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It was a relatively slow week in the press, perhaps due to the
holidays. Your editor is pleased to have a rational number of articles to
deal with for a change...
This week's recommended readings:
- This Sm@rt Reseller article about IBM and Linux created a lot of
controversy this week, due to its suggestion that IBM would like to change
the licensing of the Linux kernel. "For the past month, channel
sources have expected IBM to announce a sweeping service and
support agreement for Red Hat Software's Red Hat Linux... But
what's really held IBM back from an official support alliance with
Red Hat, say sources close to the company, are legal issues."
- The Motley Fool
briefly mentions Linux in an article about Microsoft. "...a recent
study from International Data Corporation found that over the past
year Linux shipments have more than tripled from 6.8 percent to
17.2 percent of the server OS market. NT shipments remained steady,
around 36 percent over the same period, although the market as a
whole grew about 25 percent. Companies recently publicly
increasing their support for Linux include: Apple, Compaq, and
Sun. I can't really comment on the rumors coming out of IBM, but I
might be able to get away with nodding a lot."
- Here's
a PC Week article about "Linux's enterprise evolution." It talks
about GNOME, the possibility of support from IBM, and even the Coda
file system.
- Internet Week
looks at the Burlington Coat Factory and their information systems.
They have installed hundreds of Linux systems on desktops. "The
company also plans to port its Solaris in-store, line-of-business
applications to Linux to let the company have the same operating
system across clients and servers, as well as extend the life span
of about 300 aging Sun Microsystems SPARC servers." Another good
example for people who say Linux is only used by hobbyists.
(Scroll just over halfway down to find this article).
- Diary of a Linux bumpkin is a longish ZDNet article describing one
writer's encounter with the OS. "Luckily, I'm beginning to
realize that Linux isn't really hard, it's just a lot. It isn't
easy, but it is really, really simple. I expect that once you know
it, anything else would seem confusing and needlessly complex. Not
to mention unstable."
- Numerous people have written in to tell us that Science Magazine ran an
article about Linux in their December 11 issue. Science articles are not
available to non-subscribers, so we can't provide a link. It's a fairly
standard, accurate, and positive introductory article in a high profile
publication. "Linux, by all accounts, is stable, powerful, and
fast--and it's free. Yes, free: Linux is the fruit of a kind of online
commune, an intellectual descendant of the counterculture of the
1960s."
Much of the press that we did see this week was, unsurprisingly, 1998
retrospectives, often with only passing mentions of Linux.
- The Industry Standard has
a review of 1998 that includes a brief piece on free software.
"While Microsoft struggles mightily to fend off antritrust
charges, its dominant position in the software world is being
challenged by a quiet but dangerous development: the coming of age
of open-source software."
- ZDNet ran an incredible number of such articles, including:
this predictions article suggests that U.S. export laws might be
changed to restrict exports of Beowulf cluster technology (seems
like a hard thing to do).
This look back says that Red Hat 5.2 was "the biggest NOS spash of
the year."
This one briefly reviews Beowulf and the coming of the database
vendors.
Yet another retrospective says that "The longest-lasting result
of the Linux upswing may be its prompting Novell and IBM to start
adopting the open-source model." Linux made the
"Inter@ctive 101."
This one seems to say that Linux isn't serious because its COMDEX
presence was substandard. Finally, here's a
Babcock column about the increase in Linux's market share.
- Linux made
Time's list of the top ten technology stories of 1998. "Nineteen
ninety-eight was the year Linux came into its own. Beloved of
techies worldwide, passed by hand from geek to geek, Linux has
gained an international cult following of around 7 million."
(Found in LinuxToday).
- Nicholas Petreley's
1998 retrospective is less positive about Linux than one might
expect, given the source. "Someone will undoubtedly label 1998
as the year Linux took the market by storm. This conclusion is
premature... Should Microsoft ultimately win the [antitrust]
case, however, I guarantee vendors will abandon Linux faster than a
rat out of an aqueduct."
