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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-won’t-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."
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