Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
Welcome to Open Source 2.0 (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal looks at "open source". "There is no doubt that 3 February 1998 was a historic day. For it was then, at a meeting in Mountain View, that a small group led by Eric Raymond came up with the term "open source" as an alternative to the description "free software". The question is, will history count 21 June 2007 as another such pivotal moment -- the day that Open Source 2.0 was born?"
Bad, Bad Reasons Not to Buy Open-Source Software (eWeek)
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols presents a rebuttal to an eWeek article that steered people away from open-source software. "1) Microsoft is the safe choice Safe? Safe!? Come on. Microsoft's products are infamous for not being safe. Vista was supposed to be soooo much more secure than earlier versions of Windows. I said that was nonsense when Vista was first coming out. And what do we now see? Why, this month alone, we see that there are four flaws. Three of the flaws could let information slip out if users visit malicious pages using IE, and with the fourth vulnerability, all you have to do is view a malicious e-mail with Windows Mail, and ta-da, you've just been hijacked. I hope you enjoy your PC being part of a botnet."
Trade Shows and Conferences
DebConf 7 positions Debian for the future (Linux.com)
Linux.com covers DebConf 7. "At last week's DebConf 7 Debian Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, nearly 400 attendees had a chance to meet and socialise after years of working together online. They attended more than 100 talks and events, ranging from an update by the current and former Debian Project Leaders to a group trip to the Isle of Bute, off the opposite coast of the country."
Video of Talk by Ivan Krstic, OLPC's Chief Security Architect (Groklaw)
Groklaw covers a talk by Ivan Krstic. "You have got to see this. It's the keynote talk by Ivan Krstic, OLPC's Chief Security Architect, at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council's Open Source Summit this week. Thanks to the wonderful Dan Bricklin, we can watch the talk too. From this talk, I finally understand fully what the project is for. It's not to design a cheaper laptop. It's to create a a new way to educate. The laptop is a surrogate brain, so if a kid is curious he or she can get on the laptop and find out the answer. Is that not how children naturally learn? They have questions and they ask for answers."
Linux Foundation Works on Green Credentials (idm.net.au)
idm.net.au covers the launch of the Green Linux initiative. "The Linux Foundation is aiming to push the open source operating systems green credentials harder, resolving to develop new ways in which to improve the systems power management capabilities. The Green Linux initiative was born during last weeks Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit at Googles Silicon Valley campus, an event attended by 230 open source developers and representatives from companies such as IBM, Sun, AMD, Red Hat, Dell and Novell."
Report from MTLC's 2nd Annual Open Source Summit in Boston (Groklaw)
Groklaw has a report on the Second Annual Open Source Summit in Boston. "Dan Bricklin has all of the panel discussions and talks from last week's Second Annual Open Source Summit in Boston online now. So if you didn't get to attend in person, you can listen for yourselves. A Groklaw member, Jim Olsen, who attended the summit has written up a report for us. He describes what each panel or talk was about, so you will know which you want to listen to."
Companies
mixi.jp Delivers Massive Scale-Out with MySQL
MySQL AB presents a case study of the mixi.jp web site. "MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, today concluded its "Twelve Days of Scale-Out" educational initiative by presenting a case study on mixi.jp, the third-most popular Web site in Japan. Each day from June 11-22, the MySQL Web site has been highlighting how many of the world's fastest-growing companies are using the MySQL database to cost-effectively scale-out their successful online businesses."
Sun to donate Cluster code to OpenSolaris community (LinuxWorld)
LinuxWorld looks at Sun's most recent donation of code, the Open High Availability Cluster, which is available under the CDDL. "The first donation, due out this week, is focused on application modules or agents that allow open-source or commercial applications to become highly available in a clustered environment. Sun will make the code available for 24 of the high-availability agents it offers with its commercially available Solaris Cluster software. Among the agents are modules for Sun's Solaris Containers virtualization technology, BEA Systems Inc.'s WebLogic application server and the open-source PostgreSQL database."
Linux Adoption
San Diego rolls out laptops with Linux (eSchool News)
eSchool News reports on a plan by the San Diego Unified School District to put Linux-based laptops into the hands of students. "Always-On is split into three phases, and SDUSD is in the middle of the first phase, which began in March. The project's goal is to give students access to laptop computers with software tools and resources to help prepare them to learn, live, and work in the 21st century. Toward that end, the district is using Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop as the standard platform for the initiative."
Interviews
Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth: Prepare for the Shared Software Tidal Wave (TechNewsWorld)
TechNewsWorld has an interview with Mark Shuttleworth. ""I was poor. I was desperate. I wanted to be on this bandwagon of this Internet thing, and I wanted to find a business that wouldn't require large amounts of bandwidth or large amounts of capital. The key was Linux. It was Linux that let me connect to the Net so I could start soaking up this knowledge," said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu Linux."
Resources
Hybrids Combine GNU Classpath and OpenJDK (InfoQ)
InfoQ looks at GNU Classpath/Sun Java hybrids. "The first GNU Classpath/Sun Java hybrids have begun to appear. The hybrids combine GNU Classpath with Java code that Sun has recently released under the GPL either to improve an existing project or to further the goal of having a completely Free JDK. First IKVM made a snapshot available, thus allowing parts of the OpenJDK class libraries to be used on Mono and .NET. Then the CACAO team released a new version that allows Sun's phoneME to be used as core libraries. Finally, Red Hat launched IcedTea to allow the OpenJDK to be built using only Free Software and to provide stubs and replacements from GNU Classpath for the remaining binary plugs in the OpenJDK." You can also follow the discussions at Planet Classpath and get the video of the State of the Coffee Cup at DebConf 2007, posted here. (Thanks to Mark Wielaard)
In Praise of Pic (O'Reilly)
Philipp K. Janert, Ph.D. looks at Pic on O'Reilly. "With all the elaborate 3D graphics packages out there today, it's easy to forget that sometimes all you want to do is draw a nice 2D diagram. Philipp Janert takes us on a stroll down memory lane with pic, a command-line based tool that can prove very useful."
Reviews
Flock 0.9 lands gracefully (NewsForge)
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier reviews version 0.9 of the Flock browser on Linux.com. "The Flock project has been building a "social Web browser" since 2005. The upcoming Flock 0.9 release adds new blogging features, integrates media streams into the browser, and includes an overhaul of the Flock bookmark system. It's not perfect yet, but Flock 0.9 is a big leap forward."
KDE's Plasma is heating up (Linux.com)
Linux.com looks at KDE's Plasma project. "KDE launched Plasma in 2005 to revitalize the desktop interface, which the project said had remained "essentially the same" as it was in 1984. The initiative sought to renovate the KDE desktop codebase for the upcoming KDE 4 release, as well as to make innovations to KDE 3's conservative interface. Key goals included marrying the Kicker desktop panel, KDesktop root window, and SuperKaramba widget manager into a single Plasma interface; providing a framework to make widgets easier to write; making the unified components more consistent both visually and in terms of usability; and making the desktop a more organic workflow environment."
Rumors of new Gnash functionality exaggerated (Linux.com)
Linux.com reviews Gnash. "A free Flash viewer is one of the last major gaps in GNU/Linux desktop functionality, so last week's news that Gnash, the free Flash player, had reached the stage where it could play YouTube and Lulu.tv videos seemed too good to be true. Unfortunately, it was."
Miscellaneous
What's new with Ruby (Linux Journal)
Pat Eyler looks at some events in the Ruby universe. "Wow! There have been big events in the Ruby universe recently. I'll be writing about several of them over the next couple of weeks, but today I want to touch on one that gets pretty deeply into Ruby."
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