Linux in the news

Extending the GPL for application service providers (NewsForge)

NewsForge covers a new license proposal. "Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco is scheduled to announce a draft version of a modified GNU General Public License (GPL) today that would add a provision requiring service providers to distribute changes to code, even if they don't "distribute" the code beyond their own servers. Capobianco calls this the Honest Public License (HPL), and the additional provision could add an entirely new wrinkle to free software."

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Linux's Legal World After SCO (LinuxWorld)

Pamela Jones writes about the post-SCO world on LinuxWorld. "The SCO saga is drawing to a close, and Linux won. But what about the future? If a Son of SCO copycat appears, is the community now better prepared because of having gone through the SCO saga? What is now in place to handle legal issues that wasn't there when SCO first attacked in 2003?"

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LinuxWorld: less fun, more biz (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch looks forward to LinuxWorld San Francisco. "Beneath all the hype and techno jargon, it's really pretty easy to see why businesses want it: They want to get the most use out of today's high-powered, multi-cored computers. Take it one more step, and it all boils down to people wanting to pay the least amount possible for their enterprise computing power."

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A slow start at LinuxWorld (NewsForge)

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier reports from LinuxWorld. "As per usual, the first day of LinuxWorld consisted of tutorials only, while the exhibitors worked furiously to get their booths set up before the exhibit floor was scheduled to open on Tuesday morning. While Robin 'Roblimo' Miller was off getting video of attendees, I had the opportunity to attend some of the tutorials -- but not before hitting the press room and picking up a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet through a loaner program for press at LinuxWorld."

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LinuxWorld awash with Linux phone buzz (LinuxDevices)

LinuxDevices summarizes the cellphone-related announcements from LinuxWorld. "One of today's announcements notes that the Diffusion Group expects Linux to surpass Symbian, the current mobile phone OS marketshare leader, within four years."

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Day two at LinuxWorld (NewsForge)

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier reports from LinuxWorld. "A hot topic of discussion this year has been the absence of Red Hat. The company isn't exhibiting at LinuxWorld, and people are wondering why a company that is practically synonymous with Linux is missing from the show floor. One attendee wondered, 'What's it say when someone gets an exhibit pass and comes to the show floor looking for Red Hat, and they're not here?'"

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PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit Wrap Up

The PostgreSQL DBMS project has published a conference wrap-up for the PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit that took place in Toronto, Canada during July. "By any measure, the PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit was a success. The most exciting thing about the conference is that there have not been so many PostgreSQL major contributors together in one place since the GreatBridge-sponsored meeting in 1999 ... and back then there were only a dozen contributors to invite! 89 PostgreSQL contributors from more than 15 countries and more than 23 companies attended. 41 of these people were speakers, for 19 full sessions and 10 "lightning talks.""

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SCO is Still Distributing the Linux Kernel. Yup. The Whole Enchilada (Groklaw)

Groklaw reports that Linux kernel source code is still available at ftp.iso.caldera.com. "Here's what our informant tells us: "This is the ISO image that contains Linux kernel source and binary RPMs under EXTRA/RPMS and EXTRA/SRPMS. The current disk image is dated April 1, 2004; the difference from the previous version is the removal of nmap (after Fyodor's request that SCO not distribute nmap any more).""

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ATI: We like our proprietary Linux drivers (News.com)

News.com obtained a clear statement from ATI regarding free graphics drivers: "'Proprietary, patented optimizations are part of the value we provide to our customers and we have no plans to release these drivers to open source,' the company said in a statement. 'In addition, multimedia elements such as content protection must not, by their very nature, be allowed to go open source.'"

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Intel aims for open-source graphics advantage (ZDNet)

ZDNet has posted a lengthy article about Intel's graphic driver release. "The move reflects the curious intersection of technological, legal, social and business motivations that operate in the open-source realm. By participating in the collaborative programming movement, Intel builds ties with outside programmers and open-source fans, but it also relinquishes some control over software and forgoes the possibility of keeping some software secrets."

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Intel playing catch-up with open source (ZDNet)

ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn considers Intel's moves toward open-source video driver software. "Intel's release of 3-D Linux graphics software, with an open source license, is all about catching rivals ATI (recently bought by AMD) and nVidia in a niche where it's lagging. The software will support its new 965 Express chipset. The result will be graphics supercomputers using open source, probably within a year."

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HP offers Debian Linux support (ZDNet)

ZDNet reports that HP will be offering a support package for Debian. "Debian won't be on the same level as Red Hat or Novell, though... HP won't market it, and customers will have to download the software on their own. Software combinations with partners such as BEA Systems or Oracle won't be available with Debian. And HP won't formally certify Debian for its servers."

