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Linux in the newsRecommended Reading Local software for local people (ZDNet) Samba developer Jeremy Allison writes about software development topics. "Most software development is a local activity, done directly for the benefit of the people writing it. The wonderfully bureaucratic sounding "Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry" of the European Union recently commissioned an extensive study on what they call FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software)."
The Old Bugs Are the Best Bugs (Technology Review) Anybody who runs Solaris systems should have a look at this Technology Review article by Simson Garfinkel on the recently-disclosed telnet vulnerability. "What Maynor discovered is that an attacker can try to log in with a user name like '-fbin.' The '-fbin' is passed along to the log-in program, which misinterprets the "-f" as a command from the operating system to log the user in to the specified account without asking for a password." For added fun, consider that Solaris 10 enables telnet by default, and that the vulnerability is not particularly new.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Linux.com looks at two decisions by the Ubuntu Technical Board. "Ubuntu CTO Matt Zimmerman has announced two Ubuntu Technical Board decisions that will affect the upcoming Feisty Fawn release, due out in April of this year. For the Feisty release, proprietary video drivers are out of the default install, and the PowerPC port of Ubuntu is being downgraded to an unofficial release."
Trade Shows and Conferences Linux hackers tackle WiFi hassles (Linux-Watch) Linux-Watch covers the recent Linux Wireless Summit. "Once there, according to Stephen Hemminger, Linux Wireless Summit co-coordinator and a Linux software developer at the Linux Foundation, the attendees had a very productive meeting. Still, it's been slow going in some critical areas of Linux and WiFi, according to John Linville, the Linux wireless software maintainer. In particular, Linville reported that development work is proceeding too slowly on a new 802.11 stack (d80211); and with a new WiFi API (cfg80211), "development is even slower.""
LinuxWorld opens this week in NYC (Linux-Watch) Linux-Watch looks forward to LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit, which opens this week in New York City. "During the conference, attendees will network with their business-oriented Linux peers and learn from their experiences -- mistakes and successes -- through case studies. The conference will also feature in-depth technical presentations by leading Linux and open source experts."
SCaLE 5x: Day 1 (LXer) LXer has a look at SCALE 5X day one. "I have to tell you this is one big event, with over 70 booths and thousands of attendees this is by far the biggest SCaLE event ever. I will be posting pictures I have taken in the next few days. I have just been trying to take it all in. I met a man that has only been using Linux off of a live-CD that was given to him a couple of months ago. I asked him why wanted to switch to Linux and why he came to SCaLE. He told me that he is tired of Windows crashing and taking all of his music with it and he is attending SCaLE to get some help in installing Linux on his machine for good. He came to the right place."
LA hosts laid-back Southern California Linux Expo (Linux.com) Linux.com covers the fifth annual Southern California Linux Expo. "Most IT conferences, it seems, start with a keynote around 9 a.m., which means that attendees have to be queued up for registration by 8 a.m., which is a little earlier than is reasonable for people who've just arrived the night before on a redeye flight. SCALE's registration started at 9 a.m. on Saturday, with talks starting at 10 a.m., and the exhibit floor opening at the same time. SCALE's publicity chair, Orv Beach, says that the organizers decided to avoid keynotes because they wanted the sessions to be all about education, and that SCALE organizers didn't think that keynotes met that standard -- though they may re-evaluate that for future SCALE events."
SCALE 5x: Women in Open Source (The Jem Report) The Jem Report has a review of the Women in Open Source mini-conference at the Southern California Linux Exposition (SCALE 5X). "The subject of women in free/open source software is one that had not been previously explored in SCALE or other, similar conferences to date. Viewing its debut was, to say the least, an extrordinarily interesting experience. Most of the speakers were experienced in giving presentations of this kind, but had previously been the only or one of few female speakers at other free software conventions."
