LWN: 2000 Linux timeline

January, 2000

Look for Linux to duke it out with Windows CE for kiosks, gas pumps, egg-beaters, and other appliances that need a small but super-stable operating environment.
-- TIME Digital's technology predictions for 2000

One can almost pity the DVDCCA. Like the feeble minds behind the misnamed 'Communications Decency Act' in 1996 and the NSA's key-escrow power grab back in 1994-95, they're about to find out what happens when you try to step on the Internet community's liberty.
-- Eric Raymond writing about the DeCSS affair

Linux survives the year-2000 bug in fine form. A number of small problems turned up, and some last-minute fixes were rushed out, but nothing serious happened. Of course, that also pretty well describes the rest of the world's experience with Y2K.

The DVD case takes an ugly turn with the questioning of Jon Johansen, the 16-year-old Norwegian hacker who first posted the DeCSS code. The Global Internet Liberty Campaign publishes this Member Statement on the case.

The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) continues to attract opposition. If adopted as law by the U.S. states, this act would give new teeth to "shrink-wrap" licenses. Cem Kaner gives a good summary of the problems with this act in this article.

VA Linux Systems announces SourceForge. VA Linux Systems put out this press release announcing SourceForge to the world. (SourceForge had actually been up and running since November 1999). SourceForge also makes the code for its operation available under the GPL. By the end of the year, SourceForge hosted over 12,000 projects and 92,000 registered developers.

Dave Whitinger announces the launch of the Linsight network.

Creative Computers announces the launch of eLinux.com, which "will provide the Linux community with a single source for products, news, discussion groups, services, support and information."

Salon announces a deal with Red Hat to carry Salon's content on Red Hat's Wide Open News site.

Red Hat completes the acquisitions of Hell's Kitchen Software and Cygnus Solutions with the announcement that: "The acquisitions make Red Hat, Inc. the largest company in the world dedicated to providing open source technology, information and services..."

The US government is about to relax the crypto export regulations, in ways we could not have anticipated 6 months ago, vis-a-vis open source and publicly available cryptography. The first draft of the regulations were, unexpectedly, promising but held some ambiguities for the open-source community. The second draft can only be considered a Christmas present with the open source regs being reduced to little more than 'tell us where it is and then do it'
-- Michael Warfield, January 11, 2000

Michael Tiemann becomes Red Hat's Chief Technical Officer, replacing Marc Ewing, who has held that position since the founding of the company.

New U.S. cryptography regulations went into effect on January 14 prompting Michael Warfield to send his January 11th note to the linux-kernel mailing list proposing that security-related patches, here-to-fore carefully excluded from the primary kernel tree, should be expedited into the 2.4 kernel.

The LWN Linux Stock Index hits its high level of the year (199) on January 10, 2000 although many expected it to keep climbing to much greater heights.

Caldera Systems files for its initial public offering leading off an expected stampede of Linux companies going public in 2000. LWN's review of Caldera's S-1 is here . this feature article. Caldera also announces a $30 million round of venture capital funding from Sun, Citrix, Novell, SCO, Chicago Venture Partners, and Egan-Managed Capital; and settles the Microsoft lawsuit as described in this News.com article.

Linuxcare files for its initial public offering of stock which LWN summarizes in this article.
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.
-- LinuxOne May Be One Linux Company to Avoid by Sam Jaffe, Business Week January 10, 2000

Red Hat completes a 2 for 1 stock split that was announced in 1999.

TurboLinux receives $50 million in investments, according to this News.com article. Investors include Dell, Compaq, BEA Systems, and others.

The auction of 250 Linux® related domain names by a domain name scalper (er - "reseller") is discontinued at the request of attorneys for Linus Torvalds, trademark owner of Linux®. Linus in this posting to the linux-kernel list attempts to answer some concerns about appropriate the use of the the Linux trademark.

Transmeta breaks its long silence and tells the world what it has been up to.

SGI releases OpenGL under an open source license, another important step in the preparation of Linux for high-end graphics applications. It is a generous donation to the community; it should also help to preserve OpenGL as the standard interface for 3D graphics.

Inprise (a.k.a. Borland) announces that it will open source InterBase. InterBase is a serious database system and will become a valuable contribution to the open source portfolio.

LWN completes its second year of publication.
In a move aimed at Linux, Sun said it will announce Wednesday that it is making the source code for its new Solaris 8 operating system 'open.' Webster's has lots of definitions for the word, including 'not sealed, fastened, or locked.' But when you dig into the details of Sun's announcement, you'll find that what it is offering doesn't come close to meeting the dictionary's definition, let alone that of the open-source movement.
Lawrence Aragon writing for Redherring.com , January 26, 2000

The Linux Professional Institute announces the availability of its first Linux professional certification exam.

Jim Blandy steps down as guile maintainer. Maciej Stachowiak steps in as the new maintainer.

The first PHP Developers' Conference is held in Tel Aviv.

Mastodon INST0050 is announced. This distribution, supported by David Parsons, strives to assure that a.out lives on.

Debian announces a code freeze in preparation for the release of Debian 2.2.

The Software Carpentry Project announces its software design competition to help bring about the creation of a set of software tools (replacements for make, autoconf, and bugzilla, and a regression testing system).

The Journal of Linux Technology is announced by O'Reilly and VA Linux Systems.

Mozilla M13 is released.

Linux-Mandrake 7.0 is released.

Linux wannabe press releases flow from companies trying to ride on the success of Linux stocks. LWN picks this one from Vitamins.com as the Linux wannabe press release for the week for January 27th. In it we learned that "Vitamins.com has further distinguished itself in the competitive Internet health industry race by being one of the first to integrate the Linux Operating System, produced by Red Hat, the leading developer and provider of open source software solutions."

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