LWN.net Weekly Edition for July 17, 2003
RFCs - insufficiently free?
Debian bug 92810 has the distinction of being one of the oldest release-critical bugs in the entire distribution. It was first reported on April 3, 2001, and has been the subject of occasional debate for over two years. Its resolution at the end of June, 2003 has left few people happy. Bug 92810, it seems, embodies an issue which remains unresolved in the free software community: how documentation should be licensed.The issue at hand is how the Internet Society Request For Comments (RFC) documents are licensed. The RFCs are the core of the design of the Internet; they are the standards the describe the protocols, formats, algorithms, and conventions that make the net work. There are RFCs covering everything from the basic network protocols (i.e. for IP and TCP), email headers (RFC 2822) and HTML (RFC 1866) to netiquette (RFC 1855), avian datagram protocols (RFC 1149), and the Y10K problem (RFC 2550). Without the RFC series, the standards-based, interoperable Internet would not exist.
For anybody implementing or otherwise working with a network protocol, the relevant RFCs are required reading. So it is not surprising that a project like Debian would package up the RFC collection and include it with its distribution. The doc-rfc package is useful for Debian developers and its presence would not be questioned, except for a bit of a licensing problem. RFCs, it turns out, are required to carry a specific copyright notice (as specified in RFC 2223) which includes the following text:
This license, of course, does not allow the free creation of derived versions of the RFCs except in certain circumstances. That restriction violates the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). Most distributors would not be overly concerned about this problem; the license does allow them to distribute the RFC collection, after all. But the Debian Project takes its social contract seriously, and that contract requires that the distribution be "100% free software." Since the RFCs do not meet the DFSG (though there is not a complete consensus on that point), they have been evicted from the Debian distribution. Debian users wanting to install the doc-rfc package will have to look for it in the non-free area.
To many, Debian's uncompromising stance on licensing seems like a pedantic exercise carried out by people with nothing better to do with their time. But Debian is serving an important role in the community by serving as its conscience and early warning system. As recent events have shown, licensing is important. Every set of bits comes with its own copyright and its own restrictions. Failure to pay attention to those restrictions can lead to unwanted contact with lawyers, and is best avoided. Debian's high sensitivity to licensing problems brings those problems out into the open before somebody gets burned, and often leads to licensing changes which make the problems go away. Even when nothing changes, the Debian process points out where the open issues are.
The open issue in this case is that there is still no consensus on what free licensing means when applied to documentation. As a general rule, those who write text tend to want to maintain more control over their works than those to write code. Consider, for example, the Free Software Foundation's Free Documentation License, which includes a vast number of restrictions on modification and redistribution. (Debian, incidentally, is the group that has done the most to point out the non-free aspects of the FDL).
The Internet Society wants to retain enough control so that copies of a particular standard (and that's what the RFCs are) reflect the standard. A modified version of an RFC no longer reflects the standard, so such modifications are not allowed. The motivation is understandable and reasonable, but there is an important question which must be kept in mind. What happens if, sometime in the future, the Internet Society is coopted over to the Dark Side and starts moving the network standards in a proprietary or repressive direction? With the current licensing, there is no right to fork the RFCs and attempt to maintain a free, interoperable net. The RFC collection, thus, is truly not free. This result is almost certainly not what the Internet Society had in mind when it adopted its copyright notice, but that is the way it has turned out.
Five years or so ago, new software releases often were accompanied by new, one-off licenses that, as often as not, turned out to not be free. In more recent times, a relatively small set of well-known licenses has been adopted by most developers. Documentation, however, remains in the "roll your own license" stage. With luck, this area, too, will soon evolve toward a reasonable set of truly free licenses which reflect the needs and interests of writers.
Graphics programs for Linux
[This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]
With the 1.0 release of Scribus this week, we thought we'd take a look at the state of open source graphics applications. There's a wide variety of these applications, and they are rapidly maturing, though maybe not quite as quickly as some might like. The most popular, and most mature in terms of features and polish, open source graphics application is The GNU Image Manipulation Program, better known as the GIMP. For those who are unfamiliar with the GIMP, it's very similar to Adobe Photoshop in nature, and offers much of the functionality of Photoshop though it still lacks some features that make Photoshop attractive to folks working with high-quality print publications. The GIMP has been around for quite some time, but the open source community has lacked a full-featured desktop publishing (DTP) programs like QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign or PageMaker, Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw.
The 1.0 release of Scribus may help fill
that gap. While it still needs
some work, Scribus is similar to Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress. Unlike
Quark or InDesign, though, Scribus is available under the GNU GPL and
runs on Linux. I've tried Scribus on and off for some time now, and it
definitely shows promise. After downloading the 1.0 release, I was
impressed by how far Scribus has come in a fairly short time. It offers
![[Scribus screenshot]](https://static.lwn.net/images/ns/scribus_shot_thumb.jpg)
all the features you'd need to produce a decent company newsletter or
flyer, allows you to prepare a document for printing or convert to PDF
for electronic publishing. Scribus saves documents in an XML-type
format, and can export projects to PDF, Encapsulated PostScript (EPS)
and/or Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format.
There are a few glitches; some of the tools don't act quite as you might expect, and there are a few features that you'd definitely want in desktop publishing application that aren't in Scribus just yet. For example, the "text chain" feature doesn't seem to work predictably, and it doesn't seem possible to create a text box with multiple columns for text. But, a few shortcomings aside, Scribus is definitely a boon for folks who want to see Linux succeed on the desktop. While it may not be perfect, it should be good enough to attract a strong audience that will help to see it move forward in much the same way the GIMP has over the years.
Sodipodi is vector-based drawing application that looks very promising. Sodipodi is similar to Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, though it's not quite in the same league as those applications just yet. Judging by the images in the Sodipodi gallery, however, it has plenty to offer. Right now, Sodipodi is at the 0.32 release. It has quite a few features, and it's very usable, but it still needs to mature a bit before it's ready for "prime time." For example, Sodipodi only saves in the SVG format, and exports to PNG. It doesn't handle EPS or PDF right now, though EPS is on the tasks list. However, it has a full enough feature set, and is stable enough, that it can be used to create some really nice graphics.
Another GPL'ed Illustrator-like application that's been coming along nicely is Sketch. Sketch is also at a very usable stage, though it, too, has a ways to go before it will give Illustrator a run for its money. Like Sodipodi and Scribus, Sketch seems to be maturing at a fairly steady pace. Sketch is implemented mostly in Python, and is very stable. Sketch does write to EPS and Adobe Illustrator format, and reads XFig files, Adobe Illustrator files, Corel CMX, SVG and its own format, though it lacks support for TrueType fonts which may be a drawback for some users.
If you're interested in older graphics apps for Linux, there's Xfig. Xfig has quite a few features, though it doesn't seem to be under active development and it isn't the most user-friendly application.
OpenOffice.org's Draw is a suitable replacement for applications like Microsoft Publisher. It doesn't do all the fancy text-wrangling and so-forth that you'll find in Sodipodi or Scribus, but it's a nice and simple application for folks who want to create a office flyer, flowcharts and similar projects. Dia is another good application for producing diagrams for print or electronic publishing.
If your tastes are a little more simple, there are a few apps that are aimed at less complex projects. KPaint is a straightforward application that can be used to create very simple graphics, much like the Microsoft Windows Paint program. For those looking for programs for small kids, Tux Paint is a kid-oriented drawing program with a simple interface, sound effects and a restricted file interface that prevents users from accessing the host filesystem. As much as professional-quality graphics apps are necessary for Linux to succeed on the desktop, the low-end graphics apps need to be there as well. After all, who would want to deny their five-year-old the ability to mouse around and create pictures to e-mail to grandma?
The good news is that Linux graphics applications are starting to mature to the point that they're suitable for a fair range of uses. They're certainly good enough for home use, creating Web graphics and low-end DTP. The bad news is that open source graphics apps still need some work before they'll be ready to replace programs like QuarkXPress or Adobe Illustrator. Given enough attention, though, open source graphics applications could start finding their way into professional publishing houses within a few years.
SCO insider trading watch
Things have been relatively quiet on the SCO front recently; one gets the sense that, perhaps, the company's lawyers were finally able to convince management that a bit of discretion might be helpful. Silence does not mean that nothing is going on, however. Among other things, SCO's executives continue to slowly cash in their stock to take advantage of its current, inflated price. Here's the latest insider trading roundup:
| Who | Role | Shares | Income | Filings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opinder Bawa | VP Global Services | 22,916 | $142,200 | 1 |
| Robert Bench | CFO | 25,100 | $174,100 | 1, 2, 3 |
| Reginald Charles Broughton | VP International Sales | 15,000 | $161,600 | 1, 2, 3 |
| Jeff Hunsaker | VP Worldwide Marketing | 10,000 | $103,500 | 1, 2 |
| Michael Olson | VP Finance | 14,000 | $135,900 | 1, 2 |
| Michael Sean Wilson | VP Corporate Development | 6000 | $64,800 | 1 |
That's a total of 93,000 shares sold since the suit was filed, for a net of $782,000. This sum is a small down payment on the bonanza that SCO hopes to eventually enjoy as a result of its actions. The big payoff may remain in the future, but one could understand if even the most confident SCO executive feels the need to collect a little now, on the off chance that things fail to go as planned.
It's worth noting that Opinder Bawa has quietly left the company, shortly after selling all shares in his possession.
Finally, it has emerged that - as many had speculated - the "mystery licensee" is none other than Sun Microsystems. The Unix license purchased by Sun came with a nice bonus: an option to buy 210,000 shares of SCO stock for $1.83 per share. Neither company has yet made any statements about why things were done this way. Most software license agreements do not include stock options, after all. A high level of paranoia is not yet called for, but it is natural to wonder just what Sun is up to here.
