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LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 26, 2006On the marketing of free softwarePlease indulge your editor as he reminisces for a moment. Once upon a time, the cool machines to get in the office were Unix-based workstations, and the offerings from Sun Microsystems in particular. The first thing that would happen to one of these systems once it came out of the box was interesting, however: much of the software on the system would be immediately replaced. The new systems would be loaded down with the GNU toolchain, the X Window System, and various other goodies from all over the net. This pattern was common enough that a small company called Cygnus Solutions made a living from supporting free tools on proprietary Unix systems.The replacement software was often better, but that was not always the case. There were long periods of time where trying to build early X11 releases with early gcc releases was an exercise in serious pain. But your editor did it, and, judging from the traffic on the mailing lists, quite a few others did it as well. Many of us might not, at that time, have been able to explain why we subjected ourselves to this experience, even though Richard Stallman had already been trying to do exactly that for a few years by then. But now it's obvious: we wanted our systems to run free software. Loading them down with free code turned them into something more obviously oriented toward our needs, something we could fix if need be (and need often was, back then), and something which, in a palpable way, was more alive. Free software has obviously come a long way since then, and a far larger group of people is aware of its importance. But it is still a geek phenomenon. For much of the wider community, "free software" still means "you don't have to pay for it," and many people still wonder about what use they, personally, could ever have for the source code. As a result, many users may have learned that Firefox, for example, is a better web browser, but they do not know why. It's just another program they can download and run. So it is a little sad to see reports that the effort to market Firefox may emphasize features and downplay the fact that it is free software. Evidently the people behind these marketing campaigns have decided that it's features that "sell" the software, so that is what has to be pushed on users. For Firefox 2.0, this strategy might just help to drive usage statistics up a little higher. But in the longer term it does not seem like a winning approach. The folks at Mozilla Corp. clearly see themselves in a battle with Microsoft and its reinvigorated Internet Explorer product. Firefox was, indeed, able to out-feature Internet Explorer for a while, and that doubtless helped to increase its adoption. But the history of the computing field is full of examples of companies which tried to engage in feature-checkbox battles with Microsoft. One can say many things about that company and its products, but few would accuse Microsoft of being unwilling or unable to add features. It seems unlikely that Mozilla Corp. has the resources to compete with Microsoft on features, and it is not at all clear that the wider development community will be able to make up the difference. Where Firefox has a competitive advantage, instead, is in the fact that it is free software. This fact should drive what kinds of features are added: those which make the web experience better for Firefox users, with less concern for the comfort of advertisers or publishers. It should bring a higher level of concern for security - an area which can be slighted if the real purpose is to compete on features. It should make the software alive, interesting, evolving with the net, and not subject to stagnation just because the owning company loses interest in it for a while. It seems unlikely that World Domination will be achieved by trying to out-feature proprietary software companies. Free software is not better by virtue of having more checkboxes on the package. It is better because it is free. If that cannot be made into a selling point, then we may not get much farther than we have until now. There are precedents that suggest that freedom could be made into a selling point; consider, for example, the growing success of organic produce. Like organic food, free software is better for you - and it doesn't even cost more. When people understand why free software is better for them, many of them will insist on it. One can only hope that projects which are sufficiently well-heeled to have marketing efforts will market freedom as one of their most important "features."
Compiere's Community Relationship Management problemCompiere does not get as much attention as a number of other free software projects, but maybe it should. It is a full "enterprise resource planning" and "customer relationship management" application, with support for a number of tasks, including marketing and sales, human resources, inventory control, and more. There is also a full business accounting package - an area which has traditionally been under-served by free software. Compiere has slowly grown over time, and ComPiere Inc, the company formed around the software, landed a $6 million chunk of venture capital last June. Larry Augustin has recently become a member of the company's board.Compiere places a lot of emphasis on its open source nature:
Compiere is Open Source with a difference. The Compiere ERP
solution is Open Source software and by definition is
free. However, unlike most Open Source projects, Compiere is backed
by professional training, services, documentation, and a vibrant,
responsive and knowledgeable worldwide open source community.
Interestingly, much of that "vibrant, responsive, and knowledgeable" community appears to have decided to pack its bags and head elsewhere. The result is a new project called ADempiere, started last month. It would appear that - in the opinion of the developers behind ADempiere, at least - Compiere has worked on building its business at the expense of its community. In the most important way, Compiere's community credentials are unimpeachable: it has released a large amount of useful code under a free license. Once one looks beyond that, however, there are some things to wonder about. It is a rare free software project whose installation instructions begin with "install Oracle." There is an active forum area, but the project does not appear to have a functioning mailing list. The Compiere web site talks about "products," but has no area for developers. Compiere may be a free software project, but it is clearly on the cathedral side of the spectrum. It would appear that, over time, the communications between ComPiere, Inc. and the wider community have fallen off. Developers report frustration in trying to find out what the company is up to, and great difficulties in getting patches accepted - or even discussed. Much of the disconnect, perhaps, is a result of the company reorganizing its operations to absorb the incoming venture capital; the company also recently relocated, which never helps. But a reading of the discussion leading up to the fork suggests that the problems have been growing for some time. To the wider community, Compiere looks increasingly like a proprietary software company which is still trying to claim to be an open source company. The community is also concerned that ComPiere Inc. may take the system proprietary. In the short term, at least, there does not appear to be a whole lot of evidence that this could happen - though the company does reserve the right to create proprietary offerings:
We believe that the majority of the revenue will come from
services, like support, training and even sponsored development. As
with other members of the community, ComPiere Inc. may also chose
to create Compiere extensions (e.g. predefined OLAP cube) which we
may sell to customers under, for example, an "Enterprise" product
offering.
The same message states that ComPiere, Inc. has no intention of taking Compiere proprietary or trying to cripple it in any way. Even so, some members of the community wonder what will happen once the venture capitalists start insisting on results. For now, in any case, the damage appears to be done; ADempiere has taken off, and seems to be gaining a fair amount of attention. The developers are busily taking on projects - ports to MySQL and PostgreSQL, for example - that Compiere has never been interested in pursuing. The first development release is available. This fork appears to have enough energy behind it to get off the ground, though only time will tell if it can sustain itself in the long term. In the free software community, ignoring developers will often lead to a fork like this one. It is one of the freedoms we depend on most heavily; nobody can bring development of a program to a halt as long as there are interested developers willing to do the work. Often, projects forked in this manner come back together once the original organization figures out that it needed its community after all; the gcc/egcs fork is, perhaps, one of the best examples. Perhaps ComPiere, Inc. might want to consider putting some of its venture funding into wooing this community back soon, before things drift too far apart.
The Apache source header policyAny free software project which distributes code developed by others has a couple of responsibilities to take care of. It must, of course, be sure that it has the right to distribute that code; the project must also see to the licensing of the finished product. Sometimes it seems that there are as many approaches to this problem as there are projects. Some common policies are:
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has taken a slightly different approach, with some new rules which take effect at the beginning of November. The result is worth a look as yet another example of how this issue can be managed. Those who contribute to Apache projects are asked to sign an individual contributor license agreement with the project. Under this agreement, contributors retain ownership of their work, and can do anything they want with it. They do, however, hand some rights over to the Foundation:
Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, You hereby
grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software distributed
by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge,
royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare
derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
works.
Note that there is no requirement that the ASF apply any particular sort of license to the contributed work - though the agreement does promise that:
...the Foundation shall not use Your Contributions in a way that is
contrary to the public benefit or inconsistent with its nonprofit
status and bylaws in effect at the time of the Contribution.
