iAudio X5 players has been added; early-stage work is proceeding on iRiver IFP790 and Toshiba Gigabeat players. The port to the Sandisk Sansa e200 has recently overcome some significant hurdles and may start to make significant progress in the near future. Unfortunately, there appears to be no effort to port to the Creative players at this time.]
What does it mean to join the Software Freedom Conservancy?Recently, it was announced that the Mercurial project, a software revision control program used by projects like Xen and ALSA, among others, has become a member of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Some people may be wondering: What is the Software Freedom Conservancy? How do you become a member? Why would you want to? What does the Conservancy do? Who besides Mercurial are members? And what does it mean to be a member?First of all, the Software Freedom Conservancy is fairly new, founded in March of this year. It is a specialized legal project spun out of the Software Freedom Law Center, which provides pro bono legal representation and other law-related services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software. The distinctive purpose of the Conservancy, which exists as an entity distinct from the Software Freedom Law Center, is to provide administrative and financial services to its members so they can take advantage of the benefits of being a corporate entity, without having to take on the filing, record-keeping and legal work necessary for nonprofits, by coming under the Conservancy's corporate umbrella. Wine, Samba, InkScape, BusyBox, uCLibc, SurveyOS, and Libbraille are also member projects of the Conservancy. I asked Karen M. Sandler, Counsel at the Software Freedom Law Center, first about the Software Freedom Law Center. Who gets accepted as a client by the Software Freedom Law Center and what does it mean for a project? Her explanation:
Clients are evaluated on a case by case basis depending on, among other
criteria, the nature of the software project, the legal needs of the
project and the availability of resources of SFLC. As a general matter,
we seek to give advice to nonprofit Free and Open Source Software
projects, developers and distributors to help protect and advance Free
and Open Source Software.
Once a software project is accepted as a client of SFLC, SFLC is able to provide legal representation to that project. That could mean assistance with licensing, helping the project to form as a nonprofit corporate entity or providing representation to assist with the resolution of a dispute, depending on the needs of the client. In Mercurial's case, for example, in addition to joining the Conservancy, it has also retained SFLC as its legal counsel. But what about the Conservancy? What are the advantages of becoming a member? There are certain benefits that flow from the corporate form, such as limiting ones personal liability. The Conservancy is in the process of applying for federal tax-exempt status, which would then allow the Conservancy's member projects to also receive tax deductible donations. The Conservancy files a single tax return that covers all the member projects, and it handles other corporate and tax related issues on behalf of its members. The question which may come into your mind at this point is: couldn't a project do all that itself? Yes, it could. But let me give you an idea of what is involved. The paperwork in setting up a state nonprofit corporation, applying for federal tax-exempt status, then actually running the corporation is quite daunting in the US. There is corporate record-keeping ongoing, not to mention a panoply of laws one must abide by or risk losing the corporate structure. Just as one small example, here's the page of forms to set up as a nonprofit in New York State. There are even regulations on how the filings must be presented. See § 150.1 on this page, which lists all the i's to dot and t's to cross if you are a New York corporation. And of course you need to be familiar not only with the state's Not-for-Profit Corporation Law (NPC), but also the Business Corporation Law (BCL) and the General Business Law (GBL), all of which you can find on the New York State Legislature page, by clicking on the bottom link, Laws of New York. Why government agencies make it so hard to link to information is one of life's little mysteries, but many of them do, so I can't link to the laws themselves. You'll have to find them for yourself. Then, if you want people who send you donations to be able to get a tax deduction, you have to apply on the federal level under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) and you need to satisfy certain requirements. You can find the booklet on how to apply for federal nonprofit status on this IRS page. Look on the list for Form 1023 and Inst 1023, the instruction booklet. That's just to apply. You can't mingle your personal funds with the corporate funds, for one thing, so you'll need to set up a separate corporate account. The language in your corporate charter and bylaws must satisfy certain regulations on the federal level, and of course laws and regulations are forever changing, so you have to keep up to date. Here's a sample of bylaws. See how much fun it is to read them. You'll notice that you need a board of directors and officers, and that the secretary, for example, has multiple record keeping duties to fulfill. Want the position? No? Do you have a really good buddy willing to spend the rest of his life doing such tasks? Most programmers would rather have root canal surgery. But even if you are willing, it's time taken away from coding, and the odds of getting it wrong without legal direction are, in my view, in the fairly-likely-to-certain range. Then there's taxes, and of course there are special forms and regulations for nonprofits. The Conservancy does all of that paperwork for its members, so developers working on member projects can devote their time to coding instead of having to master all the legal aspects to becoming and acting as a corporation. Another service it can provide is fund management. It can advise and help set up a project to accept donations. The assets are held by the Conservancy on behalf of its members, each in its own account, and it disburses them as the project wishes, in accordance with IRS regulations, of course. Copyrights and trademarks can also be held by the Conservancy, again on behalf of the project. If your project has several members, the Conservancy provides a vehicle through which copyright ownership in the project can be unified, which makes enforcement easier. This is an optional service, however. And any member can leave the Conservancy at any time, if it wishes to form their own independent tax exempt nonprofit. The Conservancy provides its services free. If you want to find out if your project qualifies for membership, you can contact the Conservancy. There are, of course, certain requirements -- your project must be developing free and open source software, for example, and it must be consistent with the Conservancy's tax-exempt purposes and financial requirements imposed by the IRS. What if you can't get your project accepted and you have a legal issue? Perhaps there is a licensing question but you don't know any lawyers, or the ones you know have no clue about FOSS licenses, and your question requires that type of specialized knowledge? I asked Sandler what a project or developer in such a circumstance can do to find a competent lawyer, and here's her answer:
Within the US, most states have referral services
where individuals and
organizations can call to find a lawyer with a relevant practice. There
are also a number of organizations, in addition to SFLC, that are
organized to provide legal services. Some Pro Bono programs organized to
help with legal matters relating to business issues are listed on the
American
Bar Association's website.
For Free and Open Source Software specific issues, the Free Software
Foundation has a lot of good information up on its website,
and we are also aware of another project to publish
information related to Free and Open Source Software but it hasn't
launched yet. Hopefully it will launch soon and when it does, we'll be
sure to point you to that too.
The Software Freedom Conservancy might not be a useful option for all projects, but, in many cases, it has some valuable services to offer. And the price is right.
An empty legacyBy the time you read this, the long-awaited, slightly-delayed Fedora Core 6 release may be available. Then again, maybe not. But it should be out sometime soon, really. This distribution, once it is released, will come with excellent security support from the Fedora Project - for ten months or so. Once the second Fedora Core 8 test release is available, this shiny new Fedora Core 6 distribution will be cut off and handed over to the Fedora Legacy project.A look at the Fedora Legacy wiki page yields this text:
We are currently maintaining Red Hat Linux 7.3 and 9 as well as
Fedora Core 3 and 4 as these have been transferred into maintenance
mode from Fedora Core. We will provide updates for these releases
for as long as there is community interest though we in general
follow the 1-2-3 and out policy. This provides an effective
supported lifetime (Fedora Core plus Fedora Legacy Support) of
approximately 1.5 years or even more.
The project has helpfully provided some yum configurations to make getting the updates as easy as possible. The promised "effective supported lifetime" should be a great comfort for users who do not want to upgrade their systems every six months or so. There's only one little problem: Fedora Legacy has yet to provide a single update for Fedora Core 4, which was transferred to the project in July. In fact, Fedora Legacy has not provided any updates, for any of the distributions it claims to support, since July - an outage of almost three months. During this period, vulnerabilities have been reported in a small number of packages:
alsaplayer, apache (2), bind, binutils (2), clamav, firefox (3 sets), freetype gdb (2), gcc, gnupg (2), gnutls, gzip, imagemagick (3), kdebase (2), kernel (4), krb5, lesstif, libtiff, mailman, mysql (3), ntp, openldap, openoffice.org, openssh (2), openssl (2), perl, php (5), ppp, python, ruby, sendmail (2), squirrelmail, streamripper, sudo, thunderbird (3 sets), wireshark (2), xinit, xpdf, x.org (2) The above list is just a subset of the actual reported vulnerabilities. But the point should be clear: any useful Fedora Core 4 system will be running a fair number of the above packages - and they all contain known security problems. It would be nice to close those holes, but no FC4 updates are available. Any system administrator who still believed that Fedora Legacy would help to keep older Fedora Core systems secure should, by now, be having second thoughts. Fedora Legacy was created with the idea that the user community would help to produce updates for packages affected by security problems. The community has clearly failed to step up to that task. It would appear that Fedora users - at least, those who could help with security updates - are so interested in staying on the leading edge that they upgrade long before any Fedora release loses support. Other users who care will have moved on to other distributions - paid or free - which offer security support for a longer period of time. Fedora Core 1 was released almost exactly three years ago, meaning that we have about three years of experience with Fedora Legacy. Perhaps the time has come to ask the question: is there any point in continuing to pretend that Fedora Legacy is a viable, successful project? Perhaps the Fedora Project should consider ending Fedora Legacy before its web pages convince anybody else that they can safely defer upgrading unsupported systems. The Fedora Project makes no apologies for its support policy, and there is no reason why it should. But there is also no reason to maintain the illusion of an option for longer-term support which does not actually exist.
