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Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
Firebird Poll Ignites Flames of Passion (MozillaZine)
MozillaZine reports on the results of its 'Firebird' poll. "The question posed by our last poll was intended to get feedback on 'Firebird', the new name for Phoenix. We got it in buckets. A massive 20,576 people voted — that's over ten times as many as for the new Roadmap poll."
Why do programmers write open source software? (NewsForge)
NewsForge looks at some of the motivations for developers to participate in open source projects. "A majority of people who write open source code do it as part of their jobs. Apache was originally written and is still maintained primarily by network admins and programmers who need reliable, low-cost Web server software and believe it's better to pool their efforts than go it alone. Many Linux kernel improvements come from programmers who work for companies that depend on Linux in one way or another, ranging from small consulting firms up to multinationals like IBM, HP, and Computer Associates. Intel and AMD have helped the Linux kernel scale to multiple processors and support 64-bit CPUs."
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (pbs.org)
Robert X. Cringely writes about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and open source software. "...here is where we'll find Open Source's vulnerability. There is this idea (I've written it myself) that Microsoft, for example, can't compete with Open Source because you can't compete with a product that has no profit Motive, and can't out-market a product that has no marketing budget or plan. But Microsoft could still beat Open Source simply by subverting it." (Thanks to Timothy Hunt)
Metaphors make the operating system (NewsForge)
Here's a NewsForge article by Lee Schlesinger, in which he dissects Neal Stephenson's 1999 essay "In the Beginning was the Command Line". "This is a key lesson for Linux proponents to learn. Linux is a powerful operating system -- no one argues that. But Linux started out as a difficult operating system for the average person to learn. There are far more average users than expert users out there. To grow the community, Linux must be as simple as possible to work with. A larger group of users benefits both average and expert users, so even experts should support "frills" like GUI utilities and package installation tools."
Trade Shows and Conferences
Systems Conference Celebrates All Things Embedded (TechWeb)
TechWeb covers this year's Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco. "MontaVista, a key player in the embedded Linux market, announced that its embedded version of the open-source OS had been tweaked to work with Tensilica's Xtensa processors. The pairing of MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 3.0 and Xtensa's OSKit automatically generates updates to the embedded Linux as designers modify the base Xtensa architecture to create their own custom SoC (systems on a chip). The result, according to MontaVista, is faster design and development of Linux-running SoCs."
Twisted Python (O'ReillyNet)
Stephen Figgins covers the development of the Twisted application framwork. "At last month's PyCon in Washington D.C. several developers of the Twisted network application framework gave presentations. (Papers are available on the Python wiki.) In some ways, it was Twisted's big debut. Many attendees have made positive remarked the presentations. Once obscured, Twisted is stepping into the light."
We need more like this: LinuxFest Northwest 2003 (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal covers LinuxFest NorthWest 2003. "LinuxFest had a great atmosphere: it was pro-Linux and fun, with very little bashing of Microsoft or anyone else. It was geared towards Linux enthusiasts who already know something about Linux, but some of the presentations could be enjoyed by anyone."
Swarms and Mobs at This Year's ETech
Daniel H. Steinberg writes about several presentations at this year's O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. "Individually, Eric Bonabeau's keynote on Biological Computing and Howard Rheingold's address on Smart Mobs would have been interesting. Taken together you can see the application of emergent behavior described by Bonabeau to the technological challenges issued by Rheingold."
Linux Adoption
Firms buy in to open-source software (Globe and Mail)
Toronto's Globe and Mail looks at Linux adoption in Canada. "The potential impact on corporate computing and the technology marketplace is profound because this vast worldwide talent pool can create innovations, plug holes and fix flaws more quickly and more surely than any single company acting alone with limited resources, according to Chris Pratt, Linux manager for Markham, Ont.-based IBM Canada Ltd., who describes the open-source concept as "a Darwinian approach in which the strongest code survives."" (Thanks to Jim Gallacher)
Consider open source - SSC (Stuff)
New Zealand's Stuff reports that State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham has written to the heads of all government agencies, encouraging them to assess open source options when buying software. "The initiative, approved by State Services Minister Trevor Mallard, was the key recommendation of a briefing paper on open source software written by the SSC's E-Government Unit head, Brendan Boyle. However, the SSC has stopped well short of following countries such as India, Italy and South Africa and calling for open source products to be preferred over commercial software as a matter of course." (Thanks to Kanchana Wickremasinghe)
Thai Ministry to Sell Low-Cost Computers
Here's an article in the Bangkok Post regarding a plan by the Thai Information and Communications Technology Ministry to sell low-cost, Linux-based computers. "The ministry expects that the second phase of the Computer ICT project will be able to distribute 300,000 units a month or 10 times more than in the first phase. It aims to place one million PC within 12 months." The systems will cost 10,000 Baht, or just over US$250.
