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Leading items and editorialsThis week's feature article for LWN.net: SEUL/edu: An International Focus on Linux in Education takes a look at a multi-faceted project supporting students, developers and educators interested in using Linux. Cosource.com and the sourceXchange both officially launched this week. Both sites seek to encourage the development of free software by bringing together developers and sponsors who are willing to pay to get a job done. While their goals are quite similar, their approaches are different. If the model as a whole is successful, there is probably room for both of these players. Cosource.com looks somewhat like the "entry level" contestant. Development projects are requested by any interested party - the person making the request need not commit any funds toward the implementation. Developers make proposals, and anybody who feels like contributing toward the development can commit money in pieces as small as $10. The result is a great many requests, a small number of actual developments, and generally small amounts of money on offer - the largest sum accumulated thus far is around $1300. Cosource currently has five projects in development, including adding htDig support to kdevelop ($1290, sponsored by Lineo) and a software answering machine ($225). Five others have been completed, for a total of $1575. There are a total of 156 requests outstanding on the site. The sourceXchange takes a more traditional and upscale approach. Projects enter the sourceXchange via an RFP from the project sponsor - the company that wishes to see the project implemented. Developers submit proposals, which go through a review process; in the end, the sponsor chooses which proposal wins, if any. The RFP's include the amount the sponsor is willing to pay; they vary from $5,000 through $20,000. The sourceXchange claims one completed project (an Apache test suite framework), one in development (an E-Suite test suite), and eight current RFPs, sponsored by companies like Hewlett-Packard, Novell, Ricoh, and Walnut Creek. Thus Cosource.com currently looks like a way for developers to pick up a few extra bucks from pools of interested parties on small projects, while the sourceXchange aims toward being a way for corporations to outsource development on significant, if not huge, projects. Of course, Cosource can be expected to try to raise the average price tag on the projects it manages, while the sourceXchange will certainly try to increase its number of projects. Nonetheless, the two currently appear to serve different markets, there is likely room for both. (See also: press releases from Cosource.com and sourceXchange. Coverage of both programs can also be found via this week's LWN press page). Linux IPOs are, of course, the big theme this week. A look at this week's press page will drive home just how much attention is being drawn towards the latest public offerings. The investment world has certainly taken note of Linux. Andover.net began public trading on December 8. The "clearing price" from its dutch auction IPO was $24, meaning that, with the bids they got, they could have sold all of the available shares at that price or higher. They chose to go with the listed maximum of $18, however; to raise the price higher would have involved delaying the IPO and putting in a new SEC filing. As of closing time on the 8th, ANDN shares were worth more than $63. Volume was over 8 million shares, meaning that each publicly-available share traded at least twice. It would appear that there was interest in this offering. The one everybody is waiting for, however, is VA Linux Systems. The VA IPO has been repriced to $21-23, and moved forward to December 9. The general expectation seems to be that it will be one of the most spectacular IPOs of the year. Chances are, it will have happened by the time most of you read this; check the LWN daily updates page for the latest. (See also: Andover's post-IPO press release. Current prices are available from Yahoo for Andover (ANDN) and VA Linux (LNUX)). Both of these stocks will join the LWN Linux Stock Index next week. The Bazaar is happening in New York on December 14-16. This event is intended to be a free software developers' gathering; this emphasis is driven home by the fact that Richard Stallman is giving a keynote talk. In a world that is filling up with highly commercial, business-oriented Linux events, it is important that free software events like this continue to exist and prosper. Of course, the presence of keynote speakers like Bob Young and Michael Cowpland make it clear that the commercial world will not go unrepresented here either. Keep your eyes out for LWN editor Liz Coolbaugh, who will be attending this event and giving her talk on Linux distributions: well-known through unknown at 9:00 AM on December 15.
Inside this week's Linux Weekly News:
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December 9, 1999
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Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page See also: last week's Security page. |
SecurityNews and editorialsMore ssh problems! This time, ssh 1.2.27 with RSAREF2 defined was found to contain another buffer overflow which can make the machine running sshd allow an unauthorized login according to this CORE SDI security advisory and this followup by Niels Provos. Note that the vulnerability is not specific to ssh; any code that uses RSAREF2 may be impacted.Although OpenSSH is not vulnerable to an exploit as a result, it is impacted, as explained in this OpenBSD advisory, along with other several other OpenBSD packages. US citizens will need to review this issue since they mention "(This crypto problem only burns Americans!)"
Bastille Linux 0.93beta. Good news from the headwaters of
efforts to create secure Linux implementation: Basille Linux
0.93beta has been announced. This is the beginning of a code freeze,
so they are moving towards the release of their first stable version.
It also seems to indicate that the homepage for the Bastille project
has moved to http://bastille-linux.sourceforge.net/.
Open source SRP provides an alternative for secure authentication. SecurityFocus' Kurt Seifried takes a look at SRP, the Stanford SRP Authentication Project. "SRP provides several benefits over traditional methods, the biggest being that no actually encryption of the data takes place, meaning SRP can be exported legally from the US. SRP also makes no use of the patented RSA algorithm (typically used in key exchanges), so you can legally use it in the US (without having to pay RSA). " Security ReportsA problem with the shadow in Slackware 7.0 was reported on BugTraq and reputes to allow a brute force attack on the password file. This report has not be confirmed and no word from the Slackware team has come out as of yet. The official PostgreSQL RPMs up through 6.5.3-1 had a permission problem, reported by the RPM Maintainer, Lamar Owen. Updated RPMs are now available and a simple fix is mentioned for people who have already installed older RPMs. Updatesdump: fixes for a security problem when symbolic links are restored (see original announcement).ORBit, esound, and gnome-core: A easily guessable source for random data was used in ORBit and esound which might allow an attacker to guess the authentication keys used to control access to these services. In addition, TCP Wrappers support has been added to gnome-session. sendmail: Any user can run sendmail with the -bi option to rebuild the aliases database, which opens a window during which the aliases database can be left in an unusable state, causing a Denial-of-Service. Versions of sendmail through 8.9.3 are impacted. [SecurityFocus entry] (Old)
Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
December 9, 1999
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Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page See also: last week's Kernel page. |
