LinuxJournal.com has an interview with Jon “maddog” Hall while they were all stuck on a boat together. maddog describes his role protecting the Linux trademark as executive director of Linux International: “Sometimes it’s unpleasant because some people try to use the Linux name for things that really aren’t very kosher. Like the time a
guy tried to start a porn site with the name Linuxchicks.com, and Deb Richardson, who started www.linuxchix.org, was understandably upset
about this and requested that we go in and stop it. But Linus wants the word Linux to be used in any legitimate form, so now we’ve set up a
thing called the Linux Mark Institute; it’s a nonprofit. It charges a minimal amount of money if you want to use the word Linux in a registered
trademark. If you want to use it on a t-shirt or a coffee mug, a promotional item, then that’s free.”

From Busineswire.com: Caldera International, Inc. (Nasdaq:CALD), today announced the availability of OpenLinux(R)64 Release 3.1, a Linux system-based
server and workstation product designed for 64-bit Intel Itanium processors.
Utilizing 64-bit technology, OpenLinux 64 brings a new level of stability, scalability and robustness to the Linux platform.

The press release is over at Excite.com. VA Linux Systems Inc. is asking shareholders to approve changing the
company’s name to VA Software Corp., according to proxy materials filed Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., company said the name VA Software better identifies the company’s primary business of developing its
SourceForge collaborative software development platform. The company said the name VA Linux is identified with its former
Linux hardware systems and consulting businesses. (VA Linux owns NewsForge.)

– By Grant Gross –

An exchange of emails that started with a developer criticizing Lutris Technologies for backing away from its support of the Open Source Enhydra.org project has lead to Lutris’ CEO asking the developer to close down a Web site that provides the code to another Lutris product. So far, George C. Hawkins is refusing to pull the site.

At issue now is Hawkins’ SimpleDB.org, an Open Source project based on the code from Lutris’ InstantDB 3.26, which Hawkins contends was released under the Mozilla-like Enhydra Public License. Lutris CEO Yancy Lind says InstantDB was always a closed-source product. (More on this story Wednesday as Lind reponds to Hawkins’ changes to Simple.DB.org.)

Earlier this month, after Lutris announced it would no longer support Enhydra.org because of a licensing conflict with Sun Microsystems, Hawkins took the company to task, saying it wasn’t the first time Lutris had backed off Open Source commitments. Hawkins cited the case of InstantDB, which he says Lutris promised to Open Source, then reneged.

Lind tells a different story, of course. He says InstantDB has never been an Open Source project, and although his company anticipated Open-Sourcing the program at one point, it decided InstantDB made better business sense as a closed-source product, Lind says. “This was not a ‘taking’ or a ‘close sourcing’ of a previously open source project,” he told NewsForge earlier this month. “InstantDB was never an open source product. We understand that some are disappointed in our decision, but disagreeing with a decision does not make it wrong, it merely means we have different points of view.”

Since that blow-up between Hawkins and Lind in mid-October, Hawkins has sent out several observations to a couple of dozen interested observers, including Lind. On Oct. 21, he announced SimpleDB, an Open Source project based on code from InstantDB 3.26.

In that email, Hawkins thanked people, including Lutris employees, for responding to his original Lutris critique. He wrote:

“The nearest most people came to criticism was to suggest that I’d been
naive. I accept that. In future I’ll be following these rules:

“1. if you don’t have the source it’s not open source no matter what
apparent commitments you seem to have from well intentioned people
(and I won’t be taking any more sweets from any strange men either).

“2. stick clear of own-brand open source licenses — if it’s not one of
the opensource.org approved licenses then caveat emptor (of course when
it comes to commercial s/w I’ll continue to accept anything under the
sun as far as licenses go 🙂

“I would like to point out (and I haven’t been made say this by a lawyer)
that I don’t believe Lutris has done anything illegal. That said the
fact that the law won’t prosecute you for it doesn’t make it right — if
not in law at least in the sense your Mom would mean it I think what
Lutris has done was dishonest. [A former Lutris employee’s] attitude on this point
seemed to be ‘boo hoo’ but in the open source community (and others I
hope) trust and such … are important.

