A Slashdot reader points out the finer points of the GPL in this (slightly aged) article by Eben Moglen, FSF attorney. (If it’s slashdotted, use the Google cache.)

“A web log entry from Matthew Thomas inspired me to write up some speculation about GNOME and the problem of creating a
good user interface in a free software environment. ” An entry at Advogato.org.

EHS 0.6, KBerichtsheft 0.3, MusE 0.5.2, KGamma 0.2.3, KShowmail 3.0.0, KountDown 0.3, KLCC 2.0.1, KLCC Applet 0.2.1, Acidic Designs 3D Wallpapers 1.0, KSambaKonqiPlugin 0.1a, Video Thumbnails 0.1. More at LinuxToday.com.

Gnome-games 1.91.0. More at LinuxToday.com.

Guikachu 1.1.7, Gnome Media Media Related Utilities Package 1.520.2, gdk-pixpuf 0.17.0, Pan 0.11.3. At LinuxToday.com.

“Two years ago, my wife Carol and I decided that our children’s education would not be complete without some grounding in
modern computers. To this end, we bought our children a brand new Compaq to learn with. The kids had a lot of fun using the
handful of application programs we’d bought, such as Adobe’s Photoshop and Microsoft’s Word, and my wife and I were
pleased that our gift was received so well. Our son Peter was most entranced by the device, and became quite a pro at
surfing the net. When Peter began to spend whole days on the machine, I became concerned, but Carol advised me to calm
down, and that it was only a passing phase. I was content to bow to her experience as a mother, until our youngest daughter,
Cindy, charged into the living room one night to blurt out: “Peter is a computer hacker!” More at Adequacy.org.

“Earlier this month, two prominent members of the open-source-software community, Jeff Gerhardt, host of the online “Linux Show,” and Doc
Searls, senior editor of The Linux Journal, announced the formation of a sorely needed new lobbying group they’ve dubbed GeekPAC.

The group’s organizing manifesto has been posted online for public comment. Its opening pages masterfully detail the interrelated technical
and business issues that are helping to hobble the high-tech economy.

Ticking them off one by one, it lists the top 13 obstacles facing the high-tech community, and explains how in each area, narrow corporate
interests are using the federal government to erect roadblocks that are slowing down the pace of innovation and economic growth. The
primary goal of all these efforts, they note, is to preserve the profit streams of a handful of big media companies, even if it means stopping
technological progress dead in its tracks. ” More at sfgate.com.

– By Robin “Roblimo” Miller –
Our webmaster@linux.com and editors@linux.com email addresses are now getting close to 100 emails daily containing the latest Klez worm. Windows users worried about this latest infection need to know that it doesn’t bother Linux computers at all. That’s a darn good reason to drop Windows and take up Linux. Yes, when you switch to Linux you’ll need to learn to use different software, but in return you’ll become immune to all popular worms and viruses. And then there’s OpenOffice. Last week I had a minor epiphany about this fine software package and its relationship with Microsoft Office that I’ll share with you toward the end of this article.
Viruses and worms are getting nastier

A few years ago, you Windows users had to click on email file attachments to get a virus or worm infection. Now Klez (they tell me) can mess you up whenever you just preview an attachment containing it, and the latest Klez version doesn’t send itself to (and irritate) only the people whose email addresses are in your Outlook address folders, but any email address that appears in any file on your hard drive. An awful lot of you Windows-plus-Klez users seem to have downloaded Linux.com pages, and that’s why Linux.com gets so many virus-ridden emails from you. Hopefully, you’re looking at Linux.com because you’re thinking about getting and using Linux. This is the only reason I don’t get upset about the virus email invasion, but laugh at it.

I especially enjoy the Klez emails that claim to contain a cure for Klez. It must be a hoot to find out, the hard way, that those emails are actually the virus. Of course, if Klez is emailing your personal files all over the world (which is what it seems to do), it might not seem so funny to you at the time.

