Slashdot Mirror

Chad Myslinsky wrote in to let us know Nick Petreley is hosting yet another Linux forum over at Infoworld. Nick wonders if the fact that there isn't a strong anti-Microsoft feeling from any of the bigger names in the community, and therefore, no one to attack, has anything to do with the good press Linux has been receiving.

Andy Tai writes "This InfoWorld news reports that Sybase, another major database vender, will port its Adaptive Server Enterprise 11 database to Linux." That's like, all of them, right? =) It looks as though this one will lag behind ports on other platforms, though.

ensor wrote in to send us a link to an InfoWorld article which talks about the next generation of everyone's favorite io standard. SCSI Ultra3 will feature speeds up to 160MB/s.

patrickv writes "Infoworld has this article regarding how to compile a Linux kernel. Nothing new for Slashdot readers. However it's nice to see a mainstream IT magazine covering this kind of issues."

So called "industry analysists" have been saying it for awhile, but Pinky writes "Aparently Gates is worried that Microsoft will lose its monopoly throught appliance like devices so is commiting to providing a version of windoze for every appliance that needs one :). Yes, now your toaster can also have the blue screeen of death. " Hmm, how about a Slashdot mini-forum? Do we really need one UI everywhere, or should there be a specific UI for a specific task? Reminds me of a quote I heard here once - "...trying to sell us more solutions that don't work to problems that don't exist".

Jason Riedy writes " This interview of James Gosling Talks about the possibility of open-sourcing parts of Solaris... " (Ed: It's nice to see some concrete source for this story. I've been hearing on the grape-vine various rumours of this kind, such as an interest in sharing driver models. Such a move would be good for both Sun and Linux since this is one area of Microsoft dominance: Microsoft does not need to fund the drivers they use in their OS since to be sold as "Made for Windows", the vendors must develop their drivers and pay Microsoft to test them.)

D. Koppenheffer writes "LA Times has a story on Linux this morning." As well, Corey Saltiel sent us an article by Petreley about the in-fighting within the Linux community. Read more here.

Bristol is a small company that makes a cross platform tool which enables Windows programs to run under Unix. Unlike Wine they use Microsoft's Windows source code. Now they are suing Microsoft for illegally using its operating system monopoly power to undermine the competing Unix market, according to their lawsuit. What's interesting is that Sybase submitted an affidavit in Bristol's favour. Perhaps now they'd be interested in helping/funding Wine?

Infoworld has an review of Caldera's Netware for Linux. Unfortunately, it did not receive the rave reviews Samba did. Given that Caldera licences it from Novell who have their own OS, it might be in Novell's interest to limit its performance and configurability on other platforms. Thanks to contributor Mark Stone for this one.

Rob B. wrote in to send us a link to a little InfoWorld article by the always cool Nick Petreley. He wants to know a bit more about what people would think of an Open Source magazine. I'd love to see this happen, Nick has written tons of great Linux stuff over the last few years on InfoWorld, so he's a good guy to work on it. Wonder if they'd hire me :)

Kevin Forge sent us a link to an InfoWorld story where you can read that IBM was fined $8M for selling RS6000 to Russia. How long before beowulf falls victim to the same restrictions? Soon we won't be able to export pentium chips because *gasp* if someone gets a thousand of them and Beowulf, they can build a supercomputer...

Bill McCarthy wrote in to send us Mark Tebbe's latest piece on linux and corporations. It's a fair piece. Nothing particularly new or insightful to anyone regularly reading here, but it's a good general summary to remind people of what needs to happen if we want Linux to succeed in the corporate world.

Back at Infoworld Nicholas Petreley keeps writing about Linux. In this week's forum article he compares the dominant operating system to Tolkien's One Ring: the one who has it will inevitably be corrupt. Linux is like Tom Bombadil, the only character immune to the seduction of the evil Ring. A short article with an insightful comparison that might explain recent moves by Netscape, Oracle, SUN and many others. Go check it out.

Back at Infoworld Nicholas Petreley keeps writing about Linux. In this week's forum article he compares the dominant operating system to Tolkien's One Ring: the one who has it will inevitably be corrupt. Linux is like Tom Bombadil, the only character immune to the seduction of the evil Ring. A short article with an insightful comparison that might explain recent moves by Netscape, Oracle, SUN and many others. Go check it out.

ISA is finally dead. Microsoft and Intel have been hinting as much in previous PC 9x drafts, so it comes as no surprise. The particularly interesting aspect to this is that it means older DOS games relying on ISA soundcards will be incompatible with future machines -- barring Microsoft's DOS box emulation. We can also expect future Microsoft OS' to give up supporting ISA hardware, obsoleting it. I hope Linux will not go down that path, since old hardware can be used by non-profit organisations, 3rd world countries and Universities (Beowolf clusters of 386's) Other requirements include a 300Mhz processor, a 56K modem, 256K L2, an AGP graphics card, in-built networking recommended and 32Mb of Ram for the home user. It'll be interesting to see how these requirements and the sub-1000$ phenomenon interact.

