Linux in the news

Recommended Reading

Pandora's box for open source (News.com)

News.com examines the increasing acceptance of open-source software by large companies. "Open source has become something like the invisible hand of the software economy, driving prices down and pinpointing those areas ripe for commodity status. While Microsoft continues to fight it, other companies have no choice but to embrace the technology, even though its long-term profitability remains largely unproven."

Comments (8 posted)

A Proposal of Truce (LinuxWorld)

LinuxWorld is running an open letter to Darl McBride which purports to be a set of conditions for a truce between SCO and the Linux community. "We fully recognize your right to defend your IP. We ask that you recognize our right to defend our IP. This means obeying the terms of our licenses. You must stop distributing Linux, Samba and GCC unless you are willing to agree to the terms of our General Public License (GPL)." Of course, this begs the question of just how many people in the community want a truce with SCO at this point.

Comments (38 posted)

Trade Shows and Conferences

Emerging Technology Conference Coverage (O'Reilly)

O'Reilly has published extensive coverage of the ongoing Emerging Technology Conference Coverage and Digital Democracy Teach-In.

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Report: KDE at Paris Solutions Linux 2004 (KDE.News)

KDE.News has a report on KDE activity at the Solutions Linux trade show in France. "Solutions Linux ran for three days and welcomed around 9600 visitors this year. After speaking with our (prospective) users, my impression is that there is no big migration plan to Linux on desktop happening now in France. The boldest move is being done by the Homeland Ministry (Ministère de l'intérieur) which is migrating to OpenOffice.org on Windows."

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The SCO Problem

Weirder & Weirder (ComputerWorld)

ComputerWorld looks at SCO's suit against Novell. "If SCO's lawyers could make a good case with a contract lawsuit, they would. Apparently, they can't. It turns out that SCO's lawyers aren't likely to have much luck with a slander-of-title suit either. It won't pry loose the Unix copyrights from Novell, since that's a contract issue that's not affected by any of Novell's public statements. And a slander-of-title lawsuit is likely to be tossed out by a judge, whose first question will be, 'Why didn't you file a contract suit?'" (The article is a couple of weeks old, but worth a mention).

Comments (5 posted)

Novell Notifies SCO (Groklaw)

Groklaw looks at Novell's latest letter to SCO. "It seems SCO did not obey Novell's instructions by the deadline. Consequently, Novell in a new letter, dated February 11, takes the following action:"

""Accordingly, pursuant to Section 4.16(b) of the Asset Purchase Agreement, Novell, on behalf of The SCO Group, hereby waives any purported right SCO may claim to require Sequent (or IBM as its successor) to treat Sequent Code as subject to the confidentiality obligations or use restrictions of Sequent's SVRX license.""

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Novell's Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum in Support (Groklaw)

Groklaw has posted Novell's motion to dismiss the SCO lawsuit, along with the associated memorandum of support. "SCO admits, they point out, that they are not the copyright owners in the very relief they ask the court to grant them: namely, they ask that the Court issue an injunction 'requiring Novell to assign to SCO any and all copyrights Novell has registered in UNIX and UnixWare.' You can't ask for copyrights to be assigned to you if you already have them, can you? If you don't already have them, you can't scream slander of title if the person you want to assign them to you says they own them."

Comments (7 posted)

Followup Letters to Lehman - Exh. B & C to Red Hat's Motion to Supplement (Groklaw)

Groklaw has posted the SCO followup letter to Lehman Brothers' CEO. "I wish I could have seen the look on the CEO Mr. Fuld's face when he received this letter."

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An analysis of SCO Group (IT Manager's Journal)

IT Manager's Journal (an OSDN site, it seems) has unwittingly given us a view into the bizarre mindset of investment analysts with this long-winded "analysis" of the SCO Group. "In addition, if SCO Group's various lawsuits were to result in reduced demand for Linux, from both current and potentially new large enterprise customers, then that could be negative for Linux-related stocks such as SCOX."

Comments (11 posted)

AT&T trips up SCO (ComputerWorld)

ComputerWorld has discovered AT&T's old communications on the meaning of the Unix licenses, as dug up by Novell. "Of the million lines of Linux code that SCO claims IBM hijacked from Unix, SCO hasn't identified a single line that came from the original Unix source code. It was all created by IBM. According to AT&T in 1985, that means it's IBM's to keep -- or give away. And SCO's theory that it owns Linux code appears to be kaput."

