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

Linux in the news

Business Week has put up an article about LinuxOne. "If word gets around quickly enough, this IPO might not make it out of the starting gate, because investors will be aware of its sketchy business model and will turn away when the stock is offered to them by a cold-calling broker. Then again, with the frenzy of today's IPO market and with many investors trying desperately to get in on the next hot IPO, maybe LinuxOne will find enough customers to buy the only product it has: Its share certificates."

Interviews:

To find out more on what Dave Whitinger, one of the original creators of Linux Today, is up to now, check out this interview with Dave over at Linux.com.

Here's a CNET article about (Linux Today cofounder) Dave Whitinger's new venture Linsight. "'If it's Linux information, we'll have it covered,' [Dave] said. Having useful information, not just lots of it, will be critical in keeping Linsight alive amid so much competition."

News.com talks with VA Linux CEO Larry Augustin. "Augustin admits there's increasing competition for Linux computers, with newer companies such as Penguin Computing joining established giants such as IBM, Dell Computer, Compaq Computer and Hewlett-Packard. But VA Linux doesn't want to conquer the entire market, Augustin said, just the back-end part of things. 'We will dominate the Internet infrastructure market,' he said."

ZDNet's Inter@ctive Investor interviews Larry Augustin. "I turned to Linus and said, 'Did you expect six or seven years ago that we'd be here with CNBC devoting the day to Linux?' and of course, his humorous comment was, 'Oh, of course. World domination.'"

LinuxPower has put up an interview with kernel hacker Ingo Molnar. "Linus does not pressure anyone to work on particular features. He does pressure people (directly or indirectly) to finish up and maintain code which is in the mainstream kernel, and that is more than understandable. No, I do not feel any direct outside pressure, apart from common sense. The list of things to be done in Linux are fairly obvious and technical once you started doing it, and the list just never appears to end :)"

The Red Herring talks with Bruce Twickler, president and CEO of Andover.net. "And how does Mr. Twickler think Linux will fare in the next year? 'When you consider the number of companies dedicated to Linux and how many public companies existed six months ago compared with how many will be around six months from now, it's going to be huge,' he said. 'There is just going to be such a large amount of capital applied to making Linux commercially viable.'"

The Linux Journal interviews Inprise President and CEO Dale Fuller. "We are setting up a separate company to manage [open-sourcing InterBase]. We'll try to follow the paths already beaten by Red Hat, VA Linux, TurboLinux and others. We want to consolidate a core development team, make our money on service and support and adjunct products, do the compatibility testing, and work with the community to make sure there is one source that doesn't fork."

Caldera Systems:

The Register ran this article on Caldera's IPO and settlement with Microsoft. "Although we can be certain that there is no connection between the settlement with Microsoft and the IPO because of the lead time in preparing for the latter, it is interesting to speculate as to what prompted it at this time." (Thanks to Dejan Ilic).

News.com reports on Caldera's IPO filing. "...like other successful Linux companies, Caldera Systems has relatively small revenues and continues to report losses."

Here's another News.com article on Caldera's latest investments. "The cash infusion will help Orem, Utah-based Caldera keep its head above water in the frothing Linux market. Several Linux-related companies have received tens of millions of dollars from their initial public offerings in recent months, and Caldera is considering an IPO of its own."

News.com also ran this article on the settlement of the Microsoft/Caldera lawsuit. "As a result, Microsoft said it will record a one-time charge against earnings for the quarter ending March 31, which will cut earnings per share by about three cents. This could mean that the settlement will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 million, based on one analyst's estimate. Microsoft's earnings per share for the quarter have been estimated to be 38 cents." (Thanks to Michael Gerdts).

IBM:

Reuters reports that IBM will be setting up a new Linux-oriented business unit, and will work toward having Linux run across its entire product line. "International Business Machines Corp. on Monday will announce new steps to make Linux a centerpiece of its computer hardware strategy, in what amounts to the biggest embrace of the alternative operating system by a major computer maker to date."

Upside looks at IBM's Linux moves. "So why aren't the little guys worried about getting squished? VA Linux CEO Larry Augustin tells Upside Today it's because he's built a company that can do more than simply put Linux on a Pentium box."

Here's ZDNet's take on IBM's Linux announcements. "IBM will 'Linux-enable' all of its hardware platforms as well as port applications and middleware to Linux. In addition, it will work closely with the open-source community to develop and promote standards and make certain of its technologies available as open source. The Linux group will be staffed with hundreds of workers and have labs in Texas, New York, New Jersey and India..."

The BBC reports on IBM's moves. "IBM is also to donate key programming code developed for its mainstay computer systems to Linux, in order to boost its reliability." Interestingly, the article is headed up by a big VA Linux Systems banner.

News.com reports on IBM's latest pro-Linux moves. "Despite IBM's sensitivity toward Linux companies, the company acknowledges it will compete with smaller players such as Red Hat and Linuxcare, both of which want to make money by charging for services such as installing, supporting, or tuning Linux systems."

