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LWN.net Weekly Edition for March 11, 2004A grumpy editor's calendar searchYour editor is, at times, a creature of habit. Many, many years ago, back when Tcl and Tk were new and exciting, he discovered a simple calendar called "ical" and he has been using it ever since. ical may be old and![[ical]](/images/ns/calss/ical-sm.png)
unmaintained, but it works. It provides a basic calendar,
appointment book, and task list without taking up too much screen space or
system resources. Its interface is quick and does not require lots of
clicking and form filling. It does exactly what it needs to do.
Creatures of habit, perhaps, should not run Debian unstable on their desktops. Your editor has learned to scrutinize every dist-upgrade carefully before turning it loose, but he missed the one that deleted ical from his system. Some investigation turned up that, in fact, ical has not been part of Debian for some time; it had been removed as being obsolete, unmaintained, and superseded by better alternatives. ical was able to continue to exist for years, however, until some recent change in unstable forced its removal. After scrambling to copy his calendar file to another system, your editor decided it was time to investigate some of these newer, better alternatives. The results, it must be said, were somewhat disappointing. The new crop of desktop calendars may be impressive to look at, but few of them have achieved the straightforward ease of use and unobtrusiveness that ical had almost fifteen years ago. Fortunately, the news is not all bad. The first stop in such a search almost has to be Evolution. Ximian's high-profile groupware system is, doubtless, highly useful for busy people who must juggle meetings and share their schedules with others. One of the big advantages of working for a small operation like LWN, however, is that scheduling a meeting is a simple matter of finding a table at a local brewpub, and Evolution can't help with that. For one whose goal is a simple calendar manager, and who has no desire to switch to a new email client, Evolution brings a great deal of heavyweight baggage for little gain. The calendar interface is difficult to navigate around in; your editor never did succeed in reproducing the calendar view found on the Evolution screen shots page. Evolution 1.4 also crashed several times while being tested. Evolution may be an impressive piece of software, but it is not appropriate to consider as a replacement for ical. The word is that Evolution 2.0 will feature a much-improved calendar manager, and the underlying infrastructure will make it easier to create independent, standalone calendar applications.
The next logical place to look is KOrganizer, the KDE calendar
application. KOrganizer it must be said, is a nice calendar manager. The
There is one nice ical feature that KOrganizer lacks: the ability to add events without dealing with dialog windows. With ical, it's simply a matter of dragging an entry over the relevant time period and typing in the info. With KOrganizer (and a number of other calendar managers), you have to set the times in special dialog fields. KOrganizer 3.2 has improved things somewhat by allowing the time range to be set with the mouse, but it requires an explicit configuration option and still puts up a dialog for the event description. In the modern, graphical, direct manipulation world, the dialog window should be unnecessary if the more complex features (custom alarms, recurrence) are not being used.
Another possibility is a package called plan, which is a calendar manager
based on Motif. Plan has the basic necessary features; it can handle
A simple, but cute entry is gDeskCal. This
calendar is meant to sit on (and blend into) the desktop; it uses alpha
Your editor was also pointed at "xcal", which is available as a Debian package but which appears to lack a web page. Anybody who wonders what life was like when the Athena Widget Set was new should give xcal a try. Anybody wanting a modern calendar application should look elsewhere, however.
The final stop on this tour is GNOME-PIM.
This calendar manager, like KOrganizer, handles all of the basic tasks and
The winner is fairly clear: the only application which is competitive as an ical replacement appears to be KOrganizer. The KDE developers have done a top-quality job of creating a focused, highly-configurable calendar manager which brings in a (relative) minimum of unneeded baggage. Your editor will miss the quickness and simplicity of ical, but KOrganizer will get the job done. Let us hope, however, that the developers of graphical applications will not forget the users who are not interested in massive, do-everything applications. It should always be possible to find, say, a reasonably functional calendar without dragging in email clients, web servers, and other unrelated stuff. The old Unix guideline - a tool should do one job, and do it well - is best not forgotten.
Linux a la CarteProgeny is proposing a different way to look at Linux distributions. According to Progeny's Ian Murdock, the traditional Linux distribution follows a "top-down" "one-size-fits-all" model that doesn't meet the needs of many Linux users.
For those who view Linux not as a product but as a platform on which to
build their own products, the monolithic nature of the typical distribution
is a particularly bad fit. The typical Linux-as-product distribution
optimizes for breadth--because it is "one-size-fits-all", it needs to
include a huge assortment of features and technologies to satisfy the
widest possible audience, only a few of which may be important to any given
project (and the few that are important will always vary). Ideally, for
Linux-as-platform users, a distribution should optimize for depth, i.e., to
excel in those few features and technologies important to the project at
hand.
The new approach, then, is to "componentize" Linux by allowing the user to choose only the bits that they need. We spoke with Murdock about Progeny's plans for componentized Linux to see where the company is headed. Is componentized Linux yet another Linux distribution? Emphatically not, according to Murdock:
One thing that's very important to point out, it's not a distribution per
se -- it's more of a template above an existing distribution like Red Hat
or Debian...someone can come in and say 'this is what I want' and then it
becomes a question of 'which distribution foundation do I want under that?'
... It's a much smaller job to come in and say 'I want an LSB 2.0-compliant
runtime and Active Directory integration module' instead of having to go in
to Debian to figure out what packages you need.
Besides, Progeny has already been there and done that with regards to the distribution business. The company started with Progeny Linux, a "commercialized" version of Debian, and eventually moved on to a business model of helping other companies customize Linux to fit their needs. Customization, according to Murdock, often involved a lot of time removing components from "monolithic" distributions that their customers had started with -- which in turn led to the concept of componentized Linux. For users who are interested in seeing componentized Linux in action, Progeny has released "Componentized Linux Core" ISOs based on Debian Sarge. There are two ISO images available, only the first is necessary to perform an install -- the second contains the remainder of source code for the distribution that didn't fit on the first ISO. They provide an early glimpse of the concept, though the release is a bit short on actual components. The Componentized Linux Core uses Progeny's Anaconda for Debian installer and allows the user to install a short list of components: XFree86 4.2, GNOME 2.4, a 2.4 or 2.6 kernel, and an LSB runtime and devel component. Why is Progeny making Componentized Linux public now? For one thing, the company is looking to highlight Progeny's approach to customizing Linux. Murdock also said that he's noticed a number of people developing custom distributions, and that they'd like to give something back to the community -- and to prevent others in the community from having to re-do the same work that Progeny has already done. He also said that he hopes that Progeny will be able to build a community around Componentized Linux that will help the project evolve to everyone's benefit. Murdock noted that the response thus far has been positive:
I think it's a concept that resonates with people, because Linux is a
fundamentally different OS. The leading commercial distributions are
looking more and more like the proprietary OSes that they are
replacing...people are looking at this and saying 'it's a good fit, and
it'll save me a lot of time.'
Though Progeny's first release is based on Debian, Murdock said that the company also hopes to have a Fedora-based Componentized Linux and "possibly more than that." It will be interesting to see if the à la Carte approach gains widespread appeal. No doubt, part of the distribution proliferation problem stems from the difficulty of customizing "major" distributions to specific tasks. Instead of seeing hundreds of different Linux distributions -- each with their own installer, administration tools and assorted quirks -- perhaps we could look forward to a day when most distributions utilize a single common core and distinguish themselves through package repositories. For users who have had to master multiple distributions, package formats and admin tools, it's an attractive prospect indeed.
SCO and Public Perception
Mark Barrenechea, a senior vice president in charge of product
development at CA, said the SCO licenses weren't bought but were
"thrown in" as part of a settlement CA reached last August with
Canopy.
The word from CA would appear to be clear: the company did not go out looking for "Linux licenses" from the SCO Group. Instead, the Canopy Group, SCO's largest stockholder, decided to toss the licenses in as part of an apparently unrelated settlement some months ago. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time; it was an easy way to claim that a large company had obtained licenses from SCO. Given the subsequent revelations, one would expect the press to be looking into false statements of "Linux license" sales. There is also the interesting question of just why the Canopy Group felt the need to push Linux licenses in this way. Canopy claims to not be a part of SCO's crusade, but events like this suggest otherwise. Instead, however, we got headlines like:
For quite some time now, the SCO Group has been very well treated by the media. Many of its claims have gone unchallenged, and even the company's goofiest statements get wide coverage. Thus we hear that Darl McBride's enemies are out to kill him, but important little details, like the fact that SCO dropped the trade secret claims that were at the core of its initial suit against IBM, somehow don't get covered. One can only guess that SCO v. IBM as a "David v. Goliath" story makes for better headlines. Even so, the world beyond the free software community is clearly beginning to figure things out. Consider the latest from the Motley Fool:
With dwindling cash and the entire industry ready to fight, the
company looks like it's treading thin ice during spring melt. Given
the ham-fisted efforts of its law team, and its haphazard legal
strategy, I wouldn't bet that any amount of litigation will keep
SCO above water.
The questions asked by reporters at the March 3 conference call are also telling: they aren't buying it anymore. To really see how the SCO PR battle is going, however, one should take a look at the company's stock price. Anybody who was paying attention during the dotcom bubble knows better than to attribute too much rationality to stock prices. That notwithstanding, a stock market is an efficient machine for integrating the opinions of a large number of unrelated people. SCO's stock price peaked briefly at $22.29 in October, when the BayStar deal was announced. At that time, the company's market capitalization was a little over $300 million. Given that SCO has no business left other than its Linux-related litigation, its stock can be seen as a sort of call option on SCO's lawsuits. Even at its peak, SCO's stock price represented a perceived chance of collection of less than 10%. If the company were truly set to collect billions, it would not be valued in the millions.
