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

Linux in the news

Here's this week's recommended reading:

• Somehow we missed this John Dvorak column from last week, wherein he suggests that Microsoft should "embrace and extend Linux." "Nobody writing in the popular press wants to predict the emergence of a gentrified Linux as the next major change on the desktop environment or in the Fortune 500. Well, I'm doing so now. The way I see it, Linux's code base is under much tighter control than Windows'. I've talked to too many ex-Microsoft folk who all tell me that nobody has a handle on Windows' code. It's completely out of control--a hodgepodge of objects and subsystems nobody fully understands. Though this may or may not be true, things are different with Linux."

• Jon Hall writes about the economics of Linux in this Performance Computing column. "The acceptance of Linux by a large computer corporation is based only on one thing--the volume of potential equipment sales and services. End of discussion. It has nothing to do with the quality of the operating system ..."

• VAR Business has dedicated an issueto Linux. There are many articles about our favorite system, including the obligatory Linus interview. "To find out if Linux is ready for prime time, VARBusiness conducted dozens of interviews with VARs, distributors and vendors. The conclusion: Linux is a real market force, battering both NT and traditional Unix."

• Troubleshooting Professional Magazine has put out an issue about education which strongly features the role of Linux in educational situations. "Mexico is installing 140,000 computer labs using the best (but not the most expensive) technology available. Soon they will field a fleet of millions of superiorly trained technologists. Mexico has taken a page from America's pioneering spirit. Free thinking, they went with the right choice, not the politically expediant one. They worked to get results. They stood up for their children. Contrast this with America's response. We hesitate over lab installation because it's too 'expensive'."

• NTKnow has some coverage of the further degradation of the exchange between Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens. Their sarcastic style is probably the only appropriate way to write about all that at this point...

We had a few articles about Caldera's OpenLinux 2.2, due to be unveiled at Comdex Spring.

• Wired News has an article about the upcoming Caldera 2.2 release. "Next week, Linux vendor Caldera Systems will launch a user-friendly desktop version of the operating system, but experts say that it's too soon to call it a Windows killer."

• OpenLinux 2.2 is also the subject of this News.com article. "Caldera Systems will be the first major distributor to have a shipping product using the new 2.2.x version of the Linux kernel. It's an interesting development in light of the fact that Caldera is known for its relatively conservative stance with regard to upgrading core technology."

• InfoWorld has an article about the upcoming releases from SuSE, Red Hat, and Caldera. It's mostly about the new features of the 2.2 kernel, which, of course, will be included in those releases.

• This article in Business Week is about how Microsoft might respond to Linux. The options presented seem not entirely plausible, and the left out the "buy bogus performance tests" approach. "In the end, it's hard to count out a company that has vanquished every threat, from IBM (IBM) to Apple (AAPL) to Netscape. But Linux is a different beast altogether, and, for Microsoft, a more elusive foe with which to do battle." (Found in LinuxToday).

• Here's an article in Wired News about linux.de and their troubles with Microsoft over the "Where do you want to go tomorrow?" slogan. "Linux fans aren't the only group to make a parody of Microsoft's slogan. The Reverend Billy Graham uses 'Where do you want to go tomorrow?' to remind his followers to prepare for the great hereafter."

• Here's a brief article in Windows Tech Edge about linux.de's disagreement with Microsoft. "Linux.de is also sponsoring a contest among its members to see who can come up with a winning replacement. The Web site's authors won't reveal the prize, but it looks like the lucky winner will get his or her own life-size Linux mascot: 'it's really large, cuddly and definitely does not fit in your CD-ROM drive,' the statement said." (Thanks to Greg Frye)

• The Australian Financial Review has picked up the story that Microsoft may release the Windows source. "'I don't have a problem with putting the Windows code out there,' [Microsoft VP] Valentine said. 'How did Bill Gates get his start?' Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chairman, was still a teenager when he alerted a software developer to a bug in his program, which then was fixed."

A general stream of business-related articles:

• Here's an InfoWorld column about high-availability web servers. "But there are many ways to ensure consistent uptime. Some heavy production Web sites can do this by having 'server farms.' These interconnected matrices of servers can offer rollover protection should a fault occur. Some Web sites are well-suited for this model. Take broadcast.com, which uses its 1,100 Linux-based Intel servers to deliver its high-bandwidth demand for many I/O feeds." (Thanks to Stéfane Fermigier).

• Computer Reseller News has an article about large ERP software companies and Linux. "The Baan Co., Barneveld, the Netherlands, J.D. Edwards & Co., Denver, and PeopleSoft Inc., Pleasanton, Calif., have declined to unveil concrete plans to become Linux-enabled. In all cases, the companies said there is not enough interest to justify the Linux products."

• The (Christchurch, NZ) Press ran a brief article about Dell's jump into the Linux world, and the Burlington Coat Factory sale. "Dell said the PC deal was not done at the expense of Windows NT sales, but rather was an 'expansion into a new market', enabling Dell to compete for Unix-type sales."

