Linux in the news

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Linux gains ground on aging Unix (Globe and Mail)

The Globe and Mail reports that Linux is gaining ground on proprietary UNIX. "A major factor in Linux adoption is support from application software vendors. For instance, Ms. Day says Red Hat Linux is widely used to run Oracle Corp.'s popular database software. One reason, Mr. Dean says, is that Oracle has promoted the fact that its software supports Linux. More and more application vendors are doing so." (Thanks to Jim Gallacher)

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Ian Clarke on Freenet and his Decision to Leave the USA (GrepLaw)

GrepLaw interviews Ian Clarke. "Freenet is in active use in countries such as China to permit the free distribution of information there despite government censorship. A group, Freenet-China has taken Freenet and translated it to Chinese for this very purpose. Freenet is also actively used in other countries, including the United States, to distribute censored information such as the Church of Scientology 'Operating Thetan' documents." (Thanks to Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier).

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Interview: Andrew Tridgell, the heart beat of Samba (LinuxWorld.com.au)

LinuxWorld.com.au interviews Samba creator Andrew Tridgell. "Andrew Tridgell: Over the last seven months I have been building the basic infrastructure for Samba version 4. As you know, Samba version 3 is only now nearing its final release, but while that is an important release its scope is much narrower than what we are aiming for in Samba4." (Thanks to Sydney King)

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The SCO Problem

Of monkeys and penguins (Economist)

The Economist catches up with the SCO case. "Indeed 'the SCO case' of 2003 sounds increasingly like the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, which pitted religious fundamentalists against progressives wanting to teach Darwin alongside the Bible in American classrooms. The SCO case plays the same role in a culture war now consuming the software industry. On one side are the equivalents of the fundamentalists -- buttoned-down types clinging to proprietary and closed computer systems. Facing them are today's evolutionists -- the pony-tailed set championing collaboration and openness in the form of Linux, an operating system that anybody can download and customise for nothing."

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SCO fined in Germany (Heise)

There is a brief article (in German) on Heise Online stating that SCO has been found to be in violation of a court order prohibiting the company from stating (without proof) that Linux contains stolen SCO property. SCO has been fined EUR 10,000. English text is available via Babelfish. (Thanks to Florian Kuhnke).

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Dell: No shelter against SCO suits (News.com)

News.com reports on a speech by Michael Dell in which he states that Dell will not be offering indemnification for its Linux customers. He also talks about other directions being taken by the company: "'Eight-way (servers) are less than 1 percent of the market and shrinking pretty dramatically,' Dell said. 'If our competitors want to claim they're No. 1 in eight-ways, that's fine. We want to lead the market with two-way and four-way (processor machines).'" This comment has already rekindled the "how far should we scale" debate on linux-kernel.

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Companies

Brunswick Integrates Code Expertise (TechWeb)

TechWeb covers an open source project from an unlikely source. "Brunswick Corp., maker of billiard tables, boats, and bowling balls, has produced an open-source code engine to exchange business data over the Internet, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is an early adopter. The SEC will use the engine to feed a system that analyzes stock trades as part of its regulation of insider trading."

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IBM to release new Eclipse to run on Jikes VM (NewsForge)

NewsForge covers an IBM announcment that the latest version of the open source Eclipse development platform will now run on the Java-based, open-source Jikes Research Virtual Machine.

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Motorola picks Linux for phone of the future (Register)

The Register looks inside Motorola phone software. "The fact that Motorola is selling its stake in Symbian (the corporation) doesn't mean that Motorola is stopping selling Symbian (the software) in its phones. But it does mean that Motorola thinks the future in phone software is elsewhere. Linux, to be precise."

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HP waves Red Flag for corporate Linux (ZDNet)

ZDNet has a brief report on a new partnership between HP and Chinese distributor Red Flag. "HP will support the Red Flag Server 4 series operating system and its subsequent products on the HP Integrity and ProLiant server lines. Red Flag will work with HP on product quality control, market sales, applications research, management training and applications support services."

