ZDNet is reporting that Microsoft has announced a “serious security hole” in its Windows 2000 server software and “raced to convince system administrators to patch their Web servers before online vandals compromise their systems.” More from IDG News Service and from MSNBC.

Alan Cox announces another release of the Linux kernel. It’s at ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan/2.4/, and intermediate diffs are available from http://www.bzimage.org.2.4.4-ac3
o Fix hang on boot with SMP

| and fixes a few more uglies too (Andrea Arcangeli)
o freevxfs module name was wrong (should be
freevxfs.o)
(me)

o Update alloc_etherdev docs (Erik Mouw)
o Remove dead funcs, put back ip_set_manually
in the ipconfig code (David Miller, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Fix SA_ONSTACK standards violation (for x86)
(Christian Ehrhardt)
| Other arch maintainers should check..
o Add another species of SB AWE 32 (Bill Nottingham)
o SE401 USB camera driver (Jeroen Vreeken)
o Correct MAX_HD and make stuff static in ps2esdi (Hal Duston)
o Fix inode-nr corruption (Al Viro)
o Fix pgd_alloc for user mode linux (Jeff Dike)
o Fix UML hostfs for get_hardsect_size (Jeff Dike)
o Tidy up APM options setting, add module opts (Stephen Rothwell)
o Fix acm open race (Oliver Neukum)
o Further bounce buffer fixes (Arjan van de Ven)
o ACPI updates (Andrew Grover)
o Move pci_enable_device earlier on via audio (Arjan van de Ven)

2.4.4-ac2
o Remove some spurious whitespace differences
between trees (me)
o Make the VIA timer reload check test avoid
tripping on a timer as it rolls back to zero (me)
o Drop dasdfmt man page changes (dos ^M noise)
(me)
o Drop experimental iee1284 pnp module loading (me)
o Revert pcnet32 chance causing compile errors (me)
o Remove wrong __init in sunhme (Dave Miller)
o Fix overlarge udely in aironet4500 (Arjan van de Ven)
o Remove non existant parameter from aironet4500 (Keith Owens)
o Kill duplicate aic7xxx include (Andrzej Krzysztofowicz)
o Fix pci2220i scsi compile bug (Matt Domsch)
o Fix module exception race on Alpha (Andrea Arcangeli)
o Disable broken large vmalloc support on Alpha (Andrea Arcangeli)
o Remove dead ia64 config entries (Steven Cole)
o Add kbuild list info to MAINTAINERS (Steven Cole)
o linux appletalk list has moved (Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Revert wrong mount changes in 2.4.4 (Andries Brouwer)
o Revert drivers/scsi/scsi.c change in 2.4.4 (me)
that subtly broke about 15 drivers
o Fix typo in slab.h (Pavel Machek)
o More correct child favouring fork behaviour (Peter Österlund)
o Only apply pci fixups if there is a VIA 686B (Charl Botha)
o Fix GDT padding error introduced by PnPBIOS (Brian Gerst)
support
o Fix UML build without CONFIG_PT_PROXY (Jeff Dike)
o dmfe wasnt calling dev_alloc_skb (Tobias Ringstrom)
o Further Configure.help fixups (Steven Cole)
o Move pci_enable_device earlier in trident (Marcus Meissner)

PJ Hyett writes with this press release, “Release of ‘Headless’ email server appliance sets new price performance threshold and sets its sights on Microsoft and their Exchange Server
product.”
The scene plays out in offices all around the world. The phone rings and it is one of your employees or coworkers calling you to let you know that once again, an important email from the west coast seems to have vanished into the vapor that the Internet all too often appears to be. The usual questions run through your head. Did it get sent to the wrong email address? Did your ISP get the new accounts you requested set up in time? Was your ISP down again? Is your DSL or T1 connection still up? You grumble to yourself, ‘I hate email.’ But you know the truth is your business has trouble living without it. Email is as essential to a business today as a fax machine or a cell phone.

