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Bringing you the latest news from the Linux World.
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Leading items and editorialsLooking back at LinuxWorld. Now that your editor has had some time to recover from last week's LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, it's time to gather together a few thoughts on what was seen there. The Linux world is changing quickly, and there is no better place to see what's up - at least on the business side - than LinuxWorld.
And the business side is doing great. One had to look hard to find unhappy
people on the exhibit floor. With very few exceptions, anybody who has
How will the Linux community change as a result of this flood of cash, jobs, and stock options? When everybody who wants to has made their deal, will the volunteer spirit remain? At LinuxWorld a year ago, the .org area was known as "the ghetto." This time around, your editor heard it referred to as "acquisition alley" instead. Times have changed. The interesting thing is that, if anything, the spirit of Linux shines through more strongly now than it did a year ago. Business may be changing Linux and open source, but it is equally true that open source is changing business. Any self-respecting business on the exhibit floor was emphasizing strongly its contributions back to the Linux community. Contributing to open source is not only seen as a requirement for good corporate citizenship; it makes good business sense. The definitive example from LinuxWorld may well be the Trillian project. Numerous companies that are otherwise in competition with each other have come together to produce something that benefits everybody. This cooperation may well be unprecedented, and the result is Linux support for a new processor before it starts shipping. Thus, this editor left New York with the observation that, while the world is changing, there is much cause for optimism. The benefits of open source are too great to be submerged under a flood of money. We have succeeded, and the world - while far from perfect - is a better place for it. Enough of that, time to get to the important question: who had the best giveways at LinuxWorld? Swag hunters with children quickly passed the word about the nice, LED-equipped bouncy ballsbeing handed out by Compaq. Those in the know could also request the special ones with noisemakers as well, but most parents know better. Those without children may think instead that the battle was won before the exhibit floor even opened by Maximum Linux Magazine. Their Fedex box arrived at the office at the end of January, and contained a LinuxWorld survival kit: a badge-holder pouch stuffed with a box of Penguin caffeinated mints, an "anti-bacterial hand gel kit" (useful after that unwelcome handshake at the LinuxOne booth), and a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey. There was also a first-aid packet with aspirin, presumably meant for recovering from extensive use of the mints and the whiskey... LWN's coverage of LinuxWorld can be found on this page. Linux Expo/LinuxWorld Paris was held at the same time as the New York event. A couple of sites have coverage of this event - both in French. On Cyperus is an extensive set of interviews with participants, including Richard Stallman, Jeremy Allison, and more. And ComputerChannel.com has a set of stories as well. Here's a Babelfish link for ComputerChannel.com - unfortunately Babelfish doesn't get along with Cyperus. ZDNet France has also put up an article about Richard Stallman. It covers the Free Software Foundation, GNU/Linux, and more. Alas, Babelfish doesn't like this one either. (Found in Portalux News). Real-time Linux is patented. Some RTLinux users have been surprised that the RTLinux concept is subject to patent number 5995745, held by veteran RTLinux hacker Victor Yodaiken. This patent was issued on November 30, 1999, and covers:
Mr. Yodaiken's plans for the patent are evidently being worked out in cooperation with Linux International and Linus Torvalds. The components of those plans, according to his posting on the subject, would appear to include:
Embedded systems everywhere. People have been saying "embedded Linux will be big" for a while yet. Here's some announcements from the last week which demonstrate that the reality is catching up with the hype in this particular area:
The acquisition of Andover.Net by VA Linux Systems, along with a number of other acquisitions, is covered on this week's Commerce page. We are pleased to offer as well a guest editorial by Scotty Orr on the subject. Mr. Orr believes it is far too soon for this sort of consolidation in the Linux world, and explains why. Inside this week's Linux Weekly News:
This Week's LWN was brought to you by:
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February 10, 2000
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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 editorialsDistributed denial of service attacks are certainly the theme of the week, after the high-profile shutdown of Yahoo and other prominent commercial sites. These attacks do not attempt to exploit any particular security vulnerability in the operating system; instead, they simply flood the target site with traffic from a large number of compromised systems distributed across the net. As a result, they are very hard to defend against. There is no hole to patch, no single attacking site to block.The real problem, the thing that makes these attacks possible, is the presence of hundreds or thousands of compromised systems on the net. The existence of these systems makes the Internet an inherently unhealthy thing. Until this contagion can be cleaned up, these sorts of attacks will continue. Cleaning up, however, is easier said than done. The only thing that will work, perhaps, is some means of isolating compromised systems from the rest of the net. Disconnection renders the broken systems harmless to the net as a whole, and gets the attention of the administrators. Open relay blacklists have helped to reduce the number of systems used to relay spam, even if they have not eliminated the problem. A similar system for the net as a whole would be far more challenging to design and implement, but may need to be considered. Those interested in the mechanics of distributed DOS attacks may want to look at these analyses of the trinoo and Tribe Flood Network schemes, done by David Dittrich. Forbes on Security. A Private Little Cyberwar is an article in Forbes Magazine on what can happen when crackers turn mean. Worth a read for any who are out there on the front lines dealing with these sorts of folks. Linux Intrusion Detection System 0.8. A new stable version of LIDS has been announced. This is equivalent to the 0.8pre4 development version. "The Linux Intrusion Detection System is a patch which enhances the kernel's security. When it's in effect, many system administration operations can be made impossible even for root. " Locking up Linux. PC Week ran this article about Linux and security. It's a reasonable and straightforward look, asking questions about whether open source adds to or detracts from security. Worth a read. Security ReportsMySQL server has a remote access vulnerability, which can allow remote users to bypass authentication checks. Details can be found in this advisory; a patch has been posted for those who build MySQL from source. Updated packages from distributors will presumably come soon.The commercial Zeus web server has a problemwhich can allow the source of CGI scripts to be fetched by a remote site. A fix has been made available by Zeus Technology; see the announcement for download information. A bug in GNQS can allow users to obtain root privileges; see this note for details. Sites running GNQS should upgrade to version v3.50.8. ResourcesBastille Linux A new version of Bastille Linux is getting closer, as demonstrated by the recent announcement of Bastille Linux 1.0.3.pre5. Bastille Linux is a hardening script which takes an existing Red Hat Linux distribution and improves the security to a reasonable level. The new beta supports Red Hat 6.1 and a new installation/automation script. Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
February 10, 2000
