Linux in the news

Windows Refund Day II: Next Steps (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal takes a look at what happened during Windows Refund Day II -- and what still needs to happen. "[Toshiba] will spend thousands of dollars in legal fees to protect the hundreds that would be paid out for this individual refund request. Does anyone honestly think that they would continue to follow this path if only 10 additional customers filed similar actions? Personally, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect at least one case to be filed against a major computer manufacturer in every state of the US. Multiple concurrent claims (regardless of which manufacturer is targeted) will open their eyes to the magnitude of this situation. This is the logical course of action for us to take in order to achieve the change we are seeking."

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Linux Xbox group squeezes Microsoft (ZDNet)

ZDNet reports on a group of Australian XBox hackers. "A group of Xbox security researchers say they have found a way to run Linux on the Xbox game console without a so-called mod chip and will go public with the technique if Microsoft won't talk to them about releasing an official Linux boot loader."

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Open source trade clash (Australian IT)

Here is an article in Australian IT that reveals the backers of an anti-open source lobby. "The Washington-based and Microsoft-backed Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) has condemned South Australian moves to introduce open source preference legislation as "hidden protectionism" that discriminates against US software companies."

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KDE at the Linux User & Developer Conference

Jon Bacon has written a report on the KDE experience at the Linux User & Developer Conference in Birmingham. "Generally at the booth we got some pretty good feedback about KDE. There was an obvious number of of people who had used KDE before and were interested in new features that were in the latest KDE. One particular application that was gaining particular interest was Kexi. It seems that the Linux based LAMP platform is gaining massive popularity and the need for GUI database manager in a similar fashion to Microsoft Access was in great demand. There were quite a few people who got out their pencil and paper and wrote the name down. I suspect the Kexi developers will have a fair few new people interested in the project."

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Open source invades middleware (vnunet)

Vnunet takes a look at Tim O'Reilly's speech at LinuxExpo. "Open source is creeping through middleware, turning it into a profit-less commodity and forcing technology companies to seek value further up the food chain, according to two leading open source experts."

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SCO may audit IBM's AIX customers (vnunet)

SCO CEO Darl McBride, it seems, has told vnunet that he may go after AIX users. "McBride claimed that SCO has the right to audit IBM's customers. 'We have other rights under the contract we are looking at. For example, we can audit IBM customers. SCO has audit rights on its customers,' he said. 'The reality is that we are going into discovery right now and that might be the vehicle to be able to investigate what we need there anyway.'" One might well wonder how many AIX (and other proprietary Unix) customers thought they were giving audit rights to SCO when they bought their systems.

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Penguin on Thin Ice? (FindLaw)

FindLaw looks at the SCO suit. "The second principle is that a party's rights can be affected by its later conduct - which can constitute a 'waiver,' giving away rights. Until recently, SCO was a willing player in the Linux movement, releasing code under the open source ('copyleft') license. Everything that happened to Linux was in the open. Yet SCO delayed in suing. That delay triggers not only the waiver doctrine, but also similar equitable doctrines such as laches. Indeed, SCO may run afoul of the relevant statutes of limitations as well."

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Electronics makers rally around Linux (News.com)

News.com covers the introduction of CELF, the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum. "CELF grew out of a Linux development alliance between Sony and Matsushita inked last December. At the time, the two companies agreed to collaborate on a new version of the open-source operating system for consumer electronics devices and said they would consider founding a forum to further those goals."

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Linux Plays Starring Role in 'Sinbad' (eWeek)

According to eWeek, all of the animation for the movie Sinbad was performed on Linux machines. "More than 250 mostly 3-D accelerated dual-monitor HP workstations running Red Hat Linux made up the the core of DreamWorks' graphics platform for the artists working on "Sinbad.""

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At Orbitz, Linux Delivers Double The Performance At One-Tenth The Cost (TechWeb)

TechWeb covers Linux performance at Orbitz, an online travel service. "Privately held Chicago-based Orbitz uses more than 750 Linux-on-Intel Compaq computers in its data center to download fares, service search requests and run the company's booking engine. In the fall, Orbitz migrated its web applications running on Sun Microsystems' Enterprise 4500 servers to Compaq machines. The migration meant moving the software from Solaris running on 168 Sparc processors to Linux running on 100 Intel chips."

