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Jonathan Schwartz replies to Linus regarding ZFS and GPLv3

Sun's Jonathan Schwartz has replied to the Linus posting we highlighted yesterday. "Did the Linux community hurt Sun? No, not a bit. It was the companies that leveraged their work. I draw a very sharp distinction - even if our competition is conveniently reckless. They like to paint the battle as Sun vs. the community, and it's not. Companies compete, communities simply fracture."

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Bringing free software down to earth (Economist)

The Economist has run an article about Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu. "But Mr Shuttleworth is most excited about free software's potential to open up the third dimension in the display and navigation of information. 'In the space station there was no sensation of up or down,' he recalls. 'Yet if it was even slightly obvious which direction Earth was, everyone would point their feet in that direction. Our brain cannot reconfigure itself in a rational way. So we should exploit the irrationality to be productive.'"

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Linux phone standards group to publish specifications (Ars Technica)

Ars Technica covers an announcement from the Linux Phone Standards Forum (LiPS). "LiPS aims to create a cohesive assortment of application programming interfaces (APIs) for mobile Linux development in order to increase interoperability between various Linux-based mobile platforms and simplify third-party mobile Linux application development. The first set of specifications, which will soon be available from the LiPS web site, describe systems for contact management, user interface services, and voice call handling. The rest of the LiPS 1.0 specification elements, which relate to functionality like messaging, presence, and calendaring, will be released before the end of the year."

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Trade Shows and Conferences

File system, power and instrumentation: Can Linux close its technical gaps? (LinuxWorld)

Don Marti provides a nice overview of the state of the Linux Kernel in advance of the Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit June 13-15. He quotes extensively from Andrew Morton and Linus Torvalds about parts of the kernel which need improvement. "In an e-mail message, project founder Linus Torvalds says he agrees that the file system and power management need to work. The latter, he says, is part of a bigger problem with device drivers that basically work but don't implement advanced features. But, Torvalds says, the simple instrumentation Linux already has is enough to deal with real-world performance issues."

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Companies

New Firm Eager to Slap Patents on Security Patches (eWeek)

eWeek has posted an article about Intellectual Weapons, a company with an innovative new business model. "Take heart, underappreciated, unremunerated vassals, for a new firm is offering to work with you on a vulnerability patch that they will then patent and go to court to defend. You'll split the profits with the firm, Intellectual Weapons, if they manage to sell the patch to the vendor. The firm may also try to patent any adaptations to an intrusion detection system or any other third-party software aimed at dealing with the vulnerability, so rest assured, there are many parties from which to potentially squeeze payoff."

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Xandros CEO doesn't agree that Linux is patent violator (LinuxWorld)

Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos discusses their Microsoft deal in this article at LinuxWorld. "'We did not discuss patents [with Microsoft] and we don't think Linux violates any patents and we were not asked about it,' Typaldos said. 'It is a non-issue for us.'"

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What the Microsoft/Xandros deal means for Linux (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch has quotes from various people regarding the MS/Xandros deal. "Now that the deal is in place, the question is, "What to make of it?" We do know that the partnership has not drawn even a tenth of the criticism that the Novell/Microsoft patent partnership drew. Nonetheless, some other Linux vendors have little good to say about the new Xandros partnership."

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Linux Adoption

FNB switches 12000 desktops to Linux (Tectonic)

Tectonic covers a large scale Linux deployment in South Africa. "Following recent reports of a South African bank eyeing out Linux, Novell South Africa today issued a statement in which it said it had reached an agreement with First National Bank of South Africa to standardise the bank's 12 000 desktops in its 680 retail branches on Novell's Linux product. With 12 000 desktops switching to Linux this is very likely the most significant Linux and open source implementation in South Africa to date."

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Legal

Peer to Patent Project Begins June 15 (Groklaw)

Groklaw has a reminder about the the Peer to Patent project starting next week. "It's historic, in that it's never been tried before, letting the public provide the USPTO examiners with a helping hand. The goal is to find ways to block stupid patents at the applications input level, so they don't get approved, issue, and subsequently hurt people and companies. I think of it as bug spray to kill off stupid patents before they can multiply."

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Interviews

Interview with Brian Aker (LinuxWorld)

LinuxWorld interviews MySQL architect Brian Aker on a wide range of issues, from storage engines to open source economics. "In our view today, BitKeeper is still the strongest player and much stronger than actually three contenders right now which are Bazaar-NG, Mercurial and Git. And Git's only recent. And they're not quite there just yet. And it's interesting to see who can outinnovate who first. Can Larry and BitKeeper out keep outinnovating the open source guys, or will the open source guys pass him up. And it's interesting to watch. But I think it's making all the different products in that market better in the end, because they all have to compete with one another."

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A temporary network on a budget (LinuxWorld)

LinuxWorld talks with Stu Sheldon, the Tech Committee chair for Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE). "With SCALE, the design criteria is simple, Provide stable and balanced Internet access for both exhibitors and guests. That sounds easy doesn't it? Oh, one other thing -- I needed to make it so I could pick the entire network up and rearrange it every year. This has been my task since the very first SCALE. I officially took over the Tech Committee chair position shortly after SCALE 1, and now host and maintain the three SCALE public servers year-round in my colocation facility in Thousand Oaks, Calif."

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Resources

full circle magazine - #1 released!

Ubuntu has a new community-produced magazine that used Scribus, OpenOffice.org and GIMP to create a 42 page first issue. Click below for their announcement which includes the table of contents.

