Linux in the news

Recommended Reading

A clicking bomb (Economist)

The Economist covers the software patent fight in Europe. "Now, although many patents are centrally awarded by the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich, national courts have the final say over a patent's validity. In Britain, business methods are generally not patentable, but they can sometimes be patented in Germany. The EPO, by the way, granted Amazon a patent in May covering computerised methods of delivering gifts to third parties, a descendant of its one-click patent in America."

Comments (3 posted)

Patent Riots of 2003 (PC Magazine)

John Dvorak looks at the European software patent fight in PC Magazine. "[T]here seems to be a strong protest movement that has begun in Europe regarding software patents. It could easily become a juggernaut that will make legislative bodies reconsider the tendency to approve dubious copyright and patent laws that benefit nobody but large corporations."

Comments (none posted)

The SCO Problem

SCO faces AUUG anger, claims Linux users still liable (ComputerWorld)

ComputerWorld (Australia) was present at the Australian Unix Users Group conference, where SCO's Kieran O'Shaughnessy had the unenviable task of explaining his company's actions. "At the event O'Shaughnessy was forced to admit the legal threat against Linux users remained. With the audience clearly fuming at what they were hearing, O'Shaughnessy pointed out that the company's legal pursuits are not targeted at end users, but did make a reference to businesses that use Linux."

Comments (18 posted)

Companies

New IBM Ad features Linux in a new light (NewsForge)

Joe Barr takes a look at IBM advertising featuring Linux, in this NewsForge article. "It's a slick way to instruct the viewing audience on various aspects of Linux and the free/open source development memes. Alan Cox, currently on sabbatical from Red Hat and Linux kernel development to further his education, said of the ad "It's rather cool." Cox added that it is "perhaps more telling" that IBM made the ad available on its website in MPEG format as well as in Real and QT formats. Andrew Morton, the current number-two in the Linux hacker hierachy, found the ad "perhaps a little pretentious, but it's nice to see that IBM is keeping the faith."

Comments (5 posted)

MS' Linux obsession - time to call in the shrinks (Register)

The Register responds to yet another Microsoft-funded study showing that Windows costs less than Linux. "Microsoft thinks the problem is getting the message across. Microsoft thinks Windows 'wins against Linux every time' (although it appears unwilling to share that particular case study outside its reseller community), whereas large swathes of customers think Windows is expensive and Linux much cheaper. Microsoft is therefore convinced that if it continues to place 'the facts' in front of these sad, deluded people they will ultimately accept that Microsoft is right, and Windows will triumph."

Comments (16 posted)

Novell 'puts entire ecosystem behind Linux' (Register)

The Register reports from Novell's Brainshare conference in Barcelona. "Driving the adoption of Linux in the enterprise is central to its plans to return to profit while reaffirming its commitment to maintain support for its own NetWare operating system, the company says. Jack Messman, chairman and chief executive of Novell, (repeatedly) told delegates "we are not abandoning NetWare, we are adding Linux. It's all about choice for the customer.""

Novell also announced a partnership with MySQL AB that bundles a commercially-licensed version of the MySQL(R) database with Novell NetWare 6.5.

Comments (none posted)

Linux Adoption

Linux is the path to a bright new future (Taipei Times)

The Taipei Times covers worries that Taiwan is falling behind China in Linux adoption. "Currently there are around 20 Taiwanese companies making Linux products, such as server applications and embedded products. The government hopes to increase that number to 50 by 2007. The authorities are also setting a target to have 10 percent of personal computers and 30 percent of Internet servers used by government agencies and corporate networks run on a Linux-based system by 2007."

Comments (none posted)

Linux demand in Thailand 'artificial' (Asia Computer Weekly)

Asia Computer Weekly is carrying an article noting that Linux-installed systems are gaining market share in Thailand, while Windows systems are slipping. But our old friends at the Gartner Group have an explanation: "A report [Gartner] released on Aug 18 said that much of Linux's success in Thailand is due to its use as a cover for software piracy. 'Gartner believes that most of the Linux shipments will eventually have illegal copies of Windows installed-a fact that makes Linux's seeming dominance of this market somewhat misleading,' the report stated."