Companies We haven't heard the last of Marc Fleury (Linux-Watch) Linux-Watch looks at JBoss founder Marc Fleury. "Marc Fleury, founder of JBoss and often controversial open source, leader has left Red Hat. The move came as no surprise to many in the industry. In a statement, Fleury wrote, "I have done what I can to help Red Hat succeed. People need to understand that Open Source is a tsunami that is transforming the software industry in its wake and its inevitability is now well beyond challenge or the force of individual personality.""
Sun likes what it sees in the new GPL (ZDNet) ZDNet reports that Sun will probably use GPLv3 for Java and Solaris once that license becomes available. "The question is which open-source license should govern the building of projects out of the company's technology crown jewels. The open-source Solaris project began with a Community Development and Distribution License (CDDL), and open-source Java employs version 2 of the General Public License (GPL). Now, though, Sun likes the idea of governing both projects with the upcoming GPL version 3, Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz said in a speech and an interview at the company's analyst summit here Tuesday."
Linux at Work High-performance Linux cluster in operation in Chemnitz (heise online) heise online covers the launch of the CHiC cluster system. "On February 7, the CHiC massive parallel Linux cluster with 2,152 processors distributed across 538 server nodes went into operation in Chemnitz. The new Revision F generation of AMD's Opteron CPUs, which support DDR2 RAM and AMD's "Secure Virtual Machine (SVM) virtualization technology, are used. Infiniband is used to connect the nodes, which are equipped with IBM server boards."
Interviews Portrait: LinuxChix Brazil's Sulamita Garcia (Linux.com) Linux.com takes a look at Sulamita Garcia and LinuxChix Brazil. "A lot of people have bemoaned the lack of women participating in open source communities, but Sulamita Garcia is one of the few who have stepped up to do something about it. A Slackware user from Florianopolis, Brazil, Garcia has been heading up LinuxChix Brazil for four years."
Why a secret patent deal won't help Linux/Windows (LinuxWorld) Don Marti interviews Jeremy Allison of the Samba project. "LinuxWorld: Now the reason that you left Novell has to do with Microsoft and Novell setting up a deal to in effect pay Microsoft a patent royalty on copies of Linux sold. Allison: That’s right. I mean essentially, it’s a patent cross license. They don’t call it that. They call it a covenant not to sue with customers. But when you boil it down, and you look at it really closely, it is a patent cross license. And section seven of the GPL specifically states that you can’t cut yourself a special patent cross license deal. Essentially it’s one of those situations where everyone has to hang together not separately, as it were. So, in other words, you can’t cut yourself special deals. And as I said, I wanted to like the deal. I had no objections."
Resources Time-Zone Processing with Asterisk, Part I (Linux Journal) Matthew Gast discusses the addition of timezone processing capabilities to the Asterisk PBX system in part one of a Linux Journal series. "I returned to my idea once I started using Asterisk, because it provides an extensive toolkit for designing PBX-hosted services. Anything that can be coded in a computer can become an Asterisk service. After I understood the basics of Asterisk, I sat down to implement a feature that kept track of the time of day where I visited and prevented calls from coming in at inconvenient times."
Reviews Linux to power super-router (Techworld) Techworld looks at the Open Linux Router project. "The project, called the Open Linux Router, joins some other efforts at bringing open source into the world of routers, notably the Extensible Open Router Platform (XORP) sponsored by Vyatta, but aims to add features such as a file-sharing server and a firewall. It is the brainchild of four Michigan university students, who acknowledged Vyatta as an inspiration but saw the need for a more expandable, easier-to-use system. The system, like XORP, is intended to run on off-the-shelf hardware, with enough modularity to allow it to run on anything from an embedded device to an enterprise server."
Review: Frets on Fire (Linux.com) Linux.com reviews a game called Frets on Fire. "You suck on electric guitar. If you are not aware of that now, you will be after playing Frets on Fire -- a cross-platform, GPLed music game from Unreal Voodoo, where your PC's keyboard is the instrument and you play lead. Game play is similar to the commercial GuitarFreaks and Guitar Hero series. With the backing track to a song playing, notes scroll towards you in real time on a simplified guitar fretboard. When they reach the front, you fret the notes in question by holding down the corresponding keys with your fret hand, and you "pick" the notes by hitting the Enter key."