Conference season
The Ottawa Linux Symposium will be held July 23 to 26 in the Ottawa Conference Center. As always, OLS looks to be a strong, technical conference with a special emphasis on kernel development. Once again, LWN editor Jonathan Corbet will be there; be sure to get up early (10:00 AM) on Wednesday to catch his talk on driver porting.OLS will be preceeded by a two-day kernel developers' summit, same as last year. The draft agenda includes a number of VM topics, "killing off devfs," power management, SCSI, asynchronous I/O, and numerous other topics. Once again, stay tuned to LWN for information from the meeting.
The LinuxWorld Conference and Expo takes place August 4 to 7 in San Francisco. LWN hasn't made it to LinuxWorld for a little bit, so we are pleased to note that Rebecca Sobol will be there this time around. It will be nice to be back.
Security
Brief items
Decreased security through monitoring
Worth a read: this Cringely column on electronic eavesdropping. The "Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act" (CALEA), passed in the mid 1990's, requires telecommunications providers to make life easy for law enforcement agencies wanting to listen to phone conversations. Apparently, the implementation of CALEA is not all that one might wish for:
CALEA systems have, according to Cringely, been hacked into by numerous bad guys, both domestic and foreign.
CALEA can be seen as a classic example of a bad governmental project gone worse, and as a dark omen of what the "total information awareness" system could bring. But there is a wider lesson here as well. Many organizations put monitoring capabilities into their networks as part of their security and policy enforcement operations. This monitoring can be performed by web proxies, mailers, intrusion detection systems, outsourced security services, and so on. Knowing what is happening on a network can be most helpful in keeping that network secure, but it is always worth remembering that these monitoring capabilities can be turned against you. Before putting in a facility that watches what you and your users are doing, it's worth putting some thought into how that facility will be secured and what could happen if it is compromised. Sometimes it might be better to watch a bit less.
New vulnerabilities
apache: multiple vulnerabilities in Apache HTTP server
| Package(s): | apache | CVE #(s): | CAN-2003-0192 CAN-2003-0253 CAN-2003-0254 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Created: | July 11, 2003 | Updated: | September 22, 2003 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description: | The Apache Software Foundation and
the Apache HTTP Server Project have announced
the release of the Apache HTTP Server 2.0.47. This release fixes four
security vulnerabilities:
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| Alerts: |
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Mozilla: heap-based buffer overflow in Mozilla-based browsers
| Package(s): | Mozilla | CVE #(s): | CAN-2002-1308 | ||||||||
| Created: | July 15, 2003 | Updated: | July 21, 2003 | ||||||||
| Description: | A heap-based buffer overflow in Netscape and Mozilla allows remote
attackers to execute arbitrary code via a jar: URL referencing a
malformed .jar file, which overflows a buffer during decompression.
This has been fixed in Mozilla 1.0.2. | ||||||||||
| Alerts: |
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mpg123 - buffer overflow
| Package(s): | mpg123 | CVE #(s): | CAN-2003-0577 | ||||||||||||
| Created: | July 16, 2003 | Updated: | September 30, 2003 | ||||||||||||
| Description: | The mpg123 utility contains a buffer overflow vulnerability which can allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code by way of a malicious MP3 file. | ||||||||||||||
| Alerts: |
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nfs-utils xlog() off-by-one bug
| Package(s): | nfs-utils | CVE #(s): | CAN-2003-0252 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Created: | July 14, 2003 | Updated: | March 8, 2004 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description: | Linux NFS utils package contains remotely exploitable off-by-one bug. A local or remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending specially crafted request to rpc.mountd daemon. See this BugTraq post for more details. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alerts: |
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phpgroupware - cross-site scripting and other exploits
| Package(s): | phpgroupware | CVE #(s): | CAN-2003-0504 CAN-2003-0582 | ||||||||||||||||
| Created: | July 16, 2003 | Updated: | October 1, 2003 | ||||||||||||||||
| Description: | Several vulnerabilities were discovered in all versions of phpgroupware
prior to 0.9.14.006. This latest version fixes an exploitable condition in
all versions that can be exploited remotely without authentication and can
lead to arbitrary code execution on the web server. This vulnerability is
being actively exploited.
Version 0.9.14.005 fixed several other vulnerabilities including cross-site scripting issues that can be exploited to obtain sensitive information such as authentication cookies. See this Security Corportation report for more information. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Alerts: |
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traceroute-nanog: integer overflow
| Package(s): | traceroute-nanog | CVE #(s): | CAN-2003-0453 | ||||
| Created: | July 16, 2003 | Updated: | July 16, 2003 | ||||
| Description: | There is an integer overflow vulnerability in traceroute-nanog (an enhanced version of traceroute) which may be exploited to execute arbitrary code. | ||||||
| Alerts: |
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ucd-snmp - heap overflow
| Package(s): | ucd-snmp | CVE #(s): | |||||
| Created: | July 16, 2003 | Updated: | July 16, 2003 | ||||
| Description: | The snmpnetstat tool (part of the ucd-snmp package) contains a heap overflow vulnerability which, when confronted with a hostile server, can be exploited to run arbitrary code. | ||||||
| Alerts: |
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Resources
July CRYPTO-GRAM newsletter
Bruce Schneier's CRYPTO-GRAM newsletter for July is out. It looks at fighting back against stupid "security" measures, spam filtering problems, Password Safe, and security FUD. "People, it seems, are not buying the new cool security products. There are half a dozen reasons for this, but FUD is a big one. We have threatened customers with the big bad nasties of the Internet. We have promised customers that -- this time for sure -- our products would solve their problems. But guess what? Customers have gotten cynical. They've noticed that it isn't all that bad out there."
LinuxSecurity.com newsletters
The latest Linux Advisory Watch and Linux Security Week newsletters from LinuxSecurity.com are available.
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
Kernel development
Brief items
Kernel release status
The current development kernel is 2.6.0-test1, which was released by Linus on July 13. As is appropriate in this stage of development, this patch consists (almost) entirely of fixes. See the long-format changelog for the details.The last of the 2.5 kernels was 2.5.75, released on July 10. This patch merged the anticipatory I/O scheduler (covered here last January), a new set of "kblockd" kernel threads (designed to handle block I/O operations without creating more such operations themselves), a scary new "nointegrity" JFS mount option, some software suspend tweaks, and, of course, lots of fixes and updates. See the long-format changelog for more.
Linus's BitKeeper tree contains a handful of small fixes, as of this writing.
Alan Cox has gotten back into the 2.6 prepatch business; his latest is 2.6.0-test1-ac2. This patch is made up almost entirely of fixes which have not yet made their way to Linus. Andrew Morton's 2.6.0-test1-mm1 is a much more bleeding-edge affair; it contains the latest ACPI code, the SELinux security module, a bunch of asynchronous I/O work, the 64-bit dev_t type, and much other stuff. The -mm tree is also where the bulk of the scheduler interactivity work is being done.
The current stable kernel is 2.4.21. The 2.4.22 process continues to move relatively quickly; 2.4.22-pre6 (consisting almost entirely of fixes) was released on July 14.
Kernel development news
The 2.6 test series begins
On July 13, Linus began the 2.6.0-test series of development kernels. The move to the -test naming scheme indicates that the 2.5 development period is truly done, and that the focus is now strongly on stabilization. To that end, the -test1 release restricted itself to fixes and updates - except for the addition of Andries Brouwer's cryptoloop driver.This sort of announcement usually results in a flurry of "but X hasn't been merged yet" postings. Things are much quieter this time around. It would seem that, for the most part, the features that the developers want to see in the kernel are mostly in place. There are a few remaining loose ends, however:
- The expanded dev_t type. Most of the ground work has been
done, but the size of dev_t has not yet been changed in
Linus's tree. It is widely expected that this work will be completed
before 2.6.0 goes out.
- Power management still needs some work. Much of that work has been
done, but it has not yet been packaged up and submitted to Linus.
- The NSA SELinux security module is being proposed for inclusion.
Linus has not made his feelings known on this patch, but, since it
does not affect anything outside of the module itself, adding SELinux
should be relatively easy to justify. Andrew Morton has indicated
that SELinux will show up in his -mm tree shortly.
- Support for many (or most) non-x86 architectures is not current in the
mainline kernel. This is a pretty standard state of affairs; the
official 2.6.0 kernel will certainly lack functioning support for
several architectures.
- There is some continuing unease over the state of the 2.5 scheduler, which shows problems with certain kinds of loads.
In the past, Linus has not always been successful in making this kind of freeze stick. This time around, however, Andrew Morton will be involved in the stabilization process. Since Andrew will also be maintaining the resulting 2.6 kernel, he'll have a strong incentive to keep a lid on things during the test phase.
Now, of course, is the time for people with an interest in 2.6 to try out the -test releases. Before trying out a 2.6-test kernel for the first time, however, a reading of Dave Jones's "what to expect" document is highly recommended (Joe Pranevich's Wonderful World of Linux 2.6 is also worth a look). Also note that putting a 2.6-test kernel on a production system is a risky thing to do; there are still known bugs and security issues to be dealt with.
64GB on 32-bit systems
Once upon a time - not that long ago - the Linux kernel was unable to work with more than 1GB of physical memory (actually, just a little bit less). This limit was imposed by a couple of fundamental design decisions in the kernel:
- All physical memory was directly reachable via a kernel virtual
address. When the kernel has direct access to all memory,
manipulating that memory is easy. But, to operate in this mode, the
system cannot have more memory than the kernel is able to address.