Kernel developmentThe current development kernel release is 2.3.31. This kernel was released without announcement, as is usual these days. This patch (1.2 MB) includes a lot of joystick driver work, an AGPGART driver (experimental), 3dfx support in the direct rendering manager, an Aironet 4500 network adaptor driver, and a major thrashup of the USB SCSI driver. The current stable kernel release remains 2.2.13. The series of 2.2.14 prepatches continues, with 2.2.14pre12being the current release candidate, if all goes well. Initial support for NUMA systems was quietly slipped into 2.3.30. NUMA stands for "non-uniform memory access"; a NUMA system is a multiprocessor system where, for each processor, the speed of memory access varies depending on the "distance" between the memory and the processor. Using NUMA, the usual performance bottleneck between the memory and the processors can be eased somewhat by providing a special path for each processor to a portion of the installed memory. As a result, NUMA systems more easily scale to larger numbers of processors. NUMA systems look much like regular SMP systems, in that all memory is accessible by all processors. However, a system which does not take the NUMA speed differential into account will perform poorly. A NUMA-aware operating system will seek to maximize the locality of its memory references, so that it is running out of the fastest memory as much of the time as possible. Linux has had part of this problem solved for some time: it already tries to avoid moving processes between processors. Even on uniform memory systems, each processor has its own memory cache that gets wasted when a process moves somewhere else. On NUMA systems, however, each processor really needs to make a point of using its fast memory. And that is what the new code in 2.3.30 does. This code was written by Kanoj Sarcar, who has been doing quite a bit of kernel hacking at SGI. Kanoj's new NUMA code splits memory into regions associated with each processor. When a processor allocates new memory, it tries to do so from its fast pool if possible; otherwise it has to look farther afield. Currently non-local memory is allocated from other processors in a round-robin fashion; eventually that will be changed to a distance-sensitive search. Much more can be done to improve performance on NUMA systems. For example, kernel code (and shared libraries too) can be replicated across processors so that each runs out of its fast memory. Trying to keep related processes (i.e. those which are sharing memory regions) together on the same processor can also be helpful. But one has to start by getting the underlying system in order; Kanoj Sarcar's work is a good step in that direction. Should the kernel provide transparent, portable support for binary modules? That was the topic of this week's big battle in linux-kernel. The battle, for all its ferocity, remained somewhat one-sided, however... In one corner, there is Kendall Bennett of SciTech Software, who started things off with a posting entitled Linux headed for disaster?. Therein he claims that Linux should make it possible to build binary modules which can be loaded into any version of the kernel. His claim is that the variety of hardware supported by Linux would be much wider if binary modules were supported in this manner. Without the need to continually port drivers to new versions, hardware vendors would be much more likely to provide drivers for Linux. It is true that the problems with driver compatibility can be somewhat annoying. Even for a given kernel release and underlying system architecture, there are a number of variable which affect module compatibility, including:
The battle is one-sided because there is very little sympathy among kernel developers for those who wish to distribute binary-only modules. Indeed, they seem to relish the idea of making that task harder. And there are, in fact, good reasons for not trying to support binary modules across versions and configuration options:
Thus, people may complain - especially those who would like to make a living off distributing proprietary modules. But the situation is highly unlikely to change. As an example of the sorts of problems that can arise with binary modules, look no farther than Lucent's release of a PCI modem driver, which was covered last week. This driver was built for Red Hat 6.1 systems, but even Red Hat users have been complaining about troubles making it work. Since no source is available, the problems can not be fixed, and the driver can not be built for any other distribution. According to this note, this situation is unlikely to change anytime soon. Those wanting to give this driver a try may want to grab the RPM versionput up by Definite Software. Meanwhile, for those looking for a free Lucent PCI modem driver, LTModem 0.9.3 has been announced. The ALSA Professional Team has announced its existence. ALSA, of course, is the "Advanced Linux Sound Architecture," the next generation of sound drivers for Linux. This new team consists of two developers (Jaroslav Kysela and Abramo Bagnara) who are being funded by SuSE to work full time on ALSA and bring it to some sort of initial completion within a couple of months. The rumors of the QNX filesystem's death were premature. After having seen the discussion of the maintenance (or lack thereof) of the QNX filesystem last week, an eager kernel hacker (who wishes to remain unnamed for the moment) has stepped up and taken over the maintenance responsibility. QNX lives on... Other patches and updates released this week include:
Section Editor: Jon Corbet |
December 9, 1999
For other kernel news, see: |
Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page See also: last week's Distributions page. |
DistributionsPlease note that security updates from the various distributions are covered in the security section. Distribution site updates. Franz Niedermeyer was kind enough to point out that the site we had listed for the muLinux home page, http://mulinux.nevalabs.org/, is actually just a mirror of the site maintained by the authors, http://sunsite.auc.dk/mulinux/. At the same time, Michael "Soruk" McConnell pointed out that the URL for Eridani Linux has changed and is now http://www.eridani.co.uk/. Coyote Linux 1.03. A new version of this single floppy distribution has been announced. Based on the Linux Router Project, it is "geared for people that have an ethernet-based Internet connection such as a cable modem or DSL that they wish to share with other computers on a LAN. " DemoLinux approaches first official release. Version 1.0pre4 has been announced, indicating that the team is working its way towards the initial launch. DOSLinux becomes LoopLinux. This announcement for LoopLinux 1 indicates that the DOSLinux project has been renamed, presumably to avoid problems with the use of the DOS name. It is a small Linux distribution that can be installed under any form of the DOS operating system. Corel LinuxReview: Corel Linux (LinuxTicker). LinuxTicker ran this review (in German) of Corel Linux 1.0. The non German-capable can go to the Babelfish link, but it appears to not like this page, so the "feed it one paragraph at a time" approach may be necessary.Debian GNU/LinuxA followup from Corel on the issue of allowing minors to download Corel Linux was posted on December 2nd. This time Corel is not backing down and they even have Richard Stallman on their side. They indicate that they are just trying to make the license conditions legally enforceable, not stop a minor from using Corel Linux. "In order to be effective, however, the contract must be binding upon the persons who enter into it. In some jurisdictions, contracts entered into by minors are deemed by law to be not binding upon them or to be voidable at the option of the minor." So, as long as the parent or guardian of a minor is willing to agree to the terms on their behalf, minors can use Corel Linux. Stallman sums it up this way, "They (like you) are free to distribute copies or decline to distribute copies, when and as they wish. If they want to distribute copies only to adults, or only people with red hair, that is ok. Asking people to agree that they will use the software only in accord with the license is ok, provided the license is a free software license. " On the other hand, he points out that, if the situation bothers you, the GPL allows you to download the software to your own site and serve it up as you wish. Or, as most people will do, you can choose to ignore the license and download it no matter what ... but if you abuse the license, they'll use the clause in the contract to show that you should be held accountable for misrepresentation, a legal "cover-your-ass" move. 316 Bugs Away. "Only" 316 release-critical bugs remain in between us and the next release, according to the latest BugScan Report. Software in the Public Interest, Inc. has a new address, just in case you had some donations you wanted to send their way ... Debian PAM mini-policy. Ben Collins has written up information on Debian's PAM policy in response to the many questions he has been receiving. LinuxPPCLinuxPPC unveils new web site. LinuxPPC has announced its new web site. "Running on the Apache web server and the PHP3 system, the new site is 100% buzzword compliant, and visually stunning."Red Hat LinuxLinuxWars: Distribution War II. Bill Henning has updates his Distribution Wars II article to include Red Hat 6.1.Slackware LinuxA new Slackware-current tree has been created, so development on the next release has begun. At the same time, though, some additions to the new tree will apparently also be broken off as patches or released as patches to the older trees, to make the dissemination of security patches for older releases easier. Check the homepage for more details.Spiro LinuxSpiro Linux sold. Inventive Communications has announcedits acquisition of Spiro Linux. "Rick Collette, chief developer of this enhanced version of Linux, will continue to be the primary maintainer of the Spiro-Linux distribution."SuSE LinuxSuSE announces training in Germany. SuSE has announced (in German) the availability of its training programs in several German cities, including Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Cologne. English text available via Babelfish.Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
December 9, 1999
Please note that not every distribution will show up every week. Only distributions with recent news to report will be listed.
