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

Linux in the news

• Salon Magazine has covered the issue in their usual thoughtful manner. "In other words, batten down the hatches -- Microsoft is likely to go after the informal community of hackers and geeks who have gathered online and collectively developed Linux, the Web server Apache, the scripting language Perl and other 'free' software." (Found in LinuxToday).

• Dave Winer's column, entitled "How Microsoft Thinks." "Microsoft has had recent great success with its Embrace and Extend strategy in its competition with Netscape and Sun. It's virtually certain that they will respond to open source with the same tactic, that they won't resist open source, they will embrace the idea and then take it where they want it to go."

• The San Jose Mercury Dan Gillmor, as is usually the case, has put some real thought into the issue. (Thanks to Karsten Self)

• LinuxWorldhas a fairly long piece with references as well to Microsoft France's "open letter".

Here's the rest of the Halloween memo coverage.

• The Industry Standard.

• The New York Times. (Registration required). Calls FUD a "traditional Microsoft tactic." (Thanks to Thomas Widmann)

• Wired News. (Thanks again to Karsten Self).

• The Register with their usual take on things. "So Microsoft should try to turn NT into a sort of Microsoft-owned Linux, and it should also adopt the Linux OSS development environment internally, and use its bucks to buy up OSS talent. If Microsoft tried this, it quite obviously wouldn't work -- OSS developers work the way they do because it is open source, and opening little bits of NT isn't going to convince them. At this very moment, they're no doubt rolling in the aisles of the Linux List."

• The Wall Street Journal. (Found in LinuxToday).

• TheWashington Post.

• The Boston Globe.

• InfoWorld (thanks to Karl Vogel).

• C|Net. This seems to have been the first article to confirm that the memo was genuine. C|Net also put out a followup article the next day.

• TechWeb.

• PC Week.

• Silicon has a brief article carrying Microsoft denials that they are worried about Linux.

Here is a weird little piece in the Register suggesting that not everybody is happy with the OMG's announcement about CORBA under Linux. "Linux is the software equivalent of Viagra and raises false expectations."

C|Net has put out a special report on Linux. It can be thought of as an extended introductory article, for the most part. A good pointer to hand to people who wonder where the whole thing came from. Still, one wonders if they entirely get it. "Ultimately, Linux has turned the tables on the computing industry. It calls into question the benefit of charging money for an operating system, and Microsoft, Sun, and others like them will have to answer."

Here is a Red Herring article about Sun's "Jini." It talks about the source-available licensing and Sun's hope of getting some Linux-style community development going.

ComputerWorld ran a brief articleabout Corel's Word Perfect giveaway.

According to this ZDNet UK article Lotus really is going to port its "SmartSuite" and "Notes/Domino" applications to Linux after all. "A native Linux version of the software would represent a major coup for Linux, which is becoming increasingly prominent in the IT departments of large organisations and is seen by some as a potential threat to Microsoft's Windows NT." They also quote some analyst who says that Linux has "an uncertain parentage."

Forbes Magazine revisits Linux in this brief column. "We predicted Microsoft would have to reckon with the phenomenon sooner or later. It was sooner."

The Atlantic has an introductory article online which is a mixture of talk about Linux and Netscape. "Now, less than ten months after Netscape announced its decision, nary a gloat can be heard from Microsoft partisans, not so much because Netscape's fortunes have changed radically (they haven't, yet), but because of the amazing story of Linux, which in the same brief period has gone from geeky obscurity to the very brink of doing the unthinkable: putting an end to the hegemony of Microsoft's own OS, Windows."

Internet World covers the Atlanta Linux Showcase. "After years of laboring in relative obscurity, the creators of Linux have suddenly been knighted as the next Microsoft-slayers. Although Linux is still playing catch-up on the user interface front, it is capturing market share as a stable and capable Internet server."

C|Net has an article on the Avalon Beowulf cluster. "The Avalon designers researchers chose Linux chiefly because the operating system's freely available source code can be customized, explained Dave Neal, another Los Alamos researcher who helps to run Avalon."

The (US) Computer Shopper ran a column on how there may be an opening for "alternative" operating systems. "People seem to be genuinely asking themselves if what's good for Redmond is still good for them. Such a mood can encourage consumers to seek alternatives." (Thanks to Rajesh Bhandari).

The Irish Times has a brief column reviewing Red Hat 5.1 and S.u.S.E. 5.3, as well as the book "The Linux Network". They seem to have liked S.u.S.E. better. (Thanks to Lenz Grimmer).