You can now get anti-Klez patches from most major anti-virus companies. And then a new virus or worm will come along, possibly even another Klez variant, that will bypass this latest round of virus protection, and the whole cycle will start over again. Actually, it would be more accurate to say, “the cycle will continue,” because I still see Sircam and other “old” viruses coming in. The chain of Windows viruses never seems to end. Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP; all are affected by almost all of them, so upgrading to the latest Windows version doesn’t help. And whenever you reinstall Windows, you need to remember to reinstall (and re-update) your virus software — and the next virus or virus variant will probably break through whatever protection you have, anyway, and there you go again.

C’mon, Windows people. Break the pattern. Get off the virus treadmill. Take the time to learn Linux. Start with this article and go from there. You may find that some features available in Windows are not available in Linux, but you will also find things you can do in Linux that you couldn’t do in Windows. But since one of the biggest Windows “features” you will give up by switching to Linux is easily-spread viruses and worms, the change will be good for you in the long run. Really. Trust me. I made the jump years ago and have never regretted it.

OpenOffice vs. Microsoft Office

The other day I got some essential forms from a colleague in .sxw format. (They were email attachments, but because I use Linux I opened them without fear.) This format is zipped XML, a totally open standard, and it’s the way StarOffice and OpenOffice store files. I opened the forms, filled in the necessary blanks, and passed them on to another colleague who was supposed to add more information to them.

The third person said he couldn’t open the files; that they weren’t in Word .doc format, and MS Office was all he had around for doing the kind of collaborative work we were doing.

The person who originally sent me the forms emailed the Microsoft user and told him he should download and install OpenOffice; that it was free, and quite a nice program, and would read .sxw files just fine. So #3 downloaded and installed OpenOffice on his (Windows) computer at work, and was amazed at how easy it was to use and at all it could do. He also marveled at the fact that it was free. That evening he installed it on his wife’s computer, his teenage son’s computer, and on his personal laptop. He had been using Microsoft Office at work, and had thought about buying a copy for use at home, but his budget wouldn’t stretch that far.

The most amusing part of all this, as #3 pointed out, was that Microsoft Office, which costs hundreds of dollars, couldn’t open, read, modify or save OpenOffice files, while (free) OpenOffice did a fine job of opening, reading, changing, and saving Microsoft Office files.

So which program is a better value: Microsoft Office or OpenOffice?

We’ll let you answer that question yourself. #3 already answered it to his own satisfaction. Now that he’s discovered OpenOffice as an alternative to Microsoft Office, and he, his wife and his son have started using it instead of the Microsoft Works software that came bundled with their home computers, and like it much better than Works, he’s talking about moving to Linux instead of upgrading the home computers, all of which now run Windows 98, to Windows XP. The only problem with a move to Linux is his wife’s and son’s AOL email addresses. They’ve had those email addresses for a number of years, and have given them out to all their relatives and friends, and they worry about changing to different email addresses. But now it looks like the AOL barrier to Linux adoption (and it’s a major one to millions of people) is starting to fall.

Meanwhile, Windows viruses keep coming, one after another, and the hardware power required to use the latest version of Windows continues to rise. Slowly, calmly, without any great fuss, we are moving toward the day when ordinary, non-technical computer users ask friends, “Why are you using Windows instead of Linux?” instead of today’s more common, “Why do you use Linux instead of Windows?”

That day can’t come too soon for me. While Windows viruses can’t hurt my Linux computer, I get tired of deleting them, and when I’m on a dialup modem they take an awfully long time to download.

On the office software front, it gets old, this constant need to resave work in .doc format instead of just shooting it off as .sxw. Even committed Microsoft-lovers should realize that if I ask them to install free OpenOffice in the name of collaboration, it’s much more reasonable than asking me to spend hundreds of dollars on Windows and Microsoft Office to achieve the same goal.

Anonymous Reader writes, “Attorney Cathy Raymond has parsed the CBDTPA at Linuxandmain.com and noticed that in addition to its many other faults, it doesn’t make much sense even if the goal were admirable, which it isn’t.”