As this article was being written, SCO's stock has fallen below $10/share
Since stock prices are interesting as an indicator of public perception, we have prepared an annotated chart correlating the company's stock price against various events from the last year. It shows how the public view of SCO has gone up and down and the correlation with the actions of SCO and others. SCO may yet manage to engineer another increase in its stock price, but it seems unlikely to get anywhere near the highs of last October. If SCO's actions are truly part of a stock scam, it would appear to have failed. Most readers will be familiar with the Halloween X memo leaked to Eric Raymond. The memo is for real, but SCO claims that its author, outside consultant Mike Anderer, misunderstood the situation. It has, regardless, caused the wider world to look again at Microsoft's relationship to SCO, and may have played a part in the recent stock decline. Meanwhile, SCO has filed its memo in opposition of Novell's motion to dismiss the "slander of title" suit. SCO maintains that the asset purchase agreement was sufficient to transfer the Unix copyrights, and that it has, indeed, suffered damages from Novell's actions. SCO is also trying to get the case moved back to Utah state court after Novell moved it to the Federal court. The Federal court is the same one which is hearing the IBM case; perhaps SCO has decided it no longer wishes to try its luck there.
EU Intellectual Property Rights Directive passedOn March 9 the European Parliament passed, without amendment, the "Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement" directive under fast-track procedures. This directive, which worries free software advocates and others (see this FFII page for the details), is expected to be passed by the European Commission shortly. At that point, the battle shifts to the individual EU member states, each of which must pass its own implementation legislation. Concerned Europeans will certainly want to pay attention to what is happening in their countries as this process goes forward.
Security Brief items Fighting spam in the courtsReading legal filings has never been your editor's idea of a good time, and many of the filings which have gone his way over the last year have been less fun than usual. So it has been a bit of a relief to read complaints with titles like "Microsoft Corporation v. John Does 1-50 d/b/a Super Viagra Group." The big ISPs are figuring out that spam is costing them money; as a result, Microsoft, AOL, Earthlink, and Yahoo have filed a set of lawsuits aimed at those who, they say, have sent spam into their systems.These suits have been trumpeted as the first application of the much-maligned U.S. "CAN-SPAM" act. The complaints (most of which can be found on FindLaw) do, indeed, cite this act, but they also bring many other counts and could easily have been filed before that act was passed. Microsoft's complaint, for example, alleges "trespass to chattels," "conversion," violation of the Washington electronic mail act, violation of the federal computer fraud and abuse act, Lanham act violations, and more. AOL's complaint brings in violations of the Virginia computer crimes act, dealing in falsified bulk email software (Virginia law, again), conspiracy to commit trespass of chattels, and more. The CAN-SPAM act, clearly, is only part of the picture. The filings are good for publicity and as a way to look like something is being done, but it remains to be seen whether they will accomplish anything against spam. The fact that the complaints are filed against over 100 "John Does" makes one problem clear: these ISPs still do not have a clear idea of who they are fighting. They claim that, armed with subpoenas, they can follow the money trails starting with the manufacturers of the products being pitched and track down the spammers from there. Perhaps, but it would be a mistake to assume that the people involved will be easily found, or that it will be easy to prove that they, in particular, sent the messages in question. That said, legal action is likely to be an important part of the fight against spam in the future. With luck, a squad of expensive corporate lawyers can help to push spammers further underground and make it harder to actually earn money by sending junk email. There are reasons to worry too, however; anti-spam laws are, to a great extent, being used to squelch a certain type of unpleasant speech. It is not that hard to imagine those laws being used to shut down other types of speech which powerful groups find distasteful, much like domain name laws and procedures have been used to pull the plug on consumer and satire sites. Making spammers uncomfortable is a good thing; let's just hope this effort stops there.
New vulnerabilities gdk-pixbuf: buffer overflow
kdelibs: cookie disclosure
mozilla: multiple vulnerabilties
python: buffer overflow
sysstat: temporary file vulnerability
wu-ftpd: two vulnerabilities
Updated vulnerabilities apache2: Denial of Service vulnerability
CUPS: denial of service
Filename disclosure vulnerability in fam
fetchmail may crash on specially crafted message
GnuPG: ElGamal signing keys compromised
gtkhtml: malformed messages cause crash
iproute: local denial of service
kdepim: VCF file information reader vulnerability
kernel: local root exploit
kernel: local root exploit in 2.4.22
kernel-utils: setuid vulnerability
libpng, libpng3: buffer overflow
libtool - Insecure handling of temporary files
libxml2 - arbitrary code execution
mailman: cross-site scripting vulnerabilities
mailman denial of service
mc: arbitrary code execution
metamail: integer and buffer overflows
mikmod: buffer overflow
mod_python: denial of service vulnerability
mpg321: format string vulnerability
mplayer: remotely exploitable buffer overflow vulnerability
mutt: buffer overflow
Nessus NASL scripting engine security issues
netpbm: insecure temporary files
nfs-utils xlog() off-by-one bug
openssh: timing attack leads to information disclosure
perl information leak
postfix: denial of service vulnerabilities
PWLib: possible Denial of Service
rsync - remotely exploitable heap overflow
screen: privilege escalation
File overwrite vulnerability in tar and unzip
tcpdump: flaws in the ISAKMP decoding routines
Multiple vendor telnetd vulnerability
util-linux: information leak in the login program
xboing - buffer overflows
Events Black Hat Briefings call for papersThe Black Hat Briefings will be held July 26 and 27 in Las Vegas. The call for papers has gone out, with a June 1 due date.
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Kernel development Brief items Kernel release statusThe current 2.6 prepatch is 2.6.4-rc3, which was announced by Linus on March 9. Changes this time include more cleanups from Al Viro, an R128 DRI driver security fix, an ARC4 crypto module, an ACPI update, some preparatory work for the hotplug CPU patch (but not that patch itself), an IrDA update, and various other fixes. See the long-format changelog for the details.2.6.4-rc2 was announced on March 3. It included a number of parallel port fixes, various architecture updates, the reversion of a patch which had removed threads from /proc (and broke gdb), an XFS update, a FireWire update (including one which notes that IEEE1394 support is no longer experimental), and numerous fixes. See the long-format changelog for the details. Linus's BitKeeper tree contains just a handful of fixes as of this writing. The current prepatch from Andrew Morton is 2.6.4-rc1-mm1, released on March 7. Recent additions to the -mm tree include DMA for IDE CDROM ripping, per-page access permissions with remap_file_pages(), more scheduler tweaks, and various other fixes. The next -mm release is likely to be most interesting; see the rest of this week's Kernel Page for details. The current 2.4 kernel is 2.4.25; Marcelo released 2.4.26-pre2 on March 6. This prepatch contains an ACPI update, an XFS update, and a number of networking patches.
Kernel development news Virtual Memory I: the problemThis article serves mostly as background to help understand why the kernel developers are considering making fundamental virtual memory changes at this point in the development cycle. It can probably be skipped by readers who understand how high and low memory work on 32-bit systems.A 32-bit processor can address a maximum of 4GB of memory. One could, in theory, extend the instruction set to allow for larger pointers, but, in practice, nobody does that; the effects on performance and compatibility would be too strong. So the limitation remains: no process on a 32-bit system can have an address space larger than 4GB, and the kernel cannot directly address more than 4GB. In fact, the limitations are more severe than that. Linux kernels split the 4GB address space between user processes and the kernel; under the most common configuration, the first 3GB of the 32-bit range are given over to user space, and the kernel gets the final 1GB starting at 0xc0000000. Sharing the address space gives a number of performance benefits; in particular, the hardware's address translation buffer can be shared between the kernel and user space. If the kernel wishes to be able to access the system's physical memory directly, however, it must set up page tables which map that memory into the kernel's part of the address space. With the default 3GB/1GB mapping, the amount of physical memory which can be addressed in this way is somewhat less than 1GB - part of the kernel's space must be set aside for the kernel itself, for memory allocated with vmalloc(), and various other purposes. That is why, until a few years ago, Linux could not even fully handle 1GB of memory on 32-bit systems. In fact, back in 1999, Linus decreed that 32-bit Linux would never, ever support more than 2GB of memory. "This is not negotiable." Linus's views notwithstanding, the rest of the world continued on with the strange notion that 32-bit systems should be able to support massive amounts of memory. The processor vendors added paging modes which could use physical addresses which exceed 32 bits in length, thus ending the 4GB limit for physical memory. The internal addressing limitations in the Linux kernel remained, however. Happily for users of large systems, Linus can acknowledge an error and change his mind; he did eventually allow large memory support into the 2.3 kernel. That support came with its own costs and limitations, however. On 32-bit systems, memory is now divided into "high" and "low" memory. Low memory continues to be mapped directly into the kernel's address space, and is thus always reachable via a kernel-space pointer. High memory, instead, has no direct kernel mapping. When the kernel needs to work with a page in high memory, it must explicitly set up a special page table to map it into the kernel's address space first. This operation can be expensive, and there are limits on the number of high-memory pages which can be mapped at any particular time. For the most part, the kernel's own data structures must live in low memory. Memory which is not permanently mapped cannot appear in linked lists (because its virtual address is transient and variable), and the performance costs of mapping and unmapping kernel memory are too high. High memory is useful for process pages and some kernel tasks (I/O buffers, for example), but the core of the kernel stays in low memory. Some 32-bit processors can now address 64GB of physical memory, but the Linux kernel is still not able to deal effectively with that much; the current limit is around 8GB to 16GB, depending on the load. The problem now is that larger systems simply run out of low memory. As the system gets larger, it requires more kernel data structures to manage, and eventually room for those structures can run out. On a very large system, the system memory map (an array of struct page structures which represents physical memory) alone can occupy half of the available low memory. There are users out there wanting to scale 32-bit Linux systems up to 32GB or more of main memory, so the enterprise-oriented Linux distributors have been scrambling to make that possible. One approach is the 4G/4G patch written by Ingo Molnar. This patch separates the kernel and user address spaces, allowing user processes to have 4GB of virtual memory while simultaneously expanding the kernel's low memory to 4GB. There is a cost, however: the translation buffer is no longer shared and must be flushed for every transition between kernel and user space. Estimates of the magnitude of the performance hit vary greatly, but numbers as high as 30% have been thrown around. This option makes some systems work, however, so Red Hat ships a 4G/4G kernel with its enterprise offerings. The 4G/4G patch extends the capabilities of the Linux kernel, but it remains unpopular. It is widely seen as an ugly solution, and nobody likes the performance cost. So there are efforts afoot to extend the scalability of the Linux kernel via other means. Some of these efforts will likely go forward - in 2.6, even - but the kernel developers seem increasingly unwilling to distort the kernel's memory management systems to meet the needs of a small number of users who are trying to stretch 32-bit systems far beyond where they should go. There will come a time where they will all answer as Linus did back in 1999: go get a 64-bit system.
