– by Robin “Roblimo” Miller –
We all hear plenty about Linux, about Apache, and about a few other high-profile Open Source and Free Software projects. Everybody writes about them, including us. But there are thousands of other excellent Open Source programs out there that get little or no publicity. Let’s change that.
Not long ago, NewsForge managing editor Grant Gross wrote about Virtual Machines and some software packages that allow people who don’t have mainframe-level budgets to make use of this technology. One reader noted that Grant had left out
the User-mode Linux Kernel (UML). As soon as he saw that comment, Grant contacted the UML project leaders, and you’ll see the resulting story within a day or two.

We enjoy supporting and publicizing innovative, useful Open Source and Free Software projects like UML. Well-funded companies that write Linux or Unix software or make Linux or Unix-compatible hardware either contact us directly or have their PR agencies contact us, so they’re easy for us to find. We welcome their news, and happily pass it on to you if we feel it’ll be interesting to even a few Linux.com and NewsForge readers. But we also like to write about people (and companies) that are doing useful work but don’t put a lot of effort into publicity.

NewsForge happily runs press releases about Linux and Open Source products, services, and events. A “press release” doesn’t need to be written by a PR agency or marketing person. Some of the most effective press releases we see come from people who obviously aren’t PR professionals, who just say what they have to offer and why it might interest the rest of the world. If you’re doing something you feel is important to Linux and Open Source users or developers, write a few paragraphs about it and submit your announcement here. Chances are, if your submission meets our simple selection criteria, it’ll appear within hours (not days) of the time you send it to us.

But there are plenty of developers who haven’t (yet) heard of Linux.com or NewsForge — or are so busy doing exciting work that they don’t have time to tell the world what they’re up to. This is why we’re asking for help.

If you know of a piece of software (or hardware) that is important to Linux or Open Source users or developers, but hasn’t gotten the public attention you feel it deserves, please use the “comments” space below this editorial to tell us about it. Or, if you prefer, email editors@linux.com.

We are serious about this. We know there are lots of people out there doing useful Free Software and Open Source work who deserve more credit than they get. So let’s get together and give them some!

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


                              *   *   *


Subscription information:  "This Week in DotGNU" is posted to the
DotGNU developers list, to subscribe please visit
http://subscribe.dotgnu.org/mailman/listinfo/developers

Spanish translations are made available on a regular basis, you
can subscribe at http://subscribe.dotgnu.org/mailman/listinfo/spanish

Translations of "This week in DotGNU" into other languages are
very welcome; please let me know about them.


"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.”