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Mini-LWN for August 8, 2002Welcome to mini-LWN Here at LWN, we normally try to follow through on our promises to our readers, but we thought you would forgive an exception. Rather than skip the weekly edition entirely this week, we decided to put out a reduced version so that we don't get entirely buried as the news piles up.Here's a status update: much of the last week has been taken up by a new and unforeseen event: our credit card clearing house decided that all those donations you folks have been so generously sending our way might be fraudulent, so they seized all of our credit card receipts, including those for advertising. They went so far as to yank some funds back out of our checking account. Need we say that we didn't need this? The situation, as of this writing, is unresolved, though it looks like we may be heading towards a solution. Meanwhile, we are cut off from cash (other than from PayPal, a small piece of our income stream), spending time with lawyers, and generally not doing much that is actually useful for LWN or its readers. We also need to shop for a new credit card clearing company. So it may take us a little longer than expected to get our subscription system in place - and to be able to actually charge for subscriptions. We're still working on it, stay tuned. (Lest there be any misunderstanding: it should be said that we have absolutely no complaint with our credit card processing company. TrustCommerce operates a solid, Linux-friendly credit card gateway, and has always been very supportive of LWN.)
Edsger W. Dijkstra Let us pause a moment to remember Edsger W. Dijkstra, who passed away on August 7. Mr. Dijkstra was the source of much wisdom in Computer Science, and we are all in his debt. Much of what we now take for granted (i.e. the semaphores in the Linux kernel) is rooted in his work. He is one of our founding fathers.
For a number of years I have been familiar with the observation
that the quality of programmers is a decreasing function of the
density of go to statements in the programs they produce.
--Go To Statement Considered Harmful, CACM, March 1968.
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity. The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence. --How do we tell truths that might hurt?, June 1975.
Today a usual technique is to make a program and then to test it.
But: program testing can be a very effective way to show the
presence of bugs, but it is hopelessly inadequate for showing their
absence.
The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly lmited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague. -- The Humble Programmer The Humble Programmer was Dijkstra's 1972 Turing Award lecture; it can be obtained as a difficult to read PDF file. In the end, Dijkstra valued simplicity as the key to program reliability. One might hope that he would have found things to admire (along with things to criticize) in the free software world and its accomplishments.
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Kernel development Release status Current kernel release status The current development kernel is 2.5.30, which was released by Linus on August 1. It includes the usual IDE patches (through IDE 111), changes to the "generic disk" data structure, the "strict overcommit" VM patch, the removal of the "khttpd" in-kernel web server, a number of devfs changes (by Greg Kroah-Hartman, and not entirely to devfs author Richard Gooch's liking), a long list of driverfs changes, and many other fixes and updates. See the long-format changelog for all the details.Linus's BitKeeper tree (which will become 2.5.31) includes an ISDN update, more driverfs work, a JFS update, a lot of ethernet driver updates, and more. Interestingly, this tree also includes the "User-mode Linux preparation" patches, which make various changes to core code needed by UML. UML itself is not there yet, but the presence of these patches suggest that it is coming soon. The current prepatch from Dave Jones is 2.5.30-dj1, which contains a small set of fixes and some rubble from his switch over to BitKeeper. "Chances are this won't even boot for many people (if any at all)." The latest 2.5 kernel status summary from Guillaume Boissiere came out on August 7. The current stable kernel is 2.4.19. The much-awaited final release was announced by Marcelo on August 2; it contained no changes after the -rc5 release candidate. The full list of changes in 2.4.19 is available - be warned that it is long. Marcelo has already released 2.4.20-pre1, the first prepatch for the 2.4.20 kernel. The list of changes is long, but it consists mostly of fixes and driver updates. Marcelo did initially include a backport of NAPI (high performance networking; see the October 4, 2001 LWN Kernel Page), but backed parts of it out at the last minute; he is waiting for justification to include it for real. Says Marcelo: "2.4.20 will be a much faster release cycle than 2.4.19 was." The current prepatch from Alan Cox is 2.4.20-pre1-ac1.
