This week in DotGNU – no 9 (January 19, 2002):

See http://www.dotgnu.org for general information about DotGNU.

1. Debian packages of Portable.NET released
2. Bizplan project moves forward
3. phpGroupWare discusses issues related to GNU's boykott of GIFs
4. Reminder about the DotGNU panel at LinuxWorld


Debian packages of Portable.NET released
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrew Mitchell has released Debian packages of DotGNU Portable.NET
which are now available from http://www.dotgnu.org -- those who run
Debian GNU/Linux can put this line into /etc/apt/sources.list to
allow easy installation with apt-get.  Packages for GNU/Hurd are
also planned, but not available yet.


Bizplan project moves forward
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bill Lance, who is experienced in the area of consulting to young
companies in matters related to Business Plan creation, is helping
the participants of the bizplan mailing list to go forward in a good,
structured manner.  The next step is to define the Value Proposition,
from the customers point of view.  As Bill wrote, "They are the ones
that will be providing the cash for revenues.  It has to make sense
to
them."


phpGroupWare discusses issues related to GNU's boykott of GIFs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Software patents are evil because because they can make it illegal to
create Free Software for certain tasks.  For this reason, the Free
Software Foundation and the GNU project have a policy of of
boykotting
GIF files, because the compression algorithm which is used in most
GIF
files is encumbered by such a patent.  This has caused some problems
for the phpGroupWare project which uses graphics with transparant
background, because among the graphics formats which are widely
supported by web browsers, there is none that would reliably support
transparent backgrounds.  (The support for this in PNG graphics is
not
consistent enough).  It would not be acceptable to cripple
phpGroupWare
in any way because of this boykott.  Fortunately it seems that a
solution has been found that allows phpGroupWare to remain part of
GNU
and DotGNU.


Reminder about the DotGNU panel at LinuxWorld
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The LinuxWorld conference in New York City (USA) will be a good
opportunity to meet many of the key people behind organizing the
DotGNU effort.  A special DotGNU panel will be held on January 30th
at
2:30pm.  The full announcement is available at 
http://archive.dotgnu.org/pipermail/announce/2001-November/000002.html


                              *   *   *


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"This week in DotGNU" is Copyright (C) 2001 by Norbert Bollow.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire issue is
permitted in any medium or format, provided this notice is
preserved.
==================================================================END.

VNU.net: “The problem is that x86 systems have typically managed memory in
4Kb pages, but when the Pentium processor was introduced Intel
added a feature called extended paging which allowed 4Mb pages
to be used instead.
The Linux 2.4 kernel automatically takes advantage of extended
paging by running Pentium specific instructions. The result is that
Athlon and Duron processors experience memory corruption when
using AGP video.”

zork.net: “Welcome to KC KDE! The final push for KDE3 is upon us as major features are no longer being added and efforts are being focussed on the areas that
still require attention. KHTML has been undergoing some fairly drastic refactoring to make it faster and more memory efficient. This has resulted in several
(thankfully temporary) regressions in the current code base. While developers are completing the KHTML changes the rest of the desktop is becoming
visibly more stable. It is starting to feel like a pre-release code base.”

The Register: “Red Hat, meanwhile, is the predominant enterprise business server Linux, with
interests in developer tools and embedded systems.

Only of one of those three areas is likely to be attractive to AOL. The other two, if it
needs them, can be acquired though partnership, rather than spending cash. AOL
is if anything, withdrawing from enterprise business software, with its ownership of
the iPlanet venture (the server half of the Netscape acquisition) elapsing in March.
Most of the employees were transferred to Sun last year.”

The Register: “Launching Mozilla, with a DSL connection already established and my home page
(theregister.co.uk) already stored in the browser’s cache, took 4.5 seconds in
Windows and 5.0 seconds in Linux immediately after a re-boot. A second launch
leveraging the RAM cache took 2.5 seconds in Windows and 2.5 seconds in Linux.
‘Launching’ meant that the home page was fully displayed.”

Anonymous Reader writes: “Basically, just a moderate discussion on what Linux can do, and why
you should be using Linux. An excellent read for newcomers to Linux
and the Open Source Community.” The article is available
here at LinuxGuru.net”

The site where this was first reported, Gentoo Linux is being heavily slashdotted right now, so read the discussion at slashdot about the latest CPU bug – this time it’s Athlon, not Intel.

Dave Jones: “Clear the backlog of small pending bits ready for the next resync.”

Patch against 2.5.2 vanilla is available from:
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/davej/patches/2.5/
(Whilst kernel.org is on sick leave, this is also available on
 http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/patches/2.5/patch-2.5.2-dj3.diff.gz)


 -- Davej.

2.5.2-dj3
o   Remove/Add some mismerged bits.                     (Me)
o   Reiserfs rename fixes.                              (Oleg Drokin)
o   Remove 2.4 only netdriver changes.                  (Jeff Garzik,
Me)
o   Scheduler update to J2                              (Ingo Molnar)
o   GUID partition support update.                      (Matt Domsch)
o   Configure help entries for IDE.                     (Andre
Hedrick, Rob Radez,
                                                         Anton
Altaparmakov)
o   Reduce NTFS vmalloc use.                            (Anton
Altaparmakov)
o   Parallel port SCSI zip driver update.
(derek@signalmarketing.com)
o   Iforce & Vortex joystick compile fix.               (James
Simmons)
o   IDE Tape driver bio fixes.                          (Frank Davis)
o   i820 & i830mp AGPGart & APM fix.                    (Nicolas
Aspert)
o   i820up AGPGart recognition.                         (Daniele
Venzano)
o   Radeonfb 1400x1050 mode timings.                    (Michael
Clark)

Jason writes “OSNews is running an exclusive preview of the brand new version 6.2 of the QNX realtime operating system. The article is going through the installation process, the Photon user interface (lots of screenshots included), the internals, and the advantages and disadvantages of the OS as a desktop system. QNX RtP 6.2 is expected to be released for free (for non commercial usage) before March.”

