Posted at LWN.net: SmoothWall Project have released fixes 8 which provides major upgrades to
Apache, OpenSSL, OpenSSH and applies counter controls to theoretical exploits
which potentially could affect many Linux based distros. So before Mandrake
and SuSE alert their users we thought we’d take the upper hand.

SmoothWall users should be “auto updated” in the front end of the
webmanagement interface but all users should update using the update engine
built into SmoothWall.

From PRNewswire: A new company is taking security to new
places. Easy Protect Inc., a start-up providing digital video recording
systems, today introduced at ISC-West an affordable, technologically advanced
security system called Sentry24 that gives customers remote access via the
Internet or a wireless PDA. Consumer pricing for the Sentry24 Internet
digital video recording system, available immediately, starts as low as
$2,500.
“Wireless access for customers via a PDA takes remote access off the
desktop and puts it in the palm of your hand,” said Young Yi, president of
Dallas-based Easy Protect. “This capability, combined with the other
technological achievements developed by Easy Protect, makes the Sentry24 a
revolutionary addition to the security industry. And the cost makes it
affordable for almost anyone.”

DocTomoe writes, “Let’s face it, FTP servers are insecure by nature. The plain FTP protocol does not include any encryption for passwords. iMacLinux has a guide that will show you through the steps to set up a virtual FTP server. This won’t prevent FTP passwords from being sniffed, but it will greatly reduce the impact of a stolen password on the rest of the server.”

Anonymous Reader writes, “Ampro Computers Inc. has unveiled the latest member of its 100 x 145 mm single-board computer family, this one based on Motorola’s 300MHz MPC8245 PowerPC processor. The family now encompasses three popular microprocessor architectures: PowerPC, MIPS, and x86. “There are two things that combine to make this work,” said Paul Rosenfeld, Ampro VP. “One is PCI, and the other is Linux.” Read more at LinuxDevices.com.“

IDG News Service reports that while MySQL and Progress Software failed to come to the out-of-court settlement the judge urged in their lawsuit, the companies are continuing to try to reach a settlement.

jeff Gerhardt writes, Tuesday, March 5th, 2002 from the home of Wayne’s World, Aurora IL, tonight LIVE on
www.thelinuxshow.com at 6pm pt, 7pm mt, 8pm ct, and 9pm et…. Kevin Hill, Jeff Gerhardt, PJ Hyett, Doc Searls (Linux Journal), Arne Flones and Russ Pavlicek; have another great show lined up tonight on The Linux Show!!

In Segment One – Hot News: We will be covering the hot Linux news of
the last few weeks. In particular we will discuss MSNBC crossing the line as a political “PR hack” for Microsoft and publishing anti-Linux articles under the “news” heading. We have invited a representative from MSNBC or Newsweek to join us.

In Segment Two- Miguel de Icaza: on Mono and GNOME

There was a great deal of controversy at the opening of february over the announced plan to include “.net” like technolog into GNOME. Richard M Stallman even got into the act demanding an explaination. This started no end of grief for GNOME maintainer Miguel de Icaza. As it turned out it was more a story about language than substance. So, tonight we are going to let Miguel talk about Mono and get deep into the substance of Mono and how it relates to GNOME.

What is Mono?

• Mono is an implementation of three pieces of technology:
  • A compiler for a new programming language, similar to Java, called C#.
  • A virtual machine for the Common Intermediate Language (CIL) byte codes.
  • A set of libraries that encapsulate useful routines and classes: from hash tables, to XML manipulation, to database management, to GUI applications, to web
    construction tools.
• Where did the problems (controversies) come from?
  • These three technologies are usually referred in the Microsoft world as the `.NET Framework’ as opposed to .NET. When `.NET Framework’ is refered to here, we will be discussing these “MONO” technologies.
• SO, join us and learn the technological perspective of Mono

Please join us on the show, check our IRC Chat(irc.thelinuxshow.com #linuxshow).

Remember tune in at 6pm pt, 7pm mt, 8pm ct, and 9pm et.

Catch the Linux show at www.thelinuxshow.com

Little-Fat-Sheep writes, “Lots of talk on Slashdot and elsewhere lately about the future of Operating Systems being massively distributed. Well, the technology exists for years now in the two operating systems offered by Vita Nuova: Plan9 and Inferno. OSNews features today an interview with Vita Nuova’s CEO, Michael Jeffrey.”

