ZDNET: “The dissenting states are seeking to tighten up perceived loopholes in the settlement agreement.
The states are pushing to compel Microsoft to open up the source code to its Internet Explorer
browser, license its Office software for competing operating systems and carry Java in Windows
for 10 years, among other things.”

LinuxSecurity Contributor writes: “This week, perhaps the most interesting articles include “Transparent Proxy with Linux and Squid
mini-HOWTO,” “Snort ‘n Dragon,” “Authentication Gateway HOWTO,” and “VNC, Securely: Part
2.” Also this week, we have added a careers section on LinuxSecurity.com. It enables you to find
technical and managerial positions available worldwide. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/forums_artic le-4217.html“

NewsFactor Network writes: “I think we’d all agree that an open alternative to these proprietary video sources would be far more beneficial to the industry if only it could offer an equal — if not greater — feature set as the various proprietary offerings. As a matter of fact, I’d venture to guess that its adoption rate would be equal to that of the MP3 file format. Well, we idealists don’t have to wish any longer, because the next iteration of MPEG (version 4) will offer parity with the proprietary competition. The MPEG-4 standard is scheduled for release in the near future. The design of the new standard will be based on Apple’s QuickTime version 6.”

NewsFactor Network writes: “The Business Software Alliance tends to exaggerate when it comes to reporting losses associated with software piracy. Every year it has been the BSA’s strategy to scare business executives into making their software legal. Yet, in the same way that the trade organization exaggerates numbers about losses, it seems that they are bluffing when it comes to talking about fining big corporations whose software situation is illegal.”

Mario Rodrigues writes: “I had this story published in Van’s Hardware. You may wish to link it.

Anonymous Reader writes: “MP3 Newswire has run the second of its two part recap on the year in digital music finishing with this years top eight winners. Topping the list; the lawyers and the Napster Clones.”

The Dot:: “Many in the KDE community are aware of some rocky history between KDE hacker Mosfet and other KDE
developers. Fortunately, it looks like things have taken a great turn for the better: Mosfet wrote in to tell us
that “I’ve decided to donate 20 effects I ported to KDE/Qt for PixiePlus to KDE3″. Waldo Bastian promptly
added them to CVS.”

Rich Morin writes: “Online documentation is very handy,
but sometimes what you really want is a printed version.
Unfortunately, this tends to involve a lot of work.
Putting together a well organized and nicely bound collection
is even harder.
Not really the best use of your time
and your company’s resources…

Prime Time Freeware‘s new
DOSSIER series
is our answer to this problem.
We locate, select, organize, format, print, and bind
document collections for
Free and
Open Source software.
Because we use mechanized editing and demand printing,
we can cover specialized and fast-moving topics, such as:

Email: Exim 3
Email: Mail and Sendmail

File Systems: FreeBSD Manual Pages

Kernel: FreeBSD Manual Pages

PostgreSQL: Programming and Development
PostgreSQL: Reference Manual
PostgreSQL: Use and Administration

Python: Library Reference
Python: Miscellanea

Text: Manual Pages

DOSSIER collections are
available through
BSDMall.

For more information, visit PTF’s
DOSSIER page.

“

Slashdot is discussing the Debian announcement that GNU/HURD H2 CD images are available.

– By Grant Gross –

It’s that time of year when pundits like to look back and forward. Indeed, NewsForge/Linux.com will have a news roundup of 2001 this week. Looking forward this week were a couple of writers who boldly offered predictions on Linux.

Our friend Joe Barr offered 10 Linux predictions for 2002. Some are serious, some less so. Among his predictions: The Linux business sector will emerge from slump, and “at least one global megacorp will announce a complete migration away from all Microsoft Windows platforms to an interoperable mix of Unix, Mac and Linux platforms.” He also sees a bigger acceptance of Linux on desktops in the coming year.

NewsForge’s Robin “Roblimo” Miller gazed into his crystal ball a little further, predicting what will happen to Linux in 2003, when Microsoft will stop full support of Windows 98 and NT. He predicts many people running old versions of Windows will move to Linux instead of upgrading their hardware to run Windows XP.

Santa switches to Linux, Open Source

OK, so a lot of you don’t believe in Santa Claus anymore. But NewsForge freelancer Daniel P. Dern swears he visits with the old guy once a year, and this year, Santa says he’s switched to Linux and other Open Source tools. Hey, could I make this up?

New releases

While the holiday week made for a slow news week, there was a whole lot of Open Source software releasing going on. Perhaps the developers used time off from their day jobs to crank out code on their pet projects. Among the new releases this week:

Devils-Linux 0.5 beta 5 3.

PHP 4.1.1.

Window Maker 0.80.

ROCK Linux 1.5.12 (Development).

KDE 2.2.2 for Solaris and FreeBSD.

Newly reviewed

Tech-Junkie.com reviews Red Hat 7.2 and Mandrake 8.1 on the desktop, taking readers from set-up to using the Linux distributions. From the conclusion: “With the equivalent technologies deployed, Red Hat’s focus appear to be for professionals and Mandrake’s focus on the average desktop user. As a result expect more wizards and fancy front ends from Mandrake’s offering. This is not necessary [sic] bad, since shortcuts can save a lot of time even for experienced users. All Linux users should be happy, as long as quality distributions in the future don’t treat and second-guess users through some drug-induced, Disney-eue [does he mean Disney-esque?] experience.”

New at NewsForge and Linux.com

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

Tina Gasperson caused quite a stir with her review of Linuxsucks.com. Her opinion: It needs a lot of work to be credible.

Columnist Jack Bryar suggests where Open Source fans can focus their charitable contributions. Among his suggestions: The Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Peace Corps.

Stock news

The holiday-shortened stock week was a good one for the tech-heavy Nasdaq and for many Open-Source related Linux stocks in general. The Nasdaq ended last week at 1,987.26, up from 1,945.83 Dec. 14, and some analysts are predicting continued increases based on news last week that the manufacturing sector seems to be turning around and consumer confidence is up.

As expected, it was a slow news week for the companies on our Open Source stock list.
Of the 11 Open Source-related stocks on our list, eight were up this week, although most posted modest gains. Only Hewlett-Packard and MandrakeSoft posted losses for the week, while Wind River Systems ended the week at 18.05 for the third week in a row.

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

Company Name	Symbol	12/21 Close	12/28 Close
Apple	AAPL	21.00	22.43
Borland Software Int’l	BORL	15.39	15.85
Caldera International	CALD	0.77	0.89
Hewlett-Packard	HWP	21.00	20.82
IBM	IBM	122.00	122.90
MandrakeSoft	4477.PA	e4.90	e4.69
Red Hat	RHAT	6.95	7.02
Sun Microsystems	SUNW	11.74	12.59
TiVo	TIVO	5.47	6.30
VA Software	LNUX	2.48	2.49
Wind River Systems	WIND	18.05	18.05