Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
Why are privacy and advertising strange bedfellows? (Linux Journal)
Doc Searls discusses a ranking of corporate web sites' attention to privacy issues in a Linux Journal article. "In A Race to the Bottom: Privacy Ranking of Internet Service Companies, Privacy International spray-paints the façades of landmark companies that line today's Main Street on the Web. The painted colors are assessments of each company's performance on privacy issues. Though the rankings are colorful, what they say isn't pretty. Nobody in the "interim rankings" gets the top (green) mark for "Privacy-friendly and privacy enhancing". The bottom (black) mark, for "Comprehensive consumer surveillance & entrenched hostility to privacy", goes to just one company: Google."
Free QA for patent trolls? Why? (LinuxWorld)
Don Marti questions the Peer to Patent Project on his LinuxWorld weblog. "The Peer to Patent Project would give the bandits flintlocks. Instead of facing bandits armed with patents likely to be bad, we'll be facing bandits who are confident in their weapons. If you think the problem of mostly-bad software patents is bad today, try peer-reviewed patents that are more likely to go off."
GPL compliance issues are tearing Joomla! apart (Linux.com)
Here's a Linux.com story on the debate over proprietary extension modules in the GPL-licensed Joomla project. "[Project leader Louis] Landry wants developers to understand that the reason Joomla! wants to move closer to the GPL is to protect the project. "If we are condoning violations, we're weaker in a legal sense. If someone challenged our license down the road, if we've systematically been condoning violations, they could say, 'What's different now?'""
Trade Shows and Conferences
Don Marti reports from the LF Summit kernel panel
Don Marti blogs from the kernel panel at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. The panel, moderated by LWN editor Jonathan Corbet, touched on many issues relevant to the kernel development process.Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek)
InformationWeek covers the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. "A broad cross section of the Linux community, meeting on the Google campus Wednesday in Mountain View, Calif., focused on advancing the development of Linux and shrugged off the threat of Microsoft's claims of Linux patent infringement. The gathering included six kernel developers, who started off a Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit by holding a town-hall-style question-and-answer session with about 70 representatives of Linux users, independent software vendor firms, and reporters. The Linux Foundation organized the event as a way to bring together the different elements of the Linux community in one setting."
Linux movers and shakers seek common ground (Linux-Watch)
Linux-Watch reports on the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. "At the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit held at the Googleplex last week, Linux developers, IHVs (independent hardware vendors), and ISVs (independent software vendors) hashed out their differences in an attempt to find common ground."
Shuttleworth urges Linux patch and bug collaboration (Linux-Watch)
Linux-Watch covers Mark Shuttleworth's keynote speech at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit at the Googleplex. "When Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu founder and CEO of Canonical Ltd., spoke at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit at the Googleplex, he didn't talk about Ubuntu, patents, or hardware vendor partnerships. Instead he devoted his keynote speech to the importance of collaboration in fixing bugs and getting timely patches out to Linux users."
Companies
QuickBooks is now available for Linux servers -- but not for Linux desktops (Linux.com)
Linux.com covers Intuit's release of QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions for Linux. "Companies that run their servers on Debian or Debian-derived distributions are apparently supposed to stick to open source accounting/ERP packages such as Compiere, Adempiere or WebERP. Or, if they insist on using QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, they will have to work with RPMS, because neither .deb nor source packages are available. What about plans for QuickBooks on the Linux desktop? Thomson said, "We don't find that to be a compelling need today." He said Inuit makes product decisions "based on what we hear from clients," and that they are "not hearing any demand" for a desktop Linux version of QuickBooks."
Linux at Work
Baylor neuroimaging lab has open source on the brain (Linux.com)
Linux.com's Tina Gasperson looks at the use of Linux by the Baylor College Human Neuroimaging Lab. "The Baylor College Human Neuroimaging Lab (HNL) uses Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to record and research brain activity. The fMRI scans human brains at work, detecting areas of greater blood flow that indicate which part of the brain is active as subjects perform a variety of activities. The data flows from the scanners to a high-performance 32-node CentOS cluster to be analyzed and returned to researchers in statistical form. HNL Systems Administrator Justin King is a big fan of open source software and frequently writes his own applications when he can't find what he needs in the community. King also takes advantage of commercial open source projects."
Interviews
Interview with Lars Knoll, creator of KHTML (Ars Technica)
Ars Technica looks at the work of Lars Knoll. "Ars Technica sat down today to talk with KHTML developer and Trolltech employee, Lars Knoll. We talked about his involvement in the project that ultimately became the HTML rendering engine for Apple's Safari web browser, as well how Apple's involvement has shaped the future of web browsing for browsers on just about every platform imaginable."
Interview With Fred Miller - GNU/Linux Evangelist (LXer)
LXer talks with Fred Miller. "Fred Miller is a prolific GNU/Linux evangelist and active member of the OpenSUSE community. He has converted numerous small businesses and individuals from Windows to GNU/Linux. He is also a big OpenOffice.org fan."