“I do NOT believe Lutris is in league with the devil or anything
ridiculous like that. They may do many good things but my site doesn’t
cover these — that’s not its purpose. I created it with the sole purpose
of pointing out what I felt were bad things Lutris had done in respect
to InstantDB and to a lesser extent the Enhydra application server and
from the feedback I’ve received most people accepted it as such and
welcomed the contribution it made.”

Lind wrote back, suggesting SimpleDB violates Lutris’ trademark. He responded to Hawkins: “While I admire your desire to continue to push the envelope, this site does infringe on the trademark and intellectual property rights of Lutris Technologies. We are a small company and don’t have the legal resources to do a whole lot about it,
but I would appreciate it if you would pull this site. InstantDB versions 3.25 and 3.26 were made available under a license that allowed for the distribution and use of those binaries free of charge. They were ‘freeware’, we only asked that you use the name InstantDB and credit it to Lutris in your documentation. Only versions 3.25 and 3.26 were made available under this license.”

Lind added: “That being said, no version of InstantDB was made available under a license that granted intellectual property rights nor the rights to reverse engineer
the InstantDB source code. InstantDB remains the property of Lutris Technologies. You may not reverse-engineer or re-name InstantDB.”

Lind asked Hawkins to “respect our rights and cease all activities that infringe on
those rights,” but said Hawkins retains the rights to personally use InstantDB 3.25 and 3.26 binaries.

Hawkins responded: “Yancy tries to engender sympathy in the reader, conjuring up the image of a couple of starving programmers working out of somebody’s back
bedroom just looking for their first big break. And am I Mega-Corp
International bullying you out of existence? While you may not be IBM
you do have a CEO, CFO, CTO, 6 VPs, a sizable marketing department etc.
and have consumed sizeable chunks of VC money. While things maybe
different in California that seems like a reasonably big company to me
and it shouldn’t matter anyway what size you are – if you do something
wrong or dishonest you should expect people to stand up and tell you so. I didn’t ask you to force me to pull the site through legal action. I just asked you to state clearly why I have no right to create SimpleDB.”

Hawkins responded to NewsForge saying he has made a few changes to the site. He says he’s made the distribution of InstantDB 3.26 a more prominent element, and he says he’s produced a SimpleDB distribution that doesn’t include either the source for InstantDB or SimpleDB, instead an application that will produce the source for SimpleDB given the InstantDB 3.26 binary distro as input.

“Presumably if people are free to use and distribute InstantDB 3.26
then they’re also free to render it into a form fit for maintenance and
fixes without the need to go back to Lutris for one of the newer payware
releases,” he says.

Reported at The Register: “A reader recently told me that the default settings on his Win-XP Pro firewall made him invisible on the Net, at least according to Steve Gibson’s ShieldsUp security diagnostic tool. But this isn’t what Gibberson is worried about. As we know, he’s terrified that Harry Homeowner users will be Trojanized six ways to Sunday by malicious teenagers bent on using their raw sockets to destroy the Internet.”

Reported at Wired News: “A senior Intel official said Tuesday that the world’s largest chipmaker has been inspired by Napster, the song-swapping Internet service, and Linux, the free operating system, to overhaul some of its technology infrastructure.”

Reuters, via MSNBC: “PlayMedia Software said on Tuesday a federal court ordered America Online to stop distributing the 6.0 version of its software that contains closely held PlayMedia’s digital music encoding technology. AOL recently introduced its latest version of its client software, 7.0. It wasn’t immediately clear if that software also included PlayMedia’s technology; but if it does, AOL might have to halt distribution of it, too.”

OREM, Utah–Oct. 30, 2001– Caldera International, Inc. (Nasdaq: CALD), today announced the availability of OpenLinux 64 Release 3.1, a Linux system-based server and workstation product designed for 64-bit Intel? Itanium processors. Utilizing 64-bit technology, OpenLinux 64 brings a new level of stability, scalability and robustness to the Linux platform.”OpenLinux 64 on the Itanium processor represents a milestone in Caldera engineering,” said Drew Spencer, CTO, Caldera. “It is the first of many Caldera products that will take advantage of Intel’s next generation processor. Corporate developers, ISVs, VSPs, VARs, and early Itanium processor adopters using OpenLinux 64 will benefit from the vast amounts of memory and processing power Itanium supplies. In addition, OpenLinux 64 offers a powerful server and high-performance workstation for simple development and enhanced deployment of Linux applications.”

