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

Linux in the news

Recommended Reading

Phil Zimmerman's response. The Washington Post has posted an article on how Phil Zimmerman, the man who brought the world PGP, was feeling after the attacks on the WTC. The article says that Zimmerman "has been overwhelmed with feelings of guilt" because of the possibility that PGP was used by the terrorists. Zimmerman, however, says this isn't quite right. "Because of the political sensitivity of how my views were to be expressed, Ms. Cha read to me most of the article by phone before she submitted it to her editors, and the article had no such statement or implication when she read it to me. The article that appeared in the Post was significantly shorter than the original, and had the abovementioned crucial change in wording. I can only speculate that her editors must have taken some inappropriate liberties in abbreviating my feelings to such an inaccurate soundbite."

Copy-control Senator sleeps while fair-use rights burn (Register). The Register takes a look at the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA). "And yeah, what about Linux? How do you make the operating system, where every column inch of source code is available for inspection, SSSCA compliant?

I think this may be a self-answering question: You can't - not unless some drastic changes to current licenses and code distribution are made. If there's a certain level of paranoia in Hollings' office regarding the SSSCA, perhaps it's understandable. From all perspectives, this is nothing more than a blatant attempt to offer a return on investment to campaign donors."

Is Linux Going Mainstream? (Washington Technology). According to a Washington Technology article, Linux is moving beyond basic services for commercial industry but that the federal government was a bit behind in adoption. "The survey of 865 corporate and governmental IT decision-makers, including 70 respondents representing federal government departments and agencies, also indicated that state and local governments were slightly more likely than the federal government to move to Linux, he said."

Separating fact from fiction about Linux (ZDNet). ZDNet gives us another recommendation for migrating to Linux now. "Linux is destined for a strong role on the server. It's a fine Unix variant and Unix people take to it like ducks to water."

Letter urges govt to put faith in Linux (IDG NZ). The New Zealand Education Ministry is entering a $10 million deal with Microsoft, but not without some nudging from the open source world. "The letter points out that the governments of France, Brazil, Mexico and China are considering legislation which favours open source software and says open source supporters would welcome the opportunity to present the capabilities of open source software to the government as well as their ability to support it."

KDE 2.2.1: Linux desktop approaches maturity (ZDNet). ZDNet reviews KDE 2.2 (and 2.2.1) and says it will ease migration from Microsoft platforms. "A comprehensive user management program, KUser, lets you create, modify, and delete user logins on multi-user Linux systems. KCron provides similar functionality for managing automated background tasks. And KDE System Guard, like Windows' Task Manager, lets you view current tasks and kill problem applications. And since KDE is merely running on top of the X Window System, you can perform remote administration of any KDE-enabled system by redirecting application output to another X server on the network."

Cooperating Geeks (Linux Journal). Here is a story about a bunch of geeks who banded together to create their own ISP and learn about system administration by doing it. "What's even more satisfying is we do almost all of the work on free UNIX variants. Between OpenBSD and, of course, Linux, we've managed to bring all this together using free software. We use Sendmail mail servers, BIND name servers (nicely secured, of course), the Apache web server, all of which you'll find in use at the best commercial network providers. It's been "almost all" free software because we inherited some HP 9000 workstations, and the HPPA UN*X ports are nowhere near production ready. As such, they still run HPUX."

Companies

Borland to add Web services to Linux (ZDNet). Borland's offering will be added to its Kylix product and made available in the fourth quarter. "[Jason Vokes, Borland's European product line manager for RAD products] explained that this meant adding support for Simple Object Access Protocol (Soap), XML transfer capability and Web Services Description Language (WSDL)."

IBM throws more support behind Linux (ZDNet). IBM is expanding its thrust into the Linux world, stating that the OS is now being used for applications and not just infrastructure. "IBM said over 2,400 enterprise-class applications are now available for Linux in its Solutions Directory, which lists IBM and partner offerings. The firm said it had won a number of recent Linux contracts, including one for Integrated Genomics, a DNA analysis firm using Domino on Linux."

This comes on the heels of of IBM's announcement that it expects to generate sales of $7 billion from seven key growth areas, one of which is Linux.

Red Hat Earnings Offer Reason for Cautious Optimism (News & Observer). In a quarter when nobody was expecting financial greatness from Red Hat, the open-source software company proved it could hold its own despite lagging sales.

Resources

Running Linux on the Sega Dreamcast (LinuxDevices). LinuxDevices has posted a detailed discussion on getting Linux to run on a Sega Dreamcast. "You also need a CD-R burner that can write a multisession CD using the CD/XA data track (mode 2, form 1) format. Support for this configuration is widespread in all but the least expensive CD-R burners and programming software. Note that the Dreamcast's CD-ROM drive cannot read a CD-RW disk, but it can read a CD-R disk produced by a CD-RW burner."

How to create a Linux-based network of computers for peanuts - Part 3 (LinuxWorld). The third in a series of articles on creating a Linux network covers putting together an application server for multiple X terminals. "The Linux kernel needs support for specific network cards compiled in, or loaded as a module. The distribution you use may be able to "autoprobe" for the NIC installed in your machine and configure the system to automatically load a kernel module -- you may be able to use "modprobe" or you might have to uncomment the line for your NIC in a rc.modules file -- but if not -- about the only generic remedy common to most all Linux distributions is to compile in support for your card."

Miscellaneous

Nimda, Other Worms and Life on the Internet (Linux Journal). Linux Journal publisher Phil Hughes says that while open source helps prevent attacks, pride in your code may be even more important. "Individual programmers care that their code works. They view a bug report as positive; someone took the time to find a problem and let them know about it. I remember, for example, finding what I thought was a bug in the serial driver in Linux back in 1993. While I used to be a professional software tester before I got into publishing, I still somewhat sheepishly sent e-mail to Ted T'so suggesting that I might have found a problem. Ted's response was to send me a patch to try (which worked)."

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

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