Amarok 2.0 Interview: Jeff Mitchell (KDE.News)
KDE.News features an interview with Jeff Mitchell, a developer of the Amarok audio player. "In the lead-up to KDE 4, Amarok will be undergoing a number of large changes both under the hood, and cosmetically with the user interface. I managed to interview a developer, Jeff Mitchell, to talk about the things changing in Amarok from the 1.4 stable branch to version 2.0, including the playlist redesign, the context view and the new web services framework."
Resources
Why Do People Write Free Documentation? Results of a Survey (O'ReillyNet)
O'ReillyNet presents the results of a survey. "A unique survey ran on O'Reilly's web site during the first three months of 2007, aimed at people who contribute free documentation to online mailing lists, web sites, and other forums. The survey garnered 354 responses, which in itself indicates the thriving state of free documentation and the dedication of the people who write it."
Open Source - The future is open (The DoD Software Tech News)
The DoD Software Tech News has devoted its latest edition to open source software. (The magazine is in PDF format and requires free registration.) It includes essays by David A. Wheeler, Terry Bollinger, John M. Weathersby, Mark Lucas (on Geospatial OSS), Peter Gallagher, Matt Asay (Alfresco) and Andrew Gordon.Dual password encryption with EncFS (Red Hat Magazine)
Red Hat Magazine provides a "how to" on using two passwords with the EncFS encrypted filesystem. "John Doe is a sales agent. He is using EncFS to protect data on his laptop. This includes day-to-day activities like e-mails, meeting appointments, todo list, etc. He is using secondary password stored on USB stick to protect confidential information. This includes upcoming contract details, company financial information, plans for future products. His laptop is stolen and personal password is guessed using dictionary attacks. John Doe did not pick up a strong password. Corporate data is still safe. The USB stick was not stolen."
Reviews
Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com)
Linux.com looks at the Google Browser Sync extension. "Google Browser Sync provides more than just a simple method of syncing bookmarks. It syncs all your Firefox data -- bookmarks, cookies, passwords, history, tabs, and windows. So, not only are your bookmarks kept in sync, but you can even close a Firefox session with tabs and windows open, and reopen the same session on another PC."
Re: 32-bits, CLAM, and TAPESTREA (Linux Journal)
Dave Phillips reviews the JackLab Audio Distribution (JAD) and some of the audio tools found therein. "Various improvements have been made in JAD since my earlier review, including the adoption of a 2.6.19 kernel optimized for superb realtime performance. Since I've profiled the system in an earlier blog entry I decided to briefly review some of the more unusual software included with the distribution or built with the help of its development packages. JAD contains more than 70 applications for audio and video composition and production, most of which are at their most recent release versions, so come join me in a look at some less typical sound & music software running on one of the best of the new breed of multimedia-optimized Linux distributions."
Feed your content cravings with Liferea (Linux.com)
Ane Vidmar reviews Liferea on Linux.com. "I find myself not browsing the Web as much as I used to, thanks to Liferea, a Linux-based aggregator for online news feeds. A news aggregator eliminates the need for surfing the Web as much. Instead of going to all the Web pages you have bookmarked to read your favorite blogs, news, or media presentations, you can simply add an RSS/RDF or Atom syndication format to Liferea and have all the news feeds at your command. Of course this works only for Web sites that support these syndication formats, but most modern sites do support at least one of them."
X-Wrt extends OpenWrt router firmware (Linux.com)
Linux.com reviews the X-Wrt user interface for monitoring and configuring Linux-based router firmware. "X-Wrt is a slick new project that makes using OpenWrt easier and more fun than ever. The attention to detail is excellent, the documentation and assistance on IRC is very good, and the quality of the software is high, just as it is in OpenWrt. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it an 9."
RPM 'relaunched' at rpm5.org (Linux.com)
Linux.com looks at the two RPM projects. "Two concurrently developed forks present RPM-based distros with a dilemma. Should they diverge to the point of incompatibility, distros would be forced to support one or the other. Even in the meantime, they must choose where to concentrate their time and personnel resources. Novell has joined Red Hat in the rpm.org project, while Mandriva, cAos, and PLD have decided to work with Johnson's rpm5.org effort."
ZFS on Linux: It's alive (LinuxWorld)
LinuxWorld takes a look at a FUSE (Filesystem in userspace) implementation of the Solaris ZFS filesystem. "The project is working, with several users running and even booting from a ZFS volume. Correia has not undertaken any performance tuning yet, and one sysadmin, Chris Samuel, has posted benchmarks that clock only about half the speed of another Linux filesystem, XFS."
Miscellaneous
Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis? (Linux Journal)
Glyn Moody looks at the FSF's PlayOgg campaign. "I'm a big fan of Richard Stallman and his work -- even though, the first time I interviewed him, he proceeded to criticise my questions before answering them, not a journalistic experience I'd had before. Without his vision and sheer bloody-mindedness in the face of indifference and outright hostility, we would not have the vast array of free software we enjoy today."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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