ABCTech: “The courts have Napster’s back against the wall. But as the pioneering music sharing system fades away, its 70 million users are seeking other, more anonymous and free methods of sharing MP3’s – and they may have struck gold.”

“Linux 2.2 is now firmly into maintenance state. Patches for neat new ideas
belong in 2.4. Generally new drivers belong in 2.4 (possibly in 2.2 as well
after 2.4 shows them stable). Expect me to be very picky on changes to the
core code now.”

Linux 2.2.20pre3
From: Alan Cox 
To: editors@newsforge.com
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 10:05:09 +0100 (BST)


Linux 2.2 is now firmly into maintenance state. Patches for neat new ideas
belong in 2.4. Generally new drivers belong in 2.4 (possibly in 2.2 as well
after 2.4 shows them stable). Expect me to be very picky on changes to the
core code now. 

2.2.20pre3
o        FPU/ptrace corruption fixes                     (Victor Zandy)
o        Resync belkin usb serial with 2.4               (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Resync digiport usb serial with 2.4             (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Rsync empeg usb serial with 2.4                         (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Resync ftdi_sio against 2.4                     (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Bring keyscan usb back into line with 2.4       (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Resync keyspan_pda usb with 2.4                         (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Resync omninet usb with 2.4.5                   (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Resync usb-serial driver with 2.4.5             (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Resync visor usb driver with 2.4.5              (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Rsync whiteheat driver with 2.4.5               (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Add edgeport USB serial                                 (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Add mct_u232 USB serial                                 (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Update usb storage device list          (Stas Bekman, Kaz Sasayma)
o        Bring usb acm driver into line with 2.4.5       (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Bring bluetooth driver into line with 2.4.5     (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Bring dabusb driver into line with 2.4.5        (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Bring usb dc2xx driver into line with 2.4.5     (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Bring mdc800 usb driver into line with 2.4.5    (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Bring rio driver into line with 2.4.5           (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Bring USB scanner drivers into line with 2.4.5  (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Update ov511 driver to match 2.4.5              (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o        Update PCIIOC ioctls (esp for sparc)            (Dave Miller)
o        General sparc bugfixes                          (Dave Miller)
o        Fix possible oops in fbmem ioctls               (Dave Miller)
o        Fix reboot/halt bug on "Alcor" Alpha boxes      (Tom Vier)
o        Update osst driver                              (Willem Riede)
o        Fix syncppp negotiation bug                     (Bob Dunlop)
o        SMBfs bug fixes from 2.4 series                         (Urban Widmark)
o        3ware IDE raid driver updates                   (Adam Radford)
o        Fix incorrect use of bitops on non long types   (Dave Miller)
o        Fix reboot/halt bug on 'Miata' Alpha boxes      (Tom Vier)
o        Update Tim Waugh's contact info                         (Tim Waugh)
o        Add TIOCGSERIAL to sun serial on PCI sparc32    (Lars Kellogg-Stedman)
o        ov511 check user data more carefully            (Marc McClelland)
o        Fix netif_wake_queue compatibility macro        (Andi Kleen)

LWN has this humorous posting to the Linux-Kernel mailing list where ESR rebutts the “not technical enough” argument against his CML2 system.

LWN provided a link to issue 48 of the AbiWord Weekly News. “This week development picked up again and 35 fixed bugs are pending QA. Seems people are really intending on making this upcoming release (0.9.0) a good one. Dom posted a TODO list and I suspect we’ll see a lot of stuff on it fixed next week.
“

– By Grant Gross
–

The big news in the Open Source world this week was the Gartner Group’s release of a study of software being used on Web servers. The survey, funded in part
by Microsoft, said that Linux accounted for less than 9 percent of the U.S. server market, contradicting other studies putting the Linux market share at about 25 percent.

Of course, there were questions about Gartner’s methodology, especially how the tech analyst counted what operating system is running on servers. One example of the difference between counting installed OSes, as opposed to purchased OSes, was written by NewsForge’s editor in chief Robin Miller. He used his home systems as a case study of different ways to count operating systems in use. Also, NewsForge business columnist Jack Bryar questioned the way tech analysts put together their reports in general. His advice: Don’t rely just on an analyst to make your IT decisions.

Microsoft: The never-ending attack

While there wasn’t a lot of new rhetoric out of Redmond this week, there was an analysis that Microsoft’s new campaign against Open Source and for bundling its programs together seem to be a move away from the “kinder, gentler” Microsoft of last year’s antitrust trial. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft’s attacks on Open Source and the GPL are backfiring, as many companies see that MS is spreading, at best, half truths.

That’s the point Open Source advocate Bruce Perens makes in a column, that Microsoft apologists are name-calling and exaggerating in their efforts to discredit Open Source and Free Software.

If you want to see how the other side thinks, check out a ZDNet AnchorDesk column, Want Linux on your desktop? Nine reasons to forget about it. One reason: Too many zealots. Really, read it and see if that makes sense.

Here comes embedded

In other tech analyst news, a study released by VDC predicts the embedded market for Linux will “explode.” Watch out for flying embedded parts.

In other news, a new and improved MP3 format was released this week. I think I need to buy a CD burner.

New in NewsForge

Stories only available in NewsForge this week:

Hardware reviewer Jeff Field takes the Seagate Cheetah 36XL SCSI drive for a spin in Linux.

News editor Tina Gasperson finds VMWare first saying it’ll pass out Linux at a Microsoft conference, then backing off. Hmmm, curious.

Remember our new feature, the Open Source stock report, by news editor Dan Berkes. Check on how your favorite Open Source stock is doing. (Generally, at the moment, not so well.)

Digital Convergence, makers of the (in)famous :CueCat, have restructured down to a company of 2, with no severance pay for the ex-employees (reported on Slashdot).

Anonymous Reader writes “This article discusses some of the arguments against MS XP’s new ‘Smart Tags’ but the most interesting part is at the end of the article where it introduces their Smart Tag-proof copying policy. “[This website is not compatible with the use of Smart Tags; their use in the modification and display of our documents is a violation of our copying policy and copying privileges are not granted for the purpose of creating such derivitive works.]” They also ask for suggestions for improvement to the GPL’d policy document.”

Anonymous Reader writes “A research team led by Nikola Bobic, a part-time professor at Ottawa University, aims to create a virtual network on the Internet, similar to peer-to-peer systems like Gnutella. “Cryptobox” members would be able to communicate anonymously with one another, if they chose, without bothering with the complicated and time-consuming steps today’s encryption technology entails.”

Björn Schotte writes “The second PHP conference, at this time being international, has been announced. Organized by PHP-Center and Software Verlag, it attracts web developers, IT managers/decisioners, ISVs and business people. We’re expecting developers throughout Europe and USA, including members of the PHP core group.”“The Call for Papers has been announced a while ago, you can still find it on the website if you’re interested in attending this superbe event. The program committee is: Rasmus Lerdorf (inventor of PHP), Kristian Köhntopp, Sebastian Bergmann, Ralf Geschke and Björn Schotte.

The conference will happen from 11/05 – 11/07 at Frankfurt/Germany and is divided into a pre-conference day with power workshops and the two main conference days.

Find more infos at http://www.php-kongress.de/.”

Debianplanet: “OpenProjects.net, the home of many notable channels like #debian, #debianplanet and the debian development channel, is in need of help.
Lilo, the OPN admin, needs help convincing people that OPN is an important part of Free software development.”