See also: last week's Linux in the news page.

Linux in the news

Here is this week's recommended reading:

• CIO Magazine contemplates the future of the desktop computer. "The most likely move right now appears to be to Linux ... and dedicated hardware. Whether we are talking about single-use servers, specialized desktops or both, the opportunity for a hardware vendor to take Linux and create a unique and differentiable offering is stronger than ever before. We believe it likely that at least one vendor will deliver such a system within 12 months. If others follow, this could spell the beginning of Microsoft's decline and the emergence of a new desktop standard."

• Forbes magazine ran an article about Open Source and big software business. "Moral: It may be that programmers will happily craft code for open software that doesn't belong to any one company-the Linux operating system or free Apache for Web servers-but they balk at helping the Netscapes of the world get richer."

• Here's an article in Business Week about Mozilla. They are quite upbeat about it. "While Mozilla isn't as hot as Linux, it's hardly dead, either. In fact, it may soon make its own pretty big splash"

• LinuxToday has put up an interview with Jon 'maddog' Hall.

• Nicholas Petreley reviews Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 in LinuxWorld. He likes it. "Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 has success written all over it. It makes Linux as smooth as a Napoleon cognac, which is exactly what corporate IT and home users need. The result is downright intoxicating."

• Here's a lengthy article in Salon on how Linux needs more help for low-tech users. "Forget about the fawning press accounts, the surging market-share numbers and the tide of Microsoft-hating corporations paying homage to this jewel in free software's crown. Linux is a morass of arcane text commands, bewildering options and incomprehensible Unix concepts. Linux sucks." (Thanks to Peter W).

Mindcraft was not entirely absent from the press; here's the articles we were able to turn up.

• LinuxWorld has published an article by Jeremy Allison about the Mindcraft report, and about the Samba results in particular. "In fact, last week's paper marks a coming of age of Linux, as it is now obviously important enough to have serious Microsoft marketing dollars spent against it."

• Here's an article in VAR Business about the Mindcraft report. "'[Microsoft] pretty much knew what it wanted to get,' says George Weiss, vice president and research director for Gartner Group Inc.'s Hardware and Operating Systems Group. 'Mindcraft was the front. It's getting a little too cozy.'"

• For those of you who read Norwegian: here is an article in digi.no about the Mindcraft survey and its problems. (Thanks to Lars Gaarden).

• Here's a brief article (in German) in Heise Online about the MindCraft survey. They don't buy it either. Babelfish translation available here. (Thanks to Johannes Gritsch).

  And this is the first article we found in the trade press about the Mindcraft report. This one is in Smart Reseller, and they don't buy it. "On single processor systems, Linux wins. On SMP/RAID systems, Linux is just now getting in the game. Even so, even at the high end of stress testing, Linux's numbers would have been much closer to NT, if not higher, had Linux been as well tuned as NT." (Thanks to Jeremy Allison).

• The Detroit Free Press has an articleabout the Comdex keynote. "Torvalds could afford to play fast and loose with this crowd of programmers, analysts and industry folk. He has a regular programming day job that pays the bills."

• ZDNet covers Linus' keynote. "About efforts to create standards for Linux, Torvalds said Linux development is somewhat standardized by default -- people keep adding to it, but they're writing to the most current kernel."

• ...and here is InfoWorld's article about the Torvalds keynote. "...Torvalds only half jokingly predicts that Linux will achieve operating system world domination -- 'about next year.' That Microsoft and its Windows operating system are the inferior enemy was made abundantly clear."

• Jesse Berst chimes in on Linus' Comdex keynote. "Do you suppose David taunted Goliath before he hurled that rock? That's the rough equivalent of what Linux creator Linus Torvalds did at Spring Comdex yesterday when he predicted his maverick operating system will crush Microsoft."

• News.com covers Linus' Comdex keynote. "Although he did not have any specific time frame, Torvalds did say he expects Microsoft to jump on the Linux bandwagon with a port to its Office desktop suite. 'It will eventually happen because we will crush them,' he said." (Thanks to Conrad Sanderson).

• Computer Reseller News reports on Linus Torvalds' keynote at Comdex/Spring. "Early in the presentation, when Torvalds was speaking about the ability of Linux to allow users to do whatever they want, he said there is a possibility that Linux could even control a nuclear power plant. At that moment, the lights went out in the room, which prompted several in the crowd to yell that the lights were probably run on Windows 2000, from Microsoft."

