IDG News Service (on NWfusion.com) reports that Sun will partner with software makers Ximian and Wipro to complete work on a version of the GNOME desktop for Sun’s Solaris.

From PR Newswire: TimeSys Corporation will demonstrate
complete embedded Linux solutions for the Intel(R) Xscale(TM) and x86
processor families. Embedded systems engineers will have the opportunity to
view TimeSys’ high-performance Linux operating system and development tools
being used to develop Intel-based embedded systems on multiple board and
processor configurations.

ComputerWire (via The Register) reports that iAnywhere Solutions may have “inadvertently provided a major shot in the arm for Linux-based PDAs through a tie up with electronics giant Sharp Electronics Corp. The relationship will see the Sybase mobile subsidiary working with the Japanese electronics giant to encourage developers to build Java-based enterprise applications for Sharp’s Linux-powered Zaurus SL-5500 PDA using the iAnywhere m-Business platform.”

– By Grant Gross –

A year after a trademark fight between SSH Communications Security and the Open Source OpenSSH project, the use of OpenSSH has skyrocketed, at least according to numbers from OpenSSH.

In February 2001, the trademark controversy had SSH Communications Security trying to enforce a trademark on SSH against the 2-year-old OpenSSH project. Tatu Ylönen, chairman and CTO of SSH Communications Security Corp., said then that he finally wanted to enforce the trademark because of a spat of emails he’d received expressing confusion over his company’s product and OpenSSH.

The trademark fight has disappeared, according to Theo de Raadt, co-creator of OpenSSH and leader of the OpenBSD project. The two sides sat down during an Internet Engineering Task Force meeting in March 2001, and after that, “we never heard from Tatu again,” de Raadt says. “I demanded that they publicly apologize and recant their legal threat. They stormed from the table, but it appears over.”

As for the numbers, a University of Alberta study, published shortly before the controversy, found 17.4 percent of all SSH users on the Internet to be using OpenSSH and 80.3 percent using SSH Communications Security (SSH.com) products. de Raadt says those numbers have almost flip-flopped in a year, partially because of concerns over trademark issues with SSH Communications Security products.

Of course, these are OpenSSH’s numbers. Ylönen didn’t respond to two emails asking him to explain, disprove or confirm OpenSSH’s new survey. Between December and this month, the OpenSSH crew scanned 2.4 million random Internet addresses, and found 59.4% of those with some form of SSH are using versions of OpenSSH, and only 37.3% are using SSH.com’s products.

de Raadt admits there is a problem with the numbers — that they’re the result of only scanning for servers, because of the difficulty of scanning for clients. (Here’s a paper, in Postscript format, on using ScanSSH to scan for SSH servers.) But scanning only servers doesn’t explain the big shift, he says.

“The vendors sure were afraid of that entire licensing fiasco,” he says. “I’ve had vendors call me on the phone and thank me for having fought that battle. Kind of odd. They sure didn’t help.”

Among the other reasons for the shift, de Raadt suggests:

• Their scans hit a lot of Unix machines, which get upgraded often. And “people who are switching from SSH.com’s old SSH1 codebase are not staying with SSH.com! that should be obvious, since most of them did not pay for the old SSH1 software to begin with.”
• Most major Linux distributions install OpenSSH by default.
• A security problem in SSH that OpenSSH didn’t have. In de Raadt’s typical straightforward fashion, he says: “A lot of their customers were using SSH.com software on Solaris boxes. On
  Solaris boxes, this was a sure remote hole. A disastrous one. Many customers just gave up at that point; my view is that this was a completely careless mistake that SSH.com which should not have slipped through internal beta testing.”

de Raadt says customers seem to not be renewing their SSH2 licenses because of competition from OpenSSH. “Their market may be increasing if more people are running SSH (more people ARE running SSH). They are still selling more each month, I think, but their market is not exploding as they might have hoped.”

de Raadt says an OpenSSH derivative will ship in the next release of Sun’s Solaris OS. When that happens, “I think we move to the next level: Telnet becomes a legacy protocol,” he says.

– By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols –

Without any fanfare, Corel, once a leading Linux light, first abandoned Linux and is now
abandoning Open Source. Its Open Source site, OpenSource Corel, closes on March 1. Along with it goes Corel’s well received WINE fork, its work on Debian and other file packaging techniques, and other projects. The code lives on, but the site is done.In truth, though, as a walk through the dusty Web site shows, even before the closing sign appeared on their virtual front door Corel’s work on its Open Source projects had already declined to near nothing.

Corel is under contract to Microsoft to bring .NET shared-source-code versions of Microsoft’s C# language and Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) to FreeBSD — not
NetBSD as reported elsewhere. That project was part of Microsoft’s Shared Source Initiative, but there’s no sign of the project on the OpenSource.Corel site. A Corel
spokesperson said the shared .NET program is still ongoing, with Microsoft managing it.