Security Netlabel: CIPSO labeling for LinuxCurrent kernel level security mechanisms, such as SELinux, are focused strictly on securing local resources and are not concerned with communicating any security information to other machines on the network. The NetLabel project aims to change that by providing packet labeling capabilities for the kernel. The initial implementation, with support for Common IP Security Option (CIPSO) labeling has been included into the 2.6.19 kernel.CIPSO is an IETF draft that has been adopted by a number of vendors and is one of several network labeling standards that are used by 'trusted' operating systems. In order to interoperate with these systems and to replace them, Linux needs to be able to provide the same capabilities. At its core, CIPSO is an agreement between systems on a set of labels (or tags) describing the security level or context of the process that is sending the packets. CIPSO users define a 'domain of interpretation' (DOI) that governs the interpretation of those tags so that both ends of the conversation can determine if the other process has the authorization necessary to do that communication. The DOI and labels are placed into the options portion of every IP packet that is sent and, based on those values, security requirements can be enforced at the kernel level. If a process attempts to communicate outside of its authorized scope, the kernel can drop the packet. NetLabel is a mechanism to put CIPSO information into outgoing packets and to examine incoming packets for their tags. It uses the Linux Security Module (LSM) hooks to implement the labeling and checking. It also interfaces with SELinux to provide label information based on the SELinux context. Incoming sockets get a context that is based on the CIPSO tag and the context of the listening socket. In this way, access to specific services can be restricted to remote processes with the proper authorization. Management of NetLabel is handled through the netlink socket interface; user space tools to configure it are available from the project page. The complexity of configuring NetLabel and SELinux is likely to be daunting to the uninitiated, but for those installations that already use CIPSO, it should be relatively straightforward. NetLabel's design goals include a well contained implementation that uses existing kernel hooks as well as minimal performance impact when enabled but not configured. By running the gauntlet of kernel developers and getting included into the kernel, NetLabel has likely met both of those goals. The current implementation provides minimal CIPSO support, just one tag type and none of the configuration parameters, but support for this additional functionality is planned as is support for additional labeling protocols. CIPSO and NetLabel are not for everyone, in fact, they are likely to be much less widely adopted than SELinux. CIPSO only works on very strictly controlled networks as there is nothing in the specification that prevents unauthorized machines from claiming authorization; the system and router configuration must prevent that kind of behavior. In addition, it provides yet another configuration challenge for administrators to get through before their systems will perform correctly. But for those installations that do need it, this work and its future additions should be very well received.
Brief items Local root exploit in NVidia driverA locally-exploitable buffer overflow in the binary-only NVidia video driver has been disclosed on the mailing lists; there is also an exploit in circulation. This problem may have been known since 2004; NVidia acknowledged it back in July, but it remains unfixed. It has been reported that the beta versions of the drivers do contain the fix.
New vulnerabilities clamav: multiple vulnerabilities
kdelibs: integer overflow
kernel: denial of service
libksba: parsing failure
php: restriction bypass
xinit: race condition
Updated vulnerabilities apache: cross-site scripting
awstats: input sanitizing
bind: denial of service
binutils: buffer overflow
busybox: insecure password generation
bzip2: race condition and infinite loop
capi4hylafax: missing input sanitizing
cheesetracker: buffer overflow
cpio: arbitrary code execution
vixie-cron: privilege escalation
cscope: buffer overflows
cscope: buffer overflows
Cyrus-SASL: DIGEST-MD5 Pre-Authentication Denial of Service
ffmpeg: buffer overflows
freeradius: several vulnerabilities
freetype: integer overflows
gcc: file overwrite vulnerability
gdb: buffer overflow
gdm: improper file permissions
gedit: format string vulnerability
grip: buffer overflow
gzip: multiple vulnerabilities
gzip: arbitrary command execution
kdelibs: kate backup file permission leak
kernel: denial of service
kernel: denial of service by memory consumption
kernel: denial of service
krb5: local privilege escalation
libgadu: memory alignment bug
libgd2: denial of service
libmms: buffer overflows
libmusicbrainz: buffer overflows
libpng: buffer overflow
libpng: heap based buffer overflow
libtiff: buffer overflow
libvncserver: authentication bypass
libwmf: integer overflow
libxml2 - arbitrary code execution
libxml2: multiple buffer overflows
lynx: arbitrary command execution
mailman: several vulnerabilities
maxdb: arbitrary code execution
mono: symlink vulnerability
firefox: multiple vulnerabilities
mutt: IMAP namespace buffer overflow
mysql: format string bug
MySQL: privilege violations
MySQL: logging bypass
nbd: arbitrary code execution
ncompress: buffer underflow
nss: signature forgery vulnerability
openldap: security bypass
openoffice.org: several vulnerabilities
OpenSSH: denial of service
openssh: remote denial of service
openssl: insufficient signature checking
openssl: multiple vulnerabilities
php: several vulnerabilities
php: integer overflow
phpbb2: missing input sanitizing
phpbb2: multiple vulnerabilities
phpMyAdmin: multiple vulnerabilities
postgresql: SQL injection
python: arbitrary code execution
quake: buffer overflow
sendmail: denial of service
shadow-utils: mailbox creation vulnerability
texinfo: temporary file vulnerability
tin: buffer overflow
unzip: long file name buffer overflow
w3c-libwww: possible stack overflow
webmin: cross-site scripting
wireshark: several vulnerabilities
xine-lib: code execution
xine-lib: buffer overflow
xine-ui: format string vulnerabilities
X.org: local privilege escalations
X.Org: buffer overflow
xorg-x11: privilege escalation
xpdf: buffer overflow
xpdf: integer overflows
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Kernel development Brief items Kernel release statusThe current stable 2.6 kernel is 2.6.18.1, released on October 16. It contains a rather long list of fixes for problems which have been encountered in 2.6.18.The stable team has also released 2.6.17.14 with a smaller set of fixes. This will probably be the final 2.6.17.x release. Adrian Bunk has released 2.6.16.30-rc1 with several new fixes. The current 2.6 prepatch is 2.6.19-rc2, released by Linus on October 13. There's a bunch of fixes here, but also the big interrupt handler prototype change and the initial merge of the developmental ext4 filesystem with a few enhancements. See the long-format changelog for the details. Around 250 post-rc2 patches - almost all fixes - have gone into the mainline git repository as of this writing. The current -mm tree is 2.6.19-rc2-mm1. Recent changes to -mm include generic backlight device support, some changes to how per-CPU data works on i386, and a FUSE update. There is also a new round_jiffies() function which rounds a time value up to the next whole second. The idea is to cause recurring timers to go off at the same time, reducing the number of timer interrupts needed.
Kernel development news Quote of the week
Wow, who'd have thought that loading 6 megabytes of unauditable
code into your kernel and X server might be a bad idea? It's almost
like code running as root was some sort of potential security
issue, or something.
Return values, warnings, and error situationsThe function pci_set_mwi() enables the "memory write and invalidate" (MWI) mode on the PCI bus. If the device on the other end can work with MWI, a small optimization results. The MWI mode might not be enabled, however, even if a device driver requests it; the bus hardware itself might not support it. A failure to set MWI is not generally a problem; things just go a bit slower than they would have otherwise. The calling driver might still want to know if the call succeeded, however, so Matthew Wilcox recently fixed the function to return -EINVAL if the attempt fails.It turns out that this is one of the many patches which have recently sabotaged Andrew Morton's heavily abused Vaio laptop. Some code was checking the result of pci_set_mwi(); once that function actually returned the result of the operation, the calling code failed on an error path. But, as noted above, a failure to set MWI is almost never a fatal problem. So, in response to this series of events, Alan Cox asserted:
The underlying bug is that someone marked pci_set_mwi must-check,
that's wrong for most of the drivers that use it. If you remove the
must check annotation from it then the problem and a thousand other
spurious warnings go away.