Kernel development news Large page support in the Linux kernel Most modern processors have the ability to work with "large pages" - single page table entries which cover large (up to multiple megabyte) ranges of contiguous physical memory. With one exception, this feature is not used in the Linux kernel, which works with a 4K or 8K page size (depending on architecture) in all situations. Smaller pages reduce internal fragmentation, are quick to swap in and out, don't require the virtual memory system to maintain large, contiguous chunks of memory, and help to ensure that exactly the virtual memory that is in use now is resident in physical memory. Small pages are the best choice for most situations. Due to the complication of supporting multiple page sizes in the Linux VM implementation, no such support has been merged so far.There are advantages to working with large pages, however. 4MB of memory in 4KB pages requires 1024 page table entries (PTEs) - that is a lot of memory devoted to overhead, and significant processor time to set up, tear down, and maintain those PTEs. This overhead is multiplied when shared memory segments are in use, since Linux is currently unable to share page tables. But the real savings with large pages has to do with the processor's translation buffer - a small cache which remembers the result of virtual-to-physical address translations. An address lookup through the translation buffer is quick; one that has to actually go to the page table is slow. Large pages greatly extend the range of the translation buffer, and simply make applications run faster; performance improvements of 30% have been claimed at times. The fact that Oracle uses lots of large, shared memory regions and would like to see large page support in the kernel is also helping to drive development in this area. The most recent large page patch is this one by Rohit Seth. It allows processes to explicitly request a chunk of large page memory with a new get_large_pages system call; there is also a share_large_pages call for creating shared memory regions. The patch avoids much of the complexity of supporting large pages in the VM by, well, avoiding it. Large pages are handled completely outside of the normal memory management mechanisms. When the system boots, a percentage of memory (25%, by default) is simply set aside to satisfy large page requests. These pages are handed out when requested (as long as they last) and are not swapped. This patch is thus (relatively) simple. It gets the job done in certain situations - imagine a large box whose job is to run a relational database system; nailing down a quarter of memory to improve database performance is a reasonable thing to do. But this patch (intentionally) does not address the larger problem. In fact, as Linus points out, this isn't really a "large page" patch at all:
The current largepage patch is really nothing but an interface to
the TLB. Please view it as that - a direct TLB interface that has
zero impact on the VFS or VM layers, and that is meant _purely_ as
a way to expose hw capabilities to the few applications that really
really want them
So what might a real large page patch provide? Wishes that have been expressed include:
The automatic use of large pages would be helped by another suggestion from David: if it becomes necessary to swap out a large page, simply split it back into a long list of regular pages and proceed as usual. Then most of the swap complexity would go away. Of course, the October deadline is getting closer. So all of these ideas are almost certainly destined to wait until after the next stable series. But one of the variants of the simpler "TLB interface" patches may yet get in this time around and make the database vendors (and others) happy. (What, you may ask, is the "one exception" where the kernel uses large pages now? The mapping of the kernel image itself - a single, large chunk of non-swappable memory - is handled with a large page PTE.)
Patches and updates Kernel trees
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Filesystems and block I/O
Memory management
Architecture-specific
Security-related
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
Development System Applications Web Site Development CMF 1.3 released Version 1.3 of the Content Management Framework for Zope has been released. Many new features have gone in; see the announcement (click below) for the details.
Desktop Applications Desktop Environments Kernel Cousin KDE #42 Is Out Kernel Cousin KDE #42 is out. Topics include KOffice filter improvements, a Lyrics plugin for Noatun, a new Kivio developer, a transparent Kicker, voice synthesis, and more.
GUI Packages New Milestone for Qt C# Bindings KDE.News mentions the release of Qt# version 0.4.
Languages and Tools Perl This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl) The July 29 - August 4, 2002 edition of the perl5-porters digest is out. Topics include the Perl 5.9 development track, CPAN indexer, a discussion on Linux PIDs and threads, and more.
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Linux in Business Business News Linuxcare releases 'Levanta' software Remember Linuxcare? The company is now "a provider of software products to simplify server consolidation," and has announced the release of "Levanta," a mainframe server management system. "Levanta by Linuxcare can configure, provision and update hundreds of Linux virtual machines on the mainframe, with significant savings in system administrator time and effort."
CodeWeavers releases CrossOver Office 1.2 CodeWeavers has announced the release of CrossOver Office 1.2. This release adds support for running Quicken and Visio under Linux.