Virtual Memory II: the return of objrmapAndrea Arcangeli not only wants to make the Linux kernel scale to and beyond 32GB of memory on 32-bit processors; he seems to be in a real hurry. There are, it would seem, customers waiting for a 2.6-based distribution which can run in such environments.For Andrea, the real culprit in the exhaustion of low memory is clear: it's the reverse-mapping virtual memory ("rmap") code. The rmap code was first described on this page in January, 2002; its purpose is to make it easier for the kernel to free memory when swapping is required. To that end, rmap maintains, for each physical page in the system, a chain of reverse pointers; each pointer indicates a page table which has a reference for that page. By following the rmap chains, the kernel can quickly find all mappings for a given page, unmap them, and swap the page out. The rmap code solved some real performance problems in the kernel's virtual memory subsystem, but it, too has a cost. Every one of those reverse mapping entries consumes memory - low memory in particular. Much effort has gone into reducing the memory cost of the rmap chains, but the simple fact remains: as the amount of memory (and the number of processes using that memory) goes up, the rmap chains will consume larger amounts of low memory. Eliminating the rmap overhead would go a long way toward allowing the kernel to scale to larger systems. Of course, one wants to eliminate this overhead while not losing the benefits that rmap brings. Andrea's approach is to bring back and extend the object-based reverse mapping patches. The initial object-based patch was created by Dave McCracken; LWN covered this patch a year ago. Essentially, this patch eliminates the rmap chains for memory which maps a file by following pointers "the long way around" and searching candidate virtual memory areas (VMAs). Andrea has updated this patch and fixed some bugs, but the core of the patch remains the same; see last year's description for the details. Last week, we raised the possibility that the virtual memory subsystem could see fundamental changes in the course of the 2.6 "stable" series. This week, Linus confirmed that possibility in response to Andrea's object-based reverse mapping patch:
I certainly prefer this to the 4:4 horrors. So it sounds worth it
to put it into -mm if everybody else is ok with it.
Assuming this work goes forward, it has the usual implications for the stable kernel. Even assuming that it stays in the -mm tree for some time, its inclusion into 2.6 is likely to destabilize things for a few releases until all of the obscure bugs are shaken out. Dave McCracken's original patch, in any case, only solves part of the problem. It gets rid of the rmap chains for file-backed memory, but it does nothing for anonymous memory (basic process data - stacks, memory obtained with malloc(), etc.), which has no "object" behind it. File-backed memory is a large portion of the total, especially on systems which are running large Oracle servers and use big, shared file mappings. But anonymous memory is also a large part of the mix; it would be nice to take care of the rmap overhead for that as well. To that end, Andrea has posted another patch (in preliminary form) which provides object-based reverse mapping for anonymous memory as well. It works, essentially, by replacing the rmap chain with a pointer to a chain of virtual memory area (VMA) structures. Anonymous pages are always created in response to a request for memory from a single process; as a result, they are never shared at creation time. Given that, there is no need for a new anonymous page to have a chain of reverse mappings; we know that there can be only a single mapping. Andrea's patch adds a union to struct page which includes the existing mapping pointer (for non-anonymous memory) and adds a couple of new ones. One of those is simply called vma, and it points to the (single) VMA structure pointing to the page. So if a process has several non-shared, anonymous pages in the same virtual memory area, the structure looks somewhat like this:
![[Anonymous reverse mapping]](/images/ns/anonvma1.png)
With this structure, the kernel can find the page table which maps a given page by following the pointers through the VMA structure. Life gets a bit more complicated when the process forks, however. Once that happens, there will be multiple page tables pointing to the same anonymous pages and a single VMA pointer will no longer be adequate. To deal with this case, Andrea has created a new "anon_vma" structure which implements a linked list of VMAs. The third member of the new struct page union is a pointer to this structure which, in turn, points to all VMAs which might contain the page. The structure now looks like:
![[anonvma]](/images/ns/anonvma2.png)
If the kernel needs to unmap a page in this scenario, it must follow the linked list and examine every VMA it finds. Once the page is unmapped from every page table found, it can be freed. There are some memory costs to this scheme: the VMA structure requires a new list_head structure, and the anon_vma structure must be allocated whenever a chain must be formed. One VMA can refer to thousands of pages, however, so a per-VMA cost will be far less than the per-page costs incurred by the existing rmap code. This approach does incur a greater computational cost. Freeing a page requires scanning multiple VMAs which may or may not contain references to the page under consideration. This cost will increase with the number of processes sharing a memory region. Ingo Molnar, who is fond of O(1) solutions, is nervous about object-based schemes for this reason. According to Ingo, losing the possibility of creating an O(1) page unmapping scheme is a heavy cost to pay for the prize of making large amounts of memory work on obsolete hardware. The solution that Ingo would like to see, instead, is to reduce the per-page memory overhead by reducing the number of pages. The means to that end is page clustering - grouping adjacent hardware pages into larger virtual pages. Page clustering would reduce rmap overhead, and reduce the size of the main kernel memory map as well. The available page clustering patch is even more intrusive than object-based reverse mapping, however; it seems seriously unlikely to be considered for 2.6.
No more global unpluggingThe block layer supports the notion of "plugging" a request queue for a block device. A plugged queue passes no requests to the underlying device; it allows them to accumulate, instead, so that the I/O scheduler has a chance to reorder them and optimize performance. There comes a time, however, when the plug has to be pulled and the device restarted. Often, code within the filesystem or virtual memory layers decides that, for whatever reason, it's time to get block I/O moving again. In the current 2.6 kernel, there is a function (blk_run_queues()) which performs this task.The problem is that blk_run_queues() has turned out to be a bit of a performance and scalability problem. It has a single, global lock which keeps multiple processors from trying to restart the queues at the same time; this lock has become a bit of a contention point on some systems. A call to blk_run_queues() also restarts all block devices on the system, even though there is typically only one queue that truly needs to be unplugged. To address these problems, Jens Axboe has posted a patch which does away with blk_run_queues() altogether. This change is a result of a fundamental realization: there is always one specific queue which needs to be kickstarted. So blk_run_queues() has been replaced with blk_run_queue() (which takes the specific queue to start as a parameter) and blk_run_address_space() (which takes a pointer to a address_space structure). With these functions, higher-level code can fire up the request queue which belongs to a specific device or which ultimately underlies a particular non-anonymous mapping. This patch is going straight into the -mm tree; Andrew Morton commented "This is such an improvement over what we have now it isn't funny." He also noted that "...the next -mm is starting to look like linux-3.1.0..." The 2.6 kernel looks to be interesting for a while.