The New York Times reports on IBM's upcoming Linux announcement. "In addition, according to one company executive, IBM will probably set up a Linux software operation in India, which has become a hotbed of Linux development, and hire a Linux marketing executive from outside IBM by the end of the month." The Times is a registration-required site. (Thanks to Paul Hewitt).

Business:

Internet Week looks at Lotus Domino for Linux. "Lotus has upped the ante for groupware/messaging systems by releasing Domino for Linux. While you still have to purchase Domino, Linux greatly reduces the overall cost by doing away with the costs associated with the operating system and any client licenses. Best of all, by going with Linux, you are not sacrificing any bells and whistles that are on the other platforms. Quite the contrary, you gain a stable, low maintenance platform on which to build your system."

CNN ran this article (reprinted from Federal Computer Week) on a company called GTSI, which is about to announce a partnership with Red Hat to pursue government enterprise sales. "Even without a contract in place, GTSI's Linux sales surpassed $2 million last September..." (Thanks to John Caul).

Jesse Berst talks about Java in this brief ZDNet column. "Sun could revive the Java dream by making it an open source product. Unhappily, asking Sun CEO Scott McNealy to take that route is like asking Saddam Hussein to fix Serbia. Doing the right thing just won't occur to the man." (Thanks to Cesar A. K. Grossmann).

Here's a SunWorld article about the Python language. "Since its origins as a species of educational experiment, Python activity has been dominated by academic motivations. Pythoneers delight in constructing metaobjects, modeling arcane physics or human behaviors, and refining their language toward ideals of purity and rigor. However, along with the usual density of technical achievements -- including stackless Python, Python inside Java, three-dimensional Python, tuning Python for type safety, and more -- Python displays a number of symptoms of growing business respectability." (Found in NNL).

This TechWeek article looks at the possibilities for world domination. "But Linux has achieved fame mainly for its stellar performance on servers. Can it seriously challenge Windows on the desktop in the year 2000? 'Possibly-my bet is on early 2001, when we start seeing serious defections from the desktop PC integrators, but it could happen sooner,' says open-source evangelist Eric S. Raymond."

The E-Commerce Times talks about the latest Forrester Research report. "Nonetheless, the report predicts that Linux firms with 'defensible assets' such as Cobalt Networks and TurboLinux will continue to thrive in the upcoming year. 'Cobalt Networks has built person-years of engineering into its innovative appliance servers that run Linux,' the report notes. 'TurboLinux is developing a proprietary clustering product that links Linux servers together to handle massive jobs.'" (Thanks to Robert Nelson).

Upside ran this article about Linux in China. Much of it is about the "official OS of China" and Windows 2000 ban rumors. "Still, the fact that Linux has entered so easily into the political realm carries ominous overtones, especially as the interests of U.S. corporations and the U.S. government get increasingly intertwined in the eyes of some foreign governments. While the economic side of the so-called 'Linux story' may sell well in cash-strapped Third World nations and ex-Soviet bloc economies, the political side seems to be equally persuasive, even in regions with a strong technology infrastructure, such as Western Europe."

USA Today ran this study on Linux, including the rumor that the Chinese have banned Windows 2000 in favor of 'Red Flag Linux'. "On our own shores, companies that are already using open source operating systems say they plan to use it on almost 23% of their desktop machines by January 2002, more than twice the 10% share open source has now. Open source software, moreover, will run more than 34% of those companies' servers by 2002, those surveyed said. Only 18.7% of servers use the software today." (Thanks to Richard Storey)

In this ZD Net article Intel's general manager of its home-products division, Claude Leglise, talks about some new Linux devices. "The Intel products will attach to the phone and appear to be phonelike in appearance and use, Leglise said. Like other so-called information appliances, they will emphasize low cost, ease of use and quick access to the Internet." (Thanks to Cesar A. K. Grossmann)

Here's a ZD Net UK article about the Opera browser. "The alpha -- an incomplete version of the software, aimed at testers -- may come with fairly minimal support for the latest Internet technologies, but it does offer Linux users another choice for browsing the Internet and keeps the pressure on Microsoft and Netscape, the two main players in the Web browser wars."

Here's an Ottawa Citizen article about Corel's bundling of GraphOn's "Bridges," and the effects on Corel's stock price. "Corel stock will continue its roller coaster ride, rising on the days when the markets are hot on Linux and falling when the focus shifts to Windows."

