PCWorld: “Digital camera vendors are showing no sign of slowing the pace of increasing image resolution. Sony,
Toshiba, Casio, and Olympus all introduced 4-megapixel digital cameras costing less than $1000 at or
shortly before PC Expo last week, and Minolta introduced the first 5-plus-megapixel consumer model,
the 5.24-megapixel Dimage 7, at the show. However, several digicam makers are trying to capture
customers with less pricey models.”

Daemonnews: “Those of you who have attempted to use BSD for hardware control know that this is one area where the OS isn’t very cooperative. Programs that link to
hardware control assembly language code have a nasty way of dumping core as soon as you make the call. The process of writing drivers is very involved and
isn’t very well documented. My attempts at activating the driver-generator scripts in /usr/share/examples/drivers resulted in a whole bunch of fatal errors and
no end in sight.”

ZDNET: “Open-source software, although viewed by some as
risky and uncertain, does empower users in ways that
proprietary software does not. Sure, many needs can be
satisfied by good-quality, reasonably priced proprietary
software. But the absence of the right to access and
change source code and then redistribute those changes
is one of those things that some people are willing to fight
and make sacrifices for.”

Salon “Microsoft lost on every hard question; they won on every easy question. The court has found them liable for
monopoly maintenance. That’s the essence of the government’s case. The court has also found that it did not
decide in 1998 that tying software would be decided under a different standard. That was the essence of
Microsoft’s defense. The court has crafted a smart and innovative rule about the special problem of tying
software. But even if Microsoft won in the application of that rule on remand, the core of the case is that
Microsoft has lost. They violated the antitrust laws, and the real issue is now remedy.”

Daemonnews: “NetBSD 1.5.1 was released in late June 2001 after an extended period that was used for testing, enhancing the system, and of course bugfixing. NetBSD 1.5.1 is
the first maintenance release of the NetBSD 1.5 branch, and as such it includes few new features, and mostly improvements over the NetBSD 1.5 release. Binary
compatibility with 1.5 is retained, so a full or partial upgrade from 1.5 to 1.5.1 is not a problem.”

LinuxSecurity: “This week, the most interesting articles include “Linux IPv6 Router/ Host:Set Up IPv6 in an Hour,” “LIDS and
Mandatory Access Control (MAC) on Linux,” and “Introduction to Network-Based Intrusion Detection
Systems Using Snort.” Also this week, if you are a corporate security professional, you may want to read the
two articled located in the general section of this newsletter.”

– By Grant Gross –

It was an interesting week in the Open Source business world, with Caldera deciding to charge per seat licenses, MandrakeSoft deciding to go ahead with an initial stock offering, and VA Linux deciding to get out of the hardware business, its once core function.

NewsForge news editor Dan Berkes was among the first to report that Caldera plans to charge a per-seat fee for the new version of its Open Linux Workstation. Others noted that the company was “bucking a trend in the Linux business.”

Also bucking a trend, perhaps, was France-based Linux distribution MandrakeSoft deciding to conduct an IPO in late July despite the slow tech economy. NewsForge news editor Tina Gasperson talked to Jacques Le Marois, MandrakeSoft co-founder and CEO about that decision.

Not bucking the economic trend was NewsForge parent company VA Linux, which announced this week it was dumping its hardware arm for a software and service focus. The announcement surprised a lot of folks, including one commentator who said, “Calling VA Linux Systems’ decision to cut its hardware business a ‘new strategic focus’ is like calling a leg amputation a minor abrasion.”

Eric S. Raymond, the Open Source activist and VA Linux board member, offered several comments about the change, saying in part that times have changed since the world needed Linux hardware specialists.

For information on how VA’s change of focus will affect your favorite OSDN site — VA owns Slashdot, freshmeat, SourceForge, Themes.org and others — check out OSDN general manager Richard French’s statement on NewsForge. From French to readers: “What does this mean for you? It means that that all of your favorite OSDN sites … will be operating as usual. Indeed, with more focused resources of the company available to OSDN, we are expecting more growth, more new features, and more of all that’s made OSDN a success.”

Red Hat: Open Source can make money, really

That’s the message from Red Hat CFO Kevin Thompson during an interview with NewsForge columnist Jack Bryar this week. Thompson was optimistic about the future of “conservative” Red Hat and the Open Source business model in general. Asked if he had any message for VA Linux’s CFO, he said: “Buy Red Hat Stock. It’s a bargain.”

Of course, we couldn’t get through this column without mentioning our favorite monopolist, Microsoft. This week, a U.S. federal appeals court vacated a lower court’s ruling calling for the breakup of Microsoft. It’s worth noting, however, that the higher court didn’t rule against the decision that Microsoft was a monopoly, just the order to break the company up. There’s some talk by the likes of Bill Gates about settling the government case against the software gorilla.

Enough business, on to the cool stuff

Some cool, new announcements this week:

There were several reports this week about the new Intrinsyc Software CerfCube, a Linux-based computer that is only 3 inches on a side. ZDNet UK noted, “The device is so small that it comes with a wrist strap for carrying it around.”

FreeBSD Services plans to distribute the Unix operating system on a DVD soon.

The Mozilla browser inched closer to a 1.0 release with its Milestone Mozilla 0.9.2 release this week.

New in NewsForge

Stories reported first in NewsForge this week:

Editor in chief Robin Miller looks at the predicted death of the Linux desktop and finds that it’s running just fine on his desktop, thank you.

Freelancer Joe Barr interviews the newly crowned “Sexiest Geek Alive” Ellen Spertus (forget it, guys, she’s married), and finds out she’s big on Linux.

News editor Dan Berkes talks to the guys porting Linux to the now-classic DEC VAX. If you ever want to find out how the inside of an Open Source development project works, this team explains a lot of the details.

Andy Tai writes: “The interesting debate
at SiliconValley.com, involving Craig Mundie of
Microsoft, Bruce Perens of the Free Software
community, and others, has ended. It is interesting to
go through the messages and to see that Mundie does
not really address some questions thrown at him, such
as how does the so-called “viral” licenses endanger
Microsoft’s IP rights over its own code. Instead he
just paraphrases the Microsoft party line in his conclusion.”

“Bruce’s last message
sums it up:

Craig Mundie,
One of our readers commented to me that you are not
debating me – you don’t respond directly to my posts
at all. Please be aware that this is a debate, that
both of us are members of the panel, and that you
should at least make the attempt to refute my points.

Thanks
Bruce Perens

Will Mundie’s appearance in the O’Reilly Conference at
San Diego be much of the same?”

Slackware, the distribution behind such sites as Kuro5hin.org, has released version 8.0 (thanks to Slashdot).

DebianPlanet: “Welcome to the woody freeze.

As previously proposed, the freeze will proceed in four phases: first policy will be frozen, followed by the base system, followed by standard installs, and concluding with the remainder of Debian.”