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Linux in the newsRecommended Reading Myths Open Source Developers Tell Ourselves (O'ReillyNet) chromatic has some suggestions for free software developers in this ONLamp.com article. "Many of the users you most want to test your code before an official release won't. The phrase 'stable release' has special magic that 'alpha,' 'beta,' and 'prelease' lack. The best way to get user feedback is to release your code in a stable form."
Getting open source into public libraries (NewsForge) Here's a NewsForge article that looks at spreading open source software through local libraries. "The first reaction from the open source community is usually "Great, I'll burn a whole set of CDs and donate them to my local library." This is completely and utterly the wrong thing to do. It is wrong because you will not be taking into account the responsibilities libraries have for their patrons. The CDs you burn will have to be thrown away. You will also be trying to force libraries to do what you want them to do, and nobody likes that."
On the GUI Selection in UserLinux (NewsForge) Bruce Perens defends his decision to include GNOME and not KDE in UserLinux, in this NewsForge article. "We held about a week of discussion on the GUI issue, on the UserLinux mailing list - about 200 postings. It drowned out all other work. It was clear from the discussion that while GNOME and KDE each exceed the other in some areas, when you weigh them all together they are of equal technical merit. However there is a critical business difference between the two GUIs: GNOME does not require a royalty in connection with proprietary software development based upon their SDK. Qt, the widget set upon which KDE is based, does have a proprietary developer licensing fee connected with it."
The SCO Problem Transcript of SCO v. IBM motion to compel hearing For those of you who haven't seen enough of this yet: Groklaw now has the official transcript from the December 5 hearing on IBM's motions to compel discovery from SCO. It's an interesting read. From SCO lawyer Kevin McBride's presentation: "... I want to walk the Court through enough of our complaint to help the Court understand that IBM clearly did contribute a lot of the Unix-related information into Linux. We just don't know what it is."
Security Expert Doubts SCO's Attack Story (Groklaw) Groklaw takes a skeptical look at SCO's claims of having been subjected to another DDOS attack. "The consensus of what I am hearing is: That it is probably not an attack. That their description of the "attack" makes no sense. And that if what they are saying were true, SCO would be admitting to gross negligence."
The Protective Order (Groklaw) Groklaw has gotten hold of the protective order in the SCO case. This order could result in the community never seeing SCO's evidence, even if the company turns out to have some.
Linux Adoption Linux Gaining Support In Embedded Systems (TechWeb) TechWeb reports on Wind River's moves toward Linux. "Linux today lacks the maturity, for example, to operate in real-time systems, which are computer systems that respond to input signals fast enough to keep an operation moving at its required speed. Such systems are used to control airplanes and space shuttles. But while Linux is behind proprietary and homegrown systems in this space, the gap is closing."
Israel accelerates free software migration (Register) The Register reports that several departments in the Israeli government are evaluating Linux. "Writing for Israel's Ynet, Gal Mor reports that the Israeli Treasury has decided to walk away from the Government's contract with Microsoft. Signed two years ago, the contract expires this month, and the ministry is testing localized builds of Mandrake Linux."
Followup with the LUG Of Iraq (Linux Journal) Here's a Linux Journal article looking at the software situation in Iraq. "As Ashraf told me, Iraq is now a blank, unformatted hard disk and can be loaded with anything. Everything is open in Iraq right now. There are no regimented standards or massive expenditure in a particular monopoly's software. Now is the time to convince Iraqis--government, business, and users--that linux will meet their needs better than proprietary software."
Legal ACT passes open source law (ComputerWorld) The Australian ComputerWorld has an article on the new open source law passed in the Australian Capital Territory. "Section 6A of the Government Procurement Guideline amendment bill regarding the procurement of computer software stated: 'In the procurement of computer software, a Territory entity should, as far as practicable, prefer open source software.'... The bill was later amended by independent member Helen Cross to substitute 'consider' for 'prefer', and then passed by the Labor government." (Thanks to Frederic Schutz).
Australian Capital Territory passes open source bill (ARNnet) The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has passed legislation that requires its agencies to consider non-proprietary software, ARNnet reports. "Section 6A of the Government Procurement Guideline amendment bill regarding the procurement of computer software stated: "In the procurement of computer software, a Territory entity should, as far as practicable, prefer open source software."" (Found on Open Sector)
Interviews An interview with Chris Hofmann (Digital Web) Digital Web interviews Chris Hofmann of the Mozilla Foundation. "The development and testing community is still strong. We have nine people on the Foundation’s staff. IBM and others have stepped in to hire key developers. In a small engineering meeting to talk about some Gecko work at the Foundation headquarters a few days ago, we had eight or so developers representing five different companies. We really are fulfilling the dream of Mozilla being a collaborative project with involvement from many companies and individuals with a passion for internet client software."
