An industry update from The Register: “Samsung has expanded its agreement with British chip designer ARM and licensed three more cores. It’s a significant win for ARM’s Jazelle Java accelerator, in the form of the ARM926-EJ-S core, but the eye catching part of the deal sees Samsung promise to invest in the next-generation 64-bit ARM10.”

Last Friday, bug hunter Georgi Guninski unearthed a security flaw with Microsoft’s Office XP that could allow attackers to view another party’s e-mail and manipulate program data and content on their computer. Bad enough on its own, but apparently this vulnerability also affects Office 2000 and Office 98. You can thank an ActiveX feature for the problems. More information from The Register’s report.

Microsoft has changed its tune on MP3 ripping, but only because there’s a profit to be made. The company announced today that it would work with third-party companies to add MP3/CD ripping and DVD playback features to its Windows Media player, and charge somewhere between $15 and $30 for those extra features. One analyst (from Gartner, who recently published a Microsoft-funded survey on Linux server market share) says the company was in a damned-if-they-do-or-don’t scenario: “If Microsoft had put one of these capabilities in, they would have been criticized for bundling more stuff into the OS and trying to cut some of the other players. This way, only those that want the DVD and MP3 will have to pay for it.” From CNET News.com.

Richmond, V.A., July 16, 2001 – bayMountain, a leading provider of complex Web and application infrastructure services, today announced that Caldera has chosen bayMountain to provision, and host the infrastructure for the online open source management service, Volution Online. www.volutiononline.com is the Caldera 24 x 7 on-line software management portion of the Caldera Volution systems and software management product offering.

To meet the needs of the site?s highly complex architecture, bayMountain designed a custom infrastructure configuration that employs an eight-server cluster ? including web application, database, and file servers. The cluster ensures redundancy and scalability on all levels. The cluster also allows the site to benefit from large file system support, load balancing and support for multiple software and technology platforms. In addition, Caldera is able to leverage bayMountain?s extensive experience in supporting Linux and Open Source deployments.

“Our goal with Volution is to help system administrators manage multiple Linux servers and workstations,” said Reg Broughton, senior vice president at Caldera. “By leveraging bayMountain?s managed hosting services, we have added Volution Online to include a pro-active open source software/application management service and accelerated the delivery of a more complete solution.”

?Caldera?s Volution and our managed hosting solutions actually support a common goal – to reduce costs, save time and increase the efficiency of customers, ” said Dr. Mark Wensell, president and founder of bayMountain. “It makes sense for companies to benefit from both of these management resources.”

About Caldera Systems, Inc.

Caldera Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CALD) is a “Unifying UNIX with Linux for Business” technology leader in developing and marketing successful Linux-based business solutions, including its award-winning OpenLinux, NetWare for Linux, Linux technical training, certification and support-with free 30-day phone support and on-site consulting. Caldera OpenLearning Providers offer exceptional distribution-neutral Linux training and certification based on Linux Professional Institute (LPI(TM)) certification standards. Caldera Systems supports the open source community and is a leader in, and advocate of, Linux Standard Base (LSB(TM)) and LPI(TM).

Caldera, Inc. was co-founded in 1994 by Ransom Love. Caldera Systems, Inc. was founded by Ransom Love in 1998 to develop Linux-based business solutions. Based in Orem, UT, Caldera Systems has offices and 1000+ resellers worldwide. For more information, see www.calderasystems.com or in the US call 888-GO-Linux (888-465-4689).

About bayMountain

bayMountain is a leading provider of web and application infrastructure services, for mid-size companies with enterprise-level needs. bayMountain offers one source for the complete infrastructure value chain – from data center facilities and hardware to operating system and application layer support. bayMountain specializes in creating custom configurations for individual customer needs. The company does this quickly and cost-effectively through the combination of its exclusive bayCluster methodology and appFusion platform. Configurations can be hosted and managed in bayMountain’s data center or hosted at a partner facility and remotely managed using bayVista, bayMountain’s remote monitoring system.

bayMountain provides a level of expertise, performance and return-on-investment unmatched by other providers. More information is available at www.bayMountain.com.

###

Press Contacts:

Shawn Ramsey-Kroboth
truePilot, on behalf of bayMountain, Inc.

919-806-4361

shawn@truepilot.com

Blake Smith

truePilot, on behalf of bayMountain, Inc.

919-806-4259

blake@truepilot.com

– By Richard Stallman–

While traveling from South Africa to Sweden in June, I became a victim
of the War on Drugs.

It happened at Frankfurt airport, just after I disembarked from the
flight from Johannesburg. When I reached the gate itself, a man was
standing there with a dog. Just after I passed him, two other people
flashed badges at me, and told me they were customs agents. I could
not read the badges without my glasses, but I took their word for it.
They told me to step aside, show them my passport, and answer their
questions.

They asked where I had come from. “Johannesburg — but you know that
already,” I replied. “You know where this flight came from.” Then
they asked to see my ticket. The ticket itself had been collected, so
I handed them my boarding pass stub and said, “This is what is left of
it.” They seemed to find that hard to accept. So I showed them the
ticket for the next flight, the one from Frankfurt to Stockholm. That
had the side effect of showing them that I had another flight in 40
minutes, which may have been some help.

