The BBC reports on the measurement of the Solar System’s largest known volcano: 27,000 metres tall, roughly three times the height of Mt. Everest.

Linux Today has an interesting story on the evolution of WINE (WINE stands for ‘Wine Is Not an Emulator’, or the ‘Windows Emulator’). The article explores such questions as ‘what effect will Microsoft investing in Corel have on WINE as Corel has invested heavily in that project’.

By Tina Gasperson
News Editor

Code forking has been a popular topic of discussion in the Open Source community recently, ever since a renegade team of Samba developers announced it was packing up its tools and forging a new programming path. Code forking happens when an Open Source development team splits up, with each group taking the code and making changes independently of the others. This is exactly what happened with the Samba project earlier in October. In case you didn’t know, Samba is an Open Source application that enables Linux and Windows NT systems to co-exist on the same network. According to Samba.org, some of the Samba development team was working on a code branch that would provide complete NT functionality.

They went out on a limb and were “using a architecture that differs considerably from the one that has been established in Samba over the last 10 years of development,” according to an open letter published on the Samba Web site and written by Andrew Tridgell, the originator of the core project.

So the team leaders “encouraged” the renegades to take their side job on the road. They did. The new project is called Samba-TNG, which stands for “The Next Generation.”

Tridgell says he is “delighted” that the split happened, and he looks forward to the innovations that the new team will be able to come up with, now that they are free of the constraints of the more established conservatism of the original Samba team.

Just the word causes panic

So, the code fork is no big deal, and things are good in Samba land. But just the mention of code fork in some circles of the Linux community is like pushing the big red panic button. Some of that fear comes from observing the splits that happened with Unix when companies made their own proprietary changes to the OS that weren’t compatible with the core code.

But under the GPL, no one can make proprietary changes to the Linux kernel. Even so, splintering of the kernel is possible, and probably wouldn’t bode well for the desired widespread commercial acceptance of the Open Source OS. And the ultimate fear is that non-compatible versions of Linux would spring up, voiding much of the inherent flexibility of the OS.

But the Linux community should consider its own history before it freaks out over the eventuality of a major code fork. Linux advocates say that the very nature of the GPL encourages the reuniting of forked projects once the branched code is finished.

Bruce Perens, president of Linux Capital Group and chairman of Progeny Linux Systems, says, “When a GPL project forks, each of the forks can take the best code from the other forks, that’s one of the features of the GPL license. Thus, GPL projects tend to re-merge after a fork. Take, for example, the split between GNU LIBC and the Linux LIBC — it went on for years while Linux stabilized, and then the forks re-merged into one project.”

But doesn’t Linux’s lack of a central authority as compared to say, BSD, encourage multiple splintering that could dilute the OS’s power in the software market? Not if you ask Perens.

“Actually, a stronger central authority might be one of the reasons that BSD forks. Linus doesn’t give developers much reason to need to walk off and start their own projects just so that they can get something done.”

So according to Perens, the structure of the BSD license is more likely to cause developer team splits because code has to be reviewed by a core group or director that sets the direction and the goals of each BSD project, whether it be BSDi, FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD. This can cause bottlenecking, leading to developer frustration and unfriendly code forks that don’t tend to reunite.

Little forking in BSD land

Not so, says Pat Lynch, senior systems and network engineer for the Open Source Development Network (which owns NewsForge). “Since Net, Free, and Open BSDs were
started, there has been little to no forking. Where there is a need, it is filled, and the community has more of a say in what goes into a kernel. The core team communicates with us, and in some cases we’ve known these people for years.

“Recently, FreeBSD elected a core team membership from amongst the developer community. If anything, it is less centralized, and not dependent upon one person [like Linux is dependent upon Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux OS]. Linus Torvalds is not a god and can make mistakes … Bruce is blinded by the zealotry that Linux evangelists generally have these days.”

But does Torvalds even claim to be the god of Linux? “Linus actually has no say over what Linux distributions do at all,” says Perens. Which could be a detriment when it comes to the perceived risk of code forking, since anyone can do whatever he wants to with the code, as long as it complies with the GPL.

But Perens says, “If other developers did not like what Linus does, they would not stick with him.”

Hold on, guys

Richard Rauch, Open Source advocate and student at the University of Kansas, takes a more neutral approach. Although BSD accuses Linux of many forks, and Linux does the same to BSD, according to Rauch, they’re both right.

“BSD has forked the kernel several times, with each fork
persevering—but has only forked the overall OS about as many times as
the kernel. Linux effectively has one kernel, but to make a complete OS
it needs a distribution, and distributions are a kind of ‘whole OS
fork’, and so the Linux operating systems can be seen as heavily,
persistently forked.”

And Rauch is all for forking. “Personally, I think that [it] is a good thing.” And he points out that Perens and Lynch both seem to feel that diversity is good. “Perens speaks
of the forks sharing the best features; Lynch speaks of cross
pollenation. And, kernels benefit from diversity as much as anything
else.

“The question then, isn’t to fork or not to fork; it is how much and what.”

Author’s note: I am available to respond to questions, comments, and criticisms. Please post your thoughts in our discussion forum –TG.

The Register reports that “S3 spin-off Frontpath, the maker of the ProGear web pad, says it
has no connection with a company producing an identical product,
but with a BeOS twist.

The mysterious Envivid has announced details of what it calls the
‘eQ ProGear’ GSM-ready wireless web appliance. The Envivid web
site describes a device apparently identical to Frontpath’s ProGear —

like ProGear, is also based on Transmeta’s Crusoe processor — the
difference being that it runs the BeOS operating system and not
Linux.”

LinuxWorld has part 3 of its Linux firewall series: “The idea is simple — let’s get some custom hardware and
software, put them into one easy-to-install ‘black box’ and write
some software to manage the beast. The end user doesn’t need
to know what OS is inside, or how to install and configure the
software.”

CNet reports that TurboLinux chairman and co-founder Cliff Miller has stepped down to create a start-up focusing
on storing other companies’ data.

Miller has taken the job as chief executive of Mountain View Data, a company that will sell storage services on Open Source InterMezzo file storage software.

The Linux Advanced Routing & Traffic Control HOWTO team announces
the creation of a mailing list dedicated to discussion of the topic of their
HOWTO. Bert Hubert, the original author of the HOWTO, stated, “We were
flooded by email with questions on how to deploy Linux in advanced routing
projects. We want our efforts to mean something to the world, and as we
are strong believers in the open source community, we decided to create a
mailing list.” The press release is at LinuxPR.

eWeek reports on the impending release of Rumor, a Napter-like peer-to-peer file sharing services for managing anti-virus updates. It’s from Network Associates Inc. subsidiary MyCIO.com.

Exabyte Asia Pacific, a
maker of network backup systems, has announced the
compatibility of its new 430 Mammoth 2 (M2) Library to Donovan System’s
server co-location solutions offering at Internet Business 2000.
This translates to quick and reliable data storage and retrieval on the Linux
server platform. The press release is at LinuxPR.

The press release is at kde.org: The KDE Team today announced the release of KDE 2.0 (named Kopernicus), KDE’s
powerful, modular, Internet-enabled desktop. “KDE 2.0 is an important release,” stated Ransom Love, president and CEO of Caldera Systems, Inc. “Our customers are anxious to
migrate not only their servers but also their desktops to the Linux technology. KDE 2.0 will be a key component of OpenLinux
eDesktop, our solution for a seamless and cost-effective transition strategy.”