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

Linux in the News

Recommended Reading.

This ZDNet article revisits Microsoft's manipulation of the Kerberos standard, an example of their "embrace and extend" practices. "In my opinion, Microsoft has a right to claim it is improving an existing standard by filling in the blank. But it must fully air what it has done and seek its acceptance by a standards body. Microsoft has not done so and should be charged with co-opting a standard in a manner that reflects its business interests. Such a move is making unfair use of its Windows monopoly." (Thanks to Jeremy Allison).

Want an update on how Linux is doing in China? This article from Australian Financial Review has the best, most detailed information we've seen in several months. "According to figures released by Federal Software, and published in the Keji Ribao science journal, the largest computer software retailer in China, Linux already outsells authentic Microsoft Windows programs by a significant margin.

Federal Software last year sold nearly 200,000 sets of Chinese Linux software, about 200 times the number of Chinese Windows systems sold in the same period."

Companies.

Upside takes a look at Cobalt's improved stock performance. "If anything has contributed to the company's market turnaround, Hill says, it's the investment market realization that application servers represent the future direction of the marketplace."

Here is a CNet article on Penguin Radio's recent receipt of an equity investment from Internet Partnership Group. " Penguin Radio hopes to have its radio design finished by late summer or early fall, Leyden said. "The easier we try to make it, the more time it takes," he said." (Thanks to Cesar A. K. Grossmann).

SpeechWorks plans to release the source code for its "voice XML code", according to this article in the San Jose Mercury News. "In a move that resembles the Linux open-source software programming code movement, SpeechWorks is making public a system companies could use to develop and interconnect sites on which people call in by phone and use their voice to request news information that is then read back to them, or conduct transactions such as buying stocks and airplane tickets."

Andover.net has picked up this Newsbytes article on NEC Solutions. "NEC Solutions has become the first Japanese company to join the IA-64 Linux Project - an international association of computing companies that is developing the Linux operating system on Intel's IA-64 processors." (Thanks to Cesar A. K. Grossmann)

Business.

Open Source in the upcoming US presidential campaign? ZDNet reports on Gore's website and its use and understanding of open source software. "The site and servers use Linux, Apache and a variety of free, customized administrative tools such as PHP, an open source language. View the home page source code and you'll get a friendly hidden message from Al Gore himself".

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer takes a look at the decision to open source the rules for the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), announced a few months ago. "Under Wizards' "d20" open game license, created in consultation with the software community that helped create the open source license, companies can take Wizards' core rules and create any kind of game around them, from an elves-and-dwarfs fantasy game compatible with D&D to a horror or science-fiction adventure."

This ZDNet article looks at the desirability of being able to run killer apps from KDE or Gnome under either desktop and lobbies for recent, tentative efforts at cooperation between Gnome and KDE developers to continue and become fruitful. "Software developers, who have so far been forced to take sides, are also interested in a resolution. As a result of the dueling desktops we have fantastic apps coming out of both camps -- such as KDE's Konqueror browser, and the Nautilus file manager being developed for GNOME by Eazel."

The KoreaHerald ran this article about a Korean venture firm that has developed a Linux-based software for smart phones. "The company has recently succeeded in developing a Linux operating system, called "Tynux," for use in wireless Internet access terminals including cellular phones."

The Australian Financial Review looks at a deal between Australian firm HarvestRoad and Red Hat. "The deal, signed yesterday, entitles Red Hat to bundle HarvestRoad's web collaboration software with its Linux server operating systems in Australia and Asia and HarvestRoad to bundle Red Hat support with its software."

Here is an article from ZDNet UK on why some Linux companies just don't seem to be doing too well right now. "These companies are trying to salvage dead or dying products by recasting them as Linux essentials. They're going so far as to tweak Linux and make parts of it proprietary. This clearly is not the way of Linux life."

Arne Flones, formerly of Linuxcare, has resurfaced over at OpenSales. He's got a couple of new feature articles up already, primarily dealing with Apache and AllCommerce, a GPL-based e-commerce Internet application.

It really isn't a Linux or open source story, but for those of you following the Microsoft flap with interest, here is this ZDnet article on Oracle's involvement in exposing some of Microsoft's tactics. "As Microsoft faced the antitrust fight of its life, a group called the Independent Institute bought full-page newspaper ads citing 240 academics who criticized the government's antitrust attack on Microsoft.

Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) suspected the institute wasn't so independent, and decided to find out. It hired a Washington detective firm called Investigative Group International Inc."

Events.

