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

Linux in the news

• Salon Looks at Red Hat's SEC filing. "But the mere fact that there is now an official SEC document that includes the text of the GPL serves as fairly astonishing proof that the rules of the software business really are being rewritten."

• Why did Linux succeed? asks ZDNet's Charles Babcock. "Torvalds didn't gnash his teeth and complain publicly about Microsoft as he tried to get people to use his system, the way other Unix vendors did. And now obscurity is in short supply for both Torvalds and many others who once labored so fruitfully in its confines."

• GamaSutra has a post-mortem of Raven's Heretic II launch. The number one mistake? "...not commissioning a Linux Server version of Heretic II to be released at the same time as retail. Half-Life demonstrated the wisdom of having Linux code available at launch time; witness the number of servers around on launch day. Heretic II never caught up on this, not even to this day." (Thanks to Khalid Zuberi).

• Here is an interesting New York Times article about Neal Stephenson and his campaign against the putting of GUI's on everything. "In leaving the Macintosh world, Stephenson went back to what he calls 'the oral tradition' of the Unix-Linux operating world. Linux may one day rival Windows and the Mac for ease of use, but that is not an era he would look forward to." (The New York Times is a registration-required site). (Thanks to Marty Leisner).

There were a few introductory articles out there. Included among them were an up and coming new category of Linux articles - the "installation nightmare" story, where we get the gory details of some reporter's installation problems.

• This introductory article is in TechWeb. "The social design paradigm behind the creation of Linux is a compelling example of how the Internet enables a community-based business model in which thousands of contributors, each acting independently in their own self-interest, create a highly integrated 'good' that provides value to themselves and others."

• Here's an introductory article in the Capitol District Business Review. "Whatever happens, Linux is worth watching. The world cannot be seen through one 'window.' The possibilities are endless; the answers, however, are only one Torvalds away."

• Here's A Windows-Free World as seen by PC Computing. "Windows drives you nuts, but do you really have an alternative? It's still Unix, but Linux is free and it works (sort of)." Despite that lead-in, this lengthy article is mostly quite positive and accurate.

• There was also an introductory article (in French) on the Swiss site Webdo. It gives a GNU-centric (and accurate) history and heads into the current commercial situation. English text available via Babelfish. (Thanks to Erik Rossen and Thomas Junier).

• In the San Francisco Chronicle: this installation nightmare story. "My adventures with Red Hat 6.0 were even more unpleasant. This distribution includes not one but two partition utilities. But both turned out to be beyond me -- they kept asking me to do things like ``enter a mount point'' -- a concept the manual acknowledges is likely to be unfamiliar, but never effectively explains. Suffice it to say that my many attempts to figure out what they're after have so far been in vain."

• Here's another one of those installation nightmare articles in the (Fort Worth, TX) Star Telegram. "Then it asked which partition I wanted to use and how large it should be. I thought, 'What if I didn't already know what a partition was?' I typed 'Maximum' size and almost immediately hit 'Error 708.' That wasn't explained in the manual." Despite all this, it is a reasonably positive article.

OK, time for the Red Hat stories:

• Life will be tough for Red Hat says Business week. "The reason there's such a tiny pot of gold at the end of Red Hat's rainbow is obvious. Linux is a free, open-source operating system, meaning that anyone with a Web server and the inclination can start distributing it, as long as any changes they make to the code remain publicly available."

• Red Hat and Compaq will be working together to improve compatibility between Linux and Tru64, according to News.com. "Compaq also said that it is making available additional Linux-ready systems including certain Compaq Deskpro models and XP Professional workstations."

• ComputerWorld reports on the Compaq/Red Hat deal. "Analysts said the announcement is important because it gives Linux additional credibility as a ``standard'' platform. But, they said, it continues in the prevailing vein of positioning Linux as one more alternative in an existing arsenal, rather than as a new tactical direction for a major vendor."

• News.com has an article on Red Hat's investors, some of which are closely tied to Microsoft. "Corporate investors, unlike venture capital firms that mainly focus on bringing the greatest return to their investors, tend to concentrate on taking stakes in companies where there is a strategic benefit to the arrangement. And in some cases, it means taking a stake in a competitor, as well."

• USA Today covers Red Hat's IPO plans. "Of all of the technology companies -- like IBM, Netscape, Oracle and SAP -- that have made highly publicized investments in Red Hat, only Intel was identified as a significant owner of the company, with a 5% stake."

• Here's a brief Reuters article on Red Hat's IPO filing. "Software firm Red Hat Inc. said Friday it would raise $96.6 million through the sale of its common stock in its first-ever sale to the public."

• Here's a News.com article on Red Hat's IPO announcement. "Red Hat intends to use the funds for working capital and other purposes, such as 'geographic expansion' and could be used for the acquiring 'businesses, products, and technologies that are complementary to our own,' although the company noted that there are no agreements or commitments already in place to make any such moves."

Other business-oriented articles include:

• News.com ran this article on Corel's "Linux advisory council." "The council's purpose is to deal with the growing pains of Linux as well as attempt to 'provide a unified commercial voice in association with open-source partners,' Corel said in a statement."

• And there's more: this article about how Caldera might go for an IPO of its own shortly. "[Caldera VP] Tanang declined to describe Caldera Systems' profits or losses but did say the company exceeded its goals in recent quarters. In addition, he said revenue for the first fiscal quarter of 1999 increased 224 percent over the same quarter the year before."

• Finally, News.com also ran this article about ever cheaper Linux systems. "...the Linux Store will begin selling a $399 stripped-down machine Monday as part of an exclusive deal with an as-yet-undisclosed Internet retailer..."