Staying on the subject of Comdex, Caldera chose that forum to make their announcement for OpenLinux 2.2. Red Hat and SuSE are also headed toward big releases, and there were a number of articles that reflected this.

• ComputerWorld writes about easier-to-use versions of Linux. "...Ottawa-based Corel will likely marry the Windows-like K Desktop Environment graphical user interface with the well-respected, noncommercial Debian version of Linux and its closely associated applications."

• Then, there is one about Red Hat 6.0. The main changes look like the 2.2 kernel and a price increase. "Another change in the new version will be a remote installation utility that lets people install or upgrade Linux on remote servers via the network..."

• Here is a PC World article about Caldera's and Red Hat's new releases, and where Linux is going in general. "If you're glued to the latest accelerated 3D games, love to watch DVD movies on your PC, rely on a USB scanner, or can't avoid using Microsoft Word's revision marks feature, you'll need to keep a copy of Windows 98 around. But that doesn't mean you can't have a little Linux on the side. If the revolution is coming, it won't hurt to be prepared."

• News.com reports on Caldera's OpenLinux 2.2. It's not clear that they are off to a good start, though... "The early response has been strong. High download traffic today took Caldera Systems' Web site down, and the company was working to get it back up and running..."

Similarly, HP's announcement drew a couple of articles:

• Here's an InfoWorld article about HP's new support offering. "HP's interest and support of Linux is, not surprisingly, not as altruistic as the open source movement itself. The company feels that Linux levels the playing field in the development arena and can be used as a strategic advantage against arch rival Sun Microsystems."

• There is also one about HP's Linux support announcement in News.com. "HP's Linux services are not unlimited, however. HP supports only 'qualified configurations' of the Unix-like operating system, and at this point the services are limited to fixing computers that aren't working right instead of more elaborate consulting options."

There were some introductory pieces this week:

• Here is a lengthy introductory article in the (Australian) Business Review Weekly. "Rather than coming from one software company with particular methods of development and corporate culture, Linux is being developed by what some describe as the cream of the world's programmers. Even Microsoft employees are known to be going home at night, thinking of nothing more exhilarating than savoring the Linux buzz." They also have an article about the adoption of Linux by Corporate Express in Australia.

• Here's an introductory article in the Chicago Tribune; it spends a lot of time talking about command line stuff. "A great many Linux users, probably a majority, are computer adepts who use rough-hewn typed commands to do all that most of us do pointing and clicking in Windows, Macintosh or IBM's OS/2..."

• Here is a lengthy Fairfax IT column, which tries to size up Linux for various applications. "For basic server tasks such as e-mail or firewalls Linux is up to the task, if you can find support people. But when it comesto high-end business computing, GNU/Linux is no match yet for the likes of Sun Solaris. The real face-off will come with next year's launch of Microsoft Windows 2000."

• Better look out, Microsoft, here comes free software says this highly introductory article in the Rocky Mountain News. "If I start using LyX ... sooner or later there will be some feature I want, and I'll write it and send it to them. Everybody does that, that's how it's supposed to work. And in five years, Microsoft will be saying, 'Word is a program with all the features of LyX.'" (Found in LinuxToday).

Here's a set of business-oriented articles:

• Is AOL considering a Linux move? asks News.com. The article is largely speculative, going mostly on the fact that AOL picked up a chunk of Red Hat when they bought Netscape. "Like the Java-based devices envisioned in the AOL Anywhere dream, such cheap Linux computers could give AOL another route to lower the price consumers have to pay to get AOL's Internet services." (Thanks to Damon Poole).

• This News.com article is about the new version of Apple's Open Source license. "Bruce Perens, an Open Source Initiative founder and one of the original detractors of the Apple license, was mollified. 'This version of the APSL looks much better,' Perens said..."

• Here's an article in the Australian Financial Review which looks at Linux and SCO. "...SCO chief Mr Doug Michels said yesterday that rather than posing a threat to SCO, the Linux phenomenon was drawing attention to the fact that there were viable alternatives to Microsoft's Windows, which was having a positive impact on SCO's bottom line."

• The German magazine Computerwoche has run an interview with Tim O'Reilly. Thanks to the generosity of the folks over there, we have the original English version of that interview available as well. "If the open-source community doesn't get it, they are going to end up fighting the old battle trying to win on the desktop. But you know, who cares about the desktop? The web is the platform. What you want to be is like 'Intel inside' - you want to be like 'open source inside' for the next generation."