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An interview with two 'granny hackers' (NewsForge)

Joe Barr talks with Terri Gilbert and Becky Bace at Black Hat. "Terri, a whiz kid from California, has been involved with computers for 50 years. Becky, who hails from Alabama, is a whiz kid in her own right. During her 16-year tenure at the NSA, she was the project manager for the first intrusion detection system, which was being developed there in the '80s."

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The case for a native object database (IT Manager's Journal)

Jim Paterson discusses the use of object database managers on IT Manager's Journal. "Linux users have their choice of good relational databases. However, some applications require an approach that takes advantage of object-oriented programming. Here's some advice on when and where to use a native object database like db4o instead of a relational database."

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Security Testing your Apache Configuration with Nikto (HowtoForge)

HowtoForge looks at Nikto. "This tutorial, inspired by one of the chapters in Hardening Apache by Tony Mobily (APress), will show you how to set up the free web server security scanner tool, Nikto. This tool will probe your Apache set-up for vulnerabilities, so you can get an idea of what holes may exist in your configuration. This tutorial will only get you so far as installing the tool, and running your first scan. A google search or the afore mentioned book will give you plenty of information on actually securing your Apache server."

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Printing Avery labels with Linux (Linux.com)

Michael Stutz looks at label printing under Linux using LabelNation, OpenOffice.org templates, LaTeX packages and Command-line scripts, in a Linux.com article. The popular gLabels label printing application is not covered, but deserves mention. "To aid users in the task of label printing, Avery Dennison offers a host of free (to download) software, including a program for the Mac released late last month. Linux still isn't supported, but that's no matter -- there's more than one open source application for Linux that lets you format text for printing on the whole universe of Avery labels, from DVD covers to business cards. Here's a look at them."

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Untwisting Python Network Programming (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet covers network programming in Python. "This article introduces basic client-side networking using both core Python modules and the Twisted framework. For its example, I will show how to send, receive, and delete emails, and conduct Telnet sessions. I have written two functionally equivalent examples, one using the core modules (mail-core.py) and another using Twisted (mail-twisted.py), with both start, stop, and interact with a server to process emails. These programs work with any standard-compliant SMTP and POP3 servers in sending and retrieving of emails. The starting and stopping of server are specific to the Apache James mail server, which I choose as a local testing server due to its ease of installation and its shutdown procedure in a Telnet session."

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Ubuntu turns to NUN to help new users (Linux.com)

Linux.com covers the New Users Network for new Ubuntu users. "Volunteer NUN mentors spend time on Ubuntu forums, mailing lists, and IRC channels looking for new user queries. The mentors have agreed to follow the NUN guidelines, which caution against the use of popular responses to newbie questions, such as RTFM, JFGI, and UTFS. Instead, they try to answer the queries in an easy-to-follow fashion, and point to online resources wherever possible, such as a wiki that explains things in details."

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Ubuntu LAMP Server With Torrentflux In VMware (Howtoforge)

Howtoforge is running a tutorial on setting up a Ubuntu machine as a LAMP server. "This tutorial is meant for Linux newbies who want to try and build a Ubuntu Server box as a webserver and torrent client. It is a step by step instruction on how to do this in VMWare on Windows XP to get the feel of it. I wrote this after, being a Linux newbie myself, a lot of trial-and-error and googling. Hope this helps you!"

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Micro-Evolution: Dates and Contacts (Linux.com)

Linux.com looks at a couple of lightweight applications for calendaring and address book management. "Both Dates and Contacts (the calendar and address book, respectively) are built to interact with Evolution Data Server (EDS). EDS was originally written for Ximian's Evolution email/calendar/addrebbook/tasklist client to expose Evolution's database of contacts, calendar events, and email desktop-wide, thus allowing easy integration with other applications."

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Linux powers unusual multicore machine (ZDNet)

ZDNet covers Linux-powered hardware from Movidis. "A start-up called Movidis believes a 16-core chip originally designed for networking gear will be a ticket to success in the Linux server market."

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Using phpMyAdmin (NewsForge)

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier reviews phpMyAdmin on NewsForge. "So many open source projects depend on MySQL that it's almost impossible for administrators and other open source enthusiasts to avoid working with at least one MySQL database. MySQL's command line interface is easy enough to use, but if you don't feel like reaching for a five-pound MySQL reference book or Googling for proper SQL syntax, phpMyAdmin is a great alternative to learning MySQL commands by heart."

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SeaMonkey suite still swimming along (NewsForge)

NewsForge reviews SeaMonkey 1.0.4. "SeaMonkey still uses the "kitchen sink" approach. It includes the Navigator browser, the ChatZilla IRC client, the Composer HTML editor, a mail and newsgroup client, and an address book component all bundled into one big application. To get all the functionality of SeaMonkey using the separate Mozilla apps, you'd have to install Firefox, Thunderbird, the ChatZilla extension for Firefox, and a separate HTML editor such as Nvu (which is built using the Composer codebase)."

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