Unfinished Business: The One Missing Piece (O'ReillyNet)
In this O'ReillyNet article David HM Spector explores the history and current state of directory services, and explains why it's important to interoperate with Active Directory. "Linux has really reinvigorated the UNIX family of operating systems, as well as competition in the server market place. The hard work and talents of thousands of developers have made Linux an unstoppable force in the data center. They have also set the foundation for Linux (and other UNIXes) to provide credible and well-implemented alternatives to Microsoft Office on the desktop, but Microsoft still has absolutely no competition in the directory space. The directory space is the key to the desktop marketplace and the possibility of Linux's total integration in mainstream environments, because that's where all the really important metadata--the stuff that businesses run on--lives."
Legal
Judge: File-swapping tools are legal (News.com)
News.com reports on the outcome of the suit against Streamcast and Grokster: not guilty. "'Defendants distribute and support software, the users of which can and do choose to employ it for both lawful and unlawful ends,' [Judge Stephen] Wilson wrote in his opinion, released Friday. 'Grokster and StreamCast are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights.'"
Scientists protest EU software patents (ZDNet)
ZDNet reports that a group of high-ranking scientists are petitioning the European Parliament to prevent the patenting of algorithms and software ideas. "The fate of the proposed patent plan could have a dramatic effect on the way software is developed in the EU, with many developers and small businesses fearing a U.S.-style system in which large companies with thousands of software-related patents are able to force smaller competitors to pay for intellectual property licenses."
Interviews
Inteview with Miguel De Icaza (Linux Journal)
Here's a Linux Journal interview with Miguel De Icaza. "MdI: I work at Ximian, but my focus has changed from doing GNOME development to working on a project called Mono. Mono is an open-source implementation of the .NET Framework, a development platform that I really like. A lot of the effort that has gone into Mono has been put there mainly to help GNOME become a better platform--my merging these two worlds. And, those of us working on the project would love to see more Mono-based desktop applications out there."
Ballmer: No sleep lost over Linux (News.com)
News.com talks with Steve Ballmer about why Microsoft is not afraid of Linux. "Innovation is not something that is easy to do in the kind of distributed environment that the open-source/Linux world works in. I would argue that our customers have seen a lot more innovation from us than they have seen from that community. Linux itself is a clone of an operating system that is 20-plus years old. That's what it is. That is what you can get today, a clone of a 20-year-old system. I'm not saying that it doesn't have some place for some customers, but that is not an innovative proposition."
Inteview with Matthias Ettrich (Linux Journal)
In this Linux Journal article, Aleksey Dolya interviews Matthias Ettrich, creator of the KDE desktop environment. "ME: Professionally I'm focusing on the next generation of Qt. Qt today is established technology that has been developed for more than ten years, so we feel it's about time to revise some of its architecture. The wide range of devices it is used on--[everything] from powerful desktop workstations to small embedded devices--leads to new challenges. Interestingly enough, both small embedded applications and the big desktop applications that constantly become more and more complex have one thing in common: they would benefit from a more flexible, smaller and at the same time even faster toolkit. And we believe we can [deliver] exactly this."