- The virtual address space was split into two large pieces: the bottommost 3GB for user-space addresses, and the top 1GB for kernel addresses.
The 3/1 split was not imposed by any particular external factor; instead, it was a compromise chosen to balance two limits. The portion of the address space given over to user addresses limits the maximum size of any individual process on the system, while the kernel's portion limits the maximum amount of physical memory which can be supported. Allowing the kernel to address more memory would reduce the maximum size of every process in the system, to the chagrin of Lisp programmers and Mozilla users worldwide. There were, however, patches in circulation to change the address space split for specific needs.
The 2.3 development series added the concept of "high memory," which is not directly addressable by the kernel. High memory complicated kernel programming a bit - kernel code cannot access an arbitrary page in the system without setting up an explicit page-table mapping first. But the payoff that comes with high memory is that much larger amounts of physical memory can now be supported. Multi-gigabyte Linux systems are now common.
High memory has not solved the problem entirely, however. The kernel is still limited to 1GB of directly-addressable low memory. Any kernel data structure which is frequently accessed must live in low memory, or system performance will be hurt. Increasingly, low memory is becoming the new limiting factor on system scalability.
Consider, for example, the system memory map, which consists of a struct page structure for every page of physical memory in the system. The memory map is a fundamental kernel data structure which must be placed in low memory. It takes up 40 bytes for every (4096-byte) page in the system; that overhead may seem small until you consider that, if you want to put 64GB of memory into an x86 box, the memory map will grow to some 640 megabytes. This structure thus takes most of low memory by itself. Low memory must also be used for every other important data structure, free memory, and the kernel code itself. For a 64GB system, 1GB of low memory is insufficient to even allow the system to boot, much less do the sort of serious processing that such machines are bought for.
One approach to solving this problem is page clustering - grouping physical pages into larger virtual pages. Among other things, this technique reduces the size of the memory map. Page clustering was covered here back in February.
Recently, Ingo Molnar posted a patch which takes a very different approach. Rather than try to squeeze more into 1GB of low memory, Ingo's patch makes low memory bigger. This is done by creating separate page tables to be used by user-space and kernel code, eliminating the need to split the virtual address space between the two realms. With this patch, a user-space process has a page table which gives it access to (almost) the full 4GB virtual address space. When the system goes into kernel mode (via a system call or interrupt), it switches over to the kernel page tables. Since none of the kernel page table space must be given to user processes, the kernel, too, can use the full 4GB address space. The maximum amount of addressable low memory thus quadruples.
There are, of course, costs to this approach, or it would have been adopted a long time ago. The biggest problem is that the processor's translation buffer (a hardware cache which stores the results of page table lookups) must be flushed when the page tables are changed. Flushing the TLB hurts because subsequent memory accesses will be slowed by the need to do a full, multi-level page table lookup. And, as it turns out, the TLB flush is, itself, a slow operation on x86 processors. The additional overhead is enough to cause a significant slowdown, especially for certain kinds of loads.
The cost by the separated page tables is more than most users will want to pay. For those who have applications requiring large amounts of memory - and who, for whatever reason, cannot just get a 64-bit system - this patch may well be the piece that makes everything work. Of course, the chances of such a patch getting in to the mainline kernel before 2.7 are about zero. But it would not be surprising to see it show up in certain vendors' distributions as an option.
Bug trackers and kernel development
The Kernel Bug Tracker ("bugme") is a BugZilla system run by the Open Source Development Lab. It currently holds information on over 300 reported bugs in the 2.5 kernel. The Tracker is seen by many as a useful tool that brings some organization and discipline to the task of stabilizing the kernel. So it came as a surprise to many when David Miller, maintainer of the networking subsystem, requested that networking bugs not be entered into the Tracker. It is, he says, the wrong way of solving the problem.The complaint with bug tracking systems is that they try to centralize what is otherwise an inherently distributed process. Bugs accumulate in the database, and a single person gets the job of managing all the bugs for a particular subsystem. If that person does not devote a significant amount of time to the task, the tracking system quickly clogs up with outdated reports, duplicated entries, and generally useless stuff. The time that goes into maintaining the bug tracker is, of course, time that is not available to actually fix the bugs.
The proper way of dealing with bugs, according to David, is to simply report them to the relevant mailing list. The report will be seen by the developers who can fix the bug, others who have been affected by the bug can contribute additional information, and fixes can be publicly discussed. And people who, for whatever reason, do not want to deal with a particular bug report can simply hit "delete" and the message goes away.
Of course, the "goes away" part is not always popular with those who report bugs; they would rather see the report hang around and annoy people until one of them deals with the problem. But anybody who has sent a few bug reports to a public list knows that those reports can simply vanish without a trace - a rather unsatisfying result. Why bother to report bugs if the reports can simply be ignored?
According to David (and others), the lossy nature of mailing list bug reporting is actually a feature. Bug reporting, it is said, is a process similar to patch submission. Users who do not get satisfaction from a bug report should resubmit it. If the bug is not important enough for the user to "maintain" the report, it's not worth a whole lot of effort to fix.
The "submit and retry" approach does have some advantages. Since it puts more of the responsibility for bug reports on the users submitting those reports, it scales more reliably as the number of users increases. Unimportant or "operator error" bugs vanish automatically without anybody having to shovel them out of a bug tracking system. Bugs which are fixed by (seemingly) unrelated patches also fade away automatically. The whole thing works in a scalable way without the need for central managers.
This approach is foreign and scary, however, to those who feel the need to track every bug and keep a firm hand on the development process. It provides FUD fodder for those who would portray free software development as immature and untrustworthy. It's also frustrating to those who want to retain bug report information for statistical or data mining purposes. It is, however, typical of how the kernel development process works in general. And that process, for all its faults, has produced excellent results over years as the kernel (and its development team) has grown.
Patches and updates
Kernel trees
Architecture-specific
Core kernel code
Device drivers
Documentation
Filesystems and block I/O
Memory management
Networking
Security-related
Benchmarks and bugs
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
Distributions
News and Editorials
Ten Years of Slackware
[This article was contributed by Ladislav Bodnar]
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Slackware Linux 1.00
Date: 17 Jul 1993 00:16:36 GMT
The Slackware Linux distribution (v. 1.00) is now available for anonymous FTP. This is a complete installation system designed for systems with a 3.5" boot floppy. It has been tested extensively with a 386/IDE system. The standard kernel included does not support SCSI, but if there's a great demand, I might be persuaded to compile a few custom kernels to put up for FTP.
Yes, you have been taken exactly 10 years back in history when Slackware Linux 1.0 was rather unceremoniously unveiled to those who had the determination and skill to get it installed on their computers. Since the actual development had started at some point in 1992, it is safe to say that Slackware Linux is the oldest surviving Linux distribution on the market today. It was created by Patrick Volkerding and originally based on one of the first ever Linux distributions called SLS Linux by Soft Landing Systems.
The Linux veterans among the readers will remember that Slackware 1.0 came on 24 floppy disks, 13 of which were the essential A series, while the remaining 11 floppies contained XFree86 and graphical applications. What exciting features could one find in Slackware 1.0? The Linux kernel was at version 0.99pl11 alpha. It came with math emulation and normal hard drive support, TCP/IP, support for ext2fs, msdos and several other file systems, and it even supported a PS/2 style mouse. It was compiled with libc 4.4.1 and g++ 2.4.5. The graphical part of the distribution was based on XFree86 1.3 and the OpenLook Virtual Window Manager was the default desktop environment.
New releases followed in rapid succession and six new Slackware versions were announced during the remaining 5 months of that year. A much improved Slackware Linux 2.0 was released in July 1994. It came with a choice between a stable Linux kernel 1.0.9 and a development kernel 1.1.18, and included XFree86 2.1.1. It was about this time that Patrick Volkerding turned the Slackware distribution commercial in cooperation with Morse Telecommunication, who were about to release the product on a bootable CD, together with printed documentation.
The Linux Journal magazine interviewed
Patrick Volkerding in the second issue of the newly launched
publication in April 1994. "Why did you call it
Slackware?
", was one of the questions. "My friend J.R.
'Bob' Dobbs suggested it.
", replied Patrick. "Although
I've seen people say that it carries negative connotations, I've grown
to like the name. It's what I started calling it back when it was
really just a hacked version of SLS and I had no intention of putting
it up for public retrieval. When I finally did put it up for FTP, I
kept the name. I think I named it 'Slackware' because I didn't want
people to take it all that seriously at first.
" Interestingly, a
potential merge of Slackware with Debian was under consideration in
those days, claimed the 27-year old creator of Slackware Linux.
Slackware
Linux 3.0 (kernel 1.2.13) came out in August 1995 and this was
followed by a considerable slowdown in the frequency of new releases.
It took the distribution almost four years to reach version 4.0 (kernel
2.2.6) in May 1999 (see this review).