Patches and updates Kernel trees
Core kernel code
Device drivers
Filesystems and block I/O
Kernel building
Memory management
Networking
Security-related
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Distributions News and Editorials A First Look at Mandrakelinux 10.0A "Community" edition of Mandrakelinux* 10.0 was released late last week, first to members of the MandrakeClub and later also to public FTP servers and mirrors. Some critics will argue that, according to the recently announced development model, the "Community" edition is nothing but an extension of the distribution's beta program on the road to Mandrake Linux "Official", to be released some 2 - 3 months later. Nevertheless, the differences between the "Community" and the "Official" editions are limited to bug fixes and security updates, rather than new features or major software upgrades. As such, it is worth taking a look at the new Mandrake release, especially since it is the first major Linux distribution shipping with kernel 2.6 and KDE 3.2.Perhaps the most noticeable new feature of Mandrakelinux 10.0 is speed: "The speed of the KDE 3.2 and the new kernel is awesome, compared with my Mandrake 9.2, you can feel it everywhere. Konqueror is cleaner and faster than ever. All the interface interaction is more satisfying using the same hardware," writes Luis Alves in one of the first reviews of Mandrakelinux 10.0. Indeed, the responsiveness of the KDE desktop is impressive, achieved not only by including the latest kernel and KDE, but also a pre-release version of glibc 2.3.3 with Native POSIX Threads Library (NPTL) for optimum threading performance. Compared to Mandrake 9.2, or indeed to any other current distribution, this is one of the most pleasant surprises found in Mandrakelinux 10.0. There is a lot to like about KDE 3.2 in general, and Mandrake's own customizations compliment the excellent desktop. The main menu, consistent across all desktop environments, has been simplified with only 5 entries: "Office", "Internet", "Multimedia", "System", as well as a "More Applications" entry with further sub-menus. One of the new packages in the latest KDE is KDE Wallet Manager, a system tray utility that stores and manages user names and passwords throughout all KDE applications. Both KDE and GNOME, the two main desktop environments, share a unified theme called "Mandrakegalaxy II". The desktop experience is further enhanced by "MagicDev", a new tool seamlessly combining automount with application launcher based on the content of the inserted CD or DVD. For IBM ThinkPad users, Mandrake provides several packages that make use of the special keys found on the ThinkPad notebooks. All these enhancements make for a very pleasant desktop experience. The Mandrake Control Center has been redesigned. The changes won't please everybody - the interface has changed from what used to resemble KDE Control Center with a navigation pane on the left, to a browser-like interface with previous/next buttons as the only way to navigate around the application. New tools include the "DrakConnect" wizard for managing all types of Internet connections in one central location, and "Mandrakeonline", a security advisory and update notification service, similar to Fedora's up2date (requires online registration). While Mandrakelinux is often perceived as a distribution with a desktop focus, it can function as a server just as well. Thanks to the inclusion of the new kernel, the system is now a lot more scalable with support for over 4 billion (!) unique users and groups (will anybody ever need to create user accounts for two thirds of the world's population?), with up to 1 billion concurrent processes. Those wishing to deploy Mandrakelinux 10.0 into mixed networks should benefit from features in the new Samba 3.0 as well as read/write support for NTFS file systems. The usual exhaustive range of server applications is all there, including a mechanism for a smooth upgrade from Apache 1.3 to Apache 2.0. A distribution shipping on 4 - 5 CDs cannot possibly be without bugs and Mandrakelinux 10.0 is no exception. Some users reported problems with the detection and module loading of USB mice and keyboards, while others have complained about instability of certain applications, notably KDevelop, Quanta Plus, and XMMS. Although power management reportedly works, there are still unresolved issues, possibly related to the use of the hotplug kernel module. Several users reported complete system freezes while running the 2.6.3 kernel, and also during the package installation stage of the initial system install. A possible workaround for those experiencing hardware-related problems is to boot the 2.4.25 kernel, which is provided as a second choice. Despite the above mentioned problems, the overall experience of users, as expressed on public forums and mailing list, seems to be of delight over the speed improvements and the general look and feel of Mandrakelinux 10.0. Those with "unlucky" hardware combinations resulting in system crashes, will have to wait and see if the problems get fixed in Mandrakelinux 10.0 Official coming out in May, or look elsewhere - possibly wait for the new SUSE LINUX 9.1 (expected in April) or Fedora Core 2 (scheduled for release in early May). But for the majority of users, Mandrakelinux 10.0 is a superb distribution, with dramatic performance enhancements, well-designed, highly usable desktops and convenient configuration tools and wizards. A solid 8 on a scale from 1 to 10.
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Distribution News Mandrakesoft Unveils 'Mandrakelinux 10.0 Community'Mandrakesoft has announced that its new flagship operating system 'Mandrakelinux 10.0 Community' has been released. 10.0 Community includes a 2.6 kernel, the Native POSIX Threads Library (NPTL), KDE 3.2 and GNOME 2.4, and more.
Debian GNU/LinuxThe Debian Weekly News for March 9, 2004 is now available. This week: Debian Ham; new home for alioth services; a collection of Open Source advocacy papers; questions for DPL candidates; and more.Wichert Akkerman reports on the status of alioth, arch, and svn. "My apologies for the extended downtime and especially the lack of commit access for arch and svn.debian.org. There is a silver lining though: things should be a lot more stable than they ever were from now on due to better hardware and a better configuration." Voting on a General Resolution to decide on future handling of the non-free section is under way. All Debian developers are encouraged to vote. The DebConf4 call for papers is out. The deadline for submissions is April, 1st.
Fedora CoreThe Fedora News Updates #7 has been released. This issue covers Fedora Core 2 test2; the Jargon Buster; a next-generation input method; Fedora on lower-end machines; something from Fedora-Legacy; and other topics.Red Hat, Inc. and the Fedora Project have announced the availability of a port of Fedora Core 1 to AMD64 - the first 64-bit port of a Fedora Project core release. A new mailing list is now available, for SELinux discussion. This less update fixes segfaults on certain types of files.
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter - Volume 3, Issue 10The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of March 1, 2004 is out; with a look at the Gentoo booth at Chemnitzer Linuxtag, and more.
Trustix Secure Linux 2.1 releasedTrustix Secure Linux 2.1 is now available. This is billed mainly as a maintenance release, but that didn't stop the Trustix folks from throwing in a few things like Samba 3, XFS, and a few other new packages.
IBM WebSphere to Support Red Flag Linux platformIBM and Red Flag have announced that IBM's WebSphere will provide product support for Red Flag Linux.
Blue Cat Linux Supports Apple PowerPC G5 Based on the Linux 2.6 KernelLynuxWorks has announced LynuxWorks BlueCat Linux 5.0 BSP, a board support package (BSP) based on the Linux 2.6 kernel for the Apple PowerPC G5, a 64-bit desktop processor.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 39The DistroWatch Weekly for March 8, 2004 is out with a look at Progeny Componentized Linux and other topics.
FreeSBIE FreeBSD LiveCDFreeSBIE is a live CD version of FreeBSD. The project is developed by the main Italian FreeBSD User Group: GUFI. (Thanks to Per Jotun, who found the link in this digi.no Nerdvana article [in Norwegian].)
Interview with NetBSD's Luke Mewburn (NewsForge)NewsForge talks with Luke Mewburn, of the NetBSD Core Group about the release of 1.6.2 and beyond. "Is there any timeline for the release of 2.0?We had planned to branch 2.0 early this year. I would conservatively say that we'll have the release shipped by the middle of the year, although I would hope that it occurs before then. What goodies will 2.0 bring us? SMP on more platforms, including i386, macppc, sparc, alpha, and vax. Kernel assisted threads ("schedular activations"). Fully dynamically linked userland."
FreeBSD GNOME updates (FootNotes)FootNotes reports that a new package building server for FreeBSD GNOME packages is online. Also the GNOME 2.6 Beta 1 desktop is now available for FreeBSD.
Red Hat LinuxUpdated SANE packages are available, fixing a problem with shared libraries.
Minor distribution updates Astaro Security LinuxAstaro Security Linux has released beta v4.737 with major bugfixes. "Changes: This release includes high availability fixes, a fix for the Synratelimiter, various IPsec fixes, a lot of other small fixes and improvements, and speedup by removing some debug code."
Fli4l (Floppy ISDN/DSL)Fli4l (Floppy ISDN/DSL) has released development v2.1.6 with minor bugfixes. "Changes: This release should work with inode (DSL in Austria). lpdsrv should now work with USB printers. Support for SFTP was added. There are several bugfixes and minor enhancements. New software includes busybox 1.0pre8, mini_httpd 1.19, new dhcpd and dhcp-relay (relaying now works), kernel PCMCIA, and dropbear (SSH2 server) 0.41."
INSERT (Inside Security Rescue Toolkit)INSERT has released v1.2.4 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: The cdrecord, chkrootkit, clamav, e2fsprogs, jfstools, mdadm, mkisofs,and xfsprogs packages were updated, and the dvd+rw-tools package was added. The clamav virus database was also updated. catchFirebird was replaced by huntFirefox, and linuxrc and the autoconfiguration script were updated. The missing man pages for reiserfsprogs was included, and a few dead links were removed. Auto-ejecting of the CD at halt time now works."
KNOPPIXKNOPPIX has released v3.3-20040216 with minor bugfixes. "Changes: /etc/X11/Xsession was updated to fix X-Login on the installed version. pcitable was updated for nforce ethernet chipsets. A timezone fix was made. DefaultColorDepth is not set in XF86Config-4 if using the fbdev module. The empty /etc/network/interfaces broadcast line was fixed in netcardconfig."
Local Area Security LinuxLocal Area Security Linux has released v0.5 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: The kernel has been recompiled to insure NTFS r/w and monitor mode for wireless. All packages have been upgraded. There are cosmetic and usability improvements."
Rock Linux 2.0 releasedRock Linux has announced the released of ROCK Linux 2.0 (Codename: Rafaella). "Instead of .tar.bz2 the newly invented .gem package format is used - so now ROCK Linux features dependency resolution during the installation as well as additional meta-data for the end-user."
Source Mage GNU/LinuxSource Mage GNU/Linux has released v0.9.2 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: A choice of either a 2.4.25 or 2.6.3 kernel is available. The actual installed system will be almost identical except for the kernel difference and the addition of a sysfs entry to /etc/fstab. The installer itself has had many features added and some bugs fixed."
System-Down::RescueSystem-Down::Rescue has released v1.0pre6 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: This version includes a lot of bugfixes and a few new features. The kernel has been updated to 2.4.23, and most of the libraries have been updated. New setup scripts were added to improve hardware detection and to speed up the start up operations. DHCP is used for automatic network configuration."
wrt54g-linuxwrt54g-linux has released v0.4a with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: This version supports current Linksys firmwares that have the "Ping Bug" fixed."
