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Linux in the news

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The verdict: Is Adobe a software thug? (Upside). Upside put Adobe "on trial" with the charge of "being a software thug" with regard to its role in Sklyarov arrest. The verdict is now in: guilty. "Members of our jury overwhelmingly felt that Adobe acted thuggishly and ran roughshod over free speech, finding the company guilty by a margin wider than 80 percent on both counts. Jurors were passionate in their indictment of the company, calling its actions antithetical to basic liberal ideals and human rights, commercially stupid and generally un-American."

Rep: Give Fair Use a Fair Shake (Wired). Wired reports that at least one congressman thinks Sklyarov should be freed. "'I think the current case adds impetus to the growing effort to fashion an amendment to the DMCA that would restore the classic balance (of fair use rights),' Boucher said."

Microsoft, Red Hat argue open source (C|Net). C|Net reports on the O'Reilly conference debate between Microsoft and open source advocates. "This shared-source thing has nothing to do with building community outside of Microsoft," Red Hat Chief Technology Officer Michael Tiemann said in a speech immediately after Mundie's. "It is not so much a license, I think, as it is a treaty crafted by executives trying to buy time while they quiet the internal rebellion that is Microsoft's own civil war."

The true struggle behind the MS-open source fight: ideology (ZDNet). ZDNet covers the Microsoft vs. open source debate at the O'Reilly conference. "You are doubtlessly aware of the debate over so-called "free software," of which the most visible proponent is the Linux community. However, the real debate isn't so much about technology as economic opportunity, about "little people" who feel disenfranchised and "big people" who don't understand what the fuss is all about. "

MS Welcomed With Open-Source Arms (Wired News). Wired covers the O'Reilly conference and says events like this may be the start of turning Microsoft to the "...charms of open-source programming. Nobody's suggesting that this week will be enough to do it. But Nathan Torkington, co-author with O'Reilly of Perl Cookbook and the 'content planner' for this conference, said that 'there are good people at Microsoft -- people who see what we are saying about open source. We want to make them a bit stronger, try to engage them.'"

Industry execs debate future of open source (CNN). Cisco and Morgan Stanley debated the future of Open Source at the O'Reilly conference in San Diego, with the banking company touting open sources strength at infrastructure. "While Moore looks for open source to keep driving software technology infrastructure, Fred Baker, a fellow at Cisco Systems Inc., pushed the open-source community to move out of the back end and begin making applications ``for Mom.''"

Open source Java going strong (ZDNet). ZDNet shows how Java is thriving in the open source world. "On the server, projects like Jigsaw, JBoss, Enhydra and Apache's Jakarta are flagship efforts with mature and stable products. Java client applications are showing strong promise with projects like JEdit, Jext, LimeWire, NetBeans, BlueJ, ArgoUML, and many others."

Open Sourcers Shy From Criticism (Wired). Open source developers know that when Wall Street is using open source, it's a big deal, according to Wired. "Open-source software is Wall Street's dirty little secret, Moore said. For some reason, none of the financial companies like to admit that they use Perl, Linux and Apache, but all the firms are teeming with it because it's the only way to get software to conform to the varying needs of a big business."

Which OS is Fastest -- FreeBSD Follow-Up (SysAdmin). SysAdmin Magazine has posted an update to their online series on operating systems performance, this time adding FreeBSD. "As expected, the asynchronous option greatly improved FreeBSD file system performance, bringing it in line with Linux and Windows 2000, which both have a similar feature. FreeBSD performed better (by about 30%) than the others at the 8-k and 16-k file size. However, FreeBSD performed worse with a 128k file (16% worse than Windows, 39% worse than Linux), which skewed the "total run time" results, because that file size took the longest to run. "

Companies

Red Hat and 3G Lab team up to make 'wireless Linux'. U.S. software and services company Red Hat and Britain's closely held 3G Lab said on Monday they will develop a " Linux for the wireless world" as they team up to write an operating system for Web phones.