Using this permission, the ASF distributes everything under the Apache License, regardless of what license the contributor might have originally used. The new source header policy is intended to reflect this state of affairs. So, as of November 1, code shipped by the ASF must contain the following header:
Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed
with this work for additional information regarding copyright
ownership. The ASF licenses this file to you under the Apache
License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file
except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of
the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License. No other headers are allowed. Instead, any other information - including any copyright statements - must be moved to a separate file called NOTICE. The interesting thing here is that people using code from Apache are doing so under a license received directly from the ASF, even though the ASF does not generally own that code. The ASF is making use of a compilation copyright which covers the mixture of contributions into a single project to impose a license on the whole work. Few projects use a collective work copyright in this way. This arrangement gives the ASF complete control over the licensing of the projects housed under its umbrella. Should there be a version 3.0 of the Apache License in the future, there will be no trouble in moving the code to that license even in the absence of copyright assignments. Since it is the ASF's license which governs the distributed work, the Foundation has all the standing it needs should there be a reason to defend the license in court. The end result should be reasonably pleasing for everybody involved, as long as the original contributors have no objections to the Apache License - a condition one would expect to hold given that the code has been contributed in the first place.
Security Dazuko and the LSM APIA recent commentary in The Inquirer led to quite a lively discussion in the LWN article that referred to it. The commentary itself was rather ill-considered, but it did raise some interesting questions about security modules, the kernel and the Linux Security Modules (LSM) API. Dazuko is one of a handful of security solutions that run on Linux, but are not maintained in the kernel tree and, in fact, have a relatively hostile attitude towards the suggested ways of moving their code into the tree. Dazuko itself is a way for user-space applications to handle file access control; its main use seems to be malware checking at the file level, similar to the way that Windows anti-virus programs work. Some would argue that it is an unnecessary tool or that it is implemented poorly, but it does not seem like an unreasonable capability to add to Linux given that there appear to be users who want that functionality. This would seem to be exactly the kind of application that LSM was designed for, but the Dazuko developers have a different take. Dazuko started out by using the LSM hooks to implement their application but claim they found LSM to be a moving target, changing the API between each kernel release. In addition, when other LSM using modules were loaded (most notably SELinux or AppArmor), as they are by default in various distributions, Dazuko no longer functioned correctly. This led the Dazuko developers in a direction that clearly will not fly with the kernel developers: system call hooking. This technique intercepts system calls (open, read, write, etc.) and runs Dazuko code before calling the actual kernel function. This could be looked at as one of the common impedance mismatches between development groups and the kernel community; in this case it goes a bit deeper than that. Dazuko specifically mentions Rule Set Based Access Control (RSBAC) as a kernel security framework that it cleanly interfaces with. RSBAC is a set of kernel patches that implement a much more comprehensive set of hooks for access control than is provided by LSM. That project has a fairly lengthy justification for not using LSM and also points to another project, grsecurity with similar LSM issues. There have been various discussions of removing LSM from the kernel along the way and the SELinux folks are strongly in favor of that. Up until this year's Kernel Summit (covered by LWN here), there was fairly widespread belief that it would happen. Few people, it seems, are particularly enamored with LSM. It was a compromise that was adopted when SELinux was being accepted into the kernel in order to allow other alternative security frameworks. For the most part, it has failed to do that; at least in the mainline kernel. This situation would lead the hopeful to foresee a new API for the kernel that updates and enhances LSM so that more alternative frameworks could be incorporated into the kernel; unfortunately, there does not seem to be much movement in that direction. One impediment to that might be the perception that Linus and the kernel developers have rejected any security hooks that have a measurable performance impact. While it is perfectly understandable that punishing all kernel users for hooks that are only used by a small minority would be considered unacceptable, it does create a potentially insurmountable hurdle for those wishing for more intrusive hooks. Dazuko has been working on a stackable filesystem that can provide the same kinds of services by mounting DazukoFS 'on top of' a regular kernel filesystem. This will allow Dazuko to work with approved kernel interfaces and leaves open the possibility that it could someday be moved into the kernel tree. Another alternative is to use the userspace filesystem (FUSE) interface to provide that functionality, though it is not clear that FUSE is able to solve the entire problem. For security frameworks that require more intrusive hooks, there is no real alternative to out-of-tree development. So RSBAC and grsecurity are likely to keep porting their patches to each new kernel as it is released. It seems unfortunate that these GPL-licensed alternative security mechanisms are unlikely to ever move into the kernel tree, but it appears they are caught between the proverbial rock and hard place.
New vulnerabilities asterisk: arbitrary code execution
drupal: cross-site scripting, privilege escalation
mod_tcl: format string vulnerability
pike: SQL injection vulnerability
qt: pixmap image handling vulnerability
Updated vulnerabilities apache: cross-site scripting
bind: denial of service
binutils: buffer overflow
busybox: insecure password generation
bzip2: race condition and infinite loop
capi4hylafax: missing input sanitizing
cheesetracker: buffer overflow
clamav: multiple vulnerabilities
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: integer overflow
kdelibs: kate backup file permission leak
kernel: denial of service
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
libksba: parsing failure
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
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: restriction bypass
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
xinit: race condition
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 2.6 prepatch is 2.6.19-rc3, released by Linus on October 23. It contains a fairly long list of fixes, but things do seem to be settling down a little bit. See the long-format changelog for the details.A very small number of patches - all fixes - have been merged since 2.6.19-rc3 was released. Adrian Bunk is maintaining a list of known regressions in 2.6.19; it is surprisingly short. The current -mm tree is 2.6.19-rc2-mm2. Recent changes to -mm include the addition of the I/OAT DMA engine tree, a big set of x86 patches, sharing of page tables for huge TLB pages, a set of library functions for reversing the bits in a value, initial support for virtualizing process sessions, and some ongoing tty driver work.
Kernel development news Using sparse for endianness verificationDevelopers like to joke about Al Viro's fearsome presence on linux-kernel, but the truth of the matter is that he has been relatively quiet there for some time. That does not mean, however, that he has become a full-time Plan 9 developer. Instead, he has been steadily working to improve the static analysis tools used to find kernel bugs before they bite users.In recent times, Al's work has resulted in a long series of patches merged into the mainline, almost all of which have been marked as "endianness annotations." These patches mostly change the declared types for various functions, variables, and structure members. The new types may be unfamiliar to many, since they are relatively new - though not that new; they were introduced in 2.6.9. These types are __le16, __le32, __le64, __be16, __be32, and __be64. What these types represent is an attempt to encode whether the (unsigned) integer value is big-endian (most significant byte first) or little-endian. For most programming, even within the kernel, endianness is not a concern; things just work without much thought on the programmer's part. Kernel code often must work with data encoded in a specific byte ordering which might not match the processor's ordering, though. Network protocols, filesystem on-disk data structures, and device registers are all examples. In general, when the kernel works with data in a non-native ordering, it must first swap the bytes around to match the processor's expectations. Failure to do so can lead to all kinds of strange bugs. There are a number of macros provided which can help with this task. There are classic functions like htonl(), which converts a 32-bit integer from host to "network" (big-endian) order. More generally, the kernel provides macros like __le32_to_cpu(), which will convert a little-endian 32-bit quantity to the ordering required by the processor. These macros make for portable code; they perform the requested transformation on systems where it is needed, and simply vanish in the remaining cases. The conversion functions only work, however, when the programmer remembers to use them. In their absence, values in non-native byte orders simply look like integers, and there is no way to catch the error until something blows up. And that might not happen to the original developer at all; the code may work flawlessly until somebody tries to run it on a different architecture and things fall apart. It would be nice to catch endianness mistakes at an earlier stage. That is the purpose of types like __be32; they allow a programmer to mark data with a specific ordering when it first enters the system. Thereafter, a suitably smart tool can check the code which manipulates that data and ensure that it does not mix that data with native-order data, does not try to do arithmetic with it, etc. Once everything is suitably annotated, whole classes of bugs can be caught before the kernel is even booted. And that can only be a good thing. The "suitably smart tool" which does this work is "sparse," a static checker which was originally written by Linus Torvalds. There is support for sparse built into the kernel build system, making it easy to check code for errors. The one thing which remains relatively difficult, for whatever reason, is getting the "sparse" tool in the first place. Few distributors package it, so prospective users must grab a copy and build it themselves. The true source for sparse is the git repository on kernel.org. With git, it's a simple matter of of running:
git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/devel/sparse/sparse.git
A simple "make" in the resulting directory will yield a working sparse binary. This tool changes quickly enough that updating from the repository on a regular basis is probably a good idea. For people who don't have git handy, it is also possible to grab a tarball snapshot from Dave Jones's site. Once sparse is installed, running it on the kernel is a simple matter of going to your local source tree and running:
make C=2
The parameter C=2 causes sparse to be run on every .c file; if C=1 is used instead, only files which must be recompiled are checked. Checking for endianness problems requires an additional parameter:
make C=2 CF=-D__CHECK_ENDIAN__
The number of warnings which result from this command can be large - though it is dropping as Al works his way through the code. Checking code submissions with sparse is highly recommended - it is one of the steps in the patch submission checklist packaged with the kernel. Use of sparse may still be more of an exception than the rule, however. But it is easy enough - and useful enough - that there really is no reason not to run the checker on code before sending it out. It is, after all, much nicer to have the computer find silly mistakes for you, in the privacy of your own computer, before broadcasting them to the world.
GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapperThe "ndiswrapper" module has been featured on this page before. It is a special sort of glue module which allows Windows NDIS drivers to be loaded into a Linux kernel. It can be found on systems using hardware (wireless adapters in particular) which is not well supported by Linux drivers; by gluing in the Windows driver, ndiswrapper allows this hardware to operate. But, since it is a mechanism created to stuff the most proprietary of binary modules into Linux, ndiswrapper was always going to raise some eyebrows.One of the many changes that went into the 2.6.16 kernel was an explicit check for the ndiswrapper module. It is, in fact, this explicit:
if (strcmp(mod->name, "ndiswrapper") == 0)
add_taint_module(mod, TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE);
This test means that any system which has had ndiswrapper loaded will have the "proprietary module" taint flag set. As a result, the kernel developers are highly unlikely to be interested in helping with any problems encountered running that kernel. Since 2.6.16 was released last March, one might well wonder why ndiswrapper author Giridhar Pemmasani is only now getting around to complaining about that test. It turns out that the kernel developers have quietly taken things one step further in the 2.6.19-rc kernels. The kernel has long exported symbols to modules in two modes. Symbols exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL are available to all modules loaded into the kernel, while those exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL are only available to those which declare a GPL-compatible license. This distinction has never been a problem for ndiswrapper, which is licensed under the GPL. So, even after the explicit taint was added, ndiswrapper could load and function normally. For 2.6.19, a patch by Florin Malita was merged which changes the calculation for GPL-only symbols slightly. Rather than checking whether a module has a GPL-compatible license, the new code checks whether the module has the "proprietary module" taint bit set. In most cases, the end result is the same. For ndiswrapper, however, the result is that GPL-only symbols, which were accessible in earlier kernels, are now unavailable. And that means that ndiswrapper can no longer be loaded into the kernel. The module's author thinks that this is unfair, since ndiswrapper is, in fact, GPL-licensed code. Alan Cox's response reads like this:
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() is used to assert that the symbol is absolutely
definitely not a public symbol. EXPORT_SYMBOL exports symbols which
might be but even then the GPL derivative work rules apply. When
you mark a driver GPL it is permitted to use _GPL symbols, but if
it does so it cannot then go and load other non GPL [modules] and
expect people not to question its validity.
The core idea makes sense: the GPL-only restrictions are not worth much if they can be trivially circumvented by loading a glue module. One cannot help but wonder, however, if the wrong target has been chosen in this case. The purpose of GPL-only exports is to inhibit the creation of proprietary derived products of the kernel. It is hard to imagine an argument that could demonstrate that a typical NDIS module is, in any way, a derived product of the Linux kernel. These are drivers written for another operating system entirely by people who, likely as not, have never had any sort of contact with Linux source. Unlike certain other types of proprietary modules, NDIS drivers are clearly independent works. One may well balk at the notion of loading such a driver into one's kernel, but it is hard to make a case that copyright law somehow prohibits such an action. It also seems a little strange to penalize a module for having the wrong name. There are no explicit checks for, say, the MadWifi module, which also loads a binary-only component. Simply renaming the module would circumvent this check, opening a window which would take the kernel developers some months to close again. One could imagine a determined programmer coming up with a random name every time a module is built, decisively winning that particular battle. The ndiswrapper author seems uninclined to play those games, however; he has, instead, tried to work within the kernel community. The module already takes pains to add a kernel taint itself whenever an NDIS driver is loaded. There does not seem to be any particular interest in the kernel community in backing down on this change however. That leaves the ndiswrapper author in a position where he must either rework the code to avoid GPL-only symbols or find some other way of enabling it to load once again. One assumes that some sort of workaround will be found; it may not be an optimal solution, but ndiswrapper does have a significant community which depends on it to make its hardware work under Linux.
Patch summary: regulatory domains, network channels, and virtualizationHere's a quick look at a few patches have been posted recently.
802.11 regulatory domainsStandard wisdom says that putting policy decisions into the kernel is generally a bad idea. Policies implemented in kernel space limit the flexibility of the system, potentially keeping user-space from doing everything it could possibly accomplish. There are times, however, when that is exactly what one might want to do. Wireless networking presents a number of challenges for the kernel. One of them is imposed entirely from the outside: anything which can transmit tends to be heavily regulated. So wireless networking adapters must not transmit on unauthorized frequencies or at power levels above those allowed by law. Needless to say, the applicable rules vary from one jurisdiction to the next, making it impossible to work with a single set of constraints, especially if one wants to use the hardware to its full, legal potential in any given country. The need to adhere to regulatory constraints is one of the favorite reasons given by wireless adapter vendors when asked why they cannot release programming information for their hardware. Luis Rodriguez is trying to address regulatory issues with a patch set implementing regulatory domain information in the kernel (and in the Devicescape 802.11 stack in particular). At this point, the work is just infrastructure which tracks the constraints imposed by any given domain and the current domain under which the system is operating. Actually implementing compliance with the current domain has been left for a future exercise - there are some 802.11 stack issues which need to be resolved first. If this patch set is eventually accepted, there will be a single framework by which all wireless adapters can be operated in a legal manner, wherever the computer might happen to be located. Beyond doing the right thing with regard to the spectrum, Luis hopes that this mechanism might be enough to satisfy the various regulatory agencies that Linux has its act together in this regard - and that vendors will no longer feel the need to keep their programming information secret. Luis, it seems, is an optimistic sort of person.
