The study is at Bustpatents.com. “For over thirty years, software copyright has been a succession of court cases and law review articles based on bad law, bad logic, bad
mathematics, and/or bad physics (Benson, CONTU, Whelan and Altai being all of these). I have decided to write a critical review
arguing that software copyright (and dependents like TRIPS, GPL, Bernstein, Junger) should be abolished in light of 17 USC 102b and its
equivalents – for one reason – it is bad law with no logical basis in the mathematics and physics of information processing.”

It’s at Zork.net. Among the items: “The feature freeze for KDE 3.0 is now in effect. This is less restrictive than a code, GUI or message freeze but
does mean that all the features that will be in KDE 3.0 are at least started in CVS. From here until the official release sometime in early
2002 the KDE developers will be focussing on stability and completeness.”

From Reuters: “Computer security researchers on Tuesday accused
Microsoft of trying to avoid taking responsibility for fixing holes in its
software by making it harder for people who discover them to publicize
the security breaches.”

From The Register: “So many vulnerabilities affecting the lpd (line printer daemon) have come to light in
recent months that CERT/CC has issued a compendium advisory urging all users
and admins to review their system configurations and patch status.”

– By Dan Berkes –

Anyone who has ever helped a friend install Linux has probably heard these words: “Thanks! Now what?” The Fifth Annual Linux Showcase and Conference has experts on hand to answer that question, and tapping the font of wisdom won’t set you back a single penny.
ALS organizers decreed that admission to this year’s event should be free of charge. While the pay-to-play tutorials have been going on since Monday, the free technical sessions and exhibitions start Thursday morning and run through Saturday afternoon.

There are two free hands-on introductory Linux classes being offered this year. The first half of the all-day session focuses on the basic commands anyone will need to know in order to find their way around Linux from the command line. The second class gets graphical, showing newcomers how to configure and use the X Window System.

The classes cover areas of Linux that newcomers have the most questions about, but it’s likely that more help will be available outside of the available topics. As USENIX tutorial coordinator Dan Klein mentioned earlier, the community aspect of ALS makes it easy to find additional help from spontaneous “hall talks” before and after presentations.

Linux in Action classes take place on Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Although the sessions are free, class size is limited, so it’s first come, first served.

The Fifth Annual Linux Showcase and Conference is taking place through this Saturday at the Marriott City Center at 1001 Broadway in Oakland, Calif. Registration is free.

BART is probably the easiest way to get to the conference from most Bay Area locations. Exit at 12th St. Oakland City Center station; walk one block to 11th Street and Broadway.

NewsForge parent OSDN is a major sponsor of the Fifth Annual Linux Showcase and Conference.

ZDnet has the review, calling Red Hat’s $2,995 E-Commerce Suite a “slick, well thought out and comprehensive solution that’s well worth your consideration.” Red Hat will also provide valuable “handholding.”

Turbolinux® Inc., a worldwide
leader in Linux operating environments and multi-platform software
deployment and management products enabling computing assets to be quickly
redefined on demand, today announced worldwide availability of Turbolinux
(TL) 7 Server on December 7th, 2001. With a focus on enterprise business,
TL 7 Server was developed with an eye towards extreme flexibility and
functionality.

“Turbolinux 7 Server offers businesses a highly secure, high-performance
operating system,” said Pete Beckman, vice president of engineering,
Turbolinux. “Turbolinux continues to satisfy the corporate world’s need for
ironclad network servers and is an excellent choice for businesses thinking
of migrating from Unix or Windows NT.”

Enterprise features include Large File Support (LFS), which provides support
for file sizes of 4 terabytes necessary for businesses that routinely
transmit or back up large files. The increasing use of Linux in animation
production and for scientific clustering (Editors: see Turbolinux Releases
Enfuzion 7.0, Makes Supercomputing Affordable, August 23, 2001) and the
continued growth of PC/x86 hardware for those applications has also
underscored the need for LFS.