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Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page See also: last week's Development page. |
Development projectsSun-Blackdown go on a bumpy ride. On December 7th, Sun issued a press release proudly announcing the upcoming release of the Java 2 platform on Linux. Within it, the following paragraph had a strong impact within the java-linux community, which has been working with the Blackdown team on a JDK for Linux for many, many years. "Sun worked with Inprise to produce this Linux port of J2SE. The first release candidate, or final preview, of the Java 2 platform on Linux is now available at http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/earlyAccess/j2sdk122/ and will also be included in shipments of Jbuilder, Inprise's award winning integrated development environment. In early 2000, Sun and Inprise will ship their final Linux port. Sun will internally produce future Linux ports, for the next version of J2SE, which will be available in Q1 Y2000."Two issues arose: the lack of credit to the Blackdown team and, perhaps more critically, the indication that Sun tends to "internally produce" future Linux ports. This led many, including people on the Blackdown team, to presume that Sun no longer intended to work with the Blackdown team. After all, Inprise's product is presumably for sale. They have a reason to want to make their product clearly better than the freely available efforts of the Blackdown team. At a minimum, this press release represents a colossal marketing blunder on Sun's part. It highlights a communications gap that exists on three sides, for Sun, Inprise and for the Blackdown team. To lay some background for people unfamiliar with some of the issues, Sun's JDK has only recently been released under the Sun Community Source License. Even now, development versions of the JDK are not openly available. Signed agreements must be filled out and accepted before someone is allowed access to Sun's source code. Even then, under the agreements in question or the SCSL, the modifications made to Sun's code belong to Sun, unquestionably, and legally there is no requirement that they give credit to anybody. The software that the Blackdown Team creates is thus not truly free software, since it is encumbered by these licensing issues. However, within the free/open source community, the efforts of the Blackdown Team have still been appreciated and have resonated with the ideals of the community because they are volunteer efforts; no money is earned by the Blackdown Team in exchange for the years of effort they have put into making Sun's source code run on Linux. Enhanced reputation is essentially the only coin by which the Blackdown Team can be paid. As it turns out, it appears that Sun and Inprise both understood this. We spoke with Susan Struble at Sun whose name appears on the press release. She stated that the Blackdown team was mentioned in all meetings with Inprise, that they were mentioned in all public forums in which the announcement was discussed and that a series of historical articles on the development of Java also talks clearly about the level of their contributions. When we asked what happened with this particular press release, she blamed it on the short time frame in which the deal developed, the difficulty in issuing press releases jointly with another company (to which we can personally testify) and difficulties reaching the Blackdown team in advance, due to the fact that their current primary contact, Juergen Kreileder, is in Germany. At this point, there is no reason to doubt Sun and Inprise's intent to credit the Blackdown team. However, the more important issue involved may be the communication gap between Sun, Inprise and the Blackdown team. This has led to a situation, currently, where the JDK 1.2.2 for Linux has been developed in parallel by Inprise and the Blackdown team with little to no cross-pollination. That means that the Inprise release contains bugs that the Blackdown team has fixed and vice versa. It has been commented that perhaps competition between the two groups is actually good for the community. How can a true competition exists if your competitor has free access to what you do, but you have no access to what they do? That has not exactly been the case in the past few months, since the Blackdown team only releases its code back to Sun generally after it has passed regression testing, but overall the Blackdown team is required to share what it does with Sun, while Sun can choose whether or not to share its work or Inprise's work with the Blackdown team. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to talk directly with the Blackdown team about this situation. Susan indicated again that Sun had spoken today with Kevin Hendricks and that there was no issue here, that Sun has worked and will continue to work with the Blackdown team, that Inprise plans to do so as well. We would like to hear a confirmation of that from the Blackdown team members. It is likely that they would like to see a demonstration of that intent, to bolster their own trust. Nonetheless, it is to the benefit of all of us for these communication problems to be addressed as quickly and as well as possible. The Blackdown Team currently supports x86, PowerPC, ARM, and Sparc ports. The Sun/Inprise product only supports x86. If the Blackdown team pulled out of the development effort, it would have an extremely bad impact on support for Java on the other platforms. Sun and Inprise probably both realize the potential seriousness of this blunder. A break with the Blackdown team would give a the shot in the arm to IBM's efforts in this area (see http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com for more details), which are being released under an open source license. They expect to have an initial 1.3 version available for Linux by first quarter 2000. Resources for additional information/opinions on this issue:
High AvailabilityAlinka cluster management tool released. A company called Alinka has released a management tool for Linux clusters - it has been placed under the GPL. It looks like a useful tool for the creation and administration of Beowulf clusters; some more information can be found from the Alinka LCM documentation.Linux in EducationLinux for Kids has added BombObomb to its list of arcade-style software for kids. This is a Bomberman-style game and gets good marks for sound, special effects and add-ons, which come out every month.KDEKDevelop 1.0 released. Version 1.0 of the KDevelop C++ development environment has been released. Congratulations to the KDevelop team for having reached this major milestone.MagicPointThe MagicPoint Gallery. Version 2.0 of the MagicPoint Gallery has been announced, including over 41 MagicPoint templates.MozillaMozillazine in Chinese is a new site which provides a Chinese translation of Mozillazine, the best source of information for keeping up to date with Mozilla. Updates to Mozilla.org. According to this week's Mozilla Status Report, several new pages have been added to the Mozilla.org site, including:
WineGraphOn patent and Wine. We mentioned in last week's Development Summary that GraphOn had filed a patent that might impact Wine. This topic was discussed again in the November 29th edition of the Wine Weekly News. Those interested can check the text of the patent.
