Mikael Pawlo writes “As reported by Gnuheter, a new essay published by Bradley M Kuhn and Richard M Stallman carries the title “Freedom or Power?”. The authors state something that we might have suspected from essays from Kuhn and Stallman before, but now is a little more clear, if still ambiguous:

“However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the “freedom to choose any license you want for software you write”. We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom.”

The essay is interesting in the light of an earlier essay published by Eric S Raymond. Raymond states:

“In other words, Stallman and Kuhn want to be able to make decisions that affect other developers more than themselves. By the definition they themselves have proposed, they want power”.

Tim O’Reilly started the debate with his weblog of July 28, 2001: My definition of freedom zero, where O’Reilly states:

“If Freedom Zero for developers is the freedom to offer software on whatever terms the developer sets and a user will accept; Freedom Zero for users is the right to choose whatever software they like, without interference from platform vendors who try to deny that choice.”

The issue is not simple. Stallman and Kuhn could be attacked on liberal grounds and even more so on libertarian grounds. This notwithstanding, you probably find a point in their statement:

“We believe you should decide what to do with the software you use; however, that is not what today’s law says. Current copyright law places us in the position of power over users of our code, whether we like it or not. The ethical response to this situation is to proclaim freedom for each user, just as the Bill of Rights was supposed to exercise government power by guaranteeing each citizen’s freedoms. That is what the GNU GPL is for: it puts you in control of your usage of the software, while protecting you from others who would like to take control of your decisions.”

I am not sure whether Raymond, Stallman or O’Reilly is right, but to paraphrase Esther Dyson: the conversation continues.”

The Register is warning of a new DDoS (or distributed denial of service) attack capable worm being distributed through vulnerable Microsoft SQL servers and being controlled from IRC (Internet relay chat).

CNet: “Companies with servers running Microsoft’s database application should watch out for a new hacker tool that scans and then infects systems, network security experts warned on Wednesday.” Read more here.

The National Post discusses a new book by David Bank in which he argues that Microsoft’s Bill Gates blew away an opportunity to provide the Internet with open standards.

KDE.org: KDE 2.2.2 has just been released. This may well be the final release of the KDE 2 series, given the work being done on KDE 3.

LinuxWorld.com: “A strategic comparison of Windows vs. Unix on making the Unix decision suggested that Unix is usually a smarter business choice than Windows. This article, the first in a series, looks at what it takes to implement that knowledge in a small business.”

PBS.org: “Did Bill Gates invent Open Source software? No, but he’ll take credit for it, anyway.” Read more in this article. Oh, what a tangled web we weave…

– by Robin “Roblimo” Miller –
Developers outside North America are more likely to write software for Linux than those based in the U.S. and Canada, according to survey results released Nov. 16 by Evans Data Corporation. But even in these laggard countries, the report says, 33.7 percent of developers have already written Linux applications, and 39.6 percent expect to be involved with Linux in the next year.
And over 48 percent of developers outside of North America say they expect to work with Linux next year, up from less than one third last year.

These numbers were culled from the Evans Data International Developer Survey, based on interviews with 400+ developers in more than 70 countries, and the Evans Data North American Developer Survey.

Besides North America, Evans breaks the world into four major regions: Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin/South America, and Middle East/Africa.

The survey also says that over 50 percent of all developers have enough confidence in Linux to use it in mission-critical applications, and that this percentage grows every year, with developers outside North America generally expressing more faith in Linux than those based in the U.S. and Canada.

“We tend to find that international developers embrace new technologies more readily than their North American colleagues. This could be due to the fact that many of them live amidst great cultural diversity, multilingualism, and rapid change, which may all contribute to a general openness toward new ideas and technologies,” says Albion Butters, the Evans Data Corporation analyst who wrote the report.

Butters also noted, in a press release issued by Evans Data Corporation before the report was released, that “due to current economic conditions, Linux is starting to pick up a shine again because of its free licensing.”

This Week’s Summary: Mandrake Linux Gamer’s Edition — An Ideal
Christmas Gift!; Mandrake OEM Program Details; Financial Corner;
Mandrake in the News; What’s Cooking at MandrakeSoft?; Business Case of the
Week; Headlines from MandrakeForum.

Gamer's Edition of Mandrake Linux -- An Ideal Christmas Gift!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Christmas is coming... have you already written your letter to Santa? If not, 
it's time to take a look at the brand new "Gaming Edition" of Mandrake Linux 
8.1, which comes bundled with Transgaming's "WineX" (enhanced version of 
Wine, optimized for DirectX support) and the legendary "Sims"!

The "Gaming Edition" is now available for pre-order at MandrakeStore,
and will be available in selected stores in USA, Canada, GB, and
Australia too. In the meantime, you can read an exclusive review of the 
product at MandrakeForum written by our usual labor mouse (Deno) with a 
little help from his family:

1) Product description at MandrakeSoft.com:
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/81/gaming-edition
2) Online sales at MandrakeStore:
http://www.mandrakestore.com/en/storemdksa-81gaming.php
3) Review and discussion on MandrakeForum:
http://mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1397


Mandrake OEM program details.
----------------------------------------
MandrakeSoft's OEM program has been newly positioned and is now much 
friendlier towards 'small' OEM partners than ever before. Even more 
importantly, the process of becoming a MandrakeSoft OEM partner has been 
greatly simplified, and a web page has been set up to explain "everything you 
need to know in order to become a Mandrakesoft OEM partner":

1) OEM program description on Mandrakesoft.com:
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/partners/oem/program
2) Some insider's info and discussion on MandrakeForum
http://mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1387


Financial Corner.
----------------------------------------
A history of the company's stock price is now available online at:
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/investors/trade

After a decline in the stock price during September and October, MandrakeSoft 
stock has come back strong with a significant increase since the begining of 
the month. Regarding the market valuation, it's interesting to note that it 
is currently valued at less than 2% of Red Hat and under 0.00005% of 
Microsoft.

