Linux News for Aug 31, 2001

• Roundup: Microsoft's European Antitrust Problems, an Arizona Protest, MarkedXP Betas, and more (Aug 31, 2001, 23:53)
  More reader-contributed Microsoft miscellany gathered up over the past week: Fred Mobach writes in regarding how the European Commission believes Microsoft violated European antitrust laws; the Phoenix Linux Users Group is planning to protest Arizona's purchase of Microsoft Office licenses for each public school student; and a brief consideration of embedded tracking information stored on Windows XP beta discs; plus notes on Hailstorm (Jim Allchin isn't sure how it'll be used to make money), bad priorities in the open source community ("...The primary problem is that most people are mistakenly comparing Linux to Windows"), and more.


• LinuxWorld Expo: Some Links to Roundups and Video Clips (Aug 31, 2001, 23:21)
  Here's a collection of links, roundups, and video clips from LinuxWorld Expo, including video of Linus Torvalds discussing the future of the GPL and MP3's/Real streams of Lawrence Lessig's interesting hour-long talk on the importance of political activism on the part of open source developers.


• New York Times: Russian Programmer Enters Plea (Sklyarov Pleads 'Not Guilty') (Aug 31, 2001, 20:22)
  "Dmitri Sklyarov, the first person to be indicted under a 1998 digital copyright law, pleaded not guilty yesterday in federal court in San Jose, Calif., to four counts of trafficking in illegal technology and one count of conspiracy."


• AnandTech: The State of Corporate IT: A case for Linux (Aug 31, 2001, 18:09)
  From a case study involving a Washington NT shop of 7,000 employees at its primary site that decided to make the transition to Linux: "...Red Hat had proven to be a helpful ally. Instead of trying to push a whole-scale replacement of the infrastructure, they had worked to supplement it. Over time Linux brought more security, improved load balancing and an overall reduction in the growth rate of IT spending. Point of sale terminals were reliable, easy to manage and did not incur additional transaction costs. Their remote access and VPN configurations handled an ever increasing load with a higher degree of reliability and a lower cost. Their intranet had been transitioned over to Linux, and as a result cost less to maintain. It also eliminated interference with IIS based consumer and vendor systems accessed from outside of the company."


• Salon.com: The Worst Law Ever? (Two on the DMCA) (Aug 31, 2001, 17:31)
  "...the 3-year-old law passed a major test on Wednesday: To the dismay of critics, the U.S. Copyright Office evaluated the effects of the DMCA without calling for a complete revision."

  "EnviroLink Network , a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Internet service provider, took offline two Web sites belonging to the animal-rights activist group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty... Although no charges have yet been filed, under the terms of the DMCA, Envirolink was forced to remove the sites to avoid potential legal liability."



• KDE: KMail - Important announcement for users of KMail 1.0.x / KDE 1.x (Aug 31, 2001, 16:39)
  Daniel Naber sent us a reminder of the message he sent out some time ago regarding a bug in KMail 1.0.x that will cause it to stop working correctly after September 9, 2001 (an unhappy result of the passing of the 1 billionth second since the Unix epoch.) We pass it along for readers who haven't updated yet.


• XFree Developer Clarifies Trident Issues (Aug 31, 2001, 15:00)
  Egbert Eich has written a mail explaining his perspective on the situation regarding Trident's policies on the documentation of its chipsets: "Trident appearantly didn't accept a 'source code exception clause'. We therefore assumed that Trident Microsystems has modified its policy of providing technical documentation. This assumption may have been incorrect."


• LinuxPlanet: LinuxBiz: A Daring Rescue, and Plans, Finally, to Make Money (Aug 31, 2001, 13:06)
  Welcome to LinuxBiz, a new regular feature from Dennis Powell appearing on LinuxPlanet every other week, bringing readers a look at the business of Linux. This week's edition reveals some of the questions we'll have waiting as Linux and Open Source business people return from LinuxWorld Expo: what's up with SuSE? Where's Ximian headed? Can Progeny make its services orientation work? And how's VA Linux going to survive its change in focus from hardware to software?


• ConsultingTimes.com: A Distribution is (Re)born (Xandros Outlines Plans for Corel Distro) (Aug 31, 2001, 11:30)
  "...we are really focusing on the desktop market and the different verticals within the desktop. So we're not trying to be something to the server community as well. We have learned a lot from the strategic partnership with Corel. The people that we picked up from there know what users need on their desktops, what they don't need, and how to put a solution together that will make people very happy. Corel Linux went through two releases and won the PC World award for the best new technology for the year 2000 off their 2.0 version. We're basing our distribution on version 3.0, so we're excited about that."


• Mosix 1.3.0 for kernel 2.4.9 released (Aug 31, 2001, 10:16)
  Mosix adds clustering capabilities to the Linux kernel: "We just released Mosix 1.3.0 for kernel 2.4.9 (and yes, I know 2.4.10 is going to be out soon, but this is a never-ending game :-)"


• IBM Research News: IBM Research Demonstrates Linux Running on Secure Cryptographic Coprocessor (Aug 31, 2001, 09:14)
  "IBM Research has demonstrated Linux running on the IBM 4758 secure cryptographic coprocessor, a hardware security module. This is the first general purpose operating system (OS) running on a secure coprocessor. The IBM 4758 cryptographic coprocessor is an advanced, tamper-sensing and responding, programmable PCI card. Its specialized cryptographic electronics, along with a microprocessor, memory and random number generator are housed within a tamper-responding environment to provide a highly secure subsystem in which data processing and cryptography can be performed."


• XFree Developer Says Trident To Close Chipset Documentation, Company Denies Claim (Aug 31, 2001, 08:48)
  Possibly an item to file under "rumor control," possibly a story of a company changing its ways after a sharp response: In a message to the XFree86 Xpert mailing list, Egbert Eich announced that chipmaker Trident is halting its practice of sharing chipset documentation for X driver development. However, a mail sent from Trident's VP of Marketing says nothing has changed in terms of the company's relationship with open source projects, and appears to indicate that while the company will continue to be require NDA's of developers, it will continue to provide documentation.


• InfoWorld: Is open source closing doors? (Aug 31, 2001, 08:08)
  "From the machine room all the way up to the boardroom, the term open source will always spark debate. Making source code available for free has never sat well with corporate America; for many executives, protecting trade secrets is as automatic as breathing. But the use of open-source software, such as Linux, is on the rise, bringing enterprises up against the GNU GPL (General Public License), the basis for Linux's licensing."


• LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Announces Awards (Aug 31, 2001, 05:15)
  "IDG World Expo has announced the winners of awards recognizing achievements by the open source community at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, held this week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The awards included the $25,000 IDG/Linus Torvalds Community Award, the Open Source Product Excellence Awards, and the OSDL Enterprise Achievement Award."


• Alan Cox: Linux 2.4.9-ac5 (Aug 31, 2001, 00:37)
  Changelog, links within.


• NewsForge: Review: New Linux software runs Windows browser plugins (Aug 31, 2001, 00:30)
  "Installation and configuration were so simple, in fact, that I tested the setup process on more than one computer just to be certain that this wasn't a fluke. It wasn't, although a few times I ran into a problems with Netscape not picking up file associations or recognizing the QuickTime plugin. Every time, entering a few bits of information in CrossOver's Association dialog frame solved the problem."


• CNET: Red Hat CEO pushes Linux in schools (Aug 31, 2001, 00:15)
  "'What's really happening is money is taking over how our children are being educated,' he said. 'The industry that has contributed so much to the GDP of this country is all of a sudden finding itself looking at education as a market opportunity and not as a fundamental responsibility.'"