Concensus seems to be that Wine is not impacted by the patent,
"Anyway, it turns out that Wine should be safe regarding this,
because:
Meanwhile, moving on, the Wine Weekly News for December 6th provides links to the slides from the Wine talk at Comdex and from Peter Ganten's Wine demonstration at LinuxTag. The big non-technical issue discussed this week was the possible evolution of Wine's license. Richard Stallman reviewed the license and pointed out some problems with it that could make it incompatible with GPL code (surprise, surprise). Anyway, the discussion seems to be progressing in a positive manner, with a preference being expressed to adopt an existing license that suits their purpose rather than monkey with the current one. The license that drew the most interest is the X11 license. XFree86Release delays. The XFree86 team did not quite make its goal to release 4.0 before the end of the year. Here is the latest news:The XFree86 Project has been working very hard to get the 4.0 release out the door. It is taking a little longer than expected so we will be releasing the next pre-4.0 snapshot (3.9.17) before the end of the year. We expect to release 4.0 about two months later in mid-Q1/2000. ZopeZope 2.1.0 released. Zope 2.1.0 has been released. This release includes both bug fixes and a number of new features.LinuxPlanet reviews Zope. LinuxPlanet has run this review of Zope. "... the application-server market has largely settled on Java and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) as tools that can be deployed on any application server, allowing for different servers from different vendors to interoperate on a useful level. There's no hint at all within Zope or the Zope documentation that Java/EJB support was ever considered, much less implemented. This is a major drawback within Zope; you can argue all day and night that Python is superior to Java, but one simply can't ignore the realities of the marketplace." Zope Weekly News. The December 8th edition of the Zope Weekly News covers new products, general announcements (including a new Spanish Zope Portal) and some organizational updates. It also comments on the above review. "Kevin Reichard (the reviewer) brings with him a fresh perspective as someone coming from outside the "Zope community". He gives Zope an overall 4/5 rating and raises a number of concerns, some valid, some perhaps less so. Kevin represents a demographic destined to become the majority of Zope users (namely, those who view Zope as a tool rather than as a way of life. ;-) ) and so his review deserves careful consideration." Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
December 9, 1999
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Development toolsJavaSimultaneous to the Sun/Inprise announcement which is covered in detail above, the Blackdown Team announced their JDK 1.2.2 RC3, a release candidate for an official 1.2.2 release if it passes all the required tests. Reports are that this latest version is the speediest yet. " With the SUN/Inprise 1.2.2-port, the speed increased alot from what I've experienced with 1.2.2-pre2, but the Blackdown 1.2.2 RC3 with nativethreads runs past these guys without any doubt. Menus poping up like a menu and not like a curtain being pulled down on my PII-400/128MB :)", mentioned Jo Uthus on the java-linux mailing list.The list of Known Bugs (and Workarounds) for the Blackdown Team's JDK1.2.X project has been updated as of December 8th. Meanwhile, Inprise also stayed in the news with their announcement of JBuilder for Linux, a commercial Java development tool that is currently available for free download. Tower Technology Corporation unveiled the latest release of its Java deployment environment, TowerJ 3.5. Including support for the Java 2 specification, TowerJ 3.5 will enter beta testing this month and will be generally available during 1Q2000. Tritonux, a "freeware implementation of the JavaSound 0.9 API for Linux" has published a developer's page, "where people interested in helping can find which features are not implemented and where programming information or hints can be found". However, a quick check on the site shows that the source code has been made available and is distributed under the GPL, so this is actually a "free" software package. PerlA 1999 look at the Seven Deadly Sins of Perl. In 1996, Tom Christiansen discussed The Seven Deadly Sins of Perl, "suboptimal" design choices, as he found them. Mark-Jason Dominus has in revisited the topic, giving a prognosis for the problems originally reported by Tom (only one is proclaimed "fixed" and that has lingering issues ...) and adding two of his own, that the documentation has grown too big and the API too complicated. Sounds like topics to start some new flame wars ... [From Perl News.]PerlMonth issue 7 released. PerlMonth #7 is out. It includes seven development-related articles, and also inaugurates a new Perl job board. PythonPython-URL!. Dr. Dobbs' Python-URL! for Tuesday, December 7th, mentions downtime for python.org this week, a summary of 3D python projects, new features on the Job board and more development discussions and ideas. "Interest in type safety has made a comeback after nearly a year's hiatus".Essential Python Reference bug database. David Beazley has announced that a "bug database" for his "Essential Python Reference" has been put up on the net. The list of problems is satisfyingly short, but it's still nice to know what they are. There is also a contest for those who would like to find other problems... (LWN reviewed this book in November). Tcl/tkDr. Dobbs' Tcl-URL!. This week's Tcl-URL! contains a lot of Tcl tips, such as how to handle the odd EOL character or a detailed case analysis of proper quoting. In addition, August 0.50 has been announced. It is a Tcl/tk-based text editor.Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh | |
Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page See also: last week's Commerce page. |
Linux and businessThe big PC vendors take another step toward Linux. Perhaps the biggest commercial Linux news this week, once one escapes the morass of IPO stuff, is this announcement of a deepening strategic alliance between Red Hat and Dell. There are two aspects to this announcement:
Nobody is talking, of course, on how this deal came to be. It has the look, however, of Red Hat using its new strength to push a competitor out of the way. Red Hat has a pile of money and no immediate need to show a profit; one assumes that it has made use of both to give Dell an attractive offer. Thus Red Hat establishes itself as the provider of both distributions and support to U.S. businesses. On another front, Gateway has announced its new Linux-based server appliance. This box is aimed at the small office market, and features a low price tag. The attentive reader, on looking at the Gateway Micro Server page, will notice a certain resemblance to the "Qube" produced by Cobalt Networks. And that is exactly what it is: Gateway and Cobalt announced back in October that they would be working together to market server appliances. Gateway has still to jump into Linux in any big way. If the server appliances sell well, however, it makes sense to expect that they will become more interested in the future. O'Reilly network launches - sort of. O'Reilly has announced the existence of the O'Reilly network, which is intended to be "a reference site for the community of independent developers who rely on O'Reilly books to provide in-depth reference content on the technologies important to them." O'Reilly is busy signing up affiliate sites; the current list includes xml.com, ApacheWeek, and MySql.com. The official "real" launch of the O'Reilly Network is scheduled for January 10. Matra Datavision open-sources Cascade Matra Datavision has announced that its Cascade libraries will be released as open source. Cascade is a set of C++ libraries aimed at graphic modeling applications; it appears to be a powerful framework for the creation of complicated CAD (and other) systems. They claim that $75 million was spent developing this code. Of course, few companies can release code without coming up with a new license to go with it; in this case Cascade is covered under the Open Cascade Matra Datavision Public Licence (MDPL), which is essentially like the GPL. More information, including demonstrations, at the OpenCascade.org web site. Press Releases:
Section Editor: Jon Corbet. |
December 9, 1999
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Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page See also: last week's Linux in the news page. |
