Linux in the news

Lessig on Freedom: Use It or Lose It (Linux Journal)

The Linux Journal reports on Lawrence Lessig's OSCON keynote. "As a call for the defense of freedom, it was the geek culture equivalent of Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech."

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Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register)

The Register reports on Venezuela's new pro-GPL software purchasing policy. "Apparently, from now on all software purchased by or developed for the government must be licensed under the GPL. Even software used for Internet access to e-government must run GPL'd apps on a GPL'd operating system. Reasons for the switch include a desire to promote the local development community rather than enriching those in bondage to foreign software behemoths, and of course assisting in the good work of stamping out unlicensed software from government bureaux."

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Open-source software for Government

SFGate.com reports on efforts by Bruce Perens to establish open standards for software that is used by government offices. "One thing most technology experts can agree on is that California's state government has squandered billions on ill-conceived information-technology (IT) projects in recent years. Whether it was the more than $100 million in taxpayer funds that state authorities admit were wasted on the state's automated child-support system or the more recent purchase of thousands of unneeded software licenses from Oracle, the sorry record is painfully clear. California desperately needs a more workable IT plan. Fortunately, in the spirit of the open-source software movement, free-software evangelist Bruce Perens has just offered one up."

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Dell goes nuts for clusters (News.com)

News.com writes about a new Dell Linux-based cluster that is being deployed at SUNY. "The Austin, Texas-based company and The University at Buffalo, the State University of New York (SUNY Buffalo) on Tuesday will unveil a cluster of 2,008 Dell PowerEdge servers running Red Hat Linux. Researchers will use the cluster to study the structure and orientation of human proteins, a crucial step in finding cures for many diseases. The Buffalo cluster, one of the largest of its kind in the world, is the latest in a string of high-tech projects for upstate New York."

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Red Hat touts desktop Linux for enterprise users (Register)

This Register article looks at Red Hat's plans to build out a growing portfolio of enterprise products with a desktop Linux offering targeted at business users. "Red Hat's desktop offering is expected next year and the company is considering subscription-based pricing. News of the launch comes after Red Hat launched Advanced Server, Content and Collaboration Management, and Database products for corporates and small and medium sized businesses (SMBs)."

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The New SCO: Lessons for Linux in Business (Linux Journal)

Doc Searls shares his thoughts on the newly named SCO Group.. "The message: SCO is older than Linux by a long shot (the company was founded in 1979), and UNIX is senior to both. UNIX businesses have been around for eras in Linux and Internet prehistory. Some of those businesses involve extremely deep and abiding relationships between vendors and customers. The dependencies are often extreme to the degree that the customers can't live without them. SCO had a bunch of those relationships, long before Linux came along, and many of those relationships are still alive and well. In fact, they're saving the former "Linux company's" butt. What's more, those relationships give SCO a big advantage over Red Hat, SuSE and other Linux companies that still have nothing comparable to offer SCO's traditional kinds of customers--for now."

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Sun seeks many Davids for MS Office fight (Register)

The Register reports that Sun is working on a set of XML data standards for use in desktop productivity applications. "Once standards for data formats are established, Sun believes two factors will drive development of Office rivals. One is increased maturity of open source browsers such as Mozilla and the Linux operating system - Fowler cited Red Hat 7.3 and SuSE 8.0 as good examples, which he said have "reasonable" install and management."

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Has Java Grown Cold? (TechWeb)

TechWeb ponders the future of Java and Sun: "Is it too late for Java? Despite some 80 percent of enterprises saying they use Java, the once-steaming development platform seems to have lost its grip on the spotlight. Long after .Net and Linux have become household words, only now is Sun trying to make up for Java's lost time in the low-end Web services and Linux server scenes."

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Turbolinux future uncertain (ZDNet)

ZDNet covers the results of the Gartner Group's analysis of TurboLinux. "Given SRA's narrow management experience, geography and market recognition, the remaining hope for the Turbolinux distribution to succeed on its own lies with the UnitedLinux effort, in which Turbolinux participates. If UnitedLinux fails to gain market momentum--Gartner believes it will have little effect on the market through 2004 (0.7 probability)--the Turbolinux distribution will also have minimal market impact and little hope of profitability except as an embedded part of SRA's portfolio (0.7 probability)."

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Is Linux poised to topple Microsoft? (CNN)

Linux gets more mainstream press coverage in the form of this article on CNN. "During the Cold War, the initials ABM used to mean Anti-Ballistic Missile. In the late '90s, they stood for Anybody But Microsoft, a reaction to the fact that Bill Gates' Windows operating system was in 90 percent of the world's computers and critics didn't like the restrictions Microsoft Corp. placed on computer companies that licensed its software. But now Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, forced to ease up on those restrictions. The biggest beneficiaries of the New Millennium ABM Club may be proponents of Linux, the open-source operating system, long considered to be as potentially disruptive to Microsoft's dominance as a missile strike on Communist-era Moscow. "

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Do We Still Need Microsoft? (Open For Business)

Open For Business writes about the coming of age for Linux on the desktop. "Linux has had numerous obstacles to overcome before being truly viable in a corporate desktop environment. Issues such as hardware compatibility, usability, technical support, and software compatibility have restricted Linux' acceptance among IT professionals. Through the hard work and dedication of Open Source Software developers, most of whom write code for free, Linux has overcome these obstacles in the past couple years. Because of this, the recent announcements concerning Linux on the desktop have less to do with Linux than they do with Microsoft Windows. Many companies and IT professionals have come to understand the single biggest reason for Linux' upcoming success on the corporate desktop: There is no longer a compelling reason to run Microsoft Windows on a corporate desktop."