This article from ZD Net UK is about the integration of GraphOn Bridges into Corel Linux. "This may help to convert more Windows users to Corel's version of the Linux operating system as well as Corel's competing office software, however, it is not exactly revolutionary. A number of companies, including GraphOn, have been offering server-side Windows application interoperability for years. A development project called WINE already enables Windows to be directly implemented on a Unix machine without the help of a remote server. "

News.com reports on the Salon/Red Hat deal. "The companies offered no details about the number of visitors Red Hat's Web site receives or how Salon will benefit from the deal. Salon's revenues come from advertising on its Web sites... The lack of details didn't deter investors from buying Salon shares, which rose 2.75, or 52 percent, to 7.94. The shares reached 10 at one point during the day."

The Red Herring looks at another example of the Linux stock frenzy. "The latest unsolved Linux mystery is brought to you by the long-suffering iEntertainment Network (Nasdaq: IENT), an online video-game vendor whose stock leaped 89 percent Friday to close at $4.12 per share. The huge uptick apparently resulted from news that iEntertainment plans a link to the Web site of Red Hat (Nasdaq: RHAT), the Linux vendor that lost $5.3 million on $7.2 million in revenue over its last reported six-month period."

Wired News ran this article on the Linux stock frenzy. "'We don't have 1 percent of Microsoft's market yet, and I think we should get a few more percent,' [Bruce] Perens said. 'Big IPOs and the stock market are necessary to make that happen.'"

This AboutLinux article details moving the authors scientific work from traditional SGI/IBM machines to Linux. "One thing I have discovered with Linux from an early time is always specify all the hardware and make sure it is compatible."

News.com reports on CyberNet systems, which has IPO plans. "CyberNet, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., sells packages of software that turn an inexpensive Intel-based PC into a server that can deliver Web pages to browsers across the Internet, store and print files on a company's internal network or be used as a protective 'firewall' to keep out network intruders, the company said. The software comes with Red Hat's Linux, which may be freely distributed by other companies."

E-Commerce Times looks at Intel's new web appliance systems. "Intel Corp. will unveil its own line of non-PC Internet appliances, as well as an ultra-high speed digital subscriber line (DSL) modem that will work with some of the new appliances. Interestingly, these new appliances will use the Linux operating system rather than an operating system from Microsoft. Intel's PCs have been closely linked with Microsoft operating systems since the early 1980s." (Thanks to Andrew Kornak).

The Motley Fool, too, has caught on to LinuxOne. "LinuxOne is not just a case of the emperor not having any clothes, or even the emperor not actually being royalty. As far as anybody can tell with LinuxOne, what is sitting on the throne is a dime store mannequin. But you can't tell this from LinuxOne's press releases."

Finally:

If you are an Eric Raymond fan (or a Linux fan, for that matter), grab a beer before heading into this lengthy attack on The Cathedral and the Bazaar, published in First Monday. "If the source is ugly (and as Ken Thompson pointed out, some parts of Linux are) additional bugs could be easily introduced by fixing an existing one. Rewriting, not fixing, is a more viable option here. The open source model, with its over-reliance on debugging, could be at a disadvantage." The article is annoying at times, but is nonetheless worth a read. (Found in NNL).

Here's an article on software patents which appears on the Advogato site. "Should free software developers apply for patents? According to anti-patent zealots, the answer would clearly be 'no,' but I believe there are times when it is appropriate. The present day patent system does retain vestiges of the original goals of rewarding inventors, and additional sources of funding for doing free software are always interesting..."

Feed Magazine looks at the Quake cheat problem. "If Quake, with its enormous audience of tech-savvy players and its history of benefitting from user modifications, can't make the transition from closed source to open source easily, then companies with a less loyal user base might think twice about opening their products, so id's example is going to be watched very closely. The Quake release marks a watershed -- if the people currently hard at work on the Quake cheating problem find a solution, it will be another Open Source triumph, but if they fail, the Quake release might be remembered as the moment that cheating robbed the Open Source movement of its aura of continuous progress." (Thanks to Phil Austin).

Here's an osOpinion piece talking about deadlines - or the desirable lack thereof - in the open source world. "What worries me is to hear chief Linux hackers making promises about future Linux to PHBs. In here lies great danger. A promise means humiliation if it's not kept, compromise if it is. And I'm not talking about vague, general promises like USB support; I'm talking about temporal, fixed-date promises."

This osOpinion column is a set of predictions for the future. "Mar 1, 2000: Red Hat buys Be, Inc. Bob Young says, 'What the heck, Linux can always use another window manager.'"

Humorix reports on some of the stranger kernel releases that have come out recently. "A surprising development in the linux-kernel mailing list surfaced when Alan Cox announced the release of a 2.2 Linux kernel existing both as an official stable kernel and as a prepatch kernel. This immediately spurred the creation of two different realities (and hence two different Alan Coxes), where a kernel would not settle down to one or the other state until someone looked at it."

For your amusement, here's the full text of an entry from the (Denver) Rocky Mountain News Colorado's top 100 web sites feature:

www.eklektix.com -- Everything Linux, including training courses and the Linux Weekly News, by a group of Boulder open-source proponents who aren't zillionaires -- yet.

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol

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