- As it seemed was going to happen, Jenni of the
JenniCam beat out Linus to
win the
ZDNN "newsmaker of the year" award. At least, the article says so;
people clicking through the results are seeing a different outcome and
wondering why. As mentioned before,
the JenniCam, while most certainly not a Linux site, is at
least hosted on a Linux server (and that must be why so many of you
clicked through and visited there when we discussed this poll
before, right?)
- There's another
top technology events of 1998 poll out there, this one on MSNBC.
Linux sits at fifth place as of this writing. (Thanks to Delbert Matlock).
Some articles were of the business variety, either talking about the
business of Linux, or in the form of product reviews.
- ComputerWorld has
an article about the enterprise backup systems (like
SpectraLogic's "Alexandria") that are moving into the Linux world.
"'I think a lot of organizations are evaluating use of Linux
right now ... but [Linux's] backup utilities aren't sufficient,'
said Dave Hill, an analyst at Aberdeen Group Inc. in Boston."
- In Internet Week: Linux didn't quite win their
Coolest of the Cool award. "What dropped [Linux] into second place
with the rest of the pack was that we wanted Coolest of the Cool to
be about technical excellence, and what we thought cool about Linux
was mainly its sudden and amazing political and market
presence. Any product that's free, open and can still make
Microsoft sweat is definitely cool in our eyes. On a technical
level, though, it still has a way to go in terms of ease of use and
cross-platform support."
- VAR Business reflects on the increasing popularity of open source
in
this article. "The main attraction of working with open source
code, say VARs, is that it offers the opportunity to provide
clients with a more granular level of customization."
- Here's
a ZDNet article about Corel, jBridge, and WINE. "[Corel CEO]
Cowpland predicted that within the next twelve months, WINE would
enable Linux servers to run a whole slew of Windows
applications."
- Inter@ctive Week ran
a brief article about the growth in Linux shipments in 1998, with
mentions of Corel and BSDI.
- MSNBC
reviews the Corel Netwinder. They like it. "I can report that even
in this early beta form, the Netwinder is wonderful." (Thanks
to Richard Storey and "llornkcor").
- Here's
an article (in German) in Schwäbischen Zeitung Online. It talks
about Java and Linux, and why Microsoft is worried about them. As
usual, translations are available
via Babelfish for the non German-capable. (Thanks to Lenz Grimmer).
Other miscellaneous and introductory articles:
- This long article in Newmedia.com compares open source software to
Native American Potlatch ceremonies; it's a highly positive
treatment. "Open source lets users take advantage of innovation
rather than be victimized by it. There's a world of difference
between receiving buggy binaries and reporting problems back to the
developers who promise a new release 'real soon now,' and receiving
source code that allows your own engineers to make the fixes."
There are also sidebars on Eric Raymond, different open source
licenses, and a comparison between Linux and Windows NT. (Found in
LinuxToday).
- "Project Heresy," C|Net Radio's experiment with working with a
Linux-only system, has posted a 1998 wrapup of their experience.
It's available in RealAudio format on the
Project Heresy page. (Thanks to Benji Selano and Jeffery Cann).
- Information Week speculates on an
unhappy new year at Microsoft. "Based on the amount of E-mail I've
received from Microsoft and its public relations agency regarding
Linux and open source software, it's clear that someone is
concerned. There's one predictable outcome to these two
factors-you can expect Microsoft to play both the FUD card and the
pricing card as it gets closer to releasing Windows 2000"
- PC Magazine UK has
a brief article about Linux as a network operating system.
- Is Linux a fad? asks ZDTV. When we first mentioned this poll in the
daily updates page the "yes" votes were winning decisively; the situation
has since turned the other way.
ZDTV also has a chat topic entitled
Is Linux here to stay?.
- This article in the National Post talks about the new IDC numbers,
mentions the possibility of Linux systems from Apple, and finishes
out with a bit of support FUD. (Thanks to "aandres").
- Finally, here's
a Detroit News article about the "Squeak" programming language.
Squeak is an open source implementation of Smalltalk that seems to
be gaining in popularity. "Companies such as Disney like Squeak
because it is open source, and taps potentially thousands of
developers all over the world."
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December 24, 1998
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