Linux in the newsIPO News: The Internet Stock Report ran this look at the Andover.net IPO, due to happen any day now. "As has been the case with the recent spikes in RedHat and other Linux companies, it would not be surprising if the Andover.net IPO also undergoes similar volatility -- especially as the press heats up regarding the IPO. So, Andover.net could be a great way to get a quick profit from the Linux craze." Here's a brief Reuters article stating that Andover.net is raising its IPO price to $15-18 per share (from $12-15). That, of course, suggests that they are seeing some demand. This New York Times article looks at this week's IPOs. "The renegade Linux operating system will be in the spotlight again this week when two related companies, the much-anticipated VA Linux Systems Inc. and Andover.Net., go public." Note that the New York Times is a registration-required site; this article may also be read without registration via Newsalert. (Thanks to Paul Hewitt). Here's a News.com article about the VA Linux and Andover.net IPOs, both of which are expected to happen this week. "VA Linux, which markets servers, and Andover, an operator of Web sites, are Linux-related offerings, but investors will likely treat them differently, according to IPO analysts. Andover.net may face mixed reviews because of the unconventional approach it took with its offering." Also in News.com: this article about VA's community offering. "The firm sent a letter to Linux developers inviting them to participate in the company's imminent initial public offering. Although there are altruistic motives for the offer, there are pragmatic reasons as well, some say. A Linux company would be ill-advised to alienate the programming community it depends upon. In addition, the participation offer stands to increase the word-of-mouth buzz that often precedes a successful IPO." Yet another News.com article reports on the VA Linux IPO price increase. "Such increases in the price range generally indicates high demand for the stock. It's not a surprise, given the successes of Linux-related IPOs such as Red Hat and Cobalt Networks, both of which increased their offering prices." The LA Times reports on the upcoming VA Linux IPO. "Other analysts, however, say VA Linux is no Red Hat. They are skeptical of the rush of fledgling 'me-too' companies joining the Linux IPO bandwagon, pointing to deals expected from TurboLinux Inc. and several others next year." CBS Marketwatch looks at the VA Linux Systems IPO. "Revenues have been growing briskly: $2.7 million in 1997, $5.6 million in 1998 and $17.7 million in 1999. The growth has been due in large part to a surge in the customer base, which was 300 in 1997, 550 in 1998 and 1,100 in 1999. There was also an increase in the average level of business for each customer: $9,000 in 1997, $10,000 in 1998 and $15,000 in 1999. In fact, the company has very strong backers, such as Sequoia Capital and Intel. What's more, with the surge in RedHat and other Linux companies, VA Linux should do extremely well this week with its IPO debut." Here's Business Week's take on the VA Linux IPO. "Sometime later this week, another Linux-related company, called VA Linux Systems, will go public under the ticker symbol LNUX. It will probably double or triple in price while market pundits criticize it for being another overhyped IPO. This time, they'll be wrong. That's because VA Linux could be poised to cash in on the best source of business that Linux will present: VA sells computers, not software." The Red Herring looks at this week's IPOs. "Possibly the hottest of all is VA Linux Systems (proposed Nasdaq symbol: LNUX). Located in Sunnyvale, California, the company is a provider of Linux-based systems, software, and services. The magic word here is 'Linux,' bringing to mind several other Linux IPOs, such as Cobalt Networks (Nasdaq: COBT) and Red Hat (Nasdaq: RHAT)." The Register chimes in on Linux IPOs. "So far as developers are concerned, it is now possible to see the open software movement moving towards the mainstream, just as the PC market was in the late 1980s. It would make little sense to resist the new ethos: after all, wasn't success part of the original objective?" ZDNet reprints this MSNBC article about Linux IPOs. "There's nothing like a 1,500-percent-plus stock-value jump to catch the attention of investors." ZDNet's Inter@ctive Investor has yet another IPO article. "The Andover.net deal will be huge for W.R. Hambrecht, but also illustrates that Andover.net may not have been able to land a big traditional underwriter such as Goldman Sachs. The good news is that demand is strong as W.R. Hambrecht raised the price range." Open Source Resources: Upside looks at Cosource.com. "'Our mission, our evangelism to the open source community, is that money is good,' [Cosource CEO] Thompson says. 'The fact that open source can move forward without money being involved is great, but money can make it better.'" Here's a News.com article about Cosource.com. "The payments to the programmers have ranged from $10 to $1,100, but within two years Cosource wants to increase the usual price tag to about $10,000." IT-Director.com seems to think that Application Server Provider (ASP) systems are the way to get open source software into the application level. "The industry is now conditioned to accept the ASP hosting model, is ready to trust open source software, and recognises the need to build new applications very rapidly and more cost-effectively in order to exploit the Web." (Thanks to Paulo Francisco Sedrez). Reviews: Bill Henning, distribution reviewer extraordinaire, takes a look at Corel Linux in this AboutLinux article. "You should realize that this is the first 'release' of a Linux distribution from Corel; and as such it is not surprising that it has some rough edges, and some of the new tools introduced by Corel Linux (that are Open Source) go far in making up for the problems that I (and others) have found." This AboutLinux.com review is about TurboLinux 4.0 Workstation Lite. "None of the problems I encountered were unsolvable; indeed I did not have any difficulty resolving the problems I ran into; however someone new to Linux would have thrown up their hands and gone right back to Windows." CNET has put up an article evaluating seven different Linux distributions. "To help you choose the best Linux version for you, CNET examined the seven most popular distributions available. We installed them, picked through their documentation, and evaluated their strengths as desktop OSs and as enterprise-level servers." In fact, they appear to have rated the distributions primarily on installation and documentation. Corel and Red Hat came out high; Debian and Mandrake low. Red Hat: ComputerWorld ran this article about the new agreement between Dell and Red Hat. "Previously, 90-day support for Dell's Linux workstations and servers was delivered by Linuxcare Inc. in San Francisco. Linuxcare Chief Technology Officer David Sifry said Linuxcare will continue to deliver the support for Dell's desktops running Linux and Dell server buyers can still elect to have their 90-day support delivered by Linuxcare." News.com reports briefly on the new Red Hat/Dell agreement. "Dell had been relying on LinuxCare for service and support. It is still uncertain how today's deal with Red Hat will affect that agreement, if at all." ZDNet's Inter@ctive Investor reports on the Red Hat/Dell agreement, and gives it credit for the latest jump in Red Hat's stock price. "Red Hat has been the primary Linux stock for Wall Street and the Dell deal will gives it a nice head start on the competition. Two of Red Hat's competitors go public this week. Andover.net (Proposed ticker: ANDN) and VA Linux (Proposed ticker: LNUX) will launch IPOs." Red Hat's Wide Open News interviews Michael Tiemann. "He spoke with us at length and in depth about the Red Hat-Cygnus merger, forking Linux, post-PC computing, why Red Hat!