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Developer Linux News for May 24, 2001
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LinuxProgramming: python-dev summary 2001-05-10 - 2001-05-24 (May 24, 2001, 21:57)
"This is a summary of traffic on the python-dev mailing list
between May 10 and May 24 (inclusive) 2001. It is intended to
inform the wider Python community of ongoing developments."
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Borland Drops the Price on Kylix Desktop Developer (May 24, 2001, 20:44)
Borland is running a promotion on the Kylix Desktop Developer
edition that drops the price pretty substantially: from $999 to
$199.
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CNET News.com: Companies fight over CD listings, leaving the public behind
(May 24, 2001, 20:06)
More on the Gracenote/Roxio lawsuit regarding the use of the
CDDB database, which Gracenote owns. For those just joining the
story, the issue with Gracenote's ownership of a database populated
over the years by vounteers. Gracenote is currently involved in a
lawsuit with Roxio over the latter's use of other online databases.
This article gets into some background detail, including the
Electronic Frontier Foundation's involvement and the fact
Gracenot's suit could prevent other developers from moving to open
source alternatives.
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Alan Cox: Linux 2.4.4-ac16 (May 24, 2001, 19:14)
"This merges some of the pending changes. In terms of going
through the code audit almost all the sound drivers still need
fixing to lock against format changes during a read/write. Poll
creating and starting a buffer as write does and also mmap during
write, write during an mmap."
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LinuxProgramming: KGesture: A KDE Gesture Recognition Project (May 24, 2001, 18:30)
This is an interesting project: it brings gesture recognition to
the K desktop. Initially we hoped that meant we could flap our
hands around in front of the monitor to launch apps, but even if
this is less cool than that, it's still cool.
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Question of the Day: Automatically Setting Downloaded Executables +x? (May 24, 2001, 16:14)
A few days ago Miguel de Icaza posed an interesting question on
Nautilus-list centered around downloading executables from the net,
which often don't have their execute bit set: "I would like to
suggest that we set this bit manually if the user double clicks on
a file that happens to have an a.out or ELF signature. Maybe we
could popup a warning or something, but the result should be that
files downloaded in this way would just work."
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BULMA: Ext2, ReiserFS and XFS Benchmarks (May 24, 2001, 14:45)
This set of benchmarks finds that there's no clear winner in
every category, but maintains that with the added value of
journaling thrown in, all provide a better "value" than ext2.
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Software Development Online: Is Open Source for You? (May 24, 2001, 13:33)
This is a reasonable introduction to open source software from
someone who characterizes himself as a realist on the matter. There
are a few mild swipes at "the zealots" but for the most part he's
friendly to open source software, uses open source software, and
offers a set of interesting guidelines for when it's good to go
open source and when it's not.
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GNU Project Adds a GPL FAQ (May 24, 2001, 05:27)
The GNU Project has created a GPL FAQ that explains a host of
issues including some dealing with license compatibility, how to
apply the GPL to a given program, how GPL'd code interacts with
proprietary software, and whether it's possible to create
proprietary software with GPL'd tools (which gets asked more than
you'd think.)
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LinuxPlanet: .comment: If Not Now, When? (May 24, 2001, 04:29)
Dennis E. Powell also takes exception to the notion that it's
time write the Linux desktop's obituary. On the other hand, he
offers up some points for why things aren't moving so fast:
resistance to proprietary hardware support, and resistance to
for-pay software among them. This week Dennis reminds us that the
best technical solution doesn't always win, and the real task ahead
for convincing people to make the switch to a Linux desktop lies in
providing a truly compelling reason.
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