NetworkWorld: “Intellectual property claims have blindsided the Internet Engineering Task Force and could derail the group’s efforts to develop a common scheme for supporting foreign-language domain names across the Internet.”

ZDNET: “Commercial software vendors have a legitimate beef with the current state of Linux. There are
three ways to build an application that runs on multiple distributions of Linux, none of them
particularly smooth.”

ZDNET’s eWeek: “When we speak of the open-source
culture/movement/business (or threat, if you are
Microsoft), many of us may not be aware of its
roots. Open source is a relatively new, updated
term for the principles around which early hackers
created programs for the first computers. Today,
what we mean by open source is essentially
shared application code, which can be altered and shared by whoever
possesses the skills to manipulate it. But this process is governed by a
license, and in the case of Linux, the core of it is controlled by one
person, Linus Torvalds.”

“By incorporating the Linux
Kernel Personality (LKP) technology into the next release of the UnixWare(R) 7
kernel, Open UNIX 8 will enable Linux applications to be deployed on top of
the … UNIX kernel.” More at PRNewswire.

– by Tina Gasperson –
The KDE community, made up of developers and avid users, has a new project: the KDE Zine. Just a few short weeks ago, discussion about the possibilities of creating a magazine cropped up on the KDE-promo mailing list. Today, the discussion has spawned its own mailing list, the beginnings of a Web site located at zine.kde.org, and a small group of volunteers who are busy working out myriad details involved in bringing a print publication to life. (Note: the author of this article is a volunteer in the KDE Zine project.) For those of you who just hitched a ride down to earth on Mir, KDE is an Open Source graphical desktop environment for Unix and Linux workstations. The KDE environment supports a number of useful or just plain fun applications, including the Konqueror Web browser, the KMail email application, the KWord word-processing program, the KVIrc IRC chat program, and many more — too many to list here.

Herve Lefebvre’s March 12, 2001, post “what about a web-magazine?” on KDE-promo, a mailing list for those interesting in promoting the KDE desktop environment, started a chain reaction of brainstorming. It was such a popular topic of discussion they had to create a separate mailing list just for the zine idea. Most of the details of the project are still being debated: No official publication premier date has been set, and the exact methods of distribution are up in the air, but the first project team meeting date has been set for later this week and will take place on IRC.

At the meeting, those who have volunteered to be a part of the project will come with agendas for their “departments” and the team will make decisions and commit to dates, as well as work on filling gaps in the team. And that’s where anyone interested in supporting KDE can get involved — this project is most definitely not for coders only, and they need more volunteers to get the magazine off the ground.

Chris Molnar, a team member working on several aspects of production, says that content and reader suggestions are the two biggest needs right now. “We have designers, and translators will show up. We need writers, and we need input from users as well. Maybe a Web form asking, ‘If you would like to see anything in a KDE print magazine, what would it be?’ This may give us article ideas.”

Christine “tink” Bastian, the lead designer for the KDE Zine project, says that articles written by developers would be a great boon to the publication. “It would be a shame if this project would
go down the drain because of lack of enthusiasm on their part. I
know how hard it is to get developers to write anything besides their
code — I have to bug most of them for weeks to get them to submit
their interview answers for the series I do on ‘The People Behind KDE.'”

Ideas for content being bandied about include interviews with people of interest to the KDE community, tips and tricks for users, and more technical development how-tos.

Molnar, a Linux and Open Source instructor and KDE user, thinks that the project will take off and gain momentum well, “if we can get enough together for our first issue — then people will come out of the walls and want to write.”

If all goes well with putting the first issue together, the next challenge will be to garner subscribers. Molnar is working on making the zine available on PDAs and through non-traditional Internet channels such as print-on-demand. The KDE Zine will also be available online at zine.kde.org.

The zine project also needs to line up distributors — bookstores and others sales outlets willing to carry and sell the publication. The team is considering many ways of getting the KDE-zine in front of as many people as possible, and is open to suggestions from KDE supporters. The KDE zine project is important in furthering KDE’s market share, because as Molnar aptly puts it, “People like printed documents; they provide a fixed reference point, and something to work from. Also, this sounds a little sick,” he quips, “but a lot of people like having something to read in the restroom.”

If you’re interested in finding out more about the KDE zine project, there’s a list of volunteers and contact information at promo.kde.org/zine.php. Email one of them working in the area in which you’re interested. If you’d like to attend the IRC meeting, contact meeting coordinator Darian Lanx for the exact date, time, and location. Lanx has also offered to field comments and questions from those interested in sponsorships or helping out with distribution.

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments
posted on our discussion
page.

From MozillaQuest:

“This is the fourth edition of a new, regular MozillaQuest Magazine column designed to help Microsoft Windows users better understand and use Linux, and Linux software.”

Patrick Mullen writes: “The Duke of URL has just posted a Beginner’s Guide to
Linux Apps.

The article covers the best in Linux from gaming to text editing and is
intended to be a resource for users who are new to Linux or just want to
see what the best apps in Linux are.”

Graciela Lopez forwarded this release:
ES.TOOLINUX.com:

TOOLINUX.com is on line for the spanish speaking world market

Anonymous Reader writes: “The HP Linux Inkjet Driver is a add-on to the GNU Ghostscript application. The source code for this driver is available at http://hpinkjet.sourceforge.net . This driver is based on the HP Appliance Printing Development Kit (APDK) at http://hpapdk.com for Deskjet printers.

HP is enhancing the Linux printing experience by delivering a softwre solution that provides very good print quality. The HP driver provides printing support for more than 30 Deskjet printer models. The driver supports two print modes – plain paper normal, and photopaper best.

The HP driver uses GPL Ghostscript to convert PostScript into print rasters that are passed through shared memory to our driver that executes as a server. A Ghostscript update kit is included with the HP solution.

For complete information see http://hpinkjet.sourceforge.net .”

The Register: “Speaking at the CeBit conference in Hangover, Germany, Solazzo said that IBM’s
four preferred distributors are SuSe, TurboLinux, Red Hat and Caldera and that its
local partners include MadrakeSoft, which is strong in France as well as
distributors who are strong in Latin America and China.”