– By Grant Gross –

Version 1.0 of the Open Source Mozilla browser suite was released earlier this month and has gotten generally positive reviews from tech news sites and even mainstream outlets like CNN.com and WashingtonPost.com. Project leader Mitchell Baker says she’s been happy with the positive reviews, given that the Mozilla team aimed the release more at developers than end users.
Three weeks after the 1.0 release, we thought it was a good time to check in with Baker and the Mozilla team.

NewsForge: How many downloads of Mozilla has there been since the 1.0 release? Have those numbers been a surprise either way?

Baker: There have been over 500,000 downloads from the mozilla.org servers. We don’t track downloads from mirror sites, so we don’t have a total
figure. This amount is in line with expectations form our site.

NewsForge: What kind of reaction have you heard from developers and users?

Baker: We’ve had an excellent response. Press reports have been good,
developer response has been excited and users have been happy with the
quality of Mozilla 1.0. This has been most gratifying.

NewsForge: While you’ve said 1.0 is a release primarily for developers, it’s
generally gotten good user-level reviews as well. What did you think
of the reviews that said Mozilla should provide IE good competition?

Baker: We are extremely pleased that the user experience of Mozilla 1.0 is so
good, and is recognized as such. There is no doubt that Mozilla 1.0 is
a good technical alternative to other browser and mail/news clients.
Good, or even great, technology will not solve all the problems of the
existing desktop monopoly, but it is a necessary prerequisite.

NewsForge: Although the reviews generally like Mozilla as a consumer-ready
product, when do you see it becoming a mass-consumer product?

Baker: Mozilla will become a mass consumer product as companies and projects
use Mozilla in their products. This may be in products that are desktop
browsers, like those from Netscape, Galeon, CompuServe and Red Hat. Or
it may be as Mozilla is used in other types of applications such as
interactive TV, hand-held devices, etc.

NewsForge: What are the big issues for Mozilla going forward? What would you
like to improve or change?

Baker: Going forward we will be maintaining a long-term, stable branch — the
Mozilla 1.0 branch. This will be new for us, and will undoubtedly lead
to some new practices.

On the trunk where new development occurs, we expect a continued focus on
embedding Mozilla into other applications. This will mean looking at
how the various components in Mozilla interact with each other and which
we want to make stand-alone.

Now that the basic application suite has reached the 1.0 status, we may
see a spurt of new innovations.

As for improvements, we continue to suffer from inadequate documentation.
Recently-created embedding documents are plugging a massive hole, but
we continue to need more and better documentation. I would also like to
revamp the web site, it should be far more useful than it is.

NewsForge: What’s next for the team in general?

Baker: Not too much will change. We’ll have new topics, such as those
discussed above. But the work of those who contribute to the project
remains quite similar.

NewsForge: We’ve had reports of AOL switching to the Gecko engine for its new
releases, but the latest report has a developer version of AOL 8.0
going out with IE. Can you shed any light on what’s happening there?

Baker: I’m afraid not; only AOL can speak to this.

“Marc-Christian Petersen originated the WOLK project in March of 2002. WOLK is the Working Overloaded Linux Kernel, a large set of nearly 450 useful
patches applied against the current stable 2.4 Linux kernel tree. The project has recently expanded to offer a second ‘secure’ patchset, this one
against the older stable 2.2 tree.”

From Linux and Main:
“Once things are done a certain way, headed in a certain direction, it’s really tough to alter them. That’s what keeps Windows on millions of machines
whose owners hate that operating system. And it’s what keeps KDE on my desktop, at least for the moment.”

Rajesh Goyal writes “LinuxCertified, Inc., a leading provider of Linux training, will start offering the latest class in its portfolio, the Linux/UNIX System and Network security Bootcamp, on June 29 – 30, 2002 in San Francisco bay area (south bay). This workshop has been designed for system, network or application administrators responsible for providing key network services on Linux servers.

As networked IT services become more invaluable, organizations of all sizes must face the growing challenge of ensuring security of these services.Security of network services faces threats from a variety of potential assailants, some with significant knowledge of the target as in the case of former and current employees, as well as uninformed yet equally dangerous cracker individuals and organizations.

This class enables the administrators to scan their network to
identify these vulnerabilities, and provides them tools to build secure systems and network.The curriculum comprises all dimensions of security issues in a complex network of servers offering various services. Some of the topics include operating system hardening techniques, application based exploits, firewalls, network hardening, and security-conscious network topology design. The class will also cover securing the most important internet services such as Web, DNS, Mail, DHCP and File serving. After this class attendees will be well versed with the common methods used by crackers against systems and networks, and methods to block them out.

The overall objective of the class is to build a secure network of servers for mission-critical production environments. Instruction is provided in a highly hands-on fashion, with labs customized to mirror the needs of modern data centers.

Students get a powerful Linux laptop at the start of the class, along with other class materials. Their goal is to secure networking services on this system, as well as to create a tool to analyze the security of rest of their network.

A detailed agenda for the bootcamp is available at:
http://www.linuxcertified.com/security_description.hml

About LinuxCertified.com

The mission of LinuxCertified.com is to bring Linux to mainstream IT usage.
We firmly believe that Linux has an enormous potential, once it crosses over from the early adopters to the more mainstream users. Our goal is to help this transition by providing:

– Linux trained and certified professionals
– Linux certified products that cater to mainstream users rather than early adopters.