In addition, Turbolinux 7 Server supports Logical Volume Manager (LVM),
which provides flexible disk volume management. LVM allows customers to
manage storage in a logical manner, for instance, combining disk drives to
function as a single disk, extending storage capacity simply.

Multi Language Support and International Certification
Turbolinux 7 Server comes with multi-language support and is the first Linux
distribution to conform to the basic level specifications of LI18NUX 2000
pilot program. LI18NUX is a voluntary working group, consisting of Linux
and open source related contributors – including Turbolinux – who are
working on internationalization of Linux distributions. The group focuses
on the internationalization of a core set of APIs and components of Linux
distributions in order to achieve a common Linux environment where an
internationalized Linux application can be executed and behave correctly
regardless of the underlying Linux distribution.

In keeping with this focus on internationalization, TL 7 Server is also
compliant with the new Chinese code standard, GB 18030. China has mandated
that any software application that is released for the Chinese market after
September, 2001, must support GB 18030. GB 18030 represents a
straightforward model to establish compatibility between Chinese national
coding and Unicode. Unicode provides a unique number for every character,
no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the
language. It also enables a single software product or a single website to
be targeted across multiple platforms, languages and countries without
re-engineering.

TL 7 Server, based on Linux file directory standards has also passed the FHS
test suites. The FHS or File system Hierarchy Standard is the convention for
compliance between Linux and Unix. The FHS standard seeks to create
interoperability of applications, system administration tools, and
development tools across Linux and Unix operating systems.

“Turbolinux is continually working to achieve innovative products based on
open source and standards and we’re proud of our Internationalization
standing,” said Ly-Huong Pham, CEO, Turbolinux. “Through our work with
LI18NUX and our on-going product development, Turbolinux is continuing to
serve as a leader in the Linux community throughout Asia-Pacific, as well as
growing our market share in other regions.”

Turbolinux 7 Server and PowerCockpit(tm)
Turbolinux 7 Server, as well as other Linux distributions, can also be
deployed to multiple nodes by just a few clicks using another Turbolinux
product, PowerCockpit. Representing a radical shift in the way servers are
currently defined, PowerCockpit collects and deploys entire software stacks,
including the operating system, middleware, and applications, enabling
instant reconfiguration of computing systems. IT managers can reconfigure
and redeploy systems as the need arises, recycling computing power on
demand. Web servers, for example, can become application servers in 10
minutes or less using just a few simple commands. System integrators and
manufacturers can also use PowerCockpit to provide fast and efficient
configuration-to-order services by pre-configuring servers with customer
specified software stacks.

About Turbolinux
Founded in 1992, Turbolinux Inc. is a global software company providing
Linux operating environments and multi-platform software deployment and
management products that allow computing assets to be quickly redefined on
demand — enabling true flexible processing power. Backed by some of the
world’s leading technology companies, including Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu,
Hitachi, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, Oracle, SGI and Toshiba, Turbolinux is
headquartered near San Francisco with offices around the world. For more
information, visit the Turbolinux Web site at http://www.turbolinux.com.

Turbolinux is a registered trademark of Turbolinux, Inc. Linux is a
registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other registered trademarks
belong to their respective holders.

Without waiting for the expected vote by
the European Union of a directive on the patentatibility of software,
the European Patent Office just published a new examination directive
which extends the realm of the European patent practice to software,
business methods and mathematics [1,2].

This decision constitutes a violation of the European democracy and a
provocation against European governments which had publicly stated
last November 2000 that they wanted tighter political control over the
European Patent Office and decided to preserve the exception for
computer programmes. [3] This shameful and unacceptable decision also
constitutes a violation of Article 22 of of the European Patent
Convention which stipulates that only the Enlarged Board of Appeal may
take decisions on significant patent policy issues. However, the
European Patent Office has extended the realm of the European patent
practice through hidden decisions of technical boards in order not to
ask their opinion to European governments. The European Patent Office
has tried to circumvent the democratic control of European Governments
through adventurous administrative processes. The European Patent
Office ignores its ruling authorities. [4] The European Patent Office
scorns the 80% of software companies which are against software
patents. [5, 6]

EuroLinux demands that European governments act firmly.

