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

Linux in the news

Recommended Reading

Deja 'Revolt' Against Google (Wired). An open source revolt of sorts has formed to try and bring the now defunct Deja Usenet archives, which were recently bought by online search engine Google, back into the public domain. "Some suggest the best place for the archives would be the Library of Congress. But one former Deja user wants to create an open-source, community-based Usenet archive and has asked Google to contribute the programming code of the old Deja service to the open-source community and give the project full access to the Usenet archive."

Companies

IBM's Gerstner: Slowdown, What Slowdown? (TechWeb). IBM chief Lou Gerstner gave the keynote at IBM's PartnerWorld 2001. He doesn't think the economy is slowing as badly as most analysts, but what was most interesting in his talk was the number of Linux hackers IBM now employs. "There's one operating system IBM likes a lot, though, and that's Linux. The vendor is tailoring the system to run on all its servers, and Gerstner said IBM has 1,500 Linux developers on staff. 'We think Linux matters,' he said."

Simple but effective, Linux OS keeps growing (Asahi News). Red Hat Japan leader Kunihiro Someya and his band of "big four" engineers are profiled in this article on the growth of Linux in Japan. "Hiromi Watanabe, an IDC Japan analyst, says: ``Linux use began to expand substantially last summer. We're past the opening phase stage where computer purchases were restricted to a few enthusiasts. We're now entering the phase where masses of people are using them for everyday purposes.''" (Thanks to JC Helary)

Music labels to ISPs: Shut down Napster clones (News.com). News.com covers OpenNap, which has started filtering its content in reaction to the Recording Industry Association of America's suit against Napster and clones. "OpenNap is an open-source version of the Napster technology, allowing individuals to set themselves up as smaller versions of the Napster music-swapping service. Anybody with a reasonably powerful computer and fast Net connection can run the software, creating a directory through which linked computers can search each other's hard drives for music files."

Business

Can Linux cross the channel? (ZDNet). Evan Leibovitch thinks that, despite layoffs and falling stock prices, the Linux march is still rolling on. "While major players in the open source world lay off people, or merge, or watch their share prices hemorrhage, research maintains that Linux growth isn't slowing."

Ssh! Don't use that trademark (News.com). C|Net's News.com covers the trademark disputes over the term "ssh" that have arisen recently. "[Tatu Ylonen's] letter has open-source developers and executives girding for a what could become a battle that helps define one of the prickly issues surrounding open-source computing: How does a company retain control over its products and still participate in the open-source programming world? The same programmers whom SSH Communications is trying to woo are the ones who, in its mind, are trying to co-opt its name."

Open source's quiet revenge (ZDNet). ZDNet's Evan Leibovitch looks at the ssh trademark issue. "While the search for truly workable open source business models remains a challenge, the SSH experience offers a textbook case of a business practice that, from what I can see, is doomed to fail."

Products

Meet Jxta, Sun's hope for ruling the P2P universe (ZDNet). Sun's open source Jxta (pronounced "Juxta") may allow peer to peer computing to provide more power to the small developer, says this ZDNet article. "That's why p2p marks such a radical departure from the way things have gotten done in the industry these last couple of decades. If P2P initiatives such as SETI@home, are successful, the constellation of power is going to shift toward the direction of the small developers."

An alternative approach (ZDNet). ZDNet thinks NexIDion Designer, an open-source PHP editor/debugger, lacks flexibility, but may still be a contender to Zend IDE. "Restricted to K Desktop Environment 1.x environments, its portability is significantly limited compared with Zend's Java-based IDE. On the server side, NEXIDion's debug server requires the slower CGI version of PHP."

Users in a BIND (ZDNet). Here's a ZDNet article on the BIND vulnerabilities. "Because BIND is open source code, its functions are an open book to hackers looking for holes to exploit." No comment.

Microsoft vs. Linux

Red Hat's mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore (Inter@ctive Week). Red Hat CEO Matthew J. Szulik's response to recent Microsoft comments about Linux prompted some analysis by Interactive Week. "Szulik simply points to the market facts of life. He notes that International Data Corporation's (IDC) most recent server operating system study shows that Linux has now captured almost 30 percent of the market. And he can't resist saying though that "'blue screen of death' does not refer to Linux systems, but rather to the immature Windows products."

Wired also followed up Szulik's article with their own analysis. "But the once-indomitable Microsoft also has become suddenly vulnerable, thanks to a confluence of events that include a federal judge's breakup order, a softening PC market, a steep decline in its market capitalization -- and the gradual spread of software released under an open-source or GNU General Public License (GNU GPL)."

Is Free Software UnAmerican?. Here are three more responses to Microsoft VP Jim Allchin's comments about Free Software.

This ZDNet article finds humor in the situation.

This one from the Mecurycenter delves into what Mr. Allchin really meant by his comments. (Thanks to John Jensen)

And LinuxToday.au asks Is Linux Un-Australian?

Why Linux Is Giving Microsoft a Migraine (BusinessWeek). BusinessWeek looks at why Microsoft is worried about Linux. "According to a recent study by computer consultancy Enterprise Management Associates, only 26% of large corporate info-tech departments have made the switch to Windows 2000. An additional 55% planned to do so in the next six months. But if it's taking existing NT users that long to adopt the new operating system, then something must be stalling them. That would be Linux."

Gates vs. The Poets (Boston Globe). An interesting opinion piece originally from the Boston Globe looks at how the movie Anti-Trust seems to have disappeared, and how its portrayal of a Gates-like megalomaniac doing battle with open-source like ideologists is not too far from reality.

Reviews

Nusphere MySQL ignites LAMP (ZDNet). ZDNet reviews NuSphere MySQL. "Nusphere MySQL ships with the only currently available hardcopy of the MySQL Reference. This thorough and nearly complete work benefits from Nusphere's copy edits, and from two outstanding indexes contributed by Nusphere. One index separates SQL commands, while the other lists concepts. We always judge technical books heavily by the quality of their index, so we find Nusphere's contributions here especially valuable. "

Instant Messaging on GNU/Linux Part 3: Yahoo! and MSN (LinuxOrbit). Part 3 of this series from LinuxOrbit looks at instant messaging through Yahoo! and MSN and compares Windows clients to their Linux counterparts. "The Linux Yahoo! Messenger client is probably the best commercial port of any IM client provided by the four major IM services. Of course, ICQ and MSN (which we'll discuss shortly) don't provide Linux ports of their "official" clients, so Yahoo only has AIM to compete with. But in terms of the differences between the Windows client and the Linux client, Yahoo! has very few gaps in services provided for both platforms."

Miscellaneous

Why 90 percent of XML standards will fail (ZDNet). In what is probably not a popular opinion of the moment, John R. Rymer, president and founder of Upstream Consulting writes for ZDNet that he thinks XML is too much on promise. "These promises are the marketing, not the reality, of XML standards. Early experience with RosettaNet and Microsoft's SOAP indicates that XML standards provide some leverage for some problems in small-scale systems. The backlash is inevitable, and can be fatal even to well-considered standards efforts."

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol

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