For those who want to trade MandrakeSoft stock outside of Europe, the best 
online broker seems to be Keytrade.com. If you find a better solution please 
let us know at jmiller@mandrakesoft.com.


Mandrake in the News
----------------------------------------
The "Distribution Watch" website has been very active lately with the 
introduction of their "The Linux Distribution Game". In addition to
introductory text which invites you to try living without Microsoft Windows 
for one month, the article contains descriptions of the main Linux 
distributions, and several lesser known ones.

Although fairly simplistic, the comparisons offered on "Distribution
Watch" is much more accurate than any other distribution comparison we
have seen this year. If nothing else, at least the author realizes that "one 
size doesn't fit all', and the fact that Slackware Linux doesn't exist as a 
commercial entity anymore doesn't mean that this distribution is dead. 
Insisting on the fact that Mandrake Linux provides very stable servers, while 
being very much on a 'bleeding edge' as far as GUI programs are concerned 
would be nitpicking...
http://distrowatch.com/game.htm

Just a few days later, DistroWatch introduced a novel way of measuring
distribution popularity: they are analyzing their Web-logs, and
estimating the popularity of a distribution based on number of visitors using 
a distribution. Of course, there are limits to the accuracy of this method, 
but the same can be said about any other way of estimating numbers of Linux 
users. Distribution rankings based on the results of this measurement are 
available in a table on the main DistroWatch
page. At the moment I am writing this article, Mandrake Linux ranks
second.
http://www.distrowatch.com

While we are at "estimating number of Linux users" theme, it is worth
noting that LinuxCounter has recently cleaned up old accounts, and at the 
same time received a lot of additional publicity. For a long time considered 
"obsolete" by the same folks who considered GNU organization obsolete, 
LinuxCounter still stands as the only place on the web which offers free 
statistics about the growth of Linux usage. At this moment, 17% of registered 
machines in LinuxUser database are running Mandrake
Linux (up from 10% 6 months ago), which puts Mandrake Linux in third
place behind Red Hat and Debian.
http://linuxcounter.org

Even better are results of online polls. We haven't seen a single online
poll which doesn't show Mandrake in front of all other distributions in
last few months. Here are some examples:

- PC Magazine: Windows killer...
http://www.pcmag.com/poll_archive/0,3044,p%253D1055%2526bn%253D1,00.asp
- PC Magazine:  Favorite distro...

- Linux.com: Best distribution for beginners
http://www.linux.com/polls/index.phtml?pid=128
- Linux.about.com: Which Linux distros are you running?
http://linux.about.com/library/polls/bl_poll_distros.htm

History class: results of Slashdot poll 2 years ago.
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?section=&qid=562&aid=-1


What's Cooking at Mandrakesoft?
----------------------------------------
Exclusively for newsletter readers: Our printing specialist has found
out a way to seamlessly integrate commercial applications such as Star
Office with our printing system. Expect to see changes in printing subsystem 
being submitted to Cooker these days, and full explanation of the changes on 
MandrakeForum once we are sure everything works perfectly.


Business Case of the Week;
----------------------------------------
Picking a 'Business Case of the Week' has been difficult this time.
Our choice went to "Bartram Enterprises", a company which specializes in
"network security".
http://www.mandrakebizcases.com/article.php?sid=165&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Bartram Enterprises uses MandrakeSoft products in a variety of ways,
including the use of Single Network Firewall as a base of a
"stand-alone, pre-configured solution for small business", and provides 
security services to Complete Computer Solutions - ISP 
(http://www.ccsisp.com/), and their customers. From CCS-ISP
home-page:

Bartram Enterprises will be handling a significant portion of the
design, implementation, security and support functions of the core CCS-ISP 
network. Bartram Enterprises is the only registered VAR, consultant and 
integrator of Linux-Mandrake in the greater Buffalo region of New York State.

Every "bizcase" counts: please share your story with others by
submitting it to MandrakeBizcases.com 
http://www.mandrakebizcases.com/submit.php


Top Stories of the Week from MandrakeForum
------------------------------------------
Migrating from Linux to Windows (Yeah sure)

Microsoft Germany recently started a new round of anti-Linux campaign,
and offers attractive prizes for best testimonies of the "Migrating from
Linux..." type. Guess this gives a new importance to testimonies of the 
opposite type on MandrakeBizcases.com
http://mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1389


Viewing DVD movies under Mandrake Linux 8.1

'Canek' explains how to view DVDs under Mandrake Linux. This inevitably
caused discussion about "best DVD viewer under Linux"...
http://mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1369


Day after at Linux counter

A month ago, LinuxCounter announced that it will drop all accounts which
have not been accessed for two years or more. On one hand, this resulted
in loss of many users who registered years ago; but on the other hand, it 
gave LinuxCounter more visibility, resulting in a large number of new 
registrations.
See a summary of "Great cleaning" results on MandrakeForum.
http://mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1360


Netscape 6.2 - A Review

Tom tested the latest (6.2) version of Netscape for you. Apparently,
Netscape developers have finally managed to put together a really good
product. Time to finally bury and forget the aging Netscape 4.x browsers?
http://mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1388

ZDNet reports that “a new tool reportedly being developed by law enforcement agencies to remotely install surveillance programs on a suspect’s computer is little more than 3-year-old hacking technology, security experts said Wednesday.”