Comments (10 posted)

Companies

Developer offers Linux-based RFID (Computerworld)

Computerworld covers the use of a Linux-based RFID system from Magellan Technologies. "Magellan Technologies has developed what it claims to be a world-first in RFID technology that allows many closely bunched tags to be uniquely identified without interference. The developer has taken the open source route using Linux-based readers and an open source application interface. Magellan's software manager Jeff Gray said the decision to adopt Linux was due to cost and interoperability. "

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Intel to speed lagging Linux support (ZDNet)

ZDNet has an article on Intel's plan to improve its Linux support. "Theo de Raadt, head of another open-source operating system, OpenBSD, steers people away from Intel and toward the Prism wireless networking chips from GlobespanVirata. 'Everyone in the open-source community is buying Prism chip based (wireless network) cards,' de Raadt said. 'The chipset is fully documented, and open-source drivers exist on all operating systems.'"

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Microsoft grapples with leak of source code (CNN)

CNN reports on the apparent leak of some Windows code. "The leak could potentially put more Windows users at risk because it opens the door to more people finding vulnerabilities in Microsoft's code -- and using them in malicious ways.... That could, in turn, wreak havoc on Microsoft's ability to respond with fixes in a controlled manner."

Comments (28 posted)

Linux Adoption

Australian users back desktop Linux (ZDNet)

ZDNet Australia covers a study of tech users in Australian and New Zealand. "More than two-thirds of the survey respondents had used Linux personally, with the greatest single percentage of respondents (29.4 per cent) having used it for more than three years. New users (those who have used Linux for under twelve months) amounted to a relatively small percentage of total respondents, indicating that Linux is well-established within its user base."

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Survey: More data centers will use Linux in '04 (SearchEnterpriseLinux)

SearchEnterpriseLinux reports on a survey that indicates substantial growth of Linux in the data center market. "In an online spending survey of 130 IT managers and decision makers, 30% said that, among Linux-related projects planned for 2004, a data center migration to Linux would receive the greatest monetary commitment. Of that percentage, 52.7% indicated they'd be spending up to $99,000 on the migration, and 13% expect to spend between $100,000 and $499,000."

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Paris eyes open-source switch (News.com)

News.com reports on a study concerning Linux deployment in Paris, France. "Systems integrator Unilog is set to carry out a feasibility study on the installation of open-source software systems for the city of Paris, the company has said. On the strength of an earlier Unilog study, Munich agreed to migrate thousands of desktops from Windows to the open-source operating system Linux."

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Linux Finishes Second Among Oracle Developers (CXOtoday)

CXOtoday reports on the rising popularity among India's Oracle developers. "Oracle India announced that Linux has emerged the second most popular OS platform among its developers in India, and that seven of its new customers have recently chosen to run its technology and applications software on the OS."

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A Computer Lab with No Windows, Part I (Linux Journal)

The Linux Journal reports from Sisler High School (in Manitoba) on the use of the Linux Terminal Server Project distribution to equip student labs. "Public school systems always are underfunded, and because we are using taxpayers' money, we have the responsibility to get the most for our money. By using a Linux terminal server with cheap, 'obsolete' thin clients, I have been able to deliver many computer courses that are fully compatible with if not better than what teachers using Microsoft Windows are offering. With the money saved on a Linux terminal server lab, the school can fund other subject areas."

Comments (1 posted)

Interviews

FOSDEM 2004: Interview with Gunnar Schmi Dt of KDE Accessibility Project

The FOSDEM team talks with Gunnar Schmi Dt of the KDE Accessibility Project. "Gunnar Schmi Dt - In my talk on Saturday afternoon I will talk about the Qt Accessibility Framework and the bridge to ATK. Part of that talk will be an overview of the architecture around ATK and AT-SPI, but I will also show the impact of the accessibility architectures when writing KDE applications. During the tutorial on Sunday afternoon I will show which accessibility features are currently available on the current KDE 3.2."

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The final FOSDEM interviews

The final set of FOSDEM interviews has been posted; they are with Gunnar Schmi Dt (KDE accessibility), Ian Formanek (NetBeans), and Tim O'Reilly: "My fundamental premise is that the world we all grew up in -- the world of both Microsoft and the Free Software Foundation -- is fundamentally challenged by the internet. The internet (not linux) is the greatest triumph to date of the open source approach, yet it has changed the rules of software deployment so fundamentally that many of the techniques embraced by the open source community as first principles don't necessarily give the desired results. We need to reinvent open source in the age of the internet. My talk gives some suggestions for what we need to think about."