Distribution reviews Open-Source gets serious: A new window on Linux (FCW.com)FCW.com compares several desktop distributions. Libranet 2.8.1 Flagship Edition, LindowsOS 4.5, Lycoris' Desktop/LX, Mandrake Linux 9.2 and Xandros Desktop OS Version 2-Deluxe Edition are reviewed. "Our Linux desktops were installed and tested in a network configuration that mirrors what many agencies and corporations are using today. Our Linux desktops interacted successfully with Windows systems, Macintosh machines and server-based resources, including FreeBSD, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Solaris, and IBM Corp.'s iSeries and AIX."
Upgrades make Linux so easy to use (Seattle Times)The Seattle Times looks at XandrosOS and LindowsOS. "Lindows has a slicker interface and emulates Windows so well that it repeats several of my pet Windows peeves. Xandros' user-interface has more obvious Linux legacy to it but shouldn't stymie the first-timer." (Thanks to Phillip Warner)
Fedora Core 2 Shows 2.6 Kernel's Stuff (eWeek)eWeek takes Fedora Core 2 (test) for a spin. "We also found that Fedora's implementation of the KDE Project's KDE 3.2 and the GNOME Project's GNOME 2.5.3 desktop environments were much improved compared with the versions of those interfaces that shipped with Fedora Core 1."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol Development The BitTorrent File Copying ToolBitTorrent is a cross-platform peer-to-peer file distribution system. It is designed to provide better download speed if you are willing to dedicate more bandwidth to uploading.The project description on the GNU directory page says:
BitTorrent is a tool for copying files from one machine to another. FTP punishes sites for being popular. Since all uploading is done from one place, a popular site needs big iron and big bandwidth. With BitTorrent, clients automatically mirror files they download, making the publisher's burden almost nothing.
![[BitTorrent]](/images/ns/bittorrent.jpg)
The software is written in Python2 and C. BitTorrent runs on a variety of platforms, including Linux, Mac OS-X, and Windows. BitTorrent is distributed under the MIT License. The BitTorrent introduction document and the BitTorrent FAQ have more information about the project. The BitTorrent Protocol Specification explains how the system works. As with other peer-to-peer systems, BitTorrent needs to have its incoming port enabled on your local firewall. The value of such a system is mostly dependent on the availability of files, Smiler's BitTorrent site has a lengthy list of BitTorrent links. One interesting site that is using BitTorrent is bt.etree.org. "This site is provided by the etree.org community for sharing the live concert recordings of trade friendly artists. Please tell your friends and family about new bands that catch your ear, and support these artists by going to see them live and buying their CDs!" Stable version 3.4 of BitTorrent, "with lots of bug fixes and tracker bandwidth savings", was released this week. This version was not quite ready for prime-time, the download page notes: "The 3.4 release turns out to be buggy. We'll push out another release very soon, in the meantime this page has been set to point to the 3.3 release."
System Applications Audio Projects alsa-lib 1.0.3a releasedVersion 1.0.3a of alsa-lib is available on the ALSA sound driver site. The notice says: "it fixes again the dmix/dshare/dsnoop poll() problems".
Planet CCRMA ChangesThe latest changes from the Planet CCRMA audio utility packaging project include the addition of two new mirror sites, and new CDROM images containing all of the recent audio application additions.
Database Software knoda 0.6.3-test3 releasedVersion 0.6.3-test3 of Knoda, a database front end for KDE, is out. "Besides a lot of bugfixes knoda now supports local sql statements in forms and reports."
PostgreSQL 7.3.6 Update ReleasedVersion 7.3.6 of the PostgreSQL has been announced. "After several fixes were backpatched to the 7_3_STABLE branch, we have now released a 7.3.6."
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThis week the PostgreSQL Weekly News looks at the new features going into the 7.5 tree, packaging problems in 7.3.6, and the upcoming release of 7.4.2.
Mail Software New mail filtersSeveral new mail filters are available on milter.org. Milter-greylist, milter-regex, and milter-sender/0.51 have been announced.
Cooking with sendmail, Part 2 (O'Reilly)O'Reilly has published part two in a book excerpt series from the sendmail Cookbook. "This week, we offer two more configuration recipes from the book: the first on configuring sendmail to offer STARTTLS service, and the second on limiting the SMTP command set."
Networking Tools Connecting Your Network to the IPv6 Internet with Linux (O'ReillyNet)Ibrahim Haddad discusses IPv6 and Linux on O'Reilly. "IPv6 is coming. In fact, you can encourage its adoption by using it right now. Ibrahim Haddad demonstrates how to connect your local network to the IPv6 Internet by configuring Freenet6's TSP on a Linux router."
Telecom siproxd-0.5.4 released (SourceForge)Version 0.5.4 of Siproxd is available. "Siproxd is a proxy/masquerading daemon for the SIP protocol. It allows SIP clients (like kphone, linphone) to work behind an IP masquerading firewall or router. This release includes bugfixes in the area of proxy authorization, registration and SUBSCRIBE handling. Also minor documentation and FAQ updates have been made."
Web Site Development Animal Shelter Manager 1.32 released (SourceForge)Version 1.32 of Animal Shelter Manager has been announced. "The installers have been rewritten to work better in a *nix environment (and under Kaffe/GIJ). Many new features added, including better embedded diary support, membership expiry, declawed flag and new shortcut bar on find animal screen."
eGroupWare 1.0 RC4 released (SourceForge)Version 1.0 RC4 of eGroupWare, a web-based groupware suite, is available. "eGroupWare 1.0 RC4 released with a lot of bugfixes. When you update from RC3 you must make a database update."
UnCommon Web 0.2.0 releasedVersion 0.2.0 of UnCommon Web, a lisp-based web application framework, is out. "This version adds a protocol for defining how the phases of the request-response loop work, initial support for i18n, session expiration/transactions, and a much more capable and faster CPS transformer. The component library features a new tabbed pane, and improved inspector and range views. Lisp expressions in TAL attributes are supported, and TAL files are now XML."
ZopeMag Weekly NewsThe February 27 - March 3, 2004 edition of ZopeMag Weekly News is out with articles on Zope and related topics.
Miscellaneous TightVNC 1.3dev4 released (SourceForge)Version 1.3dev4 of TightVNC, a free virtual network console package, is available. "Version 1.3dev4 is a development version introducing support for RFB 3.7 protocol with or without TightVNC protocol extensions. Also, it has a number of bugfixes and minor feature enhancements."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Timemachine 0.2.4 releasedVersion 0.2.4 of Timemachine, A JACK application that lets you save audio that was recently played, is out with several new features.
Data Visualization JGraphT 0.5.2 released (SourceForge)Version 0.5.2 of JGraphT has been announced. "The new version delivers a cumulative update of new developments, bug fixes, and improvements. JGraphT is a free Java class library that provides mathematical graph-theory objects and algorithms."
Desktop Environments KDE 3.2.1 is Released (KDE.News)The KDE project has announced the release of KDE 3.2.1. This is a maintenance release with lots of bug fixes.
GNOME 2.6-Beta1 Released! (GnomeDesktop)The beta 1 release of GNOME 2.6 has been announced. Many of the underlying GNOME components have evolved, see the change log for details.GnomeDesktop.org also links to a fairly in-depth review of GNOME 2.6.
GNOME Platform Bindings 2.5.6 (Beta 1) (GnomeDesktop)Version 2.5.6 Beta 1 of the GNOME Platform Bindings are out. "Please note that the GNOME Platform Bindings are now in API freeze, so only very important API changes will be allowed before the fully-frozen GNOME Platform Bindings 2.6.0 release, 2 weeks after GNOME 2.6.0."
This Week's GNOME SummaryThis week's GNOME summary has news about Robert Love's presentation at FOSDEM, a preview of GIMP 2.0, Evolution UI updates, a look at CVSGnome, and more.
KDE-CVS-Digest (KDE.News)The KDE-CVS-Digest for March 5, 2004 is online. Here's the content summary: "Ruby bindings now have DCOP support. Reaktivate, a konqueror module for embedding ActiveX controls, is improved. RealRekord, an application to record Realplayer streams, is imported. Kconfedit adds a property editor."
Quickies: Google Search Bar, Icons, KolourPaint and more (KDE.News)KDE.News has a Quickies article that lists a bunch of new software including the Google Search Bar, a new icon guide, KolourPaint, and Digikam. Also, the KDE developer websites are being redesigned.
Qt Quickies: Qt 3.3.1, Qt Developer Conference, QicsTable, Independent Qt Tutorial (KDE.News)KDE.News reports on a bunch of activity in the Qt world. "Trolltech has released Qt 3.3.1 with many bugfixes. A Qt Developer Conference for Northeast USA has been announced to be held in Boston on May 10th with Trolltech in attendance."
Financial Applications SQL-Ledger Version 2.2.5Version 2.2.5 of SQL-Ledger, a web-based accounting system, is out. New features include a new AR/AP aging summary report, and an updated Estonian translation.
Graphics Making Screen-Capture Movies (O'Reilly)Robert Bernier shows how to make a movie from an X window system display on O'Reilly. " Ideally, we can make a movie with tools that don't take long to learn and use. The technique demonstrated in this article shows how to capture screen shots in rapid succession. These screen shots are then converted into a single file that can be read by nothing more complicated than a browser."
GUI Packages GTK+-2.3.6 Released (GnomeDesktop)GTK+ 2.3.6 is out. "Version 2.3.6 of the GTK+ widget toolkit and associated libraries (GLib, Pango) is now available. This is likely to be the last release before 2.4.0 is released."
Developers: Qt Signal-Safety (KDE.News)Justin Karneges mentions a new article that he wrote on Qt signal handling. "After many years of writing Qt code, most of which has been non-GUI-based, I've gained a great deal of experience with signals and slots. One tricky issue about signals is that they are generally emitted when the QObject is not in a safe state to be deleted. This can often bite the user of such an object unexpectedly, especially when performing resets or invoking QMessageBox. The simple solution is to write all QObject classes in such a way that they are deletable as the result of any signal they emit."