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The state of enterprise Linux (ZDNet)

ZDNet is carrying a Gartner pronouncement on the future of Linux in the enterprise. "Microsoft will be pressured to change strategies by enabling easier integration and interoperability, and encouraging more open-source-software ports to Windows and .Net. We believe Microsoft will resist these pressures--it will not port Office to Linux--as it attempts to get buy-in by enterprise CIOs for the .Net framework. But the tide has already turned: Most large enterprises are looking for flexibility, leverage, and lower-cost alternatives and believe they have more options in the server world than on the desktop."

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All things considered, it's a recipe for revolt (MIS Magazine)

MIS Magazine examines the effect that Microsoft's version 6 licensing is having on their user base. "For users, the time will inevitably come when they either succumb or jump to alternative suppliers. US Giga Group analyst Julie Giera told CNET in May 2002 that of the third intending not to sign to version 6.0 licensing, 80 per cent are installing Linux somewhere in their organisation. However, Kablau says he does not believe the alternatives are a significant threat." Thanks to Con Zymaris.

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Introducing the Open Cluster Framework (Linux Journal)

The Linux Journal interviews Linux High Availability (HA) expert Alan Robertson. "The goal of the HA Project is to provide an HA clustering solution for Linux via community development, and the goal of OCF might be even more ambitious: to define APIs that provide basic clustering functions and to provide a reference implementation of the API."

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Gingell: History will repeat itself (ZDNet)

ZDNet's David Berlind further covers an interview with Sun's Rob Gingell on such topics as Java and Linux. "In my previous column on Sun's future reliance on Java as a core asset, I analyzed Sun Chief Engineer Rob Gingell's assertion that Java has succeeded the Solaris/Sparc duo as the company's crown jewel. Now, I've gleaned and analyzed several other noteworthy nuggets from my lengthy interview (Part I and Part II) with Gingell."

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Mstation interviews Iain Duncan

Mstation has an interview with Iain Duncan on the use of Csound in the world of techno music. "Csound is essentially a programming language ( well scripting or mark up language if we want to get picky ) for digital audio, including software synthesis, effects, and other digital manipulation. The main difference between Csound and things like Reaktor, PD, or Max/MXP, is that it is a text based programming language with similarities to basic, C, and assembly."

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LinuxDevices Embedded Linux Newsletter

The August 29, 2002 edition of the LinuxDevices Embedded Linux Newsletter is out with all of the latest embedded Linux news.

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Introducing Linux Productivity Magazine

Troubleshooting Professional Magazine has split in two. The Linux content is now contained in a monthly magazine called Linux Productivity Magazine. The current issue describes the download, installation, and configuration of the IceWM window manager.

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Xbox Linux Project gets SuSE 8.0 running (Register)

According to the Register, the Xbox Linux Project has made a big step forward in booting SuSE 8.0 on the Microsoft gaming platform. "The hardware they're using has been subject to "minor" modification, so this falls into category A of the Project. Category B aims to run unsigned code on unmodded hardware, which is a much less do-able looking target."

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LinuxOrbit reviews games on WineX

LinuxOrbit has reviewed TransGaming Technologies' WineX by running eight different windows games.

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Ogg Vorbis tunes in to hardware (News.com)

News.com looks at the release of Tremor, an Ogg Vorbis player which uses no floating point arithmetic. "The [Xiph] organization emphasized that adding Ogg Vorbis support would cost hardware makers nothing in license fees, and the group is offering to provide them with any engineering help they may need to integrate the format."

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Why Kylix 3 doesn't support Red Hat 7.3 & how to fix it (maybe)

LinuxWorld.com reviews Borland's Kylix software development platform, and gives some tips on making it work under RedHat 7.3. "The big news about Kylix 3 is that this excellent RAD for Linux now supports C++ as well as Delphi. Delphi, if you don't already know, is Borland's extended Pascal. Borland, if you don't know, is one of the premier makers of software development tools in the world. Borland has tons of experience bringing Pascal/Delphi, database managers, C, and C++ development tools to market."

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Open Evidence

Earlier this year, the European Commission signed a contract for the use of a project known as OpenEvidence. "OpenEvidence produces technology for "evidence" creation and validation of electronic documents, meaning "evidence" a document certified by some authority that guarantees the data it contains. The technology developed by the project can be used as basic building blocks to support such services as non-repudiation of electronic business transactions, property right protection and notarisation." Thanks to Hector Martinez.

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Why Xbox Linux founder left the project (Register)

The Register covers the departure of Enrico Kern from the Xbox Linux Project. "The founder of the high-profile Xbox Linux Project has left the group over concerns about the direction of the project and disagreements with the anonymous donor who's contributed $200,000 to port Linux to the Microsoft gaming device."

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