Linux in the news

The Lack of a Small Unified Database (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal wants a single-file SQL format database. "Currently, free software users are missing a standard single-file SQL format, which may be a tar or ZIP archive, that contains everything needed by a generic frontend to let people work: schemas, data, indexes, forms structures and so on. Such databases could be copied immediately, uploaded to a Web server or sent by e-mail, the same as any other file. Users would have the certainty that the receiver immediately could access all the data, queries and forms, even if they might look different. Above all, it would be great if such a file format became an OASIS standard, because it would make it much easier to accept in corporate or government scenarios."

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Closing the legal briefcase on Mambo vs. Furthermore copyright dispute (NewsForge)

Here's a NewsForge article containing a fair amount of research into the allegations of code theft by the Mambo project. "The Connolly/Mambo situation boils down to one man not doing enough research into the licensing details of the GNU General Public License, then taking his case to public message forums instead of private communication with the project leadership and eventually resorting to threatening uninvolved people with litigation.... No code was stolen or taken; rather two separate modifications were made to the same GPL code to accomplish the same very basic and common task in two very different ways."

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SPF Not Poisonous to Phish (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet looks into the lack of adoption of SPF by banks, which, one would think, would welcome some protection against phishing attacks. "Wrong, says AOL's Hutzler. SPF only checks the hidden part of an email message known as the 'Return-Path' (or '821 header'). According to Hutzler, SPF completely ignores the From address (or '822 header,') which is used by phishers to 'social engineer' or dupe naïve recipients. In other words, the wily phisher can forge the From line and still get past SPF checks--as long as his mail comes from an SPF-compliant domain listed in the Return-Path."

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Italy is open for penguin business (NewsForge)

NewsForge covers LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, Italian style. "This Expo was a good occasion to check the status of the current relationship between free and open source software and Italian public administrations of any size and scope. To sum it up, it looks promising, but it's still schizophrenic. From talk to talk, visitors noted that public administrations are required by a government directive to make documents available in non-proprietary formats, and that digital signatures can be exchanged with the central administration through Linux."

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SCO/IBM September 15th Hearing - transcript as text (Groklaw)

GrokLaw has posted a transcript from the September 15 hearing in SCO v. IBM. "Normally, with legal documents, our text versions strive to be identical to the original. Here, we are doing two versions, one for simple readability and one with all the line numbers for reference, as per the original. This is the readable version."

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Lycoris acquires Mitel SME Server spin-off (NewsForge)

NewsForge reports that Lycoris is taking over the Contribs.org SME Server project. "The SME Server platform has a chequered commercial history, and Lycoris is the third company to assume control of the project. Originally developed by Joe Morrison as a server distribution based on Red Hat Linux, e-smith Server and Gateway was commercialised in 1999 when Morrison co-founded e-smith, Inc. Mitel Networks, an IP telephony company based in Ontario, Canada, acquired e-smith in 2001, and product was rebranded "Mitel SME Server". However, Mitel subsequently discontinued community-based development of the product in November 2003, despite a mature and active community of volunteers inherited from e-smith. A volunteer team coordinated by Resource Strategies released an initial free version based on Mitel code at the beginning of 2004, but has subsequently achieved little."

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BBC's Highfield beats Jobs as top man in tech (Silicon.com)

Silicon.com names its list of Agenda Setters for 2004. "More individuals involved in open source and free software made the list than ever before. Along with Torvalds at 7, we have MySQL CEO Marten Mickos making his debut at 12, Open Source Risk Management's David Eggers at 37, Red Hat engineer Mark J Cox at 40 and free software advocate Richard Stallman at 44."

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Danish government agency opts for open source (News.com)

News.com reports on the adoption of a Linux solution for improving data exchange in the Danish Ministry of Finance. "The data exchange system uses open-source application server JBoss running on Red Hat Linux. It transmits 1.5 megabits of data per second between about 400 public institutions and the ministry, according to a report on open source from Computer Sciences Corp. Peter Henningsen, the data exchange project manager at the Ministry of Finance, said the open-source combination was chosen over BizTalk Server, Microsoft's systems integration application."

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Thanks to Linux, this beer's for you! (NewsForge)

NewsForge reports on a novel new use of Linux. "Want to send your best buddy, boss, or promising client a drink "on you" via your wireless phone? You can, if your friend lives in London. Eagle Eye Solutions, based in the United Kingdom, is launching a new service today called Buymeabeer.com using a Linux-based server platform. It's a simple concept -- so simple, one wonders why no one else has implemented the idea until now." Your editors are eagerly awaiting the adoption of this technology by some of the local Colorado micro-breweries.

