From CNet: “Biden’s new bill would make it a federal felony to try and trick certain types of devices into playing your music or running your computer program. Breaking this law–even if it’s to share music by your own garage band–could land you in prison for up to five years. And that’s not counting the civil penalties of up to $25,000 per offense.”

LPH writes “When you were first learning Linux it was easier to get the job done by relying on the GUI. Eventually you started to explore the command line. TuxReports has a list of the top ten essential commands for new users to learn.

[ Go ]”

Moshe Bar writes “Qlusters, Inc a Linux company with offices in Israel and the U.S. has just received a sizeable 6.15 mio US$ first-round investment from Benchmark US and Israel as well as from Israel Seed, an Israeli seed money fund. Qlusters employes among others Moshe Bar, project manager of openMosix (www.openMosix.org) and senior editor at BYTE.com. Qlusters produce Linux single-system-image clustering software targetted at replacing supercomputers and mainframes.”

“Launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Wednesday in Kuala Lumpur, the computer is priced at RM1,899 and aimed primarily at low-to-mid-income home users in support of the country’s vision of becoming a knowledge-based society,” says the story at thestar.com.my. ” ‘This is the first initiative in Asia, if not the world, in which a full Linux-based desktop solution and Internet-ready computer is offered on a mass deployment model at an affordable price,’ DH Info Tech chairman Datuk Yatina Yahaya said in a statement.”

–By Grant Gross –

Chinese developers seem to like Linux, according to a recent survey by Evans Data Corp., but they seem to like most any technology that’s available.
Part of the Evans Data Corp. Chinese Developer Survey, released this month, focused on the 723 respondents’ views of Linux, and results of this first Evans survey of mainland China developers suggest that they’re more excited about Linux than their North American counterparts. For example, two-thirds of the Chinese developers say they expect to develop Linux applications within the next year, compared to 40% of North American developers recently surveyed.

But Evans analyst Esther Schindler says the Chinese developers responded positively to almost all the technologies they were asked about — with majorities saying they were planning to evaluate almost every technology put before them. The survey also asked about Web services, Java development, general Internet development and developer tools.

One explanation of that across-the-board positive mentality, Schindler says, is that the average respondent to the Chinese survey had four years of developing experience, while the average North American in the last survey had 16 years.

“I tend to that’s influencing a lot of attitudes, decisions and so forth,” Schindler says of the experience gap. “With four years of experience, you don’t know enough to say, ‘I’ve lived through all those technologies that were going to change the world and didn’t.’ You also still have enthusiasm for everything that comes around.”

Most Chinese developers are still targeting Windows 95 or 98 and using those as their main host operating systems. Chinese developers are also using older languages such as C++ and Delphi — 42% are still using Delphi, Schindler says.

Schindler’s other guess about those positive answers across the board about newer technology may be part of a cultural phenomenon, where the Chinese respondents just didn’t want to say no to anything. “Or maybe it’s like when you finally decided you’re going to sell your ancient Windows 95/98 car, and you’re looking around for alternatives, you look at every car that’s in the lot. So maybe they’re really ready to evaluate everything.”

The survey results may suggest that now is the time for overseas companies to pitch technologies such as Linux to Chinese developers. “It may be that we’re watching a turning point,” Schindler says. “It may be that there’s nobody that’s emotionally entrenched — they’re using plenty of Windows but they’re using a lot of older versions and older languages. Either that means they’re looking for something new, or they’re wishing that all those cars in the parking lot were theirs.”

Still, the survey revealed very positive attitudes about Linux in mainland China. Just over 4% say they use Linux as their primary development OS on the desktop, while just under 10% say they plan to use Linux as their primary desktop OS in the next year. Another 27% say they’re currently working on Linux applications, and 62% say they use Open Source software modules in their current work.

More than 30% of the Chinese developers say their companies are using Linux as a departmental server, and another 28% for Web servers. Twenty-six percent say their companies are using Linux for enterprise servers and 24% as a developmental OS. This seems to counter a popular North American view that Linux is only for Web servers, Schindler says. Only 33% of the Chinese respondents say their companies aren’t using Linux at all.

Just under 77% of Chinese developers say they “absolutely” or “probably” are confident in using Linux for mission-critical applications, while 58% of North American developers give the same answers. “While North Americans are confident about Linux, these guys are practically rooting for it,” Schindler says.