IDC: Linux market to Reach $280 million by 2006 A new report from IDC reports that they expect "spending on Linux operating environments to increase over the next five years from $80 million in 2001 to $280 million in 2006, a 28% compound annual growth rate (CAGR)."
Press Releases Open Source Announcements
Software for Linux
Products and Services Using Linux
Hardware with Linux support
Linux at Work
Books and Documentation
Trade Shows and Conferences
Partnerships
Financial Results
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
Linux in the news Recommended Reading Politics is Local, so Get Political Locally (Linux Journal) Linux Journal gets politically active with the NYLXS, the New York Linux Scene. "People come to the Free Software movement for a variety of reasons. Except for the most politically active members among us, the main reason is an attraction to the soundness of the technology and the freedom to access the computer systems we use. Another compelling reason is the economic incentives it can provide disenfranchised individuals as well as large businesses. It's a testimony to our current freedoms that we come to free software without a second thought to the underlining principles that allow for the existence of such systems. In our work promoting free software, we've been surprised how often, even in our own circles, there exists huge resistance to anything political or the least bit distasteful. As a population, we have learned to be skeptical of politicians and stubbornly apolitical."
When Dreamcasts attack (Register) The Register writes about the use of nearly disposable Dreamcast boxes loaded with Linux as hacking tools. "They chose the Dreamcast for its small size, availability of an Ethernet adapter, and affordability -- the console was discontinued last year, and now sells used for under $100 on eBay. Loaded with custom Linux-based software and covertly plugged into a spare network port under a desk or above a ceiling, the harmless-looking toy becomes the enemy within, probing the company firewall for a way out to Internet. The box cycles through the ports used for common services like SSH, Web surfing, and e-mail, which tend to be permitted by firewall configurations. Failing that, it tries getting "ping" packets out to the Internet, and finally looks for proxy servers bridging the network to the outside world."
DMCA defenders in enemy territory (News.com) News.com reports that the DMCA seems to be falling out of favor with some of its former backers. "Lofgren, who introduced the panel, said the DMCA has had unintended consequences. She said she signed off on the law because she was convinced it would be applied narrowly to prevent piracy, but instead it has been used to thwart technological development. "I think we have had a very wide set of anti-technology rules emerging from the courts," she said."
Girding Against the Copyright Mob (Wired) Wired News reports from a recent conference to discuss technology laws like DMCA. "When DigitalConsumer.org advocates say the personal computer revolution wouldn't have happened under today's copyright laws, it's easy to write their comments off as a paranoid. But it might not be far from the mark. From the labs at MIT in the late '50s to the free software and open-source programmers in the '90s, hacking has historically relied on an open and available flow of information. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has curtailed that flow of information."
Going hybrid (The Economist) The Economist says, Rumours of open-source software's demise are exaggerated. "Having shown that there is, in many cases, a better way to develop code is undoubtedly the open-source movement's biggest achievement so far. And if Linux does one day become the standard for operating systems, as some enthusiasts predict, it will have taught the computer industry that it is more efficient to maintain its software infrastructure collectively. This would be bad news for Microsoft and Sun, but it would benefit customers--through greater competition, lower prices and, not least, better software." (Thanks to David A. Wheeler)
Companies HP backs down on DMCA warning (News.com) News.com reports that HP has abandoned legal threats it made against security analysts who publicized flaws in the company's software. HP now states, "We can say emphatically that HP will not use the DMCA to stifle research or impede the flow of information that would benefit our customers and improve their system security..."
IBM Adds Support For VMware Server Software (TechWeb) TechWeb reports that IBM is now reselling and supporting VMware's ESX Server virtual partitioning software.
Competitors Mostly Silent As Microsoft Releases Code (The Seattle Times) The Seattle Times is not impressed with Microsoft's shared source offerings. "Tim Lee, president of Pogo Linux, a Redmond vendor of server products, said Microsoft isn't disclosing enough about Windows to make a difference."
Can software pull Sun out of its funk? (News.com) News.com interviews Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's executive vice president of software. "StarOffice is available free from OpenOffice or at a nominal price if you want to deploy that in an enterprise. Are we going to [be] building that? Yes. Do we believe there's a healthy market opportunity to deliver a Linux client and do call centers, payment processing centers, reservation systems and factory floor plants? Absolutely. You've already seen us tip our hand. We've delivered the office suite that's necessary. The Gnome community has delivered the user environment. All we need is a browser to make sure we round out the trio."
