Intel to Rambus: The free (well, subsidized) ride is over. The chipmaker is phasing out subsidies for computer makers using RDRAM memory that’s based on Rambus designs. Intel says the subsidies are no longer needed to lower prices, but analysts see it as a way for the company to distance itself from Rambus, reeling from the dual blows of lower profits and failed lawsuits. Full story at ZDNet News.

From InternetWire: Solutions 2001, The IBM Technical Developer Conference
August 14-16 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco will
underscore IBM’s position as a leading technical resource for
developers worldwide. IBM anticipates more than 3,000
attendees at Solutions 2001, a major statement of support
considering that several competitors have either downscaled or cancelled their developer
events this year.

“ACTION: John to try to get a copyright assignment form and procedure
for the GNOME Foundation. => Still pending. Waiting on RMS to send material.”

Minutes of the GF Board Meeting (July 24, 2001)
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 14:08:36 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dan Mueth 
To: 
Cc: 


Minutes of the GNOME Foundation Board Meeting (July 24, 2001)
        =============================================================


Presents:
=========
    Havoc Pennington (chair)
    Federico Mena Quintero
    John Heard
    Dan Mueth (minutes)
    Raph Levien
    Owen Taylor
    Martin [joined as guest from :15 to :35]

Regrets:
========
    Miguel de Icaza
    Bart Decrem
    Jim Gettys
    Daniel Veillard

Missing:
========
    Maciej Stachowiak

Decisions:
==========


Finshed Actions:
================
  ACTION: Havoc to invite Sander and Martin to Board Meeting
   => DONE

Actions:
========

  ACTION: Dan to work with Membership Committee to re-open the
          membership list.
   => Almost done.  Still need to send out announcements.

  ACTION: Havoc to send the Advisory Board list to the Board,
          looking for completion of the member liason.
   => Waiting for update from the director.

  ACTION: John to try to get a copyright assignment form and procedure
          for the GNOME Foundation.
   => Still pending.  Waiting on RMS to send material.

  ACTION: Maciej to email the Board the current draft of the platform
          license policy for review.
   => Still pending.

  ACTION: Federico to post the new version of the email/CVS/shell
          account policy.
   => Still pending.

New Actions:
============

  ACTION: Havoc to email Sander to see if he has a suggestion for
          a replacement release coordinator.

  ACTION: Martin to write up a list of API issues and status report
          for GNOME 2.0.

  ACTION: Havoc to push through employment agreement for executive
          director.

  ACTION: Havoc to email Leila about press release changes and status.

  ACTION: Havoc, Owen, and John to discuss a possible accessibility
          kit release with the accessibility team.


Discussion:
===========

 - approved last week's minutes and actions

 - GNOME 2.0 coordinators:
   Martin is stepping down as GNOME 2.0 coordinator because
   school is starting to demand a lot more of his time.  He
   wants to still work on GNOME 2.0, but doesn't feel that
   he will have enough free time to do as much coordination
   as this role requires.
   Martin will hack until Sept 15 and then have vacation.

 - GNOME 2.0 status:
   Most API's should freeze in 1 week.
   Development is picking up.
   We should encourage people to start porting packages and testing
   the platform.
   Parallel builds aren't completely working yet with the vicious
   build scripts.

 - Executive director:
   We have a draft employment agreement which we need to finalize
   and then sign.  As soon as we do this, we will make a
   formal announcement.

 - Accessibility Press Release:
   We want to gain the attention of people in the accessibility world,
   and make them aware that we are working on an accessibility
   framework they will be able to use in the future.
   We want to emphasize that things are still in a development state.
   There is a concern that we don't want to have a press release for
   unstable software which is only in CVS.
   It would be better if we could release a development kit with
   a couple demo applications.
   Havoc, Owen, and John will discuss the possible development kit
   with the accessibility team.

From ZDNet’s AnchorDesk: “I think the clock is ticking on the Sons of Napster.
They may never go away, but they will be marginalized.

Why? Because the people
who own the music have a
very powerful weapon in their
arsenal, and customers won’t
do anything to stop it. It’s copy
protection. It’s coming, and
while some of you will
complain, there will be enough
leeway to satisfy you as well
as the record companies.”

CNet reports that a group of privacy organizations detailed a complaint it plans to submit to the
Federal Trade Commission, “charging Microsoft with inadequate security and privacy
provisions in the forthcoming Windows XP and alleging unfair and deceptive trade practices.”

The Register has a Eurogamer.net story about Sony surveying Linux users about interest in the company releasing its Playstation2 for Linux kit in the United States.