– By Grant Gross –

It was an interesting week for Hewlett-Packard in the Open Source realm. The company announced it was building a $24.5 million Linux supercomputer for the U.S. Department of Energy, then caught some flak for what appeared to be an in-house anti-Linux ad. Also, this week, NewsForge/Linux.com has a Linux gaming theme, and the AbiWord word-processing program celebrates its 1.0 release.
Back to HP. It turns out an ad encouraging Linux users to be rebels and switch to Windows XP was commissioned by an HP reseller, not the company itself. HP officials say they are taking steps to make sure an ad contrary to the company’s multi-OS strategy won’t happen again.

Gaming week: Loki redux and moving on

Our own Tina Gasperson looks at the human toll of the bankruptcy of Loki Software, which was porting Windows games to Linux. It’s an interesting story from the perspective of the former employees vs. founder Scott Draeker. The comments are interesting, too, including one from Draeker himself.

In light of Loki’s failure, our own Norbert Cartagena provides a nice introduction to creating 3D Linux games. Norbert offers a great list of tools you can use to get started making games for Linux.

Also, Peter Gebauer interviews the authors of two popular Linux games, EgoBoo and FreeCraft, and asks for advice on how to create Linux games.

In other news …

No pro Hancom Office: LinuxandMain reported that version 2.0 of Hancom Office Professional has been scrapped, with little explanation of why that version of the office suite for Linux wouldn’t ship.

IBM presses patent: An IBM patent claim on the ebXML set of definitions for electronic transactions and business collaboration is raising concerns from United Nations members who expected the Internet standard to be royalty-free.

Kernel maintainer deported: Marcelo Tosatti, the Linux 2.4 kernel maintainer, was deported by the United States because of a visa mix-up.

Newly released

Version 1.0 of the AbiWord word processor hit the download sites late this week.

Mozilla 1.0 RC-1 was made available for download.

Vine Linux 2.5 was released during the week.

Newly reviewed

An eWeek review says Apache 2.0 beats Microsoft’s IIS server at its “own game.”

iMacLinux.net takes a look at Gentoo Linux for the PPC.

LinuxPlanet checks out the SuSE Linux 8.0 beta and is impressed.

The Register looks at CrossOver Office for Linux and gives it a mixed review.

New at NewsForge/Linux.com

Among the other stories we reported first this week:

There were a couple of interesting guest commentaries on marketing Linux and Free Software. First, Jesse Smith suggests a personal, non-techie approach to people who don’t really care about the politics of choosing an operating system. Then, Henrik Nilsen Omma wrote about his idea of a Free Software CD, offering Windows versions of programs like AbiWord and Mozilla to the uninitiated first, then slowly switching them over to an Open Source operating system. Both ideas drew lots of comments.

Also getting lots of comments and debate was Jenn Vesperman’s article on the purposes of programming languages.

And Gasperson has found a way to run AOL on Linux, at least parts of the popular ISP software, using TransGaming’s WineX.

Stock news

The Nasdaq ended the week at 1,796.83, up more than 40 from the April 12 close of 1,756.19. Among our list of Open Source-related stocks, only three were down, and only Wind River Systems suffered a loss of more than a couple of cents.

TiVO, the Linux-based television recorder, announced TiVo Series2, which the company touted as easier to install. Its stock edged up 4 cents for the week.

IBM reported an earnings drop of 31% for the quarter, but its stock rebounded following a report last week of an SEC investigation that was quickly dropped. IBM gained $3.40 a share for the week.

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

Company Name	Symbol	4/12 Close	4/19 Close
Apple	AAPL	25.06	24.98
Borland Software Int’l	BORL	12.27	12.21
Caldera International	CALD	1.03	1.17
Hewlett-Packard	HWP	17.80	18.69
IBM	IBM	85.60	89.00
MandrakeSoft	4477.PA	e2.65	e2.85
Red Hat	RHAT	5.10	5.18
Sun Microsystems	SUNW	7.97	9.15
TiVo	TIVO	4.91	4.95
VA Software	LNUX	1.25	1.44
Wind River Systems	WIND	12.64	12.13