One suspects Alan is also behind code like the following, from drivers/ata/pata_cs5530.c:
compiler_warning_pointless_fix = pci_set_mwi(cs5530_0);
The __must_check annotation makes use of the gcc warn_unused_result attribute; it first found its way into the mainline in 2.6.8. If a function is marked __must_check, the compiler will issue a strong warning whenever the function is called and its return code is unused. The use of __must_check is another step in the long path toward automatic detection of potential bugs. It is intended for functions whose return value really does require checking - copy_from_user() is a good example. If that function fails, and the calling code does not notice, it will proceed using essentially random data. Similar issues come up in user space; witness the recent vulnerabilities resulting from privileged applications which fail to check the result of a setuid() call. In some cases, there clearly is no excuse for not looking at the return value, and __must_check is a good way to find incorrect function usage before it creates real problems. In current kernels, however, the list of __must_check functions has grown rather long: it includes most of the sysfs, PCI, kobject, and driver core APIs. In some cases, as with pci_set_mwi(), it now includes functions whose return values are often of no interest to the calling code. The result, in this case, is snide workarounds in the code, added warning noise, and an actual bug where code which need not fail does so in response to an error return code. Still, according to Andrew Morton, it is a mistake to ignore an error return from a function like pci_set_mwi():
You, the driver author _do not know_ what pci_set_mwi() does at
present, on all platforms, nor do you know what it does in the
future. For you the driver author to make assumptions about what's
happening inside pci_set_mwi() is a layering violation. Maybe the
bridge got hot-unplugged. Maybe the attempt to set MWI caused some
synchronous PCI error. For example, take a look at the various
implementations of pci_ops.read() around the place - various of
them can fail for various reasons.
This discussion led, eventually, to what might be the real issue: how should in-kernel APIs be designed to properly return status information? A suggestion which has been made is that pci_set_mwi() should return zero or one, depending on whether MWI is a possible operating mode. Only if something goes drastically wrong on the PCI bus should a negative error code be returned. No such patch has yet been merged, but that seems like the way this particular issue is likely to be resolved. The larger discussion of how errors should be handled may just be beginning, however. There are a number of de-facto conventions for kernel APIs which have evolved over time, but no overall policy on error handling. So Andrew would like to talk about guidelines on how different kinds of errors should be handled. In particular, he suggests a rule that a negative error code should never be ignored in any situation. Cases where this kind of result is not relevant (pci_set_mwi() being an example) are an indication of an API in need of a redesign. So over time, it would not be surprising to see a number of kernel interfaces shift such that a number of error conditions are handled further down the call chain and with the goal of not returning error codes for non-error situations. There is also likely to be a continued effort to cut down on the warning noise, which, at times, threatens to drown out the real errors. With luck, all of this work will lead to safer interfaces and a more robust kernel in the future.
The death and possible rebirth of sysctl()The sysctl() system call has had a rough life. It began as an idea imported from BSD; it allows a user-space process to tweak various kernel parameters using a set of integer indexes. People quickly discovered, however, that a text and filesystem-based interface (as seen under /proc/sys) is much easier to deal with. The /proc/sys hierarchy can be adjusted from the shell and manipulated by scripts - and nobody has to worry about sysctl numbers. So there are very few users of sysctl(), which has been considered deprecated for a long time. Recent kernels have issued warnings when sysctl() is called.The 2.6.19-rc kernels take things one step further: for most configurations, sysctl() disappears altogether. In a strange sort of turnaround, only configurations with the "embedded" option set can enable sysctl() at all. This is all in accordance with the feature removal schedule, which calls for sysctl() to go away in January, 2007. But sysctl() is part of the user-space API, which is never supposed to be broken for any reason. The removal of this function would appear to be a violation of the oft-repeated promise to keep this interface stable. So some developers have started to complain about the API change. There have been calls to back it out again, and to restore sysctl() to normal configurations. As Alan Cox put it: "We added it, we supported it, we get to keep it. We just stick notes in the docs saying 'please use /proc instead'." Patches which restore sysctl() are circulating, though none have been merged. There appears to be some disagreement over whether removing sysctl() would truly break user-space applications or not. There are some uses of it in older C libraries, but, apparently, those libraries do the right thing when the attempt to use sysctl() fails, and applications operate normally. Linus has asked for an example of an application which truly breaks in the absence of sysctl(); none have been posted as of this writing. Interfaces which are not actually used on real systems are fair game for removal, so, unless somebody comes up with a a real-world problem soon, sysctl() will likely continue on its path out of the kernel.
Video4Linux2 part 2: registration and open()
Before starting, it is worth noting that there are two resources which will prove invaluable for anybody working with video drivers:
To start, every V4L2 driver must include the requisite header file:
#include <linux/videodev2.h>
Much of the needed information is there. When digging through the headers as a driver author, however, you'll also want to have a look at include/media/v4l2-dev.h, which defines many of the structures you'll be working with. A video driver will probably have sections which deal with the PCI or USB bus (for example); we'll not spend much time on that part of the driver here. There is often an internal i2c interface, which will be examined later on in this article series. Then, there is the interface to the V4L2 subsystem. That interface is built around struct video_device, which represents a V4L2 device. Covering everything that goes into this structure will be the topic of several articles; here we'll just have an overview. The name field of struct video_device is a name for the type of device; it will appear in kernel log messages and in sysfs. The name usually matches the name of the driver. There are two fields to describe what type of device is being represented. The first (type) looks like a holdover from the Video4Linux1 API; it can have one of four values:
If your device can perform more than one of the above functions, a separate V4L2 device should be registered for each of the supported functions. In V4L2, however, any of the registered devices can be called upon to function in any of the supported modes. What it comes down to is that, for V4L2, there is really only need for a single device, but compatibility with the older Video4Linux API requires that individual devices be registered for each function. The second field, called type2, is a bitmask describing the device's capabilities in more detail. It can contain any of the following values:
Another field initialized by all V4L2 drivers is minor, which is the desired minor number for the device. Usually this field will be set to -1, which causes the Video4Linux subsystem to allocate a minor number at registration time. There are also three distinct sets of function pointers found within struct video_device. The first, consisting of a single function, is the release() method. If a device lacks a release() function, the kernel will complain (your editor was amused to note that it refers offending programmers to an LWN article). The release() function is important: for various reasons, references to a video_device structure can remain long after that last video application has closed its file descriptor. Those references can remain after the device has been unregistered. For this reason, it is not safe to free the structure until the release() method has been called. So, often, this function consists of a simple kfree() call. The video_device structure contains within it a file_operations structure with the usual function pointers. Video drivers will always need open() and release() operations; note that this release() is called whenever the device is closed, not when it can be freed as with the other function with the same name described above. There will often be a read() or write() method, depending on whether the device performs input or output; note, however, that for streaming video devices, there are other ways of transferring data. Most devices which handle streaming video data will need to implement poll() and mmap(). And every V4l2 device needs an ioctl() method - but they can use video_ioctl2(), which is provided by the V4L2 subsystem. The third set of methods, stored in the video_device structure itself, makes up the core of the V4L2 API. There are several dozen of them, handling various device configuration operations, streaming I/O, and more. Finally, a useful field to know from the beginning is debug. Setting it to either (or both - it's a bitmask) of V4L2_DEBUG_IOCTL and V4L2_DEBUG_IOCTL_ARG will yield a fair amount of debugging output which can help a befuddled programmer figure out why a driver and an application are failing to understand each other.
Video device registrationOnce the video_device structure has been set up, it should be registered with:
int video_register_device(struct video_device *vfd, int type, int nr);
Here, vfd is the device structure, type is the same value found in its type field, and nr is, again, the desired minor number (or -1 for dynamic allocation). The return value should be zero; a negative error code indicates that something went badly wrong. As always, one should be aware that the device's methods can be called immediately once the device is registered; do not call video_register_device() until everything is ready to go. A device can be unregistered with:
void video_unregister_device(struct video_device *vfd);
Stay tuned for the next article in this series, which will begin to look at the implementation of some of these methods.
open() and release()Every V4L2 device will need an open() method, which will have the usual prototype:
int (*open)(struct inode *inode, struct file *filp);
The first thing an open() method will normally do is to locate an internal device corresponding to the given inode; this is done by keying on the minor number stored in inode. A certain amount of initialization can be performed; this can also be a good time to power up the hardware if it has a power-down option. The V4L2 specification defines some conventions which are relevant here. One is that, by design, all V4L2 devices can have multiple open file descriptors at any given time. The purpose here is to allow one application to display (or generate) video data while another one, perhaps, tweaks control values. So, while certain V4L2 operations (actually reading and writing video data, in particular) can be made exclusive to a single file descriptor, the device as a whole should support multiple open descriptors. Another convention worth mentioning is that the open() method should not, in general, make changes to the operating parameters currently set in the hardware. It should be possible to run a command-line program which configures a camera according to a certain set of desires (resolution, video format, etc.), then run an entirely separate application to, for example, capture a frame from the camera. This mode would not work if the camera's settings were reset in the middle, so a V4L2 driver should endeavor to keep existing settings until an application explicitly resets them. The release() method performs any needed cleanup. Since video devices can have multiple open file descriptors, release() will need to decrement a counter and check before doing anything radical. If the just-closed file descriptor was being used to transfer data, it may necessary to shut down the DMA engine and perform other cleanups. The next installment in this series will start into the long process of querying device capabilities and configuring operating modes. Stay tuned.
