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Linux in the newsRecommended Reading Global IT firm predicts Linux will have 20% desktop market share by 2008 (NewsForge)NewsForge reports that Siemens Business Systems has declared that Linux has matured as a desktop. "[Senior program manager Duncan] McNutt says that when Siemens, with 33,000 employees in 44 countries, initially evaluated Linux as a productivity desktop, it saw little utility outside of technical departments. "We didn't see Linux on the desktop as a major market, but we were wrong.""
Heise reports from SCO ForumHere is a Heise News report (in German) from SCO Forum. An English translation can be had via Babelfish, but, perhaps, the most interesting feature of the article is a couple of photos from Darl McBride's "copied code" presentation; these images are available in enlarged form here and here. The offending code, it seems, is from arch/ia64/sn/io/ate_utils.c, which carries an SGI copyright.
Companies Los Alamos lab orders Opteron clusters (ZDNet)ZDNet reports on "Lightning" and "Orange", two new Linux cluster supercomputers built by Linux Networx, with AMD Opteron processors. " The advent of clusters has also opened up scientific computing market to more competition. Dell, often chided by large companies such as IBM for not conducting much independent research, is one of the largest providers of Linux clusters."
SCO's proof bogus, Linux advocate says (InfoWorld)As seen in this InfoWorld article, the mainstream press is beginning to get the word about SCO's "copied code." "SCO spokesman Blake Stowell had not viewed Perens' analysis, but he reasserted his company's belief that the code was inappropriately contributed. 'At this point it's going to be his word against ours,' he said of Perens."
Linux Adoption Rockin' on without Microsoft (News.com)Recommended reading: this News.com interview with Sterling Ball, CEO of guitar string manufacturer Ernie Ball, which converted over to free software. "I became an open-source guy because we're a privately owned company, a family business that's been around for 30 years, making products and being a good member of society. We've never been sued, never had any problems paying our bills. And one day I got a call that there were armed marshals at my door talking about software license compliance."
China blocks foreign software use in gov't (CNETAsia)Here's a CNETAsia article on a decision by the Chinese government that ministries must buy locally-produced software. "In addition to commercial reasons for protecting local software, there are security concerns. China is placing official support behind the Red Flag Linux operating system, which they trust because the open-source code allows officials to see that there are no data spyholes installed by foreign powers."
World's Largest Country Goes for KDE (KDE.News)KDE.News announced that KDE will be bundled with Redflag Linux Desktop 3.2 on Chinese desktops. "Redflag Linux, a Linux distribution backed by the Chinese government, seems to be well situated to to fill their OS needs. And along with Redflag Linux Desktop 3.2 comes none other than our favorite desktop."
Interviews SuSE putting dents in Microsoft's armor (ZDNet)ZDNet interviews Richard Seibt, SuSE CEO. " After a long career at Big Blue, where among other things he was managing director of IBM Germany, Seibt joined SuSE in January. He recently sat down for a roundtable discussion with CNET News.com's Editorial Board to talk about the future of open-source software and his plans for expanding the company's profile in the United States."
Guido van Rossum Speaks (ONLamp)ONLamp interviews Guido van Rossum on his departure from PythonLabs and several other topics. "The role of PythonLabs has actually been diminished, and although the perception is that PythonLabs still controls a large percentage of the core code, in fact the reality is that PythonLabs folks have all been hacking on various pieces of Zope and ZODB. So the larger developer community has taken over and has done so very successfully."
GNU Questions: RMS on SCO, Distributions, DRM (OfB.biz)Open for Business interviews Richard Stallman. The discussion includes many topics including SCO, GNU/Linux distribution choices, Digital Rights Management, dual licenses schemes, and more. "RMS: No wise person looks forward to a major battle, even if he expects to win it. Rather than being concerned that we have not yet tested the GPL in court, I'm encouraged by the fact that we have been successful for years in enforcing the GPL without needing to go to court. Many companies have looked at the odds and decided not to gamble on overturning the GPL. That's not the same as proof, but it is reassuring. "
SCO Turns Up the Heat on Linux Users (eWeek)eWeek had a conversation with SCO Group CEO Darl McBride. "'In a nutshell, this litigation is essentially about the GNU General Public License and all it stands for. That license has not yet been challenged or tested in court, but it is now going to be. We are also firmly and aggressively challenging the notion that Linux is a free operating system,' McBride said."