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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 remains 2.3.42. There is a 2.3.43 prepatch out there (in its sixth revision) for the daring. Much of this patch is devoted to the IA-64 code, but it also includes a Integraphics CyberPro VGA driver (for Netwinders), PCI documentation updates, a number of Alpha tweaks, the long-awaited integration of the new RAID code, an Interphase ATM card driver, and a Qlogic ISP1x80/1x160 SCSI driver. It also appears to include the massive rewriting of hundreds of file_operations structure initializations to use the gcc tagged syntax. Those interested in the IA-64 port may want to have a look at the documentation notes that come with the 2.3.43 prepatch. They show that the port still has some rough edges - as should be expected for an initial release. Among other things, there are security holes and kernel modules don't work. The IA-64 patch also managed to slip in a simple kernel debugger - something Linus has always resisted until now. The current stable kernel release remains 2.2.14. Work on 2.2.15 continues, with the current prepatch being 2.2.15pre7. It is presented as the "final cleanup and debug," meaning that a real 2.2.15 should be forthcoming shortly. Users of the 2.0 kernel series (and there are a lot of those, still) may want to look at the latest 2.0.39 prepatch: 2.0.39pre3. This patch contains almost exclusively crucial bugfixes. Jim Pick is new kernel.org webmaster. H. Peter Anvin has announced that Jim Pick, the guy behind kernelnotes.org, has been hired to be the new webmaster at kernel.org. Jim is also an active Debian developer and generally good guy. This should be good news for the kernel source archive. Device drivers talk posted. Jeff Garzik of MandrakeSoft has put up the slides to his Linux Expo Paris talk on writing portable device drivers for Linux 2.4. O'Reilly's Linux Device Drivers book, written by Alessandro Rubini, is being updated for the 2.2 and 2.4 kernels by none other than your humble LWN kernel page editor Jonathan Corbet. Those who are interested may want to have a look at this interview on the O'Reilly site about the book and the process of updating it to the current state of the Linux kernel. While nothing has been set in stone, it appears that the second edition of the book may be released under an open content license. IBM releases its journaled filesystem. At LinuxWorld IBM announced that it was making its Journaled File System (JFS) available to the Linux community. Code is available now, and has been released under the GPL. It is certainly an important contribution. IBM's press releases somehow neglected to point out that JFS for Linux, while available now, doesn't actually work. Porting the code is a large job, with quite a bit left to do; see the JFS README file for a list of some of the outstanding issues. IBM is certainly not to be faulted for releasing an early-stage port; that is, after all, how things are often done in this community. But one should not expect to see JFS turn up in the 2.4 kernel. SGI has also released, with less fanfare, a new development version of its XFS filesystem for Linux. Other patches and updates released this week include:
Section Editor: Jonathan Corbet (whose ugly face can be seen in this LinuxWorld picture posted by LinuxToday). |
February 10, 2000
For other kernel news, see: Other resources: |
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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. This week's new distributions. We already mentioned a couple of distributions on our front page this week, including the release of Blue Cat Linux 1.0 and White Dwarf Linux, both embedded systems distributions. We've mentioned Blue Cat before, but they've now announced their inaugural version. White Dwarf Linux is entirely new. Outside of embedded systems, though, new distributions continue to crop up. In this case, we take a look at two new distributions based on providing language support. First, let's talk about the newest naming conflict in the distributions arena (not an uncommon occurrence, unfortunately). Easy Information Technology has announced a Chinese version of its easyLinux distribution; it will be called "Dragon Linux." easyLinux has been around for a while and it is good to see it expanding its support for additional languages. Unfortunately, DragonLinux is an unrelated distribution that has also been around for some time, first listed on our distributions page in May of 1999. DragonLinux is/was a small UMSDos-based distribution, definitely not a desktop system like easyLinux. The URL for that page worked two weeks ago, but did not today, when we retested it. Therefore, we don't yet know if there is anyone around to protest at this new distribution with the same name. Next, Kaiwal Linux, was brought to our attention this week. It appears to be a new distribution based on Red Hat. Version 3.1 was recently released in Thailand, complete with a manual in Thai. We found a bit more information via the LinuxBiz page on Kaiwal Software, the parent company. Last, we have a distribution with a French emphasis: PingOO Linux (in French or English). PingOO has been around since 1997 and is associated with the Project Linux Edu. A Debian-based distribution, it is aimed at local communities, public organizations, schools, etc. Demo LinuxDemoLinux 1.0 has been announced. DemoLinux is a distribution built to run directly off of CD, without requiring any installation or harddisk. The current version is based off of Mandrake 5.3, with additional technologies from Red Hat and SuSE.Debian GNU/LinuxDebian Weekly News for February 8. Here's the Debian Weekly News for the week of February 8. The big news this week is that the Debian project is about to begin accepting new maintainers - something they haven't done for some time.Debian For Kids. A new Debian for Kids project is starting. Volunteer needed. Richard Braakman is looking for a volunteer to help him with contacting maintainers wtih release-critical bugs. Linux-MandrakeLinux-Mandrake for the Alpha processor. MandrakeSoft has announced the beta version of Linux-Mandrake for the Alpha processor.Mandrake 7: Beyond Red Hat? (Ext2). Ext2 (part of Tucows) reviews Linux-Mandrake 7.0. "All in all Mandrake has upped the bar as far as user friendliness in a distribution." PhatLinuxDistributionWatch Review: PhatLinux (LinuxPlanet). LinuxPlanet reviews PhatLinux. "This distribution is a good choice for those who just want to dip their toe into the world of Linux. Although I do have some quibbles in terms of ease of navigation, in general PhatLinux has done a decent job of making a system that will rival Windows in terms of applications and ease of setup." (Thanks to R. McGuinness). PhatLinux is a distribution, around since 1998, that installs and runs on a Windows 95/98 partition.Red Hat LinuxRed Hat 6.2 beta. Here is the announcement for the beta release of Red Hat 6.2. It includes some hype ("This bad boy eats Lizards for breakfast" - what could they be referring to?), a list of new features (including the 2.2.15 kernel, which still has not been released by Linus), and download instructions.Red Hat Linux wins InfoWorld Product of the Year - again. Red Hat announces that it has won InfoWorld's "Product of the Year" award for the fourth time in a row... Red Hat arrive en France (Journal Informatique). Le Journal Informatique covers (in French) the opening of Red Hat's Paris office. This move is accompanied by the acquisition of Logiciels du Soleil, a French distributor. English text available via Babelfish. (Found in Portalux News). Rock LinuxNew Rock Linux website. The official website for Rock Linux has moved to http://www.rocklinux.org/. Rock Linux is aimed at "skilled Linux/Unix Administrators . Look for them at the SANE 2000 conference in Maastricht, The Netherlands, this May.Since we last reported on Rock Linux in October, they've released a complete PalmOS cross development environment, released Rock Linux 1.3.7, ported to the iMac and added a rescue subdistribution. Talk about busy! For more information on Rock Linux, check out this article on the "Rock Linux Philosophy". Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
February 10, 2000
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 projectsAll roads lead to SourceForge. A substantial part of Larry Augustin's LinuxWorld keynote was devoted to SourceForge. And rightly so: since its launch in November, SourceForge has grown to host over 1600 projects and ![[SourceForge]](/2000/0210/sforge.png)
almost 10,000 developers. That list grew impressively again when it was announced
that the KDE and CMU Sphinx projects were also moving over to the site.
