LinuxSecurity: “This document describes the process of securing and hardening the default Debian installation. It covers some of the common
taks to setup a secure network environment using Debian GNU/Linux.”

Kelly McNeill writes: “The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York agreed with nine Hollywood studios that Decoding Content Scramble System (DeCSS), available on computer programmer Eric Corley’s 2600 Magazine Web site, should be barred from being displayed or linked to other Web sites. While the appeals court considered Corley’s publication free speech, it held that since the program was “content neutral,” instead of a more expressive form of speech, it deserved significantly less protection.”

CNET: “It was important for us to grab the
hearts and minds of the consumer,”
Amelio told reporters at a briefing in
Hong Kong. Consumers buy half the
PCs shipped in China, which is the
world’s third-biggest computer
market.

“We’re trying to drive the cost of a
PC down to the price of a
television,” he said.

BaseLine Magazine: “I’ve always been a big believer in Microsoft. I’ve used DOS since version 1.0,” recalls
Allan Lindsay, CIO with Merchant First Bankcard, a Schaumburg, Ill., credit-card
processing company. “It’s like the old days with IBM: At some point, you just say, you
can’t go wrong with buying them. That’s true about Microsoft now.”

– by Tina Gasperson –
The Python Software Foundation (PSF) license has been approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Python is now eligible to mark its products using the license with the OSI Certified Open Source Software mark. The license is specific to the 2.1.1 release of Python, an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented
programming language. Python was written by Guido Van Rossum in the early 1990s. Van Rossum is a member of the OSI board.

While there are many software licenses that allow access to source code, only a handful are deemed true Open Source software licenses by OSI, a group founded for the purpose of “managing and promoting the Open Source Definition for the good of the community.” The OSI board meets periodically to discuss and approve submitted licenses.

Additionally, candidates for acceptance by OSI are posted to the license-discuss mailing list. The PSF license received only positive comments and was considered likely to be passed by the board. Helping the case was the fact that the PSF license was already approved by the Free Software Foundation as being compatible with the General Public License (GPL) championed by Richard M. Stallman.

The content of the license is as follows:

PSF LICENSE AGREEMENT
———————

1. This LICENSE AGREEMENT is between the Python Software Foundation
(“PSF”), and the Individual or Organization (“Licensee”) accessing and
otherwise using Python 2.1.1 software in source or binary form and its
associated documentation.

2. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License Agreement, PSF
hereby grants Licensee a nonexclusive, royalty-free, world-wide
license to reproduce, analyze, test, perform and/or display publicly,
prepare derivative works, distribute, and otherwise use Python 2.1.1
alone or in any derivative version, provided, however, that PSF’s
License Agreement and PSF’s notice of copyright, i.e., “Copyright (c)
2001 Python Software Foundation; All Rights Reserved” are retained in
Python 2.1.1 alone or in any derivative version prepared by Licensee.

3. In the event Licensee prepares a derivative work that is based on
or incorporates Python 2.1.1 or any part thereof, and wants to make
the derivative work available to others as provided herein, then
Licensee hereby agrees to include in any such work a brief summary of
the changes made to Python 2.1.1.

4. PSF is making Python 2.1.1 available to Licensee on an “AS IS”
basis. PSF MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, PSF MAKES NO AND
DISCLAIMS ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS
FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF PYTHON 2.1.1 WILL NOT
INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY RIGHTS.

5. PSF SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO LICENSEE OR ANY OTHER USERS OF PYTHON
2.1.1 FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR LOSS AS
A RESULT OF MODIFYING, DISTRIBUTING, OR OTHERWISE USING PYTHON 2.1.1,
OR ANY DERIVATIVE THEREOF, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF.

6. This License Agreement will automatically terminate upon a material
breach of its terms and conditions.

7. Nothing in this License Agreement shall be deemed to create any
relationship of agency, partnership, or joint venture between PSF and
Licensee. This License Agreement does not grant permission to use PSF
trademarks or trade name in a trademark sense to endorse or promote
products or services of Licensee, or any third party.

8. By copying, installing or otherwise using Python 2.1.1, Licensee
agrees to be bound by the terms and conditions of this License
Agreement.

From O’Reilly: “Since it was introduced in 1995, hundreds of developers have contributed to Freeciv, an open source strategy game similar to Civilization. The project continues, and is looking for more contributors, expecially artists and those familiar with AI code.”

– by Tina Gasperson –
I remember visiting the LinuxLinks page a while back, and it was OK. I went back today, and a wonderful transformation has taken place. I’m going to use this site every day to locate all kinds of information about Linux.I guess it really has been a long time since I visited LinuxLinks, because according to the site, it was redesigned back in November 2000. They did a good job. Knowing the kind of work that goes into link aggregation, I can tell you that it took a lot of effort to put together such a vast collection of information, with very few bad links. They’re keeping up with what is a never-ending job.

On the front page, 24 categories of links, all very much related to Linux, greet the visitor. As you click through, each category is sub-divided further. For instance, “Publications” is further divided into “Humor,” “Non-English Language,” “Online,” and “Printed.”

Since I’m an interested party, I clicked through to the online publications sections, and there reside no less than 46 links to Web sites dedicated to reporting about Linux and Open Source. I was sad to see that NewsForge wasn’t among the chosen — but hey, we’re still newer than a lot of the sites.

Here are the other categories: Beginners, Books, Community, Companies, Distributions, Docs, Embedded, Events, Foreign, Hardware, Kernel, Links, Networking, Newsgroups, PDA, Ports, Projects, Reviews, Security, Software, Training, Usergroups, and Web. Underneath these are hundreds and thousands of links.

LinuxLinks has added some cool functionality too, like the ability to bookmark individual links and/or entire categories, and you can customize the look of the front page, picking and choosing which links and information you’d like to see when you’re logged in.

You can recommend links, modify existing links, and search the entire site to find exactly what you’re looking for. There is also a nice page for newbies, actually a part of sister site FirstLinux, that answers questions like, “Where do I start,” “What is the best Linux distribution,” and “How do I download Linux?”

LinuxLinks is one of a small handful of very useful sites that don’t get enough attention. This one might even be worthy of a “home page” designation.

Ian Bell writes “For those of you who have been thinking about switching your software from a Microsoft platform to a Linux or open source platform, you may want to reconsider. This article explains the cost of free software as the editor walks you through his personal experiences with various operating systems.” Not all free software users share these sentiments.

An Anonymouse Reader writes “NVIDIA has just released new Linux drivers, version 1.0-2313. Read more for the release highlights.

nForce 220D/420/420D Integrated GPU support

OpenGL® 1.3 with NVIDIA extensions

Support for accelerated offscreen rendering via SGIX_pbuffer and SGIX_fbconfig extensions

Improved Viewperf and Quake performance

Enhanced mobile support

Improved AMD support

Performer mulit-threaded support”

Kelly McNeill writes “In order for it all to come together at the proper point in time and space, all the items needed to have successful technology. That means predicting what technologies will be successful a couple of years down the line and assembling the skills, the knowledge, the experience, and the organizational changes needed, so that all is available at the right time. That is hard, which is why managing technology is hard, and why we managers screw up a lot. People’s opinions can differ. But what amazes me is the number of IT people I talk with who do believe that Linux will be a key technology (“in a year or,” “as soon as it matures”), but are taking no steps to bring together what will be needed to successfully implement it.”