– By Grant Gross
–

It was another week of downsizing in the Open Source world. The same day that Open Source desktop company Eazel released the 1.0 version of its Nautilus product, the company laid off more than half its staff, NewsForge reported. According to the company, sales and marketing people made up the largest chunk of those cut loose.

Also this week, we reported that LinuxWorld.com and UnixInsider.com parent company ITWorld told writers it was shutting down those sites, although it was moving some of the content to the corporate site. LinuxWorld.com’s editors issued a kind of non-denial denial, saying they’re simply migrating over to ITWorld.

Flame bait warning: If you’re still waiting for the Linux desktop revolution, keep waiting, said a story from eWeek this week. An IDC report said Windows accounted for 92 percent of client operating system shipments last year. While shipments of desktop Linux were up 25 percent last year, the OS accounted for less than 2 percent of the desktop market.

More reasons to get rid of Windows

On to the good news . Several news sites reported that Mexico City is dumping Microsoft for Linux, largely as a cost-saving measure. The millions of dollars “spent unnecessarily” on software will go toward social programs, said Mexico City officials.

Halfway across the world, German armed services and foreign services have decided to get rid of Microsoft software as well, for very different reasons, report our friends at The Register. Apparently, German security authorities suspect that the U.S. National Security Agency has “back door” access to Microsoft source code, and “can therefore easily read the Federal Republic’s deepest secrets.” Another good argument against closed-source, or in this case secret-source, software.

Meanwhile, our favorite monopolist announced that it plans to extend its .Net platform to Linux, leaving some observers to question Microsoft’s motivations.

1-click really worth a patent?

Amazon.com’s patent on 1-click ordering has caught a lot of flack in Open Source circles, but at least one high-profile patent-reform advocate is now less convinced that Jeff Bezos and crew were on to something. Tim O’Reilly of the book-publishing fame writes, “After talking with Jeff, I concluded that his claim of innovation had some merit.” O’Reilly did give out his $10,000 award in the 1-click patent bounty hunt, but while several debunkers came close, “the patent as a whole is not invalidated,” O’Reilly said.

New in NewsForge this week

Stories you may have missed:

Linux creator Linus Torvalds’ employer Transmeta released the first beta version of its Midori Linux for small devices this week. The release received plenty of attention because of Torvalds’ proximity to the project, but he’s been more of an advisor than a core developer on this one.

News editor Tina Gasperson reported on a project to use Linux in spacecraft. The FlightLinux project is nearly “ready to go,” according to its founder.

News editor Dan Berkes gave us a story about efforts to use Linux in a very different market, television land.

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

The improvements to XFree 4 continue with the latest release, as Slashdot reports. Included in XF 4.0.3: updates to existing drivers, more drivers for new video cards, and X11 render extension has been updated.

Anonymous Reader writes “I have created an OpenBSD resource site with links to guides, tutorials, HOW-TOs and other information. If you are new to OpenBSD, would like some more information on it, or need help with a particular task not covered on the OpenBSD homepage – this site is for you. It is currently the largest directory of OpenBSD links. So why not try OpenBSD today?
http://openbsd.sphosting.com/“

“Gnumeric 0.64 aka ‘Do the Bartman’ is now available. This is a release candidate for Gnome 1.4.” Full details at LWN.

Brave Gnu World #25 is out, discussing updates to various GNU projects, and a few new proposed projects.

–
By John Lettice –
– The Register –

The German foreign office and Bundeswehr are pulling the plugs on Microsoft
software, citing security concerns, according to the German news magazine Der
Spiegel. Spiegel claims that German security authorities suspect that the US
National Security Agency (NSA) has ‘back door’ access to Microsoft source code,
and can therefore easily read the Federal Republic’s deepest secrets. The Bundeswehr will no longer use American software (we surmise this includes Larry and Scott as well) on computers used in sensitive areas. The German foreign office has meanwhile put plans for videoconferencing with its overseas embassies on hold, for similar reasons. Under secretary of state Gunter Pleuger is said by Spiegel to have discovered that “for technical reasons” the satellite service that was to be used was routed via Denver, Colorado.

According to a colleague of Pleuger’s this meant that the German foreign services “might as well hold our conferences directly in Langley.” We’re not entirely sure whose interesting video conferencing via satellite service has a vital groundstation in Denver, but we note that Pleuger seems to have gleaned this information from a presentation held earlier this month in Berlin by, er, Deutsche Telekom.

Which just happens, along with Siemens, to have picked up the gig. The two companies have supplanted Microsoft (and anything else American) and will be producing a secure, home-grown system that the German military can be confident in.

All Content copyright 2001 The Register

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

Linuxdevices.com talks about Midori Linux, and how embedded Linux in general works. Also on Linuxdevices.com, an interview with Midori Linux project leader Dan Quinlan.

“ EBIZ Enterprises Inc. (OTCBB:EBIZ), a manufacturer of specialized appliance servers and the leading vendor-neutral provider of Open Source products and solutions, today announced the planned acquisition of Linux NetworX Inc. of Sandy, Utah. The announcement was made today by EBIZ CEO Dave Shaw and Linux NetworX President Glen Lowry.
” More on LinuxPR.

Slashdot reports on “Anti-spamming Act” (HR 1017), an anti-forged email bill. As at least 2 commenters have pointed out, however, the “Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001” (HR 95) is better targetted at spam.

In a startling move, Dr. Watson has defected to Linux! Ironicly, it’s (a) Segfault which reports on this change of jobs for Dr. Watson.