Salon: “It’s the summer of 2001 and the video game industry is bigger and hotter than ever. In the feverishly contested hand-held market, Nintendo’s GameBoy Advance and Atari’s 2600-compatible VCSp are the must-have consoles.”

“I recently attended the Rocky Mountain SANS conference and one of the topics that was brought up was data forensics. The part that I was most interested in was how does one go about gathering data and analyzing it to best facilitate law enforcement agencies and insure that it will withstand the scrutiny of the courtroom?” Read more,
on Slashdot.

– By Grant Gross
–

It was a slow week for news in the United States, with the July 4 holiday breaking up the week, but that didn’t stop Open Source news from breaking out elsewhere. Red Hat v.p. Mark White raised a question about Chinese Linux developers, especially those at Red Flag Linux, hoarding their code.

White was concerned that Chinese developers are violating the GNU General Public License that Linux is issued under, by not sharing their changes to the code with the rest of the world. Red Flag investors defended their work, saying they are building applications on top of Linux, not changing Linux, and they accused Red Hat of being frustrated by its lack of business in China.

NewsForge business columnist Jack Bryar doesn’t see much the Linux community can do about such a violation. Who’s going to go after the Chinese in defense of Linux? Certainly, not the George W. Bush administration.

Cool new stuff on the way

We reported on the new K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project, a low-cost, easy-to-install alternative to Windows computer labs for cash-strapped schools. It was released on July 4 as a nod to the freedom it would give teachers from crashing computers.

Also released this week: Nautilus 1.04, the desktop utility, even though the original company to develop it, Eazel, is dead in the water.

Even more cool stuff on the way: Mono, Open Source company Ximian’s answer to Microsoft’s .Net. Also, look for a preview release of Netscape 6.1 soon, according to Mozillaquest.

Another reason to switch

If projects like the K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project aren’t enough to make you declare your freedom from Microsoft, consider this news from Ford. Seems the giant auto maker’s European division is planning to flush Windows from its desktops in favor of an Open Source operating system.

New in NewsForge

Stories unique to NewsForge this week (in addition to those mentioned above):

For those Linux newbies looking for a comprehensive resource, news editor Tina Gasperson reviews the Linux Newbie Administrator Guide. It’s not just for administrators, but for new Linux users of all stripes.

Microsoft’s threats that users pay for “illegal” licenses is reaching into groups of users who don’t have many copies of Microsoft products to register, including editors at the Open Source Development Network.

Internet Week has another story on Ximian’s Mono, which is supposed to compete with Microsoft’s .Net services.

The legality and morality of computer security, in the form of questions regarding risks that exploit developers/rootkits/reporters face in light of the current legal and political environments has been brought up on Slashdot.

Andy Tai brings us this forwarded message:

From: Kevin C. O’Kane okane@cs.uni.edu
Subject: GPL Mumps Compiler

Mumps (sometimes called M) is a language from the late 60’s used
widely in medicine. We have developed a GNU GPL version of Mumps
that translates Mumps code to C for subsequent compilation.
The compiler itself is covered entirely by the GPL license and
the run-time support routines that are incorporated into the
compiled programs, by the LGPL. Full source code and documentation
along with example programs is available via:

http://www.cs.uni.edu/~okane

The main development platform is Linux although the software runs
under MS DOS based systemd and other versions of Unix. We have not
tested it against other platforms but it should run on just
abount any system with a GNU C compiler, subject to minor O/S
dependent tweeking and parameters.

—
Kevin C. O’Kane, Ph.D.

Professor of Computer Science
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0507
(319) 273 7322 (Office + Voice Mail)
(319) 266 4131 (Iowa)
(508) 778 9485 (Massachusetts)
http://www.cs.uni.edu/~okane
okane@cs.uni.edu
anamfianna@earthlink.net

Slashdot has reported that “browser-wrap” licenses are not legally binding.

LinuxPR: “SEATTLE, WA — Specialized Systems Consultants (SSC), publisher of the award-winning magazine Linux Journal, and its recently launched sister publication, Embedded Linux Journal, is proud to announce the opening of the polls in Linux Journal’s seventh annual Readers’ Choice Awards.”

KDE dot news: “I am starting a new monthly feature, tentatively dubbed KDE & Companies , which will consist of a series of interviews with KDE-related or KDE-friendly companies. We will start with the company that, through Qt, is arguably at the root and foundation of KDE; Trolltech’s CEO Eirik Eng has agreed to answer our questions.”

NationalPost Online: “Tony Jenkins, former business development manager at Corel Corp., was spooked by the layoffs and uncertainty at the software company in early 1999. Like many Corel staff, he quit and went to work for a local technology startup. But the new position wasn’t what he had hoped and he quickly began looking for something else. Within a year, he decided to take another job — back at Corel.”