Email has turned into Corporate Heroin!

Speaking to the press this morning, Liz Heart PR officer of Little Blue Box announced, “Welcome to the world of The Little Blue Box (LLB). This new and unique server appliance is our answer to the problem of Email as Corporate Heroin.

The LLB was designed by a group of Linux/Internet hackers to solve the
issues confronted on a daily basis by small businesses around the world.

These issues include: low cost, complete functionality, simplicity in ease of use and reliability. Our goal is nothing less than having our appliance replace the need for the Microsoft(tm) Exchange(tm) Server in the small business environment. And mind you, to do it with a appliance that has a price threshold starting at $689.00. For a peek at the system or complete details go to our web site at http://www.littlebluebox.com

With the Version 1.0 build, we are about 75%-80% down that path. 1.0
addresses the basic Email needs of the small business. Version 1.1, due out shortly, will jump significantly to matching most of the functionality of Exchange used by most small businesses today; including work lists, Jabber Instant Messaging, some aspects of unified messaging and a very good calendar server. Our 2.0 version is our long-term goal (no date set) that will address the issue of a unified contact database.

The server falls into the category of a ‘headless toaster’. It is about as simple as you can get as it is fully functional when you take it out of the shipping box. You plug it into power, you plug it into the local LAN, and it works.

There are two user interfaces included with the system. The first is a
custom created interface that is simple enough for a secretary with basic computer skills to be creating, modifying and removing email users from the server; in under 10 minutes. The second user interface is a version of WebMin, for use by experienced administrators. This second interface allows the admin to use the appliance for other functions such as a intranet web server.

Where we leave Microsoft(tm) Exchange(tm) panting a proverbial cloud of dust, is in the level of ongoing support available, and the user license issue.

For a $200.00 a year subscription, we will provide secondary MX services, as well as an automated RPM service that will update the system software on a quarterly basis. $200.00 a year prevents email from disappearing into the vapor if a T1 goes down, or God forbid the server goes down. Email is always routed onto the server of our ISP partner. That same $200.00 a year keeps the OS and server-ware current.

In terms of that license, it is all Open Source and Open Standards base. Any FREE email or IM client can be used with the system. The number of users is bandwidth and hardware centric, not based on a license. So, if you need the ability to actually have 11 people access your server at the same moment, you save something like $20,000 on license fees Microsoft would charge for the 100 User Exchange license.

We want everyone aware that the OS (Linux) and all the software on the
appliance are 100% Open Source. What makes this product unique is the way we build the OS and server-ware for a niche product use. Our price performance level can ONLY be done because of the fact that Open Source has allowed us the ability to design this product with specific functionality in mind, and with free code too boot. We hope that this will set an example of the power of Open Source on the current IT business model.

We are also being very forthright in our desire NOT to become a major
hardware manufacturer. At an entry price of $689.00 on a none-embedded
system, everyone can calculate out just how little we are making on the system. Our long-term niche is to provide our MX and RPM service, and NOT sell hardware. We are letting it be known to all manufacturers of Linux systems that we will be happy to give them free license to our build. There are few conditions. We do not own the OS and software anyway, so manufacturer’s could just go get it themselves. However, because we are offering this to them free, we have already had several inquiries. The future looks bright for the Little Blue Box”

All inquires for purchasing or licensing of the Little Blue Box is available through the web site http://www.littlebluebox.com. The LOGO and Indicia graphic for LBB were developed by Nitrozac, the very cool artist behind the after Y2K series at Geek Culture

Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Microsoft(tm) and Exchange(tm) Server are trademarks of Microsoft.
Little Blue Box(tm) is a trademark of LBB.

“Microsoft Corp. boss Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday that a
$135 million investment in competing software developer Corel Corp.
— the subject of a U.S. antitrust probe — does nothing to crush Corel’s fledgling Linux business.” From Reuters (via Yahoo).