Why has SourceForge been so successful? It seems that VA Linux clearly saw a gap in the infrastructure available for open source development projects. It is not sufficient to have the source in the open; a living project needs source repositories, bug tracking systems, high-bandwidth download capability, mailing lists, a web presence and more. SourceForge provides all of this via a combination of well-written (open source) software, heavy-duty hardware, and massive bandwidth. Developers who move their projects to SourceForge can concentrate on development; SourceForge makes much of the rest just happen. SourceForge sounds like a great thing, and it is. But there is one aspect of it that is a cause for concern. Linux and the Internet are, by nature, distributed beasts and better for it. SourceForge has just created, instead, the greatest concentration of free software development that has ever existed. What happens if something goes wrong with SourceForge? And a lot of things could go wrong. Earthquakes. Crackers. VA Linux Systems goes out of business. Or VA gets acquired by a company that does not share VA's good intentions. Or Larry Augustin retires to Mongolia and is replaced by Steve Ballmer. With the latter scenarios, it is a little disturbing to note that SourceForge's terms of service can be changed at any time without notice. Essentially, SourceForge reserves the right to do anything without telling its users. SourceForge also has no posted privacy policy (the TOS mentions one, but it's not there - they tell LWN that one is in the works). The value of the SourceForge registration database and mailing lists alone make that lack a bit worrisome. Some of the free mailing list services on the net have done some pretty unethical things with the lists they host. VA's current motives are not in doubt, but companies can change; imagine a scenario where Dell decides to push VA out of the market, VA's stock drops to $7/share, Larry Augustin is shown the door, and a slash-and-burn CEO replaces him. It's not that far-fetched. What then becomes of SourceForge? Be it by spam, vandalism, natural disaster, or corporate unpleasantness, SourceForge presents a number of scenarios by which free software development, or at least a large portion of it, could be shut down - at least for a while. What the open source development community needs is competition for SourceForge. This statement can be made without criticising SourceForge or VA Linux Systems in any way. One can say "complementary sites" if "competition" does not sit well. But concentrating this much of the free software development process in one spot - any spot - is asking for trouble. BrowsersNetscape may release Mozilla M14 as a branded product. Jim A. Roskind of Netscape posted this note describing Netscape's thoughts for the M14 release. If all goes well, and the number of "beta stopper" bugs can be brought to a minimum, M14 will go out as the first real "Netscape branded" release of the Mozilla browser. After nearly two years, the Mozilla project may be on the verge of realizing its promise. Expect to be hearing a lot more about Mozilla in the near future.EducationLinux Knowledge Base alpha release. The Linux Knowledge Base Project has announced the alpha release of its site. Check it out and give them feedback on what you see.Linux Knowledge Base LinuxWorld report. Here is this week's news report from the Linux Knowledge Base project. It takes the form of a report from the LinuxWorld conference. "To be honest, I was rather surprised just how easy it was to get people interested in collaborating together. It really was amazing to me how everyone I talked to wanted to work with us for the benefit of the Linux community. This isn't the same cut-throat world that so many in the Windows world are so painfully aware of." The poor folks also talk about the misfortune of being placed next to the SCO booth. Linux in Education Report. Here is this week's Seul-EDU Linux in education report. Integration of various education tools seems to be a theme this week, along with a mention of the new K12 Linux site. LPI Certification has taken a step forward with the announcement of the completion of the merger with Digital Metrics. This merger gives the LPI access to all of Digital Metrics' exam questions. It also gives those who have obtained certification from Digital Metrics a path toward completion of LPI certification. The LPI has also picked up Maxspeed as a platinum sponsor. GamingGLHeretic for Linux 1.0. The first stable release of this port of DOS-Heretic has been announced. "The game runs on Linux/x86, Linux/m68k, Linux/Alpha, FreeBSD, Netwinder, SCO-Unix, and other UNIX machines. "On the DesktopThe AbiWord Weekly News. Here is the first edition of the AbiWord Weekly News. Top news this week: a surge of downloads for the new edition and another prize: Show Favourite in the Office Suite category from last week's LinuxWorld. Some development news and project of the week items are included as well.LinuxWorld Gimp status report. Dennis Tenney sent in a brief report on Michael J. Hammel's talk on the Gimp at LinuxWorld this week:
Michael J. Hammel presented a summary of Gimp's past, present and future at the LinuxWorld trade show in New York city on February 3, 2000. The immediate future is a stable 1.2 release in about March or April. This release added too many features, improvements, and just plain cool stuff to list (I took three pages of notes). GNOME summary. Havoc Pennington's Gnome Summary for February 2 came out too late for last week's LWN. ome of the news for the week: the Australian Research Council is funding work on a Haskell binding for GNOME, the GNOME Sysadmin Guide is off to a good start, Gnumeric zoom has been implemented, plus documentation, help system and Nautilus news and more. KDE moves to SourceForge. For those wanting to know more, the KDE project has put up a small FAQ about the move. The main part of the KDE project that is moving to SourceForge is the CVS repository; the FTP server may also move at some point. The web site (www.kde.org) and other resources are staying put for now. Mosfet at LinuxWorld. More KDE news and development information can be found in Mosfet's report from his trip to LinuxWorld. Search Enginesudmsearch news. Kir Kolyshkin wrote to us to provide the latest udmsearch news:We are now reached version 3.0.2. It's still beta but proves usable, although not rock-solid. The major