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Resources

Power Upgrades with apt4rpm (Linux Journal)

Mike McCallister writes about apt4rpm in the Linux Journal. "If you've ever had experience with a Debian-based system, you know that keeping a system updated is little more than a command away. The Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) simplifies things immensely. Simply type apt-get update to see what's new and apt-get install package to get it. Is a new version of your distribution out? Type apt-get dist-upgrade, and you're on your way. What many folks don't know is it is indeed possible to have the best of both worlds. Thanks to the magic of free software and a terrific team of Brazilian developers, you can use APT with your RPM-based distribution."

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Building PHP Web services with PEAR (devchannel)

DevChannel.org looks at PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository). "Once you have installed the PEAR Package Manager you can proceed to installing the necessary PEAR modules for using SOAP in PHP by using the pear install [Module_Name] command. If you execute this command while you have an active connection to the Internet, it will automatically download and install the module in your local environment. If you don't have an active connection, you will need to download the SOAP package for PEAR as well as some prerequisite PEAR modules from http://pear.php.net/packages.php in order to install the SOAP package, including Mail_Mime, Net_URL, HTTP_Request, and Net_DIME."

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SpamAssassin Quickstart (Linux Productivity Magazine)

Linux Productivity Magazine is running a set of articles on SpamAssassin in their latest edition. "This issue of Linux Productivity Magazine details Spamassassin: how to install it, how to configure it, and how to use it. No two SpamAssassin installations are alike because of how differently email is handled in different situations. But this issue will guide you through a few of the most common scenarios."

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Zope SuperGuide for Newbies

ZopeMag has published a new Zope SuperGuide. "While this SuperGuide is written mainly for beginners, we hope that an occasional nugget of information may also be of help to the more experienced Zope user or developer, for example if he/she needs to learn about Zope Sprinting or the Zope Public License."

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Reviews

Cubicleware: Sun's JDS vs. Ximian XD2 (NewsForge)

NewsForge compares the Java Desktop System (JDS) from Sun to Ximian XD2. "Sun's Java Desktop System joins Novell's Ximian XD2 as a tailored GNOME desktop that's aimed at cubicle workers in large enterprise settings, such as government offices and big educational institutions. In the future, Linux will be the desktop used by the most, and the least, computer-literate folks on the planet."

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Marcel Gagne: Books Featuring KDE (KDE.News)

KDE.News covers KDE oriented books by Marcel Gagne. "We have a scoop about a new book Marcel is writing. He is finishing his third book which will feature KDE 3.2 as the corporate desktop of choice."

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The Secret World of ReiserFS (Yahoo!News)

Yahoo!News looks at ReiserFS and the upcoming Reiser4 release. "Among the early adopters will be Lindows.com, which has a financial relationship with Namesys and is building Reiser4 into the next version of LindowsOS, the desktop operating system. The new version of Lindows will be out sometime in 2004. (LindowsOS currently uses version 3 of ReiserFS.) SuSE Linux and Gentoo also use ReiserFS as their default filesystem." (Thanks to Rich Brown)

Comments (10 posted)

Miscellaneous

Improvements in kernel development (developerWorks)

developerWorks has posted a look at how the kernel development process has changed between 2.4 and 2.6. "Having a live, central repository for the latest changes to the Linux kernel is invaluable. Every change or patch that is accepted into the kernel is tracked as a changeset. End users and developers can keep their own copy of the source repository and update it at will with the latest changesets using a simple command. For developers, this means the ability to always be working with the latest copy of the code."

Comments (none posted)

OSS in Space (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal takes a look at how OSS might have benefited the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission. "At first glance, this dialogue is merely interesting; I think every hardware and software engineer/tinkerer should read them. On deeper reflection, however, I was struck by something more. Although I assume it was not their intention, the authors quite clearly demonstrate how open-source software (OSS) and the OSS development model would have helped this project enormously, not only in finding the bug but, in all probability, preventing the bug in the first place. The extracts from these e-mails and my comments below should make more sense to you after you've read the original postings."

Comments (3 posted)

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