“It was yet another high energy week for the KDE developers who ensured that the CVS trees were
kept busy with a continual flow of updates. In particular, a flurry of work on Konqueror aimed at closing bug reports, refining
the parsers and general optimization were definitely noticeable. But Konqi wasn’t the only thing getting a healthy dosage of
attention. The kde games library saw heavy development, as did the kdepim module, kmail, kicker and the window decorations
engine in kwin. The kdeinstaller project saw good progress, and a brand new module was added to the KDE CVS. In all, it
was a very exciting week.” More at kt.zork.net.

“It was yet another high energy week for the KDE developers who ensured that the CVS trees were
kept busy with a continual flow of updates. In particular, a flurry of work on Konqueror aimed at closing bug reports, refining
the parsers and general optimization were definitely noticeable. But Konqi wasn’t the only thing getting a healthy dosage of
attention. The kde games library saw heavy development, as did the kdepim module, kmail, kicker and the window decorations
engine in kwin. The kdeinstaller project saw good progress, and a brand new module was added to the KDE CVS. In all, it
was a very exciting week.” More at kt.zork.net.

PHP.net: “PHP 4.0.5 is a maintenance release, that features many bug fixes from PHP
4.0.4, as well as output compression, new experimental FastCGI support, and significantly
improved thread-safe versions. For a full list of changes, check out the Change Log.”

“Tonight Live: the future of OSDN/Linux.Com PLUS history in the making “of
Pigeons & Penguins” RFC 1149 gets implemented on The Linux Show!!
Tuesday, May 1st, 2001
Tonight LIVE on www.thelinuxshow.com.
At 6pm pt, 7pm mt, 8pm ct, and 9pm et…. Kevin Hill, Jeff Gerhardt, PJ
Hyett, Doc Searls(Linux Journal), and Arne Flones have a downright strange
lined up tonight on The Linux Show!!

In Segment One – Hot News: We will be covering the hot Linux news of the
week. In particular we will talk about the continuing controversy of
reporters “making news.” This week the controversy takes the form of Ronny
Ko at 32bits and his story Linux: A Story Of Hype.

In Segment Two- What is up with Linux.Com and OSDN

We will be joined by Dean Henrichsmeyer , Site Director of Linux.com and by
Chris DiBona Marketing Manager of OSDN Events. Dean has been an active Linux
advocate for six years now, and has been helping out in various open source
projects such as Themes.org. Dean recently took the helm of the Linux.com
portal. Chris is VERY well know throughout the Linux community as “Grant
Chairman” of Linux International and the Co-editor of Open Sources magazine.
Over the last three years, this is the fifth appearance on TLS by Chris
DiDona.

The focus of the conversation is to discuss the changes in portal economics
over the last 12-18 months and what is in the future for both OSDN and
Linux.com. We will discuss the roles OSDN and Linux.Com hope to fill as the
future moves forward, and identify the trends in financial models of the
over saturated portal space. In particular we will focus on those tools and
assets VA continues to focus back to the community.

In Segment Three- Of Penguins and Pigeons: The Triumph of the RFC 1149
Implementation

This past week history was made in both the development of the linux
community and the larger Internet community with the long awaited
implementation of RFC 1149, and the creation of the avian based Ultimate
Wireless Network. We will be joined tonight by the original writer of the
RFC David Waitzman of BBN Systems and Technologies Corporation. For details
on the original RFC, check out the web site for the BLUG a Linux user group.

Other opinions are welcome at GeekCast. If you would like to join us on the
show, check our IRC Chat (irc.thelinuxshow.com #linuxshow).
Remember tune in at 6pm pt, 7pm mt, 8pm ct, and 9pm et.
Catch the Linux show at www.thelinuxshow.com.

A beta version of Intel’s Fortran Compiler 5.0 is now available. Fully functional through September 1, the beta is available under two types of licenses: “Node Locked” for use on a single system, and “Floating” for use on a local workstation with license compliance via network connection. Beta file size is 40MB.

Brian Vincent posts the latest summary of threads and traffic from the Wine mailing lists.