IBM’s developerWorks site has the tutorial. “Many of us use the excellent OpenSSH as a secure, encrypted
replacement for the venerable telnet and rsh commands. One of OpenSSH’s more intriguing features is
its ability to authenticate users using the RSA and DSA authentication protocols, which are based on a
pair of complementary numerical keys.”

– by Tina Gasperson –
Hey you, sitting up front … yeah, you! Pry your eyes off the Rune for Linux screensaver and the free Yellow Dog T-shirts. Turn around for a minute. See that guy behind the potted ficus with a confused look on his face? Look at those three people in the back row — they came to your LUG meeting because they heard Linux is easy to install, it’s free, and it doesn’t crash five times a day like Windows. One of them also heard that user groups are full of nice people who would like nothing better than to help them get started. A couple of years ago, my colleague Emmett Plant wrote The Welcome Wagon. He rightly pointed out that we should welcome the curious with open arms. As Linux matures and we get to the point where a significant percentage of the computer-using universe has heard of Linux, knows it is an alternative to Windows, and might even be able to pronounce it correctly, welcoming new people and encouraging them becomes more urgent.

It is very easy to forget how we felt when we first ditched Windows for Linux. Some of us never even had to make that transition; we grew up in the “church,” so to speak. It’s hard to relate to someone, to use an imaginary example, who has tried five distributions and can’t get any of them to install properly because he has a RAM problem that he doesn’t know exists and he’s blaming it on Linux.

And then there are people who do have a decent understanding of their system, have managed to get Mandrake installed, and just have lots of questions about things that seem so obvious to us now. There are a couple of them at your LUG meeting, with glazed-over looks in their eyes, as three of the old timers stand up front and discuss possible phone phreaks against Ransom Love for putting a per-seat license on Caldera. They can’t relate to philosophical rants yet. They need practical, hands-on, step-by-step help.

And while you don’t want to turn your LUG meetings into a baby nursery, there’s no reason why Linux gathering should not be welcoming, reassuring, and enfolding to budding Stallmanites or Raymondites. Here are some suggestions:

Make a plan and stick to it

Publish a schedule for each meeting on your Web site. Have printed copies of the agenda to hand out to each person who enters the meeting. That way, even while you’re making sure everyone knows how to get to Love’s house for the protest, your newbies can look at the schedule and see that you will be talking about “how to get your HP inkjet printer working in Red Hat” in 10 minutes.

Recognize visitors

Acknowledge those who took the time to travel to your meeting for the first time. Ask, “do we have any first-time visitors?” This allows those who do not want any attention to remain silent. Encourage those who are attending for the first time to introduce themselves and say why they came. This is a great way to connect with each person and not only make them feel welcomed, but also make sure they get the information they need.

Don’t count on all your visitors being outgoing, initiative-taker types who will introduce themselves without being asked to. If you never recognize your visitors and don’t ask them specifically what they need or what they can offer, they might not tell you, and not only that, they’ll probably just disappear as quietly as they came.

Plan activities especially for beginners

It seems obvious to have a question-and-answer session at the end of the meeting. But taking an aggressive stand on meeting the needs of fledgling Linux users is a good idea, because many times people don’t know the right questions to ask, or they don’t want to look stupid or face possible scorn (ever asked a newbie question on your friendly neighborhood mailing list and felt like blackened grouper afterward?)

Consider breaking your meeting up into chunks. Having a presentation on Samba for the regulars is great, but during the same meeting, you could add a mini talk on “how to unarchive and install files via the command line.” Not everyone has a problem that would warrant them bringing their computer to the meeting, but they would love to pick up snippets of useful information like this. With a little planning, you could also include a handout.

Make lots of information available

Speaking of handouts, have a stock collection of them to give to the new people. Save the notes from your mini talks and have a library, filed by topic, that you can whip out. Or publish them on your Web site and direct newbies there.

IBM recently released an article entitled Transitioning from Windows to Linux, in PDF format. The author, Mark Chapman, hopes that it will be a useful tool for LUGs. “The file is up on the Web site to be downloaded by users, and the more the better,” he says. Point your visitors who are thinking about installing Linux to this file, after you have given much encouragement, answered all their questions, and showed them just how great membership in the Linux community can be.

It’s at MSLinux.com: “KSpread is already a good enough spreadsheet for probably 90% of users, with the basic functionalities …”

Posted at Net-security.org: “A buffer overflow exists in the elm email client when handling very
long message-ids. This would overwrite other header fields and could
potentially cause further damage.”