2003 Linux Timeline: January [LWN.net]

Happy new year to you all, hopefully most of you are back from the dead and the hangovers are all long gone. And if not, I'm told reading a large kernel patch is _just_ the medication for whatever ails you.

-- Linus releases 2.5.54

Lexmark files a DMCA suit against Smartek, claiming that making interoperable printer cartridges is a copyright violation.

[Mandrake] MandrakeSoft asks for money from its users to keep the company from going broke (company plea).

Jon Johansen is acquitted in a Norwegian court of all charges related to his role in the writing and distribution of DeCSS.

The Neo Project stops its Xbox key cracking attempt, citing unspecified "legal reasons." The project has since disappeared altogether.

The Xbox challenge is extended for a year, and the person behind the challenge is revealed to be Michael Robertson of Lindows.com.

The purpose of copyright law is to provide incentives and protection to authors to create and publish original works, not give corporations the power to control the flow of information. We should not permit copyright extremists to exploit current laws for that goal, and we should reject their demands that Congress give them even broader power to control and license information.

-- Phyllis Schlafly

Bruce Perens launches a series of books, all of which are to be released under a free license.

The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act is upheld by the U.S. Supreme court. This challenge, headed by Lawrence Lessig, had hoped to put some brakes on the continued expansion of copyright holders' powers.

The RIAA, BSA, and CSPP make a deal for unified lobbying of Congress; mandates for digital rights management technology will be opposed, but any expansion of the rights of users of copyrighted material will also be opposed. (Press release).

MandrakeSoft files for bankruptcy, having failed to raise the capital it needs. (Press release).

SCO is a trusted UnitedLinux partner, we have faith in what they're doing.

-- SUSE spokesman Joe Eckert

A Red Hat spokesperson had no comment, saying the company believes the SCO story is a rumor.

-- NewsForge

SCO's intellectual property push could yet present the Linux community with its first serious legal difficulties.

-- LWN, January 30

The first rumors of the SCO Group's plans come out (Linux Business Week article).

AMD and IBM become UnitedLinux partners (Press release).

[MontaVista] MontaVista Linux Consumer Electronics Edition is launched (Press release).

SUSE Linux Office Desktop is released (Press release).

LWN celebrates its fifth anniversary.

A nasty CVS vulnerability puts network-accessible repositories at risk worldwide, but exploits are rare.

All major distributions receive Linux Standard Base certification (Press release).

HP and Sun withdraw from the Desktop Linux Summit after the event starts to look rather less vendor-independent than had been once envisioned.

SCO announces its library licensing program for Linux, allegedly in response to customer demand. The company also announces SCOoffice Server, based on Linux.

Xandros Desktop 1.0 is released (press release).

Microsoft comes under regular fire for its apparent eagerness to end-of-life its products, making them more difficult and expensive to support, and hence forcing users to upgrade to the next version. But without fanfare Red Hat has quietly introduced its own approach to end-of-life, and compared to this, Microsoft's idea of an upgrade cycle looks pretty sedate.

--The Register

Bitstream releases its Vera fonts to the GNOME project under an open license (Press release).

RealNetworks releases the Helix DNA Server source. (Press release).

Red Hat announces a new errata policy limiting support for Red Hat Linux to one year after its release (announcement).

The MS-SQL worm is loosed, infecting over 100,000 systems in less than 30 minutes.

KDE 3.1 is released (announcement).

19,000 people attend LinuxWorld in New York City.

Timeline home

February ==>

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