Patches and updates Kernel trees
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Documentation
Filesystems and block I/O
Networking
Security-related
Virtualization and containers
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Distributions News and Editorials Kororaa and the GPL - The Final WordThe Kororaa project started out as a binary install method for Gentoo Linux. It is still useful for that, but as a side project the Kororaa LiveCD was designed to showcase AIGLX, Xgl, compiz, KDE, Gnome, Gentoo and Kororaa technologies. When the live CD was first announced last May the project was accused of GPL violations because proprietary nVidia and ATI drivers were included in the distribution.This week we received a note from Jakob Petsovits pointing out that Kororaa no longer includes any proprietary modules on the live CD. An official statement is available at the project's web site:
Do we make an exception just because these drivers give us unprecedented
3D support under Linux? Is that fair?
So in closing, at this stage I have decided to take the opinion that non-GPL modules are violations of the Linux kernel and are also unethical. This means we will not build non-GPL drivers against the kernel and as such Kororaa will not be shipping non-GPL modules in any future products. Of course if the end user believes non-GPL drivers are acceptable, then he/she is free to install them on their own system. For myself however, I am using the Linux kernel to create a product. If it was not for Linux then it would not exist and I therefore have a responsibility to respect the license of the kernel. Kororaa AIGLXgl 0.3 Live CD is available, without any non-GPL video card drivers.
New Releases Thinstation ver. 2.2 has been released.The crew behind Thinstation has announced that Thinstation ver. 2.2 is available for free download. "Thinstation is an Open Source Linux based thin client operating system that makes a standard PC a diskless client in a server based computing (SBC) environment. The PC might be a modern dedicated thin client PC from e.g. Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu-Siemens, Neoware or others -- or a recycled old PC (Pentium MMX with 32 MB RAM or better)."
SUSE Linux 10.1 "Remastered" availableA remastered version of SUSE Linux 10.1 is now available. "This release combines the 10.1 GM and all online updates that we have released for 10.1 so far, including libzypp, which should make the installing and working experience much smoother for everyone." A remastered install DVD is also available.
OpenPKG Community distribution OpenPKG 2-STABLE-20061018 availableThe OpenPKG Foundation e.V. has released a 2-STABLE-20061018 snapshot from the 2-STABLE branch. "Along with OpenpKG CURRENT these series claim the cornerstones between practicable maintenance and bleeding-edge software for the fast moving OpenPKG Community distribution."
dyne:bolic 2.2 codename DHORUBA releaseddyne:bolic GNU/Linux is live CD containing plenty of multimedia software. Click below for a look at the new features, updates and fixes in version 2.2.
Distribution News Debian to keep leader, release etch soonerThe results of the latest round of Debian Project general resolutions are in. The resolution to recall the project leader failed, while the counter-resolution reaffirming support for the leader (and the Dunc-Tank initiative) passed. The attempt to make section 2 of the Debian Free Software Guidelines apply to all programmatic work (and firmware in particular) failed, with the project voting (narrowly) for "further discussion." While this discussion takes place, however, the project has voted to release etch when it is ready without requiring a complete and final solution to the firmware problem first.
Debian BSP Marathon continuesThe Debian Bug Squashing Marathon continues in Cambridge, UK on October 28 and 29, 2006.
Fedora Core 6 slips one more timeA few more difficulties turned up in the Fedora Core 6 release, with the result that it has now been pushed back a couple of days, to October 19. "The current plan is to spin a release candidate this evening with some last minute fixes, and start the sync. Validation has gone very well up to this point and baring any blow ups in the spin process, the release looks very solid."Update: the FC6 has been pushed back again; the new target date is October 24.
Dribble repo for FedoraDribble is a new repository which supports the Fedora Core Linux distribution. It provides packages with a focus on fun, distributable software not already found in the Core, Extras and Livna repositories for various reasons such as their stricter legal requirements. Software in Dribble may not be OSI approved, yet is distributable. "Dribble includes software for example, such as emulators, additional games and additional multimedia applications."
Fedora Infrastructure Team - Help WantedThe Fedora Infrastructure team is looking for some more volunteers to help support the day to day activities of the Fedora Project contributors and developers.
return of the BLAG listsBLAG Linux and GNU mailing lists are now available. There are three lists, blag-announce for BLAG Linux and GNU announcements, blag-devel for BLAG Linux and GNU development discussion and blag-users for BLAG Linux and GNU users discussion. Click below for subscription information.
Ubuntu 6.10 Release Freeze now in effectThe freeze is on for Ubuntu's Edgy Eft. "The final freeze of the 6.10 release cycle is now in effect. Uploads should only be made after consultation with a member of the release team for main or the MOTU UVF team for universe. All uploads to main should fix 6.10-targetted bugs."
Ubuntu 7.04 planning beginsThe Ubuntu "edgy" release is not quite out yet, but Mark Shuttleworth has already started looking forward to the next release, which, it seems, will be named "Feisty Fawn." "The main themes for feature development in this release will be improvements to hardware support in the laptop, desktop and high-end server market, and aggressive adoption of emerging desktop technologies. Ubuntu's Feisty release will put the spotlight on multimedia enablement and desktop effects. There will be a planning meeting in California in November; click below for the full message.
UDS Mountain View: Call for TopicsThe next Ubuntu Developer Summit will be held in Mountain View, California at the Googleplex, November 5 - 10, 2006. "The primary objective of the summit is to define the release goals for Ubuntu 7.04, to be released in April 2007. At the summit, the development team will discuss feature ideas, and create specification documents describing plans for their implementation."
Distribution Newsletters Fedora Weekly News Issue 62This edition of the Fedora Weekly News looks at Inside Fedora Core 6, Naming of Fedora Core 6, Announcing Dribble a new addon repo, Red Hat Linux rises over Chicago, Opening doors to open source for women, and much more.
Gentoo Weekly NewsletterThe Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for October 9, 2006 covers X.Org 7.1 stable on amd64/x86, safe CFLAGS settings, interview with Daniel Ostrow "dostrow", and several other topics.
Ubuntu Weekly News #17The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for October 7, 2006 covers the Ubuntu Video contest, the new Bluetooth team, Ubuntu in Indiana schools and much more.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 173The DistroWatch Weekly for October 16, 2006 is out. "As we brace up for the brand new Fedora Core 6 later this week, the focus of this issue of DistroWatch Weekly is on the 3D accelerated Linux desktop. How usable is it? And does it bring anything more than eye candy? Find out in a blog-style report about our experiences with Xgl- and AIGLX-enabled desktops on Mandriva Linux 2007 and SabayonLinux 3.1. Also in this issue: iXsystems acquires a popular FreeBSD-based operating system for desktops, Debian developers vote to resolve controversial issues, and Fedora Core maintainers look for ways to count their user base. Finally, in the new distributions section, we introduce Lintrack, a new Arch-based project designed to run on network routers."
Package updates Fedora updatesUpdates for Fedora Core 5: dlm-kernel (built for kernel-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5), GFS-kernel (built for kernel-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5), gnbd-kernel (built for kernel-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5), cman-kernel (built for kernel-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5), pango (update to Pango 1.12.4), anacron (bug fixes), pango (bug fix), gzip (rebuild), kernel (rebase to 2.6.18.1), bind (update to upstream 9.3.3rc2), shadow-utils (fix mail spool files creation), kudzu (fix segfault in module_upgrade).
Mandriva updatesUpdates for Mandriva Linux 2007.0: squid (bug fix for x86_64), wxPythonGTX (bug fix), smbldap-tools (fix parsing bug).Updates for Corporate Server 4.0: squid (bug fix).
rPath updatesUpdates for rPath Linux 1: conary, conary-build, conary-repository (Conary 1.0.34 maintenance release), vnc (include Xvnc server), qt-x11-free (add /etc/qt/qtrc file), conary, conary-build, conary-repository (Conary 1.0.35 maintenance release).