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Anatomy of the Linux kernel (IBM developerWorks)

IBM developerWorks covers kernel history and architecture. "Over time, the Linux kernel has become efficient in terms of both memory and CPU usage, as well as extremely stable. But the most interesting aspect of Linux, given its size and complexity, is its portability. Linux can be compiled to run on a huge number of processors and platforms with different architectural constraints and needs. One example is the ability for Linux to run on a process with a memory management unit (MMU), as well as those that provide no MMU. The uClinux port of the Linux kernel provides for non-MMU support."

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OpenWRT 101 (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet looks at choosing, building, installing and using Linux-based firmware for wireless routers. "There are currently three major active branches of the OpenWRT platform: OpenWRT, FreeWRT, and DD-WRT. OpenWRT is the original code base, which focuses on a minimal embedded Linux platform with a number of modules to add various functionalities. FreeWRT is a direct outgrowth of OpenWRT and focuses on providing an advanced platform for experienced developers. DD-WRT started with Sveasoft Alchemy but switched over to a WRT kernel to make use of commodity access points from companies like Linksys and Netgear as opposed to high-end APs."

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A guide to using PDFs on GNU/Linux (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal surveys PDF support. "Although GNU/Linux has long supported postscript format, full support for the related PDF file format has been longer in arriving. Today, however, PDF support is finally starting to equal what is available on other operating systems. Whether you are printing, editing, or viewing PDF files, you now have the choice of a variety of applications on both the command line and the desktops."

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Turn Vim into a bash IDE (Linux.com)

Linux.com covers the Bash Support plugin for Vim. "The Bash Support plugin works in the Vim GUI (gVim) and text mode Vim. It's a little easier to use in the GUI, and Bash Support doesn't implement most of its menu functions in Vim's text mode, so you might want to stick with gVim when scripting."

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Reviews

Kazehakase brings innovation to the browser (Linux.com)

Linux.com examines a browser that is not Gecko-based and which offers some interesting innovations. "This gradual introduction of complexity seems ideal for learning Kazehakase without being overwhelmed the way some users are by the full set of choices in most mainstream browsers. For new or basic users, it also eliminates a clutter of choices in which they have no interest. Even Kazehakase's Expert level UI is less busy than Firefox's, but it nicely highlights the browser's innovations."

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Nixstaller and the inconvenience of do-it-yourself (Linux.com)

Linux.com looks at Nixstaller. "Nixstaller 0.2.2 is a command-line tool for creating graphical installers for archived files on Unix-like systems. If that sounds paradoxical, it is. Although Nixstaller is easy enough to learn that you can produce your first installer within half an hour of installing it, much of the process is sufficiently painstaking that it cries out for the automation usually associated with a graphical interface."

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Desktop publishing with OpenOffice.org (Linux.com)

Linux.com takes a look at using Draw and Writer from OpenOffice.org for desktop publishing tasks. "So why are the desktop publishing capabilities of OpenOffice.org not better known? I believe that it is mostly a matter of people seeing what they expect to see. When hearing of a program called Writer, most people naturally assume that it is just another word processor. In the same way, Draw is automatically assumed to be another graphics program. It takes time and experience to know just how far Writer and Draw can stretch, and apparently the six years or so in which OpenOffice.org has been available isn't enough for more than a handful of users to know their full potential."

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Revisor utility creates custom install images for Fedora (Linux.com)

Linux.com reviews Revisor. "With Revisor running as the front end in Fedora 7, and the image building tools running in the background, it is now easy to build an install image exactly the way you want it. Using Revisor, you can choose exactly what software to include -- for example, you could build an image that installed only Xfce, and omitted GNOME and KDE. You could build a minimal install for an old machine, or for one with multiple distros and versions on which you wanted to save space. For security purposes, you could build an install in which you handpick each package. Or you could specify a custom repository or build custom images that fit on different-sized USB drives. An image built with Revisor may also be a less cumbersome way to do duplicate installs than using Kickstart. The possibilities are wide open."

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Ubuntu's mobile and embedded project advances (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch takes a look at the updated Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded (UME) project's architecture roadmap. "Following two months of planning, Canonical Ltd. has updated the Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded (UME) project's architecture roadmap. UME aims to create a version of the popular Ubuntu desktop Linux OS tailored to the requirements of Intel-based "mobile Internet devices" (MIDs), expected in 2008."

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WengoPhone 2.1 gives Linux users a solid softphone (Linux.com)

Linux.com looks at the WengoPhone. "The OpenWengo project recently released version 2.1 of its WengoPhone VoIP softphone. It's a big step forward for Linux users. Wengo -- the commercial PSTN-routing SIP provider that is the open source project's parent company -- focused on its Windows builds and essentially skipped over Linux during the 2.0 release cycle. OpenWengo's Linux developers were never satisfied with the stability of the 2.0-series release candidates, so they never incremented the Linux version number to 2.0."

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Miscellaneous

LinuxChix coordinator resigns amidst controversy (Linux.com)

Linux.com reports that Mary Gardiner has resigned as LinuxChix coordinator. "Gardiner told Linux.com that she did not feel pressured into a resignation, but that it was the best thing for her and for the group. She said she will be stepping back from an active volunteer role but will remain a member. 'My involvement for the foreseeable future will be limited to handover help as needed and continued activity in AussieChix. I haven't ruled out more active involvement again sometime in the future.'"

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