Sun puts Linux to work (ZDNet) ZDNet takes a look at Sun's latest Linux/Intel products. "Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy is scheduled to announce the new servers Aug. 12 and its Linux plans Aug. 13 in the opening keynote of the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco, according to an advisory and a Sun representative."
Business The Embedded Linux revolution and the innovator's advantage (LinuxDevices) LinuxDevices.com has a guest editorial from Kevin Morgan (MontaVista Software's VP of Engineering). Kevin offers his perspective on why and how Embedded Linux is revolutionizing the embedded systems software market. "The competitive advantages of embedded Linux are so significant that even companies satisfied with their proprietary solutions will be required to make this shift to remain competitive. The result will be the end of the traditional fragmentation of the embedded operating system (OS) industry. Embedded Linux will grow to be the dominant embedded OS solution with a majority market share."
Linux waddles from obscurity to the big time (USA Today) Yahoo!News has picked up this USA Today article which looks at how Linux is being used at banks, in goverments, and elsewhere. "Then Dresdner discovered a bonus: Linux, the upstart open-source operating system, was not only cheaper -- but also faster. The Unix servers took 17 hours to calculate how much cash the bank needed in reserve to offset its investment risk. The Linux servers made the same calculation in 11 minutes." (Thanks to Richard Storey)
Linux on the move (ZDNet) ZDNet paints a fairly glowing picture for the future of Linux in business. "Over the last year, many CIOs have moved from the sidelines to the playing field in the search for a successor to IBM MVS, AS/400 O/S, Sun Solaris, HP/UX, and Microsoft Windows NT/2000 in the data center. Based on recent announcements and rollouts, that successor might just turn out to be Linux--the one OS that will run on all today's hardware."
Linux sales fell in 2001, on rebound (Register) The Register reports that revenues from the Linux operating system dipped in 2001, according to the latest research from IDC. "According to the Framingham, Massachusetts-based market research company, worldwide revenue from Linux was down 5% in 2001 compared to the previous year. Despite that, revenue for the open source operating system is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 28% for the next five years, from $80m in 2001 to $280 in 2006."
Study: Linux sales down, but not out (News.com) News.com reports on the latest IDC study on Linux server sales. "'The Linux operating system market, from a revenue perspective, accounts for one half of 1 percent of the total operating system revenue each year, or roughly two days' worth of Microsoft's operating system revenue,' [IDC analyst Al] Gillen said. 'On the second day of January, Microsoft had generated more operating system revenue than the Linux community (will for the entire year).'"
Interviews The High-Volume Model (TechWeb) Tech Web talks to Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computer. "Customers are looking for new approaches. "It's not going to be, 'Well, we're just going to do what we did two years ago and just pile more bricks on the wheelbarrow, doing the old stuff,'" Dell says. He cites a chief technology officer from a large investment bank who's spending just 3% of what the bank spent last year for another vendor's proprietary server hardware; the rest of the budget is going for hundreds of Dell servers running Linux."
Interview with Michael Bego, Xandros President (LinuxOrbit) LinuxOrbit interviews Michael Bego, president of Xandros. "Even today, with our substantial successes, many skeptics eyes begin to glaze over when you start to talk about Linux, let alone the desktop. I'm sure there were many obituaries written about Columbus as he set sail. The more people that you have saying the Earth is not flat, the more you will be able convince to travel to a New Land. The more that make the change, the better off they all are. We hope that millions will soon set sail for Xandros."
Resources OpenLDAP with Linux and Windows (Linux Journal) Linux Journal looks at the use of OpenLDAP for cross-platform authentication at the University of Verona. "The "Students" Project at the University of Verona is based on OpenLDAP (it's an open-source implementation of LDAP) for managing the centralized authentication of both Windows and Linux laboratories, as well as mail accounts for professors and students from all departments (use of Qmail, Courier and Imp)."
Embedded Linux Newsletter for August 1, 2002 The LinuxDevices Embedded Linux Newsletter for August 1, 2002 is out, with coverage of the latest Embedded Linux developments.