Contact:
info@linuxcertified.com
http://www.linuxcertified.com/
1-408-314-6700

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All other names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.”

PCLinuxOnline.com is running a story in response to a previous article regarding GNOME (Why I don’t like GNOME). In this article, the author defends GNOME against a number of accusations and complaints brought up in that article, as well as in the past.

Enterprise Linux Today reports that “After two years of development, a 1.0 preliminary release candidate for GNU Bayonne has emerged from the GNU project under sponsorship by the Free Software Foundation and OST. GNU Bayonne is a freely licensed telephony server allowing small businesses, large enterprises, and commercial telephone carriers to create, deploy, and manage embedded, stand-alone, and web integrated telephony voice response solutions in capacity ranging from a single analog circuit to multiple PRI spans.”

LinuxToday.com has the announcment: “The GNOME Foundation today released version 2.0 of the GNOME Desktop and Developer Platform at the Ottawa Linux Symposium. With the inclusion of GNOME 2.0 by leading Linux and Unix vendors later this year, users of GNOME can look forward to an improved user environment for existing GNOME applications, including a faster and more powerful Nautilus file manager, features that are better organized and usability-tested, dozens of useful utilities, applications and even games. Users and administrators will also see a new, simplified configuration system.”

Linktivity, a division of SpartaCom Technologies Inc., today announced the Red Hat Linux version of its versatile WebDemo 2.0 software. The new version will extend real-time, Web-based conferencing and collaboration capabilities to Linux servers, allowing users to host online meetings while taking advantage of Red Hat’s powerful Linux environment.
“The Red Hat Linux operating system is one of the best in the industry. With WebDemo now supporting the system, companies will have the power to host meetings in real-time while having full access to the many other user benefits of Red Hat Linux,” said Scott S. Moule, Linktivity’s chief executive officer. “The ability to conference and collaborate via the Internet has become a new way of communicating for many companies. With the release of WebDemo on Red Hat Linux, we’re opening the door for online collaboration capabilities for Linux customers.”

“Red Hat is pleased that Linktivity has chosen to support Red Hat Linux for its conferencing and collaboration technologies,” said Mike Evans, Red Hat Vice President of Business Development. “The availability of applications like WebDemo 2.0 server software continue to reinforce that enterprises can have the applications that they need to run their businesses, while taking advantage of the performance and cost advantages of Red Hat Linux.”

WebDemo 2.0 enables businesses seeking online conferencing and e-support services to collaborate using only an Internet browser and Web connection. The system includes electronic white boarding, co-browsing and other features designed to improve communication between remote users in real-time.

The powerful features of the new Red Hat Linux-based version include:

·

• Desktop and Application Sharing and Broadcast – Allows the presenter to display and collaborate any application on any desktop.
• Voice and Keyboard Chat – Allows participants to conduct voice and keyboard chatting and interaction through their browser. ·
• File Broadcast – Allows the presenter of a WebDemo session to broadcast files to any or all attendees. As a result, files of any type can be distributed quickly to all meeting participants.
• Record and Playback – Web sessions can be saved and archived, enabling participants to re-play a session or make it available to absentees. The new feature will allow the host to record any component of the session, including, Viewport, voice, or keyboard chat.
• Microsoft Outlook Integration – Allows a meeting to be scheduled in Outlook from an email produced by WebDemo. Sent by the meeting presenter, sessions are automatically scheduled and updated on the attendees Outlook calendar. The new integration feature also enables names and email addresses to be imported from Outlook or Outlook Express address books to the WebDemo address book.
• True Color Representation – Now true color representation is selectable between 256 colors, High Color (16-bit), and True Color 24-bit) for added enhancement to the Viewport. This is an excellent feature for advertising and marketing professionals who place a premium on the creative component of their presentations. Presentations immediately gain more clarity and accuracy with the color added feature.

WebDemo 2.0 on Red Hat Linux is available immediately. For more information, call 800-809-1245 or visit www.linktivity.com to take a guided tour of WebDemo.

About Linktivity
Linktivity, a division of SpartaCom Technologies Inc., provides server-based communications and control products that enable person-to-person interactions through a browser window. Linktivity products include WebDemo, a Web-based, real-time conferencing-and-collaboration software tool, and WebInteractive, a real-time software tool that gives support professionals an efficient way to manage and resolve online support requirements for personal computers. For more information, visit www.linktivity.com.

MSNBC claims it’s a dead OS, at least on the desktop. “And as Linux proponents continue to try to enlist desktop PC users, Microsoft is busy reinventing that desktop. With sales of new PCs in their worst slump in decades, Microsoft is hoping to reboot Windows sales by leading the charge toward the Tablet PC — a sort of PDA on steroids.” (What does the MS is MSNBC stand for, again?)

Anonymous Reader writes: “ExtremeTech reports that a two-year-old whitepaper authored by AMD and encryption firm Wave Systems may offer additional clues to the design of PCs incorporating Palladium, Microsoft’s new security initiative. In August 2000, Wave and AMD authored a whitepaper on how the EMBASSY verification system could be integrated into an Athlon motherboard that a Wave executive said is now entering field trials overseas.”