Resources Dispelling the Myth of Wireless Security (O'ReillyNet)Rob Flickenger, author of Wireless Hacks, circumvents security on a standard 802.11b network, on O'ReillyNet. "[Even] if all standard precautions are in place, how much "security" do wireless access points actually provide? Having heard all sorts of widely varying estimates and assumptions from people who should be able to make an educated guess, I finally decided to see for myself what it would take to circumvent the security of my own standard 802.11b network."
Winning the War on spam: Comparison of Bayesian spam filters (dataparity.no)A comparison of Bayesian spam filters by Kristian Eide is available on dataparity.no. "Fortunately, just as we seemed to be losing the war on spam, a new technique appeared on the scene after a paper by Paul Graham: Bayesian filters, our last, best hope for spam-free inboxes." Four spam filters are compared in the article.
An Introduction to perl-ldap (Linux Journal)Linux Journal has published a review of perl-ldap. "As systems get larger and the number of users they support increases, it becomes more difficult to manage systems using only the old-fashioned UNIX /etc/passwd file. A common solution to this problem is to use a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server. The use of an LDAP server presents a problem to the system administrator, however, in that the contents of the database are no longer available in an easy to read or modify format. Hence, new tools must be written that allow standard, everyday tasks, such as adding or deleting users, to be performed. This is where perl-ldap comes in. perl-ldap provides the Net::LDAP perl module, which enables easy access to the data contained in LDAP directories from Perl scripts. This makes the module a useful tool for system administrators and Web developers alike."
Reviews Rapid Pace of Development for Mozilla Firebird (MozillaZine)MozillaZine looks at the rapid development pace of the Firebird browser project. "Mozilla Firebird has grown from its modest beginnings as an offshoot of the mainstream Mozilla project to become the centre of the Mozilla Foundation's future strategy. In the past, development has sometimes been tumultuous: weeks of furious activity have often been followed by periods of almost no change at all and at several points the project has come close to death. Fortunately, Firebird development has been rapid in recent weeks as the program makes the last remaining changes necessary for it to become the default Mozilla browser, which is likely to occur in the 1.6 timeframe."
An introduction to Thunderbird, part 5 (Nidelven-it)Kay Frode continues the introduction to Thunderbird series with part 5. "One of the best features about Thunderbird is the spam (junk) mail filter. Thunderbird has a built-in filter which can be adjusted and tuned in for your own pleasure. You may need to spend a week or two training it what's spam and what's not spam, but it will be worth it. :)"
Linux supercomputer rocks down under (Vnunet)Vnunet covers the Australian Computational Earth Systems Simulator (ACcESS) at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. "It is based around an SGI Altix 3000 supercomputer, powered by 208 Intel Itanium 2 processors. Built on SGI's NUMAflex non uniform memory access scalable architecture, it boasts a hefty 208GB of main memory and also uses the new Silicon Graphics Onyx4 UltimateVision graphics system."
Project searches for open-source niche (ZDNet)ZDNet covers a new open-source search engine. "Called Nutch, the project is developing open-source software for locating documents online. But unlike major search providers, it won't cloak its formulas for matching relevant results to visitors' queries. Rather, it will provide an open window into its calculations with links to explanations on how it determined each result, according to lead architect Doug Cutting."
Miscellaneous V8 racers get in-car Linux safety system (ZDNet)ZDNet Australia reports on a different Linux-based crash analysis application: video data collection in race cars. "For a trial run at Oran Park on the weekend, Opia Vision fitted each car with a camera linking back to a customised computer using Red Hat Linux. The computers measure 285 x 200 x 85 mm and use SOM (system on module) motherboards, essentially a full computer on a four-inch square board."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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