Reviews Simputer, Hovering between Hope and Impatience (Linux Journal) LinuxJournal looks at the Simputer project. "A low-cost GNU/Linux device is in its final stages in India. Sitting in the palm of my hand, the Simputer, emerging from the tech city of Bangalore, India, has generated a mix of hope and pessimism that few hardware products from India ever have. But will the Simputer work as promised?"
'Low cost' Linux-based PDA unveiled at Taipei Linux Expo (LinuxDevices) LinuxDevices.com takes a look at a new low-cost Chinese Linux-based PDA from Taipei-based Esfia. "The Esfia PDA runs a customized version of uClinux, a variation of Linux for MMU-less processors such as the device's ARM7TDMA-based Samsung SC44BOX. In addition to Linux, the PDA's software stack includes a PIM app suite, office-type apps with Word and Excel file compatibility, and a range of useful utilities..."
Miscellaneous Software licensing act amended (News.com) News.com looks into proposed amendments to UCITA. "The Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act (UCITA), introduced three years ago, is meant to protect software developers from intellectual property theft by resolving conflicting software licensing laws that vary from state to state. But critics complained that the proposed laws favored corporate interests over consumers by granting software makers too much freedom in restricting the use of their software and dictating settlement terms for conflicts."
Hollywood Steps Up Its Assault on the Net While Webcasting Death March Claims KPIG (Linux Journal) Linux Journal covers the closing of KPIG's (105 Oink 7 on the FM dial) Linux powered internet feed. "KPIG was the first commercial radio station to broadcast on the Web. After more than seven years on the air, it had become one of the most popular webcasts in the world (and one that was almost entirely Linux-based). Suddenly it was gone. From there the news got worse. All over the country, webcasts were dropping like bad packets. The casualty list went bubonic, becoming too long and growing too fast to count. "
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Announcements Resources Linux Gazette #81 (August 2002) available The Linux Gazette #81 is now available for your enjoyment. There are articles on programming in Ada, Perl and Ruby and much more in this month's edition.
Upcoming Events Benefit for Free Software Foundation: SF,CA August 14 A benefit party for the Free Software Foundation will be held in SanFrancisco, CA on August 14, 2002 during the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. Click below for details.
O'Reilly Open Source Convention Wrap Up Evidence of Open Source's wide adoption was unearthed at O'Reilly's Fourth Annual Open Source Convention.
Perl 6 Mini-Conference, September 12-13, Zurich (use Perl) Use Perl has an announcement for a Perl 6 Mini-Conference, to be held on September 12 and 13, 2002 in Zurich, Switzerland.
Events: August 8 - October 3, 2002
Web sites Mojolin goes international Mojolin, The Linux, Unix and Embedded Job Site announced detailed support for foreign listings, including specific listings for Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, India, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Software announcements This week's software announcements Here are the software announcements, courtesy of Freshmeat.net. They are available in two formats:
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Letters to the editor Where has the pioneer spirit of LWN gone?
To the LWN Editors, Let me first thank you folks for the last 4 years of LWN. I remember back in 1998, when the very first edition of LWN came out. One of my coworkers said to me, "Hey, there's a new Linux site out and it seems pretty neat." He was right. LWN was exactly what the Linux community needed. A place where all of the daily and weekly happenings could be brought together in one place. I remember fondly the times of waiting patiently for Wednesdays to come. It was one of those things I used to treat myself with when I had a busy day on the job. I'd happily take my break by reading the LWN. However, now, it would appear things have changed a little with the online e-mag I enjoyed reading. Now, the question of the viability comes into question. Is this a sign of the times? Where have all the online pioneers gone? Remember when LWN was that little site back in 1998? Did it require 5 full time people writing it up? Did it require $15K US/mo to fund? Certainly the economics are not the same as 1998, but has it really changed all that much? The best analogy I can think of to describe the LWN situation, goes something like this, "Mom and Dad send off there best pride and joy to University/College for the first time. This is the first time that the pride of the family has been on his/her own. Things go well for the first semester, as the boy/girl works hard to impress the family. "There is much dedication, simply because the family counts on this performance. After a while, the pride of the family now discovers the rest of the University/College world, the joys of credit cards and other ills. So, the boy/girl takes one of those credit cards, and starts to build up the dorm room. It is now plush, nice, essentially the same thing, just spruced