– By Grant Gross –

The big news this week came in the form of an unattributed Washington Post report saying AOL Time Warner was in negotiations to buy Red Hat, the leading Linux distribution in the United States.

So far, there’s not a lot more information on the deal itself, except the Post report, which quotes “sources familiar with the matter” saying negotiations were fluid. NewsForge’s attempts to contact Red Hat officials have so far been unsuccessful.

However, there’s already a lot of debate in the Open Source community over whether such a merger between Red Hat and a huge, mostly proprietary-focused corporation would be good for Linux or not. Our own Robin “Roblimo” Miller suggests that AOL’s backing could bring Linux to the masses and put a big dent in Microsoft’s monopoly of the computing desktop, but a lot of the discussion on that story disagrees.

A column at Oreillynet.com suggests a different outcome, that AOL Time Warner and Red Hat may have radically different corporate agendas.

Lindows vs. Microsoft, round II

Lindows.com, the company trying to create a sort of Linux/Windows hybrid and getting sued by Microsoft in the process, asked this week for help from its friends. They’re looking for other uses of Windows-like words in the tech industry. Meanwhile, osOpinion noted that other products do in fact use “Windows” in their names, making the Lindows lawsuit look like a way for Microsoft to smack down another competitor.

In other Lindows news, we heard a rumor from a “you didn’t get it from me” source that Lindows may actually have a download available early this week, but we aren’t holding our breaths.

Other bits of interesting news

Borland backed down from a rather restrictive end-user license after catching a lot of flack from the Open Source community.

A couple of more sites championed Linux as a desktop operating system this week. From a column at Techweb: ” … Linux’s prospects on the desktop have never seemed bright to me. But there’s something about Linux. Once you try it, despite how difficult it is to master and use, it gets under your skin. Linux has other things going for it too: A
committed developer community; increasing focus on enterprise needs; low cost compared to Windows; open source code; and no annoying anti-piracy schemes.” Also, IT Week tests suggest “Linux could now be deployed with little fuss as a desktop operating system for firms with a Web-centric software strategy.” OK, so neither article is exactly glowing, but it seems that more and more people are recognizing Linux as a viable desktop OS.

A column at LinuxWorld.com questions how successful the 2.4 Linux kernel has been for enterprises. “If you have heavy-duty processing needs, 2.4 has been a series of disappointments,” writes the author.

New releases

Empower Technologies announced the PowerPlay V, a Linux-based PDA “equipped with the look and feel of a Palm Vx.”

Penguin Computing released two new rack-mounted Linux servers and a new Linux workstation.

Instant802 Networks announced the release of OpenAP, an Open Source Linux distribution for 802.11 access points.

Version 2.5.2 of the Linux kernel was released with support for USB 2.0.

Newly reviewed

NewsForge’s Miller reviews ELX, which is calling itself “everyone’s Linux.” He reports some installation problems, but a lot of promise for the India-based project.

Guest writer Matt Butcher reviewed Gentoo Linux, which isn’t claiming to be an easy install, but one that’s highly customizable. For all of you who like to tweak and fiddle, this might be the distribution for you.

If Gentoo isn’t to your liking, try Sorcerer Linux, which is supposed to be “100% optimised for your hardware” and include a convenient way of keeping software up to date, according to a review at DistroWatch.com.

ZDNet reviews SuSE 7.3 and says big businesses would be wise to consider it for both their server and desktop needs.

LinuxWorld.com reviews Volution Caldera’s messaging server. It “shows promise, but fails to deliver compatibility with Microsoft’s Outlook 2002 calendar.”

New at NewsForge and Linux.com

Other stories that NewsForge and Linux.com reported first this week:

We look at some of the other options available for people who want to use Linux virtual machines but don’t need the power of an IBM mainframe.

Columnist Jack Bryar says Microsoft may be encouraging governments to switch to Linux with its anti-piracy initiatives.

Stock news

The Nasdaq ended the week at 1.930.34, down from 2,022.46 Jan. 11 and down 55.48 points on Friday alone. The news wasn’t much better for our list of Open Source-related stocks, with only two of the 11 — Apple and MandrakeSoft — showing gains for the week. It should be interesting to watch Red Hat’s stock early this week, however, with the rumors of an AOL merger.

IBM reported its fourth-quarter profit fell 13% from a year ago, while Sun’s revenues were down 39% from a year ago.

All you Mandrake fans not in Europe now have a way to more easily buy its stock. The Linux distribution announced it was trading on the U.S. over-the-counter market

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

Company Name	Symbol	1/11 Close	1/18 Close
Apple	AAPL	21.05	22.17
Borland Software Int’l	BORL	16.29	15.39
Caldera International	CALD	0.93	0.86
Hewlett-Packard	HWP	22.88	22.61
IBM	IBM	120.31	114.25
MandrakeSoft	4477.PA	e4.48	e4.63
Red Hat	RHAT	8.71	8.41
Sun Microsystems	SUNW	13.32	12.12
TiVo	TIVO	7.30	6.34
VA Software	LNUX	2.77	2.40
Wind River Systems	WIND	19.27	18.03