Nicholas Petreley on what Linux developers really want (IBM News)
IBM News is carrying this interview with Nicholas Petreley as he analyzes the results of the latest Evans Data Corp 2003 Linux Developer Survey. "You spent a lot of time investigating developers' perception of Linux security. Where did the respondents come down on the Linux versus Windows security debate? Nick: They came squarely down on the side of Linux being a far more secure system. The comparison wasn't even close. What I found interesting though, was that their confidence in open source as inherently more secure has been dropping over the past 18 months or so, despite the fact that their actual incidence of crack-ins, break-ins to their servers, and virus problems, based on the survey was statistically insignificant."
Resources
Burning CDs on Linux (IBM developerWorks)
IBM developerWorks takes a look at CD burning on Linux systems. "CD-writing programs are available for both Linux and Windows, but the Linux versions are more powerful and versatile than their Windows cousins. In this article, we'll look at mkisofs and cdrecord, the workhorses of Linux CD recording. mkisofs creates a pre-mastered image, to generate an ISO9660/JOLIET/HFS hybrid filesystem. It both creates and populates a filesystem. Unlike other data storage media such as hard drives and floppy drives, a filesystem on CD is not first created, then populated with data. There is only one chance with a CD-R: formatting it first would create a disk with an empty filesystem. cdrecord records data on Orange Book CD-R/RWs, which is pretty much all of them."
Electronic Archaeology (O'ReillyNet)
This lengthy O'Reilly Network article looks at tools for digging through old code. "In the real world, most programmers spend most of their time going through code that's a hundred years old and extremely messy. If it ever was designed, the design document was lost long ago. It has evolved over the years. Hundreds of people have worked on it. And it appears most of them knew very little about programming. As a result, most professional programmers have to deal with badly designed, badly implemented, uncommented, incomprehensible blobs."
Reviews
Linux powers a mini PC (ZDNet)
ZDNet takes a look at a tiny desktop computer featuring an embedded Linux operating system. "The Mini-Box M-100, a general-purpose computer built around Via's EPIA Mini-ITX mainboard, is about the size of a dictionary and weighs about two pounds. Besides being used as a desktop, it can also be used "embedded"--housed within a larger machine to perform a specific computing task."
Myths of Linux on the Desktop (ZDNet)
Gartner examines the myths surrounding Linux on the Desktop. "Although Linux has many attributes that make it a fine operating system (OS), and it will be a viable option for certain types of users and enterprises, there are several areas of Linux's reputation on the desktop that we feel will be proved, over time, to be myths. Enterprises need to understand where reality ends and myth begins so they can make informed, justifiable decisions for its use on the desktop."
Miscellaneous
What's 64-bit computing to Linux? (News.com)
News.com is running a column on the importance of commodity 64-bit systems. "These two trends--commodity 64-bit architectures and Linux--are intersecting. Five years from today, nobody in IT will be buying 32-bit servers (and maybe not even 32-bit laptops). They will buy 64-bit servers and almost universally run them with Linux." Of course, the optimistic tone may have something to do with the fact that the author is SuSE CEO Richard Seibt.
Further Updates on Firebird Naming Debate (MozillaZine)
MozillaZine covers the continuing debate over the Firebird name. "Jonathan Walther of the Debian project has published a transcript of an interview with an anonymous Mozilla developer about the Firebird naming conflict. According to IBPhoenix, which is affiliated with the Firebird database project, Walther has offered to mediate in the dispute."
A modest proposal to end spam (News.com)
News.com reports on a proposal to end spam. "A few months ago, Lessig made an unusual wager: If Congress enacts an antispam law that offers bounties for the reporting of spammers, and the law fails to "substantially reduce the level of spam," he will resign from his dream job at a top law school."
At Microsoft's Mercy (O'Reilly)
Kendall Grant Clark ponders the current state of XML editors on O'Reilly. "In a recent XML-Deviant column, "The Pace of Innovation", I examined the still contentious, often puzzling issue of XML tools support, especially for end users. Even after five long years of XML development, the ideal and ubiquitous "XML editor for humans" seems more rumor than reality. Could it be that we have underestimated the difficulty of building a tool with which ordinary people can easily and simply create XML content? What troubles me even more, however, was the conclusion I reached in that column, namely, that the XML creation facilities in the next major release of Microsoft Office are the best, realistic hope for the future of the documents side of XML, at least in terms of mass market success."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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