Trustix updatesUpdates for Trustix Secure Linux 2.2 and 3.0: openswan (various bug fixes).
Ubuntu updatesUpdates for Ubuntu 6.06 LTS: alsa-lib 1.0.10-2ubuntu4.1, git-core_1.4.1-1~dapper1, apt-cacher_1.5.3~dapper1, proftpd_1.3.0-9~dapper1, phpgroupware_0.9.16.011-2~dapper1, gnomebaker_0.6.0-0ubuntu2~dapper1, ktorrent_2.0.3-0ubuntu4~dapper1.
Newsletters and articles of interest The Perfect Setup - CentOS 4.4 (HowtoForge)HowtoForge has published a tutorial on using CentOS, a derivative of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. "This is a detailed description about how to set up a CentOS 4.4 based server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters (web server (SSL-capable), mail server (with SMTP-AUTH and TLS!), DNS server, FTP server, MySQL server, POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.). This tutorial is written for the 32-bit version of CentOS 4.4, but should apply to the 64-bit version with very little modifications as well."
The Perfect Setup - Mandriva 2007 Free Edition (HowtoForge)HowtoForge covers a Mandriva server set up. "This is a detailed description about how to set up a Mandriva 2007 Free Edition based server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters (web server (SSL-capable), mail server (with SMTP-AUTH and TLS!), DNS server, FTP server, MySQL server, POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.)."
Secure By Design: How Guardian Digital Secures EnGarde Secure LinuxGuardian Digital has made available an explanation of the security model used in creating EnGarde Secure Linux. "Guardian Digital builds EnGarde Secure Linux on the principle that security is the first priority of a modern operating system and must therefore be considered in every element of its design. This is very different from the more common practice of "hardening" a system by attempting to remove security vulnerabilities after the system is complete, for example by restricting permissions or closing ports. To achieve an unparalleled level of security, EnGarde Secure Linux tailors its system following the principle of "least privilege" in which every program and service is given only the privileges and access it needs to do its job, and no more."
Distribution reviews Linux XP Desktop: A Windows face on an old Linux base (Linux.com)Linux.com compares Linux XP Desktop to Linspire and Xandros. "Unlike Linspire and Xandros, which are both based on Debian, Linux XP is derived from Fedora. It runs an extensively modified version of GNOME to create an environment a Windows user should be comfortable with. Its manifesto claims that Linux XP is not a "cheap copycat product" but rather a mature and stable "ready-to-migrate desktop system." This I had to see."
Nexenta combines OpenSolaris, GNU, and Ubuntu (Linux.com)Linux.com reviews Nexenta. "What do you get when you combine OpenSolaris, the GNU utilities, and Ubuntu? Nexenta -- a GNU-based open source operating system built on top of the OpenSolaris kernel and runtime. I took the Alpha 5 release out for a spin to see how well it's progressing. It might sound like an odd combination, but after more than a year of development, it actually works well, and is shaping up to be a very interesting operating system."
Sabayon Linux miniEdition looks sharp on the bleeding edge (Linux.com)Linux.com reviews Sabayon Linux miniEdition. "Last week the Sabayon Linux project released ISO images of its miniEdition 3.1 live CD Linux distro. Sabayon has earned a reputation for running right on the cutting edge; it is the first distro to deploy a live CD using the Beryl compositing engine and Nvidia's newest beta video drivers. The only reason I tested the miniEdition instead of the full DVD ISO is that the DVD torrent estimated three days to complete the download. Seeing how much there is in the miniEdition, perhaps I should be glad."
Zenwalk GNU/Linux 3: A Review (Entropy)Entropy has a review of Zenwalk 3. "Zenwalk 3 is an operating system based on Patrick Volkerding's Slackware GNU/Linux distribution, version 10.2. The entire operating system fits on a single CD, and stays true to what the author calls the "Zen philosophy". This philosophy, as it has been coined, refers to Zenwalk's policy of including one application per task. I've had a few problems with Slackware and Slackware-related systems in the past, but Zenwalk has alleviated all of my stress regarding those issues."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol Development Visualize Chaos with FyreThe open-source software world often produces interesting applications for the exploration of the artistic side of science and math. One such application is Fyre, written by David Trowbridge and Micah Dowty.![[Fyre]](/images/ns/fyre-out.png)
The project
description states:
Fyre is a tool for producing computational artwork based on histograms of iterated chaotic functions. At the moment, it implements the Peter de Jong map in a fixed-function pipeline with an interactive GTK+ frontend and a command line interface for easy and efficient rendering of high-resolution, high quality images.
This program was previously known as 'de Jong Explorer', but has been renamed to make way for supporting other chaotic functions.
Some of the capabilities of Fyre include:
The screenshots page shows the Fyre interface, and the gallery page shows some selected output from the application. Version 1.0.1 of Fyre, code named Lemon curry? has been released: "Wow, it's been a while! This release sports several improvements: a beautiful new icon, some performance increases, a more robust oversampling method, and other bug fixes." The Fyre news page explains the project history, and discusses plans for upcoming releases. Building Fyre 1.0.1 was fairly straightforward on a Ubuntu 5.10 system, it involved downloading the source code, unpacking, running configure, fixing a missing library dependency, and running make/make install. Running Fyre was easy, the user interface takes little time to figure out, and a variety of interesting images were produced quickly. As with any number-crunching application, a fast CPU is recommended. With Fyre's ability to generate an infinitely variable stream of pretty pictures, Fyre could be used for generating web graphics, printed graphics, and more. The application is also useful for those wanting to explore an interesting mathematical domain. To be a true eye-candy application, it would be nice if Fyre could run in an automatic random mode, and the images could be improved if the simple two color display mode were expanded. Nonetheless, Fyre produces some impressive and beautiful images.
System Applications Database Software new PostgreSQL minor versions releasedNew minor versions of the PostgreSQL DBMS have been announced. "The PostgreSQL project today is releasing the following minor versions, which fix three different crash vulnerabilities as well as an assortment of minor issues. Users of all PostgreSQL versions are urged to upgrade at the earliest opportunity. The versions being released are: 8.1.5, 8.0.9, 7.4.14, 7.3.16. These are cumulative patch releases which simply replace the PostgreSQL binaries for major versions 8.1, 8.0, 7.4 and 7.3. Note that users of versions 7.4.0, 7.4.1, 8.0.0 and 8.0.1 may have to take additional steps in the course of upgrading".
Device Drivers LCDproc v0.5.1 ReleasedStable version 0.5.1 of LCDproc, a Linux driver for small liquid crystal displays (LCDs) is out with a long list of changes and bug fixes. "LCDproc is a piece of software that displays real-time system information from your Linux/*BSD box on a LCD. The server supports several serial devices: Matrix Orbital, CrystalFontz, Bayrad, LB216, LCDM001 (kernelconcepts.de), Wirz-SLI, Cwlinux(.com) and PIC-an-LCD; and some devices connected to the LPT port: HD44780, STV5730, T6963, SED1520 and SED1330. Various clients are available that display things like CPU load, system load, memory usage, uptime, and a lot more."
LDAP Software LAT 1.3.0 releasedVersion 1.3.0 of LAT, the LDAP Administration Tool is out. "This is the new development branch that will eventually become 1.4."
Networking Tools hearnet 0.0.9 releasedVersion 0.0.9 of hearnet, an audio network monitor, has been announced. "This release sports filter expressions (a la tcpdump) and the ability to drop privileges and run as a normal user, and therefore play nice with the other JACK apps in your playground."
Security Sussen 0.31 releasedVersion 0.31 of Sussen, a vulnerabilities and configuration checker, is available with bug fixes and other improvements.
Web Site Development Midgard 1.8.0 releasedVersion 1.8.0 of the Midgard content management system is out. "Midgard's 1.8 branch focuses on improved stability for Midgard2 technology preview features introduced in 1.7 branch."
WikyBlog 1.3 Released (SourceForge)Version 1.3 of WikyBlog is available. "A new version of WikyBlog was released today with new support for content includes and 304 responses. WikyBlog is a scalable CMS/Groupware application with an AJAX enhanced tabbed interface enabling users to view/edit multiple files within the same page."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Aqualung 0.9 beta 6 releasedVersion 0.9 beta 6 of Aqualung, a music player, is out. "This release introduces a fair number of substantial improvements".
LASH 0.5.2 ReleasedVersion 0.5.2 of LASH is out. "LASH is the LASH Audio Session Handler, which allow you to save and restore complex audio setups involving multiple interconnected JACK/Alsa quickly as a unit. This release fixes several bugs, upgrading is recommended."