Looking back

Not so long ago, November 1999 to be exact, Corel was a leading Linux light. Its Debian-based desktop Linux distribution was designed to convert Windows users to Linux and it was extremely well received. In the meantime, Corel
brought the first major Windows desktop application — WordPerfect — to Linux using WINE. Not long after that, other leading Corel Windows programs, like CorelDraw, arrived on Linux via WINE. By February 2000, according to PCData (now NPD Intelect Market Tracking) Corel’s Linux OS retail market share had increased in the United States from 2.3% in November 1999 to 19.3% in February 2000. That was then. This is now.

Since those halcyon days of a Linux desktop that Windows users could love, Corel has moved away from Linux and Open Source. Ravished by ill-timed moves into the application server provider (ASP) market, a lack of profits from Linux and its application lines, and the powerful, but eccentric, leadership of one-time CEO Michael Cowpland, Corel took a new turn — and it was a turn away from Linux.

In August 2000, Cowpland stepped down, and by that November, Corel was rumored to be looking for a buyer for its Linux distribution. While Derek Burney, current president and CEO, denied this in December 2000, it was already an open secret that with the Linux operations showing little, if any, profit, and Microsoft having rescued Corel from its miserable financial position with a $135 million stock buyout, Corel was moving away from Linux.

Corel was also abandoning its brief flirtation with ASP software. Since Burney took the reins, Corel has focused on Windows and Mac application development. The company has also been acquiring other independent software vendors such as SGML leader SoftQuad and the maker of the popular low-end desktop photograph program Picture Publisher, Micrografx.

Selling the Linux OS

But getting out of Linux proved little easier for Burney than Brer Fox trying to get free of a tar baby. Finally, though, in August 2001, Corel sold its Corel Linux OS division to Linux Global Partners (LGP), a NY based software investment firm, for an undisclosed sum.

LGP quickly formed Xandros to house it. Xandros is continuing Corel’s original mission of delivering a Windows-user friendly version of the Linux desktop with its Xandros Desktop 1.0. This product is in late beta and is a Debian-based system by way of the Corel Linux OS 3.0. It will include the 2.4.16 Linux Kernel, KDE 2.2.2, and user-friendly control panels, connection and printer wizards, a new file manager, and an easy-to-use Windows networking interoperability interface.

Is there any future for Linux at Corel?

As for Corel’s Linux desktop applications, while they are still supported, there have been no new releases since WordPerfect 2000, and it doesn’t take a software engineer to see that there won’t be any new Linux office programs coming from Corel.

A Corel spokesperson said that the company was still considering new Linux product releases in the summer of 2001 if there was sufficient customer demand. Because there wasn’t enough demand, Corel decided by early fall to cease developing Linux versions of its programs. Soon afterwards, Corel stopped selling its Linux programs. Buyers report that the shrink-wrapped packages still appear from time to time, but they’re almost as hard to find as a Linux programmer using C#.

So it is not with a bang, but with a whimper, that the only major Windows application company to ever venture into Linux software now leaves us. While Corel’s Linux projects were never a commercial success, Corel’s arrival in Linux seemed to herald a new day for the Linux desktop at the time. Today, its quiet, final departure reminds us that the Linux desktop has still to prove itself with both consumers and businesses.

shockzor writes: “Hi, shockzor here.. I am very excited about this release and we are proud of it. yaroze coded a module for Apache that is really useful.

mod_protection is an Apache module that integrates basic function of an IDS (Intrusion Detection System) and of a firewall (not yet). Your Apache administrator only has to install mod_protection and define rules. When a malicious client sends a request that matches the pattern on your rules the administrator will be warned and the client gets a user defined page or a error or something that notifies that now he will be prosecuted or … The warning system just writes on a socket, so on the other side of the socket you can put an application that send you a mail, an SMS, a message in your favourite IM or a notify in your IRC client, or why not open a message box on your usual box. You can get it here at twlc.net.
Feedback would be greatly appreciated.”

Martijn Dekkers writes: “This is reported all over the place – the EU has blindly taken over the advice of the BSA on the issue of patents, and will implement one of the most draconian patent laws seen yet. In a press release named:”Collusion Discovered between BSA and European Commission – Who is the EC is really working for ?” the eurolinux group states: ‘The European Commission is likely to approve this wednesday a proposal of directive on software patents. EuroLinux has managed to obtain a draft version of the proposed directive. The same document was sent to a few official representatives in European national governments.’

Anonymous Reader writes:”LinuxWorld: “Why am I giving up my faithful, trusted Sylpheed? Many little reasons. One is Ximian pestered me. A better reason is Evolution handles images embedded in e-mail messages with aplomb. Here is what it’s like to switch from Sylpheed to Evolution.”

Mozillanews.org: “Mozilla.org is hosting a Mozilla developer event at Carnegie Mellon University on March 1 and 2. The registration fee is $50, and it’s time to register if you’re interested in going. This is a great chance for developer sto get to know other developers, mozilla.org staff, ask questions and learn.”

kde.org: “I miss better java/javascript support in konqueror… since there are still some pages that cannot be seen and you have to start Netscape :- And… the
digital certificates support for KMail… I really miss it!”