“Intel Itanium processors deliver higher levels of performance, scalability and availability, enabling customers to increase their competitiveness worldwide,” said Lisa Hambrick, director of Enterprise Processor Marketing, Intel. “With its support for Intel Itanium processors, Caldera OpenLinux 64 will also be able to deliver world-class service to its global customer and partner base.”

“Availability of Caldera’s OpenLinux 64 is an important step in bringing increased scalability and performance to Linux-based applications running on industry standard 64-bit architectures,” said Rick Becker, vice president, business development and OS marketing, Compaq Industry Standard Server Group. “Releases of 64-bit Itanium-based development platforms such as OpenLinux 64 align with Compaq’s commitment to enabling the development and porting of Itanium-based applications on ProLiant servers through the TrailBlazer program, and will be crucial as Linux continues to gain adoption in enterprise computing environments for demanding back end applications, such as databases.”

“Fujitsu welcomes the launch of OpenLinux 64 Release 3.1,” said Akira Ozora, general manager, Linux Division, Software Group, FUJITSU Ltd. “Caldera’s OpenLinux distribution is ideal for developing large-scale high performance systems with large RAM capacity using Intel’s 64-bit Itanium processor and is essential in promoting the use of Linux in business and R&D.”

“Fujitsu introduced the first PRIMERGY N4000 IA server that adopts Intel’s 64-bit Itanium processor and is committed to delivering high performance large-scale systems using the Linux platform,” added Ozora. “In cooperation with Caldera, Fujitsu will continue to provide solutions to further expand Linux-based applications.”

OpenLinux 64 packages provide developers with a stable 64-bit Linux software foundation, which includes:

– Linux 2.4.5 kernel

– gcc 3.0 and a wide variety of GNU development tools
– glibc 2.2.3
– Secure Apache web server
– Samba, and NFS file and print
– A wide variety of core Linux services such as: FTP, DNS, mail, etc.
– kdevelop (various, emphasizes C++/KDE/QT)
– QT Designer (C++/GUI)

This foundation enables OpenLinux 64 users to personalize the operating system according to their needs by selecting one of three install options: a Linux server, a Linux workstation or all the Linux software packages needed to develop and deploy their Itanium-based applications.

Licensing and Pricing
OpenLinux 64 is licensed on a per system basis. No restriction exists on the number of users who use or attach to the system. Licenses for regular OpenLinux 64 kits are initially available for $599; not-for-resale versions are $49.

Availability
OpenLinux 64 is available worldwide. The product may be purchased online by visiting http://shop.caldera.com/caldera/summary.jsp?collection=Software.
Software is available now at ftp://ftp.caldera.com/pub/OpenLinux64.

Additional information regarding OpenLinux 64 may be found at http://www.caldera.com/products/openlinux64/. Questions regarding OpenLinux 64 and other Caldera products may be directed to Caldera at info@caldera.com.

Caldera International, Inc.
Caldera International (Nasdaq: CALD) is the leader in “Unifying UNIX with Linux for Business.” Caldera was the first to create the “Develop-on, Deploy-on, Manage strategy for Linux-based clients and servers. Based in Orem, UT, Caldera has representation in 82 countries and has 15,000+ resellers worldwide. For more information on Caldera products and services, visit http://www.caldera.com.

Caldera, OpenLinux, and “Unifying UNIX with Linux for Business” are trademarks or registered trademarks of Caldera International, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Intel is a registered trademark and Itanium is a trademark of Intel Corporation. All other products, services, companies, events and publications are trademarks, registered trademarks or servicemarks of their respective owners in the U.S. and/or other countries.

LINUX is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries.