The French Governement sent
on Friday, March 1st a vigourous letter to the European Commission in
which it complains about the proposed directive on so-called “computer
implemented inventions”.

According to the French Governement, the proposed directive on
computer implemented inventions “would open the realm of patentability
to all software and eventually business methods” because the
“directive claims in the explanatory memorandum that all programs when
run in a computer are by definition technical”.

Also, “The French Government considers that the proposed directive
does not provide adequate answers on the economic, scientific and
cultural impact of the software economy as well on the requirement of
promoting innovation which was defined as a priority in the e.Europe
action plan.”

The letter concludes that “The French Governement intends to block any
project which consequences would be negative in Europe in the field of
innovation, interoperability and open source / free software, as well
as on all actors (publishers, integrators, users), and in particular
on SMEs.”

Anne Østergaard, spokesperson for EuroLinux and member of SSLUG in
Denmark, considers that “obviously, the French Government did read the
proposed directive and does understand that this text solves nothing
in terms of interoperability, innovation, competition, SMEs and open
source / software. They are perfectly aware that the proposed
directive extends the patent system in Europe to all software and
business methods, just as it is the case in the United-States, and
they are aware of the negative economic consequences of this
extension. They also fully understand that the European Commission is
trying to mislead e.Europe by hiding economic studies that do not
support their views or even by simply lying on the consequences of the
proposed text on the patentability of business methods or on
interoperability.”

EuroLinux welcomes the French move. EuroLinux wishes more European
Governement to take similar positions and require the European
Commission to achieve a proper economic impact assessement, to take
into consideration budget issues, take into consideration national
official economic reports (France, Germany, UK, Netherland, etc.) and
to work for the European Citizens rather than for the BSA.

Rough English Translation of the Letter Sent by the French Government:

Dear Sir,

During the Council of Internal Market on March 1st 2002, the European
Commission will introduce its proposal of directive on computer
implemented inventions. Because the impact of software patentability
goes far beyond mere technical issues, I must explain hereby the
position of French government.

Rules as they are defined by the European Patent Convention (EPC) have
excluded programmes for computers “as such” from the list of patentable
inventions. However, the practice of the European Patent Office (EPO)
has slightly evolved in the last few years and has granted many patents
in the field of software. Thanks to an initiative lead by France
together with other EU nations, the Diplomatic Conference in charge of
the revision of the EPC, which was held in November 2000 in Munich,
decided not to change the provisions of the Convention in this field,
and proposed that a clear European Community position should be
defined, based on a detailed analysis of its economical, technical and
juridical consequences.

The European Commission lauched various studies and a consultation in
the last quarter of 2000. However, the proposed directive does not
highlight the risks of a juridical validation of the EPC practice in
the Members States of the Union in comparison with its eventual
advantages. Various reports and studies launched by Member States have
in fact drawn very cautious conclusions regarding such an evolution.

In this context, it appears that the proposed directive does not
provide any kind of precision on the limits and requirements for
patentability but, on the countrary, claims in the explanatory
memorandum that “all programs when run in a computer are by definition
technical” (p. 7). This would open the realm of patentability to all
software and eventually business methods. However, it clearly appeared
both in France as well as at the EPO that such an extension would be
rejected by the vast majority.

Also, the provisions for future revisions defined at Article 8 do not
allow to assess the impact of the evolution of the juridical protection
of inventions implemented by computer programmes on competition and
innovation before 3 years after the adoption of the text. France
considers that it is a requirement before any discussion within the
Council to provide a review of the protection of inventions implemented
by computer programmes resulting from the EPO practice and in the
Member States.

The French Government considers that the proposed directive does not
provide adequate answers on the economic, scientific and cultural
impact of the software economy as well on the requirement of promoting
innovation which was defined as a priority in the “e.Europe” action
plan.

The French Governement intends to block any project which consequences
would be negative in Europe in the field of innovation,
interoperability and open source / free software, as well as on all
actors (publishers, integrators, users), and in particular on SMEs.

Considering this, the French Government is not in favour of the
proposed directive, which does not seem to be able to provide a clear
and adequate position on this major topic in terms of innovation for
now and for the future.