=Microsoft, and where he was when the deal was announced - and revealed that a delegation of open-source gurus (Tiemann included) is meeting with a group from Sun Microsystems to discuss Sun's position on open source and open standards." (Thanks to Paul Hewitt). osOpinion has another shopping suggestion for Red Hat. "Redhat should buy Troll Tech and place QT under the LGPL or BSD licenses." Also in Inter@ctive Investor: this article raising concerns after Red Hat's quarterly analyst conference call. "This morning's Red Hat discussion made it easy to understand why the Linux grassroots folks are becoming leery of Red Hat. Not once did the Red Hat get tipped in the direction of the larger developer community, although Young did mention them in passing at the very end of the conference call; if you had never heard of Linux until listening to Red Hat executives today, you would have come away with the impression that Red Hat owns Linux." Business: Here's an HP World article about the forthcoming Merced port. "The Linux/IA-64 project at HP Labs represents a significant contribution to the Open Source movement. But there was more to the decision than meets the eye. According to David Mosberger, member of the technical staff at HP Research Labs, it came about for 'lots of reasons.'" (Thanks to Robert K. Nelson). News.com has gotten around to covering Intel's investment in SuSE. "While Intel's investments help the companies fund expansion efforts, they also can be a financial boon. Intel's purchase of 3,005,058 shares of Red Hat at a price of $3.141 cost Intel $9.44 million. With Red Hat's stock at 221.5 in morning trading, that investment now is worth more than $646 million." Multimedium reports (in French) on Linux-Mandrake. "Thanks to a partnership with American book publisher Macmillan, the French company MandrakeSoft is one of only two profitable Linux distributors." English text available via Babelfish. (Found in NNL). Nicholas Petreley looks at disaster predictions in this InfoWorld column; he expects trouble for Microsoft stock. "Microsoft is betting the company on Windows 2000. Windows 2000 Advanced Server is $3,999 for 25 users. Add $5,397 for 75 additional user licenses and 100 client copies of Windows 2000 Professional at $319 each, and that brings your total to $41,296 for one server and 100 users. Contrast that to Linux or FreeBSD, both of which cost about $50 for unlimited users. Let's see: $41,296 for 100 users or $50 for unlimited users -- which shall I choose?" ENT Magazine ran this article on Bristol Technologies' Wind/U product. "Wind/U for Linux enables developers to compile Microsoft Win32 API and Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) source code directly on Linux and create native desktop and server-based Linux applications." (Thanks to Charles Bermingham). Here's an opinion piece in The Nation about the Microsoft "findings of fact." The suggested solution is to require full documentation of the Windows API. "Microsoft would then be competing on a level playing field with an organization of volunteers and commercial distributors who would have a higher-quality, completely compatible product everyone could get free. That's the kind of competition that would really benefit consumers. The end of the Microsoft Era can be the beginning of the Age of Open Software, in which programs will work better, cost less and develop in innovative new ways faster than ever before." (Thanks to Jean-Christophe Helary). This osOpinion piece suggests that Linux may be in trouble because there is no way to insure that Linux users will remain captive to the ads presented with "free" Internet services. "Can we still hope to establish Linux as a desktop alternative when Windows 2000 machines may include *free* unlimited 56k Internet?" ZDNet's Inter@ctive Investor raises some concern about current Linux stock prices. "Maybe you're a believer. Maybe you think Linux will revolutionize the information technology universe. But when it comes to your investments, make sure you're not paying an Internet-stock premium for what amounts to an unproven services company." Reuters takes this look at Corel's stock price. "Despite investor enthusiasm, analysts are taking a more cautious approach to Corel's Linux opportunity." The Ottawa Citizen reports on Corel, its high stock price, and plans for the future. "As small plastic penguins rained down from balconies inside the Carling Avenue headquarters, Mr. Cowpland called Ottawa 'the new Linux capital of the world.'" Finally: The LA Times interviews Linus Torvalds. "It's very clear that when I look at how it was before the commercial people got involved, Linux was much more unbalanced. It was great technology, but at the same time it was too much of being just technology. With the vendors coming in, suddenly it becomes much more of a whole product." Evan Leibovitch has put together a Christmas shopping list for your favorite Linux geek. "For the older geek, or one who just wants to play with the rich, buy a copy of Oracle 8i for Linux for $89, a pittance compared to the several thousand dollar price tags on traditional Oracle." SiliconValley.com reports on the GOP presidential debate, which included Steve Forbes talking about the Microsoft trial. "``The fact is that technology is going to send that lawsuit to the equivalent of Jurassic Park,'' Forbes said.... Forbes cited the rise of competitors such as Sun Microsystems as proof, but made a noticeable gaffe when he referred to the rival Linux open-source operating system as ``Loonix.''" (Thanks to John Franks). The Sydney Morning Herald ran this introductory article. It is not one of the more accurate ones we have seen... "Caldera's version of Linux is also extremely popular, since it is based on Red Hat Linux but adds a range of other features. " Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol |
December 9, 1999 |
Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page See also: last week's Announcements page. |
AnnouncementsResourcesJulekalender. The Skåne Sjælland Linux User Group has put up a Linux Christmas calendar which makes available a new "Christmas present" each day. It's all in Danish, but worth a look anyway.A mailing list for Linux StarOffice users has been set up on eGroups. Head over to the mailing list web page to see the discussion or to sign up. EventsPhotos from the Bangalore IT.COM 99 Linux Pavillion. The Linux Pavillion at IT.COM 99 in Bangalore, India was a great success. Now, there are over 400 photos from the event up on the web documenting the event. Worth a look.Pictures from LinuxTag. Alan Cox has put up a set of pictures from LinuxTag in Bremen. |
December 9, 1999
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Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page See also: last week's Back page page. |
Linux links of the weekLinux Today has launched its counter-FUD site, intended to be a repository of responses to typical attacks on Linux. It thus joins The Linux FUD factor FAQ and fud-counter.nl.linux.org in the anti-FUD business. DocBook.org is the home site of the O'Reilly book DocBook: The Definitive Guide. The entire book is available from the site, as are errata, a DocBook FAQ, and more. Just about everything you need to get started with this growing standard for technical documentation is there. Section Editor: Jon Corbet |
December 9, 1999 |
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Letters to the editorLetters to the editor should be sent to letters@lwn.net. Preference will be given to letters which are short, to the point, and well written. If you want your email address "anti-spammed" in some way please be sure to let us know. We do not have a policy against anonymous letters, but we will be reluctant to include them. | |
From: "Allan Pointon" <allan.pointon@virgin.net> To: <letters@lwn.net> Subject: raccoon roti Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 23:28:08 -0000 Q : what was the last thing that went through a certain recently deceased raccoon's mind ? A : Hummmm......... | ||
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 23:20:02 -0800 From: Pascal Martin <pascal.martin@iname.com> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Linux demo at Microsoft's Comdex booth ? Hello. I wanted to share with you some funny news I just discovered. Axis (http://www.axis.com/) is a company provided innovative Internet Appliances, including an exciting Internet camera. .. so exciting indead that they claim Microsoft made a demo at their Comdex booth: http://www.axis.com/news/us/comdex.htm The funny thing is that Axis also claims that this Camera is based on Linux: http://www.axis.com/news/us/2100.htm So, here we are, with some possibility that Microsoft might _really_ have done a Linux demo at Comdex !!!. And we get the ultimate pleasure of seing together on the same web pages these two related news (enjoy !): http://www.axis.com/news/ What do ya think ? :-D ------------------------------------------------------------------ Pascal F. Martin. | ||
