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Advocating LGPL for Libraries

Author: JT Smith

From an article at Advogato.org: “… I find it necessary to criticize those who would stretch the power of copyright to
restrict the use of a copylefted software library. I am 100% behind the right of the copyright holder to control the
creation and dissemination of clearly derivative works. But simply using a library as is, and abiding to the terms for
that piece of an aggregrate work should in no way impact the larger work. We would boycott such behavior from
Microsoft, why encourage it for anyone else?”

Category:

  • Migration

Linux International tries to prove Open Source works

Author: JT Smith

From LinuxGram: “On the theory that the proof is in the pudding, Linux International (LI) has set up a Case Study
Repository project on Source-Forge to prove that open source works …

The SourceForge site, at http://casestudy.sf.net, is a place where the open source community can
submit successful case studies. Besides sticking out its tongue at Microsoft by highlighting open
source successes, Linux International figures the case studies will be useful to anyone.”

Linux International tries to prove Open Source works

Author: JT Smith

From LinuxGram: “On the theory that the proof is in the pudding, Linux International (LI) has set up a Case Study
Repository project on Source-Forge to prove that open source works …

The SourceForge site, at http://casestudy.sf.net, is a place where the open source community can
submit successful case studies. Besides sticking out its tongue at Microsoft by highlighting open
source successes, Linux International figures the case studies will be useful to anyone.”

Category:

  • Linux

Open Source stock report: Holiday blues

Author: JT Smith

– By Dan Berkes
Stocks were a bit worse for the wear on Friday, as Wall Street considered the possibility that a rebound in corporate profits could take a little longer than anticipated.
Investors appeared to be spooked by new government data showing that orders for durable goods fell 5 percent in April. Economists had been predicting a decline between 2 and 3 percent. Remarks from Alan Greenspan after-hours on Thursday may have moderated the downturn. The U.S. Federal Reserve chairman said that further rate cuts may be needed to shore defenses against long-term economic weakness.

“Bottom line here: Rome wasn’t built in a day. Recovery won’t happen overnight,” said analyst James Philburn. “The street is still skittish; investors are trying to adapt to a long-term view, but the panic [from first-quarter reports and government economic data] in the tech arena won’t be easy to shake.”

Heading into the three-day weekend, the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed at 2,251.06, down almost 31 points for the day, but up 53 points from last Friday’s bell. The Nasdaq peak closing for this week happened on Tuesday, when it closed at 2,313.85.

As traders head off to grill burgers this Memorial Day weekend, they leave the Dow Jones Industrial Average standing at 11,005.37, down 117 points for the day, down almost 296 points from last Friday’s close. The Dow’s high closing this week was Monday, when it closed at 11,337.92.

Volume on both markets were the lightest so far this year, due to the holiday weekend.

The first quarter was less than kind for the U.S. Unix and Linux server market. Dataquest researches say the domestic market for Unix servers shrunk almost 2 percent in the first three months of the year, thanks in no small part to the sluggish economy. Despite the doom and gloom, the big dogs — Sun, Dell, and IBM — saw double-digit growth in their server business.

Borland blends Java and Mac

  • Borland Software Corporation on Monday raised the curtain on the beta version of JBuilder 5 for Apple’s Mac OS X. This marks the software maker’s return to the Mac, a platform it hasn’t supported since the mid-1990s. JBuilder is a visual Java development environment; in addition to OS X JBuilder is supported on Linux, Solaris, and Windows.

    VA’s loss leaps 41 percent

  • VA Linux, parent company of OSDN, of which NewsForge is a part, released its earnings report for the first quarter of 2001. Revenues were $20.3 million for the first quarter, down from $34.6 million in the same quarter last year, a 41 percent drop. Shares closed at $4.70 after the announcement, and settled at $4.46 on Friday.

    Investors tune in TiVo

  • Digital recorder maker TiVo saw its stock rise 72 percent on Thursday, when the company released news that it had been awarded additional patents for its technology. After closing at $8.50 on Thursday, shares shot up to $11.21 at the end of trading on Friday. TiVo’s Linux-based devices allow consumers to record television shows onto a hard drive. The company is also considering going after Microsoft for licensing fees. Microsoft recently introduced a competing digital recorder.

    Peace, love, and petroleum

  • IBM announced its latest supercomputer, a cluster of 256 IBM eServer systems, all running Linux. Oil company WesternGeco will use the cluster as a seismic imaging system to “sniff out” in its never-ending quest for new oil deposits, thus eliminating the more costly and time-consuming drilling method.

    Intel founder retires

  • Intel founder Gordon Moore retired from his company’s board of directors on Thursday. He’ll continue to serve as chairman and director emeritus, but will no longer hold any voting power.

    Handy speculation

  • A Morningstar.com analyst speculates on the possibility that Apple could purchase PDA maker Handpsring. With a market value around $1.3 billion, and Handspring founders who created the original Palm device, the deal is certainly attractive and possible for Apple.

    MandrakeStock?

  • NewsForge was first with the news of top management changes at MandrakeSoft, including an email interview with CEO Jacques Le Marois. While reassuring that MandrakeSoft was in tip-top shape, Le Marois also mentioned that the company is currently working on bringing an IPO to market.

    Here’s how Open Source and related stocks did this week:

    Company Name Symbol 5/25 Close 5/18 Close
    Apple AAPL 22.76 23.53
    Borland Software Int’l BORL 10.06 10.04
    Caldera International CALD 1.95 1.89
    EBIZ Enterprises EBIZ.OB 0.77 0.82
    Hewlett Packard HWP 30.05 29.85
    IBM IBM 117.80 117.44
    Merlin Software Tech. MLSW.OB 0.28 0.30
    Red Hat RHAT 5.95 5.82
    Sun Microsystems SUNW 20.47 19.97
    TiVo TIVO 11.21 4.39
    VA Linux Systems LNUX 4.46 4.20
    Wind River Systems WIND 25.03 22.52
  • Category:

    • Open Source

    TiVo wields patent club against Microsoft

    Author: JT Smith

    The Register reports that TiVo, fresh from winning new patents for its digital recording system, is “positively spoiling for a fight with Microsoft… and anyone else who wants to make boxes which decode TV streams, and play them back.”

    Linux distribution round-up

    Author: JT Smith

    The Duke of URL: “I hope it’s now clear that if you want to try Linux, odds are there is a distribution out there for you. Lucky for us, newbies have selections, intermediate users
    have them, and so do advanced users. What I’m going to attempt to do today isn’t answer the eternal question of which distribution is the best, but give you the
    tools to make that decision for yourself.”

    Category:

    • Linux

    European Parliament ECHELON report

    Author: JT Smith

    Cryptome has posted a transcript of the report from the European Parliament’s Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System. In this summary, we learn “The Commission and Member States are asked to devise appropriate measures to promote, develop and manufacture European encryption
    technology and software and above all to support projects aimed at developing user-friendly open-source encryption software.”

    Category:

    • Programming

    STMicroelectronics and MontaVista Software ally to put Linux on a chip

    Author: JT Smith

    PR Newswire: “MontaVista Software Inc., the company
    powering the embedded revolution has announced that STMicroelectronics has
    designated MontaVista, provider of Hard Hat(TM) Linux(R), for embedded
    applications, as the first and preferred supplier of Linux for its
    system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions for consumer electronics and other markets.”

    Disabled woman battles Microsoft, Mounties in piracy case

    Author: JT Smith

    The Register: “Further evidence of Microsoft’s uncanny knack for publicity is provided by the story
    of a Canadian victim of the company’s anti-piracy campaign. According to
    Canadian newswire CP Wire, 41 year old disabled mother of four Brenda Avery
    found herself on the receiving end of the full might of the Redmond SWAT team and
    the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

    Category:

    • Linux

    Ximian Setup Tools 0.5.1

    Author: JT Smith

    “The Ximian Setup Tools 0.5.1 have been released.

    The Ximian Setup Tools are a set of cross-platform configuration utilities for Linux and
    other Unices. Internally they are divided in frontends and backends. The frontend knows
    nothing about the underlying system and provides the same user interface across the
    different types of systems. The backend knows how to read and write configuration
    information. The Ximian Setup Tools do not impose a new database on the system, they work
    with the default configuration files so that configuration can still be done by hand or by
    other tools.”

                     Changes since last release
                     --------------------------
    
                     - Bugs bugs bugs. Too many to count (Everybody)
                     - New distros supported/testsed : Red Hat 7.1, SuSE 7.0
                       Debian Woody (Arturo, Joakim, Chema) [*1]
                     - Added a debian dir (thanks hadess)
                     - Blinking removed from time tool (Hans Petter)
                     - User profiles in users tool (Tambet)
                     - Significant speedup (Hans Petter)
                     - Time-tool front end improvements (Chema)
                     - Timezone setting on Debian fixed (Hans Petter)
                     - All tools can save their state between sessions (Tambet)
                     - Searchbar is complexity-aware in users tool (Tambet)
                     - Sort list of selectable distributions (Nils Barth)
                     - Fixed shares tool SMB problems (Hans Petter)
                     - Location management builds by default now (Bradford)
                     - Beginnings of FreeBSD support (Theo van Klaveren)
                     - New root authentication based on work by Chris L. Bond (Hans Petter)
                     - You can now avoid having your DNS settings overriden with DHCP information
                       with systems using pump (Arturo)
                     - Lots of strings marked for translation and typos corrected (Carlos)
    
                     [*1] - Debian Woody "mapping" stanzas for /etc/network/interfaces are not supported
                     yet. Modem and ISDN connections for SuSE 7.0 are not yet implemented as well.
    
                     Downloading
                     ----------
                     You can get it from :
    
                     ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/setuptools/
                     or (once the mirrors sync)
                     ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/unstable/sources/ximian-setup-tools

    Category:

    • Open Source