Comments (27 posted)

The Rise Of Linux (VARBusiness)

VAR Business looks at the increasing use of Linux by resellers. "We aren't just talking simple Apache Web servers and Dell boxes running Red Hat, but an entire next generation of applications that takes Java, Web services and Internet infrastructure as a given and builds new and exciting businesses on top of all of that. Almost without having been noticed, Linux has become essential for building these applications."

Comments (none posted)

Resources

FreeBSD Jails (O'ReillyNet)

In this O'ReillyNet article Mike DeGraw-Bertsch explains how FreeBSD's jails can help secure necessary applications. "Those familiar with Java recognize the security concept of a sandbox. For those that aren't, it's the concept that everyone gets a unique, well-equipped sandbox to play in, and a person in one sandbox isn't allowed into anyone else's sandbox, not even to share anything with anyone else. On FreeBSD, jails implement this concept -- they keep processes in their own part of the system, denying access to anything else."

Comments (1 posted)

Reviews

Inside the GNOME 2.4 Desktop and Developer Platform (Ars Technica)

Ars Technica has posted a lengthy review of GNOME 2.4. "GNOME 2.4 brings to the Linux desktop considerable polish, accessibility and consistency. This release is a culmination of the work done by commercial vendors and the GNOME community, as evidenced by the fact that three vendors--Sun, Red Hat and Ximian--have already shipped desktops focused on the GNOME 2 platform. The end result is a pleasant desktop that is nimble, attractive and unobtrusive. While it's not perfect, the foundation is now there and the overall product has matured."

Comments (2 posted)

KAddressbook 3.2 reviewed

A review of KAddressbook 3.2 is online. "As preview for the upcoming KAddressbook 3.2 which will be shipped with KDE 3.2 later this year, we have some screenshots here taken from the CVS version of KAddressbook."

Comments (none posted)

Review - Linux+ Certification Bible (Help Net Security)

Here's a review of Linux+ Certification Bible by Trevor Kay on Help Net Security. "Since this is a Certification Bible, each chapter in this book is preceded by pre-test questions, the answers to which can be found at the end of the chapter. This gives you a glance into what you will learn that chapter. Also, at the end of every chapter, you find assessment questions that help you test the knowledge you gained while reading the chapter."

Comments (1 posted)

'Storage' to Replace Traditional Filesystems (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop.org reviews the Storage project. "OSNews is reporting on Storage, an innovative project which aims to replace the traditional hierarchical filesystems with a new document store which is database-based (PostgreSQL). The current implementation, built under Gnome 2.x for now, offers natural language access, network transparency, and a number of other features. The project is currently in alpha (screenshots already available), and it is part of the next major generation of Gnome."

Comments (none posted)

Miscellaneous

Open source bookmarks Australian heritage (ComputerWorld)

ComputerWorld looks at the National Library of Australia and its IT needs. "Couple its physical scope with the plethora of media types maintained by the organisation, ranging from books and manuscripts to complex digitised maps, images, audio and online data, and the need for providing innovative services has made adaptable software from the open source community appear a necessity." (Thanks to Vladimir Likic)

Comments (none posted)

East Asia plans Windows rival (BBC News)

The BBC reports that China, South Korea and Japan are involved in joint research into a new computer operating system to rival Microsoft Windows. "An open-source software forum will then be set up by major Japanese electronics companies such as Hitachi, Matsushita, NEC and Fujitsu, to establish what they need from the alternative software. However, Japanese officials confirmed that they planned more to work with current Windows alternatives than building a new system entirely from scratch."

Comments (4 posted)

Linux fan to run against Arnie in California election (Silicon.com)

Silicon.com reports on a new contender for Governer of California. "Georgy Russell, is a very un-geeky 26-year-old who works for Veritas and graduated from Berkley with a computer science degree. A Democrat, she has launched a campaign promising the legalisation of drugs, gay marriages and a universal health care system." Ms. Russell is also promoting the wider use of open source software.

Comments (26 posted)

Page editor: Forrest Cook
Next page: Announcements>>