improvement in 3.0 is threaded indexer (implemented only on FreeBSD by now), which was achieved by massive code rewrite. Website DevelopmentMidgard 1.2.6-beta2 released. Version 1.2.6-beta2 of the Midgard application server platform has been released.The path to Zope Zen has been nicely laid out in How-To: Gain Zope Enlightenment By Grokking Object Orientation, posted by Chris McDonough on the Zope.org site. "If you're a nonprogrammer or a programmer who has only a passing understanding of object orientation, this document is for you. If you're an 'OO zealot' already, it's not going to be very helpful. Go watch television instead." Zope Weekly News for February 9th. This week's Zope Weekly News announces Zope 2.1.4, a bugfix release that has security implications and is therefore recommended. WineThe latest Wine Weekly News is from February 7. The big news appears to be the opening of Corel's CVS server containing its latest Wine enhancements. This development should help to speed Wine's progress by allowing work to move more freely between Corel's version and the official Wine project.Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
February 10, 2000
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Development toolsJavaUpcoming Java 2 versions submitted. Sun has announced that it has submitted its "Java 2 Enterprise Edition" and "Java 2 Standard Edition" to the "Java Community Process" program. "With this announcement, the Java Community Process program is further strengthened as a sound and successful community-based model for evolving Java technology."PerlThe Perl Journal. The latest edition of The Perl Journal (subscription only) focuses on poetry. A table of contents is available.Perl 5.6 beta1. A new development release of Perl, version 5.6 beta1, has been announced. Details on the changes in this release may be found in the release notes. PythonA review of the Python Essential Reference by David Beazley has been posted by Danny Yee. "Given that the online documentation is functionally very similar, however, I suspect that only those with a preference for printed documentation will end up using it as a reference."Here is Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for February 7. It covers the latest in the Python world, and points out some Python poetry... And here is the Python-URL! for February 3, which arrived too late for last week's LWN. It contains some reminders about upcoming competitions and conferences, links to reports back from the Python conference, ActivateState's decision to join the Python consortium, and a selection of recently released software and books. Tcl/tkTclX (extended Tcl) 8.2.0 has been released, see the announcement for details.Here is this week's Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL with an extensive rundown of recent developments in the Tcl/Tk world. Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh | |
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Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page See also: last week's Commerce page. |
Linux and businessAcquisitions and consolidation appear to be the theme of the week. Expect to see many more of these in the near future. Post-IPO companies have a strong need to put their high-priced stock to work and grow. And even pre-IPO companies can make use of their presumed future value and bulk up to look better before that S-1 filing - look, for example, at Linuxcare's pre-IPO acquisitions. Linux has changed business in interesting ways, but "bigger is better" appears to have survived unchanged. As long as advantages are seen in greater size, companies will continue to merge and acquire. It's worth remembering that most of the companies in the Linux sphere are still small by the usual standards. Anyway, this week's acquisitions include:
The Linux Fund on the IPO path The Linux Fund has announced that it will do an initial public offering of its stock soon. The IPO will be run as a self-underwritten dutch auction via MainStreetIPO.com. No actual IPO registration has been done at this time, so the IPO is a little ways off yet. The Linux Fund is a venture capital operation which seeks to invest in startup Linux companies. Perhaps their highest-profile investment is in HelixCode, the company created by Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman. They claim to have another six (unnamed) companies in their portfolio, and to be in negotiations with yet another six. The Fund is also collaborating with MainStreetIPO.com to create Linux-IPO.com, described on this page. Linux-IPO.com sets out to exactly what the Linux Fund is doing - create open-access initial public offerings on the net. It looks a lot like the OpenIPO process that Andover.Net used, but with an emphasis on Linux companies only. It is perhaps fitting that the Linux Fund would go through its own process before offering it to others. TUCOWS forms the Open Development Advisory Council. TUCOWS.com Inc. has announced the formation of the Open Development Advisory Council (ODAC) to examine economic models for open-source software programs. Members of the council include Dave Whitinger and Red Hat's Howard Jacobson. OpenSales ships alpha release. OpenSales has announced that an alpha version of its OpenMerchant e-commerce system is available. It handles order and inventory management, and many other things; the system is written in Perl and has an open source license. A beta release is expected later this month. Meanwhile, it's already shipping, even in alpha form. TurboLinux has announced that OpenMerchant will be bundled with its "TurboLinux server 6.0" release. Ucentric Systems announces financing round. Ucentric Systems has announced the receipt of $10 million in financing from Polaris Venture Partners. Ucentric is developing what appears to be a Linux-based server for household "home area network" applications. If this company succeeds, Linux may soon be the glue that ties together your refrigerator, toaster, and television... eOn Communications announces IPO. eOn Communications, a maker of Linux-based server systems, has announced its initial public offering of stock. The offering went out at $12 on Friday, February 4, and closed at $23. We'll be considering this one for the LWN Linux Stocks Page once the price has settled down a bit. Tarantella announcements from SCO. SCO made several announcements about their Tarantella web-enabling serverware for leading Linux platforms.
