Smart Partner follows up on reports that IBM and Compaq both released Linux servers for small- and medium-sized business last week.

From the Standard: “Rivals fear Redmond’s authentication service could make the
software giant the one and only centralized power on the Web.”

The Register reports that Caldera has cut back on its pay-to-play policy. Non-commercial users won’t
need to pay the $59 per seat license; free ISO images of OpenLinux 3.1
will be made available on Caldera’s ftp site.

From a column at ZDNet: “The best proof that Microsoft
is a monopoly is that
FreeBSD, Linux, and other
systems are provided to the
public at no cost with little
effect on the sale of Windows.

Before I explain this, imagine
Mercedes-Benz offering their
cars for free. They finance
this free car operation
through donations, volunteer
workers, sales of T-shirts,
and the servicing of cars.
Certainly you can understand
that other car companies
would be devastated.”

Interactive Week counts the bodies. That brings the total to at least 555 Internet companies shutting down in the past year and a half.

IT.mycareer.com.au has an article about Open Source and security. “So I believe, ultimately, for security to be real, it must be ‘open sourced’. This concept involves
distributing the instructions making up an application with the finished program itself. In this way, the
processes underpinning an e-commerce transaction can be made transparent not just what is being
done on your system but how it is being done open to inspection by all.”

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan/2.4/. Intermediate diffs are available from
http://www.bzimage.org.

2.4.5-ac24
o Serverworks AGP support (Jeff Hartmann)
o Split I/O requests on pdcraid/hptraid when
they cross stride (Arjan van de Ven)
o Fix hangs on TI1410 cardbus bridge (Erik Mouw)
o Update Configure.help (Eric Raymond)
o Fix bug in ext2_new_inode (Al Viro)
o Fix double pci_set_power_state stub (Jeff Garzik)
o Fix mcheck_disable (Andrew Morton)
o Merge 2.4.6-pre9
– Ignored ATI changes versus old atyfb codebase
– Remove several totally broken drivers/net/Config.in changes
o Update act2000 isdn driver (Kai Germaschewski)
o Fix ELOOP handling bug (Al Viro)

NPR lists Slashdot, Yahoo! and AOL among the thriving firms in online media. On Slashdot (which, like NewsForge, is a part of OSDN): “One Internet pundit says this
site has revolutionized the way news and
opinion are handled online. The innovation: A
quarter million daily readers serve as its
writers and editors, scouting the web for
interesting content and reacting to one
another’s comments in lively and informative
discussions.” Among the losers listed: Salon.com, Suck, and Inside.com.

“SuSE Linux has released a “Firewall on a CD”, a format that is more secure and easier to install and
maintain. The “SuSE Linux Firewall on CD,” due to be presented at LinuxTage Expo in Stuttgart this week, offers companies
linked to the internet efficient protection for their mission-critical data and for their IT infrastructure.” Read the full press release at Enterprise Linux Today.

Anonymous Reader writes “Here’s some July 4th fun with Linux . . . an
article on how to construct a human-powered webserver using uClinux,
a uCdimm, and the parts from a hand-powered lantern. Well, I guess you could also have a barbecue ;)” I’ll have a users.pl done medium rare, please.