This trend was broken 5 months later when another new release was
announced, and to the surprise of many, it was called Slackware
Linux 7.0 (kernel 2.2.13)! Why the sudden escalation of the version
number? The Slackware web site explains:
"
In the following years, the Slackware release cycle settled to about one
per year, while the more adventurous users followed the distribution's
continuously evolving current
branch. But the infamous dotcom bust brought a period of uncertainty to
the future of Slackware development. This happened when Slackware's
primary distributor Walnut Creek merged with BSDi, which was later acquired
by another company called WindRiver. Things started to look bleak when
WindRiver announced
in April 2001 that it would no longer support the development of
Slackware. Patrick Volkerding: "
Luckily for all Slackware fans, things turned out rather nicely as
Patrick Volkerding teamed up with Bob Bruce, the founder of Walnut
Creek, to form a company handling product sales. And, according to this
interview, Slackware is actually a profitable business: Patrick
Volkerding: "
Things have always been kept simple and quiet at Slackware and this is
perhaps the main reason why the distribution's 90% market share, which
it enjoyed before 1996, has dwindled substantially, as new
distributions with a lot more ambition have come to dominate the server
rooms. Despite that, Slackware remains one of the top five Linux
distributions in terms of popularity and server deployments. Its
mailing lists, which have now been transferred into an online user forum at userlocal.com, have become a large
collection of some 170,000 posts over the years, while the sheer number
of active Slackware community sites in dozens of languages, perhaps
only rivaled by the number of sites devoted to Debian, is a clear
indication that Slackware remains a powerful force in the world of
Linux distributions.
Happy birthday, Slackware! Thank you for all the great work during the
past decade and we look forward to more "slacking" for many more years
to come!
I think it's clear that some other distributions inflated their
version numbers for marketing purposes, and I've had to field (way too
many times) the question 'why isn't yours 6.x' or worse 'when will you
upgrade to Linux 6.0' which really drives home the effectiveness of
this simple trick. Sorry if I haven't been enough of a purist about
this. I promise I won't inflate the version number again (unless
everyone else does again ;)
I'm working on setting up a
company so we can handle the publishing ourselves. Unfortunately, I'm
broke. I can get funding to publish and ship the release to all the
subscribers (and anyone else who wants it), but have no money to pay my
fellow friends until we make some.
"
There were certainly times I looked around at the
trade shows at new distributions with larger booths and more employees
and wondered if I'd made the right move, but in retrospect I'm glad I
kept things small. Most of those companies aren't around anymore. When
the investments dried up they couldn't afford to continue operating at
a loss. Most of the funding for the Slackware project comes from people
who have subscribed to the CD releases, or bought CDs from our Web
site. This is what pays the bills and enables us to give away free
software to everybody else.
"
Distribution News
Debian GNU/Linux
The July 16 issue of the Debian Weekly News is available. This week's topics include the Debconf talk schedule, software patents, the G++ 3.2 transition, RFC licensing, and several others.ServerBeach, a provider of self-managed hosting services, now offers Debian GNU Linux on Starter Servers and Power Servers.
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter -- Volume 2, Issue 28
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for July 14, 2003 is out, with a look at Gentoo Linux at LinuxTag and the news that ViewCVS is back up.Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter - Issue #81
The Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for July 10, 2003 is out. This week's top story is a message from the CEO about MandrakeSoft's Status.Lycoris Unveils OS For Tablet PC Platform
Lycoris unveiled a new OS for the tablet PC, Desktop/LX Tablet Edition. The Tablet Edition is now available for tablet manufacturers and resellers. Click below for more information.Microtel to Bundle SuSE Linux for Walmart.com
SuSE Linux and Microtel Computer Systems have announced that Microtel PCs preloaded with the SuSE Linux 8.2 operating system are for sale at Walmart.com.Red Hat Enterprise Linux-rebuild mailing list and mini-HOWTO
A new mailing list has been announced, for the discussion of rebuilding and installing a Linux system based on the SRPMS of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. There is also a mini-HOWTO on the subject. Click below for more information.Slackware Linux
Slackware Linux reports some security fixes to nfs-utils this week. You can find the advisories on our Security page. Of course the slackware-current changelog has the details.Trustix Secure Linux
Trustix has released more bug fixes for TSL 2.0. This round fixes bugs in anaconda, kernel, mkinitrd and pptpd. Click below for more information.Create Debian Linux packages (IBM DeveloperWorks)
IBM DeveloperWorks looks at the process of creating Debian packages. "The Debian packaging system is one of the most elegant methods of installing, upgrading, and removing software available. For all you fans of other packaging systems, before you send your flames, please note that I said "one of" and not simply "the most." Other packaging systems have their charms, but in this article I'm going to focus on the Debian packaging system. Specifically, I'm going to look at creating Debian packages so you can distribute your packages in Debian format -- or simply create packages for your own use."
New Distributions
BG-Rescue Linux
BG-Rescue Linux is a Busybox 0.60.5 and uClibc 0.9.19 based rescue system with kernel 2.4.21. It is loaded either from two floppy disks or from one 2.8MB El Torito CD. The system runs entirely in RAM. Version 0.1.3 was released July 15, 2003.
Minor distribution updates
Ark Linux
Ark Linux has released v1.0-0.alpha8.2 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: Updates have been made to many components of the operating system, such as kernel 2.4.21, KDE 3.1.2, and gcc 3.3. Internationalization has been improved. The system has been adapted to work with 2.5.x/2.6pre kernels, although these kernels are not installed by default. Many bugs were fixed."
Crash Recovery Kit
Crash Recovery Kit has released version 2.4.21, based on Red Hat Linux 9. Click below for more information.DeLi Linux
DeLi Linux has released v0.3 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: Many bugfixes were made. Better i18n support has been added. New packages provide a small SQL database, graphical FTP clients, a new FTP server, and a new samba client."
distccKNOPPIX
distccKNOPPIX has released v0.0.5 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: Versions 3.2 and 2.95 of gcc, g++, and cpp were included, but there are still uncertainties about how to best prepare the ISOs for the different compiler versions. A small hack was implemented to display the IP address when the distccd daemon starts, and some unneeded locales were removed."
floppyfw
floppyfw has released v2.0.6 with minor bugfixes. "Changes: This version fixes a few bugs regarding packages and a few other minor issues."
Morphix
Morphix has released v0.4 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: Numerous fixes have been made to the base module. WiFi support has been added (prism2 + Orinoco), USB has been fixed, and a 2.4.21-xfs kernel is used. All main modules have been updated to the latest packages in Debian sid, giving you Firebird 0.6 in Light and Mozilla 1.4 in Heavy, and KDE modules. The Game module has been split up, and now the ISO includes an Enemy Territory minimod instead of the Q3A or UT2003 demos, which are now available as minimodules separately. The number of minimodules has grown from 4 to 16, including scientific, rescue, console, and security minimodules."
NSA Security Enhanced Linux
NSA Security Enhanced Linux has released v2003071106 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: The base kernel versions have been updated to 2.5.74 and 2.4.21. The SELinux API redesign with xattr support has been completed for the 2.5-based kernel. The SELinux daemon and utility patches have been ported to the new API. Support for the AT_SECURE auxv entry was added. Changes were made to bprm hook permission checking and nosuid operation. A report, "Securing the X Window System with SELinux", was added to documentation discussing adding SELinux controls to the window system. Many contributed patches have been merged, and RPM spec files and SRPMs are now provided."
RxLinux
RxLinux has released v1.4.7 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: A fix for automatic serial console configuration using kudzu, and addition of /usr/dirname needed by the Java runtime wrapper."
Slackware Live CD
Slackware Live CD has released v2.9.0.20 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: This release added bdiff, dbdiff, xdos (a DOSEMU and FreeDOS suite), the Samba client and smbmount, nfsutils, rdist, rsync, nmap, BitchX, the joe, jove, and jed editors, the "most" filter, the Fluxbox window manager, raidtools, jfsutils, reiserfsprogs, xfsprogs, umsdos-progs, and zoneinfo. It is now possible to install your own packages in /usr/local and to copy the CD to hard disk. Netscape and some useless KDE themes were removed. Executables are now compressed with the upx packer."
stresslinux
stresslinux has released v0.2.0 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: All kernels were recompiled with i2c-2.8.0 and lm_sensors 2.8.0. The busybox was updated to version 1.0.0pre1. Various other little fixes were also made."
TrinityOS
TrinityOS has released v07/07/03 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: An update to the kernel compiling script "build-it", installation of OpenSSH to TrinityOS and deprecation of the use of SSH.com code (though instructions are still present), updated thoughts on RPM hell (it's not that bad now) and patch/errata support, and other bugfixes."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
Development
BusyBox 1.0.0-pre1 released
Version 1.0.0-pre1 of BusyBox, an integrated collection of Unix-like command line utilities for embedded systems, has been released. The project has been fairly quiet this year, the previous release, version 0.60.5, was issued in October, 2002.
![[BusyBox]](https://static.lwn.net/images/ns/busybox.jpg)
This version has been submitted for testing, the real version 1.0.0 release should happen sometime near the end of July, 2003 if all goes according to the plan. The Changelog file has lots of gory details concerning what has changed.
For embedded systems and minimalist Linux distributions, BusyBox is able to replace a large number of command line utilities as well as some common shells with a single binary that has a modest memory footprint. Developers who wish to further minimize the size of the binary can selectively compile in only the parts that are desired for the particular system. BusyBox can be built on most platforms that support GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection.
The project has a number of well known contributors including original author Bruce Perens of Debian fame, Linus Torvalds, and many other notable individuals. The current project maintainer is Erik Andersen.
For a list of the command line utilities that BusyBox mimics, as well as a full explanation of the utility, take a look at the online man page and README documents.
BusyBox has been released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
System Applications
Audio Projects
ALSA 0.9.5 available
Version 0.9.5 of the ALSA sound driver is available. Change information is in the source code.Ogg Traffic
The July 15, 2003 edition of Ogg Traffic is out with Ogg Vorbis audio compression software news. "It's time for a new Ogg Traffic, and this issue has lots of things to shout about! Brendan has released version 2.0 of libshout, and many other exciting events are happening."
