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Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
SuperCharging Innovation - Why The State Should Release Its Software As Open Source (Groklaw)
Groklaw has posted a paper by Australian attorney Brendan Scott on the benefits of governments releasing their code under open-source licenses. "He points out that when governments do not release their software as open source, it's the taxpayers who lose value. And a desire to commercialize software is not a reason not to release as open source, he says, because there is the option of dual licensing or using a services model".
ESR does Samizdat
For those of you who haven't had enough of this sort of thing, Eric Raymond has posted his critique of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute's attack on Linux. "I began reading the excerpts skeptical of the widespread conspiracy theory that this book is a paid hatchet job commissioned by Microsoft. Now I find this theory much more credible. I can't imagine how anyone would want their names on a disgrace like this unless they were getting paid extremely well for undergoing the humiliation."
Man AdTI Hired to Compare Minix/Linux Found No Copied Code (Groklaw)
Groklaw looks at some email correspondence by Andrew Tanenbaum on whether early versions of Linux had any Minix code within. "Apparently, Ken was expecting me to find gobs of copied source code. He spent most of the conversation trying to convince me that I must have made a mistake, since it was clearly impossible for one person to write an OS and 'code theft' had to have occured. So, I guess what I want to say is, pay no attention to this man. . ."
Companies
HP expands open-source support (News.com)
News.com covers some open source news from HP. "The computing giant will certify and support MySQL, the leading open-source database program, and JBoss, a popular Java-based application server, on HP's industry standard servers."
Macromedia adds SOAP to Linux Flash Player (News.com)
Macromedia has added SOAP capabilities to the Linux Flash Player, according to this article on news.com. "The company said the latest Flash Player, released Thursday, offers increased performance and security. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), a Web services protocol that allows independent applications to exchange messages in real time, helps companies integrate their applications and improve overall efficiency."
Sun warms to open source for Solaris (News.com)
News.com covers Jonathan Schwartz's talk in Shanghai, where he said Sun would "open source" Solaris. "A problem that Schwartz wants to avoid is having Solaris splintered into different distributions like Linux, which he said creates application incompatibilities. Going the way of Linux-type licensing, he suggested, creates open source but not open standards."
Symantec may go with Linux (MercuryNews.com)
Symantec is considering a corporate switch to Linux, according to the San Jose Mercury News. "Somewhere, Bill Gates is frowning. Symantec Chief Executive John Thompson said today his company may use Linux software to run its desktop computers instead of Microsoft's Windows. Bloomberg News says Cupertino's Symantec, the largest maker of consumer anti-virus software, is considering whether to switch some or all employees to Linux, a free operating system developed by programmers around the world, Thompson said at a conference in New York."
Linux Adoption
Novell Australia leads global Linux migration (ComputerWorld)
ComputerWorld Australia covers Linux adoption at Novell Australia. "The migration, which will see staff across the globe using SuSE Linux systems running OpenOffice, is partly motivated by broader commercial concerns. Novell completed its $US210 million acquisition of SuSE in January this year, and the company wants to use itself as a showcase for both SuSE and Ximian, which it also purchased last year."
Oracle to be Linux shop by end of year (silicon.com)
Silicon.com reports that Oracle plans to switch its in-house programming staff to Linux by the end of 2004. "In October, the company finished the Linux transition for the 5,000 programmers of its Oracle Applications software. Now the transformation has begun for those who work on the database product, said Wim Coekaerts, director of Linux engineering, in an interview at the CeBit trade show in New York."
IBM's Linux Push (IT-Director)
IT-Director takes a look at IBM's role in Linux adoption. "According to Adam Jollins, who is part of IBM's Linux Marketing Strategy team, the adoption of Linux is happening most quickly in Banking, Government and Retail, followed by sectors that use scientific or engineering applications (automotive, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, education etc.) This is unusual in some respects as the Banking industry is normally and early adopter of technology whereas Government is normally a late adopter, but these two sectors appear to be driving Linux adoption along with Retail."
Interviews
Interview: Daniel Glazman, Nvu Developer (MozillaNews)
MozillaNews has an interview with Daniel Glazman, author of the Nvu HTML editor. "I'd like Nvu to become the companion standalone editor to Firefox and Thunderbird. The third and last element missing from the Mozilla Application Suite. I want it to become a good wysiwyg editor that we won't be afraid to compare to the big players on the market. I want Nvu to be a disruptive innovation* in the HTML editors' market, reaching success from the low-end market share, the one that the big players don't want to or can't address. And don't forget Nvu is cross-platform..."
Paul Graham on Hacking (O'ReillyNet)
O'ReillyNet interviews Paul Graham, hacker, painter, essayist and author of Hackers & Painters. "ORN: When you first face a new project, how do you approach it? PG: I try to build big programs out of small ones. So, when I approach a new project, I look for the subset of the problem that I can solve with the smallest program. Then I start adding things."
Ben Goodger from the Mozilla Foundation (Neowin.net)
Neowin.net interviews Firefox developer Ben Goodger. "Over the last couple of months, Neowin has tracked the development of perhaps one of the most promising open source projects for a long time : Mozilla Firefox, or Firefox. We've managed to have a talk to Ben Goodger, chief developer of Firefox, about whats new in the upcoming release, and much much more."
