“As cell phone providers scramble to up their second-generation (2G) bit rates for wireless digital communications from a measly 14 kbits/second to 3G rates of 2 Mbits/s, AT&T’s Wireless Systems Research Department is preparing 40-Mbit/s technologies using orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM).”Full story at EE Times.

CNET News.com reports: “The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday renewed its pledge to protect anonymous online speakers from legal action taken by those they criticize.
Through an appeal filed Monday, the ACLU is making efforts to ensure that freedom of speech and privacy are as protected on the Web as they are in the offline world.”

CNET News.com interviews programmer, GNOME project founder, and Ximian CTO Miguel De Icaza on corporate Linux, the future of the Linux desktop, and of course, the Helix Code/Ximian name change.

From ZDNet: “Linux is gaining in popularity while the Linux industry is shrinking.
While major players in the open source world lay off
people, or merge, or watch their share prices hemorrhage,
research
maintains that Linux growth isn’t slowing.
This paradox confounds competitors, who still must cope with the rise of
Linux use without having a clear target vendor to aim for.”

– by Robin ‘roblimo’ Miller –
I finally got around to a full day of playing with the (proprietary) Opera Browser 5.0 Linux beta. It’s the fastest browser I’ve ever used in any operating system, but I’m not ready to spend $39 or look at annoying ads in return for using it. And with (free, Open Source) Konqueror steadily improving, Opera may never be able to make a living selling its browser to Linux users unless the company has some very big and sexy rabbits waiting to be pulled out of its development hat.irst, let me tell you about the ads. The “free” version of Opera throws an ad in the upper right hand corner of the screen. For someone like me whose bad eyes and 14.1″ laptop screen dictate 800X600 screen resolution, this is a major annoyance because it eats up a significant amount of my tiny working space. Then I go to a site that is already as full of ads as I can tolerate (like NewsForge itself, which admittedly rides the edge of readability in this respect) and I simply can’t handle it all.

In return for the ad annoyance I get a browser that won’t handle plugins, and I must admit that I like my plugins; now and then I have no choice but to wade through governement documents published in Acrobat format, and I’ve got to admit that I like to grab a little sound and fury in Real or Flash formates now and then. Op may not love Java, Opera’s current Linux beta also freezes me out of any site that uses Java to work. I may not love Java-laden sites, but until I have King of the World power over all Web design it is something I must live with.

Opera’s Linux beta also doesn’t have email built-in, a factor that might not bother Pine users, but I’m a lazy cuss who has been using Netscape Messenger for years, and I have gotten spoiled by the ease of simply using one (admittedly bloated) piece of software for virtually all of my online browsing and communication needs.

Okay, fine. Give me plugins, Java, and email, and maybe I’ll love Opera enough to pay $39 for it, because I am not going to want those ads on my screen for any length of time. The basic speed and near-perfect, “full compliance” site rendering job Opera does is admittedly awesome compared to either Netscape or Explorer. If I used Windows, I would almost certainly pay to use Opera instead of being forced to choose between the “big two,” both of which are free, but neither of which is less proprietary than Opera. And yes, the Windows version of Opera has all the neat add-ons that make Web browsing fun (and integrated email) so I would give up no functionality by swtiching to it.

And then there’s Konqueror

It’s rough writing pay-for Linux software. Applix learned this the hard way; despite denials by their PR person, not long after I wrote the linked-to article, they spun off the “VistaSource” division responsible for ApplixWare desktop products. It seems that while their product was decent, it wasn’t enough better than free StarOffice or its GPL descendant OpenOffice that many people wanted to cough up cashfor it.

I’m not saying Linux users won’t pay for software — many of us will — but to get our money you need to give us something far better than programs we can download and use for free, like Konqueror, the KDE Web browser.

Konq (Konqueror’s nickname) hasn’t yet won my stodgy heart away from Netscape 4.7X, but it keeps getting closer. It handles Netscape plugins, Java, and most CSS just fine, and the KDE builtin email program is at least as good as Netscape Messenger; only inertia has kept me from making this switch already, and unless an obviously superior point/click Linux email handler crosses my desk in the next few weeks I’ll probably make the jump to full-time Kmail use within a month or so.

Opera takes less disk space and renders pages slightly faster than Konq. but these are its only advantages in any practical sense that affects my daily browser usage. Konq is not yet stable enough for my taste (Opera has not crashed on me even once yet), and the Konq version I have (included in KDE 2.01) doesn’t handle the cascading style sheets CNN.com uses to get me to its streaming video and audio features.
But based on my experience with KDE (which I’ve been using almost since it first appeared) I have confidence that Konq development will move along rapidly enough that Opera will have a hard time not just keeping up, but staying $39 ahead, and if Opera can’t manage this feat it is going to be toast in the Linux browser marketplace.

Mozilla lurks in the background

Yes, that endless project is still alive, putting out a steady stream of builds, moving incrementally closer to being consumer-usable every month. Someday there will be a 1.0 releasem and when it comes it will have the powerful Netscape name attached to it, although what *many* people I know hope — and I hope myself — is that other developers take the basic Mozilla rendering engine and make an Opera-speed program from it; the official Netscape version has so many junk features attached to it that it looks like paying $39 for Opera would save at least that much over Netscape in needed hard drive space and processing power. But who can say? Tons of work have gone into Mozilla, and it has had more lines of copy written about it than lines of code that have gone into the darn thing, so it will certainly be a significant Linux browser even if it is less than perfect.