At this point I asked them, “What’s going on? Why are you questioning
me here?” They tried to evade the issue: “We’re customs agents;
asking these questions is our job.” I pushed the point: “I travel
most of the time, as you see,” because they were leafing through my
passport, “and I have been through this airport many times before.
This is not normal. This is not where people go through customs.
What is the meaning of this?”

They said that the dog had told them I was carrying “drugs.”

At this point they searched my computer bag, asking some silly
questions about things such as papers about my computer, which were
evidently not drugs. Then they searched my food bag, rather casually
although it held many mood-altering substances (tea and chocolate)
to which they paid no attention.

They didn’t bother with my backpack, which was foolish, because it was
full of drugs — ibuprofin, acetaminophen, oxymetazoline, and more.
Perhaps the dog told them enough was enough. They asked if I had
checked baggage, and I said yes, a large suitcase. But they let me go
without arranging to check it. Little did they know that I was
transporting pseudephedrine, mefloquine and levaquin there.

I was a victim of the War on Drugs that day, but I was not hurt very
badly: I lost only five minutes of my time. Others have it much
worse. I encounter this problem rarely because I am a Caucasian from
a rich country. (Once in a while, my long hair counts against me.) If
you have the wrong skin color, or ethnic background, or national
origin, you’re likely to be harassed frequently, and may be detained
for hours. But what about evidence? Probable cause? For the drug
warriors, a word from a dog is enough.

I may be lucky this happened in Frankfurt, because in the United States the
police could have seized all the money I had with me on mere
suspicion – -for instance, if a dog said it smelled of cocaine (which
nearly all U.S. paper money does). This procedure is called “civil
forfeiture;” instead of accusing you of a crime, they accuse your cash
instead. (If this sounds ridiculous, don’t blame me, it’s what the U.S.
government says.) They do it this way because your cash doesn’t have
the constitutional rights that a person has. The War on Drugs has
effectively negated the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable
searches and seizures.

But it gets worse than that: the War on Drugs can ruin your life. A
minister in New York City died from a heart attack when the police
burst into his apartment by mistake. Of course, that sort of thing is
rare. A larger number of innocent people are shot by policemen hunting for drugs.
But the usual way this war ruins innocent people’s lives
is when they are falsely convicted of trafficking. This is not
unusual, because everyone accused is offered the chance to reduce his
sentence by inculpating someone else. (The inquisitors in Europe,
hunting witches, used the same approach.) To comply is wrong, but not
everyone can face extra years in prison for the sake of his
conscience. And if the accused runs short of real accomplices
denounce, he can always denounce someone innocent. Maybe you.

And this is not even to mention the trouble that the War on Drugs
causes for people who use drugs. Illegal drugs differ as much as
alcohol and caffeine; some are safe enough when used responsibly.
Sometimes more than merely safe; marijuana can be the best treatment
for the pain of cancer or AIDS. But even if the drug itself is safe,
using it puts you in danger– from the police.

Some illegal drugs are dangerous, but it’s easy to protect yourself
from them — just say no. But you can’t “just say no” to to the War on
Drugs. When a war is on drugs, it forgets who the enemy is, and
starts attacking everyone.

The War on Drugs needs to get off drugs, and come to its senses. It
is up to us to help.

In the past few years, several states have passed laws to permit
medical use of marijuana. Massachusetts is now considering a bill to
eliminate criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of
marijuana. These efforts are just a beginning, but they need your
support. For more information about civil forfeiture, see
http://www.aclu.org/issues/drugpolicy/CivilAssetForfeiture.html. If
you want to help get the war off drugs, see
www.mpp.org.

Editor’s note: This essay reflects Richard Stallman’s personal views
and not those of the Free Software Foundation.

Copyright 2001 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted
in any medium provided the copyright notice and this notice are
preserved.

Joining the ranks of vendor-neutral Linux certification programs from LPI and SAIR is the Computing Technology Industry Association’s Linux+ (yes, that’s “Linux plus”) exam. Check out this article at UnixReview.com for a helpful overview of the exam. While it’s too late to get in on the beta certification program — that ran in June — the next period of availability should be in September.

LinuxPlanet editor Michael Hall retells his experience with the technical support arm of a supposedly Linux-friendly computer vendor. Head-exploding moments come early and then often in this article, beginning with a telephone support staffer who tells Hall that it’s all Linux’s fault that half his RAM has gone missing. Naturally, the solution offered was to reinstall Windows ME. Why do you ask?

Zack Brown posts his summary of link-kernel mailing list stats and topics. Hot discussion items for this report include a 28-post thread on per-process memory limits, a briefer discussion on 64-bit block support, and a proposal to resurrect the Linux Sparc32 port.

From commentary at VarLinux.org: “While Microsoft debates the issues surrounding the GPL from a monopolists perspective, an important point seems to be missing completely from the entire argument. Though laughable to those of us involved in the Open Source community, Microsoft’s anti-GPL arguments are dangerous because they seem digestable to corporate America.” That could depend upon where you’re standing; IBM seems to be getting an awful lot of bang for its billion bucks into Linux campaign.

An item on KDE.news heralds the arrival of George Russell’s Speaker, the very first attempt at giving KDE Web browser Konqueror the ability to synthesize text into speech. Speaker works as a plug-in for the very natural sounding output from the Festival Speech Synthesis System engine that was developed at Edinburgh University.