Red Hat CEO Szulik on business, SCO, and other topics (IT Manager's Journal)
IT Manager's Journal interviews Red Hat CEO Matt Szulik. "The challenge is to be a good steward for the open source community. Most people understand Red Hat is there to make money. That said, the company contributes around 21 percent of its R&D back into the public domain to do public license. To contribute the kind of public functionality that Red Hat puts back into the public domain, the Fedora, which cannibalized $9 million of revenue stream that they had to make up -- Red Hat walks the walk and talks the talk."
Resources
Arch for CVS Users (Linux Journal)
The Linux Journal provides a whirlwind introduction to arch for people already familiar with version control. "Arch is, at its heart, a distributed system. There is no special server process, and each developer's machine can serve as an arch repository. The result is that advanced use of arch can require more work on the client side."
Documenting Projects with Apache Forrest (O'ReillyNet)
Kyle Downey looks at the use of Apache Forrest for working with software documentation. "Apache Forrest helps you develop the documentation to accompany your application, automatically providing a number of neat features such as menus, links, cross-references, and breadcrumb navigation. Kyle Downey provides an introduction."
New Linux Audio Musings
Dave Phillips has updated his Linux audio musings column this month. Also, an updated version of the New Additions list of Linux audio applications is available. "As you can tell from this month's New Additions the Linux audio software base continues to grow and improve. I'm always heartened by the list of updated software, it indicates the dedication many authors have towards their work, and of course we users get to enjoy the fruits of an ever-improving software collection. There's a lot of neat stuff in the new listings for this month, so I suggest you stop reading this column and start checking out that software..."
The Python Enterprise Application Kit (developerWorks)
IBM developerWorks introduces PEAK, the Python Enterprise Application Kit. "PEAK is a Python framework for rapidly developing and reusing application components. While Python itself is already a very high-level language, PEAK provides even higher abstractions, largely through the clever use of metaclasses and other advanced Python techniques. In many ways, PEAK does for Python what J2EE does for the Java language. Part of the formalization in PEAK comes in the explicit specification of protocols, specifically in the separately available package, PyProtocols."
Building a Linux Media PC (O'Reilly)
John Littler explains how to turn a Linux box into an entertainment system on O'Reilly. "In this article I'm going to look at a particular sort of setup of a Linux home theatre PC — one where the primary consideration is space. Suppose you have a small studio apartment, or a bedroom or study where you want to work on your computer, watch movies and TV, and play music and maybe games as well."
Reviews
Linux gets 802.11g Intel Centrino driver (ZDNet)
ZDNet UK looks at a pre-beta version of Intel's Linux-based 802.11g driver for its Centrino platform. ""The pre-beta drivers are intended to provide the Linux open-source developer community an opportunity to evaluate the drivers in their own environment, and provide Intel with feedback," said [an Intel] spokesman." (Thanks to James Pearson-Kirk)
The Little Engine That Could (PBS)
Robert X. Cringely proclaims the virtues of Linux as found in the Linksys WRT54G router. "...the WRT54G with Sveasoft firmware is all you need to become your cul de sac's wireless ISP. Going further, if a bunch of your friends in town had similarly configured WRT54Gs, they could seamlessly work together and put out of business your local telephone company. That's what I mean by a disruptive technology."
ipfilter on GNU/Linux: Is It Finally Here? (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal takes a look at the latest release of ipfilter. "For the better part of a decade, users of FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris and IRIX have used Darren Reed's ipfilter software to firewall networks and protect individual systems from network-based attacks. Now, with the release of ipfilter 4.1.1, GNU/Linux is moving into the fold as a supported platform."
Project in the spotlight: JaMBW (Bioinformatics.org)
Bioinformatics.org takes a look at JaMBW, a Java-based Molecular Biologist's Workbench. "The software and documentation are made available to molecular biologists to give free access to the most common bioinformatic operations, according to the project pages. ``The peculiar aspect of JaMBW, however, is to take advantage of the foremost developments in computer science in order to deliver information in a way simple to use. The latter includes, therefore, point-and-click, drag-and-drop, plug-and-play.''"
Subversion: The new-generation CVS (DevChannel)
OSDN DevChannel looks at Subversion. "Subversion is tightly integrated with the Apache Web server, which allows it to provide a robust back end for repositories in areas such as authentication, path-based authorization, and browsing, although support is provided by an external module. This configuration is very Apache-specific, so we will not address any details here. As an alternative, Subversion offers a lightweight solution named svnserve which uses a proprietary protocol running over TCP. For our simple needs svnserve will do."
Miscellaneous
EFF Starts Patent-Busting Project (Groklaw)
Groklaw reports on the EFF's Patent-Busting Project. ""We are concerned about the growing number of illegitimate software and Internet patents," said Glenn Parker, trustee of The Parker Family Foundation. "By investing in EFF, we know that we will be helping to protect the rights of individuals, nonprofits and others that have legitimate noncommercial uses of software and Internet technology.""
Play Donkey Kong, go to jail? (NewsForge)
NewsForge questions the legality of LiveCD distributions for playing arcade games. "The software for most of these arcade games is not free. If you do not have a legal license for a game you are playing under MAME, you are infringing on someone's copyright."
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