Section Editor: Jon Corbet. Press Releases:
Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol. |
February 10, 2000
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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 newsRecommended Reading: Salon ran this strongly worded piece on the DVD case. "To the uninformed, the fight over DeCSS might look like the latest hacker obsession -- sure to blow over as soon as the DVD industry starts licensing DVD player technology for the Linux-based operating system. But the key issue at stake here -- corporate control versus individual freedom -- is fundamentally important. It's reason enough for me to stand on a cold New York street corner, and it's reason enough for hackers to fight." LinuxWorld has done an interview with Jon Johansen, the 16-year old Norwegian indicted, along with his father, by Norway's Department of Economic Crime in connection with Jon's participation in the group which created the DeCSS DVD playback utility for Linux. "...I think the fight we are now fighting is a very important fight for free speech and for the open source community. ... if reverse engineering is banned, then a lot of the open source community is doomed to fail." More DVD: ZDNet UK talks with Alan Cox about the DVD mess. "Cox says Hollywood is trying to 'terrorise' people in its pursuit of 'pirates' and suggests it look at the disastrous campaign headed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1998 when it tried to outlaw MP3." The LA Times ran this opinion piece on the DVD mess. "Far from being an illegal and immoral activity, hacking the DVD encryption codes was entirely legal, moral and necessary in order to circumvent the DVD industry's shameful attempts to restrict the legal rights of consumers through technical coercion." The Boston Globe attempts to attend a DVD protest. "A chat with the DVD encryption folks revealed that they're happy to share their secrets with Linux computer makers -- for a $10,000 fee. One company, Sigma Designs, has paid the fee, and is now bringing out a circuit card that'll let Linux computers legally run DVDs. You might think this would satisfy the hackers, but you'd be wrong. They're arguing that they have a right to bypass DVD encryption without getting anybody's permission." LinuxPower has posted this rant for those who think the DVD battle can not be won. "Do not bother replying to this message, the shows over. LiViD is disbanding. In fact, everyone else in the community definitely sees this as the best time to jump ship. I sent a letter to Larry, he agrees and everyone at VA is gonna be let go, because we cannot win. ESR has signed up for a creative writing course at the local community college." IBM: Heise Online covers (in German) the release of IBM's JFS. ReiserFS is also mentioned. English text is available via Babelfish. (Thanks to Christof Damian). Here's an E-Commerce Times article about IBM's latest Linux-related moves. "Chief among the Linux-related disclosures was IBM's new initiative to foster open-source development. Big Blue will offer versions of its software at no cost to commercial developers to initiate what it hopes will become a new class of Linux applications specifically designed for smaller businesses." VA Linux and Andover.net: ZDNet ran this article on VA Linux Systems' acquisition of Andover.Net. "...CEO Larry Augustin said the deal creates 'the Yahoo! for open source developers' with 70 million page views a month and additional revenue streams." (Thanks to Cesar A. K. Grossmann). SmartPortfolio.Com's Investment Opinion for February 3rd, 2000, reported on the stock market's reaction to the VALinux acquisition of Andover. "Shares of VA Linux fell 8 7/8 (-6.48%) to 128, while shares of Andover.Net soared 25.35% (+9 1/8) to 45 1/8." The Financial Times ran this article about VA's acquisition of Andover. "But IBM is also counting on Linux to boost revenues for its services business, which is its fastest-growing division. This means that VA Linux, Red Hat and others will increasingly face competition from IBM. The issue for these companies will change from: 'Will there be a large enough market for Linux to eventually generate profits?' to 'Will they be able to effectively compete against IBM with its huge customer base and tremendous resources?'" (Thanks to David Williams). Here's Salon Magazine's take on the VA Linux purchase of Andover.net. "For me, as was no doubt the case with many of Slashdot's fans, the news, coming right in the thick of the LinuxWorld convention taking place in New York, was a bit of a shock. Wasn't VA Linux one of the companies we depend on Slashdot to cover? I immediately flashed back to the last time I had seen Slashdot founder Rob Malda, at last August's LinuxWorld in San Jose." WebMonkey condemns VA's acquisition of Andover.Net. "Any unbiased appraisal of this merger, however, will yield one difficult but inescapable truth: The camaraderie and high spirits engendered by Linus and his band of programmers will soon be replaced by the same rancor and factiousness that permeates the rest of the capitalist world. And Slashdot, which is so highly revered by its readers and those who know its mission, will soon lose its trust, reputation, and standing." (Found in Slashdot). News.com covers VA's purchase of Andover.Net. "The acquisition raises the possibility that the Linux.com site will lose the nonprofit status VA Linux has accorded it. VA representatives were not immediately available for comment." Here's the Red Herring's take on VA's acquisition of Andover.Net. "More than a cosmic communion around Linux, hardware maker VA Linux Systems (Nasdaq: LNUX)'s acquisition of Andover.net (Nasdaq: ANDN) is a customer grab that may drive open-source programmers away from their favorite Web haunts." Expect to see more acquisitions in VALinux's future, commented this FOCUS article. "'We plan to aggressively grow our business model organically as well as through acquisitions,' Schull told Reuters at the LinuxWorld trade show taking place in New York this week." Now Slashdot has been featured in a lengthy Forbes article. "Anticipating that his new three-dimensional graphics game for Linux would be featured on Slashdot, Steve Baker, a programmer at Raytheon, delayed releasing the game for a week while he set up mirror sites across the world." More Mergers and Acquistitions: Upside ran this article about Linux acquisitions. "With other Linux companies such as Linuxcare and Caldera Systems preparing to enter the marketplace, however, one thing remains certain. The mergers and acquisitions of the last week are only a preview of coming attractions." CBS Marketwatch looks at Linux IPOs, past present and future. "Given the huge rises in Linux companies' shares in 1999, we can expect about 10 initial public offerings from open-source companies this year, says Mike Kwatinetz, head of technology research at Credit Suisse First Boston." Itanium 64: ZDNet UK takes this look at the Trillian project's release of the Itanium 64 source code for Linux. "For potential IA-64 customers the good news was that the Trillian Project, founded in April 1999, is well on its way to meeting its goals of porting and optimising Linux for IA-64. Its final main goal, making it open source under the Gnu Public License (GPL), has been -- for all practical purposes -- accomplished." This ZDNet UK article jumps around, touching on the version 2.4 Linux kernel, and Linux on the IA-64 chip architecture. "Torvalds said he was excited about the Trillian project, and that while he did not understand the current stock market, he understood investors' interest in Linux." LinuxWorld: The Boston Globe's Hiawatha Bray wanders at LinuxWorld. "One key theme at LinuxWorld was concern for the care and feeding of programmers. Open source software is written by hundreds of