• IBM will be selling a thin server product (called "Pizzazz") soon, according to this News.com article. "The Pizzazz computers will become the lowest-priced of the RS/6000 server line, which use Power architecture chips and which run IBM's AIX version of the Unix operating system. IBM is working with LinuxPPC to make sure the computers can use the Linux operating system as well."

• VAR Business has a brief article about the Office 2000 announcement. "But the real news from today's product unveiling was the company's carefully worded insistence that it will not port the popular-selling office suite to the competing Linux operating system anytime soon."

• InfoWorld notices SuSE 6.1. "'We introduced SuSe Linux 6.1 this week with no advertising and little fanfare and were surprised by the demand that existed,' said Gary Bale, vice president of merchandising, software, and accessories at CompUSA, in Dallas. 'Strong word of mouth had made it one of our more successful Linux launches ever.'"

• Wyse is no longer planning to ship Java-based diskless terminals; instead, they will run Linux, according to this Wired News article. "The first Linux box from Wyse will store the operating system on 32 MB of flash RAM and can connect to Windows NT, Unix, or Linux servers."

• The Microsoft trial is back; here's the latest from PC World. "In its antitrust trial, Microsoft has repeatedly raised the specter of the Linux operating system as a major threat to its operating system dominance. But in court Thursday, Microsoft's latest attempt to paint Linux as a potent desktop foe drew laughs from spectators and trial Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson."

• The Washington Post also has an article about the "Linux defense."

• The San Francisco Chronicle looks at Linux's recent successes. "Linux already has won the hearts of techies the world over, and lately, the free operating system has carved out a place on corporate servers. Could the typical office worker's desktop be the next stop?"

• News.com covers BellSouth's refusal to provide DSL service to Linux users. "Several other online Linux users said they were able to run the alternative operating system even with BellSouth's DSL by initially using a Windows system, and then switching over to Linux after the service had been installed." (Thanks to Mike Gerdts).

There were a few "product review" articles:

• Network Computing reviews OpenLinux 2.2. "...OpenLinux's simplified setup and administration tools make it a snap to get started, no matter what your level of familiarity with Unix. Its updated Linux 2.2 kernel and new KDE 1.1 desktop further add to OpenLinux's enterprise appeal; it shines as both a server OS and a development platform."

• CPU Review has put up a review of SuSE 6.1. "SuSE 6.1 quite simply has the largest collection of software packages ready to install on from CD; far more than I've seen from ANY other distribution. Extreme Linux (clustering software), Blender (3D rendering / scene editing package), and just about every database server under the sun is included."

• Intraware has put up articles about a couple of new commercial products that run on Linux: WebTrends Enterprise Reporting Server and Informix Dynamic Server. "It is becoming standard procedure for companies producing software for interaction with web servers to either release a version for Linux, or at least have one on the roadmap. So much for predictions of a certain company in the great Northwest that thought Linux would quickly fade into the operating system horizon." (Thanks to Benji Selano).

And here's all the rest:

• Here's a scary PC World article about the proposed new UCITA ("shrink wrap software") law currently in the works in the U.S. It mentions a lot of the same problems that have come up before: ability to disable software remotely, non-transferability of licenses, no liability for bugs. Those of us who use free software can look on most of this with amusement, but there is a potential problem here: the law would also forbid reverse engineering. That could make life much harder, if not impossible, for products like Samba and Wine.

• Evan Liebovitch writes about Linux Expo in this ZDNet column. "I've spoken to some people who hope that Linux Expo will give up trying to out-tradeshow the big guys, and concentrate on what it does best -- running the finest conference in the Linux universe. Here's hoping that these people get their way and make the 2000 Linux Expo less like Comdex and more like Usenix. We already have enough Comdex-type shows." (Thanks to Cesar A. K. Grossmann).

• Evan also wrote an article about the famous LinuxCare "simply supported" poster.

• Bill Gates is interviewed in MIT's Technology Review. "Open-source software's strength is massive customization but this works against consistency. Consumers don't know what to expect when they load the software; corporate customers find it hard to stay current as each version is customized; developers don't get a volume market because there are multiple flavors of the same product." (Thanks to Senthil Kumar Narayanasamy).

• Salon speculatesthat the Linux kernel source may be banned from the web under Australia's new censorship law. "Using grep -- the powerful Unix search command -- to go through a recent version of Linux, I came up with some comment lines and error messages that were clearly intended as the sort of coarse humor engineers of all sorts engage in."

• How should you size a Linux server? asks this lengthy Byte article. "It is ... imperative to give to your Linux server ample RAM to avoid the inefficient page scanner."

• Here's a somewhat whiny column in Byte. The author thinks that people should be looking at BeOS rather than Linux, and clearly does not get some things. "...what percentage of Linux users are taking advantage of their access to source code? How many Linux users are actually digging in and re-writing OS components? A tiny fraction, I'd wager. BeOS users aren't allowed to hack the kernel ... but guess what? 99 percent of them couldn't care less. In exchange for being barred from access to system source code, they benefit by being able to use a system developed under one roof, under a single, consistent vision, and that never requires hours of rooting around and tweaking to figure out how to get ApplicationQ to run properly."

• FreeBSD 'Zine discusses FreeBSD Advocacy in a Linux-centric Environment. "Hold 'equal opportunity events.' If your group holds an Installfest, or a similar event, make sure that the BSD's are represented just as prominently as Linux. Sure, most new folks wanting an install are going to ask for Redhat. But by lining Linux and BSD up side-by-side, you're showing that Linux isn't the only path to choose." (Thanks to Anthony J. Gabrielson).

• Here is an article (in Danish) in ComputerWorld Denmark that says, apparently, that Oracle will begin selling Linux support in Denmark. (Thanks to Troels Arvin).

• Those of you who can read Swedish may want to check out this article in Aftonbladet about the politics of Linux. (Thanks to Martin Skjöldebrand).

Section Editor: Jon Corbet

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