– by Eric Ries –
Covalent is a commercial vendor
of
Apache products. They were at the 2001 LinuxWorld Expo, of course, and
got
my personal award for best billboards: simple black ones that read
“Welcome
fellow hackers.” They even gave me a T-shirt with the definition of
“hacker” on the back. But trouble was brewing …

Pitbull LX is a new much-hyped
security system for Linux. Of course, they were at the show. They had
huge
billboards, too, which read “Pitbull LX stops hackers in their tracks.”
Good
thing they had these two camps on opposite sides of the show floor. It
could have been ugly.

I asked the sales reps at Covalent if they’d received any trouble from
the
Pitbull team, but they were playing it cool. They didn’t seem stopped
in
their tracks at all.

A bit shocked that a distributor of Linux-based
software would have never –not even once — read the Jargon
file
definition of hacker vs. cracker, I went over to the Pitbull booth
to
see what they had to say for themselves. The sales rep there was very
helpful, offering me a press kit and a graphical demo of their product.
Asked if their product was designed to stop both hackers and crackers,
he
described how Pitbull LX works on security from the inside and outside
of a
system. Asked how that relates, in any way, to the hacker/cracker
distinction, he replied that he had heard of the distinction, but
wasn’t
really sure what it was all about. Nevertheless, he assured me that
Pitbull
LX could definitely handle both of them. Asked if “All his base are
belong
to us,” he had no comment. Hmph.

It was not too surprising, after all, to find out that the PR agents
were
keeping any trouble quiet. But my suspicions were aroused by the large
number of uniformed officers patrolling the show floor. I started
following
them around, learning their patterns. Their network of crisscrosses
centered around a certain panel of the blue-and-white drapes that
marked
the boundaries of the show floor. From time to time, they would
disappear
behind this curtain for a few minutes. Deciding that this was my
opportunity to get the real scoop, I waited for one of the guards to
leave,
pulled back the curtain, and stepped in.

The security headquuarters for LinuxWorld was a bit underwhelming. A lone guard
sat at
a plain table with a small TV and radio playing some top 40 hits. I
waved
my press pass around and asked if she would mind answering some
questions.
She seemed eager; as it turns out, she doesn’t get much company back
there
during her all-day shift of sitting. I tried to find out of there had
been
any disturbances at the show, but she assured me that this was one of
the
most civilized she’d seen in her year-long stint in conference security. With the exception of a few people going overboard at the IBM Opening
Reception‘s open bar, they didn’t have to eject anybody yet. It was
nothing, she assured me, compared with the open-to-the-public car show
or
the extravagant bartenders expo.

So, no hacker/cracker showdowns or fights over the email garden — a
little
disappointing. But I did find out a few interesting tidbits. For one,
shows
like LWE are patrolled by the New York State Troopers, who do the real
security work. Employees like the one I spoke to are much lower on the
totem pole. In fact, all employees at the show are required to submit
to
daily searches every time they enter and leave the convention center.

Do
attendees of the LinuxWorld Expo realize this dark underside that makes
their glossy drinks-and-mixers world of corporate excess work? Nope.
They’re too busy collecting
swag. Incidentally, my favorite score: a light-up yo-yo from
Pumpkin
Networks. Also incidentally, I asked the Pumpkin sales rep which of their
booth’s attractions had generated more geek interest: the yo-yos or the
skimpy
police women models on display? “Definitely the yo-yos,” he assured
me.

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

Slashdot reports on NetBSD supporting ethernet on the recently release Dreamcast ethernet adaptor.

With all the focus on the big names at Linux World, you might think that this was an event for only PR people and suits. However, there was a place that was the “center” of the community at LinuxWorld, and that was the .Org pavilion. Its “headquarters” was a easily-missed booth labeled the “.Org Information Booth,” which was for the most part manned by the NewsForge staff in their swank shirts and Fedoras. Behind this booth, however, were a nest of booths that were for the people that really make a difference — the people who do it for free.
The .Org pavilion is a haven for the big names in Open Source — not VA Linux, Redhat, or IBM, but rather WindowMaker, NYLug, and Debian. These are the people who without which the Open Source community would die. Sure, Linus and Alan Cox do the bulk of the Kernel work, but Linux is no longer just a kernel, it is a movement. This movement is lead by these people, who do it not for money or for fame, but because it’s what they believe in.

Yesterday, I met a couple of people from the NYLug who were there because they wanted to be. Since they had no corporate sponsors, or anything along those lines, the only reason they were there was because they were in the area. They were two in a crowd of many who think that Open Source is the future, and something that they want to be a part of. I say this because in the face of big money and corporate goals and ideals, these people manage to “keep the faith,” and not be tainted by corporate strategies and other things that many people believe have no place in Open Source. While convergence of Open Source and business is the obvious end to the Open Source movement, while this happens we stand to lose a lot, too. I remember installing Slackware from a box of 3.5″ floppies on my 386SX machine. I remember thinking over what I great idea Open Source was, and how I wanted to be a part of it. This is why I made my eventual move to write about Linux hardware, because the community did not really have anyone covering hardware under Linux, and I thought maybe in my small way I could help out. In the end, that is what it should be all about — helping out.