up a bit with the latest Ikea(tm) and Pier One(tm) fashions. "The bills start to arrive. At first, the loan money and things given as gifts by mom and dad cover the bills, but after a while he/she realizes that the bills cannot be paid so a job is needed. After working at the job, the bills still increase as pride of the family continues to buy even with the influx of new cash. Great looking car, nice dorm room. "Now, the pride of the family is in big trouble, having to work 40 hours a week to cover the bills and do 40 hours of classes, burn out happens. At the end, the pride of the family must now call mom and dad and ask for help, or he/she is out of school." The end of that analogy is where I believe LWN is today. In the beginning, it was new, it was fun and community needed you. The yearly Linux Timeline, that was truly a classic. You could actually see Linux grow just be following the years events on LWN. Now it would seem, LWN is at that "gotta ask mom and dad or I'm gonna quit" stage of development. Again I ask, what happened to that pioneering spirit? Why does the site need $15K US/month to run? The LWN justification is, "$25,000 is a nice pile of cash for a little company to have in the bank, but it is important to keep in mind that it is not enough to keep us going for all that long. Running LWN currently involves five people (Jonathan Corbet: front and Kernel pages, site code, "executive editor"; Forrest Cook: Development and Press pages, system administration; Rebecca Sobol: Distributions and Commerce pages; Dennis Tenney: Security page and corporate bureaucracy; Dave Whitinger: business development, ad sales and delivery), all of whom are experienced software engineers. These people have children and mortgages, and most work full time producing LWN. They can not be expected to do it for free, even though that is exactly what they have been doing for some months now." (http://lwn.net/Articles/5712/, August 1/02) I do feel a tad insulted by this comment. The LWN community is almost arrogantly shrugged off, a very "thanks for all the fish" attitude. If a CEO of a company justified a 30% raise when the rest of the company took a 5% roll-back using this logic, there would be some serious backlash. Just because your all brilliant software engineers does not mean the community needs to shoulder your habits. If the five LWN editors took full time jobs working as experienced software engineers and did LWN as a hobby/not-for-profit out of their own expenses, then donations are justified. Why would LWN cost more to produce than Kuro5hin.org? $70K/yr US vs. $180k/yr? I do have a hard time understanding the economics of LWN with the current rational used. Why cannot some of this work be outsourced to the community you have built? Zack Jones already provides a very good Kernel summary (http://kt.zork.net). I am sure the rest of the site could be parted out that same way, where the LWN editors give the news there own kind of spin. Why not work to share your workload? Why not turn LWN back into the pioneering site it was? It would appear the problems are solely related to manpower and compensating individuals for the "pro bono" work they have in the past. How did LWN do this back in 1998? Surely the system administration cannot be *that* much work? Why was the new site written from scratch? It may be impressive to say "Hey, I can write code in Perl and Python", but why waste so many hours of time on it, when there are many other viable Open Source solutions. PHPNuke? PostNuke? Why redo the entire site about one month before you decide to close shop? Did the LWN editors know that closing the site would have been a topic of conversation back in June of this year? Did this just spring up? I surely doubt this. What truly saddened me, is when the LWN editors decided to slip in there "closing" as the third article on the July 25, 2002 front-page. Instead of being upfront and honest about the problems, it's more of a sad, "hey, where gone, so long" type situation. Instead of using the community to their advantage, LWN decided to say "good bye so long." That is totally within the prerogative of any editor or business to close up shop. However I do contend it was the wrong way to go about this. I honestly do hope LWN survives this current situation. However for it do so will require all of LWN to return to its roots and definitely not cost $180K/yr US to do. That is life folks. Do it because you love it, not because it is a chore. Please accept the fact that LWN has become more than that little online e-mag you pioneered back in 1998. In closing, I would just like to say that Mandrake started a very bad precedent by going the "donate to save us" route. The same Mandrake die-hards who donated are the same ones who probably never bought Mandrake at their local electronics shop. Granted, LWN is in a different style of situation, but kicking the community that helped build you up is really quite sad. This new kind of "Open Source Philanthropy" just proves that money and greed will win every time over good hard work and the fun of just doing it, just because you can. --Thomas Thomas Wardman @Hoser.ca -- Get it eh?
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
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