Aldain wrote in to tell us that our friend at Infoworld, Nick Petreley, has a column about the state of open source software. He says he's considering a publication of some sort open source publication, and would like some feedback on the state of things in general. An interesting debate is occuring in the responses section, too (cypherpunks/cypherpunks).

Raymond Fellers writes "Oracle announced that they will release a Linux version of Oracle 8. Article from InfoWorld Electric "

Clinton has been advised that the US's IT-lead is at risk due to lack of basic research -- DUH! -- and high economic reliance on unreliable software. Is anything be making inroads into Unix land?

Felix Finch writes "Compaq is cutting Alpha prices to take advantage of the Merced delay. Either Compaq is serious about supporting Alpha, or they are testing the waters. So Go Forth And Buy Alphas! "

Nicholas Petreley writes "Though NC World may have closed its doors, we have published one last article, The Last 10 Minutes. This article attempts to analyze the contributing forces that are likely to make Windows NT 5.0 a disaster of patchwork programming. We put together this last installment in our Next 10 Minutes series in large part because links to our previous stories from Slashdot and Red Hat helped make the series extremely successful. (Thanks a million, Slashdot readers!) Unfortunately, we didn't get to publish the number of installments this topic required. So this last installment is a bit rushed and compacted, and it lacks the polish that would normally have been added by Kane Scarlett (a spectacular but unsung hero of NC World, Kane had a hand in every word of every issue). But I hope you'll enjoy reading it in spite of the rough edges - whether you agree with our conclusion or not. Thanks again for your support. ". Thank you Nicholas! I'm glad Slashdot could help, and only wish we could have done more. NC World was an excellent mag, and I'm sad to see it go.

EugeneL writes that "Mitsubishi has stopped Alpha support. " However, it was noted that unlike Samsung Mitsubishi hasn't been totally critical to the Alpha movement. They had hoped that Alpha would become more of a mass market chip, and due to the Asian crisis, are cutting their losses by dropping the manufacturing and marketing of the chip.

Bill McCarthy sent us this InfoWorld story where you can read about Red Hat employee Ryan Tilden going above and beyond the call of duty to support Linux. It's amazingly positive publicity, and its on InfoWorld. Very cool.

jon bendtsen sent us This Story where you can check out another finger print reading piece of hardware- this one is integrated into a USB Keyboard. No pictures, and windows only yet, but I wonder if this will catch on and eventually overtake the login/password combination that we are all so used to. Not any time soon, that's for sure.

Reid Rivenburgh writes "InfoWorld has an article explaining how the major database companies don't think linux is big enough to warrant ports of their database software."

Upgrading to Windows 98 is not for the fainthearted, as it does not appear to be 100% compatible. In particular be aware that Windows 98 introduces a new driver model, WDM, which requires different drivers. The older VxD type may or may not work. I've heard this affects Philips CD-ROM drives using Adaptec drivers. W'98 also tries to emulate a Soundblaster card, which is rather difficult so it may not work with all games. Apparently there are also problems with older revisions of BIOS. Microsoft is also being swamped by customer service calls effectively requiring users to rely on each other and the media... If any of you do have to use Windows (My wife does for the student version of Maple V -- not available under Linux), then you have been advised. Of course you'll get the obligatory first viri but it won't be quite this bad I wonder how Windows 98 will score in ZD-NET's customer satisfaction survey. Thanks to BOredAtWork, and Sad for the references.

Rodger Donaldson writes "This Infoworld article details Sen. Hatch's desire to expand investigations into Microsoft's market power. " Yep, even more investigation into what appears to be the world's legal curiosity.

Jeff sent us this InfoWorld Story where you can read that AT&T is suing Microsoft for not releasing their source code. Apparently they have a contract that entitles them to the code, and MS hasn't complied. This is getting crazy, I've lost count of how many major suits MS has against them.

The new x86 startup Rise plans to release its new Pentium II class x86 at the end of this year to the notebook market entering into direct competition with Intel, IDT and Cyrix. Unlike its competitors, Rise is not integrating functions onto the CPU but plans to license its technology to partners that can. This may interest to Acer, which wants to convert from memory production to customized microprocessor production for its XC project, which it hopes will free it from the domination of Microsoft.

Chad Myslinsky sent us a link where you can read Nicholas Petreley's bit on what happened at NCWorld, and where things with NCs will be heading in the future. The whole story is at InfoWorld

Rick Moen writes "Some very sad news: Nick Petreley's good-beyond-hope magazine NC World has folded, as you can read on the InfoWorld site. While the NC World site is still up, do browse its simply amazing series of articles on thin-client computing, and the merits of the NT/Hydra/Citrix/WinTerminal kludge versus open-source and *ix-based alternatives. These are masterpieces of analysis and explanation. Let's hope that these very talented people (the NC World staff) land on their feet somewhere where they can, once again, show the trade mags how to do it competently and with integrity. " Hey Nick! Want a job? The pay is terrible but at least the hours are bad *grin*. Seriously, good mag. I'll miss it.