Network channelsMeanwhile, things have been quiet for a while on the network channels front. But that does not mean that nothing has been happening. As proof, consider that Evgeniy Polyakov has just surfaced with a new net channels patch which, he claims, can scale significantly better than the current networking implementation. This version of network channels focuses more on the user-space interface side of the problem, leaving most of the kernel infrastructure work for another time. To that end, it adds a new system call, netchannel_control(), to hook up channel functionality to user-space code. netchannel_control() is another one of those multiplexer interfaces that Evgeniy seems to favor; it functions like an ioctl() call with three core operations:
The kernel side of the implementation, for now, is simple and straightforward: a NETCHANNEL_SEND call will allocate an sk_buff structure and fill it with user data with copy_from_user(); the packet is then sent on its way via the network stack in the usual manner. The design envisions adding other, faster ways of moving data around - using Evgeniy's network allocator mechanism, for example - in the future. The current patch adds a user-space network stack which uses the new netchannel mechanism. It claims to handle TCP and UDP currently, with a number of the expected features; there is a "socket-like interface" presented to applications. There has been no public reaction to this patch set so far, so it is hard to say whether it makes sense to the other network developers or not. Evgeniy appears to be a persistent sort of person, however, so expect to see this code again.
/dev/kvmFinally, this large patch set posted by Avi Kivity may stir things up a bit in the virtualization area. These patches implement support for Intel's virtualization extensions (AMD support is said to be forthcoming), allowing Linux systems to easily run virtual machines without the need for a full hypervisor like Xen. It should be noted that the patch set includes a fair amount of Xen code, though. With this patch set added, a Linux system implements a new device called /dev/kvm. Opening this device creates a new virtual machine which can then be manipulated with a set of ioctl() calls. One important operation creates virtual CPUs for this machine; currently only a single virtual CPU is supported. There is an operation which adds a memory region to the client machine. Memory is organized into "slots" modeled after the physical slots on a motherboard; they are useful for setting up structures like the memory hole at 640K still found on PC-type systems. Other operations allow for the creation of page table entries in the client, manipulating virtual machine registers, intercepting privileged operations, and actually running a program in the client. A set of debugging operations is provided as well. There is a fair amount of interest in this patch set; it looks like it could be a (relatively!) simple way of adding hardware virtualization support to the kernel. One comment which has been posted remarks on the similarities between this functionality and the work which has been done to support the "synergistic processing units" (SPUs) on the Cell architecture. The SPU support, which has been in the kernel since 2.6.16, uses a special-purpose filesystem (rather than ioctl()) to control the clients. Any sort of merger between these two subsystems would thus likely involve the /dev/kvm interface being changed. So this patch set could change quite a bit as it heads toward eventual inclusion.
Patches and updates Kernel trees
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Filesystems and block I/O
Janitorial
Networking
Architecture-specific
Virtualization and containers
Benchmarks and bugs
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Distributions News and Editorials Fedora Core 6 (Zod) makes a bid for world dominationFedora Core 6, also called Zod, is out and ready to take over the world. Of course General Zod tried to take over the world in the movie Superman II, and more recently made another bid for world domination in the TV series Smallville, but in both appearances he was defeated by Superman (or young Clark Kent). If Zod is out can Superman be far behind? Where do they come up with these names? Jesse Keating talks about Fedora naming in this Red Hat Magazine article. For those put off by the Fedora announcement, the Red Hat press release is less fun and contains more market-speak.Fedora Core 6 is available for x86, x86_64 and PPC and it has a new theme from the Fedora Artwork Project. The DejaVu font is now the default font and Compiz is managing the windows, for the best effects using the AIGLX framework. The system-config-printer tool has been rewritten with several new features. For the desktop, both GNOME 2.16 and KDE 3.5.4 are provided. Dogtail, a GUI test tool and automation framework written in Python, is included with features that aid in the automation and testing of desktop applications. Totem has replaced Helix Player as the default media player. All applications have been rebuilt using DT_GNU_HASH for improved performance. For more performance enhancements see this page, which also lists those packages which were dropped due to license issues. Anaconda, the Fedora installer, now allows the user to specify third-party repositories, and if the install is network-aware, Fedora can reach out to those repositories and pull in additional packages. There's a new graphical Virtual Machine Manager for managing virtual machines and a graphical SELinux Trouble Shooting Tool. For more information, tours, screenshots and other useful links see Fedora Core 6 Release Summary. Some of the main Fedora sites seem to be a bit busy right now, but there are other torrent sites and mirrors available. Also the rpm.livna.org team has announced the rpm.livna.org repository with complete support for the 6th release of Fedora Core and Fedora Extras. The Fedora Unity Project has announced the initial release of several Fedora Core 6 Live-Spin CD and DVD ISO images. These Live-Spins are based on the October 24 release of Fedora Core 6. They are available for the i386 and x86_64 architectures via BitTorrent immediately. ATrpms has also officially launched Fedora Core 6 support for i386, x86_64 and PPC. If that's not enough, freshrpms.net is ready to go with support for Fedora Core and Fedora Extras on all architectures.
New Releases Announcing the Release Candidate for Ubuntu 6.10The first release candidate for Ubuntu 6.10 is available for testing. "The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the Release Candidate for version 6.10 of Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu - codenamed "Edgy Eft". The Release Candidate includes installable live Desktop CDs, server images, alternate text-mode installation CDs and an upgrade wizard for users of the current stable release. We consider this release candidate to be complete, stable and suitable for testing by any user. The final release of version 6.10 is scheduled for 26 October 2006 and will be supported for 18 months on both desktops and servers."Update: In addition to release candidates for Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu, the Xubuntu release candidate is also available.
Novell Ships SUSE Linux Enterprise Real TimeNovell, Inc. has announced the availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time. "SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time offers support for 32-bit and 64-bit processor architectures (including AMD Opteron* and Intel Xeon*), predictable interrupt response time of less than 30 microseconds, high-resolution timer support for enhanced scheduling, user-level control of simultaneous multithreading, and processor shielding. The proven real-time technology eliminates spikes in latency, ensuring consistent performance and stability. The solution is already being used in trading floor and market data servers in financial services, advanced imaging in patient healthcare, and enterprise data centers with time-critical requirements."
Distribution News Debian announcementsThe DebConf6 video team has announced the availability of DebConf6 DVDs. "They include all formal sessions from Debian Day and DebConf, plus the group photos, the video team BoF, and some documentary videos made by Gabriella Coleman."A server dedicated to Debian internationalization activities is publicly available. The server is hosted by the Junta de Extremadura datacenter, in Badajoz, Spain and will be used to build the Debian internationalization infrastructure. A call for testing for the Debian Installer is out. The main focus is testing installation on various architectures. alioth.debian.org and its related services will be stopped on Friday October 27, 2006 at 15:00 UTC. "Soon after we will do the final rsync between the current hosts (costa.d.o, haydn.d.o) and the new one (a Xen host on wagner.debian.org featuring 1TB of disk, 16GB of RAM and a bi-opteron). The rsync process will last around 4 hours. After that we will upgrade the Gforge to version 4.5. If all goes well, the services should be available again at 22:00 UTC."
Ubuntu 5.04 reaches end-of-life on 31 October 2006Ubuntu 5.04, "the Hoary Hedgehog" will not be supported after October 31, 2006. The supported upgrade path from Ubuntu 5.04 is via Ubuntu 5.10. Read the instructions and caveats first.
UbuntuBugDay: Testing installationsThe next Ubuntu Hug Day will concentrate on downloading the installer and testing it on various machines. Or upgrading from an existing Dapper installation into an Edgy one.
Distribution Newsletters Fedora Weekly News Issue 63The Fedora Weekly News for October 23, 2006 has articles on Fedora Core 6 Tours, Fedora Infrastructure Team - Help Wanted, Calling for Desktop Environment Artists, Neat Things for Fedora Core 6, Fedora Reloaded 6 Podcast Available, ATI Fedora Core 6 How-To, Flash Player 9 Update for Linux Released, Yet another online Linux distro chooser, and several other topics.