New FLTK softwareNew software for FLTK includes version 2.1 of SPTK, the Simply Powerful ToolKit, and version 0.44 of vtkFLTK, "a small C++ class library easing development of FLTK event-driven interfaces for use with VTK."
Imaging Applications GIMP 2.0pre4 Released (GnomeDesktop)Version 2.0pre4 of the Gimp has been announced. "More than 40 bugs have been fixed since the last pre-release!"
Music Applications BEAST/BSE 0.6.1 releasedVersion 0.6.1 of BEAST/BSE, the BEdevilled Audio SysTem and the Bedevilled Sound Engine, is out. "This new development series of BEAST comes with a lot of the internals redone, many new GUI features and a sound generation back-end separated from all GUI activities."
ClockLoop announcedClockloop is a new primitive GPL'd command line loop player for audio data with MIDI control.
galan 0.3.0 beta 5 releasedVersion 0.3.0 beta 5 of galan, a modular synthesizer, is out. "One of the new features include cloning. you can now select a bunch of components and clone them. (This will be changed to a full blown copy/paste mechanism soon) And the polyphony option will be added soon."
Office Suites OpenOffice.org 1.1.1rc is availableFor those of you who love testing early releases, version 1.1.1rc of OpenOffice.org is out. "This build is a release candidate and so far in English only; it is meant for all contributors to test it and find (and file) issues. It is not intended for the casual user wanting to update his or her version of OpenOffice.org."
Science GenChemLab 1.0 releasedVersion 1.0 of GenChemLab is out. "GenChemLab is an OpenGL-based application intended to simulate several common general chemistry exercises. It is meant to be used to help students prepare for actual lab experience. It could also be used in cases where laboratory facilites are not accessible, for instance in K-12 schools or home schooling. At present, supported experiments include titration, calorimetry, freezing point depression, vapor pressure, and spectrophotometry."
Web Browsers Epiphany 1.1.12Epiphany version 1.1.12 has been announced. This version features several bug features and improved translations.
Mozilla Backup 1.3a Released (MozillaZine)Version 1.3a of Mozilla Backup, a utility for backing up browser profiles, has been announced. Apparently, work is underway for a Linux version.
Mozilla Ready to Navigate to Internationalised Domain Names (MozillaZine)MozillaZine reports on the addition of support for internationalised domain names to Mozilla. "A week ago, the German registry for .de names started accepting applications for internationalised domain names (IDNs), which can feature characters such as umlauted letters. Germany's DENIC follows in the footsteps of registries such as the Japan Registry Service, which has been operating IDNs since last July."
Mozilla Firefox Adds Support for Importing Settings from Other Browsers (MozillaZine)The Mozilla Firefox browser now has the ability to migrate profiles from other browsers. "Similarly on Linux we can only import from Seamonkey/Netscape 4/Opera... eventually we will also import from Konqueror, Galeon, Epiphany."
Word Processors AbiWord v2.0.4 Released (GnomeDesktop)Version 2.0.4 of the AbiWord word processor has been announced. "This is a mostly a bugfix release, and fixes some important issues reported by our users."
AbiWord v2.0.5 Released (GnomeDesktop)AbiWord 2.0.6 was also released this week. "This is a 100% bugfix release, which fixes some issues recently discovered by our developers and users. Furthermore, the packaging issues that were plaguing the 2.0.4 release have been resolved."
AbiWord Weekly NewsIssue #180 of the AbiWord Weekly News is out. "AbiWord 2.0.3 released and also successfully ported to Irix, pre- built binaries for Mandrake users now available, lots of users assisting and considering development, Martin begins work on Table of Contents, and now you can meet our own Tomas Frydrych at the LinuxUser and Developer Expo in the UK!"
Miscellaneous BloGTK 0.95 Is Out! (GnomeDesktop)Version 0.95 of BloGTK, a web log client, is out. "This version adds substantial new posting options including extended entries, excerpts, and better support for MovableType posting options. The post retrieval system has been written to be more usable, and several other bug and UI fixes have been included."
New DOSEMU releasesTwo new versions of DOSEMU, the DOS emulator, are out. Stable version 1.2.1 and development version 1.3.0 were released, along with the dosemu-freedos beta9 rc4 operating system. Change information is in the source code.
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe March 2-9, 2004 edition of the Caml Weekly News is available with the latest Caml language articles.
Java GCJ adds java.util.regex supportThe Gnu Compiler for Java (GCJ) now supports java.util.regex. "Thanks to Wes Biggs and the other GNU Regexp authors, Mark Wielaard (for merging into Classpath) and Anthony Green (for merging into libgcj), we now have support for java.util.regex. This arrives a little too late for gcc 3.4, but it will appear in the next release."
STAF V2.6.0 and STAX V1.5.1 are now available (SourceForge)Version 2.6.0 of STAF, the Software Testing Automation Framework, and version 1.5.1 of STAX have been announced. "One of the features added to STAF 2.6.0, and the primary reason for providing new versions of most of the STAF Java services, is to provide diagnostics data to help current STAF 2.x customers prepare for migrating to STAF 3.0, the next major release of STAF."STAF is described as such: "The Software Testing Automation Framework (STAF) is a framework designed to improve the level of reuse and automation in test cases and test environments. The goal of STAF is to provide a complete end-to-end automation solution for testers."
Design cross-platform Java UIs with native performance (IBM developerWorks)Vladimir Silva develops cross-platform GUI code on IBM's developerWorks. "Can you write Java code that compiles across several platforms but still performs as fast as native code? This is a problem that has vexed Java developers, particularly when it comes to applications with complex UIs. In this article, developer Vladimir Silva proposes an interesting solution to this problem. You'll learn how to use JNI to access SLIK, a cross-platform C API that offers native performance on both Windows and UNIX."
JSP Cooking with Java Servlets & JSP, Part 2 (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly has published part two of their excerpt from the Java Servlet & JSP Cookbook. "In this second and final batch of recipes excerpted from Java Servlet & JSP Cookbook, author Bruce Perry shows you how to access an EJB from a servlet on WebLogic, and how to connect to Amazon Web Services (AWS) with a servlet or JSP."
Another Java Servlet Filter Most Web Applications Should Have (O'Reilly)Jayson Falkner explores client-side caching on O'Reilly. "In this article, we will code a filter that can modify HTTP response headers with the intention of using it to modify the client's web browser's cache. Client-side caching isn't as obvious as server-side caching, but it can be incredibly helpful, and it's near-trivial to implement."
Perl This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)The March 1-7, 2004 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is available. " This week was one of those weeks where the bug reports outnumbered the bug fixes. Hopefully in the future the perl 5 porters will be able to keep perl 5 on the right track, as they continue to do, week after week."
This week on Perl 6 (O'Reilly)The February 29, 2004 edition of This week on Perl 6 is available. "As Leapday had been chosen as the release date for Parrot 0.1.0, the week was mostly spent getting things ready for release. A case in point was the PLATFORMS file which lists those platforms on which Parrot is known to compile and run, which (at the beginning of the week) was short several platforms and generally out of date. So everyone manned the pumps and sent in reports of success and failure."
Source code for searchable CPAN database (use Perl)The PERL archive search code is now available. "As part of an update of our site for searching CPAN at http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/htdocs/cpan-search.html, I've repackaged things so that it should be installable on other machines. The (alpha) source code is available from the CPAN-Search-Lite project on SourceForge."
PHP PHP Weekly Summary for March 9, 2004The PHP Weekly Summary for March 9, 2004 is out. Topics include: PHP 5 RC 1 (again :) and 4.3.5, Adding Debug functions to PHP 4, New Perl extension in PECL.
Using Smarty Templates With PEAR HTML_QuickFormKeith Edmunds has written a tutorial called Using Smarty Templates With PEAR HTML_QuickForm. "This page is a simple introduction to using Smarty templates with the PEAR HTML_QuickForm classes. It is by no means exhaustive; in fact, it covers a very small fraction of the total functionality of Smarty templates. It is also not definitive: that role is taken by the source code itself, which is of course always right. However, for the newcomer to Smarty templates, the following should be a useful foundation to build upon."
Ruby Ruby-GNOME2 0.9.0 released! (GnomeDesktop)Version 0.9.0 of Ruby-GNOME2, a set of Ruby language bindings for the GNOME 2.x development environment, has been announced. "This release features a binding for the ATK library, support for custom Libglade widgets, auto-conversion to (and from) Ruby types for Libgda, a better support for Ruby 1.8.1, a GStreamer tutorial, and many more enhancements in other libraries."
Tcl/Tk Tcl/Tk 8.4.6 released (SourceForge)Version 8.4.6 of Tcl/Tk has been announced. Change information is in the source code.
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!The March 9, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is out with lots of new Tcl/Tk article links.
XML From Wiki to XML, through SGML (O'Reilly)Rick Jelliffe shows how to convert Wiki data into XML on O'Reilly. "Wikis are nice for typing. XML is nice for processing. SGML is a standard compiler compiler language for specifying conversions from one to the other."
When to use elements versus attributes (IBM developerWorks)Uche Ogbuji explains when to use XML elements and when to use attributes on IBM's developerWorks. "The oldest question asked by adopters of XML is when to use elements and when to use attributes in XML design. As with most design issues, this question rarely has absolute answers, but developers have also experienced a lack of very clear guidelines to help them make this decision. In this article, Uche Ogbuji offers a set of guiding principles for what to put in elements and what to put in attributes."