Clusters and Grids
OpenSSI 0.9.8 (SourceForge)
Version 0.9.8 of OpenSSI, a Single System Image for clustering environments, has been announced. "The source code has been completely reorganized. There are new instructions for installation. This release features improvements to the OpenSSI-enhanced /dev filesystem and LVS. Furthermore, it can now migrate processes linked to libpthread, including Perl processes."
Database Software
Firebird 1.5 Release Candidate 4 available
Version 1.5 Release Candidate 4 of the Firebird database is available. "The development of Firebird 1.5 release is in final development stage ! The Release Candidate means that we're "almost there", and we turned our focus to remaining known issues and rough edges, final testing and bug squashing. We made a lot of progress with it thanks to your feedback."
Electronics
XCircuit 3.1.17 released
Version 3.1.17 of XCircuit, an electronic schematic drawing utility, is available. Change information is in the source code.
Mail Software
milter-sender/0.29 beta available
Version 0.29 beta of milter-sender, a real-time sender address verification utility for Sendmail 8.12, is available. This release includes two important bug fixes, see the Change Log file for more information.
Medical Software
Kidwai Clinical Management Laboratory System 2.0 (LinuxMedNews)
LinuxMedNews has an announcement for version 2.0 of the Kidwai Clinical Management Laboratory System. "Kidwai is a system to automate a critical component of a cancer hospital's existing (non-computerized) management system. It automates the entire process of managing Individual Patients Laboratory Requisition details, from the registration of a patient for a specific test (on site), to a doctor viewing the patient's tests results from a terminal."
Web Site Development
Eddie 1.5.3 announced
Version 1.5.3 of Eddie, a WAN and LAN clustering tool for web servers, has been released. "This version is a maintenance release that make Eddie run on Erlang/OTP R9B-1 (latest version)."
fcForum 1.1.4 Released to the Community (ZopeMembers)
Version 1.1.4 of fcForum is available for Zope. "fcForum is an open source, XHTML 1.0, CSS 2.0 standards compatible, ZClass-based Message Board Product, intended to be ready for use out-of-the-box with almost no configuration required at all, and with a clean and neat user interface." Version 1.1.4 now provides three forum types, admin-only, member-only, and public.
GroupUserFolder reaches v1.2 ! (ZopeMembers)
Zope Members News has an announcement for version 1.2 of GRUF, a tool for managing groups of users from within Zope.mnoGoSearch 3.2.13 released
Version 3.2.13 of the mnoGoSearch web site search engine is available. New features and bug fixes are documented in the Change Log file.osCommerce 2.2 Milestone 2 (SourceForge)
SourceForge has an announcement for version 2.2 of osCommerce, an open-source e-commerce system. "The Milestone 2 release contains numerous updates to strengthen the security on both client and server side of operations. osCommerce, formerly titled The Exchange Project, is a feature packed out-of-the-box online shop ecommerce solution for both PHP3 and PHP4 web servers. Maintenance is made easy with a friendly GUI thats given to the Administration Tool."
Quixote 0.6.1 released
Version 0.6.1 of Quixote, a Python-based Web Application Framework, has been released. See the announcement for details.Tiki 1.7 RC1 released (SourceForge)
Version 1.7 of Tiki, a CMS Groupware application, has been released. "Tiki 1.7 includes a lot of new features, including multi-server capability, workflow engine (galaxia), WYSIWYG editor, WML&PDA extensions (HawHaw), an events and groups calendar, many new plugins, several feature enhancements, and more."
How to Avoid Writing Code (O'Reilly)
Kake Pugh writes about mining databases with Perl on O'Reilly. "One of the most boring programming tasks in the world has to be pulling data out of a database and displaying it on a web site. Yet it's also one of the most ubiquitous. Perl programmers being lazy, there are tools to help make boring programming tasks less painful, and two of these tools, Class::DBI and the Template Toolkit, create a whole which is far more drudgery-destroying than its parts."
Integrating mod_perl with Apache 2.1 Authentication (O'Reilly)
Geoffrey Young covers issues on Apache authentication with Perl. "Furthermore, even though the standard Apache distribution came with modules to support both Basic and Digest authentication, Apache (and thus mod_perl) only offered an API for interacting with Basic authentication. If you wanted to use Digest authentication, flat files were the only password storage medium available. With both of these restrictions, it seemed impractical to deploy Digest authentication in all but the most limited circumstances."
Privoxy default.action 1.7 released (SourceForge)
A new action file for Privoxy, a web proxy with filtering capabilities, has been released. "This actions file fixes a number of configuration issues with the 3.0.2 release. Everyone is encouraged to upgrade."
Miscellaneous
New Project Formed: OpenGroupware.org
The OpenGroupware.org ('OGo') project announced its formation and the release of its groupware server software. The OGo software is based initially on the contribution of the code of SKYRiX 4.1 Groupware Server.
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
Three new releases of gmorgan
It's been a busy week for gmorgan developer Josep Holborn. Three new versions of the organ synthesizer with auto-accompaniment and rhythm station have been released. Version 0.02 adds a drum velocity mixer and a batch song player/editor. Version 0.03 adds a drum pattern editor, demo patterns and songs, and bug fixes. Version 0.04 adds a new song file format, batch play additions, and the ability to export MIDI files.lcdplugin 0.6.3 alpha released
Lcdplugin, an extension to winamp that connects to an external LCD display, has been updated. Version 0.6.3 alpha adds custom character map for each LCD, dynamic menus, configurable text for system state changes, and bug fixes.
Desktop Environments
GNOME 2.2.2 released (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org has the announcement for version 2.2.2 of the GNOME Desktop and Developer Platform. "The 2.2.x series is devoted to bugfixes, translations, and general polish of our major 2.2 stable release. We strongly recommend upgrading to 2.2.2 in particular, as it contains an amazing amount of improvements since the last release."
GARNOME 0.25.0 is out (GnomeDesktop)
Version 0.25.0 of GARNOME, the GNOME distribution for testers and tweakers, has been announced. Most of the changes involve updated package versions.KDE-CVS-Digest
KDE.News summarizes the contents of the July 11, 2003 KDE-CVS-Digest: "In this week's digest: The KDE Kolab client nears release. Klaviatura, a simple proof-of-concept on-screen keyboard is added to kdenonbeta demonstrating the possibilities of QAccessible and DCOP. The KDevelop CVS service is improved."
KDE Traffic #58
Issue #58 of KDE Traffic is out. Topics include Artsbuilder/Kdenonbeta, IDE?, Knopdex, introducing brockenboring, and cute kittens.KDE Gains Support for International Domain Names
According to KDE.News, the Konqueror browser and KDE base libraries now support domain names written in non-ASCII character sets. "Konqueror and the KDE base libraries in CVS now support domain names written with names outside the usual strict 7-bit ASCII letters. This means that one can now register and access domain names written in proper letters for almost all languages in the planet, not just English. Konqueror is among the first browsers to support this new technology, developed in cooperation with VeriSign which has also been cooperating with the Safari and Mozilla teams (Mozilla IDN announcement and explanation)."
XFce4 RC1 released
Version 4-RC1 of the XFce desktop environment is available. "RC 1 is the third public development release of the next generation of the XFce desktop environment and the first release candidate. If no large problems are found this is intended to become 4.0. XFce 4 is a complete rewrite from XFce 3."
Games
Gaudi 0.1.4 released
Version 0.1.4 of Gaudi, a graphical blueprint editor that is part of the WorldForge game project, has been released. This version features a number of bug fixes, the screen shots are impressive.Pygame developments
The Pygame site lists new versions of the games Pyrunner, Chat, and Pathological.
Graphics
JFreeChart 0.9.9 released (SourceForge)
An announcement has been placed on SourceForge for JFreeChart version 0.9.9. "JFreeChart is a class library, written in Java, for generating charts. Utilising the Java2D APIs, it currently supports bar charts, pie charts, line charts, XY-plots and time series plots."
GUI Packages
SPTK 2.0 alpha 5 released
SPTK version 2.0 alpha 5, a widget toolkit for FLTK, has been released and includes a number of bug fixes.
Interoperability
wine20030709 released
Version 20030709 of Wine has been announced. Changes include: more Direct3D and DirectSound improvements, inter-process clipboard support, improved locale handling, progress on the kernel/ntdll separation, and bug fixes.Wine Traffic
The July 11, 2003 edition of Wine Traffic is out. Topics include: Wine-20030709, AutoCAD Tips, Linux Refresher Course, Viva la Kernel Module Idea, RPC Via Windows Messages and Other OLE Fun, and Structured Exception Handling Support for GCC.
Mail Clients
SquirrelMail 1.4.1 released (SourceForge)
Version 1.4.1 of SquirrelMail, a PHP4-based Web email client, has been released. "This is the second release of the stable 1.4.x series. This release added no new user features, focusing strictly on bugfixes and performance enhancements."
Office Applications
AbiWord Weekly News
Issue #152 of the AbiWord Weekly News is out. "1.99.2 tarballs on Source Forge and Savannah, the official statement on the TextMaker advertisement, printing bugs fix backported to stable, MailMerge (or is it now DataSources) successfully functions with GnomeDB, Math editing in AbiWord and how you can help the Open Text Summariser in your language. All that and wise-cracks to the FootNotes users, plus two screenshots depicting the evolution of DataSources."
AbiWord 1.99.2 (AbiWord 2.0 Beta 2) released (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org has an announcement for version 1.99.2 of the AbiWord word processor. "The AbiWord team continue to steam ahead for a world-rocking 2.0 release. Thanks very much to bug reporters. We've now made many, many fixes to our first beta and thanks to Tomas Frydrych and his helpers we now have ligature support for fontsets that support them."
