Linux in the news [LWN.net]

Recommended Reading

Windows Server 2003 better than Linux (Inquirer)

This article in the Inquirer typifies the hype that is going around on Microsoft's latest OS offering. "The combatants fighting it out were Windows Server 2003, Red Hat 8.0 and Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1. The arena was serious enterprise, one of the machines used in the test was an 8 processor HP Proliant DL760 Xeon system with 4GB of RAM. The Linux systems were running Samba. The test was performed using ZD NetBench 7.02. And Windows Server 2003 gave the Linux system a right good stuffing, almost performing at twice the speed in many tests." (Thanks to Dan Kegel)

Comments (29 posted)

Penguin cracks Windows servers (IT-Director)

IT-Director.com has concluded that there is a future for Linux. "Meanwhile, Merrill Lynch now rates Microsoft shares as 'neutral', citing Linux, supported (especially) by IBM, as a threat."

Comments (11 posted)

Code red for open source? (News.com)

News.com talks with SCO CEO Darl McBride about the IBM suit. "'We feel very good about the evidence that is going to show up in court. We will be happy to show the evidence we have at the appropriate time in a court setting,' McBride said. 'The Linux community would have me publish it now, (so they can have it) laundered by the time we can get to a court hearing. That's not the way we're going to go.'" Despite being yet another insult against the Linux developer community, this remark shows a great ignorance of how that community works. No amount of "laundering" will make the code history go away.

Comments (11 posted)

Trade Shows and Conferences

KDE Has Tea With Stallman

Philippe Fremy writes about his experience at Paris Linux Solution 2003 and having tea with Richard Stallman and the French KDE team.

Comments (5 posted)

Feed Your Head at Etech 2003 (O'Reilly)

O'Reilly has coverage of this year's Emerging Technology Conference. "As the Emerging Technology Conference came to a conclusion on Friday, April 25, 2003, many of the participants were still just as enthusiastic as they had been on day one, and the sessions were as full as ever. Daniel Steinberg was there from the beginning, and he's pulled together some of his favorite observations for this article."

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Companies

MySQL moves forward (IT-Director)

This IT-Director article takes MySQL to task for not supporting XML. "The market works on the basis of perception and it listens to the stories that the 800lb gorillas tell. And the stories these vendors are telling is that you can implement XML in the database, that the overhead of mapping between XML structures and relational tables can be minimised if not totally reduced, and we have even got relational database vendors implementing hierarchical structures for XML indexing."

Comments (6 posted)

PeopleSoft takes the leap to Linux (ZDNet)

ZDNet reports on the latest new (proprietary) application for Linux. "PeopleSoft said it will announce plans at a customer conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday to convert its entire line of business applications, which includes more than 170 products, to run on the open-source Linux operating system."

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SCO in the news

SCO is in the news. Maybe it's true that any publicity is good publicity, or maybe not.

News.com Net attack crushes SCO Web site

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OfB.biz SCO Declares IP Jihad on Linux
ZDNet SuSE safe from SCO attacks

Comments (8 posted)

Linux Adoption

Operating system battling non-believers (Globe and Mail)

The Globe and Mail looks at Linux in the workplace, and talks to Evan Leibovitch. "So whenever Mr. Leibovitch hears objections to Linux, he dismisses them as a "smokescreen thrown up by people who have turf to protect." So what are the valid obstacles to Linux in the workplace? One objection is that popularity of a product is a powerful argument to switch, but it's difficult to measure the success of Linux. No one has records of the number of installations of Linux, because as a free system it can't be measured the traditional way, which is to calculate the number of copies a manufacturer ships." (Thanks to Philip Webb)

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On Open Source Procurement Policies (NewsForge)

NewsForge carries a lightly edited transcript of a presentation by Tony Stanco made at a meeting of the New York City Council's Select Committee on Technology in Government on April 29, 2003. "One question that is seldom asked is, "How can Open Source possibly be giving multi-billion dollar companies so much competition that they feel they need to actively dissuade government officials from even thinking of using Open Source software?" This is not an idle question. Open Source doesn't have lobbyists or marketers or ad men to promote its software. So, to say that governments shouldn't have rules to consider Open Source software, as Open Source opponents often do, takes away the only avenue that Open Source has to really reach government."