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Eclipse revamp to forge path for Sun (News.com)

News.com reports that the Eclipse project is separating from IBM. "Given the organizational changes under way at Eclipse, Sun is considering joining the open-source project, according to a company representative. Sun wants a number of issues to be addressed before it joins, however. The company may push for a change in the organization's name, along with a resolution of technical problems over how Java applications present information, the representative said."

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Business

Linux Set to Break Through in Consumer Electronics (NYTimes)

The NYTimes has picked up a Reuters article about Linux in consummer electronics. "Linux's key advantage over other operating systems is that the core software is freely available and widely embraced. In the cut-throat electronics business where profit margins are one or two percent at the best of times, every saving is welcome." (Registration required)

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Linux Adoption

Linux: Is free really cheaper? (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld is running a lengthy report on the costs and benefits of switching to Linux. "The more fully an enterprise adopts Linux across its infrastructure, the more financial leverage it is likely to get out of up-front investments in the OS. Those investments, which can be considerable, include Linux training and tools, and the costs of migrating from a Unix or Windows environment. And that financial leverage is improving steadily as better management tools, more third-party vendor support, and more skilled Linux system administrators arrive on the market." (Thanks to Max Hyre).

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Open Asia: Open source in Burma, Cambodia, and China (NewsForge)

NewsForge looks into the availability of open source software in Burma (also known as Myanmar), Cambodia, and China. "The PeguNC-Linux distribution, aimed at Myanmar, is intended to encourage native data processing. According to a message in the Myanmar Linux Users Club Yahoo! group, Myanmar has just a font, but no language support with sorting and searching. Byteklay, a member of the project, says, "(We) started with a so-called PeguNC-linux project at mmlinux.org . When I couldn't continue mmlinux, friends from mm carried that project on myanmarlug.org, a site developed and maintained by Ko Wiston [Compunut].""

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Legal

Controversy over software patents (Heise)

Heise Online is running an article (in German) on the delay of the vote on software patents in Europe. Among other things, it notes that pro-patent forces are still hard at work trying to get an interoperability exemption removed from the proposed law. English text of a sort is available via Babelfish. (Thanks to Dirk Hillbrecht). Dirk has also supplied this translation.

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Interviews

Interview with Bjarne Stroustrup (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal interviews Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of the C++ programming language. "LJ: Did you have a computer at home when you were growing up?
BS: No, it was too early for that. Computers were very expensive and lived in university departments and large companies. The first computer I saw was my university's Math department's GIER. It was an old Danish computer that filled a room and was fed programs on paper tape. I learned to program in Algol 60 on that one."

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New Gnumeric

GnomeDesktop points to two articles about Gnumeric, which plans to release version 1.2.0 soon.

Here is a review of Gnumeric beta 1.1.19 is available from ILUG-Cal. (Found here)

LinMagAu has an interview with Jody Goldberg and Andreas L. Guelzow. (Found here)

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Resources

Five Lessons Open Source Developers Should Learn from Extreme Programming (O'ReillyNet)

This O'ReillyNet article looks at how Extreme Programming lessons can benefit open source programmers. "Open source projects usually don't have the time or budget constraints to require hard and fast release dates, but getting frequent feedback from users and customers is vital to the survival of the project. Since "customers" are often potential developers, having a good feedback loop can increase the resources at your disposal. Keeping the source code public with regular snapshots or anonymous CVS or Subversion access helps, but if features take a long time to land or to stabilize, it can be difficult to know when the code is worth using."

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Reviews

Mozilla's New Focus: The End User (eWeek)

eWeek reviews Mozilla 1.5 beta. "With the Mozilla 1.5 Beta, the project is promising improvements in performance, stability, standards support and Web compatibility. But new features are not the primary focus. The beta release marks the beginning of the project's journey to focus more energy on end users and promotion of its efforts now that it is an independent organization, Mozilla President Mitchell Baker said."

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