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 06:29:42 -0900 From: "Tony Taylor (ISD)" <tony@searhc.org> Subject: LinuxToday Zope Review To: kreichard@internet.com, letters@lwn.net Mr. Reichard, In your review of the Zope application server, you raised many valid and important points. However, one criticism was completely unfair and irrelevent. The strawman you erect is in this paragraph: "In addition, the application-server market has largely settled on Java and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) as tools that can be deployed on any application server, allowing for different servers from different vendors to interoperate on a useful level. There's no hint at all within Zope or the Zope documentation that Java/EJB support was ever considered, much less implemented. This is a major drawback within Zope; you can argue all day and night that Python is superior to Java, but one simply can't ignore the realities of the marketplace." Only two years ago, the marketplace insisted MS-Windows NT was the dominant applications platform. In spite of this market reality, Linux has grown in popularity not by embracing NT, but by its simple technical superiority. I will not argue the superiority of one language over another; I personally dislike much of the Python syntax. But to declare a product unfit simply because it does not follow popular market trends is myopic and unimaginative. Java is not a standard, and is apparently never going to be a standard. Some of the other criticisms are spot-on; I only disagree with arguments like, "A is popular; B doesn't support A; therefore, B is bad." If popularity were any measure, Budwieser would be a good beer, and NT would be a decent operating system. - Tony | ||
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 01:06:17 -0500 From: Derek Glidden <dglidden@illusionary.com> To: j2se-linux-comments@sun.com, letters@lwn.net Subject: Sun, Java and Linux Today on the Java-linux mailing list there started a flame-fest because today Sun announced that they, jointly with Inprise (nee Borland), have released the Java2 JDK v1.2.2 Release Candidate 1 for Linux, coincedentally on the same day the Blackdown team announced their Java2 JDK v1.2.2rc3. The flame-fest comes from the fact that Sun's press release conveniently doesn't mention the Blackdown group who have been hacking away at the Java2 source code since pre-release versions to get it running successfully on Linux. I follow java-linux development more than I follow linux-kernel development, but from the way I understand things, a good deal of native/kernel thread development and stability on Linux is due to the Blackdown team working with the kernel and glibc teams to find and track down threading bugs in the kernel and glibc. Without the work Blackdown has done, a full Java2 JDK on Linux that could take advantage of native kernel threads just might not have been possible at all. Without Blackdown pushing, it's also possible that Linux kernel hackers might not have had impetus to implement native kernel threads at all by now. Linux has more to thank the Blackdown team for than just the JDK port. Adding insult to injury, when you download the "Sun/Inprise" JDK from Sun, you find READMEs and CVS messages left in several of the files left over from the Blackdown port. In other words, Sun took the work the Blackdown team has been doing on Java2 for *at least* the past year, handed it to Inprise, said "Here, get this running" and turned around and claimed it as their own. In their defense, Inprise says they've done a lot of independent work on the JDK to get it to "release quality" but it's still founded on man-years of work done by Blackdown. (And the Inprise port doesn't support native threads and actively discourages running it on SMP boxen, while the Blackdown port does both just fine, so...) Unfortunately, Sun's "Community Source License" gives them every right to do exactly that and screw Blackdown and screw their porting efforts in the process. The Blackdown team has been working on the JDK in good faith, and against nearly overwhelming apathy from Sun, knowing full and well that Sun's source license gives Sun the exclusive right to any and all patches to the JDK source that Blackdown might generate, under the assumption that the Blackdown port would be Sun's "semi-official Linux JDK" port. For their effort, Sun turned around and said, "Screw good faith and screw you too, we're gonna get some good press out of this and pretend again like we're an 'Open Source' company and 'Pro-Linux' just like when we bought StarOffice. We're Sun, you're a bunch of nameless, faceless programmers. Who's spin do you think the public will believe?" Not only that, but the press release goes so far as to say (paraphrased) "Java and Linux fans have asked for Sun to support Java on Linux and we listened". This after SEVERAL YEARS (ever since JDK 1.0) of "native Linux support from Sun" being the most demanded feature on Sun's "JDK wishlist" by SEVERAL ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE over ALL OTHER DEVELOPER REQUESTS COMBINED and Linux users getting nothing but the finger from Sun. Sun - Your license stinks. Your concept of "community" stinks. The way you treat (use) developers trying to support your products stinks. Forget your mouth, this time you've stuck your foot all the way up your a** after having shot it nearly clean off and there's no one to blame but yourselves. Hopefully the tone of this letter will give you some understanding of the bad feelings ("bad feelings" isn't strong enough, but I'm trying to remain more or less polite) you've generated in the Java-Linux community. Good luck trying to regain our trust. On the very dim bright side, a member of the Java development team from Inprise is also (unofficially) frequenting the java-linux list and is (again, unofficially) trying to let the world (or at least the java-linux world) know that, at the very least, Inprise developers know full and well the effort Blackdown has already put into the work and that Blackdown has Inprise's full and complete respect for it. That and a buck and a half will get the Blackdown team a cup of java down at Starbucks and big fat moon from Sun. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- With Microsoft products, failure is not Derek Glidden an option - it's a standard component. http://3dlinux.org/ Choose your life. Choose your http://www.tbcpc.org/ future. Choose Linux. http://www.illusionary.com/ | ||
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 23:09:23 +0000 From: Alain Williams <addw@phcomp.co.uk> To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: Comment on No FUD suggestion by Linuxtoday First let me say that I am supportive of what they are doing. I have a suggestion that, at first, may seem strange and counter to what you are doing but which, in the long term, may make the arguments much more powerful. What they are setting out to do is to ``dispell the shadows of doubt with the clear light of truth''. If this isn't exactly what they are about then maybe this is what they should do. What is the difference ? *Honesty*. If we are completely honest no one can trip us up. How will honesty change what they are doing ? Basically it means that faults/problems/... with Linux have to be openly pointed out. If faults are pointed out it makes the good points talked about have much more credibility. This is the antithesis of much marketing where a veil is drawn over deficiencies in whatever they are talking about, techies/hackers distrust marketing people for exactly this reason: techies are (by & large) a pretty honest bunch. So what do I think NoFUD should be doing ? Also have anti FUD pages about other operating systems: anything from Big Blue's VM to Microsoft's offerings. Why will that help ? 1 It will improve the credibility of the NoFUD web site. 2 It elevates NoFUD from a ``Linux Site'' to an ``Industry Reference Site''. 3 It will be visited by many more people, people who are after genuine insight into advantages/disadvantages of the various platforms that are discussed. How will this help Linux ? It will show people where Linux performs well (or badly) in relation to the other OSs that are out there. The places where Linux can do with improvement will he high-lightened and (hopefully) attract more effort from the Open Source community. -- Alain Williams | ||