Gentoo Weekly NewsletterThe Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for October 16, 2006 looks at a stable new Java system, KDE 3.5.5, mailing list summaries and several other topics.
Ubuntu Weekly News #18The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for October 14, 2006 covers KDE turning 10, Matt Zimmerman telling all, new Edgy apps and much more.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 174The DistroWatch Weekly for October 23, 2006 is out. "On the eve of several major new releases, such as Firefox 2.0, Fedora Core 6 and Ubuntu 6.10, this week's DistroWatch Weekly takes a brief look at some of the new products, comments on the new Fedora 6 release, and asks whether Firefox has lost some of its former glory. In the meantime, Xandros Corporation is rumoured to be under a "reorganisation", while Munich continues its march towards a successful switch of thousands of its desktop and server computers to LiMux, a Debian-based distribution that recently reached version 1.0. Also in this issue: a reader recommends BeaFanatIX, a light-weight and user-friendly distribution that attempts to revive the concepts of the BeatrIX project, while the "First Looks" section introduces the new Xen Demo CD 3.0.3."
Package updates Fedora updatesUpdates for Fedora Core 5: libvirt (rebuilt against xen-3.0.2-4.FC5), xen (update for new kernel-xen), libsepol (upgrade to latest NSA version), xscreensaver (move manpages to section 6x), nautilus-cd-burner (add gnome-mount support), checkpolicy (update to latest from upstream), perl-String-CRC32 (bug fix), autofs (bug fixes), xsane (bug fix), frysk (new upstream version), iscsi-initiator-utils (based on open-iscsi svn 2.0-711), autofs (bug fixes), xsane (fix typo in scriptlet), gpart (compiled with large file support).Updates for Fedora Core 6: gpart (compiled with large file support).
Mandriva updatesUpdates for Mandriva Linux 2007.0: subversion (bug fix), xinetd (initscript bug fix), coreutils (correct a build problem), bootsplash (bug fix).Updates for Mandriva Corporate Server 3.0: sshd-monitor (corrects a timing issue).
rPath updatesUpdates for rPath Linux 1: anaconda, anaconda-utils, anaconda-images, anaconda-templates (updates for software appliances and derived distributions), glibc, glibc-utils, nscd (Xen support, bug fixes), chkconfig, ntsysv (bug fixes)
Ubuntu updatesUpdates for Ubuntu 6.06 LTS: dpkg 1.13.11ubuntu7~proposed (bug fixes).
Newsletters and articles of interest Updating Slackware using Swaret (Linux.com)Linux.com looks at one way of keeping Slackware systems up to date. "Now that Slackware 11.0 is out, you may wonder what is the best way to update the distribution. Swaret is an open source project that aims to keep various versions of Slackware up-to-date. I use Swaret and some cron scripts to keep my servers current automatically."
The Perfect Xen 3.0.3 Setup For Debian Sarge (HowtoForge)HowtoForge sets up Xen on a Debian Sarge system. "This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install Xen (version 3.0.3) on a Debian Sarge (3.1) system. Xen lets you create guest operating systems (*nix operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD), so called "virtual machines" or domUs, under a host operating system (dom0). Using Xen you can separate your applications into different virtual machines that are totally independent from each other (e.g. a virtual machine for a mail server, a virtual machine for a high-traffic web site, another virtual machine that serves your customers' web sites, a virtual machine for DNS, etc.), but still use the same hardware. This saves money, and what is even more important, it's more secure. If the virtual machine of your DNS server gets hacked, it has no effect on your other virtual machines. Plus, you can move virtual machines from one Xen server to the next one."
Distribution reviews OpenSolaris Options Show Promise (eWeek)eWeek reviews three OpenSolaris live CD distributions. "eWEEK Labs recently scoped out the current OpenSolaris environment, spinning up three LiveCD-based OpenSolaris x86 distributions: NexentaOS Alpha 5, Belenix 0.5 and Schillix 0.5.2. We found that none of these systems is ready for production use but that they certainly represent burgeoning development diversity for Solaris. What's more, these distributions point to intriguing new directions for Solaris, particularly in the case of NexentaOS."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol Development PostgreSQL 8.2 Enters BetaA beta release of version 8.2 of the PostgreSQL object-relational database management system has been announced:
Feature freeze for version 8.2 took place on August 1st, 2006. Since that time we have gone through the submitted patch queue and applied all outstanding patches that were deemed ready for release. As of this time, we are now releasing beta releases for all to test.
A much more detailed listing of improvements is shown in the version 8.2 release notes. A new version of the PostgreSQL documentation is also being released with version 8.2. Testing help has been requested, the code is available for download here.
System Applications Database Software PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe October 22, 2006 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS news and information.
Interoperability Samba 4.0.0TP3 AvailableRelease 4.0.0 TP3 of Samba has been announced. "Samba 4 is an ambitious development effort of the Samba project, being developed in parallel to the stable 3.0 series. The main emphasis in this branch is support for the Active Directory logon protocols used by Windows 2000 and above. Samba 4 is currently not yet in a state where it is usable in production environments."
Printing Common UNIX Printing System 1.2.5 releasedVersion 1.2.5 of CUPS, the Common UNIX Printing System, is out. "CUPS 1.2.5 fixes minor printing, networking, and documentation issues and adds support for older versions of DBUS and a translation for Estonian."Also, the CUPS Imaging library license has been changed. "Effective immediately, the CUPS Imaging library (libcupsimage*) is now provided under the same license as the CUPS API library, version 2 of the GNU Library General Public License. This change allows printer manufacturers and driver developers to ship CUPS raster drivers with or without source on all operating systems."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications jack_mixer announcedThe jack_mixer project has been launched. "jack_mixer is GTK (2.x) JACK audio mixer with look similar to it`s hardware counterparts. It has lot of useful features, apart from being able to mix multiple JACK audio streams."
Desktop Environments GNOME 2.17.1 releasedVersion 2.17.1 of GNOME has been announced. "Welcome to the new GNOME development cycle! Please fasten your seat belt: you're going to see a lot of exciting new changes!, new features!, new bugfixes!, new translations!, new documentation!. Lots of modules have great plans for 2.18 and if you're willing to help, there's a lot of areas where you'll be heartily welcomed!"
GARNOME 2.17.1 releasedVersion 2.17.1 of GARNOME, the bleeding-edge GNOME distribution, is out. "This release includes all of GNOME 2.17.1 plus a whole bunch of updates that were released after the GNOME freeze date."
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 PIM Bug Triage on Saturday 28 October 2006 (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced the next bug triage day, October 28, 2006. "At the time of writing the two largest PIM applications, KMail and KOrganizer, have about 3400 open bugs and wishes in Buzilla. For developers it is almost impossible to get an overview. That is why a bug triage day is being organised in order to reduce the amount of bugs in the Bugzilla system."
KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News)The October 22, 2006 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "the location for aKademy 2007 is Glasgow, Scotland. The KDE backbone of the NEPOMUK research project has been imported into KDE SVN. A GUI editor for database lookup columns has been added in Kexi. More SVG card sets are added to the resurgent KDE games for KDE 4. User interface enhancements in Kst and Kalzium. Multimedia file tag handling improvements in Amarok (.wav) and Strigi (.mp3). Strigi-enhanced versions of the standard find and grep utilities introduced. Three utilities from a suite of ODBC and database tools surface in kdenonbeta."
