Recommended Reading
MS .Net patent--a threat to standards? (ZDNet)
Microsoft is in the process of applying for a wide-ranging patent that
covers a variety of functions related to its .Net initiative, say this
ZDNet article.
"
If approved as is, the patent would cover application programming
interfaces (APIs) that allow actions related to accessing the network,
handling Extensible Markup Language (XML), and managing data from multiple
sources. APIs are the hooks in software that allow applications to work
with another system."
Comments (9 posted)
Companies
Tale of Two Stories (Linux Journal)
The Linux Journal
looks at Google's
success. "
But what does "leading Linux company" mean when the
real leaders aren't the usual suspects at all? They're the worker bees at
companies of all sizes that are shifting IT dependencies from other
operating systems and development methods to Linux and open source. They're
IT departments embracing a de facto standard. And more, much more."
Comments (none posted)
Red Hat offers Linux exams for schools (vnunet)
Vnunet
covers the Red Hat
Academy, an academic version of its Red Hat Certified Engineer training
program for schools and colleges. "
Among the subjects covered will
be: systems administration, network engineering, C or C++ programming,
databases, web development, PC repair and forensic computing."
Comments (none posted)
Linux Adoption
Banks Want to Swim With Penguin (Wired)
Wired
looks
at the financial institutions that are using Linux to run their
back-end operations. "
Tux the penguin, Linux's beloved mascot, is
rapidly becoming the financial services industry's totem animal of
choice. In fact, it seems that the only steadily rising statistic on Wall
Street these days is the number of companies moving to open-source
systems."
Comments (none posted)
Sam's joins $300 Linux PC club (News.com)
News.com
reports
that Sam's Club will be selling PCs running Red Hat Linux. "
The
Sam's Club PCs will include a wealth of open-source software ready to run,
including the OpenOffice productivity package, Mozilla Web browser, and
Evolution personal information manager."
Comments (1 posted)
Pixar switches from Sun to Intel (News.com)
News.com
reports on Pixar, which has switched from Unix systems to a Linux cluster for its image rendering.
"
While the financial impact of the individual contract may be negligible to Sun, the symbolism is tough to ignore. A number of film and entertainment studios in the past year have swapped out Unix computers containing reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processors, like Sun's UltraSparc III, in favor of systems running Linux and chips from Intel or from Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices."
Comments (5 posted)
Sales increase for U.S. Linux servers (News.com)
News.com
reports
that sales of servers running Linux are up. "
"Linux (sales)
increased a lot because of IBM," said Shahin Naftchi, server analyst for
Gartner. Naftchi said that IBM is now shipping blade servers, 75 percent of
which run Linux."
Comments (none posted)
Interviews
Interview - Dennis Ritchie (unix.se)
Unix.se has
published
an interview with Dennis Ritchie.
What do you consider your greatest achievement in the field of computing to
be?
Dennis Ritchie: The single thing that I'm happiest about is that the notion
of making the Unix system portable was mostly mine. C was already
implemented on several quite different machines and OSs, Unix was already
being distributed on the PDP-11, but the portability of the whole system
was new.
Comments (none posted)
Gates Taking 'Pervasive' Linux Seriously (eWeek)
eWeek is carrying
an article on
Bill Gates's latest remarks on Linux. "
In a way, there's more
incompatible versions of Linux than there are of all other operating
systems put together. That is, as people do innovations on top of Linux,
they don't all get tested together and they're not all consistent with each
other."
Comments (9 posted)
IBM's Linux Growth Path (eWeek)
eWeek features
an interview
with IBM's general manager of Linux, Jim Stallings.
"
Here are the numbers. Some 15 to 20 percent of our servers [sold] are Linux-driven. So it helps our server business, and we make a lot of money from our server business. There are other companies who don't make any money from their server business. Dell [Computer Corp.] and IBM are the only ones out there making money on their server business. So Linux is important to that business for us. It just so happens we also have a services business, and we make money on that, too."
Comments (none posted)
Resources
Linux Productivity Magazine - February 2003
The February issue of
Linux
Productivity Magazine takes a long look at Perl Tk. "
Perl Tk is
an excellent choice for GUI apps because of its highly developed Tk
widgets, and even more so because of Perl's ubiquity and the incredible
power of Perl and its available modules. This Linux Productivity magazine
contains details of major Tk widgets, culminating with a GPL licensed
speech timer program."
Comments (none posted)
Reviews
Gnome 2.2 cleans up the Linux desktop (ZDNet)
ZDNet
covers the
launch of Gnome 2.2. "
The Gnome project said that version 2.2 has
added support for other Freedesktop.org specifications, including icon
themes, recent files and thumbnail management."
Comments (none posted)
Trail of tears: MySQL, ODBC and OpenOffice 1.0 (LinuxWorld.com)
Joe Barr
writes about
the good and bad parts of working with MySQL, ODBC and OpenOffice 1.0.
"
I found a wonderful "how-to" piece called "OpenOffice.org 1.0, ODBC and MySQL," by John McCreesh. In the introduction, McCreesh writes about OpenOffice.org 1.0's "best kept secret" — that secret being the fact that hidden away inside, completely unknown to most OpenOffice users, is a user-friendly front end for databases that is "a Microsoft Access (and more) equivalent." That may be so, but there is a very good reason why it's a secret: it's too damn hard getting OpenOffice and ODBC wired up correctly."
Comments (none posted)
KDE 3.1 reviewed (eWeek)
eWeek
reviews
KDE version 3.1.
"
In the latest release—KDE 3.1, which became available late last month—the product has seen significant advances since its 3.0 version, which eWeek Labs reviewed last spring, and represents Linux's best hope for becoming a viable desktop contender."
Comments (none posted)
Open-Source GUI Fans: Meet Gnome 2.2 (TechWeb)
TechWeb
takes
a look at Gnome 2.2. "
The upgrade moves toward settling
unnecessary differences with its open-source competitor the K Desktop
Environment, or KDE. There's a growing trend among developers in both camps
to adopt specifications that bring consistency to common functions found in
desktops and applications, such as having similar help, file, and
cut-and-paste operations."
Comments (14 posted)
Miscellaneous
Perens throws hat into SPI ring (Register)
The Register
covers
elections at Software in the Public Interest. "
SPI is looking to
elect three new board members from a total of eight
candidates. Contributing members of SPI are eligible to vote. A
contributing member is one who is considered to have made a significant
contribution to the Free Software community, as determined by SPI's
membership committee."
Comments (none posted)
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