See also: last week's Back page page.

Linux links of the week

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Section Editor: Jon Corbet

Letters to the editor

From: Mike Richardson <mike@quaking.demon.co.uk>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: Exporting Office Suites to Browsers
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 13:35:46 +0100

Ah! So, exporting software to users' machines has popped up again.
Personally, I rather think that it will submerge once again. Desktop
machines a pretty cheap, management like to have 'their' machine
with 'their' software and 'their' data, its more sexy, etc., etc.

But, maybe there is something here that can benefit the Linux (and
Unix in general) community at the expence of M$oft and Windoze.
I think we should distinguish two cases. First, there are the "home"
users who are distinguished by virtue of having relatively slow,
typically dialup, access to the InterNet. Exporting software is a dead
duck in this case - too slow and/or too expensive (either due to
connection times or pay-per-use).

The second case, though, is the "corporate" user. In this case there
is a high-speed permanant connection to the company servers. In
this case the incremental cost of using the exported software is
essentially zero; the company pays for it up-front and network
usage has little cost.

But! There is still the question of whether web browsers are stable
enough to trust with this sort of activity - and the answer is, they
probably are not.  But! But! In the Linux/Unix world, we don't have 
to worry about needing a web browser as the front end, we have
a perfectly good system already, viz X11.

So, my point is this. A lot of effort is going into KDE and Gnome at
the moment, and some truly excellent applications are appearing or
are in the pipeline. But, the packaging for them is essentially single-
machine. Maybe what we need here is some _explicitly_ client/server
based packaging ......

Just my two'n'sixpence worth
Mike Richardson

From: Greg Owen <gowen@SoftLock.com>
To: "'letters@lwn.net'" <letters@lwn.net>
Subject: Security page and kernel modules
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 10:56:45 -0400 


	I was a bit suprised to see no mention of the recent code postings
which allow intruders to use loadable kernel modules to hide their control
and presence in this weeks security page.  I learned about it this week
using Kernel Traffic item http://www.kt.opensrc.org/kt19990830_32.html#13.

	It seems to me there is a quick and dirty lesson here - if you have
a machine you want secured, use a static kernel and disable module loading.
I've done this in the past, but didn't know there was such a good reason!

	As always, thanks for the otherwise impeccable newsletter.

-- 
    gowen -- Greg Owen -- gowen@softlock.com

Date: Fri, 03 Sep 1999 01:56:07 -0400
From: Joe Drew <hoserhead@bigfoot.com>
To: editor@lwn.net
Subject: Caldera 2.3 under NDA

It sounds bad, but after I'd thought about it a bit it seems like it's
alright.
Ok, the GPL and other assorted Free Software licenses say "You've got
these rights, and you have to do these things in order to keep them."
But along comes Caldera, with its new packaging and distribution of
these pieces of Free Software. Caldera says "Ok, if you want to get your
hands on this CD you've got to sign this piece of paper which says that
you have decided to not exercise your rights under the GPL, and if you
do we can sue you into the ground and back." 
Seems ok to me.
-- 

Joe Drew
http://www.woot.net

"Larry Flynt is right!"

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 16:32:49 +0200
From: Luca Berra <bluca@comedia.it>
To: letters@lwn.net
Cc: linux-lvm@msede.com
Subject: A petition to get LVM into the kernel

Good morining,
In the kernel page of issue 9902 concerning the linux-lvm petition Jon
Corbet states:

'... Attempting to replace those criteria with "special interest group"
pressure is not the way to get a better kernel. Hopefully those
wanting LVM in the kernel can discuss the matter with Linus and find
out what, if anything, is blocking that inclusion.'

Actually before deciding to make a petition we did.
in fact you'll find LVM in some of -ac patches.

The idea of the petition came when someone reported to
Heinz Mauelshagen the linux-lvm mantainer "that Linus wants to wait
before putting LVM into the stock kernel to see if enough people are
interested to have this."

We decided that having a document that summarizes the reasons why
we feel that LVM is needed in the stock kernel, and have it subscribed
by anyone who is interested was the best way to let him know.

Regards,
Luca
-- 
Luca Berra -- bluca@comedia.it
    Communications Media & Services S.r.l.