Even Chinese developers still using Windows give Linux high confidence scores, with more than 70% of Windows developers saying they have strong confidence in Linux. “If nothing else, this may indicate there’s not quite the divisiveness there can be in North America, which can be a good thing,” Schindler says. “It’d be nice to be talking about bits and bytes and not who’s scum-sucking.”

A second Evans Data survey of Chinese developers is planned for this winter.

–By Grant Gross –

RealNetworks announced plans to open-source some of its code in an open standards multimedia effort called Helix. That announcement set off a cascade of debate about RealNetworks and open standards, in particular, Open Source advocate Bruce Perens urging the company to take more steps toward open code.
Two days after RealNetworks’ original announcement, the company announced it was working with Xiph.org, the creator of Ogg Vorbis, to integrate the Open Source audio codec into the Helix project. So perhaps RealNetworks is real serious about this Open Source thing.

Government action

Tina Gasperson reported on Red Hat’s continuing efforts to oppose UCITA, with the Linux company urging the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws to end its support of the law. Tina also provides a good list of commissioners you can contact about UCITA.

The U.S. Department of Commerce said it will seek input from consumer groups about digital rights management proposals after a meeting with Big Hollywood and IT companies earlier this month got a little out of hand.

Weird ways to use Linux

How about using Linux to power the Big Mouth Billy Bass? But would you really want to?

Odds ‘n’ ends

Shawn Gordon, leader of theKompany.com, is suing HancomLinux for money the company apparently owes him.

Linux Weekly News announced its shutting down August 1, but avid readers continue to donate money to keep the long-running Linux news site open.

There were several reports from the Open Source Convention, including Internet lawyer Larry Lessig’s revelation that he plans to stop his advocacy speeches.

Success story of the week

The Jordan Star reported on how Linux is catching on in the Middle East, especially with oil and gas companies.

Newly released

IBM released DB2 v8.1 for Linux.

NetBSD 1.5.3 was released early this week.

Mozilla.org released the Mozilla 1.1 beta.

Newly reviewed

TuxReports checks out the Mandrake 9.0 beta release. They say it’s enjoyable to use, although a bit buggy (as is to be expected).

New at NewsForge/Linux.com

Among the other stories we reported first this week:

Robin “Roblimo” Miller shares his impression of a shareware developer conference and their impressions about Open Source.

Tina reports on the progress of efforts to open-source the Blender 3D computer animation tool.

Stock news

The Nasdaq continued its familiar downward spiral this past week, closing Friday at 1,262.12, down from 1,319.15 July 19. Our list of 11 Open Source-related stocks fared almost as badly, with only Borland, Caldera and TiVo posting gains for the week.

In business news: Reports of its death may be exaggerated, but Turbolinux announced it is reorganizing its U.S. operations after a key investor pulled out of its latest round of fund-raising.

Here’s how Open Source and related stocks ended this past week:

Company Name	Symbol	7/19 Close	7/26 Close
Apple	AAPL	14.96	14.34
Borland Software Int’l	BORL	7.58	8.05
Caldera International	CALD	1.00	1.02
Hewlett-Packard	HPQ	12.80	11.66
IBM	IBM	72.00	66.40
MandrakeSoft	4477.PA	e2.19	e2.15
Red Hat	RHAT	5.65	4.71
Sun Microsystems	SUNW	4.25	3.78
TiVo	TIVO	2.75	3.00
VA Software	LNUX	.80	.66
Wind River Systems	WIND	6.04	5.62

Anonymous Reader writes “It’s just a short mention, but maybe it’s the beginning of a thaw between KDE and GNU. In the week that was column on Linux and Main, Richard M. Stallman says he doesn’t mind the KDE League’s G-for-GNU in its “KGX” plan. Also, more on the LWN’s plight, Microsoft and Gartner, USB-2.0 in Linux-2.4.19, and the Xiph-Real-Helix plans.”

Anonymous Reader writes: “It’s just a short mention, but maybe it’s the beginning of a thaw between KDE and GNU. In the week that was column on Linux and Main, Richard M. Stallman says he doesn’t mind the KDE League’s G-for-GNU in its “KGX” plan. Also, more on the LWN’s plight, Microsoft and Gartner, USB-2.0 in Linux-2.4.19, and the Xiph-Real-Helix plans.”

Story at the inquirer says, “WHEN THE INQUIRER revealed that Sun had prepared a promotional series of “comics” for its sales people talking about so far unreleased products, we got an email from the company saying we couldn’t link to the page.”

Read more (and reader comments) at Linux Game Tome.