Electronics Covered 20061020 released (OpenCollector)Version 20061020 of Covered, a Verilog code coverage utility, has been announced. "Added support for memories/multi-dimensional arrays, memory coverage metrics and bitwise combinational logic coverage output. Also contains bug fixes, documentation updates, language enhancements and optimizations."
gEDA/gaf 20061020 releasedRelease 20061020 of gEDA/gaf, a collection of electronic design tools, has been announced. "This is primarily a wrap up release to get various new features and bug fixes out to the community before we checkin some riskier changes. As summarized by an observer: "This one is better than the last .. enjoy!""
KJWaves 1.0.9 releasedVersion 1.0.9 of KJWaves has been announced. "KJWaves was written to be a cross-platform SPICE tool in pure Java. It aids in viewing, modifying, and simulating SPICE CIRCUIT files. Output from SPICE3 (ngspice) can be read and displayed. Resulting graphs may be printed and saved." This release adds improved German language translation and support for larger RAW files.
GUI Packages Security Updates for QtTrolltech has released Qt 3.3.7, Qt 4.1.5 and Qt 4.2.1. "A security flaw was discovered in the way Qt 3.x and 4.x handles pixmap images. This issue can occur only when transforming specially prepared images from untrusted sources. Qt 3.3.7, as well as Qt 4.1.5 and 4.2.1 correct this flaw." (Found on KDE.News)
Imaging Applications Free Image Manipulator 0.2.2 releasedVersion 0.2.2 of Free Image Manipulator has been announced, it adds new drag and drop capabilities as well as some bug fixes. "With FIM you can easily manipulate whole set of images at once. You are able to resize all images from the set to the same size and convert between the most popular file types like png, jpeg, gif. You can also add text with background to them with given opacity level and color or even paste your logo. "
Interoperability pyNeighborhood 0.3 releasedVersion 0.3 of pyNeighborhood is out. "pyNeighborhood is GTK+ 2 rewrite of a well-known GTK+ 1 tool LinNeighborhood(using pyGTK), so it is the GUI frontend for samba tools, such as smbclient, smbmount etc. It's written in Python and uses the GTK+ 2 toolkit with pyGTK implementation." See the change log for details on this version.
Music Applications Simple Sysexxer 0.1.1Version 0.1.1 of Simple Sysexxer has been released, it features bug fixes. "Simple Sysexxer is a tool to exchange sysex data with MIDI devices, e.g. to do backups of the device's memory contents or to send presets loaded from the web."
Web Browsers Firefox 2.0 availableIt's official at last: Firefox 2.0 is available. See this page for summary of the most significant changes; quite a bit has gone into this release.
Firefox 2.0-compatible extensionsIt only takes one Firefox upgrade to demonstrate that extensions can sometimes take a little while to catch up to the browser. For those who are wondering whether specific extensions are ready for Firefox 2.0, Bill's Big List of Firefox 2.0 Compatible Extensions might be useful. It seems there's almost 1000 of them...
Miscellaneous GnuPG 1.9.94 releasedVersion 1.9.94 of GnuPG, an encryption system, has been announced: "as promised here is another release of GnuPG. This is mainly to fix bugs found in 1.9.93. Thanks to all testers."
Languages and Tools Haskell Haskell Weekly NewsThe October 19, 2006 edition of the Haskell Weekly News is online. A big week, with a swag of new releases, including the long awaited GHC 6.6.
Haskell Weekly NewsThe October 24, 2006 edition of the Haskell Weekly News is online. Developments this week include SMP parallel Pugs/Perl 6 on the new GHC parallel runtime system, and a new release of MissingH.
Perl Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary (O'Reilly)The October 15-21, 2006 edition of the Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary is available. "This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists "The | notation is mentioned in S012:1029, by the way. Obviously you still haven't quite memorized all the synopses. :-)" -- Larry Wall, in 'class interface of roles'".
Python Python 2.4.4 Final is availableVersion 2.4.4 Final of Python is out. "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. This is the final planned release from the Python 2.4 series. Future maintenance releases will be in the 2.5 series, beginning with 2.5.1."
Python 2.3.6 release candidate 1 is outRelease candidate 1 of Python 2.3.6 has been announced. "Python 2.3.6 is a security 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 2.3. Unlike the recently released 2.4.4, this release only contains a small handful of security-related bugfixes."
python-dev SummaryThe August 16-31, 2006 edition of the python-dev Summary is online with coverage of the python-dev mailing list.
XML 4Suite XML 1.0 announcedVersion 1.0 of 4Suite XML, a Python-based XML processing library, has been announced. "Thanks to all the testers, there are a number of important fixes and improvements since 1.0rc4, and we strongly recommend upgrade from all previous versions."
Miscellaneous The Linux binutils 2.17.50.0.6 is releasedVersion 2.17.50.0.6 of the Linux binutils has been announced. "This is the beta release of binutils 2.17.50.0.6 for Linux, which is based on binutils 2006 1020 in CVS on sources.redhat.com plus various changes. It is purely for Linux. Starting from the 2.17.50.0.6 release, the default output section LMA (load memory address) has changed for allocatable sections from being equal to VMA (virtual memory address), to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as the previous output section in the same region."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Linux in the news Recommended Reading Patent law is getting tax crazy (IHT)The International Herald Tribune reports on another area of patent silliness: tax avoidance methods. "There is even one case pending in U.S. court in Connecticut, in which an organization called the Tax Strategies Group complains that John Rowe, the chairman and former chief executive of Aetna, infringed on its patent by using a certain type of trust to minimize taxes on profits from stock options. The group wants Rowe to be barred from using that strategy unless he buys a license from it." We must be getting closer to the straw that breaks the camel's back.
GPLv3: What the Hackers Said (Linux Journal)In yet another GPLv3 article Glyn Moody has solicited comments from Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Andrew Morton and Dave Miller. "Since these people are all pretty busy, I didn't expect much of a response - the odd line here or there if I was lucky. But I was wrong: they all responded generously, with fascinating comments and insights into the GPLv3 and related issues."
The SCO Problem Comparative Chart of Novell's Counterclaims and SCO's Reply (Groklaw)Groklaw has posted a lengthy table that details the legal exchanges between Novell and SCO. "Groklaw's E-man submitted a handy chart of Novell's Amended Counterclaims compared with the SCO's reply, so we can compare paragraph by paragraph and easily see what SCO is denying and what it is admitting. I find these charts so handy, and I hope you do too."
An Extension in Novell Case Ordered. Groan. More Discovery Too. (Groklaw)Just in case anybody thought that the SCO episode was coming to an end soon: Groklaw reports that SCO has won an extension in the Novell case. "What is the bottom line? SCO gets sixty days to respond to Novell's discovery requests, and the fact discovery cutoff will now be February 1. That affects the rest of the pretrial deadlines, naturally, so Judge Kimball asks the parties to provide him with a new schedule for his consideration, and he tells them two dates he expects to see on the schedule, March 14 for dispositive motions and September 17, 2007 as the new trial date."
Companies Flash Player 9 Beta for Linux is available (ZDNet)ZDNet covers the release of a beta version of Adobe Flash Player 9 for Linux. "To quote someone well known, 'hell froze over' and we finally released a beta of the GNU/Linux version of the Adobe Flash Player 9 (look for the "Linux version" download link). It did take more to get to this point than you might expect."
Oracle may make Linux stack move (computing)Oracle may be planning to release its software on the Ubuntu distribution, according to this article on computing.co.uk. "Oracle could finally announce long-mooted plans for a software stack by adding a branded version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution to its database, application server and tools at the Oracle OpenWorld conference that opens on 22 October in San Francisco. The will-they-wont-they question could be resolved after a recent research note issued by financial analyst Jeffries & Co. suggested that Ubuntu is currently working to certify its recently introduced server operating system to all of Oracle's major products, including database and middleware."