Date: 3 Dec 1999 01:30:26 -0000 From: mogul-linux@gelatinous.com To: letters@lwn.net, malda@slashdot.org Cc: products@opengl.org Subject: Fahrenheit, SGI, Microsoft, Linux, D3D, OpenGL I'm an experienced game developer. I read this story about Microsoft quietly dropping OpenGL support in Windows 2000: http://www.theregister.co.uk/991129-000007.html It also details the failed alliance intended to draw Direct3D and OpenGL together... After reading it I was inspired (incensed?) enough to write down the events in this sordid affair as I remember them. The Linux reference near the end of the article makes the timing of this move obvious, but I've always felt that Fahrenheit was smoke and mirrors to keep game developers away from vendor-independent OpenGL and using a standard Microsoft could control. See if you feel the same way after you see my (admittedly biased) list of the facts in order: Despite WinNT supporting OpenGL happily from near its inception, Microsoft wastes the first three versions of DirectX trying to come up with a usable 3D API for Win9x, claiming the OpenGL API is not suitable for game development. Apple announces that they will provide Game Sprockets for the Mac, a suite of game development libs similar to DirectX. Rave3D is incorporated as the 3D API. Microsoft claims that they will be supporting DirectX across every operating system they can, including their own, MacOS, HP-UX, Irix, Solaris, etc. They say they expect DirectX to become a standard, and that developers shouldn't worry about compatibility because wherever they want to take their games, DirectX will be supported. Therefore, there's no point in programming to Rave3D. OpenGL vs. Direct3D debates rage across the industry for months, with many of the harsher criticisms of D3D centering on the fact that the API makes optimization of drivers nearly impossible. D3D provides only capability bits to test for features, and guarantees none. OpenGL is criticized for being slow, large, and unsuited to consumer-level cards, as well as inflexible due to the pool of vendors who develop it by committee. Microsoft says it will stop debate by supporting both standards. Soon thereafter it supplies its implementation of OpenGL for Windows 9x, a ridiculously slow and incomplete version that breaks the number one promise of OpenGL: all features are available, even if they are only implemented in software. It's even slower than their software-only D3D implementation. Supporting this version of OpenGL is more difficult than supporting software D3D since there aren't even capability tests to provide workarounds. Many developers throw up their hands and go for D3D since their games have to ship someday. Around this time, Quake goes hardware accelerated with an OpenGL wrapper on the 3dfx chipset, utilizing 3dfx's glide library. John Carmack's considerable influence over the industry and strong cross-platform stance makes waves, and with GLQuake as the poster child, the debates start having conclusions: OpenGL *can* be lightweight enough for game development, and provides much more opportunity for optimization to card vendors. SGI steps into the fray by offering a free fully-compliant and even well-optimized software OpenGL replacement for Windows 95, with an attendant architecture that makes it possible to write installable client drivers for hardware acceleration fairly easily. Apple, losing money fast and on the brink of death, seeing the already dwindling Mac game market shrink even further, stops supporting Game Sprockets and redirects the Sprockets developers to their OS. They go silent for a while. However, 3dfx ships a PCI version that supports glide on the Mac. GLQuake is ported to the Mac using the 3dfx OpenGL wrapper, and runs great! Microsoft makes dramatic "updates" in the shaky D3D API. It drops its poorly conceived and executed retained mode (a very poor imitation of SGI's Performer functionality), and focuses exclusively on duplicating the functionality that OpenGL has had all along (discouraging raw vertex buffers, adding DrawPrimitive, etc.) This isn't enough for developers, who have all that plus the added bonus of portability when they use OpenGL. Microsoft and SGI start making lots of noise and lawsuits start flying. Coincidentally, many companies (such as Intergraph) have been steadily eating away at SGI's hi-end market share over the last few years as they make OpenGL workstations running OpenGL on Windows NT that rival mid-range SGIs. In a sudden turnabout, SGI announces that they'll turn their OpenGL and ICD implementation over to Microsoft to incorporate and support in place of Microsoft's shoddy version. The two companies announce that they'll work on a next-generation hybrid API called Fahrenheit that incorporates the best features of D3D and OpenGL and adds Performer functionality. Note that ONLY Microsoft and SGI are involved... The million other companies in the OpenGL Architecture Review Board are left out in the cold. Shortly thereafter, SGI announces that it will be making WinNT workstations as well. Peace is declared for a while as developers sit through DX5, DX6, and DX7, waiting for an announcement any day that the first version of Fahrenheit is ready for testing. Developers prefer OpenGL due to the caps bit issue, but ship versions that run with both OpenGL and D3D so that they're supported by as many cards as possible. (Many don't even support D3D until the game is done, then spend the rest of their time on compatibility issues in their D3D support.) Meanwhile, the OpenGL ARB starts moving much faster with the addition of companies such as NVidia and 3dfx whose core hardware engineers used to work at SGI, and whose excellent products are dominating the consumer market. Extensions to the standard start churning out at a pretty good clip, keeping pace with new features coming out in consumer graphics cards such as multitexturing. Quake becomes something of a performance benchmark for these leading consumer cards, and companies such as ATI suddenly have to support OpenGL in order to be able to compare apples to apples. Suddenly every card vendor for the PC is supporting OpenGL. Apple announces that the iMac will incorporate ATI's 3D cards and support OpenGL. The new machines are zippy and suddenly the Mac looks like a great game platform, especially if you're doing OpenGL development on the PC anyway. For these amid other reasons, Apple is back on top of its game again. Microsoft encourages hardware vendors not to ship OpenGL installable client drivers, saying that their effort would be better spent writing drivers for the Windows Driver Model architecture, the unified driver standard for Windows NT and Windows 2000. Companies would of course love to support one driver only, so their ICDs are shipped but without much optimization. Many say "wait for Win2K, where our driver support will be great!" (eg. Matrox) Mesa (a free software OpenGL implementation) and Linux have been behaving well together for a while, with some hardware acceleration based on a Linux version of the glide library from 3dfx. Linux makes a couple of usability leaps that give Microsoft pause. In early 1999, NVidia and 3DFX announce custom binary-only X servers that support their cards. SGI suddenly announces massive support for Linux, and open sources it's GLX library for the purpose of incorporating Mesa into the free X server, XFree86. NVidia, now the market leader, says it will have fully accelerated OpenGL support for all of its cards under Linux by the end of 1999. Microsoft finally tries ditching OpenGL altogether in Windows 2000, as detailed by the article. We all know how roughly Microsoft plays in the industry, but watching this progression has really upset me. OpenGL has always been a cross-platform standard carefully supported and developed by multiple vendors. The various attempts on Microsoft's part to wrest control are pretty obvious: Bring out a competing standard, though inferior to the existing one. Claim to be providing a standard for the entire industry, not just themselves. Bad mouth the capabilities of the competing standard. Claim to support both, but provide crappy support for OpenGL. Desperately try to incorporate the features they lack into their own standard. Bully beleagured SGI into giving them control over the better version. Get driver writers dependent on their ICD arch, then sandbag driver development. Drop the Fahrenheit architecture carrot that got everyone moving their way in the first place. Quietly drop support for the competing standard at the last second, just when it's again obvious why OpenGL is the industry standard. No one should be surprised at this maneuver after all of Microsoft's other activities, but it makes me wonder why ANY company is still willing to work with Microsoft after seeing the way they attempt to eat not just their competitors, but their allies as well. Is it any wonder hardware vendors are fleeing to Linux as sanctuary from the ravening beast? mogul-opengl@gelatinous.com | ||