Forward Looking Statements
The statements set forth above include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The Company wishes to advise readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Those factors include the failure of the products described above to operate as designed due to incompatibility with some platforms or other defects; our reliance on developers in the open source community; new and changing technologies and customer acceptance of those technologies; the Company’s ability to compete effectively with other companies; failure of our brand to achieve the broad recognition necessary to succeed; unenforceability of the GNU general public license; our reliance on third party developers of components of our software offerings; claims of infringement of third-party intellectual property rights; and disruption in the Company’s distribution sales channel. These and other factors, which could cause actual results to differ materially, are also discussed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its recent filings on Form 10-Q.

# # #

LinuxWorld Expo, Frankfurt, Germany (October 30, 2001) – SuSE Linux, the
international Open Source technology leader and solutions provider, today
announced an agreement with IBM to distribute IBM’s entire line of
software for Linux in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) as a Value
Added Linux Distributor (VALD).
IBM will use SuSE as a primary distributor in Europe for its Linux
software product lines DB2, WebSphere, Lotus, and Tivoli. In addition,
IBM will promote and fulfill orders through SuSE for SuSE Linux Groupware
Server with Lotus Domino R5, SuSE Linux Database Server with IBM’s DB2
Universal Database, and IBM’s WebSphere Commerce Suite 5.1 for Linux.

“This agreement marks another significant milestone in our relationship
with SuSE that began in 1999,” said Scott Handy, Worldwide Director of
Linux Solutions, IBM Software. “Our relationship with SuSE provides a
win-win for both customers and channel partners because it is driven by
mutual goals — to provide value-add Linux solutions to our customers and
to deliver these solutions through our channel partners.”

In addition to integrated SuSE Linux Business Solutions, this agreement
will enable SuSE to provide more flexibility to its customers and partners
by offering a broad range of Linux software that includes over 50 IBM
products.

“SuSE’s expanded relationship with IBM will allow us to tightly integrate
our efforts to satisfy the strong demand for Linux business solutions as
customers expand their use of Linux to include mission-critical business
applications”, said Johannes Nussbickel, Chief Executive Officer, SuSE
Linux. “Customers are excited about Linux and have had great success in
their deployments to-date. They are looking for the same benefits in cost,
performance and reliability from their business applications that they get
from Linux-based infrastructure solutions today. Together with IBM, we
plan to deliver those Linux solutions to our business partners and joint
customers.”

SuSE recently expanded its channel programs for Value Added Resellers
(VARs), Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), Consultants and System
Integrators (SIs) to help them deliver value and business solutions to
customers. For more on the benefits of these programs and for information
on how to become a SuSE business partner visit
http://www.suse.de/en/partner/index.html or contact

SuSE Linux AG
Channel Marketing
ibm-partner@suse.de
Tel. (+49) 911 – 740 53 – 520

IBM products and all SuSE Linux Business Solutions distributed by SuSE are
available immediately through authorized SuSE resellers. Enhanced programs
for business partners to become new SuSE resellers are also available
immediately.

About SuSE

SuSE Linux is one of the world’s leading providers of complete solutions
based on the Open Source operating system Linux. In addition to operating
systems and application software for private customers, SuSE offers
software solutions and complete systems for the deployment of Linux in
companies.

SuSE supports its enterprise customers with a comprehensive range of
qualified consulting, training, and support services. The company, which
hosts the world’s largest development team for Open Source solutions, has
made its unique project and support know-how accessible via the Internet
in the largest existing Linux knowledge database.

Further information on SuSE can be found at http://www.suse.de/en/

Press contact:
SuSE Linux AG
Martina Eckstein
Schanzaeckerstr. 10
90443 Nuernberg
Germany
martina.eckstein@suse.de
Phone: +49-(0)911-74053507

* Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
** DB2, WebSphere, Lotus and Tivoli are registered trademarks of the IBM
Corporation.

SEUL/edu is the discussion group for those interested in using Linux for education. In this report: dotted fonts to use for teaching handwriting, how patents are affecting computing education in UK schools, and Free Software as teaching aid in Nepal. Posted at Simple End User Linux.