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Austin, Texas to Begin Linux Pilot Project (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal heads to Austin, Texas to see how Linux in faring in the local government. "As a result of all the above, the city's attitude towards the use of Linux and open source software has taken a 180 degree turn. When I first started tracking the City of Austin/Microsoft/Linux saga two years ago, a deputy director in the IT department told me that if he found Linux being used on a desktop he would have it removed."

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Selling Linux keeps getting easier (NewsForge)

Robin 'Roblimo' Miller talks with Teresa Spangler in this NewsForge article. "Teresa Spangler started marketing Linux-based products back in 1997 as co-founder of a small startup company in North Carolina. From there she went to Red Hat. Now she's the U.S. general manager for Trustix. Teresa says Linux is an easier corporate "sell" today than ever before, and is likely to be an even easier one in the future."

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Linux: so what's in it for me? (Register)

The Register interviews industry experts at the Linux User & Development Expo in Birmingham this week. "Although they wouldn't speak on the record, several industry figures at Linux User, noted the geekie image continues to be pervasive in the Linux world - even at a time when a majority of visitors to Linux events are suits."

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Interview Jeff Waugh

LinuxMagAu interviews Jeff Waugh, coordinator of the Gnome Release Team. "More seriously, The Next Big Thing in the GNOME world is our 2.4 Desktop release, which will have all sorts of new goodies in it. We're approaching our feature freeze at the moment, so here's a list of all the big features likely to make the cut"...

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'Head First Java' Author Interview (O'ReillyNet)

O'Reilly has published an interview with the authors of the book Head First Java. "Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates are the authors of the recently released Head First Java, a language tutorial unlike any other. In this interview, they explain their unique teaching style and how it works in practice."

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Andrew Stanley-Jones on KSirc (KDE.News)

KDE.News has posted a recently translated interview with Andrew Stanley-Jones. "In the following interview, Andrew Stanley-Jones, original author of KSirc, gives us some of the insights behind the design of KSirc -- the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client for KDE. Read on for such gems as "No company I've ever worked for has offered to pay me to write a client that allows you to waste time chatting online" and "I argue [that chatting on IRC] keeps me awake during a chick flick"."

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French ex-PM condemns Software Patents

Michel Rocard MEP, former prime minister of France, condemned software patents in an interview with French newspaper Liberation. Click below for a translation of the interview.

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WorldWatch Week in Review (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal presents the WorldWatch Week in Review, with open source news from around the world. "We unsuccessfully tried to ignore the SCO v. IBM fracas, mostly because Eric Raymond came out with an updated position paper that probably will become an amicus curiae brief in the case." We know just how you feel. The OSI position paper can be found here.

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Secure Cooking with Linux, Part 2 (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet presents more recipes from the Linux Security Cookbook. "This week, we offer recipes that fall into an intermediate-level category. Learn how to restrict access to network services by time of day, and how to use sudo to permit read-only access to a shared file."

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The Journal of Free and Open Source Medical Computing

A new publication called The Journal of Free and Open Source Medical Computing, JOSMC, is now online. " The Journal of Free and Open Source Medical Computing (JOSMC) is open and issuing its first call for papers. The Journal was started after the success of Linux Medical News indicated the need for a more scholarly publication. The Journal '...is an electronic forum for disseminating information on free and open source medical computing. Scholarly work on any aspect of free and open source medical computing will be considered for peer-reviewed"

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Linux Access in State and Local Government, Part III (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal continues its tour of Linux in state and local governments with a comparison of Linux in schools. "In the K12Linux domain, if you need an application, you probably would stop at SchoolForge and then click the link to the Seul/Edu Educational Application Index to discover a repository of applications. Here you can find 80 administrative applications that one can download, plus 98 language programs and more. The site contains 612 open-source applications in 23 categories, such as courseware, math and library applications. And that's only one of several K12Linux web sites. Imagine such a collection of government software somewhere."

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The Killer Kontact

KDE.News has a review of the Kontact PIM integrator by former Microsoft user Savanna. "One of the huge reasons I switched from Microsoft to Linux around a year ago was because Outlook was eating all of my mail. This would happen on average every three to six months, and there was simply nothing that I could do about it. The classic "format and reinstall" solution had become such a feared process for me that I simply didn't want to have anything to do with computers any longer."

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Big boost for wireless Linux development (vnunet)

Vnunet looks at a development platform from Metrowerks. "The company claimed that its OpenPDA platform, designed for Motorola's i.MX1 next-generation PDA microprocessor, could help mobile Linux developers to shorten design cycles."

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