Comments (none posted)

Louisiana courts go with Linux (NewsForge)

NewsForge looks at open source technology used by US state governments. "One of the latest government installations based on open source tools is being developed in Louisiana, on behalf of the state's court system. In Louisiana's Nineteenth Judicial District Court, developers are building a new database application over Linux that offers police, judges and the public real-time access to judicial records."

Comments (none posted)

Legal

IBM denies charges of Unix theft (News.com)

News.com covers IBM's 18-page filing in U.S. District Court in Utah, rebutting SCO suit. "IBM also accused SCO of trying, in the suit, to interfere with the open-source community, which develops Linux and many other software packages. SCO is seeking "to hold up the open-source community (and development of Linux in particular) by improperly seeking to assert proprietary rights over important, widely used technology and impeding the use of that technology by the open-source community," IBM said."

Comments (4 posted)

False open source representative calls for European software patents (NewsForge)

In this NewsForge article, Bruce Perens reports that a false or misled "open source representative" has signed an industry resolution calling for the EU to allow software patenting. "Software patents could be fatal for Open Source software in the U.S. and Europe. Since we do not collect royalties from the distribution of our own software, we have no funds to pay royalties to patent holders. Rather than sue us to collect money, expect patent holders to sue Open Source developers to restrain them from distributing their software or carrying out further development. Companies that produce proprietary software would bring that sort of suit to kill us off as a competitor."

Comments (5 posted)

Ed Felten's analysis of the Grokster ruling

Ed Felten has posted an "instant analysis" of the Grokster ruling. "Unless this decision is overturned quickly on appeal, the P2P policy battle will now move to Washington. Having lost in the Courts, the content industry will take the judge's hint and lobby Congress to pass legislation changing the rules. My prediction is that we'll see a bill circulated that creates an affirmative responsiblity to design products that make infringement as difficult as possible."

Comments (1 posted)

Software Patents and SMEs (7 - 8 May 2003) - Brussels

AEL (Association of Electronic Liberties) announces some upcoming events to protest a Software Directive that is currently being considered by the European Parliament which would legalise software patents in the EU.

Full Story (comments: 1)

Interviews

Eye on Karamba: Talking to Hans Karlsson (KDE.News)

KDE.News interviews Hans Karlsson, author of Karamba. "Karamba is a desktop enhancement, similar to Konfabulator and Samurize, that appeared on KDE-Look.org (looky) about one month ago. Since then, Karamba has become the highest rated project on looky with a surprisingly large number of themes and extensions having been contributed, subsequently leading to a dedicated category for Karamba contributions. We had a little chat with author Hans Karlsson about himself, KDE, Karamba, and the hype surrounding it."

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Interview with George Staikos (linmagau.org)

linmagau.org has an interview with George Staikos about Qt and the future of KDE and Linux/Unix desktops in general. "Originally: I was a KMail developer. Now: Konqueror - I wrote and maintain all the SSL code, I work on the I/O level, I maintain the Netscape plugin code, I wrote the web sidebar module (for NS6 sidebar compatibility), general bugfixing in KDE as well. I also maintain Xinerama (multiple-merged-monitors) support for all of KDE, and I do work on laptop support for KDE."

Comments (none posted)

Reviews

Kaboodle/Noatun vs XMMS (linuxmagau.org)

Linuxmagau.org reviews the sound quality of several Linux mp3 players. "For those that might be new to the world of GNU/Linux, XMMS and Noatun are designed to play large playlists of audio files, with XMMS being mostly about audio and Noatun being more of a media player in general. Kaboodle is a small and lightweight player that avoids playlists and big multimedia capabilities and focuses on playing one file at a time, basically mp3s, mpegs and ogg vorbis files."

Comments (none posted)

Miscellaneous

Thanks! (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop has a lengthy list of thank-you statements to various GNOME developers. "Sometimes I get a bit bummed out by a small minority of FootNotes posters who seem to be ungrateful for the incredible work, and amazing amount of time that GNOME hackers put into their software. Your software. So, to pull myself out of the disappointment doldrums, I wrote a list of things that I am personally grateful for, and people who I'd like to thank."

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