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

Linux in the news

Recommended Reading

Torvalds, Cox Agree on the Future Kernel (eWeek). eWeek reports on the seeming resolution of the VM dispute in the Linux kernel. "The news comes as a relief, especially for Linux kernel developers, who were being forced to support both versions of the 2.4 kernel because of the differences between them, including differing disk cache systems and incompatible quota code. The accord also ends speculation that a fragmented Linux community would be doomed in the face of Windows." Just where this "speculation" came from is not specified. (Thanks to Andrew Clyde).

All you ever wanted to know about the DoJ's Windows cave in ( Register). The Register looks at the Microsoft settlement. "So there you go, free at last. It ought to be fairly cheap and simple for the big PC companies who allegedly support Linux to ship dual boot systems, and it wouldn't cost them any more if they made all of their machines, or at least all in particular lines, dual boot."

Microsoft Gets Off Easy. Here are a couple of articles that look at the conclusion of the Microsoft antitrust case:

• Rivals, others lament Microsoft deal
• Settlement is "a reward, not a remedy"

Movie industry dealt DVD-cracking blow (CNET). A California court has decided that DeCSS is legal under the First Amendment. "A California court has dealt a potentially serious setback to the movie industry's attempt to rid the online world of software that can help break through copy protections on DVDs.

The appeals court released a decision Thursday overturning an earlier order that barred hundreds of people from publishing the code for a software program called 'DeCSS' online. Posting the code is just like publishing other types of controversial speech and is protected by the constitution, the appellate judges said." (Thanks to Anders S. Buch)

More coverage of this announcement can be found on the following sites:

• CNN.com
• ZDNet News
• NewsAlert

Linux goes to the movies (Salon.com). Linux is making movies and making it big in Hollywood. 'Dreamworks' 2001 summer blockbuster "Shrek!" was rendered -- a technical term referring to the process of creating computer-generated animation -- using racks upon racks of PCs running Linux. In total more than 1,000 computers running Red Hat Linux were used in a single giant cluster, or "render farm."' (Thanks to Paul Hewitt)

Gartner: Linux future still murky (ZDNet). This Gartner Viewpoint still questions the future of Linux. "Currently, the low end doesn't offer financial benefits focused on the operating system itself. Vendors such as IBM, Oracle and Veritas bet that as Linux moves up the enterprise food chain, the operating system will drive ample opportunities for value-based products and services."

XP Equals eXtra Proprietary (Red Hat). Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann pans Windows XP in an article on the Red Hat site. "Not one, but two courts have ruled against Microsoft's monopolistic practices, and the company has had its appeal to the Supreme Court denied. It might make one wonder why Microsoft is being so bold with its exclusionary, eXtra Proprietary technologies. It's because Microsoft believes that time is on its side; the 1995 abuses are only now being judged, and there's no remedy or no penalty in sight."

Companies

Commentary: Eclipse, a developer's dream? (News.com). News.com is running a Gartner pronouncement on IBM's Eclipse release. "Eclipse is an ambitious project and an ambitious product foundation. If it succeeds, it will revive the concept of best tools combined in a single workbench--an application developer's dream."

IBM Efforts Both Help, Hurt Free Software Initiative (Compute rWorld). ComputerWorld talks to Bradley Kuhn, vice president of the Free Software Foundation, about IBM's contributions to free software. "The FSF distinguishes between work done in the open-source community that permits proprietary extensions to free code and software that is truly free. Kuhn says that proprietary software, by nature, will necessitate charges to end users, which is anathema to free software advocates."

Red Hat suite makes e-commerce easy (ZDNet). ZDNet reviews Red Hat's E-Commerce suite. "Red Hat's $2,995 package is a slick, well thought out and comprehensive solution that's well worth your consideration. And with all the value-added handholding Red Hat includes with the package, it's almost impossible not to achieve the e-commerce solution you seek."

Red Hat chases mainframe Linux leaders (ZDNet). Red Hat will soon release versions of Linux for several IBM mainframes. IBM's iSeries special-purpose servers, pSeries Unix servers and zSeries mainframes will join the xSeries Intel servers already support by Red Hat.

Business

Investing in Linux. Infoworld is running an article on Boscov's Department Store's switch from Windows to Linux. "Boscov's was adding an average of one server per month the last few years, Roberts says, swelling its production servers to about 50, plus another 50 nonproduction servers. In addition to the complexity and expense of backing up a growing server farm, Roberts had to add a server administrator for every 10 servers, boosting his head count costs as well.

'Not to be overly critical of Microsoft, but because of the way they produce things, you need to apply patches regularly or you are at risk. What was driving me was to stop adding bodies to my staff and to stem the use of Microsoft server software, because it is just too expensive to upgrade every two years', Roberts says." (Thanks to Martin Eskildsen.)

Companies shy away from the penguin (News.com). News.com reports on a survey saying that businesses aren't jumping into Linux. "Almost every large company has at least thought about Linux, and many of them are running pilot projects or even day-to-day (albeit nonessential) systems on the open-source operating system. And because the economy is still weak, many tech observers believe Linux--and its price tag of 'free'--will attract more businesses looking to cut costs. At least that's the theory. Practice indicates something else."

Reviews

The Perfect Browser (Rubber Turnip). Rubber Turnip has done a review of the Galeon browser. "Yesterday, about 15 minutes before I was due to finish work for the day, I had something of an epiphany as I realised that Galeon 0.12.6, the first release candidate of the Mozilla based browser for GNOME, is as close to my perfect browser as I've ever seen. Some explanation for this bizarre statement would seem to be in order."

Interviews

KernelTrap interviews John Levon. KernelTrap speaks with John Levon, the author of OProfile and a contributer to KernelNewbies. "oprofile provides the opportunity for developers to profile the entire system, from interrupt routines, all the way down to user-space processes. It does all this at a very low performance overhead when compared to other profilers. It is already being used to analyse the networking stack, drivers, and user-space programs, and is carefully approaching a production release."

Miscellaneous

Geeks on the Half Shell: Cruising the Caribbean (Linux Journal). The Linux Journal's Doc Searls writes about the recent Carribean cruise with top Open-Source and Linux luminaries. "Dinner followed. Two nights out of our seven at sea were formal, and a major hoot. One of the few times I've ever seen Maddog actually appear to exemplify his dangerous name was when he showed up for dinner at our table in a perfectly tailored tux, hair slicked back over his enormous beard, sporting a brass-handled cane that turned out to conceal a small beaker of liquid improvement for the evening's four-course meal. He looked like Diamond Jim Brady."

Linux Lunacy: A Photo Essay (Linux Journal). The Linux Journal has posted a set of photos from the recently completed "Geek Cruise."

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

Next: Announcements