AbiWord gets GDA/Gnome-DB support! (GnomeDesktop)
AbiWord now has support for GDA/Gnome-DB. "Just before AbiWord 2.0 gets out the door, some developers couldn't resist adding the feature you all really want to see: an integrated GNOME Office Suite! To be more precise: AbiWord gets GDA/Gnome-DB support! With the GDA plugin, you can import data directly into your AbiWord documents from all data sources GDA supports!"
Evolution 1.4.3 released (GnomeDesktop)
Version 1.4.3 of the GNOME Evolution groupware suite has been released. "This release fixes some several problems, including some crashers, some memory leaks and an issue with certain buggy POP servers that caused mail download to not work properly. 1.4.0 users are strongly encouraged to upgrade."
Evolution 2.0 UI proposal (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org looks at possible UI changes to Evolution. "Here at Ximian we have been brainstorming a bit about what happens next in the Evolution world. One of the ideas that has come up is a substantial overhaul of Evolution's UI."
OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC is available
The release candidate for OpenOffice.org version 1.1 is available. "OpenOffice.org1.1 RC is expected to be feature complete with no more features added before the final OpenOffice.org 1.1 release. This release addresses user feedback and is ready for everyday use by everyone."
Scribus 1.0 released
Scribus 1.0 ("the first open source desktop publishing application capable of generating professional 'press-ready' results") has been released. It is a Qt-based application which runs on almost anything; there is a long list of features aimed at the creation of high-quality output, and Scribus can be scripted in Python. We hope to have a closer look at this release shortly; in the mean time, click below for the 1.0 announcement.
Video Applications
Xawdecode 1.7.0 is out (SourceForge)
Version 1.7.0 of Xawdecode is available. "X11 TV application based on xawtv 2.x series which adds many enhancements like Xvideo rendering support, deinterlacing, real time divx recording, integrated alevt teletext browser and provides a plugin API to add any functionnality one might think of."
Web Browsers
ChatZilla for Mozilla Firebird (MozillaZine)
MozillaZine reports that the Firebird browser now supports the ChatZilla IRC client. "ChatZilla has been available for Firebird for a while now but many people still assume that it only works with the Mozilla Application Suite."
Epiphany 0.8.0 ''Girlish Edition'' Released (GnomeDesktop)
Version 0.8.0 of Epiphany, the GNOME web browser, has been released.Trunk Frozen for Mozilla 1.5 Alpha (MozillaZine)
According to MozillaZine, the Mozilla 1.5 trunk has been frozen. "While the tree is frozen, all checkins to the trunk require approval from drivers@mozilla.org or they will not be allowed to land. The freeze is expected to last for a few days and the trunk will be reopened when Mozilla 1.5 Alpha is released."
Miscellaneous
Terminal Server Client 0.120 Released (GnomeDesktop)
Version 0.120 of Terminal Server Client has been announced. "A new release of Terminal Server Client, a frontend for rdesktop and other remote desktop tools, has been unleashed. Version 0.120 now supports RDP (using rdesktop), VNC (using *vncviewer), XDMCP (using Xnest), and ICA (using wfica). Along with continued HIGification and usability improvements, support was added for the Citrix ICA client. Banner problems have been adjusted and translations updated."
Languages and Tools
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The Caml Weekly News for July 8-15, 2003 is out. Topics include: heap profiling, adding data persistency in Ocaml, Seeking feedback on a project, new calendar library, and First alpha release of the FoC library.
Java
Jython Needs Developers
Jython, an implementation of the Python language in Java, needs developer help. ..."But the thing is that there has always been a bit of a shortage of core Jython developers, and lately things have been even worse. Apparently Finn Bock hasn't been active for a while, and Samuele Pedroni et al. don't have time for everything. I don't know the details of the whole story, but Guido mentioned about this in his EuroPython keynote, and the message was that there aren't enough core developers right now for Jython."
Java programming dynamics, Part 3: Applied reflection (IBM developerWorks)
Dennis M. Sosnoski writes about Java command line argument processing on IBM's developerWorks. "Command line argument processing is one of those nasty chores that seems to keep coming around no matter how many times you've dealt with it in the past. Rather than writing variations of the same code over and over, why not use reflection to simplify the job of argument processing? Java consultant Dennis Sosnoski shows you how. In this article, Dennis outlines an open source library that makes command line arguments practically handle themselves."
Lisp
HTML-TEMPLATE initial release
The initial release of HTML-TEMPLATE, a Common Lisp library that is used for filling HTML templates, has been released.XMLS 0.4 released
XMLS 0.4 is available. "Xmls is a small, simple, non-validating xml parser for Common Lisp. It's designed to be a self-contained, easily embedded parser that recognizes a useful subset of the XML spec. It provides a simple mapping from xml to lisp s-expressions and back."
ML
MLton 20030711 available
Version 20030711 of MLton, the standard ML compiler, is available. "Improvements include support for Sparc/SunOS, completion of the basis library implementation, support for calling SML from C, and libraries for weak pointers and finalization."
Pascal
Free Pascal version 1.0.10 released
Version 1.0.10 of Free Pascal is available. "This is a bugfix release mostly. However, to support the Lazarus IDE, and several other projects, some enhancements are included anyway".
Perl
Perl 5.8.1 Release Candidate One (use Perl)
UsePerl has an announcement for Perl 5.8.1 release candidate 1. "Please text extensively, especially if you had problems with Perl 5.8.0."
Perl 5.8.1 RC2 is Out (use Perl)
UsePerl has announced the availability of Perl 5.8.1-RC2. "jhi writes "The RC1 had one embarassing build failure (in AIX), one new feature (the hash randomisation) made optional instead of default (we are still weighing our options), and the v-strings deprecation message was added."
This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)
The July 7-13, 2003 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is out. "In a two-release-candidate-week, there are plenty of things to summarize. Learn what happened behind the scenes : random seeding of hashing, deprecation of vstrings, signals, floats, and the other things."
This week on Perl 6 (O'Reilly)
The July 13, 2003 edition of This week on Perl 6 has been published. Topics include: Targeting Parrot from GCC, Timely destruction and TRACE_SYSTEM_AREAS, Parrot is not feature frozen, Perl* Abstraction, Fun with ParrotIO, Jako groks basic PMCs, I want a Ponie!, Exceptions!, Perl 6 Rules at OSCON, and more.
PHP
PHP Weekly Summary for July 14, 2003
The PHP Weekly Summary for July 14, 2003 is out. Topics include: Technical questions? MD5, SHA1 calculations, API version number, OCI8 with 4.3.2, Manual translation, PHP 5 for Netware, Reflection API, strip_tags() updated.phpDocumentor 1.2.1 released (SourceForge)
Version 1.2.1 of phpDocumentor, a PHP documentation solution, has been released. "The phpDocumentor team is pleased to announce the release of phpDocumentor 1.2.1. This is a bug fix release, all users who had problems with 1.2.0 should upgrade."
Common Style Mistakes, Part 2 (O'ReillyNet)
O'Reilly's OnLamp.com site has an article on PHP coding tips. "In the second of a series on PHP Paranoia, John Coggeshall gives three tips to write code that's easier to understand."
Python
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!
The Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for July 14, 2003 is out with news and links for the Python community.python-dev Summary
The latest Python-dev Summary is out. "This is a summary of traffic on the python-dev mailing list from June 1, 2003 through June 30, 2003. It is intended to inform the wider Python community of on-going developments on the list and to have an archived summary of each thread started on the list."
LDAP Programming in Python (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal has published a HOWTO article on using python-ldap to access LDAP services from Python. "You've heard about the next generation directory protocol called LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol), and you're wondering if it's possible to write programs that can interact with it. Maybe you've even set up an LDAP server of your own, and now you want to write programs for it. To these ends, this article gets you ready to write your own programs to automate the querying process of LDAP servers."
Tcl/Tk
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The July 14, 2003 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is out with the weeks' Tcl/Tk news.
XML
Serialize XML data (IBM developerWorks)
Tinny Ng covers XML data serialization on IBM's developerWorks. "IBM developer Tinny Ng shows you how to serialize XML data to a DOMString with different encodings. You'll also find examples that demonstrate how to use the MemBufFormatTarget, StdOutFormatTarget, and LocalFileFormatTarget output streams in XML4C/Xerces-C++."
A Survey of APIs and Techniques for Processing XML (O'Reilly)
Dare Obasanjo writes about XML processing tools on O'Reilly. "This article provides an overview of the current landscape of techniques for processing XML and runs the gamut from discussing old mainstays, such as push model APIs and tree model APIs as exemplified by SAX and DOM, to newer participants in the XML world such as cursor APIs and pull model parsers as exemplified by the .NET Framework's XPathNavigator and the XmlPull API respectively."
Transclusion with XSLT 2.0 (O'Reilly)
Bob DuCharme writes about transclusion and XSLT on O'Reilly. "Transclusion is a hypertext concept that began in the work of Ted Nelson, who coined the term "hypertext". Roughly speaking, transclusion is the inclusion of a resource, or part of a resource, potentially from anywhere in the world, within a new one. For example, the HTML img element is a form of transclusion. Nelson envisioned dynamic compound documents consisting entirely of pointers to pieces of other documents, with the compound ones automatically reflecting updates to the transcluded pieces."
Editors
Leo 3.12 beta 2 released (SourceForge)
Version 3.12 beta 2 of Leo, a scriptable programmer's editor and browsing tool, is available. "This version fixes many bugs and adds a few new features. There are no known serious bugs in this version of Leo."