Test Suites LSB-VSX2.0 Beta 2 Release AvailableThe beta 2 release of the Linux Standards Base VSX test suite has been announced. "The key changes over the first beta are introduction of an alternate test strategy for handling the large NGROUPS_MAX value returned by 2.6 kernels."
Version Control Comments on OSS/FS Software Configuration Management (SCM) SystemsDavid A. Wheeler has sent us a pointer to an article he wrote on version control systems. "With the release of Subversion 1.0, lots of people are discussing the pros and cons of various software configuration management (SCM) / version control systems available as open source software / Free Software (OSS/FS). Indeed, the problem is now an embarassment of reasonable choices: there are several OSS/FS SCM systems available today. Here's some information about SCM systems that I've learned that you may find helpful; I'll discuss three popular choices (CVS, Subversion, and GNU arch), the differences between centralized and decentralized SCM, using arch to support centralized development, and a few links to other reviews."
Distributed Version Control with svk (O'Reilly)Chia-liang Kao explains the use of svk, a version control tool. "I started to use Subversion one year ago and liked the elegant file-system design a lot. Soon it became impossible for me to go back to CVS. This means that I felt uncomfortable whenever I was working on projects using CVS, and I wanted to see a tool to keep my Subversion repository in sync with a CVS repository."
Miscellaneous Bfr 1.6 beta releasedVersion 1.6 of bfr, a Pipe Buffer, is out. The description of bfr says: "This speeds up certain procedures, such as creating a tar file, gzipping it, and putting it through a program such as "netcat". It boosts performance by allowing a certain level of detachment between the two... allowing tar and (especially) gzip to do its work at the same time the network is doing its work, so you're not sending one packet and THEN seeing gzip kick in to create the next."
Bugzilla 2.17.7 and 2.16.5 Released (MozillaZine)Two new versions of the Bugzilla bug-tracking system have been released. "The Bugzilla team released yesterday two new versions: the 2.17.7 developer snapshot, based on the CVS trunk, and the 2.16.5 stable version, based on the stable branch. Those releases cover 4 months of development since the previous versions and are available for download from the Bugzilla website. "Bugzilla also released a new status update, which contains details about the releases and the upcoming features."
MonoDevelop 0.1 Released (GnomeDesktop)Version 0.1 of MonoDevelop, a project to port SharpDevelop to Gtk#, has been announced.
Page editor: Forrest Cook Linux in the news Recommended Reading Spam's tenth anniversary is today (Netcraft)Netcraft looks at ten years of spam. "Ten years ago today, spam as we know it was born. On 5 March 1994, a message was posted to some Usenet newsgroups by a law firm called Canter and Siegel, advertising their services for the U.S. Green Card lottery. It sounds mild enough today, but at the time that move and its follow-ups provoked increasing outrage across the Net. Many were appalled that "netiquette" - the unspoken rules that hitherto had maintained order in cyberspace - had been breached, sensing perhaps that things would never be the same again."
cat /dev/DiBona/brain: ASK Me No Questions, I'll Tell You No Lies (Linux Journal)Chris DiBona begins a Linux Journal column series with a discussion of why he went over to challenge/response spam filtering. "Initially, I was taken aback by the finality of such a system, but over the past few months, I determined that Kirk is right--I simply don't have the time to mess around anymore. If I know you, don't worry, your e-mail goes through; if I don't, ASK requires one step that you need to take only once. I don't think this is a lot to ask of people who e-mail me out of the blue."
The Developer's Dilemma (TheFeature)TheFeature is running an article that looks into cell phone programming issues. "With any luck, Nokia's new ports of scripting languages, like Python, for cell phones will engage a new generation of fledgling programmers. It'll have to be somewhere other than the United States, of course, unless Verizon really is brought down by the AT&T/Cingular merger."
The SCO Problem The Memo is Legit (Groklaw)Groklaw has a nice summary of the veracity of the SCO memo posted by Eric Raymond, SCO's spin on the whole thing, and the interesting metadata found in the DaimlerChrysler complaint. "If you want your eyes to bug out, take a look at what Microsoft's loathesome metadata has revealed -- up until February, SCO was planning a DMCA action against the Bank of America, and they planned to ask the judge to impound all Linux software in the BofA's possession during the trial."
CA blasts SCO, disputes Linux license claim (ComputerWorld)According to this ComputerWorld article, some of the companies named by SCO as having bought "Linux licenses" see things differently. "SCO Chief Financial Officer Bob Bench on Wednesday confirmed that Computer Associates was one of four publicly named companies to sign up for SCO's Intellectual Property (IP) License for Linux -- a US$699 license that SCO says that Linux users must purchase in order to avoid violating SCO's copyrights. On Thursday, however, a CA executive said that his company had purchased no such license, but had instead acquired a large number of licenses for SCO's UnixWare operating system as part of a US$40 million breach of contract lawsuit settlement in August 2003 with SCO investor The Canopy Group Inc."
Microsoft And SCO Group: What's So Secret? (TechWeb)TechWeb calls on Microsoft to explain its dealings with SCO. "The mystery behind Microsoft's arrangement with SCO could be cleared up, and maybe some of the speculation put to rest, if Microsoft would disclose more details about how it plans to use SCO's technology. But it won't. I've asked for that information four times in the past 12 months, but Microsoft will only discuss its plans in the broadest terms, and even then unconvincingly."
Perens: SCO's Tapestry of LiesBruce Perens has posted a new editorial on the SCO case. "SCO has run its campaign against Linux for over a year now, kiting their stock from fifty cents to over twenty dollars on many statements that, it is turning out, weren't true. When a company makes unfounded assertions for a month or two, it can be dismissed as a mistake or wishful thinking. When the distortions go on for a full year, it becomes difficult to explain their behavior as anything but a deliberate fraud meant to hurt Linux for Microsoft, their financial backer, while bringing SCO Millions in stock windfalls."
SCO March 3, 2004 First Quarter Teleconference - Transcript (Groklaw)For those of you who missed the delightful SCO earnings conference call last week - or who wish to relive the experience - Groklaw has posted a transcript of the event.
Companies Microsoft Demos Windows XP Service Pack 2 (TechWeb)Here's a sign of where things are going: this TechWeb article about a new Windows XP service pack is mostly devoted to Microsoft's response to Linux. "Microsoft is also clearly mapping out its future product strategy and road map, which is unavailable from the Linux community, [Microsoft manager Kevin Wueste] said. 'You have to go to 80,000 community Web sites to figure out what all the (Linux) architects are doing and then maybe put a strategy together,' he said. It is impractical for customers and partners to bet on such a model, said Wueste." Perhaps Mr. Wueste should read LWN instead :).
Linux Adoption From code war to Cold War (BBC)BBC News is running a strange article about the "war" between free and proprietary code. "So now would be a good time to start thinking about how we persuade governments that market in software may eventually need to be regulated, just as the market in electricity, water and food is, and that that regulation may well include a statutory duty to disclose source code and allow it to be used elsewhere." (Thanks to Paul Sladen).
The highest Internet Access Center in Europe uses KDE ! (KDE-France.org)KDE-France.org looks at the use of KDE in the French alps. "Our reporter was amazed to discover that the users of the cyberbase, most of them without any knowledge of the OS they were running, were using KDE with proficiency. The main problem for foreigners seemed to be the peculiarities of the French keyboard but there were some Qwerty keyboards available." (Found on KDE.News)
Open source gets serious (USA Today)USA Today looks at the growing acceptance of Linux and reviews five desktop-oriented distributions. "In terms of end-user training requirements, Lindows, Lycoris and Xandros present the least costly options for switching to a Linux desktop interface. Libranet and Mandrake may require more training but are still worth considering."
Legal EU tightens rules on piracy (CNN)Here is CNN's coverage of today's EU IPR directive vote. "Using fast-track procedures, the European Union assembly, meeting in Strasbourg, France, voted 330 to 151 with 39 abstentions to pass the measure. EU ministers were expected to sign off on the new rules against counterfeiting by the end of the week."
Interviews Five years of bringing Linux to the Feds first-hand (NewsForge)NewsForge talks with Tim Bogart, of the Northern Virginia Linux Users Group (NoVaLUG), about the LUG's participation in FOSE, the Federal Office Systems Exposition. " How did the first FOSE appearance come about? Did you ask FOSE or did FOSE ask you? Tim: Actually I annoyed them until they agreed to open a dialog. I pestered them for about three months. Then Red Hat had their IPO ... more phone calls ... then VA Linux ... then I got to talk to them. It was nothing but bulldog tenacity that got us in there. "
Two interviews at Presence-PCIndependent French magazine Presence-PC has translated two recent interviews into English. This interview with Richard Stallman looks at the GNU project and the state of the Hurd. Then Denis Oliver Kropp talks about DirectFB. "Denis Oliver Kropp: I'm a 22 year old developer from Berlin and the main developer of DirectFB. My company "convergence GmbH" is developing an MHP (Multimedia Home Platform) implementation on top of a GNU/Linux/DirectFB system."
The People Behind KDE: Zack Rusin (KDE.News)KDE.News interviews Zack Rusin in its People Behind KDE series. "The guy I'm interviewing this week is remembered among his friends for trying to enforce a passionate relationship on a Ximian person, sleeps with his laptop and is one of KDE's most outgoing developers. The man who cut his famous dreadlocks and emerged with a clean crew cut, it's Zack Rusin!"