The Pillars of KDE 4: Decibel (KDE.News) KDE.News looks at the Decibel chat and phone communication service architecture that will be part of KDE 4. "The goal of Decibel is to create a bridge between different communication technologies. Decibel will make it easy to integrate real-time communication technologies into applications, Tobias says. Decibel provides a central storage place for settings of real-time communications. This will allow one communication application (say, email) to talk to another communication application (say, instant messaging) without having to learn a new language."
An Introduction to openQRM (O'ReillyNet) O'ReillyNet looks at cluster management with openQRM. "openQRM, which just reached version 3.1, is an open source cluster resource management platform for physical and virtual data centers. In a previous life it was a proprietary project. Now it's open source and is succeeding in integrating different leading open source projects into one console. With a pluggable architecture, there is more to come. I've called it "cluster resource management," but it's really a platform to manage your infrastructure."
Enhance security with file encryption tools (Linux.com) Rui Lopes reviews Linux security tools on Linux.com. "System-wide security solutions such as SELinux, AppArmor, Bastille and grsecurity can, in most cases, make your Linux desktop more than reasonably secure. But there are still cases where file or directory encryption is necessary. Here are some tools that can help you when you need to move files outside of your home computer, carry personal data around with you on a pendrive, or send email messages containing sensitive information."
KDE 4's Sonnet will turbocharge language processing (Linux.com) Linux.com looks at Sonnet, which will be included in KDE 4. "With the Sonnet library for KDE 4, developer Jacob Rideout hopes to reinvigorate the field of desktop linguistics by adding automatic language detection and other innovative features. Sonnet is to be for KDE 4 what KSpell 2 is for the current version of the K Desktop Environment, providing spellchecking facilities to applications as diverse as the Konqueror Web browser, Kopete instant messenger, and KWord office software. Unlike KSpell, however, it will also provide grammar checking, multilingual tools, and perhaps even translation, dictionary, and thesaurus functionality across all of KDE."
Intel, Novell deliver virtual Windows drivers to Linux (Linux-Watch) Linux-Watch looks at the release of paravirtualized network and block device drivers that allow Windows Server to run unmodified in Xen virtual environments. "These device drivers support SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (SLES), and work on Intel-based server platforms featuring chipsets using Intel-VT (Virtualization Technology). The new drivers will let customers migrate to newer and fewer energy-efficient servers, consolidating legacy Windows or Linux solutions onto virtual servers."
Miscellaneous Mix Libre (Linux Journal) Dave Phillips covers a selection of recent news in the Libre audio world. "It's a mixed bag this week from Studio Dave. I'll skip the preliminaries and just invite you to dive in and check out some of the latest news from the ever-expanding world of Linux sound and music software. There's far more going on than I can possibly cover in my allotted space, but here's a quick survey of some recent remarkable activity."
Linux and Vista users share driver pain (InfoWorld) Here's an InfoWorld column on the driver troubles being experienced by Windows Vista users. "Given how many other companies are similarly under-delivering on hardware drivers for Vista, it's enough to make you wonder why more vendors don't do more to support Linux. If writing drivers for Vista is really this much of a chore, getting open source drivers for Linux will seem trivial by comparison."
In Good Company (Michael Geist) Here's a posting by Michael Geist on the International Intellectual Property Alliance's list of countries which, it feels, do not live up to proper IP protection standards. "These are just fourteen examples - there are dozens more countries on the list, including many developing countries, each invariably criticized for not adopting the DMCA, not extending the term of copyright, not throwing enough people in jail, or creating too many exceptions to support education and other societal goals. In fact, the majority of the world's population finds itself on the list, with 23 of the world's 30 most populous countries targeted for criticism (the exceptions are Germany, Ethiopia, Iran, France, the UK, Congo, and Myanmar)."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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