PyPE 1.1 announced
Version 1.1 of PyPE, the Python Programmer's Editor, is available. "PyPE (Python Programmers Editor) was written in order to offer a lightweight but powerful editor for those of you who think emacs is too much and idle is too little. Syntax highlighting is included out of the box, as is multiple open documents via tabs."
Miscellaneous
Create Debian Linux packages (IBM developerWorks)
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier shows how to build Debian packages on IBM's developerWorks. "Learn the basics of creating Debian packages for distributing programs and source code. This article shows all the necessary components of a package and how to put them together to end up with a final product."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
'Open Source' Database Poses Threat to Oracle (Wall Street Journal)
The Wall Street Journal looks at the impact that open-source databases are having on commercial database companies. "But now, Oracle and other database suppliers face a growing threat from below: "open source" databases, which give customers a free or low-cost alternative to commercial products. While the impact has been small so far, some analysts expect open-source software to eventually turn databases into a low-cost commodity, just as the open-source Linux operating system is posing a threat to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows franchise."
Inside the open-source development model (News.com)
News.com is running this article from HBS Working Knowledge which looks into the open-source development model. "Many people have wondered why these people give their work away. The truth is that many projects have become incorporated in order to protect themselves from individual liability. Since the founding of the Free Software Foundation in 1985, a number of new nonprofit foundations have formed, often around specific technologies, to serve the interests of programmers."
The politics of open-source software (News.com)
This News.com article looks at the efforts of the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) as it attempts to ensure that government agencies won't favor open-source over proprietary software. "The ISC is by far the most vocal opponent of a growing trend: Legislation that, if enacted, would all but prohibit government agencies from purchasing proprietary software for their own use. The ISC asserts that such legislation could jeopardize the future of the worldwide commercial software industry."
Linux To Become A De Facto Standard (IT-Director)
IT-Director.com is carrying a column by Robin Bloor on why Linux is the only reasonable choice for "server virtualization" applications. "It qualifies because it spans so many platforms - from small devices up to IBM's zSeries mainframe. It also qualifies because, like TCP/IP, it doesn't actually belong to anyone. It runs on most chips and is rapidly becoming the developer platform of choice. So the idea is starting to emerge that you virtualise storage by the use of SANs and NAS and you virtualise server hardware by the use of Linux - thus making it feasible to switch applications from one server to another automatically, and quickly."
Trade Shows and Conferences
The State of Open Source (O'ReillyNet)
O'RellyNet reports from OSCON 2003. "The night that divides the two days of tutorials from the three-day conference at the fifth annual O'Reilly Open Source Convention is reserved for the States of the Union addresses. Luminaries from the open source communities of Perl, Python, PHP, MySQL, Apache, and Linux each spoke for just under a half hour to present their take on the current state of their technology and where it is headed."
Kapor's Thoughts on Desktop Linux (O'ReillyNet)
Daniel Steinberg reports on Kapor's keynote from OSCON 2003 in this O'ReillyNet article. "Six years later, in 1991, Linux was introduced. Kapor argues that Linux is so successful on the server that it is attracting parasitic companies whose business offerings consist of little more than Linux-centered litigation. As for desktop computing, Kapor asserts that Linux is gaining credibility in this era of Net-centric computing as this focus on the Net is in the DNA of Linux."
SCO vs. Linux: Show Me the Money (eWeek)
eWeek covers a panel discussion at OSCON. "In a late afternoon panel discussion titled "The IP Wars: SCO Versus Linux," moderator Chris DiBona, vice president and founder of Damage Studios, said the topic essentially involves a "SCO versus everybody else talk," adding that the lawsuit was probably brought for financial reasons as IBM is a player with a lot of money.""
Here's how Linux gets to the desktop (ZDNet)
This ZDNet article focuses on Mitch Kapor's keynote at OSCON. "Kapor said he would not be surprised to see 10 percent of global desktops running Linux in the near future. That's a good bet."
Open source flexes its muscle at OSCON (ZDNet)
ZDNet's David Berlind went to OSCON. "Eric Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative, was comparing open source to cockroaches as he explained to my 13-year-old son the simplicity of open source, why it has caught on with such rabid intensity, and why the buzz was undeniably vibrant here at OSCON '03."
Open Source on Rise in Government (eWeek)
eWeek covers Lisa Wolfisch Nyman's OSCON talk titled "Open Source in Government". "A 2002 report from the MITRE Corp. also identified 110 open-source software tools in use at the Department of Defense. And this year, the office of the CIO at the Department came out with an official open-source software policy, which placed open-source software under the same requirements of Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) products and the same security certification, she said."
OpenOffice.org at OSCON
Louis Suarez-Potts overviews the OpenOffice.org coverage at the O'Reilly OSCON.Linux Rules the Day at CA World (eWeek)
eWeek goes to Linux Solution Day at the CA World conference. "Computer Associates International Inc., which has pegged Tuesday as Linux Solution Day at its CA World conference here, is working on a range of new Linux deals, initiatives and products, including an upcoming formal partnership with Linux solution provider Ximian Inc."
Companies
AOL axes Gecko team, dumps Netscape (MozillaZine)
According to MozillaZine, AOL has laid off the Mozilla developers. "It has been learned through public and private sources that AOL has cut or will cut the remaining team working on Mozilla in a mass firing and are dismantling what was left of Netscape (they've even pulled the logos off the buildings). Some will remain working on Mozilla during the transition, and will move to other jobs within AOL."
Sun expands Unix deal with SCO (News.com)
News.com looks into deals between Sun and SCO. "The pact, signed earlier this year, expanded the rights Sun acquired in 1994 to use Unix in its Solaris operating system. But there's more to the relationship: SCO also granted Sun a warrant to buy as many as 210,000 shares of SCO stock at $1.83 per share as part of the licensing deal, according to a regulatory document filed Tuesday."
Walmart.com sells Microtel PC with SuSE Linux software (InfoWorld)
InfoWorld reports that Microtel PCs with SuSE Linux 8.2 installed will be available from Walmart.com. "For SuSE, this is a first not only with Microtel, which designs, manufacturers, and customizes computers, but also with Wal-Mart, one of the biggest retailers in the U.S., Egle said. "The deal with Wal-Mart is very important to us because it opens the door to the huge U.S. consumer market," he said."
Linux Adoption
Linux wins big over Microsoft in Munich (USA Today)
USA Today covers some concessions by Microsoft as the company tried (unsuccessfully) to win in Munich. "A Linux victory in Munich would be a stunning blow. So Ballmer visited Mayor Christian Ude to assure him Microsoft would do what it takes to keep the city's business. Documents obtained by USA TODAY show Microsoft subsequently lowered its pricing to $31.9 million and then to $23.7 million -- an overall 35% price cut. The discounts were for naught." (Thanks to Jamie Strandboge)
Japan Mulls Switch To Linux For Public Servants Data (TechWeb)
TechWeb is running an Associated Press article proclaiming that the Japanese government is considering using Linux when it upgrades its computer data files for public servants in 2005. "Japan has chosen a proposal submitted by a group made up of Fujitsu, IBM Japan, and Oki Electric Industry Co. The companies suggest using Linux to manage salary and other personnel data for the nation's 800,000 central government employees, government official Masanobu Arao said Wednesday."
Open Asia: GNU/Linux gaining visibility across the continent (NewsForge)
NewsForge covers some wins for GNU/Linux in Asia. "Like the legendary story of the blind men and the elephant, the role that GNU/Linux is actually playing is both difficult to notice and hard to understand. There are hints from all over that GNU/Linux has excited the imagination of a generation, whose members are suddenly finding the rules of the software game drastically altered -- in their favour, for a change."
Linux users rate stability over TCO (Australian IT)
The Australian IT covers a survey by Computer Associates. "According to the survey, which involved 2500 corporate customers across the globe, 95 per cent of companies rated Linux's reliability as its most important contribution to business value. Acquisition cost was the next most popular choice, cited by 89 per cent. TCO came out at the bottom list, with 65 per cent of companies listing it as a contributor to value."
Interviews
Interview: Andrew Morton (LinuxWorld)
LinuxWorld.com.au interviews kernel hacker Andrew Morton. "There simply is no room for great flights of self-expressive fancy in the Linux kernel. It is very much an exercise in maintenance and gradual evolution. You'll see much more innovation and change in the application world than in the kernel" (Thanks to Howie D).
Slash'EM Interview (O'Reilly)
O'Reilly interviews game developers Warren Cheung and J. Ali Harlowe. "Any worthwhile Nethack variant eventually finds a home in Slash'EM. Tracking those variants and the main Nethack sources is quite a job though. Howard Wen recently interviewed Warren Cheung and J. Ali Harlowe, the lead developers of Slash'EM."
Resources
Device Classes (LinuxJournal)
Greg KH covers necessary insructions for making your new device driver play nice in the 2.6 kernel, in the August issue of Linux Journal. "In the 2.5.69 kernel, the driver class support was rewritten radically. In previous kernel versions, class support was tied tightly to the driver and device support. A class would be bound to the device at the same time it was registered to a driver. This did work for a number of devices and classes, but some real-world devices did not fit very well into this model. Now, class support is tied only loosely to devices and drivers; in fact, a device or driver is not even needed to use the class code now, as the tty class code shows. The class code is now split into three different types of structures: classes, class devices and class interfaces."