The Upshot

Opera will never be used by Free Software purists; it is straight-up, unashamed proprietary commercial software, a defect not shared by Konq or Mozilla. So let’s assume Opera browser for Linux is aimed — as a product — at Windows users switching to Linux who are in the habit of paying for software and could care less if they or more-skilled friends have access to source code or the right to pass software along to friends free of charge.

Will there be enough of these people out there soon enough, all willing to pay $39 for a browser when other Linux browsers can be had for free?

Your guess is as good as mine. I’ll admit that if the first “finished” release of Opera for Linux has all the features I’m used to in Netscape, maintains its current speed and small footprint, and no other free (beer and/or speech) browser project gives me similar functionality first, I would consider buying Opera.

Would you?

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

Hoping to increase its market share in the low end of the market, computer maker Sun Microsystems has introduced a newer, cheaper workstation/server. The Sun Blade 100 workstation will sell for about $1,000. Full story at Infoworld.

– by Tina Gasperson –
In most families, it goes something like this: kids think mom is a dork. Kids slander mom behind her back. Neighbor says something derogatory about kids’ mom. Kids beat the crap out of neighbor. It’s a well-known fact: we can talk about our moms, but you better not. Sound like anyone we know?It’s logical, but stupid, that the most vocal supporters of Linux follow this model. We can complain about Linux, but when the neighbor kid has a bad experience and mentions it, he’s: A) a complete moron; B) a Microsoft shill; C) a troll; or D) all of the above. Not only that, but if he ever comes face to face with a Linux constituent, he’ll probably get his eyes poked out.

We have scouts who go before us and make determinations about whether a particular article is ‘safe’ to read. “Nothing here to see,” they tell us. “Don’t bother, it’s just FUD.”

We have thought police who write letters to editors calling for the dismissal of staff members who dare to point people to dissenting opinions about Linux, saying, “Things like this aren’t newsworthy and shouldn’t receive publicity.”

We have entire publications whose mission is to publish nothing but good news about Linux, and nary a jot or tittle is written that contains anything but cheerleading chants for the home team and slams against the other side.

When my kids were very little, I sheltered them. I protected them from anything I felt would influence them in a negative way, because they weren’t wise enough not to just believe anything they heard, good or bad. And we want to protect our babies from bad stuff.

Are Linux people really babies that need to be protected from bad stuff? Are they really only ready for yummy pabulum spoon-fed to them from scouts and thought police? No. Linux people are smart, supposedly. We should credit them with enough intelligence to read, examine, digest, consider, and harvest from all the different points of view that exist in our wide world.

Centuries ago, Roman Catholic priests performed religious rituals entirely in Latin. All the bibles were printed in that dead language. That way, only the clergy and other select individuals could read the Scripture and understand the rituals. The unwashed masses had to be content with simply accepting what they were told by these higher-ups. They were effectively barred from exploring the bible on their own and coming to their own conclusions.

Why did the priests do this? Maybe it was a power thing. He who has the knowledge has the power. Or maybe they were afraid that the peasants would find out that they were full of shit. Perhaps they truly believed that being a peasant meant you were on the left side of the bell curve and unable to handle a full plate of information.

Either way, the priests and powers saw their worst fears realized when Martin Luther said I beg to differ, suckers, here’s what the bible *really* has to say, and he started the Protestant movement – a fork in the code, if you will, of Christianity.

Do the Linux scouts and thought police fear a Martin Luther in the ranks? They must. Their knee-jerk reactions to the dissenters remind me of the kid’s arcade game — the one where you take a mallet and smack the gopher heads as they randomly pop up. It goes faster and faster until you just can’t keep up any more. Our mallet-wielding protectors must not believe in the superiority of Linux as an operating system. If they did, they wouldn’t so ferociously attack every disagreeing word that pops up. They’d be gracious, because true winners are gracious, wise, and deliberate.

Winners and smart people do well to follow the exhortations of a leader who once said, “Be as wise as a serpent, but as gentle as a dove.” What might we learn if we became doves and kindly encouraged the complaints and criticisms of the world? What would they tell us that we’ve been unable to hear so far? Wise serpents learn about themselves by seeing what they look like through the eyes of others. They allow criticism to make them better.

Those who block out the flow of information become stagnant and full of themselves, like a dead sea, and can support no new growth or innovation. That could happen to Linux if we cover our ears every time someone says, “I beg to differ.”

We encourage Linux users to explore, examine, think, and criticize in a free flow of positive and negative information. We believe that Linux users are intelligent enough to decide for themselves what is useful. We think they want to grow and become stronger. They don’t want scouts and police to filter out the bad stuff, they don’t want what someone recently dubbed “teen fanzines.” They want the whole picture and they’re big enough to handle a full plate of it.

Welcome to the all-you-can-eat buffet. Serve yourself.

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

CNET News.com reports: “MontaVista Software has demonstrated its Hard Hat Linux running on Intel’s XScale chip, the successor to the StrongARM.” The chip is expected to power the next generation of handheld and wireless devices to hit the consumer market.

From LinuxLookup: “Recently on a company-internal newsgroup, someone asked the question “How do I tell what process is using a specific port?” Just before I fired off a reply, I reread the question. Ahh, the originator was using Solaris. Bummer for him.
The final solution for him involved using netstat and lsof and matching up their output to find the program. (That was the last message I saw anyway, there may have been a better solution.) The Linux solution is much simpler and straightforward.”

Anonymous Reader writes “Napster faces a shutdown again, but this one may stick. They have another appeal running. If it does not come through this will become the final Napster marathon week. If you have some trades to make, make ’em.

http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/riocar.htm l“ The reader submitted this blurb, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with the link, except that the link leads to a story about the in-dash MP3 player mentioned in the headline. If Napster shuts down, there may not be much of a market left for this contraption.