Linux News for Sep 29, 2006

• Editor's Note: Freedom Of Is Choice (Sep 29, 2006, 22:30)
  All the grand idealistic notions of freedom and pragmatic points of view boil down to one thing: choice. Respecting choice is something we could all use more of.


• Linux-Watch: Debian's in Fine Health? (Sep 29, 2006, 21:00)
  "You are correct that Debian infighting is not an isolated incident, but your interpretation that Debian may be dying is way off the mark..."


• Linux.com: Review: Zimbra Messaging Software (Sep 29, 2006, 20:15)
  "Zimbra calls itself a 'leader in open source messaging and collaboration,' but does it live up to the name...?"


• DesktopLinux: Bigger, Better CrossOver Adds WoW to Linux (Sep 29, 2006, 19:30)
  "Would-be Windows-on-Linux gamers got a very early Christmas present today, with the release by CodeWeavers of the first public beta of CrossOver 6.0..."


• APC Magazine: Mandriva to Play Windows Games (Sep 29, 2006, 18:45)
  "The popular distribution formerly known as Mandrake, and with no Purple Rain to be seen, will include in its next 2007 release Transgaming's Cedega engine to play mainstream Windows gaming titles out of the box..."


• LinuxInsider: The Rugged Landscape of Open Source Software Compliance (Sep 29, 2006, 18:00)
  "Black Duck Software got its feet wet during the SCO Group uproar, when the Unix firm's legal onslaught against IBM and others sharpened concern over intellectual property rights connected to the use of software code..."


• Safe as Milk: Taking a Step Back (Sep 29, 2006, 17:15)
  "Every so often I get so invested in something that I start to go off the rails a little when others don't see things in the same way..."


• Linux.com: Aaron Seigo Talks about aKademy and KDE4 (Sep 29, 2006, 16:30)
  "KDE developers have gathered at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland this week for aKademy, the KDE community's annual week-long meeting..."


• LinuxPlanet: Open Source BI Broadens Out in Myriad Directions (Sep 29, 2006, 15:45)
  "With business intelligence (BI) heading more widely into Linux these days, vendors are adding more open source componentry in a variety of places..."


• LinuxWorld Australia: Wall Street Beat: Ill Winds for Open Source? (Sep 29, 2006, 15:00)
  "A close analysis of the situation, however, may give savvy investors--and open-source advocates--courage. Red Hat's problems are probably more short-lived than Novell's..."


• internetnews.com: Google Summer of Code 2006 a Success (Sep 29, 2006, 14:15)
  "The projects are in and the mentors have filed their evaluations. In the final tally, it looks like Google's Summer of Code 2006 was a success..."


• Red Herring: Linus Torvalds on the GPL Fight (Sep 29, 2006, 13:30)
  "Linux kernel creator speaks out about the current controversy over an update to the key open source license..."


• LinuxLookup: Ubuntu 6.10 Beta Released (Sep 29, 2006, 12:45)
  "The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the Beta Release of Ubuntu 6.10 codenamed 'Edgy Eft.'


• Blog.linuxtoday.com: In the Beginning... (Sep 29, 2006, 12:45)
  In honor of its eighth anniversary today, Linux Today has launched a new feature: our own collection of blogs, created by prominent members of the Linux and Open Source community.


• Linux.com: Google's Tesseract OCR Engine is a Quantum Leap Forward (Sep 29, 2006, 12:00)
  "The open source optical character recognition (OCR) landscape got dramatically better recently when Google released the Tesseract OCR engine as open source software..."


• Computeract!ve: Discover Linux the Safe Way (Sep 29, 2006, 11:15)
  "It seems most PC users have heard of Linux and, at the very least, the idea of open source software has piqued their curiosity..."


• And now, for something completely different (Sep 29, 2006, 10:30)
  

  Microsoft Pledges, Avoids Waxy Buildup

  So, The Boys from Redmond have now crossed their hearts, hope to die, promised not to enforce their patents on 35 web service standards. Of course, one can begin by wondering how much of a standard something can really be if there was a proprietary standard attached to it. The actual legalities of the announcement would make a lawyers eyes water, but a few folks have tried to decipher it. This does lead to the question, if Microsoft planned to make these standards available to anyone all along, why spend all the money to patent them in the first place, which would cost around $100,000 just for the filing fees. The lawyers' fees, of course, probably dwarf that by orders of magnitude.



• SubVS: Save Bandwidth and Time with apt-proxy (Sep 29, 2006, 10:30)
  "If you have more than one box to update or install software with apt on, apt-proxy can save you a lot of time (and bandwidth)..."


• nixCraft: Linux Add Ethtool Duplex Settings to a Network Card Permanently (Sep 29, 2006, 09:00)
  "I have already written about how to find and change your network interface speed (NIC), duplex or auto negotiate settings on Linux using ehttool command line options..."


• HowtoForge: MySQL Backup And Recovery With mysql-zrm On Debian Sarge (Sep 29, 2006, 07:30)
  "This guide describes how to back up and recover your MySQL databases with mysql-zrm on a Debian Sarge system..."


• LinuxDevices: Opening the Door for the Latest NAND Flash in Open Source Mobile Platforms (Sep 29, 2006, 06:00)
  "Used mainly for code storage, NOR flash was once the prevailing non-volatile memory (NVM) technology in mobile handsets..."


• OSWeekly: Linux: Making Use of Older Hardware (Sep 29, 2006, 04:30)
  "I'm a power user in some ways when it comes to software, but I've never been similarly inclined towards the hardware side of things..."


• Advisories, September 28, 2006 (Sep 29, 2006, 03:45)
  Today's security advisories: openssl (Debian GNU/Linux); OpenSSH, Opera, Mozilla Firefox, and DokuWiki (Gentoo Linux); musicbrainz, webmin, openldap, openssl, ffmpeg, gstreamer-ffmpeg, mplayer, and xine-lib (Mandriva Linux); openssl and openssh (Red Hat Linux); openssl and openssl-scripts (rPath Linux); and openssl (Ubuntu).


• OSWeekly: Is Linspire Any Good for System Builders? (Sep 29, 2006, 02:15)
  "Even though there is still a lot of frustration in regards to the CNR client, thanks to the issues that are yet to be resolved, I've begun to see a glimmer of hope..."


• CRN: The Perils Of Porting To Linux (Sep 29, 2006, 00:00)
  "For those of you waiting anxiously for the Flash Player to be ported to Linux, here's a blog post by Adobe's Mike Melanson, who is leading the project, that may encourage you to cool your jets..."