volunteers, many of whom will never earn a dime from their labors. Will they keep toiling away for free, while major corporations earn millions from their work?" (Thanks to Josh Mayers). ZDNet's Evan Leibovitch went to LinuxWorld. "The Linux bandwagon is getting heavier by the minute. Last week in New York, the MSNBC mobile broadcasting van was parked outside the Javits Center for most of the show's duration. Companies were falling over themselves to demonstrate how Linux-chummy they are. Gimmicks abounded, from Batman-costumed floor-walkers to Tarantella rappers at SCO." Linux Games reports from LinuxWorld with a gaming point of view. "From what I saw and heard at the Expo, Linux gamers have a fantastic year ahead of them! From new games to better 3D video cards to better 3D sound cards, members of the hardware and software community showed that they were beginning to not only understand the power of games on the technology market, but also realize the potential that Linux has as a gaming platform." (Found in Portalux News). Here's a ZDNet UK report from LinuxWorld. "With less than a year of work in (Trillian started in April 1999), Trillian has the foundation laid and the beams raised for a major Linux port. All in all, I think it's the most amazing development story I've ever seen. The lessons from this effort are loud and clear. Open-source code development is faster than me on a wide-open interstate highway. And, not only can it work for old-line corporations, but we have proof positive that open source is the way to get cross-company development teams to actually produce something other than grandiose news releases." Another ZDNet UK report from LinuxWorld. "I looked for evidence that the imminent launch of Microsoft's Windows 2000 might be causing doubt amongst exhibitors or attendees. But such is the boundless confidence of those here, the event was marked by an almost complete absence of Microsoft bashing." Reuters picked out some of Linus' comments in his keynote that were aimed at Microsoft. "'The thing about Linux or open software in general is that it actually tries to move software from being witchcraft to being a science,' he said. 'A lot of the programs you see today are actually put together by shamans, and you just take it and if the computer crashes you walk around it three times...and maybe it's OK.'" Here's a Toronto Sun article (on Canoe.ca) describing what the author learned at LinuxWorld. "6. 'Chicks dig Linux!' Several men I saw had this message on their T-shirts. Strangely, most of them were alone." (Thanks to Bill Duncan). Corel/Inprise Merger: Here's a Wired News article about the Corel/Inprise deal. "[Bruce] Perens said the Open Source community must learn how to work with the corporate world as Linux goes commercial, and the Corel deal might prove the perfect example. 'Corel has a good marketing channel and that's the most important thing for Linux,' he said." News.com reports on the Corel/Inprise merger. "The result will be a company focused more strongly on luring customers to Linux, a competitor to the Windows operating system. The merged company will provide stiffer competition not only to Microsoft, but also to Red Hat, the Linux seller that gained access to programming tools with its acquisition of Cygnus Solutions in November." ZDNet's Inter@ctive Investor looks at the Corel/Inprise merger with a skeptical eye. "... the combination of Corel, which is becoming a major Linux player, and Inprise, which offers development tools for the Linux world and other platforms, should have been great news to investors. But there's that lingering question: Does one company with a poor track record combined with another company with a poor track record equal a powerhouse?" PC World covers the Corel/Inprise deal. "As part of the $2.44 billion merger, Inprise/Borland will become a Corel subsidiary focusing on Linux software, on which both companies have bet heavily." Here's an article in Upside about the Corel/Inprise merger. "Like Corel, [Inprise] has turned increasingly to the Linux community as a source of both revenue and -- some might say -- salvation." Also in Upside: this interview with Corel CTO Derek Burney. "We devote 10 percent of our resources to Linux, but half of my team is contributing indirectly. That's the great thing about Linux. The rewards are potentially large, but the upfront bet is not high." Bloomberg chimes in on the Corel/Inprise merger with this article. "The transaction will intensify Corel's rivalry with Red Hat Inc. and VA Linux Systems Inc." Products and Services: Arne W. Flones takes a look at Linux thin clients. "Maybe the best rationale for thin clients might be that the small network user can return to being a network user and not just an administrator." News.com looks at the new PDA from Lernout & Hauspie. "The speech recognition software company is hoping to gain attention this week with a product prototype that combines some of the trendiest technology around--PDAs (personal digital assistants), speech recognition, wireless Internet access and the Linux operating system--into one package." Publishers Weekly ran a brief article on the new "Linux Journal Press" book line being created by SSC and No Starch Press. Its first book will be the second edition of John Blair's Samba: Integrating UNIX and Windows. LinuxPower interviews Matheiu Pinard of Tribsoft - a Linux game porting company. "At first, I was a little worried that [Loki] would take all the best games, but finally I believe that our 2000 lineup should be complemented very well by the Loki lineup. Look at JA2, they don't have a similar game. In a way we need Loki if we want Linux to be a gaming platform. There are not enough Linux games, and Tribsoft can't port alone all the best games released in 2000." Nicholas Petreley plays with a TiVo box. "If you get a Tivo unit, you'll never know you're running Linux. Tivo has added its own flashy graphical user interface, which is surprisingly excellent for such a new product. If you suspect Linux at all, it will be due to its robust behavior. I deliberately unplugged the Tivo box a few times during critical operations just to check how much trouble it would get into. It came back up flawlessly each time." Fox News looks at Linux in home entertainment applications, including the Sony Playstation and the TiVo system. "The impact of Linux in the home entertainment market could be huge. Its ability to run on multiple platforms, including Intel, Motorola, SGI and Apple, and its open-source kernel that can be modified by lots of developers for any task, give it a tremendous advantage over other operating systems in this market." (Thanks to Tony Peden). Here's a Business Week article with a skeptical look at the Linux services market. "It's easy to forget, when sizing up these companies, that the biggest competitors in the Linux services business haven't flexed their muscles yet. It's conceivable, once IBM and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) wade in, that several Linux companies will have to join forces to create a large enough beast to compete." Business: VAR Business has run a five-part series on how to build an E-commerce site with Linux. "Recently, an associate offered Bynari International, a co-location space to mirror our site, provide redundancy and build a database. He asked one favor: Use a stable operating system so he doesn't have to open the lockers frequently. We planned to use Linux." Government Computer News ran this brief article stating that NASA is out shopping for a large number of laptop systems to deploy in the space shuttle and station; these laptops might run Linux. "The Linux open-source operating system, which rocketed into the enterprise computing orbit last year, may now be headed for outer space." (Thanks to Nathan Myers). FOSE is the self-proclaimed conference "where government clicks with IT". It will be held April 18th through the 20th, 2000, in Washington, D.C., and for the first time, they will be having a Linux Pavilion. Tim Bogart at osOpinion talks about why we should be there. "Linux supporters from everywhere need to support their effort because this is a golden opportunity the entire community has been waiting for. This is an opportunity to make a little slit in the bottom of the changepurse of their primary nemesis and watch the money trickle away. " Linuxworld looks at the rapid growth in the open source movement. "As Jamie Zawinski wrote in the letter explaining his resignation from Netscape and Mozilla, 'You can divide our industry into two kinds of people: those who want to go work for a company to make it successful, and those who want to go work for a successful company.' Open source companies will now be besieged by the latter -- but will not be able to hire and keep even these prospecting workers fast enough to compete with the corporations, who don't play nice." There is an interview with Linus Torvalds which appears on the GNet site. "Mobile Linux came about because we had customers that wanted to run Linux on those smaller devices like handhelds, so it was on their demand really. It isn't really a new version of Linux, mind you, we have just compressed it so it would fit in the smaller memory space of PDAs and the like." Internet Week looks at large computer companies and Linux. "While Sun is introducing Linux products, its public statements suggest some ambivalence about the technology. Sun executives take pains to differentiate Solaris from Linux, saying that Solaris is far more reliable and scalable than Linux." The Industry Standard ponders the future of Linux businesses. "A single press release from Compaq or Dell along the lines of 'We have formed a new Linux division and will pursue dominance in that area just as we have in our other markets' could send Linux-company shares tumbling - unless these companies respond by drawing on their idiosyncratic strengths." Vnunet.com covers the latest Gartner Group pronouncements on Linux. "...a vacuum currently exists in the area of much-needed Linux system management tools for back-up and recovery, volume management, file system management, transaction recovery, high availability, San architectures, cluster server solutions, performance management and hierarchical storage management." The Times ran this article about Linux and Windows 2000 that is mostly introductory stuff. "The beauty of Linux, to a young coder, is that you can pick it up and start improving it immediately. Because Linux depends on external contributions, it's deliberately easy for a lone teenager to pull it apart and learn the ropes. Better still, if you write something that fixes a bug, is useful to others or adds a new feature, it doesn't matter if you're a 15-years-old street-seller in Mexico: within days, thousands of people will know your name. So this is why more and more of these young coders polish their skills by messing with Linux." There is also a companion article with some side-by-side comparisons between Linux and Windows 2000. "[Applications are] still Linux's weakest point, though: installing these extra programs still requires peering at Readme files. And printing, at the moment, sucks." (Thanks to Michael Coyne). Smart Money takes a skeptical look at Linux. "Most PC users aren't sophisticated enough to request Linux and a Linux office package. While the upstart operating system may have cachet on Wall Street, it's not exactly Coke as far as brand awareness goes." Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol |
February 10, 2000 |
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Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page See also: last week's Announcements page. |
AnnouncementsResourcesFor more information on the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) or to join in an effort to oppose and stop enactment of UCITA in your state, check out 4CITE.org. (Thanks to Gordon Pence.)Series 1 Software announced LinuxScope, a new Linux package search engine. Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc. announced its linuxtapecert.org web site that lists Linux-compatible tape devices by manufacturer and model. Here's a new installment of Dear Lina from Linuxcare. This week Lina looks at core dumps and global search-and-replace tasks. EventsThe Worcester Linux Users Group will be hosting an Install-fest on February 12 at Stratus Computer in Maynard MA.Here's a reminder about the Linux Expo 2000 North America, in Montreal, April 10-12, 2000. A call for papers has been issued for the Extreme Linux track of the 4th annual Linux Showcase and Conference, to be held in Atlanta on October 12-14, 2000. The submission deadline is April 17. Those of you going to CeBIT may want to have a look at Linux.de's list of Linux exhibitors. There are quite a few of them. The page is in German, and Babelfish freaks if you try to translate it, but even those who are not German-capable can make sense out of the untranslated list. Jeremy Allison's slides from his Linux Expo Paris talk are available on the web. The topic was "Porting Windows NT applications to Linux," and the slides are available in either Applix or PostScript format. IDG World Expo has put out this press release summarizing the New York LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. Over 20,000 people attended. The release also summarizes important commercial announcements made at the show and the "show favorite" award winners.
Web sitesTUCOWS.com Inc. has announced the addition of SmartWhois.com, DomainSurfer.com and DomainWatch.com to its domain name registration services.Dialtone Internet announced that it will host Linuxnewbie.org, a Linux site geared towards new Linux users. User Group NewsThe Worcester Linux Users Group will be hosting an Install-fest on February 12 at Stratus Computer in Maynard MA.The Kansas Unix & Linux Users Association is having a rally at the upcoming Windows2000 launch event at Bartle Hall in Kansas City on February 17th. They will be giving away free software and handouts starting at 5:00pm CST in front of Bartle Hall. Also on February 17, 2000 is "Toledo's Linux at the Office" demo day. The Western PA Linux User's Group is putting together an event on the 19th to advocate linux during the release of windows 2000. While this is short notice, they are looking for door prizes, raffle items, flyers and/or photocoping serivce, and basically anything that could help them promote linux. Send an email to James O'Kane if you or your organization can help. The Linux User' Group of Davis (LUGOD) will meet on Monday, February 21 and again on Tuesday, March 7. Volunteers NeededLinuxMonth, an online monthly linux magazine, is looking for volunteer writers. They would like to cover many different topics so whatever your interests are I am sure you will be able to write about it. If anyone is interested in wrting please contact baiju@linuxmonth.comLinuxPower, too, is looking forvolunteers to help with the publication. |
February 10, 2000
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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 weekIn keeping with this week's embedded Linux theme: ETLinux, the free embedded distribution produced by Prosa, has relaunched with a new web site. Section Editor: Jon Corbet |
February 10, 2000 |
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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. | |
Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 23:45:56 +0000 From: kevin lyda <kevin@suberic.net> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Your RedHat news item. You stated it had "hype" in it and quoted the comment in the mail that it eats "Lizards for breakfast." You know what sucks about RedHat's IPO? They can't make jokes without people getting all uptight. The piglet announcement also listed "It works" as a new feature for it's rescue disk. Was that anti-hype? And usage number 4: fodder for a thesis on "works in progress"; that seems like hype? Let them have fun fer cryin out loud! If you'll note, their installer is called Anaconda which probably eats lizards so it's an old joke (or old hype) that was too subtle I suppose. Linux is supposed to be fun. The RedHat job page used to list "Nerf guns" as sign-on bonuses, dunno if they still do, but I'm guessing they still like to have fun. It's nice to see it spill over into their announcements, but with "hype" complaints it's easy to see why more established companies buckle under to a more sterile outward appearance. Please lighten up. A little ribbing between rivals is a nice human hackery type of thing to see. Kevin -- kevin@suberic.net Nutrition Facts fork()'ed on 37058400 Puns: 100% RDA (% good puns: 0) | ||
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2000 13:09:36 -0500 To: letters@lwn.net From: Bruno Majewski <bruno@pubnix.qc.ca> Subject: About the inclusion of JFS into kernel 2.4 Hello -- I will admit to have been completely surprised when I read that IBM not only ported JFS to Linux (or at least is working at porting it right now), but even GPL'd it! It looks like Big Blue is becoming a company you can like and respect, instead of being the company everyone likes to hate -- quite a change, an almost unbelievable one for the generation that saw the original cassette-based IBM PC (yes, Virginia, there was life before the omnipresent hard disk). I just hope this is not just a dream... A JFS is, with raw I/O and other things like 32bit UIDs, just what Linux needs to become even more respectable in the corporate heavy-iron spheres. And it would be very nice if it could be incorporated into the kernel ASAP -- like, in kernel 2.4 if possible. Since 2.4 is not going to be out in the next few weeks, if we will have to wait a bit longer anyway, could it be possible for the IBM crew to put the pedal to the metal and work their collective butts off to finish porting / integrating JFS into the 2.3.x series of kernel so that 2.4 can come out with a JFS? I already consider kernel 2.4 to be a major upgrade for the Linux world when it comes out to the point where I wonder if it should not be called 3.0. I believe that the 2.4 kernel and XFree86 4.0 combination will be a major milestone in OSS evolution and for the Linux marketplace. BUT we also have to consider against what it will have to go against in the marketplace: Windows 2000. There are enough PHB and "Unknowing Deciders" (those who control the budgets) that are already truly excited about W2K that Linux has to gain every bit of functionality it can to compare favorably to M$'s offering. This is why I believe that, if it is possible, JFS should be rolled in 2.3.x ASAP to that 2.4 can come out with it. As we currently stand, Linux is not quite ready yet for the desktop, but already has a reputation in the server area -- and if it wants to compare well to W2K as a server, the inclusion of JFS can only help (JFS on a desktop could be overkill). Y2K could become The Year Linux Became An Unavoidable Market Player (TYLBAUM ?), the year where it can walk through the front door of more than just the oddball company, if it has all the right bits in place. And one of these bits is a JFS. If W2K was only coming out in 3QY2K, I could live with a 2.4 kernel without a JFS. But W2K is coming out _this month_ and too many companies have been playing with betas of it for the last few months. So right now, too many managers and other "professionals" are enamored with W2K while still dismissing Linux as a toy. This is why we need to make 2.4 _the_ Killer Kernel, the base for a Killer Linux Distro -- and JFS can be a good way to attain that status. So, can it be done? Can IBM finish porting JFS to Linux in time for it to make it into kernel 2.4? Can the IBMers can coordinate with Linus and Allan so that we could we see JFS-equipped 2.4-based distros this summer? Bruno Majewski bruno@pubnix.qc.ca | ||
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 08:32:16 +0000 From: Mike Goldman <whig@by.net> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: "Flame" sent to LinuxOne While many distributions began as derivatives of others, something not only allowed but encouraged in the Free Software / Open Source community, such "forks" almost always provided some enhancement not otherwise available, and returned something to the community. LinuxOne seeks to share in the "spoils" of the great commercial valuation which many GNU/Linux vendors have recently enjoyed, without first even creating a differentiated distribution or service of their own. In this, LinuxOne is not only behaving unethically, but does real damage to the credibility of other firms who have invested substantially in the improvement of free software. LinuxOne's alleged distribution provides nothing but what is already available in RedHat and Mandrake offerings, and they have no demonstrated capability even to provide support for what they are selling. Assuming that LinuxOne even manages to hold an IPO, presuming that their sole underwriter doesn't abandon them, and that Linus Torvalds even permits them to use "Linux" in their company name, both of which are becoming increasingly dubious propositions, it is likely that any shares which unsuspecting investors purchase would quickly collapse in value to a marginal price. Given that much of the investment media has no idea how to differentiate LinuxOne from other GNU/Linux firms, this will almost certainly result in a great deal of bad press for the whole community, causing a stock devaluation for other firms who have little or nothing in common with them. This is unfortunate, and avoidable, if LinuxOne were to voluntarily withdraw their offering indefinitely, or at least until they have earned some credibility. Should you decide to go forward with your IPO notwithstanding the unnecessary harm you would inflict by doing so, any profit you might make by doing so are tantamount to fraud perpetrated against those who do purchase your shares. | ||
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 13:17:26 -0600 From: "John J. Adelsberger III" <jja@wallace.lusArs.net> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Feb. 3rd OpenSSH 1.2.2 announcement I'm glad you included this item, because I believe that OpenSSH will eventually be the only way to fly on Unix-like systems. However, I would like to point out that the quoted text is somewhat misleading. The OpenBSD team created OpenSSH, and one of the things they did was to rip out all support for other operating systems. This made the code easier to audit because it is relatively small. The people who port OpenSSH to other platforms have the benefit of this audit work, but it is unfair to the OpenBSD team to say that the resulting ports have been audited. This is especially true given that in the past, security products ported to Linux have quite frequently been found to have problems caused by inadequate care taken by people doing the port. It is not reasonable to put the OpenBSD team's reputation on the line for such a product; they wouldn't willingly do it, I'm reasonably sure(though I don't speak for them,) and nobody else should either. Do understand that I have nothing against the people who did this work. In fact, I know nothing about them. They may be, and probably are, good honest people making their best effort - and the result may well be good solid code. It is not proper, however, to stake someone else's reputation on that code. -- John J. Adelsberger III ETAONRISHDLFCMUGPYWBVKXJQZ jja@lusars.net | ||
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