See also: last week's Back page page.

Linux links of the week

And, looking to the future, Linux Expo '99.

Letters to the editor

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 11:51:43 -0500
From: Carl Thompson <cet@elinux.net>
To: editor@lwn.net
Subject: Virus scanning for Linux

Hello,

     In your February 25th issue, you mentioned Sophos Inc.'s "Anti-Virus"
product for Linux servers.  The Sophos press release (and LWN) imply that
this is the first product of this kind available for Linux.  However,
CyberSoft Inc. (http://www.cyber.com) has had this type of product available
for Linux (and all Unices) for years.  Their product will even automatically
handle email attachments and recursively uncompress compressed files to look
for virii.

     I don't work for CyberSoft nor do I have any interest in their company,
but I did use their products at a previous job and do believe them to be an
excellent choice for any system administrator running Unix servers in a
heterogeneous environment.

Thank you,
Carl Thompson

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 12:33:50 -0500 (EST)
From: Conrad Sanderson <conrad@hive.me.gu.edu.au>
To: lwn@lwn.net, editor@lwn.net, kimg@cnet.com, paulf@cnet.com,
Subject: new FUDs against Linux


ok, we have the making of new FUD - that Linux versions from different
distributions are incompatible.  While this was party true when Red Hat
realeased the new glibc based distribution, other distributions have
caught  up since.   But nobody in the "mainstream" world seems to
understand that the old libc5-based stuff runs quite fine on the glibc
systems because the old libraries are still there !

They are also crying about "standards" etc.  For all practical purposes,
all the Linux distributions are so close, that this entire "standards"
thing is yet another FUD.

These new FUDs hve to be attacked and taken to task before it starts
getting ridiculous.

It would be a good idea to devote a front page of LWN to this, not just
the coverage of the "coming out" party.


cc: kimg@cnet.com, paulf@cnet.com, stephens@cnet.com, erichl@cnet.com


Conrad Sanderson - Microelectronic Signal Processing Laboratory
Griffith University, Queensland, Australia
http://hive.me.gu.edu.au/~cam/

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 22:21:39 -0500
From: Ian Peters <ipeters@acm.org>
To: editor@lwn.net
Subject: libgtop

In the latest edition of Linux Weekly News, you mistakenly conclude
that libgtop will remain under the LGPL.  If you reread the
announcement, I think you will find that the license is changing to the
GPL, even though he mentions this may upset some people.

-- 
Ian Peters		``Never attribute to malice what can be explained
ipeters@acm.org			by stupidity'' -- Hanlon's Razor

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 00:15:41 -0500
From: Eric Kidd <eric.kidd@pobox.com>
To: lwn@eklektix.com
Subject: Changing the world

Last year, you posted a note about the changing Linux community and
the increasing commercial influence. I responded with a bittersweet message:

  http://lwn.net/980730/
  http://lwn.net/980806/a/e-kidd.html

It looks like the Unix revolution is happening all over again. Everybody's
jumping on the bandwagon: IBM, Computer Associates, Compaq, Oracle,
Informix, Netscape, HP, SGI, Sun, Dell and who knows how many others. Even
SCO praises Linux to skies, albeit in a self-serving fashion. Anybody who
ever worked with Unix is brushing off their skills and porting software
back from NT.

What does this mean?

Well, these companies all intend to make money. That's fine with me; the
more Linux-related jobs, the merrier. Some of companies will be good
citizens and write libre software; others will exploit anything they
can. We'll see salespeople in suits with slick proposals, and upper
management will start leaning in favor of Linux.

What a strange new world. It looks so much like the old world, doesn't it?

But there's one tiny difference. All those folks in suits are pushing free
software now, and they can't make it proprietary. Stallman saw to that
fifteen years ago when he founded the GNU project, and the results have
already been explained in Newsweek and Fortune magazine.

When the dust settles, the world will have a free operating system. Oh,
sure, Microsoft won't go away. But for those who want to hack and share and
be free, Linux will be a viable option.

You can change the world. But to do so, you must let the world change you.
Linux will loose some of its charming innocence, but in return, it will
help shape the future for the better.

The battle is only half over, of course--we've still got a desktop market
to liberate. ;-) Wooo-hooo!

Cheers,
Eric