From PC World: “A fast CPU is only as good as the system that surrounds it, and if you’re waiting for your hard drive, USB scanner, or wireless connection, what’s the point of a 3.5-GHz processor?”

From ZDNet: “Russia warned its computer experts on Friday of the dangers of visiting the United States after a Russian software designer was arrested there for violating a controversial new law.”

Slashdot discusses an article on AnandTech about corporate cost-cutting that doesn’t involve cutting staff — cutting IT costs.

From ZDNet: “Supporters backing Dmitry Sklyarov, the
Russian programmer accused of five counts of copyright infringement,
declared war on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act at a fund-raiser
for Sklyarov’s legal defense on Wednesday.”

From LWN.net: Trustix and Reitan Invest announced today the
completion of Trustix Series C round of financing, with Reitan Invest as the
lead investor.

Trustix has raised a total of NOK 30 million in its Series C round of financing
from four investors who participated in the round. Lead investor in Trustix
round C is Reitan Invest.

From the humor site, Segfault.org: ” ‘But I understand that I have made a terrible mistake. I have been requesting a fair level of
acknowledgement for the GNU project, while at the same time, I have failed to grant that same
level of acknowledgement to myself!’ he stated to the confused gathering of median and open
source celebrities. ‘It was shameful of me to request acknowledgement in the Linux project, when
my own GNU project suffers from the same problem.’

His solution? ‘GNU will henceforth be known as Stallman/GNU.’ “

AnandTech has a story making a case for Linux in the corporate environment. “Change does not always have to be a frightening thing, and it is always a good idea to have
alternatives at your disposal in the corporate world. Having ‘all your eggs in one basket’ has been
considered a risky proposition for a lot longer than computers have been around, but the principle
is still sound and timely. In the case of the company we used as a basis for this example, thinking
outside the box paid off.

As a result of their willingness to look beyond, they now have a more cost-effective, more stable
and more predictable infrastructure in place. They have been able to benefit from the hard work of
the Linux community and the support of companies like Red Hat.”

Slashdotters discuss a report on DebianPlanet that Progeny has halted the Network of Workstations project because of poor economic conditions.

– By Grant Gross –

Linux’s 10th birthday celebration this week was a fairly low-key affair, although several technology and general-interest publications noted the milestone.

Much of the coverage, primarily starting last weekend, focused on a simple history of Linux, starting with Linus Torvalds’ posting on the Minix newsgroup 10 years ago, announcing his plans for a hobby OS. It appears that reporters even respected Linux10.org‘s wish that the Sunnyvale, Calif., birthday picnic be a “no media” event; the picnic got virtually no coverage.

Frankly, most of the stories on Linux’s birthday wouldn’t provide much new information to regular readers of NewsForge or other Linux news sites. A birthday is an arbitrary place to stop for a second and look around, and the Bangalore Linux Users Group even noted that Aug. 25 is a fairly arbitrary day to celebrate Linux’s birthday. Oct. 5 may have just as good a claim.

If you’ve been paying attention, you know Linux’s successes and challenges, and its history has been well documented long before its 10th birthday. Do a NewsForge search on “desktop” or browse our “business” or “games” topics to see some of the challenges; search on “embedded,” “IBM,” or “enterprise” to see some recent successes.

But there were a couple of stories this week worth noting:

An article at ZDNet looks ahead, saying the big challenge in the future is creating a profitable business model around Linux. Of course, there’s also the challenge of the Microsoft “full-court press” on Linux and the GNU General Public License.

The BBC has a nice overview of Linux’s first 10 years, plus a bunch of reader comments on the virtues of Linux. Here’s one of my favorite testimonials there, from Pernilla Sund of Finland: “We are using Linux boxes to control our biotech-robots. One error and metal starts flying trough the air. The machines have now been running for years with zero problems! Linux is reliable.”

The Boston Globe’s Hiawatha Bray celebrates a decade of Linux by comparing the development styles of Linus Torvalds and that other guy from Redmond, Wash. “Bill Gates — smart, arrogant and power-hungry — wants a social machine that will enforce absolute control. He runs Microsoft Corp. with an iron grip, and makes software designed to impose One True Way of computing on millions of hapless serfs. Torvalds just wanted good software. So he and his allies built a social machine rooted in openness and cooperation … Early versions of Linux infiltrated corporate America at precisely the right moment to offer an alternative to computer professions exhausted by Microsoft’s relentless greed and arrogance.”

I’m not sure I can write a better ending to a Linux at 10 story than that.

It’s posted at LWN.net. “The top stories this
time around include: Zope 2.4.1 beta 1 released, a new ZEO beta is
announced, Paul forks off a kid, versioning is hot, Tim Peters gets
paid, Zope for Mac OS X, a big fat client, and a Zope-XPath marriage
is proposed.”