Linux desktop vendor Xandros reorganizes (DesktopLinux)DesktopLinux.com covers reorganization at Xandros. "On October 18, Linux distributor Xandros was reorganized, resulting in the loss of at least five jobs and a change in CFOs. The company, which positions its desktop-oriented Linux distribution as an easy migration path from Windows, has never gained significant momentum in the market."
Linux at Work SIPBox and Asterisk lower phone costs for children's agency (Linux.com)Linux.com covers a recent deployment of the Asterisk open-source telephony application in a Chicago school. "The ECHO Joint Agreement agency serves exceptional children in the Chicago public school district. With offices in six separate locations, the agency was spending a lot of money on phone service, until it installed SIPBox's full service telephony solution, based on Digium's open source Asterisk voice over IP (VoIP) platform."
Legal IBM Sues Amazon Over Web Patents (Reuters)Reuters reports that IBM is suing Amazon over infringement of some of its software patents. "The suits say Amazon violates IBM patents covering such features as allowing users to order items from an electronic catalog, displaying advertising in an interactive service and storing data in an interactive network."
Linux: GPLv3, DRM, and Exceptions (KernelTrap.org)KernelTrap has an editorial on GPLv3. "The following editorial was contributed by Ciaran O'Riordan of FSFE. Working for FSFE since April 2005, Ciaran has been raising public awareness and participating in public discussion on GPLv3 since the launch in January 2006 and contributes heavily to FSFE's GPLv3 project."
Interviews FSG Launches Tools, LSB Developers Network With Linux Apps in Mind (LinuxPlanet)LinuxPlanet talks with Ian Murdock and Jim Zemlin about the launch of the Linux Developer Network. "In an interview with LinuxPlanet, Ian Murdock, the FSB's CTO, said. that the new LDN encompasses downloadable development tools aimed mostly at helping developers comply with the latest edition of FSG's LSB specification. The tools have been tested over recent months by software development players such as MySQL, RealNetworks, and Google."
Why iXsystems Bought PC-BSD (O'ReillyNet)Dru Lavigne interviews Kris Moore and Matt Olander. "iXsystems is a leading provider of high-performance computing clusters, blade servers, rackmount servers, and storage solutions based on FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux. iXsystems also recently announced its acquisition of the PC-BSD operating system. I had the opportunity to interview Kris Moore, founder and lead developer of the PC-BSD project, and Matt Olander, CTO of iXsystems, about the acquisition."
Resources JBoss At Work: Web Services, Part 1 (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly presents part one of a book excerpt from "Jboss at Work". ""JBoss at Work," by Tom Marrs and Scott Davis, builds up a complete enterprise application, chapter-by-chapter. In this excerpt, the authors show how to take the application and expose it as a web service."
OOoBasic crash course: Working with files (Linux.com)Dmitri Popov presents an OO.o Basic crash course on Linux.com. "OpenOffice.org's OOoBasic gives users tools to programmatically access and manipulate files. To see how that works, we'll create a simple macro that allows you to save text snippets from the current document in a plain text file. This macro can be used to store text fragments from multiple documents in one text file, or to save deleted passages in an external file in case you need them later."
How to choose the right screenshot program (Linux.com)Linux.com looks at screenshot capture programs. "Because a picture can illustrate a program better than words can, screenshots are a fundamental of development and documentation. GNU/Linux has no shortage of versatile screenshot programs, both on the desktop or command line, but none is perfect for every use. I recently tried several screenshot programs. Here's my advice on what works best among the available options."
Running a Sprint (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet looks into programming sprints. "The world of programming is seeing a lot of change in methodology, much of it is associated with "agile" techniques such as Scrum and pair programming. If there's anything traditional in the world of agile development, sprints are the traditional way to give a project a boost by focusing the efforts of a group on specific development issues. While typically a real rather than a virtual event, a sprint takes advantage of physical proximity of team members. This makes it popular at events such as conferences, which naturally increase the developer density above normal levels. Open source conferences now frequently feature a sprint before or after the conference proper."
Thousands of TeX fonts at your fingertips (Linux.com)Linux.com covers fonts for TeX. "Even if you're relatively new to TeX, the open source typesetting program, you're probably familiar with its default 12-point Computer Modern Roman font. TeX distributions actually ship with thousands of free fonts, however, and more are freely available from places such as the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network. Looking for a good way to show font charts and display samples of any TeX font on your system? Here's how."
Tunneling with SSH: Windows to UNIX connectivity in a secure world (IBM)James Shewbert discusses secure Windows to UNIX connectivity in an IBM developerWorks article. "This article describes the setup of a simple SSH client connecting to an AIX®- or Linux®-based SSH server that allows a typical, technically literate individual the ability to set up, configure, and operate a flexible means of tunneling data and services over the SSH service. Users will benefit from having control of their own environment and the ability to adapt to their day-to-day needs. Administrators will benefit from reduced user requests to open ports and tighter control of their secure environments as a result."
Reviews Review: Firefox 2.0 is a solid improvement (Linux.com)Linux.com reviews Firefox 2.0. "What's extra-spiffy about the session restore is that Firefox can even remember user input in some text fields, so if you're composing a blog entry and the browser crashes, or you just forget about that 600-word entry and restart Firefox after installing a new extension, Firefox may be able to restore your text as well as the browsing history."
A first look at Gaim 2.0 (Linux.com)Linux.com reviews Gaim 2.0. "The Gaim 2.0 release is nearing its home stretch. The Gaim team released beta4 last week, with a number of new features and UI improvements. Gaim 2.0 is shaping up as a net improvement over Gaim 1.5, though some features have not changed for the better, and voice support for Google Talk is still missing in action."
Make time for GnoTime (Linux.com)Linux.com reviews GnoTime. "GnoTime, the GNOME Time Tracker, is a lightweight task/time tracking tool. It's easy to use and not overloaded with project management features, but it suffers from weak reporting tools. GnoTime is free software, licensed under the GPL, and it runs on several flavors of Unix, including Linux and Mac OS X. Several major distributions -- Debian, Red Hat/Fedora, SUSE, and Fink among them -- include it in their distribution."
Review: Jabbin adds VoIP to Jabber (Linux.com)Linux.com has a review of Jabbin. "Most Jabber clients for GNU/Linux and other platforms limit themselves to exchanging text messages. Jabbin, a fork of the Psi Jabber client, focuses on VoIP. Jabbin is written in C++ and Qt and released under the GNU General Public License. The software's Web site is available in 11 languages. Binary packages are available for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE Linux, and Windows."
Open Tools for MySQL Administrators (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet looks at MySQL database administration tools. "This article is about tools to discover and monitor the state of your server, so I won't discuss programs for writing queries, designing tables, and the like. I'm also going to focus exclusively on free and open source software."
Miscellaneous Critical Linux security API is still a kludge (Inquirer)The Inquirer has started lobbying for the inclusion of the "Dazuko" security module into the kernel. "This kind of stupid complications in desktop Linux need to be removed in order to gain mainstream appeal. If Windows users are not expected to do a 'kernel recompile' -not that it's even possible- in order to install a 'resident' antivirus scanner, neither should the Linux users. And no, save your hate mail and flames about how "immune" to viruses desktop Linux is, as advances in WINE and virtualization technologies means that more and more win32 and possibly win64 files are going to end up saved on Linux file systems, and those files need to be scanned as the potentially dangerous elements those are."
Organization to pay Debian developers begins work (Linux.com)Linux.com covers Dunc-Tank. "A month after it was announced, Dunc-Tank, the unofficial organization to fund selected projects in Debian, is on track with its first experiments. The organization has defused active opposition to its experiment within Debian and is now ready to receive donations and to proceed with its plans."