QjackCtl 0.2.21 is outVersoni 0.2.21 of QjackCtl, a GUI front-end for the JACK Audio Connection Kit, is out with a number of new capabilities.
Data Visualization matplotlib 0.87.6 is availableVersion 0.87.6 of matplotlib, a Python-based data plotting library, is out. The release notes document the changes: "Added line pointers to the Annotation code, and a pylab interface. See matplotlib.text.Annotation, examples/annotation_demo.py and examples/annotation_demo_pylab.py - JDH 2006-09-18 mathtext2.py: The SVG backend now supports the same things that the AGG backend does. Fixed some bugs with rendering, and out of bounds errors in the AGG backend - ES. Changed the return values of math_parse_s_ft2font_svg to support lines (fractions etc.) 2006-09-17 Added an Annotation class to facilitate annotating objects and an examples file examples/annotation_demo.py."
Desktop Environments GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced this week:
KDE Celebrates 10 Years of the Free Desktop (KDE.News)The K Desktop Environment project has celebrated it's tenth anniversary. "Keynote speakers were Matthias Ettrich, founder of the KDE project, as well as Klaus Knopper of Knoppix fame. During their presentations they looked back at KDE's successful past 10 years and they offered their thoughts about the future of KDE and Free Software."
KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News)The October 15, 2006 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "The KDE project celebrates its 10th anniversary. System tray items can now be reordered by the user. Support for action sounds in okular. Work begins on Dynamic Brush architecture and canvas improvements in Krita, with layer handling improvements in Karbon. Krita switches library dependencies from ImageMagick to GraphicsMagick. Memory usage optimisations in the KHTML web rendering engine and Amarok."
GUI Packages SPTK 3.3.0 releasedVersion 3.3.0 of SPTK, the Simply Powerful Toolkit, has been announced. "Since version 3.2.x, we fixed several bugs, and added multiple features."
Imaging Applications Comix 3.6.1 released (SourceForge)Version 3.6.1 of Comix, an image viewer that is aimed at comic books, is available. "Version 3.6.1 contains updated Brazilian Portuguese and Dutch translations."
Interoperability Wine 0.9.23 releasedVersion 0.9.23 of Wine has been announced. Changes include: Massive update of printf formats for Win64 compatibility, Dynamic drive support on MacOSX, Still more MSI fixes and improvements and Lots of bug fixes.
Music Applications MMA 1.0 RC2 releasedVersion 1.0 RC2 of MMA (Musical MIDI Accompaniment), an accompaniment generator, is out. "Included in this release: Improved support for windows path names. A number of packaging issues resolved. Inclusion of mklibdoc.py for updating of lib docs from user contributed files. Fractional RANGE settings for arpeggio and scale tracks. This is our second version 1 release candidate. Please let me know if anything is broken before we release the real 1.0!"
wcnt 1.25 announcedVersion 1.25 of wcnt (Wav Composer Not Toilet), a real time audio synthesizer, sampler and sequencer, is available. "This release has focused upon making life easier for the wcnt .wc file composer. It is now possible to group together modules and then copy the group to a new group which has the same input/output relationships between the modules as the originals. Also, but not quite as helpful, you can instruct the sequencer to repeat the riff across a number of bars instead of messing about cutting and pasting."
Office Suites KOffice 1.6 Released (KDE.News)KDE.News covers the release of the KOffice 1.6 office suite. "This release is mostly a feature release of Krita and Kexi, but also contains major enhancements to the OpenDocument and MathML support of KFormula and new scripting functionality. This version also contains a vastly improved version of KPlato, our project planning application."
OpenOffice.org 2.0.4 releasedOpenOffice.org 2.0.4 is out. This release includes "enhanced PDF management," the ability to export to LaTeX files, and a new extension mechanism. It also happens to be the sixth anniversary of the launch of the OpenOffice.org project. Congratulations and happy birthday.
Digital Photography GTK Photo Gallery 0.34 releasedVersion 0.34 of GTK Photo Gallery, a photo management utility, is out with bug fixes. See the change log for details.
Video Applications MvpdMake 0.1 announcedMvpdMake is: "a GUI wrapper around mplayer, mencoder, sox and mv_encoder to convert video files to the MoviePod (.mvpd) video format to be played by mv_player under iPodLinux on your iPod Nano." Stable version 0.1 has been announced.
Web Browsers Looking forward to Firefox 3Firefox 2.0 isn't quite out yet, but the developers are already looking forward to the next major release. To that end, they have put together a Firefox 3 feature brainstorming wiki with all of the ideas they are considering. It's all just ideas at this point, and it's probable that a lot of things on that list will never show up in code form, but it is still interesting to see where the project thinks it might go.
Firefox 2 RC3 availableThe third Firefox 2 release candidate is now available; click below for the details. Information on what to expect in Firefox 2 can be found in the release notes.
Lynx 2.8.6 releasedVersion 2.8.6 release 2 of Lynx, a text-mode web browser, is available. The changes document shows what's new.
Miscellaneous KeePass 1.06 released (SourceForge)Version 1.06 of KeePass, a secure password manager, is available. "Version 1.06 is a stable release. Additionally to the usual small feature additions and bugfixes, the password quality estimation algorithm and auto-type window focusing have been improved, automatic workspace locking has been enhanced."
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe October 17, 2006 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles.
Haskell Call for Contributions - HC and A ReportA Call for Contributions has gone out for the November, 2007 edition of the Haskell Communities & Activities Report. Submissions should be in by early November.
Lisp GNU CLISP 2.41 releasedVersion 2.41 of GNU CLISP has been announced. "This version adds bindings to the LIBSVM library for Support Vector Machines, FFI changes, and a few bug fixes. CLISP is one of the most popular and actively maintained open-source Common Lisp implementations."
Perl This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists (O'Reilly)The October 8-14, 2006 edition of This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists is out with a summary of the latest Perl 6 discussions.
Python Python 2.4.4, release candidate 1 is outRelease candidate 1 of Python 2.4.4 has been announced. "Python 2.4.4 is a bug-fix release. While Python 2.5 is the latest version of Python, we're making this release for people who are still running Python 2.4."
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!The October 16, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.
Tcl/Tk Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links (Oct 16)The October 16, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
IDEs Wing IDE 2.1.3 releasedVersion 2.1.3 of Wing IDE, a Python language integrated development environment, has been announced. "This is a bug fix release that fixes debugger support for Python 2.5 final, improves VI mode and multi-file replace, and adds support for Subversion 1.4, among other things."
Miscellaneous Yaccviso 1.3 announcedStable version 1.3 of Yaccviso is available. "Yaccviso visualizes yacc and bison grammars. It will generate a .dot or .vcg file that you can play around with in graphviz (from AT&T research labs fame) or VCG."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Linux in the news Recommended Reading A Question of Choice (Linux Journal)Glyn Moody takes a look at the Initiative for Software Choice. "So let's look a little closer at this Initiative for Software Choice. It certainly has an impressive list of members - hundreds of them. They mostly seem to be small companies, and nothing wrong with that. But wait, there are couple of bigger fish among the minnows: EDS is there, and a certain outfit called Microsoft."
FSF should separate GPLv3 changes (Linux.com)Bruce Byfield thinks that GPLv3 changes should be looked at separately, not as one huge change. "The trouble with GPLv3 is that it contains the accumulation of 15 years' worth of changes. Some of these changes, such as improvements in the clarity of the language or attempts to make the license more acceptable in a variety of international jurisdictions or to cover BitTorrent downloads, might be accepted with hardly a dissenting comment, if they could be agreed upon separately. Even those who prefer the GPLv2 would probably admit that such changes are necessary improvements that make the license easier to understand and use."
Trade Shows and Conferences ApacheCon 2006: The state of the feather and more (Linux.com)Linux.com covers The ApacheCon US event. "ApacheCon US 2006 kicked off its general session this morning in Austin, Texas, following two days of tutorials. Apache Software Foundation (ASF) president Sander Striker opened the proceedings with his "State of the Feather" address. Cliff Stoll, the hacker-catching, planetary astronomer, author, and volunteer 7th grade science teacher, followed Striker with a keynote address which included a demonstration of how he taught a 7th grade science class to measure the speed of light."
ApacheCon 2006 wrapup (Linux.com)Linux.com has a report from ApacheCon. "ApacheCon 2006 ended its week-long run in Austin, Texas, on Friday. The event proved that Linux is not the only brightly shining star in the world of free and open source software. Most of the sessions on all three days of ApacheCon were technically oriented. Not being a server guy, I stayed away from those and sat in on business or licensing-related talks."