Leon Brooks is already predicting in this osOpinion editorial that the "security contest" being sponsored by eWeek will produce "sucker-bait benchmarks". " You would have to have your head in the sand to not know that last time this was tried, Microsoft was able to essentially tailor their own system, but that the supervisor of the Linux system not only failed to apply as much as one security patch but used a proprietary system for the guestbook, which subsequently proved to be the Achilles heel. How fair is that? "

Boston Globe reporter Stephanie Stoughton takes a look at the eWeek hacker challenge. "The public hacking contest is unusual in that it mimics a real Web site. Industry observers say many hacking contests sponsored by computer firms involve only a few pieces of the system -- only the parts they want to test. But openhack.com includes an online storefront, a back-end database, firewalls, and Web servers."

TechWeb covers Jon 'maddog' Hall's keynote at PC Expo. "Hall also recalled the first time he used Linux himself, likening the experience to that of a musician who sits down to a piano that has a particularly good feel. "

The PC Expo needs renaming, claims this ZDNet article. "They call it PC Expo, but it's not. We already said it should have been named Appliance Expo. Little did we know just how right we were.

We scanned the crowds; we walked the floor and the only sign we saw of an honest to God PC vendor selling desktop boxes was Gateway. That was it. Period. No Compaq. No Dell. And those little guys with big boxes and bigger hopes? They're not here."

LinuxMall's Michelle Head talks to the organizers of this week's LinuxTag conference, currently underway in Stuttgart, Germany. "'LinuxTag started five years ago as a small exhibition of students with roughly 50 attendees,' the organizers explained. 'The organization has become more professional for each new event, and they acquired new people to help them. Last year, there were about 7,000 people visiting LinuxTag. This year, we expect some 20,000 people to attend the show.'"

B2B is the buzz-word that Wallstreet liked just before Linux. Now the PC Expo is combining B2B with Linux, according to this ZDNet article. " 'To B2B or Not B2B: Linux Puts on Its Work Clothes,' webcast live from this page on June 29, from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern, will feature Mark Bolzern and Jon 'Maddog' Hall.

They'll discuss Linux's growing role in business-to-business applications. Companies naturally want the best software at the cheapest price, and increasingly, Bolzern and Hall argue, Linux can deliver applications, support, and integrated systems."

Resources.

ZDNet has provided a list of links to Linux handheld porting projects.

Here's a GNULinux how-to article. "But if you're a business person using a Palm Pilot, you wouldn't want to adopt Linux until you could sync your PDA to your desktop. What if I told you that you could, and it was easy? Okay, almost easy. This is Linux, after all. Read on and learn how."

Interviews.

InformationWeek interviewed IBM's Irving Wladawsky-Berger, currently VP for technology and strategy, to discuss why Linux is important to IBM. "Wladawsky-Berger:The Linux movement has been independent of anything Microsoft is doing. It's one of those cosmic movements in the industry, like the emergence of the Internet, or microprocessors.

InformationWeek: That's heady talk, to be sure. Do you really see Linux having the same impact on the technology world as the Internet?

Wladawsky-Berger: It has that Internet-like quality of helping to create standards that in the end will benefit everybody."

OLinux has published an interview with Russel Pavlicek, dubbed "Compaq's Linux Evangelist", who talks about Compaq's marketing strategy for Linux. "Today, we have an Linux Program Office focused on the success of Linux on Compaq's platforms. There are many people working hard to make sure that Linux works well on both our Proliant systems and Alpha systems. We have had engineers working on Linux Alpha since 1994."

Finally.

OSO Webmaster Kelly McNeill brought forth an issue that has been concerning him for a long-time: "One might expect copyright to be enforced by old world media outlets like ZDNet, CMPnet, C-Net and all the others, but I would never expect to see such styles of on-line business from the web sites most responsible for the open-source-centric attitude that brought the movement to the forefront. Of course, I'm talking of the Slashdots, the Linux Todays and the Linux World-like web sites. It is THESE sites that have preached the "open" mindset more than any others, yet still cling to the old-world style of media publishing. The fact that these sites are the product of reader contribution (like osOpinion) would make them prime candidates for this style of content distribution and also makes me wonder even more."

Please note that LWN does not enforce copyright on any portion of our content that is contributed, e.g., letters to the editor, announcements sent directly to us, or information gleaned from publicly-available mailing lists. Our copyright is placed only on content we develop ourselves. In turn, for other open source sites (such as osOpinion), we generally provide links directly to the site rather than reproducing their content.

Nonetheless, the issue of how to "handle this properly" within an open source context has been discussed internally many times, without a final resolution. We welcome reader feedback on the issue, though we do ask you keep in mind the need to develop sufficient revenue from LWN in order to keep the site alive and healthy.

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol

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