• Xappeal.org has put out a comparison between Linux and Mac OS X. "...Linux is only free if your time is worthless. It offers great stability, but OS X is ready to go NOW, and anyone who has used the MacOS or NeXTStep can probably set up a server using it in an afternoon." (Thanks to Curtis Snow).

• Here's an article in Red Hat's hometown paper about their certification efforts. "By attaching its name to Linux certification, the local company is prompting comparisons with Microsoft"

• Linux is becoming certifiable says this ZDNet article. This is an interesting one, however: they are not talking about certifying engineers, but about certifying the system itself. A Utah-based company called KeyLabs, which does "100% Pure Java" certification, is setting itself up to do Linux certification as well. This appears to be in direct competition with the Linux Standard Baseeffort. Apparently Caldera and IBM have already signed up. "Since Linux is open source, nothing precludes a company from offering non-certified products. However, IT managers are likely to choose only certified products, especially if major vendors like IBM require certification."

• You take the high end, I'll take Linux is the title of a column in (UK) Computing Magazine. It looks at the D. H. Brown report, and concludes that the "low end" to which they have consigned Linux stretches up pretty high. "As a server OS, the question of definition is unanswered: how high is high end, and how low is low? Could a low-end server soon be running your organisation?" (Thanks to Dave Killick).

• Is Linux Really Ready for the Big Leagues? asks Inter@ctive Week. Read their answer in their summary: "Linux can play in the enterprise today, and, like a maturing athlete, it's only going to get bigger, stronger and faster."

A few articles about specific projects:

• Internet Week has an article about Linux in routers. They think it's not a bad idea. "Customers who want to can develop their own features more quickly and with less cost than if they are tied to a proprietary system. Custom applications could include billing (for carriers) or policy management capabilities (for enterprises or carriers)."

• Finally, they cover the Free Expression Project, which is creating a set of free streaming audio tools. "...RealNetworks may have a legal bone to pick with the Free Expression Project if that group tries to reverse-engineer RealNetworks products."

• LinuxPower has published a review of GNOME 1.0. "...the entire system shows such amazing amounts of potential, I am dumbstruck. Every application has a similar look and feel (although there are enough differences from app to app to confuse some newcomers, I expect) and that look and feel is considerably more modern than Motif."

• Here's a Reuters article about Linux in clustered applications. "Just last week, the Albuquerque High Performance Computing Center, located on the University of New Mexico campus, turned on a workstation supercluster system it calls Roadrunner, which basically consists of stacks of personal computer technology running multiple Intel Corp. Pentium II processors and Linux."

• Here's a Wired News article about the FreeS/Wan release. "A new, home-brewed cryptography project could make work a little trickier for spooks and spies."

• Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine has published an article by Jeremy Allison about Samba. "As you know, Linux is generating a lot of interest lately. What you might find surprising, though, is that it's being adopted in great numbers even by IS organizations that have standardized on Windows NT"

And after all that, what's left is:

• Fairfax IT has an article about free software licenses. "Some argue that to maintain compatibility and quality control, the proprietor of the licence needs to act as code censor. Some even say the modifier should forfeit intellectual property rights to have the code included freely. It is hard to see how these licences can succeed. No-one will work solely for the benefit of another. Not even a paid employee of a company is likely to stay and be productive unless he or she also gets some recognition."

• Here's an interesting little article we stumbled across in the African National Congress Daily News Briefing. It seems that Corel's Michael Cowpland is in Johannesburg pushing Word Perfect and Linux. "I'd like to challenge the South African government to adopt our WordPerfect Linux for the education system and save a ton of money, as well as endorse a worldwide standard instead of endorsing a single company"

• Here is an interview with Linus that appears in the Austin American Statesman. "The last six months have not been that surprising because I was already starting to see what was happening. It was obvious to me that there were a lot of companies that wanted Linux, but were held back by worries about its market acceptance."

• Microsoft Internet Developer sounds off on free software. "While free distribution is a great marketing tool (think about all those samples you get in the mail), what does it say about the product itself? Frankly, it says that the product (or the effort that went into making the product) has no value." (Thanls to Atul Chitnis).

• Windows NT Magazine has put out a press release to tell the world that they, too, have run an article that is critical of Linux. "An article in the April issue of Windows NT Magazine concludes that the popular Linux operating system is still not enterprise-ready, despite enhancements offered with the Linux 2.2 release." At the end they add that the purpose of the article "...is not to criticize the Linux OS but to encourage Linux developers to address the problems that still prevent the system from becoming a formidable competitor in enterprise environments."

Section Editor: Jonathan Corbet

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