FOSDEM interviews: Hans Reiser, Stefan Seefeld, and Tom Tromey FOSDEM 2004 is happening in February; in keeping with its tradition, the conference is posting interviews with developers who will be speaking at the event. The first set includes Hans Reiser (of ReiserFS fame), Stefan Seefeld (the Fresco project), and Tom Tromey (GCJ - GNU Compiler for Java). The conference has also announced that the beginning keynote talk will be given by Tim O'Reilly.
Interview with Mandrake Linux Founder Gael Duval LinuxQuestions talks with Gael Duval about the past, present and future of Mandrake Linux. "LQ) Before releasing the first Mandrake version (which was based on Red Hat) you were working on a Slackware-based OS. Any regrets on that distro switch? Do you think things would be different had you not made that change? GD) No regret at all, for a simple reason: it was not serious anymore to release a Linux distribution without a good package management like RPM. I seriously considered to switch to Debian as a base because at the time, Red Hat's reaction was very unclear (as far as I know, forking from a commercial Linux distribution never happened before Mandrake). But back in 1998, Debian's installation procedure was really not friendly at all. As a result, a key success of Mandrake was also that all packages made for Red Hat were compatible with Mandrake, including commercial packages. So the choice of RPM was the good one."
Interview: Author of Ambitous Flash4Linux Project (KDE.News) KDE.News interviews Özkan Pakdil, author of the Flash4Linux project. "I think that, within any given Linux environment, there is an extreme lack of WYSIWYG type applications -- particularly of the Flash variety. In the Windows world, Flash is a well-known tool for creating animated vector graphics. I want to bring this type of functionality to Linux, but I do realize that this will not be an easy task."
Zander to light a fire under Motorola (ZDNet) ZDNet talks with Ed Zander, formerly of Sun, about his move to Motorola. "When we bought Cobalt, we basically told the executive team and the board that we had to get behind Linux big, but I left soon after, and people just didn't agree with me. Sun should have owned Linux and should have owned the community. It is Unix and all Unix developers should have been Sun developers with Linux."
Beyond Hacking the Xbox (O'Reilly) Bruce Stewart interviews Andrew "bunnie" Huang, author of Hacking the Xbox, on O'Reilly. "To some extent, the DMCA has already stifled reverse engineering. The fear and doubt that surrounds the activity has been enough to deter most technical people. The contrast between engineers in the U.S. and those overseas in countries without the DMCA, or DMCA-like laws, is quite stark. The technology marketplace is extremely competitive, and anything that slows down our ability to compete, such as depriving engineers of the unfettered freedom to reverse engineer competing products, may prove to have very undesirable long-term consequences."
Reviews KDE 3.2-beta2, Towards a Better KDE (OSNews) OSNews previews KDE3.2-beta2. "KDE 3.2 offers a slew of new features, including an updated khtml engine, an SVG viewer/player kpart, better tab integration on Konqueror (which are now available for file management as well for web pages), CD burning via Konqueror, and even an addon-like technology, named Service Menus. Any user can hack together their own custom service menus and create their ideal addon menu without any C/C++ code. There is also a better Kiosk support, support for graphically connecting to Windows machines, and support for inline automatic spellchecking for some apps like kmail." (Found on KDE.News)
Device Profile: Samsung SCH-i519 smartphone (LinuxDevices) LinuxDevices.com is running a profile of the Samsung SCH-i519 Linux-powered phone, including pictures and screenshots. "The i519 is the first embedded Linux device to run Voice Signal's Voice Activated Phonebook (VAP) application, which lets users launch any installed application by voice, using commands such as 'Open Browser' or 'Open Instant Messenger.'"
Flying the Open Skies with FlightGear (O'Reilly) Howard Wen reviews FlightGear, an open-source flight simulator, and interviews the developers. "Flying has never been so impressive — or free. FlightGear is a flight simulator that boasts surprising technical realism, supported by an equally sophisticated pedigree — several of its active developers work in the aeronautics industry. "What keeps the project going is a wide range of people who care deeply."
From Browser to Platform: Mozilla Rises (LinuxInsider) LinuxInsider takes a detailed look at the Mozilla development platform. "What is new with Mozilla is that apparently simple technologies used in Web development, like XML, CSS and JavaScript, are all equally applicable to Mozilla applications. Instead of a Web page, you can build a traditional user-oriented, GUI-based application with these technologies."
Miscellaneous Linux set for Mars landing (vnunet) Vnunet covers a UK project to send the Beagle 2 Mars Lander to the red planet. "In true British low-budget fashion, a single Linux-based workstation at the Lander Operations Control Centre (LOCC) is being used to send commands and receive vital data from Beagle 2."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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