The most amazing thing is that I am starting to see evidence of small non-profit organizations of volunteers start to cooperate in positive ways with big companies in various projects. The companies even contribute workers to the projects, and full-time programmers can seriously help smaller projects. This is positive, because these companies are learning to work with these projects without swallowing them whole. This gives me hope that while some say the Open Source movement has lost out in this movement towards corporate acceptance, it may acctually be gaining quite a bit.

Redherring ponders Corel’s future, specifically going over the recent refocusing done by Corel’s new CEO, Derek Burney.

ZDNet reports that Apple Computer’s
legal counsel has requested a Windows software company to get rid of all
themes and screen shots resembling the Mac OS X Aqua interface from its
Web site, saying they violate Apple’s intellectual property.

Stardock Corp. has complied with part of the request.

– By Jeff Field –

It used to be that, if you wanted to write stories on hardware and Linux you would get little help from hardware companies. A few years ago, they could have cared less about this little movement called Open Source. Fast forward to the year 2001, and suddenly everyone and the CEO are interested in Linux, and hardware companies are no exception to this rule.
Presentation
On the LinuxWorld floor, it is very easy to get lost in a sea of hardware companies, all with different products they want you to run on Linux. Some of them seem to have done their homework on Linux and really have a defined Linux strategy, such as VA Linux (parent company of NewsForge/OSDN), IBM, Compaq, and many other companies, some big some small. These companies have booths demonstrating their various products and services under Linux, with KDE on some, Gnome on others, and clearly they know what Linux users want to see — Linux.

However, some companies, even at a Linux event, still don’t quite get that many Linux users simply don’t like Microsoft, and certainly do not want to see their products being used to demonstrate the “Linux strategy” of a company. A few companies are perpetrators of such crimes, and I saw a few getting flak for this, such as one company who had Powerpoint running in Windowed-mode in their booth.

From the horse’s mouth
I talked to several companies to get first-hand information from their on what exactly their companies are doing with Open Source software, and what plans they have. 3Com discussed the support available for most of their desktop and some of their PCMCIA line of NICs. When asked about their PCMCIA 802.11 cards which are not supported under Linux, the 3Com people said that they couldn’t give a date but they were “sure” it would be worked on.

A company with a large presence for a company of its type was Adaptec. Adaptec had a booth demonstrating the video-decompression/compression equipment of one of its customers that uses an 11-channel custom-built product from Adaptec to deliver HDTV content. This system runs on FreeBSD and is used by major content providers, such as HBO, to run HDTV transmissions. The display was quite impressive, and the fact that it was an Open Source implentation was even more impressive.

Adaptec was also one of several companies to announce a site devoted to supporting people who run their products on Linux and other Open Source operating systems. The Adaptec folks said they wanted to “provide products the community can rely on,” which seems to be truly important to Adaptec because the company has quite a reputation to uphold.

Compaq also had a large presence at the show. At its booth the company was demonstrating servers and laptops running on Linux, as well as one very special device that can run on Linux, the iPaq handheld. With a distribution of Linux provided in cooperation with Handhelds.org, the iPaq can run applications designed for Linux with just a small amount of recompiling and in some cases minor recoding. The Handhelds.org representative present at the Compaq booth said Compaq was extremely cooperative, providing the technical documentation for the iPaq device, an action some hardware companies could definately learn from. Compaq was also another company that debuted an Open Source Web site to feature its products.

Taking Linux seriously
The number of hardware companies at this event clearly demonstrates that, to the business world, Linux has come of age. No longer can people say that Linux is simply a hobbyist operating system created by a group of rag-tag programmers. Now it is a professional, scalable business operating system, created by a group of rag-tag programmers.

For those Microsofties who had hoped to brush Linux under the carpet, this is unfortunate, but for everyone else the advancement of Linux in business is definately a positive move, allowing companies a reliable alternative to Microsoft-based solutions.

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

DebianPlanet has a short item about the beta 3 release of Progeny, which “appeared on archive.progeny.com in the
whee hours. Since this release follows Beta 2 so closely, it can
be assumed that it is some sort of a hotfix release, but the
release notes don’t really allude to that.”

Slashdotters debate news of the release of the Indigo Magic Desktop for Linux, base on the version for Irix. “The Linux
version contains a new window manager called 5dwm, an enhanced Motif
library that supports the Irix look and feel, and widget sets specific to
SGI. Also, check out an interview from LinuxWorld featuring Indigo Magic Desktop’s creator, Eric Masson.

From LinuxPR: LIGHTNING, a leading manufacturer of secure Internet access
gateways, today announces its contribution to the open source community: The company’s
Linux distribution is based on the very latest Linux kernel 2.4 and is used for advanced routing
and gateway functionality. It supports IP routing, extended address translation and filtering, load
sharing, transparent proxy redirection, DHCP client and server, syslog and firewalls. The Swiss
company will now give the open source community access to developments and modifications
made on the open source projects. The modified part of the open source project is also
available at LIGHTNING’s website.

The Standard reports on an effort to debunk questionable patents by offering prizes for people who dig up evidence against questionable patents.