LinuxUser Issue 19 – March/April 2002

Editorial
64k
It’s time for UK and other European individuals and companies to
act now or pay later, says Trevor Parsons. A strong response to the
European Commission’s proposal for a directive legalising software
patents could save us all a lot of trouble in years to come

Cover feature – Free vote 209k
Politicians may think electronic voting is the way to woo back
apathetic young technophiles, but it’s fraught with problems in
security, anonymity and auditing. Richard Hillesley looks at the
issues of e-voting from the free and open source software
perspective, and asks whether it’s really the answer

Powertools 66k
Logical Volume Manager Storage is one of the bigger challenges
confronting the transition of Linux into the corporate data centre.
LVM, the Sistina-backed GPL Logical Volume Manager, provides a
smart, powerful solution

Open personalities – Miguel, Mono and the monopoly 88k
You need a long spoon to sup with Microsoft, but Miguel de Icaza
says his Mono project, for an open source implementation of the
.NET framework, will provide a ready-made upgrade for development
on Linux

Show report – Linux World Expo, New York 94k
From the PDA to the mainframe, the first of the year’s big Linux
bashes demonstrated the unstoppable progress of the free OS. The
Linux Documentation Project’s Guylhem Aznar gives us his personal
view

All you need to know about… Linux on iSeries 75k
McDonalds, Microsoft and most banks depend on a powerful but
little-known proprietary IBM mid-range machine called the iSeries.
Weirdly enough, says Seamus Quinn, one of its major selling points
is that it now runs Linux

The Knowledge 43k
The latest Linux Training Materials Project release from the
experts at GBdirect gives you three modules for the price of none.
PLUS our directory of Linux training providers in the British
Isles

Reviews – Products and services 115k
Rated and reviewed this month: Borland’s Web Services-ready Kylix
2, Sharp’s exciting and natively GNU/Linux Zaurus PDA, a
Benchmark’s Linux-friendly ValuSmart 80 DLT drive, and a very
capable office suite from Hancom, a big player in the Asian
market

Books
60k
Martin Howse devours the latest crop of Linux-related literature,
finding the last word on security and firewalling, contrasting a
brace of books on using Red Hat Linux to network and serve, passing
judgement on a Linux and Windows interoperability guide, and
conferring instant classic status to a top tome on building
wireless networks

Free Software Matters – Eben Moglen 38k
Drafted and paid for by Disney, the proposed US laws requiring
every computer to be a ‘trusted platform’ are repugnant to human
liberty, says Eben Moglen. Thanks to alliances with substantial
players like IBM and HP the free software movement may succeed in
resisting them, but will still need to be prepared to defend itself
politically all over the world