All projects of directive on the patentability of software, based on
the opinion of European governments, and written by the General
Directorate for Internal Market, require the European Patent Office to
act in a controlable and sensible way. However, control and common
sense do not seem to be appropriate terms for the current behaviour of
the European Patent Office. Therefore, EuroLinux demands governments
to

• clearly state their oppositioons to the patentability of software
  and intangible innovations,
• demonstrate to the public opinion their ability to control the
  European Patent Office by replacing urgently the current board,
  responsible of repeated violations of the European Patent
  Convention and of the Diplomatic Conference.

EuroLinux urges all companies, all software users and all citizens who
whish to protect software innovation in Europe and free competition in
the information society to join the 90.000 individual supporters and
300 corporate supporters of our petition for a software patent free
Europe [7].

References

[1] EPO Press Release for the new examination rules for software —
http://swpat.ffii.org/cnino/epgl01A/indexen.html

[2] New EPO examination rules for software —
http://www.epo.co.at/legal/gui_lines/f/c_iv_2.htm

[3] EPO Press Release after the November 2001 conference 2001 —
http://www.european-patent-office.org/news/pressrel/2000_11_29_e.htm

[4] Stealing with a Righteous Effect, a tale explaining how the EPO
could patent the unpatentable —
http://swpat.ffii.org/stidi/epc52/moses/indexen.html

[5] The Results of the European Commission Consultation Exercise —
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/indprop/softanalyse.pdf

[6] Acceptable protection of software intellectual property: a survey
of software developers and lawyers —
http://www.pro-innovation.org/rapport_brevet/economy/elsevier/acceptable.pdf

[7] EuroLinux Petition — http://petition.eurolinux.org

About EuroLinux — www.EuroLinux.org

The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
based on Open Standards, Open Competition, Linux and Open Source
Software. Companies members or supporters of EuroLinux develop or sell
software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for operating
systems such as Linux, MacOS or Windows.

The EuroLinux Alliance launched on 2000-06-15 an electronic petition
to protect software innovation in Europe. The EuroLinux petition has
received so far massive support from more than 90.000 European
citizens, 2000 corporate managers and 300 companies.

The EuroLinux Alliance has co-organised in 1999, together with the
French Embassy in Japan, the first Europe-Japan conference on Linux
and Free Software. The EuroLinux Alliance is at the initiative of the
www.freepatents.org web site to promote and protect innovation and
competition in the European IT industry.

Press Contacts

France & Europe: Jean-Paul Smets, jp@smets.com, +33-6 62 05 76 14
Germany & Europe: Harmut Pilch, phm@ffii.org, +49-89 127 89 608
Denmark and Northern Europe: Anne Østergaard, aoe@sslug.dk
Belgium: Nicolas Pettiaux, nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org

Permanent URL for this PR
http://petition.EuroLinux.org/pr/pr14.html

Legalese

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All other trademarks and copyrights are owned by their respective
companies.

DebianPlanet readers address this question: “My friend has an old laptop that he bought 5yrs ago. He has no other computer
and doesn’t want to spend money on a new one. He needs are limited to about 3
tasks. Realability and simplicity a very important as he doesn’t have the time or
inclination to fix his system. He is smart (Medical doctor) and is happy to learn
new tools. He sees my system’s reliability and how its so customised to my needs
(gnome/konqueror/kmail/gqmpeg/emacs/octave). He has asked me if it is possible
to set up a simple system for him.

The Hardware: A 5 yr old laptop. I can’t remember the brand …
What software would you people recommend?”

ZDNet reports on VA Linux’s release of SourceForge
Enterprise Edition 3.0, a “new proprietary version of SourceForge, the
collaborative programming software that now is the centerpiece of the company’s survival
strategy.” (VA Linux owns NewsForge.)