Yours Sincerely,

C Pierret

References

[0] Original Press Release of the French Government
http://www.telecom.gouv.fr/dp/brevetlogiciel.pdf

[1] FFII Analysis of the Directive
http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/eubsa-swpat0202/

[2] European Software Patent Horror Gallery
http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/mupli/index.en.html

[3] What is behind the recent surge in patenting? Samuel Kortum, Josh
Lerner. Research Policy 28. 1999. Elesevier

[4] Abstraction oriented property of software and its relation to
patentability. Tetsuo Tamai. Information and Software Technology.
1998. Elsevier.

[5] Juridical Coup at the European Patent Office
http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr14.html

[6] Software Patentability with Compensatory Regulation: a Cost
Evaluation. Jean Paul Smets and Hartmut Pilch. Upgrade February 2002
http://swpat.ffii.org/stidi/pleji/
http://www.upgrade-cepis.org/issues/2001/6/up2-6Smets.pdf

[7] Fraunhofer Study about the Economic Effects of Software Patents.
Micro and Macroeconomic Implications of the Patentability of Software
Innovations. German Federal Ministry Economics and Technology.
November 2001.

http://www.bmwi.de/Homepage/Politikfelder/Technologiepolitik/Technologiepolitik.jsp#softwarepatentstudie
http://www.bmwi.de/Homepage/download/technologie/Softwarepatentstudie_E.pdf

[8] Stimulating competition and innovation in the information society.
Conseil Général des Mines. September 2000.
http://www.pro-innovation.org

[9] Collusion Discovered between BSA and European Commission
http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr18.html

About EuroLinux – www.EuroLinux.org

The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
based on Open Standards, Open Competition, Linux and Open Source
Software. Companies, members or supporters of EuroLinux develop or
sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for
operating systems such as Linux, MacOS or Windows.

The EuroLinux Alliance launched on 2000-06-15 an electronic petition
to protect software innovation in Europe. The EuroLinux petition has
received so far massive support from more than 100.000 European
citizens, 2000 corporate managers and 300 companies.

Press Contacts

France & Europe: Jean-Paul Smets jp@smets.com +33-6 62 05 76 14
Germany & Europe: Hartmut Pilch phm@ffii.org +49-89 127 89 608
Denmark and Northern Europe: Anne Østergaard aoe@sslug.dk
Belgium: Nicolas Pettiaux nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org
Netherlands: Luuk van Dijk lvd@mndmttr.nl

Permanent URL for this PR

http://petition.EuroLinux.org/pr/pr19.html

Legalese

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All other trademarks and copyrights are owned by their respective
companies.

Derek Neighbors writes: Double Choco Latte (DCL),
a work order and help desk management system, today announced that it
will be merging into GNU Enterprise (GNUe), a GNU Package. These two
projects give individual and corporate users software freedom for
enterprise applications through the GNU General Public License, which
grants and defends users’ freedoms to copy, share, modify, and
redistribute software.

“DCL has always had a vision of creating an integrated set of
applications,” said Michael Dean, Lead Developer of Double Choco
Latte, “The merging of these two projects will accelerate the process
of making that vision a reality. Additionally, the GNUe tools will
provide a very robust and customizable framework on which to build,
integrate, and extend DCL in ways that would have required
significantly more development effort. GNUe and DCL together will help
create solutions that meet the requirements of an organization’s ERP
or CRM needs.”

By putting DCL under the GNUe umbrella, additional resources will be
immediately devoted to it. DCL and its existing PHP interfaces will
quickly be available under the GNUe Application Framework. DCL will be
better modularized. Stronger customer management and billing/invoicing
by project/work order will be the first of many new features. DCL will
become the project management package of GNUe and will use GNUe
modules for many of its components.

“From my first experience with DCL I had a feeling that there was a
lot to be gained by combining our projects,” said Derek Neighbors,
co-maintainer of GNU Enterprise,”and after many late nights with the
DCL team, we all realized it just makes sense to work together. The
DCL team was filling a lot of gaps in the GNUe vision that we just
hadn’t had the time to focus on, and we were able to offer a lot of
immediate input into DCL to help make it more rounded.”