The SCO Problem How the EV1 Deal Went Down (Groklaw)Groklaw has a worthwhile bit of SCO history in the form of a declaration from Robert Marsh, the guy who bought a big SCOsource license for EV1Servers.net in 2004. "Mr. Langer or others representing SCO told me that a lawsuit against EV1 or our customers could result in a temporary restraining order or an injunction mandating an immediate shut-down of EV1Server.net's Linux servers. I take great pride in the consistency and reliability of our hosting infrastructure, qualities for which EV1Servers.net are well-known in the industry. A shut-down, or even the possibility of one, would have been severely damaging to our hosting business. I felt pressure and urgency to avoid that outcome."
Companies Why iXsystems bought PC-BSD (NewsForge)NewsForge covers the acquisition of PC-BSD by iXsystems. "PC-BSD is a desktop-oriented distribution that masks the stability of the FreeBSD kernel behind an easy-to-use package. Its graphical system installer and point-and-click PBI package management system have been drawing in users who've never tried a BSD-based operating system before. This week the project was acquired by iXsystems, a high-end enterprise hardware solution provider. While the community is expressing skepticism of the move, the developers of PC-BSD and iXsystems both say that this partnership can only take the distribution forward."
Oracle Isn't a Linux Company (Motley Fool)The Motley Fool is not impressed with the rumors that Oracle might launch its own Linux distribution. "[Larry] Ellison has long been known for veiled threats, and I think that's what we have here. Why? Threats don't cost much and Oracle has a lot to lose -- 80% of the Linux database market at last count. That means his company has to work with Ubuntu whether it wants to or not. If, in doing so, Larry wants to make Red Hat or SuSE a little nervous, great."
Linux at Work My first 10 years with Linux (Linux.com)Joe Barr looks back at a decade of using Linux. "I have now officially entered my second decade using Linux and free/open source software in a meaningful way. I began dabbling with Linux as early as 1995, but in June of 1996, I began using it for real when I created my first Web site. Today, my Linux desktop takes care of all my personal computing needs, both at work and at play. Here's one man's story of how he and Linux matured together."
Interviews Jaroslaw Staniek (People Behind KDE)The People Behind KDE have an interview with Jaroslaw Staniek. "I am the person behind the "Qt-KDE Wrapper" project (started in 2003), currently known as KDElibs/win32, and Kexi project's maintainer (a database environment competing with MS Access) since 2004, now part of the KOffice suite. As logical and technological integration between KOffice applications improves, there are increasingly more bits shared between Kexi and KOffice, so there are things I develop for KOffice as well. The KoProperty library, is one of them, as well as the KexiDB high-level database connectivity library (one of the main Kexi selling points.)" (Found on KDE.News)
boris zbarsky answers your questions (Asa's weblog)Asa Dotzler has an interview with Mozilla developer Boris Zbarsky, with questions suggested by readers of Asa's weblog. "crf asks "What are some of the suckiest things about the mozilla project? How do you think those things could be improved?" Hmmm... I think one of the suckiest things is the undocumented ugly legacy codebase we're dealing with. We're sort of working on improving that." (Found on MozillaZine)
Interview with Matt Zimmerman (Behind Ubuntu)Behind Ubuntu inteviews Matt Zimmerman, chair of the Ubuntu Technical Board. "Q: What are you working on for Edgy? A: I hope to implement a couple of new features, including the Common Customizations specification, which simplifies the process of making the most common post-installation customizations, and Easy Codec Installation, which guides the user through finding and installing multimedia codecs to view content."
Resources Developing High Performance Asynchronous IO Applications (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet looks at asynchronous IO and spam. "Why do spammers send billions of email messages advertising ridiculous products that most of us would never in our lives consider buying? How can someone possibly make money from this endeavor when the vast majority of spam either gets filtered out or at the very best read and discarded by a disgruntled end user? What makes spamming profitable is huge volume."
Become a better blogger with UNIX (IBM developerWorks)Michael Stutz presents some tips on using UNIX tools for writing blogs. "UNIX and weblogs, or blogs, have a lot in common. Besides being the native environment of most Web servers and the preferred environment for many Web developers, UNIX can be an ideal environment to blog with because of its Web and text-processing power. Take advantage of the command-line tools and features inherent to UNIX to make you a better blogger. Here are a few tips to help you do just that."
CLI Magic: Use cURL to measure Web site statistics (Linux.com)Linux.com looks at cURL. "cURL is a handy command-line network tool whose name stands for "client for URLs," but think of it as a "copy for URLs" -- it can copy to or from a given URL in any of nine different protocols. Although cURL is sometimes misconceived as an updated wget, that's wrong. The two utilities do share some features and options, but are distinctly different tools; wget is for downloading files from the Web, and is best used to mirror entire sites or parts of sites -- which is something that cURL alone can't do."
Django Djumpstart: Build a To-do List in 30 Minutes (sitepoint)James Bennett has written a jumpstart article on Django, a Python-based a rapid web development framework. "Say hello to Django. In this article, I'll be walking through the process of creating a simple application -- a to-do list -- with Django; this tutorial will only cover a small portion of what Django can do for you, but it'll be a good start and (hopefully) enough to whet your appetite for more."
The GIMP's next-generation imaging core demonstrated (Linux.com)Linux.com covers a public demonstration of the Generic Graphical Library (GEGL). "GEGL was first proposed in 1999, but the GIMP's existing code base has remained in place over several revision cycles since then. As recently as summer 2005, GEGL appeared for all practical purposes dead in the water. Then Kolas took a determined interest in resurrecting the project, and over the next few months he, Sven Neumann, and Michael Natterer studied the code base and got it into working shape again. Kolas presented their work at the 2006 Libre Graphics Meeting in March."
Crossing borders: What's the secret sauce in Ruby on Rails? (developerWorks)IBM developerWorks looks at Ruby on Rails from a Java perspective. "Ruby on Rails seems to be a lightning rod for controversy. At the heart of most of the controversy lies amazing productivity claims. Crossing Borders author Bruce Tate has come to understand that Rails isn't a better hammer; it's a different kind of tool. This article explores the compromises and design decisions that went into making Rails so productive within its niche. Then it looks at Rails-inspired ideas that should get more attention within the Java community."
Reviews At The Sounding Edge (Linux Journal)Dave Phillips looks at Ardour, Common Music and Csound5. "Ardour is much in the news these days. A new version of Ardour2 (beta 5.1) is now available, chock full of feature improvements and bug fixes. Experimental support for MIDI is included, thanks to Dave Robillard and the Google Summer Of Code project. Potential users should note that this release is still a beta version, and the developers need your feedback, so download it today and be sure to report your experiences to the Ardour mail-list. See the program's Web site for download and installation details."
Linux gaming/PMP handheld gets more hackable (LinuxDevices)LinuxDevices looks at the latest new hardware from Gamepark Holdings. "Gamepark Holdings is shipping a breakout board for its GP2X, a sub-$200 Linux-based handheld gaming platform and portable media player (PMP). The "Breakout Board" adds standard PC I/O, helping hobbyists build GP2X-based home DivX systems, MAME cabinets, MP3/OGG sound systems, or classic computer set-ups, the company suggests. The "Breakout Board" adds an RS-232 serial port and a JTAG port, which can be used for debugging and reflashing GP2X units."
Review: Slackware goes to 11 (Linux.com)Linux.com reviews Slackware 11. "I did notice that Slackware includes a little more multimedia support than other distros right out of the box. Most distros these days shy away from shipping MP3 support, or support for QuickTime movies, but Slackware includes both. Slack not only allows MP3 playback, but includes LAME for MP3 encoding as well."
Miscellaneous Opening doors to open source for women (IT Manager's Journal)IT Manager's Journal has some tips for women who want to get involved in open source software. "Pia Waugh, president of Software Freedom International, says finding a way to get involved in the community is the first step, and there are several avenues available. "I think some of the women initiatives, such as Debian Women, GNOME Women, Fedora Women, and Ubuntu Women, are great ways to start getting involved. [Women] can find great mentors there, information, and it gives them a launch pad into the wide world of FOSS. These organisations don't segment our community, they give yet another road in, and the more roads we give people to getting involved, the more people will follow them."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Announcements Non-Commercial announcements OpenVZ Virtualization Software Available for Power ProcessorsThe OpenVZ project has announced its operating system-level server virtualization software technology has been ported and is available for systems using Power 64-bit processors giving users full access to OpenVZ software, which helps increase server utilization rates. "Kir Kolyshkin said the OpenVZ project will support additional processor architectures, which only requires having access to hardware for development and testing. Currently, OpenVZ supports x86, x86_64, and IA64 processors."
