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Linux in the news

Recommended Reading

Why artists should be using Ogg Vorbis. Daniel James offers some interesting arguments from the perspective of the musician on why artists should be using Ogg Vorbis instead of MP3. Daniel is also advocating the use of The Personal Music License as a means of keeping the musician in the monetary loop when music is sold while allowing the music to be freely shared when it is given away. Ogg Vorbis is an open-source musical compression scheme that is similar to the popular MP3 format. (Thanks to Daniel James)

Ethernet MP3 Player for Linux (MP3newswire). Another MP3 player, the SLiMP3 , based on Linux and designed for network playing is covered in an article from the MP3Newswire.

Dmitry Sklyarov, Adobe, and the FBI (Byte). Jerry Pournelle has written about the Dmitry Sklyarov case. "I predict that if the case ever comes to trial the law will be thrown out, either on Constitutional grounds or on the narrower principle that it is too hopelessly vague to be enforceable. If the matter is ever put to a grownup in the Department of Justice, the only question will be 'How do we get out of this with a minimum of egg on our faces?'"

Arrested Russian programmer thanks supporters (News.com). Dmitry Sklyarov says he's grateful for the world outpouring of support in his trials against the DMCA. "Protests in support of Sklyarov are scheduled outside the hearing in San Jose, as well as later this week and next in Russia, England, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Boston and even "Black Rock City" in Nevada, the desert site for the annual Burning Man cultural arts festival, according to the statement."

Why Austin TX is considering a Microsoft Enterprise license ( LinuxWorld). The city of Austin, Texas doesn't quite know how to get out of the license fiasco forced on them by Microsoft - pay a big fine, or buy a big contract with lousy conditions. According to one city official: "As the specialty for Linux is servers, and servers make up only 1% of the costs for Microsoft licensing, the financial impact is a fraction of the Microsoft licensing issue. The other 99% of the costs are related to MS Office, MS exchange, Desktop OS, Visio, MS Project, and other products for which Linux does not provide a solution." As author Joe Barr suggests, "Someone needs to tell that to the 400 employees of the City of Largo, Florida."

IBM demos car of the future (CNN). CNN provides a bit more detail on the Linux-based TechMobile from IBM. "Blue Eyes detects movements of the retina and frequency of eye blinks. Using this technology, the alphaWorks team created an alarm system. An infrared camera watches the eyes, and if the system does not detect the eyeballs, it assumes the driver has fallen asleep and an alarm is sounded."

Companies

Why Apple's bass-ackwards Unix approach is the right way (ZDNet). Apple's desktop oriented Unix is a smart play for the company, avoiding the server market entrance most Unix vendors opt for in the long run, according to this ZDNet story. "This tack is a novel inversion of the path of least resistance. Apple could've tried to compete in the workgroup server market--a place where it's had decent success in the past--and worked on the client version of the OS while the server variant established itself. Instead, realizing the desktop was more important, Apple is focusing its efforts there."

Caldera to open source benchmarks, regular expression parser. Caldera has announced it will Open Source the AIM performance benchmarks and the UNIX Regular Expression Parser, along with two UNIX utilities awk and grep. These technologies will be released under the GPL (Gnu General Public License).

HP to sell secure version of Linux (News.com). HP's Secure OS Software for Linux is expected to be officially announced on Wednesday, according to this C|Net story. "The secure Linux product will be available for HP servers or others that pass the qualification tests Red Hat uses to assure a computer can run its latest version 7.1, said Bill Wear, product manager for HP's secure Linux offerings."

When Linux grows up, IBM glad to boot AIX (IDG). IBM is almost ready to boot AIX in favor of Linux, but the community champ has still has some maturing to do yet. "While IBM officials concede that Linux might not emerge as the operating system of the future, the company is ready to back it now with millions of dollars and as many developers as it can find. If these bets pay off, IBM will likely send AIX packing, opting to put a penguin inside every server instead."

IBM to open source WebSphere Linux tools (ZDNet). ZDNet reports on IBM's reported release of WebSphere to open source. "IBM plans to first move all of the tools that developers plug into the Workbench into a shipping product on both Linux and Windows so that all the tools would work on both platforms."

Denver Firm Allows Internet Programmers to Collaborate on Software Projects (Denver Post). The Denver Post covers the Jabber instant messaging project. The article talks about the open source model for developing software projects (Jabber is open source). "To abide by the code of conduct in the open-source world, Durand said Jabber.com puts its proprietary code on the website after a new version of its software is released. Jabber.com even put Miller and three programmers on the payroll so they could continue to write code for the original, nonprofit Jabber.org site."

Penguin Computer lays off 24 percent (News.com). Penguin Computing (not Penguin Computer) cut 25 employees last Friday, according to C|Net.

Red Hat Plugs E-Biz Apps Gap For Linux (TechWeb/Yahoo! News). TechWeb/Yahoo covers Red Hat's e-commerce business rollout. "... analysts agreed with Gold's assessment that midmarket companies are likely to accept the new Red Hat E-Commerce package mostly for cost reasons. The sell-side application, used mostly by retailers or B2B companies selling or managing customer support online, has been tested for reliability and performance by thousands of developers, and its lack of proprietary code makes it cheaper to maintain than other platforms."

Business

Linux: Lusty or Listless? (IT-Director). IT-Director says that it's hard to tell if the Linux industry is getting strong or failing quietly. "We feel that the hype is over. The go-go days have ended and the put-up or shut-up time is here. Linux companies need to come up with an appropriate and viable business model that will allow them to compete."

Linux is ready for the long haul (ZDNet). C|Net interviewed a number of industry analysts to find out what might be in store for Linux over the long haul. Says one Forrester Research analyst: "Hardware firms such as IBM and HP love Linux because it removes OS costs from boxes such as firewalls and Web server appliances. With appliance makers able to take what they need and exclude what they don't, we see a Linux foundation for most computing appliances by 2005..."

Linux making corporate inroads (News.com). News.com reports on the latest IDC study on corporate Linux adoption. "The studies found that 40 percent of the 800 decision makers surveyed in North America and Western Europe are actively using or piloting Linux, and that Linux unit replenishment rates were twice as high as those for Unix."

Interviews

Peace, Love, and Linux (Consulting Times). Caldera's CEO Ransom Love talks with Consulting Times about recent criticisms of his company and defends the need for commercial Linux solutions. "I think you can build on top of GNU, the layers that make it more of a total solution to a specific segment. I don't think you can do it generically, but I think if you know who your customers are you can build an integrated solution that utilizes those resources. You have to play within the rules and you contribute back to the back to the components that you use. That's fine, and that works."

Miscellaneous

To upgrade or not to upgrade (BBC). The BBC looks at alternatives to upgrading Windows on your older hardware. "Despite all the improvements, installing Linux still takes a little technical courage, though the benefits in terms of learning how your machine works can be substantial."

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

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