League of Technical Voters codeathon raises visibility (NewsForge)NewsForge looks at a codeathon for the League of Technical Voters. "Silona Bonewald, the founder of the League of Technical Voters, wants to get technical people more engaged in civic processes. She also wants politicians and governmental agencies to appreciate the impact of technology on their activities and the valuable resource technical experts offer them. To help achieve these twin goals, Bonewald organized a codeathon last weekend in Austin, Texas. Thirty open source programmers and more than 100 designers, testers, and others agreed to be locked in for 48 hours to work on a Drupal-based software for non-profits and governmental agencies."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Announcements Non-Commercial announcements Linuxaudio.org announces new staff membersLinuxaudio.org, a not-for-profit consortium of libre software projects and artists, companies, institutions, organizations, and hardware vendors, has announced the hiring of five new staff members. "As a result of recent staff openings designed to diversify its membership and community-based programs as well as strengthen the existing services, Linuxaudio.org is pleased to announce its newest staff members".
Commercial announcements Gumstix, Inc. announces the netstix 400xm-cf computerGumstix, Inc. has announced their newest full-function miniature computer. "At 35mm x 103mm, the netstix 400xm-cf comes with 64MB of Ram and 16MB of flash memory, runs at 400MHz and starts at $186.00 USD each, for orders of 1,000 units or more."
Next-Generation NVIDIA Performance Tools AnnouncedNVIDIA Corporation has announced the availability of NVPerfKit 2.1. "NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today announced NVPerfKit 2.1, a comprehensive suite of next-generation performance tools for the debugging and profiling of OpenGL and Direct3D software applications for Windows and Linux."
Oracle Linux - sort ofOracle has announced a supported Linux offering. "Oracle starts with Red Hat Linux, removes Red Hat trademarks, and then adds Linux bug fixes." Prices are claimed to be rather lower than Red Hat's.
Oracle Joins the Free Standards GroupHere's another announcement from Oracle: the company has joined the Free Standards Group. "Oracle plans on contributing to FSG's Linux Standard Base (LSB) workgroup and providing feedback and guidance on its requirements for developing and supporting enterprise applications for Linux." No mention of when Oracle might ship an LSB-certified version of its software, however.
Oracle sets world record TPC-H one terabyte clustered benchmarkOracle Corporation has announced a new benchmark record on the PANTA Systems' PANTAmatrix platform running Linux. "This is the fastest TPC-H One TB performance result for clustered environments, outperforming the best TPC-H One TB results from IBM DB2(2) and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 in both performance and price."
NexusWare Core V11 achieves Carrier-Grade Linux registrationPerformance Technologies has announced that its NexusWare Core V11 Linux OS and development environment has achieved Compliance with the OSDL Carrier Grade 3.2 Specification. "NexusWare Core is a comprehensive, highly integrated, Linux-based software distribution designed to speed time-to-market for system engineers using Performance Technologies' solutions to build packet-based wireless and IP telephony systems. With CGL registration, NexusWare Core will enhance its current Linux capabilities in key areas such as performance, security and reliability, making it an attractive alternative to expensive proprietary operating systems for telecom servers."
Woize International Ltd. to offer Woize client for LinuxWoize International Ltd. has announced plans to produce a SIP based Woize telecommunication client for Linux in Q4. "Management firmly believes that the development of a SIP based Woize client for Linux OS is an important step for Woize Ltd. to potentially broaden its user base substantially. With the Linux development as well as the recently announced Mac plans in addition to the already existing Windows versions, Woize Ltd. will shortly offer its software for the three major operative systems."
New Books CSS Cookbook, Second Edition - O'Reilly's Latest ReleaseO'Reilly has published the book CSS Cookbook, Second Edition by Christopher Schmitt.
Digital Photography Expert Techniques, Second Edition - O'Reilly's Latest ReleaseO'Reilly has published the book Digital Photography Expert Techniques, Second Edition by Ken Milburn.
Fedora Linux - O'Reilly's Latest ReleaseO'Reilly has published the book Fedora Linux: A Complete Guide to Red Hat's Community Distribution by Chris Tyler.
Syngress Releases "Hack the Stack"Syngress has published the book Hack the Stack: Using Snort and Ethereal to Master the 8 Layers of an Insecure Network by Michael Gregg and Stephen Watkins.
Resources Campware Good Gnewsletter #2The October, 2006 edition of the Campware Good Gnewsletter is online. Campware is: "a platform for open source solutions for independent news media organizations in emerging democracies. The initative is coordinated by MDLF's new-media arm, the Center for Advanced Media--Prague (CAMP)."
Contests and Awards IMIA Open Source Group to co-sponsor LMN Award (LinuxMedNews)LinuxMedNews has announced the upcoming Linux Medical News Freedom Award. "The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) will be co-sponsoring the Linux Medical News Freedom Award to be given at this years American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Open Source Working Group meeting on Monday November 13th at the Hilton Washington Towers in Washington, D.C."
Education and Certification LPI Offers Discounted Certification Exams at LinuxWorld LondonThe Linux Professional Institute will be offering discounted certification exams at LinuxWorld London on October 25 and 26, 2006. "Certification exams will include all LPIC-1 (101 and 102) and LPIC-2 (201 and 202) exams, both MySQL 5.0 certification exams (administrator and developer) and the Ubuntu Professional exam."
Event Reports O'Reilly EuroOSCON coverageO'Reilly has sent out a press release that details the recent EuroOSCON event that was held in Brussels, Belgium. "The second edition of EuroOSCON was loosely coupled around the theme of "Open and Connected," bringing together just over 500 developers, hackers, IT managers, sys admins, entrepreneurs, and researchers from around the globe. Participants spent four energizing days exchanging ideas on how open source's architecture of participation and user contributions provide guideposts for new business models and tools, how it influences geek culture and beyond, and how it informs and extends the concept of Web 2.0."
Upcoming Events FAVE 2006 registration now openRegistration is now open for FAVE 2006, the event will be held in London, England on November 25, 2006. "FAVE is an event for people who are interested in free and open source creative software on Linux and other computer platforms. It features workshops, talks and performances from free software developers and artists."
Foundations of Open Media Software Developer MeetingThe first Foundations of Open Media Software Developer Meeting will take place on January 12 and 13, 2007 in Sydney, Australia before LCA 2007. "The FOMS meeting is organised by developers for developers, and aims to get the right people together to take the next steps in open media software. Meet and discuss your plans for the next 12 months with other developers and forge relationships to unwind the kinks, making open media kick ever more arse."
International Lisp Conference 2007 announcedThe 2007 International Lisp Conference has been announced, along with a call for papers. "The Association of Lisp Users has announced the International Lisp Conference 2007, which will take place in Cambridge, England, from April 1st to 4th, 2007."
KDE Conference in Zaragoza, Spain (KDE.News)A KDE Conference in Zaragoza, Spain has been announced. The event will take place on November 4-5, 2006. "It is oriented towards people with good computer knowledge who want to get started with KDE programming and for users that want to know the present and future of graphical environments."
Events: November 2, 2006 to January 1, 2007The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it. Audio and Video programs Audio Interviews from aKademy 2006 (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced the availability of six audio interviews from the aKademy 2006 conference. "The landmark event of the KDE calendar, the KDE World Conference, continues to surprise even its most excitable fans with the emergence of six audio interviews recorded at aKademy 2006, in Dublin, Ireland. The interviews all feature prominent current contributors, and cover a diverse and interesting mix of topics relevant to the present and future of the KDE project."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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![[PostgreSQL]](/images/ns/postgresql.png)
The major changes in version 8.2 include: