Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
Mashing Up a Commons (Linux Journal)
Doc Searls muses on the Internet commons in this Linux Journal article. "Is it possible that, for all our talk about The Commons, the Net doesn't have one yet? Or at least not a complete one? That's what occurred to me last Sunday night, as Claus Dahl and I sat talking in a smoky Copenhagen bistro. The subject was public spaces. Europeans have a deep appreciation of them. Even in relatively chilly Denmark, there are plenty of outdoor cafés. Narrow streets in the older quarters join in public plazas as big as football fields. We also talked about how Americans seem to have a correspondingly elevated sense of private matters. Private enterprise, for example. Perhaps, Claus suggested, that's why the Net was commercialized first in the U.S."
Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism (Edge.org)
Edge.org is running Jaron Lanier's criticism of the "hive mind,", which includes a couple of paragraphs on free software. "These movements are at their most efficient while building hidden information plumbing layers, such as Web servers. They are hopeless when it comes to producing fine user interfaces or user experiences. If the code that ran the Wikipedia user interface were as open as the contents of the entries, it would churn itself into impenetrable muck almost immediately. The collective is good at solving problems which demand results that can be evaluated by uncontroversial performance parameters, but it is bad when taste and judgment matter."
Trade Shows and Conferences
Working Model of $100 Laptop Steals MITX Spotlight (eWeek)
eWeek attends the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange where Nicholas Negroponte brought the first working model of the $100 laptop. "This working model sported many differences from the early prototypes that were seen previously. The biggest change is that the laptop no long features a directly attached crank for powering the laptop in areas without electricity--the crank has now been moved to the power supply."
Companies
For Dell, industry standard now includes Linux (ZDNet)
ZDNet UK looks into the increasing demand for Linux servers by Dell customers. "Long hailed as the provider of choice for companies looking for PC solutions based on Intel hardware and Microsoft software, Dell says that Linux now makes up 25 percent of its enterprise market. The company also claims to have made inroads in the Linux services market and to have reached a comfort level with Linux systems where it can now solve over 90 percent of Red Hat Linux service calls without need to involve Red Hat."
Symantec Ports Storage Apps To IBM's Linux Servers (InformationWeek)
InformationWeek reports on Symantec's plans to port Veritas to Linux. "IBM said Symantec is working on a port of Veritas products for its Power servers running Linux. Symantec plans to deliver to IBM's Power on Linux platform by the forth quarter high-availability, volume and file systems management software applications, said Karl Freund, vice president of System p at IBM, Armonk, N.Y. The applications include Veritas Cluster Server, Veritas Volume Replicator, Storage Foundation, and Storage Foundation for Oracle RAC. Power servers can run Red Hat or Suse distributions of Linux, Freund said, as well as Red Flag in the Asia region."
Business
Enterprising Linux (B-EYE-Network)
B-EYE-Network takes an introductory look at making money with Linux distributions. "Open source software companies are in a strange business: they don't usually own exclusive rights to publish the open source software they sell, and many have little or nothing to do with the development of much of the software they sell. Also, by definition, anyone can download their product -- open source software -- for free. So how does a company like Red Hat win new customers when anyone, including their potential customers and competitors, can get the source code to Red Hat's flagship product, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)? And why is that an advantage, not a problem?"
Legal
Anti-DRM campaign expands, faces challenges (NewsForge)
NewsForge covers the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) Defective By Design campaign. "The Free Software Foundation's (FSF) Defective By Design campaign against Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies ran into difficulties when it targeted Apple Stores across the United States on Saturday, June 10. As many as half the events were disrupted by security guards or police, while the campaign as a whole had little success in attracting mainstream media coverage. Despite the difficulties, organizers judged the event a success, both in mobilizing members of the two-week-old campaign and in educating the general public about the implications of DRM."
Interviews
An Interview with Jeff Dike - The creator of User Mode Linux (LinuxHelp)
LinuxHelp has an interview with Jeff Dike. "Jeff Dike is the creator and maintainer of User Mode Linux (UML) - a virtual machine which runs on Linux. In recent times, UML has gained a lot of significance after Linus Torvalds incorporated the UML patch into the official Linux kernel source tree. Now a days Jeff works full time for Intel devoting his time towards further development of UML. He has also authored a book titled "User Mode Linux" published by Prentice Hall." (Thanks to Jake Balmer)
Oracle: The biggest Linux vendor you've never heard of (TMCnet)
TMCnet talks with Oracle hacker Wim Coekaerts about Oracle's contributions to Linux. "The Oracle database is a large, complex application that places a lot of demands on the underlying OS. When Oracle wants to experiment, changing how the OS works to optimize database performance, it's easier to do with an open source, community-driven OS than a proprietary one. Hence the number of Linux kernel contributions from Oracle engineers; as a fast research and prototyping tool, Linux can't be beat."
Part III: Shuttleworth on HBD, ImpiLinux, Geographical Ubuntu Appeal and Gnome v KDE (The 451 Group)
The 451 Group has published part 3 of an interview with Mark Shuttleworth interspersed with commentary from 451 Group analysts. "Shuttleworth's venture capital fund, HBD (it stands for Here Be Dragons, an allusion to the scary parts at the edges of old map coverage, which pretty much sums up Shuttleworth's Avast! attitude towards innovation) has, among other investments, invested in ImpiLinux, a localized African-language version of Ubuntu. We wondered whether the demand for this software is strong enough that it would support that kind of commercial development, say, of localized Spanish or Asian language versions of Ubuntu?"
Resources
How To Save Traffic With Apache2's mod_deflate (HowtoForge)
HowtoForge has published a tutorial on using the Apache 2 mod_deflate module. "In this tutorial I will describe how to install and configure mod_deflate on an Apache2 web server. mod_deflate allows Apache2 to compress files and deliver them to clients (e.g. browsers) that can handle compressed content which most modern browsers do. With mod_deflate, you can compress HTML, text or XML files to approx. 20 - 30% of their original sizes, thus saving you server traffic and making your modem users happier. Compressing files causes a slightly higher load on the server, but in my experience this is compensated by the fact that the clients' connection times to your server decrease a lot."
How To Set Up suPHP With PHP4 And PHP5 (HowtoForge)
HowtoForge shows how to install and use suPHP with PHP4 and PHP5. "suPHP is a tool for executing PHP scripts with the permissions of their owners instead of the Apache user. With the help of suPHP you can also have PHP4 and PHP5 installed at the same time which I will describe at the end of this article."
The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin, Ch. 24, by Dr. Peter H. Salus (Groklaw)
Groklaw has chapter 24 of The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin, by Dr. Peter H. Salus. "Among many things, The Cluetrain Manifesto suggests that the strategem that usually accompanies buying and selling should be replaced by a true attempt at satisfying the needs, wants and desires of those on both sides of the equation. Despite their long digressions, the authors occasionally succeed in making solid, clever points that reveal fundamental flaws in the structure of traditional businesses. Consider this comment about business hierarchies: "First they assume--along with Ayn Rand and poorly socialized adolescents--that the fundamental unit of life is the individual. This despite the evidence of our senses that individuals only emerge from groups.""
HOWTO: Pick an open source license (part 1) (ZDNet)
Here's a ZDNet blog entry with advice on how to choose a license for a project. "Don't take this choice unless you really mean it. Many people use GPL without realizing the implications or understanding the other options, and thus lock the code away from a whole segment of potential users, so please read the rest of the choices first."
Reviews
CLI Magic: ext2hide veils sensitive files (Linux.com)
Linux.com takes a look at ext2hide. "ext2hide is a proof-of-concept program that seeks to magically hide confidential data and files where nobody will look for them. It accomplishes its magic by making use of otherwise abandoned space in the superblocks in ext2/ext3 filesystems. Even though Jason McManus, the author of the code, has been testing and using ext2hide on his own machines without catastrophic results, I urge you to use the utmost caution both in testing and using it. If you don't grok superblocks and filesystems, you probably should not experiment with ext2hide, at least until it's out of beta testing."
Gedit Review (Softpedia.com)
Softpedia.com has a review of Gedit. "My Fedora 5 just crashed after I updated it last night. I just installed the basic applications, and at this point I realized that software that's part of the daily use of almost anyone was never reviewed. Such software is gedit. It's the official text editor for the GNOME desktop environment and almost any ASCII file is opened with it when we use GNOME. It's a big possibility you didn't notice it because the attention was focused on the contents and not at all on the editor. I hope a review will be useful for letting you know what you can do with it." (Found on GnomeDesktop)
Glom, the point-and-click database tool (NewsForge)
NewsForge reviews Glom. "Glom is a GNOME application that provides a graphical front end to PostgreSQL database creation and maintenance. The developers claim the interface is inspired loosely by Filemaker, for what that may be worth to veterans of proprietary operating systems. I have no experience with Filemaker, but Glom still seems intuitive to use."
Google Earth for Linux now available (Ars Technica)
Ars Technica reviews the Linux release of Google Earth. "A beta version of Google's popular Earth browsing application has been released for Linux. Google Earth allows users to navigate across the globe, and view detailed satellite imagery of places and buildings. On a high performance computer with a decent video card and 3D acceleration, buildings in major cities can optionally be rendered in 3D. The application also provides a number of practical features, including markers to indicate the locations of restaurants and hotels and the ability to provide driving directions."
Miscellaneous
PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)
Our old friend Eugene Kaspersky never gives up; according to this Register article, he is now warning that systems like the OLPC will result in the creation of more malware. "'A particular cause for concern is programs which advocate cheap computers for poor third world countries,' Kaspersky writes. 'These further encourage criminal activity on the internet. Statistics on the number of malicious programs originating from specific countries confirm this: the world leader in virus writing is China, followed by Latin America, with Russia and Eastern European countries not far behind.'"
Tux for open sew-ers (NewsForge)
NewsForge looks at the Free Penguin Project. "Tux has gone open source in a different way. The Free Penguin Project provides free GPL sewing patterns and advice so that anyone who meets the hardware requirements can create a fluffy stuffed penguin of their own; specifically, would-be Tux tailors need access to a sewing machine and fabric. Joerg Feuerhake, the head of the project, calls the patterns "free executables.""
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