ZDNet reports that the University of Maryland has identified several security problems with the 802.11 or wireless LAN protocol.

ZDNet reports on some kernel hackers’ frustration with the length of the version cycle for Linux and are making a concerted effort for kernel 2.5 to go faster.

Linux Weekly News has the announcement that Linux kernel 2.4.3ac2 is out.

Kelly McNeill writes “One day at work we were chatting about the future of the high-tech economy, and a co-worker asked who we thought would still be around in 30 years. I mentioned big companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and Oracle — but not Sun Microsystems. Why not Sun? While Sun leads the high-end UNIX market, Sun is still a small company that specializes in servers and workstations. Its competitors, IBM and HP, are much larger companies with highly diversified product lines, and they are not dependent on UNIX sales for survival. While IBM and HP can have poor server sales for the next 30 years and still survive, Sun cannot.”

Linux Weekly News has the announcement that Linux kernel 2.2.19 is out.

TheStandard has a bit of a different take on the digital music hearings before a U.S. Senate committee. “One day after three of the
five major record labels
announced a deal to license
their music to a new online
company called MusicNet,
representatives of the
recording industry
appearing before a key congressional panel were able to handily
deflect criticism that they were moving too slowly to bring fans
the music they love over the Internet in a legitimate way.

Instead, the criticism that seemed to resonate more with
members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday had to
do with complaints from artists, headlined by Don Henley and
Alanis Morissette, that the recording industry doesn’t
represent their interests and hasn’t invited them to the table
during Internet licensing negotiations.”

A LinuxWorld story says Hewlett-Packard is beginning to walk the Open Source walk. “Hewlett-Packard has talked open source for a while now, but without putting any code where its mouth
is. The times may be changing.”

Reuters reports that VA Linux still expects profits by October 2002, according to chief executive Larry Augustin. (VA Linux owns NewsForge.)

From CNet: “With some of the entrepreneurial glamour gone from open-source software, companies
backing the cooperative-programming approach are resorting to more traditional means to
boost their prospects: the old-boys network.

Open-source programming, in which software code may be shared and changed, has been
popularized by successes such as Linux and Apache. Now companies backing lesser-known
open-source packages are nailing down alliances to help their prospects.”

ZD Net has yet another review of the 2.4 kernel. This story says 2.4 “promises a new level of scalability on the Linux platform, as well as better compatibility with today’s high-speed peripherals.”