Linux in the news

Recommended Reading

Microsoftens (LinuxUser)

Eben Moglen, General Counsel of the Free Software Foundation, writes this LinuxUser article looking at Microsoft and free software. "Competing with free software is problematic for Microsoft for many reasons. There's no company to acquire, in the first place, in order to incorporate or suppress attractive competing products - a strategy that the monopoly has pursued so often and so successfully in the past. Because free software is continually modified and improved by all its users, there's no 'evolutionary dead end' argument with which to scare customers: someone choosing to use free software is never going to be left with an unserviceable product whose maker has gone out of business, leaving the code 'orphaned' in the face of constantly shifting technology."

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Perceptions: Is Linux a suitable desktop platform? (DesktopLinux.com)

In this guest column at DesktopLinux.com, former SCO evangelist and Samba.org team leader John H. Terpstra weighs in on market perceptions about Linux and its suitability for the desktop. "Interviewing a sample group -- that included 30 people evenly split in the Linux and MS camps -- Terpstra discovered each group cited the very same arguments in defending their OS of choice!"

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Linux Adoption

Councils leading Linux push (News.com.au)

Here's a look at how Linux is taking over local goverenment computing in Australia. "Large federal government departments switching to Linux - such as Veterans Affairs - have hogged the limelight, but local councils have pioneered the use of the open source OS." Thanks to Ashwin N

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Linux Thrust: Full Utilisation Of Free Software Outlined (Financial Express)

The Financial Express looks at free software in India. "For computer technology to have maximum impact in India, complete support for Indian languages is required. Government agencies are working towards ensuring that all Indian languages are properly supported, particularly with free software." Thanks to Ashwin N

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Legal

Experts: Copyright law hurts technology (News.com)

News.com reports from the Berkeley Digital Rights Management conference. "'There has to be a way between the lunatics at the two extremes,' said Larry Lessig, a law professor at Stanford University and well-known opponent of the DMCA. 'We need to build a layer of reasonable copyright law on top of this background of unreasonable extremism.'"

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Interviews

The Creative Penguin: The GNOME Art Duo Speak (OfB.biz)

Open for Business talks with GNOME art duo Tuomas "Tigert" Kuosmanen and Jakub "Jimmac" Steiner of Ximian. "If you've ever admired the beautiful artwork of GNOME, these are the gentlemen responsible for it. How did they get involved? Why should you be interested in desktop artwork? They discuss all of this and more with Open for Business' Timothy R. Butler."

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Resources

Approaches to a Linux PVR (Linux Journal)

Here's a Linux Journal article on ways to build a linux-based video recorder. "I don't have one working yet, but I have learned a few things. Here are notes on the two approaches that look best for a Linux PVR."

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March Linux Gazette

The March 2003 issue of the Linux Gazette is available; it looks at fonts, Linux-based telecom, optimizing gcc, and several other topics (along with the latest "Ecol" comics).

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LinuxDevices.com Weekly Newsletter

Here is the LinuxDevices.com Embedded Linux Newsletter for February 27, 2003.

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Embedded Linux remains #1 choice (LinuxDevices)

LinuxDevices.com analyzes a recent survey by Evans Data Corp. and finds that Embedded Linux remains the top embedded OS choice among developers, but that developers are not particularly satisfied with the available Embedded Linux toolsets.

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Root 101 (Iodynamics)

This Iodynamics article teaches newbies about the significance of root. "When a user logs on to a computer running one of the various flavors of Unix, he is prompted to enter his username and password. The system then checks its roster of users to determine if the password and username match. If the user logs in with the username root, using the root password, he will be given permission to do lots of things that other users aren't allowed to do."

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Reviews

Two OCR packages for Linux compared (LinuxWorld)

In this article on LinuxWorld.com Joe Barr compares two Optical Character Recognition packages -- one is free software, the other proprietary. "In the legal and medical fields, document management is a very big deal. In modern office environments, OCR often plays a key role in solving that problem. Because OCR for Linux is one area I don't hear or read a lot about, I decided to do some digging and see what I could find. This week, I'll tell you about two solutions I found: one from the free-software camp and one proprietary application."

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Linux cluster used to map geothermal energy in Iceland (ComputerWorld)

ComputerWorld covers this Linux NetworX cluster. "Now the system, which had a total cost of about $100,000, is successfully helping researchers understand past weather events in Iceland and learn how the country's topography influences its weather, according to Olafur Rognvaldsson, CEO of the Institute for Meteorological Research in Reyjavik." Thanks to Ashwin N

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MySQL Database Takes Open To Next Level (CRN)

CRN has published a glowing review of the support available for the MySQL database. "The popularity of the product and the large developer community that has cropped up to work with it have made MySQL one of the most stable back-end databases on the market. On small projects with 50 or fewer user connections, MySQL's price/performance actually surpasses that of all of the top database vendors."

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Linux does Windows (Salon.com)

Here's Salon's take on Desktop Linux, including a mini-review of Linux desktops from Lycoris and Lindows. "Still, there's one good thing about having an alternative to Windows, even if the alternative's a kind of Windows Lite -- Microsoft might have a reason to improve its software. Competition, finally, is making its way into the world of desktop PCs." Thanks to Ashwin N

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Genomic Perl (O'Reilly)

Simon Cozens reviews the book "Genomic Perl" on O'Reilly. "Rex Dwyer has produced a book, Genomic Perl, which bridges the gap. As well as teaching basic Perl programming techniques to biologists, it introduces many useful genetic concepts to those already familiar with programming. Of course, as a programmer and not a biologist, I'm by no means qualified to assess the quality of that side of the book, but I certainly learned a lot from it."

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Miscellaneous

Buffer overflow flaw socks Snort (ZDNet)

ZDNet reports on the other important recent security hole: a buffer overflow in the Snort intrusion detection system. "If an attacker can gain access to an IDS they may be able to delete its logs, add false log entries or just shut down the whole system. If the IDS is 'switched off' an attacker can be as indiscreet as they want to without setting the alarm bells ringing..."

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The Creation of Open Source

Daniel L. Johnson MD has put together a fable about the origins of open-source software. "One Gownie, a brilliant and unkempt thinker, the Man who Stalls, turned the Townie philosophy upside down. If Intellectual Property Rights could be used to keep ideas secret and to accumulate Money, then they could also be used to force ideas into the public and to accumulate Knowledge."

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