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Open-Source Copyright Conflict Heats Up (eWeek)

eWeek covers a copyright dispute between Furthermore Inc. and Miro International Pty Ltd. over the open-source Mambo content management system. "Chicago-based Furthermore has claimed that some of the code used in Mambo OS was stolen from Furthermore and improperly placed into open source. Miro, of Melbourne, Australia, owns the copyright to Mambo."

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Project penguin: Novell CIO Debra Anderson talks to vnunet.com (vnunet)

Vnunet talks with Debra Anderson, Novell CIO. "Novell chief information officer (CIO) Debra Anderson was given the task of migrating all of the company's 6,000 staff from Microsoft Windows to Novell Linux on the desktop. In an exclusive interview with vnunet.com she details the project and the lessons it provided."

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Interview with gaim Maintainer Rob Flynn (LinuxQuestions.org)

LinuxQuestions talks with Rob Flynn about his role in maintaining Gaim. "LQ) What was your first introduction to Linux? What was the reason behind you using Linux and was anyone in particular responsible for turning you on to Linux?
RF) I believe it was back when I had a 386. I was probably around 12 years old. The computer was a hand-me-down and I couldn't get Windows to run very well on the machine, so, instead, I spent about a million years downloading some slackware disks and installed it. That's also when I taught myself how to program in C."

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An Interview with Tom Lord of Arch (O'ReillyNet)

Steve Mallett talks with Tom Lord about the Arch Revision Control System, on O'ReillyNet's OSDir.com. "Tom Lord: First, when I was a working student, years and years ago, some of the people I respected, and was trying to learn from, were interested in a topic they called "programming in the large": the question of how to manage programming projects involving hundreds or thousands of programmers. I became interested in that problem and revision control is a subset of that problem."

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Interview with Scribus Team (KDE.News)

KDE.News has published an interview with the Scribus developers. "We know of countless semi-professional magazines and personal publications in production with Scribus. In more recent times we had also the pleasure of helping a weekly commercial newspaper (20,000+ copies) in the USA get off the ground using Scribus."

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'Know Your Enemy': Everything you need to know about honeypots (NewsForge)

NewsForge takes some excerpts from the book Know Your Enemy: Learning About Security Threats. "Firewalls are a prevention technology; they are network or host solutions that keep attackers out. IDSs are a detection technology; their purpose is to detect and alert security professionals about unauthorized or malicious activity. Honeypots are tougher to define because they can be involved in aspects of prevention, detection, information gathering, and much more. For the purpose of this book, we will define a honeypot as follows: A honeypot is an information system resource whose value lies in unauthorized or illicit use of that resource."

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Moving from Windows to Linux by Chuck Easttom (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal reviews the book Moving from Windows to Linux by Chuck Easttom. "Using this book, Linux beginners certainly could install Linux and find their way to each of the applications described, but taking Linux to the next level will require an inquisitive person, another book or additional assistance. The text deals mainly with Red Hat 9."

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GNOME, KDE Aim at Windows (eWeek)

eWeek reviews the latest releases of both GNOME and KDE. "Some of the biggest changes in KDE 3.3 and GNOME 2.8 lie in the projects' respective e-mail and collaboration clients, Kontact and Evolution. Both applications are well-integrated into their desktop environments and cover a full range of groupware functionality, but eWEEK Labs found Evolution to be more refined and pleasant to use."

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OOo Off the Wall: Macros and Add-ons (Linux Journal)

The Linux Journal looks at OpenOffice.org add-ons. "In the current version, OpenOffice.org's Export to PDF tool is disappointing. Although it usually produces an acceptable PDF under Linux--it is more problematic under Windows--it sometimes chokes on documents with elaborately formated tables or spontaneously changes fonts. Moreover, even when it works, it cannot generate bookmarks or live links. These features are said to be coming in version 2.0. Meanwhile, Martin Brown's ExtendedPDF not only provides the missing functionality, but handles files that defeat the Export to PDF tool."

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Open Source Content Management with Plone (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet looks at Plone. "This article gives a high-level overview of what Plone is capable of, with pointers to resources to help you get started on the path to building your own Plone site. Future articles will pick up where this one leaves off, exploring topics such as defining workflows, skinning a site, and creating new content types quickly."

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UT 2004 Linux Demo Released (Games Domain)

Yahoo's Games Domain notes the release of a Linux demo for Unreal Tournament 2004. "Epic Games continues to shower the gaming community with gifts as the new Linux demo for Unreal Tournament 2004 is made available. The new demo contains all of the features that were implemented with the Windows version."

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Africans get tools to cross the digital divide (Globe & Mail)

The Globe & Mail looks at the efforts of Translate.org.za. "Last week, Mr. Bailey's group, Translate.org.za, launched versions of the software Open Office (a free program that operates much like Microsoft Office) in Zulu, Afrikaans and Northern Sotho, the predominant languages in the three main language groups in South Africa -- the first software to exist in any of those languages." (Thanks to Philip Webb)

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