This Babcock column in Inter@ctive Week talks about the lack of applications for Linux. In some ways it seems like it should have run a year ago; this is an area where things are happening quickly. "We are still two years away, but it seems to me that some group of developers will form to create, not necessarily a word processor or spreadsheet, but the undefined application of the future that every Linux user will have to have"

Here is an InfoWorld column from Michael Vizard entitled Unix vendors need Linux to tackle NT. "To counter that long-term threat, the Unix system vendors should try to get customers to adopt Linux instead of Win2000 as their primary application server platform. That way they can still provide the value-added services needed to make Linux robust, as opposed to simply becoming only one of many NT distributors."

C|Net covers the linux.org outage. "But [McLagan is] mostly chagrined that the Linux community is missing out. 'It's Linux in general that's suffering at this point,' he said."

According to this InfoWorld article Sun will be releasing a Java 1.2 port for Linux. Note that this goes beyond what we had heard before: they say Sun is doing the port itself. If that is really true, one wonders what involvement, if any, the existing Linux porting groups will have.

Nicholas Petreley has another InfoWorld forum going. "...I figure the only way Notes can stay competitive in the long term is if IBM uses it to fuel the Linux fire. If IBM is really smart, it will cut a deal with Caldera to resell a distribution of Linux with Netware, Novell Directory Services, and Notes as a bundle. What other companies or strategies do you think would keep the PHB rating of Linux from being overwhelmed by Microsoft's most excellent PR?" (Thanks to Didier Legein).

This forum, of course, goes along with Petreley's column from this week, entitled "Linux and the formula for success as defined by the Pointy Haired Boss."

Another InfoWorld story: Lotus weighs its Linux options takes a more positive slant toward the possiblity of a port from Lotus than we have seen in the past. "Linux support is a no-brainer, said Zisman, who also said this move is in direct response to market demand for the increasingly popular operating environment." (Michael Zisman is the "executive vice president of strategy" at Lotus).

And yet another one from InfoWorld: this article talks about increasing support for Linux in the proprietary Unix world. "As the standards for the Linux platform continue to solidify, the number of major systems providers considering support for the platform increases, making it clear that there is major industry support developing for the nascent open-source operating system."

This Unix Riot column in Performance Computing goes into the "Win2k problem", and the increasingly bright future for Unix systems. "Developers have lost their patience with Microsoft's inability to hit deadlines.... As a result, development time and money that would have gone into NT applications has been diverted to Java, UNIX, Y2K, NetWare, and especially, Linux." A good, upbeat column. (Found in Linux Reviews).

Just in time for Halloween, ZDNet UK comes out with some really top-quality hilarious FUD. Have a look at this article and one can only laugh. "...Linux is basically nothing more than a Unix look-alike that complies with the Posix standard. It carries with it the techno-babble culture that surrounded Unix, but even more so. It belongs to an authority-resenting community of propeller-heads who need a bizarre operating system to make them feel superior to the rest of us." As always, please try to keep to the moral high ground when responding to this kind of stuff. Nasty flaming will not help the Linux cause.

Uwe Klein wrote in to say that folks with an interest in such things can watch Jerry Pournelle struggle with Linux by reading his diary on the subject.

The editors of Data Communications and LAN Times have announced that Red Hat's "Secure Web Server" is a "best of show award winner" at Networld+Interop '98.

Make money with Linux in Sm@rt Reseller shows that the reseller community is beginning to catch on. " All of its prodigious power and extensibility isn't ultimately what makes Linux important to resellers, however. The reason ... is that Red Hat's Linux will make Unix desirable for small to midsize businesses and SOHO installations. No other version of Unix has ever successfully penetrated those market segments." (Found in LinuxToday).

Microtimes has a new cover story titled, "Weighing Your Options, NT versus Unix: Which operating system is right for your environment?" It starts and ends with a mention of Linux, but the bulk of the article is a comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of both NT and Unix. He has done this fairly evenhandedly, meaning that both sides will find quotes they like and quotes they hate. However, if you check most of his criteria, "Total cost of ownership," "Scaleability", "Security" and "Flexibility of Administration", it is pretty clear that Unix/Linux comes out ahead. (From LinuxToday).

In French: Linux cogne aux fenêtres de Microsoft. It's an introductory sort of article, with emphasis on the increasing amount of attention Linux is getting from Microsoft. There is also a side article about the agreement between AFUL and the French ministry of education. (From NNL). (Babelfish translation available here).

``Whatever happens in Washington, the browser conflict is yesterday's battle. The new David that the Goliath of Redmond has in its sights is the free Linux operating system and the 'open source' software development community that built it.'' Salon Magazine

``[Microsoft manager Muth] also downplayed Valloppillil's assertion about software quality, stating that he must have been comparing Linux to other flavors of Unix.'' The Industry Standard

``Well, if you believe the hype you deserve all the frustration and competitive disadvantage that such gullibility will surely bring. By all means try to convince your competitors that Linux is the next wave in corporate computing, but at the same time make sure you nail the garlic cloves to your own data-centre door to keep away the Linux suckers.'' Martin Butler, ZDNet UK

Next: Security