Reviews
A Microsoft guy tackles Linux (NewsForge)
NewsForge has an article from a Linux convert. "I am not especially a Linux advocate. I go with whatever software works best for me in terms of usefulness and feasibility. I'm Microsoft-certified, so persons meeting me classify me as The Microsoft Guy. However, thanks to the people I met at last month's Free, Libre and Open Source Conference, and guidance from the Trinidad and Tobago Linux Users' Group (TTLUG) mailing list, I have learned that free and open source applications are ready for mainstream use. Armed with my newfound knowledge, not only was it unbelievably easy to move from Windows XP to Red Hat Linux 9, I had fun doing it!"
Survey: What Linux needs now (NewsForge)
Joe Barr looks at what Linux needs (according to a survey he ran) on NewsForge. "My biggest surprise came when I thought about what is not on the list. The great anti-Linux mantra is gone. It has disappeared. Not one of the more than 60 responses mentioned a need for easier installation of the operating system. Kudos to everyone who helped to make that happen."
OGo: No go so far (NewsForge)
This NewsForge article concludes that the recently announced OpenGroupware.org (OGo) software is not yet ready for the enterprise. "There is an important lesson to be learned here. It's one thing to announce the formation of a project and the release of code; it's another to announce that the software that will change the industry has arrived. Announcement of the project would have been greeted warmly, but there is no way anyone can claim that the software released on July 10 is actually usable by organizations. I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of someone who actually read the press release and downloaded the software with hopes of using the software in business. Someone like that might be slow to touch the project again after finding that the press release promises don't match the reality."
Miscellaneous
Linux Reconstructing Tree of Life (Wired)
Wired covers the use of a Linux cluster to figure out the relationships of thousands of species on the evolutionary tree. ""The computer project has certainly grown over the years, but the real innovations that made this possible are the concept of cluster computing and the Linux operating system," [biologist Ward] Wheeler added. "Linux makes it so easy to create a supercomputer."" (Thanks to "Fuzzy Gorilla")
The Significance Of Open Source (Processor.com)
Russell Pavlicek begins a new bi-weekly column at Processor.com called "Open Source Perspective". In this first column he looks at the significance of open source. "Open source is not a gimmick. The world of IT is filled with buzzwords and trends. Those of us who have been around a while are used to seeing the ebb and flow of concepts in computing that sometimes resemble the fickle tastes of a fashion show runway more than they do the disciplines of logic and science. Like Visicalc skills on a resume, these supposedly "killer" technologies fade into oblivion in just a few short years. Open source is not one of these."
Some Xbox Fans Microsoft Didn't Aim For
The NYTimes looks at XBox hackers. (Registration required) "It is unclear just how many Xbox hackers there are. Officials of the Interactive Digital Software Association, a trade group of video game publishers, said that Xbox hacking appeared more prevalent in parts of Asia than in North America. Michael Steil, a 24-year-old German who is project leader of a group that calls itself the Xbox Linux Project, said by e-mail that a full version of Linux software for the Xbox had been downloaded more than 220,000 times." (Thanks to Martin Leisner)
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
The Mozilla Foundation launches
A press release has gone out announcing the creation of the Mozilla Foundation, which will "promote the development, distribution and adoption of the award-winning Mozilla standards-based web applications and core technologies." The Foundation is starting off with a $2 million donation from AOL and $300,000 from Mitch Kapor, who will be the Foundation's chair. This move seems, at a first look, to be a good and necessary development for the Mozilla project. It does also, however, seem to represent the beginning of AOL's exit from the Mozilla development business.PoPy and PygreSQL projects are merging! (ZopeMembers)
Zope Members News reports that the PyGreSQL and PoPy projects are merging. "The developers of PyGreSQL and PoPy are pleased to announce that they have decided to merge the two projects. It was felt that the two projects were alike in many ways but with different strengths which will allow them to create a more powerful product over all."
Desktop Linux Technology and Market Overview
Mitch Kapor's Open Source Application Foundation just released a 34 page report (PDF format) on the Desktop Linux market, written by Bart Decrem. The paper concludes that Desktop Linux in no longer a technical challenge, it is a marketing challenge. (Thanks to David A. Wheeler)
Commercial announcements
ERP5 and CPS form alliance to build a Global Information System
ERP5 and Collaborative Portal Server are partnering to offer the first open-source global information system, known as the Collaborative Portal Server (CPS).Analyst: embedded Linux costs more
A group called the Embedded Market Forecasters has announced a new white paper which, they say, shows that embedded Linux projects take much longer and cost way more than Windows projects. "The estimated average total cost of development for a Windows Embedded design project was $480,000, versus $1.5 million for an Embedded Linux project." Attempts to obtain the actual paper from their site end with a broken link, but we'll keep trying.
Qli Linux Computers Celebrates Lindependence Month
Qli Linux Computers is running a special promotion: Buy In July to register for your chance to receive your computer for free.realMethods Open Sources Its J2EE Framework
realMethods has announced it is now part of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), making its commercially successful J2EE Framework available as open source under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
New Books
"The Art of Assembly Language" from No Starch Press
No Starch Press has published "The Art of Assembly Language" by Randall Hyde."Linux in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition" Released by O'Reilly
The fourth edition of Linux in a Nutshell by Ellen Siever, Stephen Figgins, and Aaron Weber (published by O'Reilly) has been released.
Resources
An introduction to Thunderbird, part 2
Nidelven IT has published part two of An introduction to Thunderbird, which details the use of the Thunderbird Mail/News client.
Contests and Awards
Sangoma sponsors "Ultimate Linux Geek Contest"
Sangoma Technologies is sponsoring Linux Journals Search for the Ultimate Linux Geek. The winner gets a Cruise for two on Linux Lunacy to Alaska this September 13-20, 2003.Linux Journal Awards Winners
Linux Journal has announced the winners of its Editors' Choice Awards. LWN.net is pleased to be named the winner of the Best Web Site award.Awards at TPC (use Perl)
Use Perl has announced the winners of the Perl awards that were presented at OSCON.
Upcoming Events
ESC Boston 2003
The next Embedded Systems Conference will be held in Boston, Mass. on September 15-18, 2003. "ESC Boston's 70+ conference sessions will delve into hot design topics, including wireless, serial communications, Linux/Open Source, real-time development and software design. These sessions focus on delivering the technical insight necessary to make embedded system designs stronger, faster, and more reliable."
LinuxWorld Conference & Expo UK rescheduled
The LinuxWorld Conference & Expo UK conference that was scheduled for September 3 and 4, 2003 has been rescheduled, tentatively for some time in 2004. Thanks to Daniel James.Plone Training in Bern, Switzerland August 21th 2003 (ZopeMembers)
According to ZopeMembers News, 4teamwork will be holding a Plone training day on August 21, 2003 in Bern, Switzerland.Web Days Europe Call for Submissions
A Call for Submissions has gone out for the Web Days Europe conference, which is taking place across Europe in September and October, 2003.Events: July 17 - September 11, 2003
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| July 17, 2003 | Debcamp | Oslo, Norway |
| July 18 - 20, 2003 | Debconf 3 | (The University of Oslo)Oslo, Norway |
| July 23 - 26, 2003 | Ottawa Linux Symposium | Ottawa Canada |
| July 23 - 25, 2003 | YAPC::Europe 2003 | (CNAM Conservatory)Paris, France |
| July 25 - 27, 2003 | Fifth Annual Linux Festival in Kaluga Region | (bank of the river Protva)Kaluga region, Russia |
| July 29 - August 2, 2003 | The 10th Annual Tcl/Tk Conference | Ann Arbor, Michigan |
| July 31 - August 3, 2003 | UKUUG Linux Developers' Conference(LINUX 2003) | (George Watson's College)Edinburgh Scotland |
| August 4 - 7, 2003 | LinuxWorld Conference and Expo 2003 | (Moscone Convention Center)San Francisco, CA |
| August 5 - 7, 2003 | 5th Annual CERT Conference(NEbraskaCERT) | (Scott Conference Center)Omaha, NE USA |
| August 7 - 10, 2003 | Chaos Communication Camp 2003 | Paulshof, Altlandsberg, Germany |
| August 18 - 21, 2003 | New Security Paradigms Workshop 2003(NSPW 2003) | (Centro Stefano Francini)Ascona, Switzerland |
| August 23 - 25, 2003 | KDE Developers' Conference | (Zamek Castle)Nove Hrady, Czech Republic |
| August 27 - 29, 2003 | International Conference on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming(PPDP 2003) | (Uppsala University)Uppsala, Sweden |
| September 3 - 4, 2003 | LinuxWorld Conference & Expo (Cancelled) | (The NEC)Birmingham, UK |
| September 11 - 12, 2003 | Python for Scientific Computing Workshop(SciPy'03) | (CalTech)Pasadena, CA |
Event Reports
Danny O'Brien's OSCON report
Danny O'Brien's Oblomovka BLOG page covers the recent OSCON event. "The lightning talks worked very well at OSCON (and proved hilariously stereotypical : the Python talks were well-ordered to a Netherlandish extent, the Emerging Tech ones were largely performed by people with brightly died hair, and the Perl talks were even more ADHD than you'd imagine). At the end-of-conference press overview, Nat said he was going to go for lightning keynotes next year: 800 pundits in half-an-hour."
Web sites
New www.perl.org (use Perl)
Use Perl has an announcement for the redesigned www.perl.org site, a Perl language portal.New Russian Zope'n'Python community-site (ZopeMembers)
Zope Members News has an announcement for a new Russian Zope community web site that is being beta tested. "We are glad to present new project for zope community. New Russian zope site xen|ru based on Zope and CMF."
Software announcements
This week's software announcements
Here are the software announcements, courtesy of Freshmeat.net. They are available in two formats:
- Sorted alphabetically,
- Sorted by license.
Page editor: Forrest Cook