• There are two articles about O'Reilly and Associates in the Irish Times. The first is a lengthy piece about the history of the company and where it is going. "An O'Reilly book brands a topic as something useful, with a future, worth knowing about. Tim O'Reilly has consciously used that authority to promote standards, movements and initiatives in computing, the latest being the Open Source movement for free software."

  Then, there is a review of Open Sources - Voices from the Revolution. "...it makes for an exciting, evangelistic and often rancorous read, with contributors firing off barbs at other writers a couple of chapters ahead of or behind them."

• ZDNet looks at Linux jobs, with extended profiles of Leonard Zubkoff and Arthur Tynde. "At Silicon Graphics, which recently jumped into the Linux ring, the number of engineers working on the OS is on par with those working on NT. Last year, the company didn't have anyone working on Linux publicly..."

• There is an article (in French) in 01-Informatique about the D. H. Brown report. Fairly standard stuff. English translation available via Babelfish. (Found in NNL).

• Government Computer News ran a review of the Kinetics Network Manager. "Several features set Kinnetics apart from anything else on the market. It is hardware-based in a previously all-software market. It uses Linux as its core operating system. And its management console is open to any Java-enabled browser on any platform." (Thanks to Matthew Darwin).

• News.com covers the D. H. Brown report, rather belatedly. "Linux comes up short when compared feature-for-feature with commercial Unix products and Windows NT, but the operating system is great for some tasks, according to a new study."

• Here's a News.com article about Penguin Computing's new eight-way server. "Penguin, founded in May 1998, will show its eight-way system at the Internet World trade show in Los Angeles next week, Ockman said. The company plans an initial public offering later this year."

• Here's an article in News.com about the opening of TheLinuxStore.com. "Moving to Linux lets the company avoid the fee of about $85 to obtain a license for the Microsoft Windows operating system, the second most expensive component after the hard disk. Most PC vendors include a Windows OS as a standard component of their products."

And here's the end-of-page grab bag of miscellaneous articles:

• This TechWeb story looks back at Mozilla's first year. "The best things that came out of the Mozilla project, [LinuxCare co-founder] Sifry added, were the tools developers came up with to try to get a handle on the code mass. In particular, he said, the Bugzilla project was a great model for how to deal with bugs in an open source development effort."

• There is a lengthy, positive introductory article in the Baltimore Sun. "In the end, Linux's biggest threat to Microsoft is that it democratizes computing. It gives computer power to the masses in a way that most software companies couldn't."

• Here's an Internet World article which talks about FreeBSD as an alternative to Linux. "The BSD code base has been rewritten multiple times by an experienced, Unix-centric developer population, [FreeBSD Inc. President Jordan] Hubbard said. He maintained that the Linux code base is less mature and the Linux developer population includes many who are less experienced with professional software development on Unix platforms."

• Smart Reseller compares TurboLinux and Samba and Netware and concludes that the Linux solution performs far better. "If you eat, drink and breathe NetWare, you're not going to like most of this article. Linux handily beats NetWare in basic file serving in a small server environment." (Thanks to Jeremy Allison).

• Here's a negative article in Canoe.ca's money column. "In fact, there are very few true anarchists on the Linux bandwagon. You'd have to classify most of the fervent supporters of the new operating system as hopeful opportunists. These are people who see a pyramid scam-like possibility and want to get in quickly, make some money and get out before everyone else realizes that the Linux base will never expand broadly enough to support the kind of market it needs to become something other than a niche technology." (Thanks to Frédéric Roussel).

• El Pais has an article (in Spanish) about Miguel de Icaza ("programador libre") and GNOME. It's part introductory material, and part about the wonderful things that GNOME will provide. English translation available via Babelfish. (Gracias to Jordi Torne).

• Wired News is covering the Raymond/Perens disagreement. "[Chris] DiBona said that it was no more extreme than the kind of bluster that comes from other public figures in the industry. 'It's no different really [from] Scott McNeally saying he'd like to body-check Bill Gates or Larry Ellison saying he'd like to take his MIG up to Redmond.'" (Thanks to Dave Finton).

• This article (in French) in Libération is the story of "an exhausting but victorious" weekend spent installing Linux. A partial tranlation to English is available via Babelfish. (Found in NNL).

• This short Web Review editorial starts out with Al Gore's "open source" web site, but then heads into fears of a Linux backlash. "I fear that, now that the floodgates have been opened by some recent deals (Dell's contract with a garment company for over 1,000 Linux-based computers, for example), there will be a rush to use Linux in settings where it isn't really-yet-appropriate."

• Will commercialism help or hurt Linux? asks this article in CNN (reprinted from InfoWorld). "The tight grip that Torvalds maintains on new kernel releases has so far prevented a Unix-like splintering of Linux, while the recently formed Linux Standard Base has been working to remedy subtle differences among the distributions in nonkernel activity."

Section Editor: Jon Corbet

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