Interview with Quanta: Eric Laffoon (TechDigest.org)TechDigest.org talks with Eric Laffoon, Quanta/kdewebdev project leader. "The one thing I would like to say is that I have become a very strong supporter of open source software. I very much want to empower people around the world to have a better life and I believe there is a battle in the world around us over control of power and money. There always is, only now it's focusing on the most substantial invention since the printing press, the internet. Five hundred years ago our world changed with the ability to easily share knowledge. I believe that amazing developments or oppressive freedom turn on what happens in the next 5-10 years on the internet and I take it seriously." (Found at KDE.News)
Interview with Doug Turner and Chris Hofmann (New Mobile Computing)New Mobile Computing has an interview with Doug Turner and Chris Hofmann of the Minimo project. "Minimo, is really two parts -- it is an effort which aims at providing a small embeddable browser for small devices. We think we have done a good job at this. The second aim is to provide a best-of-bred application for small devices. We have just started to work on the second aim. You should expect to see some very good UI for Minimo in the next few months."
Reviews Improved memory management in the 2.6 kernel (developerWorks)developerWorks examines some of the improvements in the 2.6 kernel. "The 2.6 Linux kernel employs a number of techniques to improve the use of large amounts of memory, making Linux more enterprise-ready than ever before. This article outlines a few of the more important changes, including reverse mapping, the use of larger memory pages, storage of page-table entries in high memory, and greater stability of the memory manager."
Networking improvements in the 2.6 kernel (developerWorks)IBM developerWorks looks at networking improvements in the 2.6 kernel. "The new Linux 2.6 kernel offers many improvements over the 2.4 version. One area of technical advancement is in the kernel networking options. Although there are enhancements in most of the files associated with the networking options, this article focuses on major feature improvements and additions that affect entire sections rather than on specific files."
Miscellaneous Inside TLDP (Linux Journal)Linux Journal looks at the evolution of the Linux Documentation Project. "Linux environments tend to change at a rather high speed, so do the docs. Sooner rather than later, submissions about new protocols and applications reach TLDP, outdating older documents. The main problem here is TLDP maintainers usually are rather soft-hearted, so partly out of melancholy, partly out of respect and sometimes partly because of the lack of volunteers for upgrading a document, they tend to archive everything."
Next-Generation File Sharing with Social Networks (O'Reilly)Robert Kaye writes about the evolution of peer to peer networks on O'Reilly. "Combining file sharing applications with social networks enables people to create a trusted network of their friends to keep out the bad guys. The definition of bad guys is up to the user to determine -- in a lot of cases, the bad guys would be the lovely folks slinging lawsuits. But these networks can easily be used for legitimate non-infringing uses, such as sharing personal information with a network of friends while keeping it out of reach of marketers and identity thieves."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Announcements Non-Commercial announcements Computer Books for IraqA charitable event will be held in Northern California with the goal of collecting computer books for Iraq. "BookCrossing.com and the Freedom Technology Center are teaming up to help jump-start Iraq's recovery with computer book donations. Linux and open-source software enthusiasts will meet at Mountain View's Freedom Technology Center all day Friday, March 26 to pack and ship badly-needed computer books to the new Linux Users Group (LUG) of Iraq."
IP Telecom Joins OSDLIP Telecom has joined the OSDL bandwagon. This company sells a Japanese-language distribution called Nature's Linux.
Commercial announcements Desktop Linux Conference Gains SponsorsThe Desktop Linux Summit has announced that Novell and other major tech companies have tripled the number of sponsors for the April 2004 conference. Some of the smaller sponsors named in this press release include Debian, KDE, and LWN.net.
Eclipse Names Founding Board of DirectorsFour new members have been selected for the Eclipse Board of Directors. "Four new members of the Eclipse Board of Directors, representing the organization's Open Source project community and commercial supporters, were announced today. Newly elected, Todd Williams (Genuitec, LLC), John Wiegand (Eclipse Project Lead, IBM); Rich Main (SAS), and Bjorn Freeman-Benson (University of Washington) join the board".
IBM developerWorks Live!IBM's devloperWorks has a lengthy list of free live presentations that will be held around the world in 2004. "The IBM developerWorks Live! Technical Briefings, which were a great success worldwide in 2003, have been expanded for 2004. The following five types of technical briefings, which include presentations and extensive demonstrations, will be held in cities around the world in 2004 (at no cost to you): e-business on demand, IBM Software Development Platform, Speed-start Linux applications, Speed-start Web services, Globalizing your applications."
MandrakeSoft files bankruptcy exit planMandrakeSoft has announced the filing of a plan for its exit from bankruptcy. It calls for the company to repay €4.1 million in debts over the next nine years. The plan must still be approved by the court; this should happen in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, the company's stock will resume trading on the Euronext Marché Libre on March 8.
Opera Software Completes IPOOpera Sofware has completed its IPO and is now listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPERA.
New Books "Linux Pocket Guide" Released by O'ReillyO'Reilly has published the Linux Pocket Guide by Daniel Barrett.
"Squid: The Definitive Guide" Released by O'ReillyO'Reilly has published Squid: The Definitive Guide by Duane Wessels.
"WebLogic: The Definitive Guide" Released by O'ReillyThe book WebLogic: The Definitive Guide by Jon Mountjoy and Avinash Chugh is available from O'Reilly.
Resources GIMP 2.0 User Manual -- developer snapshot (GnomeDesktop)A developer snapshot of the GIMP 2.0 user manual is available. "This developer snapshot is basically for soliciting new contributors, who will assist us in writing and correcting errors."
LDP Weekly NewsThe March 3, 2004 edition of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News has been published. Take a look for documents on configuring a UPS, controlling a telescope, building an ultimate Linux box, and more.
LDP Weekly NewsThe Linux Documentation Project Weekly News for March 10, 2004 is available with the latest new documentation. Included is a new SquashFS HOWTO, a Beowulf Cluster HOWTO, a Partition HOWTO, and more.
LPI Newsletter February 2004The February, 2004 edition of the Linux Professional Institute's LPI Newsletter is out.
Japanese Mozilla Documentation and Help Resources (MozillaZine)MozillaZine mentions the availability of some Japanese Mozilla documents. "Yamaguchi wrote in to tell us about the various help resources available to Japanese-speaking Mozilla users. Read the full article for Yamaguchi's complete lowdown."
A Byte of Python - Python Book / TutorialAn online Python book and tutorial called A Byte of Python is available. "A Byte of Python is a book on programming using the Python language. It serves as a tutorial or guide to the Python language for anyone. If all you know is how to save text files, then you can learn Python using this book. If you are an expert programmer who loves C, Perl, Java or C#, you can also learn Python using this book."
Dive Into PythonThe free online Python book Dive Into Python has been expanded. The announcement on the Daily Python-URL says: "Version 4.5 of 'Dive into Python' adds more material on regular expressions, adds various examples, reorganises a number of chapters, and makes a number of corrections."
PyX presentation availableAn online presentation of PyX, a Python graphics package that is used for creating encapsulated PostScript, is available. "PyX was presented at the annual meeting of the German TeX User Group DANTE e.V. (March 2nd to 6th, Darmstadt). The presentation is available in German and English."
Contests and Awards MySQL Award NominationsMySQL AB is accepting nominations for its Partner of the Year and Application of the Year awards. Winners will be announced in April at the MySQL Users Conference & Expo 2004.
Event Reports GNU/Linux Summit was a successThe folks who put on the GNU/Linux Summit have put out a press release that details the success of the event.
Upcoming Events Linux Installfest and DemoThe Linux Users' Group of Davis will be holding a Linux installfest and a Hands-on Linux Demo on March 20, 2004 in Davis, CA.
Apache BootcampBig Nerd Ranch, Inc. will be holding an Apache Bootcamp on May 17-21, 2004. The event will take place outside of Atlanta, GA.
Penguicon 2.0Penguicon 2.0, a combination Linux expo and science fiction convention, will be held in Novi, Michigan on April 16-18, 2004.
1st European Lisp and Scheme Workshop - CFPA call for papers has gone out for the 1st European Lisp and Scheme Workshop. The event will take place on June 13, 2004 in Oslo, Norway.
ICMC 2004 submission openedSubmissions of papers, demos, and posters are open for the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) 2004. The event will be held in Miami, Florida on November 1-6, 2004.
TheServerSide Java Symposium 2004TheServerSide Java Symposium has been announced. The event will take place on May 6-8, 2004 in Las Vegas, NV. "This year TheServerSide Java Symposium features keynote and technical break out sessions from an all-star line up of enterprise Java luminaries and will provide access to J2EE specification leads and expert group members, key book authors, open source project founders as well as engineers and influencers."
ClusterWorld Conference & Expo Returns to the San Jose Convention CenterHere's a press release for the ClusterWorld Conference & Expo, coming to the San Jose Convention Center April 5 - 8, 2004.
Novell Celebrates 20 Years of BrainShare with New Linux FocusNovell has announced that this year's BrainShare conference will focus on its new Linux offerings.
Events: March 11 - May 6, 2004
Web sites IEEE Security & Privacy CFPA call for papers has gone out for the IEEE Security & Privacy site. Upcoming themes include Attacking Systems and Security and Usability.
Software announcements This week's software announcementsHere are the software announcements, courtesy of Freshmeat.net. They are available in two formats:
Miscellaneous Bug Day turns 2 (slightly belated) (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop.org looks at the history of the ongoing GNOME bug day events. "Bug day is a day we get together on IRC, find bugs, and clean bugzilla. We do all of this so that developers can get more work done by focusing on bugs that matter instead of duplicates, unconfirmable bugs, and things that they've already closed."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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