Mark Shuttleworth Becomes the First Patron of KDE (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced that Mark Shuttleworth has become the first Patron of KDE. "For people and organisations who wish to contribute to KDE by providing financial support in an ongoing manner, the KDE e.V. now offers the new Supporting Members scheme. KDE e.V. is both excited and proud to announce Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, as our first Patron of KDE."
Commercial announcements LaCie's free Linux LightScribe CD/DVD LabelerLaCie has announced its free Linux-based LightScribe CD/DVD Labeler system. "LaCie today announced it is the first to offer a complete burning and LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling solution for all operating systems. This includes the first-ever LightScribe Labeler software for Linux, a new version of LightScribe Labeler software for Mac, and SureThing LightScribe Labeler for Windows. Innovative LightScribe technology enables consumers and businesses to burn silk screen-quality labels on to LightScribe-enabled CDs or DVDs right in the drive no printing supplies are required."
LPI Announces OSC Corporation as Master Affiliate in EuropeThe Linux Professional Institute has announced its latest European Master Affiliate, OSC Corporation. "Reiner Brandt, CEO of the new OSC Corporation and President of LPI e. V. also noted LPI's historical work in Europe and outlined plans for future growth: "OSC Corporation will build upon the traditional support LPI has established within German-speaking countries to reach out to new markets and establish new partnerships and sub-affiliates. LPI is well recognized within Europe as the global standard for Linux certification. We trust that this recognition will increase as there is a growing climate of adoption in Europe for Linux solutions within the IT industry, business enterprise, and government.""
LPI Appoints Area Operations Manager for EuropeThe Linux Professional Institute has appointed John Meaney as Area Operations Manager for Europe. "John Meaney brings to LPI more than 30 years experience in Sales and Business Management of leading technology and software companies within the European region."
MySQL Enterprise subscription service announcedMySQL AB has announced MySQL Enterprise. "MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, today announced 'MySQL Enterprise', a new version of its flagship commercial subscription service that includes new automated, proactive technology to help corporate users monitor and tune their production MySQL database systems."
Novell Delivers Integrated Stack for SUSE Linux EnterpriseNovell, Inc. has announced the release of the Integrated Stack for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: "a software bundle that combines SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell(R) with a mixture of open and private source software from IBM, tailored for IBM* systems."
OpenLogic launches indemnification for its library of open-source productsOpenLogic has announced a new indemnification program for its certified library of open-source products. "OpenLogic, Inc., a leading provider of software, stacks, and support that enable enterprises to easily deploy and manage customized open source environments, today announced that it will now offer customers indemnification coverage for intellectual property infringement on each of the more than 160 open source products included in OpenLogics Certified Library."
Real-Time Base Technology Accepted in Mainline Linux KernelTimeSys has announced its contribution of real-time technology to the Linux kernel. "Basic support for real-time Linux features is now available in the 2.6.18 kernel and will be further extended in future kernel versions. Core technologies related to real-time performance accepted for inclusion into the mainline Linux kernel source have resulted from the leadership of open source contributors such as Red Hat's Ingo Molnar and TimeSys Senior Open Source Developer Thomas Gleixner. These key technologies submitted by developers at companies such as TimeSys, Red Hat and others are being permanently merged by Linus Torvalds into the mainline Linux kernel."
Terra Soft to Provide Linux for the Sony Playstation 3Terra Soft has announced the release of Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 for the Sony PLAYSTATION 3 platform. "Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, Terra Soft's next generation Linux operating system for Power will support PLAYSTATION 3, providing an end-user experience far surpassing previous versions. Through an aggressive, rapid co-development project conducted by Carsten Haitzler and the Enlightenment development team, Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, built upon Fedora Core 5, now integrates the next generation "E17" desktop in order to provide an unprecedented level of function and interface aesthetic. Designed for users of all ages and all levels of experience, Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 is Terra Soft's most advanced distribution to date."
New Books Java Generics and Collections - O'Reilly's Latest ReleaseO'Reilly has published the book Java Generics and Collections by Maurice Naftalin and Philip Wadler.
Programming Embedded Systems, Second Edition - O'Reilly's Latest ReleaseO'Reilly has published the book Programming Embedded Systems, Second Edition by Michael Barr and Anthony Massa.
Contests and Awards QUICKTOOTS: Most Loaded Desktop CompetitionQuicktoots has announced the Most Loaded Linux Audio Desktop Competition. "This is a little competition to see who can come up with the most heavily loaded and well laid out (cluttered might be a better word) desktop screenshot while running Linux Audio Applications." Round 1 Submissions have been closed and voting is taking place.
ActiveState Announces Tcl ActiveAward WinnerActiveState has announced the winner of the Tcl ActiveAward, Daniel Steffen. "Daniel is a postgrad research student at Macquarie University in Australia and an invaluable member of the Tcl community. As maintainer of the original TclTkAqua distribution, he beat Mac OS X build issues into submission as it was extended to support the Intel architecture and Universal builds. In addition, he has been key to ensuring a smoother native platform experience for Mac OS X users, as well as consistently assisting users in their transition to or increasing usage of Tcl/Tk on Mac OS X."
Education and Certification First LPI Level 3 "Beta" exams at LinuxWorld UtrechtThe Linux Professional Institute has announced the recent hosting of the new beta LPIC-3 certification program. "The LPIC-3 certification is scheduled for release in January 2007. Over a dozen Linux professionals from the Netherlands and Germany volunteered for the test development event at LinuxWorld Utrecht. Similar "beta" LPIC-3 exam events are scheduled in 2006 for Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, South Africa, UK, and the USA and will involve over 300 Linux professionals."
Event Reports Boston GNOME Summit SessionsA number of new session reports have been posted from the Boston GNOME summit. Topics include:
Calls for Presentations CFP: Linux 2007 File System and IO WorkshopA call for papers has gone out for the Linux 2007 File System & IO Workshop. The event takes place in San Jose, CA on February 12-13, 2007, Submissions are due by November 24, 2006.
Linux Audio Conference Call for Papers, Music, etcA call for material has gone out for the 2007 Linux Audio Conference. "The LAC2007 is taking place at the TU-Berlin, Germany from the 22nd - 25th of March 2007." Submissions are due by January 8.
Upcoming Events Akademy 2007 Will be Held in Glasgow (KDE.News)KDE.News reports that Akademy, the annual KDE World Summit, will take place in Glasgow, Scotland from June 30 to July 7, 2007. "Our hosts will be the Department of Computer & Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde. There are three sub-events: a contributors conference, the KDE e.V. annual general assembly and a week long hacking session that offers the opportunity to discuss all sorts of things face-to-face. We also look forward to the chance to mingle with local KDE enthusiasts."
Boston: A conference on software patentsThe Public Patent Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Center announced that they will be holding a conference on software patents in Boston on November 17. See the program for a list of speakers and topics. "Initially, there was little empirical evidence to gauge what the effect of allowing patents to cover software would be. Since then, many have analyzed the effect of patents on the development of software. The conference being co-sponsored by PUBPAT and SFLC will provide an opportunity to consider this growing body of research and its implications for software patent policy."
Events: October 26, 2006 to December 25, 2006The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it. Web sites Boston Summit 2006 is on Echelon's radarPatrick Wagstrom has announced Echelon For GNOME, a social networking site. "Does it sometimes feel like managing all your GNOME related information is like drinking from a firehose? Are you disappointed with how difficult it can be to find that marble of interesting projcet information in the swimming pool of oatmeal that is the constant chatter of GNOME worldwide? Are you looking for a better way to understand what's hot in email, CVS, blogs, bugzilla, and still get all the useless links off #gnome-hackers?"
The LSB Developer Network launchesThe Free Standards Group and O'Reilly Media have joined together to create the Linux Standard Base Developer Network. "For the first time, developers writing portable, LSB-compliant Linux applications will not have to cobble together information from various sources; rather they can make use of and contribute to software tools, standards, forums and content provided by the Free Standards Group." Click below for the full press release.
Audio and Video programs FLOSS Weekly 14: Jeremy Allison of Samba (TWiT)The TWiT Netcast Network presents an audio interview with Jeremy Allison from the Samba project: "Jeremy Allison on Samba, Vista, and James Bond..."
Waldo Bastian and John Cherry Speak About Akademy on LugRadio (KDE.News)KDE.News mentions the latest LugRadio episode. "The latest LugRadio episode features interviews with Waldo Bastian and John Cherry from before aKademy 2006 speaking about what they hoped to get from the conference and what they'll be talking about in their keynotes. Waldo talks about the Portland Project and what desktop cooperation is all about, and John talks about the state of the Linux desktop from OSDL's point of view."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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