The combining of talent from both of these free software projects
should only help accelerate the development of much needed free
software enterprise applications. By increasing the breadth of
enterprise applications that are under a free software license, users
are given options to proprietary software that adversely restrict them
and their businesses. Adding the additional talent and visions to both
projects only helps expand the offerrings of integrated, yet modular,
solutions for small to mid size enterprises.

About GNU Enterprise:
GNU Enterprise (GNUe) is a suite of tools and applications for solving
the specific needs of the enterprise. From human resources,
accounting, customer relationship management and project management to
supply chain or e-commerce, GNUe can handle the needs of any business,
large or small.

Beyond applications, GNUe is a development framework that enables
enterprise information technology professionals to customize
applications for their businesses. The GNUe platform boasts an open
architecture and easy maintenance. It gives users a modular system and
freedom from being stuck with a single-source vendor. Plus, users get
consistency and the ability to tap into a network of best practices
from other enterprises, saving valuable development time.

Additional information can be found at http://www.gnue.org
Media Contact: GNU Enterprise
Derek Neighbors
Phone: +1-480-216-2668

About Double Choco Latte:
Double Choco Latte is a package that provides basic project management
capabilities, time tracking on tasks, call tracking, email
notifications, online documents, statistical reports, a report engine,
and more features are either working or being developed/planned. It is
licensed under the GPL (GNU Public License), which means it is free to
study, distribute, modify, and use.

Additional information can be found at http://dcl.sourceforge.net
Media Contact: Double Choco Latte
Michael Dean

About GNU/Linux:
GNU/Linux is the integrated combination of the GNU operating system
with the kernel, Linux, written by Linus Torvalds in 1991. The various
versions of GNU/Linux have an estimated 20 million users.

Some people call the GNU/Linux system “Linux”, but this misnomer leads
to confusion (people cannot tell whether you mean the whole system or
the kernel, one part), and spreads an inaccurate picture of how, when
and where the system was developed. Making a consistent distinction
between GNU/Linux, the whole operating system, and Linux, the kernel,
is the best way to clear up the confusion.

See
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html for more explanation.
Media Contact: Free Software Foundation
Bradley M. Kuhn
Phone: +1-617-542-5942

Copyright © 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place –
Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted
in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Open Clustering launches to serve the rapidly growing UK/Europe Linux clustering market. Open Clustering is a new division of Psi-Domain – initiated to provide high-performance computing (HPC), high-availability computing (HAC) and custom solutions based on a synergy of rock-solid hardware and leading software technologies to fully encompass client requirements.

“Our team have been extremely successful in the provision of clusters to the UK Linux market for over two years. We have accumulated a great knowledge on how to properly capture clustering requirements, specify project constraints, avoid deployment issues and provide timely delivery – we know how to do it right – and that is very important to our clients,” commented Mr James Chivers, Psi-Domain’s Technical Director and Founder.

“The launch of Open Clustering is the next natural step for our organisation as we look to broaden our dominance in the UK and European Linux hardware market. We surveyed our existing clients who agreed that a division specifically tailored to providing these solutions, offering undiluted attention to their requirements would be a much welcomed initiative,” explained Mr Chivers.

Open Clustering’s flagship product is the Samurai Blade Server – designed for accommodating up to 20 server blades within one 3U chassis. That means a 42U rackmount cabinet can contain up to 280 servers.

By installing server blades with 1.2GHz CPU and Gigabit LAN, the whole rack can draw out more than 336GHz of aggregated computing power and 588Gbps of aggregated network throughput.

Research firm IDC suggest that the world-wide forecast for rack-optimised Intel architecture servers will hit approximately 8.5million units by 2004, up from 6million this year, and 5million in 2001. A conservative projection based on IDC data, forecasts an 80% increase in server blade shipments from approximately 200,000 this year to 1million in 2004.

“Open Clustering’s Samurai Blade Server product is positioned squarely at the high-density clustering market – and offers what we believe the best of breed solution in its field,” explained Mr Chivers. “It’s highly modularised component base, unique KVM daisy chain system, hot-swap blades, power and fan modules and PCI card expansion will make this product a runaway success”.

It is certainly suited for the intensive computing and communication applications of nowadays. The Samurai Blade Server is not only significant in its superior overall performance, but it also performs excellently in the aspect of power consumption, with each server only consuming less than 50 watts.

Open Clustering URL: http://www.openclustering.com.