More on Red Hat's wireless move. LinuxDevices editor Rick Lehrbaum takes issue with Red Hat's wireless headline published by Reuters this week. "...the Reuters story is wrong in labeling the new webphone-oriented OS as "Linux". It's actually based on Red Hat's eCos operating system rather than on Linux, as indicated later in the Reuters story itself"

Meanwhile, the Register says, whether it's Linux or eCos, Red Hat will have a mountain to climb in the 3G market. "With seven hundred of the finest engineers drawn from Nokia, Motorola and Psion's old software division, it's taken Symbian three years to deliver its first open phone the Nokia 9210 communicator. And that's starting with a base OS (Psion's old Epoc) that was already mature. " There's an old saying that may apply here: managing programmers is like herding cats, and herding seven hundred cats doesn't sound like an easy task. Perhaps RedHat will have better success if they start with a much smaller working group.

Hewlett Packard Offers CoolBase Set In Open Source (ZDNet). ZDNet examines HP's CoolBase offerings to the open source world. "In one example, H-P features an Internet radio that includes a Web server for delivering Web pages and interacting with other devices. A "beacon" inside the radio broadcasts its URL presence to the mobile devices of nearby passers-by..."

What Ximian's trying to accomplish with Mono (LinuxWorld). LinuxWorld talks with Ximian's Nat Friedman about the Mono project. "If you accept the premise that .NET will advance the Windows world, you're left with the question, "So what?" Friedman cited two benefits immediately -- interoperability and superior development tools -- and concluded with a third later in our conversation."

Ximian CTO Issues .Net Challenge To Open Source Code Developers (ZDNet). Miguel de Icaza, chief technology officer of Ximian, issued a call to arms to fellow open source code developers at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference. "De Icaza said that not all open source developers have shared his early enthusiasm for the Microsoft development platform, which is still being shaped by ECMA committee review. But he said that he could foresee no legal barriers to his project's implementation, because Mono will proceed with its own coding based on specifications that Microsoft has submitted to ECMA. He said that neither Ximian nor developers involved in the project can be accused of copying Microsoft code because no .Net source code is available yet for review. "

Resources

The LHD Motherboards Superguide (ZDNet). ZDNet presents the Linux Hardware Database guide to motherboards which are compatible with Linux.

Whitepaper: Embedding Linux (LinuxDevices). LinuxDevices whitepaper on embedding Linux talks about the evolution of embedded systems, the introduction of embedded Linux and how to put Linux into an embedded system. "Linux is not a real-time operating system, but in many applications, lack of real-time performance is not a deal breaker. Linux tends to be a better fit for devices that are considered 'not-so-deeply' embedded, or devices with relatively high levels of human interaction. Linux is also a robust and reliable player in networking applications."

Reviews

Linux handheld device holds 10GB (News.com). The Terapin Mine is based on a stripped down version of Linux, according to this C|Net News.com report. "The company announced the $599 Terapin Mine in the Europe, Japan, the United States and Singapore on Friday. The product will go on sale in late August. "

Are twice-as-fast handhelds within ARM's reach? (ZDNet). Does the ARM family of processors make for better handhelds? They do, partly because of how well they run Linux, according to this ZDNet article. "[Compaq's Project] Mercury is pushing the envelope by integrating all sorts of whizzy features into a handheld. Mercury is based on Compaq's off-the-shelf H3600, which is sold as a PocketPC device, but has gained great favor as a particularly spiffy handheld Linux platform, albeit an expensive one."

Free Mainframe (TechWeb). Here is a review of the Linux Community Development System from IBM. "The Linux development community has already taken a liking to the program, and the enrollment numbers are impressive. Unfortunately, IBM has struggled to keep up with the demand because the program requires that each developer be screened and assigned his or her own virtual Linux machine with a dedicated IP address for a limited time. Increasing the resources used to manage the program should help--impatient developers will only wait so long."

Device profile: the briQ - a CDROM-sized Linux system (Linux Devices). LinuxDevices reviews the briQ from Total Impact, a CDROM-sized Linux system. "One unique feature of the briQ is its dual PCI bus architecture. The first , a 32-bit 33MHz PCI bus, supports the built-in 100Mb Ethernet LAN interface which is accessable via a board-mounted RJ-45 connector on rear of the briQ. The second, a 64-bit 66MHz PCI bus, is used for internal expansion; this is accomplished by plugging custom modules (which can have up to 8 PCI loads or functions) onto a board-mounted connector."

Miscellaneous

Linux: The electoral test that pencil and paper meet (I.T. Australia). This article from Australia talks about one consultancy's decision to use Debian as the platform for a electoral voting system. "[Douglas Jones, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Iowa] said open source goes much of the way towards code audit accountability, especially when combined with strict version control so that code doesn't change from inspection to deployment."

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

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