Felix Finch writes " No details, but looks like Alpha might be getting some good support here, and with IBM also supporting Apache, looks like things are shaping up for the non-Wintel crowd. "

Last night at the PC expo, Alpha Processor Inc. was launched. Its primary goal will be to drive down the cost of Alpha-based computing. Apparently Compaq will help by selling low cost servers, workstations, and perhaps even an Alpha-based notebook. Its secondary goal is to provide customizations and optimizations for specific applications, for instance to the memory subsystem. In a way, this all looks like Compaq trying to steal HP's lead in the Workstation market... but if the price of the Alpha comes down, I won't be complaining.

David Ishee has written a piece on the Fear of X.0 where he talks about (surprise!) release versions of software. It's worth a gander... The following is a feature written by Slashdot Reader David Ishee

I'd like to offer an observation of the software industry and the often stated fears of a new version of software.

The idea jumped at me after reading the Linux Weekly News site and seeing a reference to an Info World article called: "Analysts at GigaWorld say skip NT 5.0"

To quote from the article:

"Analysts here at GigaWorld IT Forum '98 advised attendees to forgo Windows NT 5.0 and wait for a later release.

With 30 million lines of code, 85 percent of which is new, Windows NT 5.0 is likely to be buggy, said Rob Enderle, director of desktop and mobile technology at Giga Information Group, last week.

"It's too complex and too new," Enderle said. "Even inside Microsoft, there's a realization that the product won't ramp to volume until NT 6.0 because of the fear of initial releases."

Enderle advised waiting until service pack 3, or NT 5.5, which could be out a year or so after NT 5.0."

I have seen this type of attitude expressed in the press and by people on the net before about various software projects.

One project that stands out in glaring contrast is the GIMP. The GIMP just went 1.0 and if I'm correct, many people were eagerly awaiting the release and confident of its stability and usefulness.

Why is that?

The main difference in the development of Windows NT and the development of GIMP is the open source philosophy of "release early, release often" as expressed in the Cathedral and Bazaar paper that has gotten so much attention recently.

I've used GIMP 0.54, and various 0.99.X releases (even submitted a couple of bug reports) and I could see and follow the development, the improvements, and the increases in stability as many others probably did as well. When version 1.0 hit the net, there was no fear of the X.0 release. I knew it was going to be great because I had participated in the development by trying it out at the various stages. How many times was a new release posted to Slashdot with the hope that "this was the last version before 1.0?" Why did these last few releases occur? Obviously there was a few things found that had to be ironed out before it was declared ready for prime time.

Contrast this approach with new releases of Windows, or any proprietary software. You don't get to participate in the same manner. Sure, there are beta releases that come out (like with the Win95 pre-releases), but they are spaced much wider apart compared to GIMP releases, and not nearly as many releases occur. More importantly, you never get to test out the last version before X.0 where the software is released once more to make sure it can be declared done. You may see a few betas, but the changes to the last beta and version X.0 is likely to be significant.

There are probably many reasons that I'm not aware of about why people like Microsoft only push a few betas out the door (such as the pressure from marketing to get it out in time for the Christmas shopping season, or whatever).

The effect achieved by Microsoft (and probably others too) is that version X.0 is really just another beta release that we have to pay for and hope the next version (or service pack) gets the bugs fixed while not introducing others (I remember keeping up with the service packs for OS/2 before my Linux conversion).

The confidence the user gets from the "release early, release often" method is powerful. It makes me more confident in the 2.2 kernel knowing that we are past version 2.1.100+ in the development branch even though I haven't tried any development kernels.

The "release early" part of the equation can easily be used by proprietary vendors, but can "release often" as experienced in the open source world be duplicated also? I'm not sure. The common experience seems to support the theory that the large complex software systems being built today like desktop environments, operating systems, and the like are so hard to test thoroughly by a finite number of developers in one company that the additional help from potential users on the net and around the world are needed to test every permutation of the software's functionality and fix the bugs to be able to "release often".

So far, it appears that only the open source world has embraced the "release early, release often" philosophy (or created it?) and been able to implement it well enough to capitalize on the confidence to be gained in version X.0 by active participation by the prospective users.

We have all heard the skepticism that companies can't make money (or at least LOTS of money) from open source methods. User confidence in the quality of your software provides you with a powerful marketing tool. One tried and true way of getting that confidence is to use open source software. Everything seems to add up to the conclusion that open source software is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Then again, maybe I'm just a nutcase and these two examples are not representative. While no methodology is likely to be a "once size fits all", maybe open source is at least a "this size fits better". You decide.

Apparently June is Officialy the Lets-Talk-About-Linux month in the mainstream press, cuz we've got a steady stream of them. Christopher Blizzard sent us an article on NASA, Linux and Multiprocessing and one called Is Linux the Business? from ZDUK's Linux Focus Week. We also have a Freeware Roundup over at InfoWorld. Aaron Stone sent us another InfoWorld article, this one examines Linux and Business and comes up positive.

Apparently June is Officialy the Lets-Talk-About-Linux month in the mainstream press, cuz we've got a steady stream of them. Christopher Blizzard sent us an article on NASA, Linux and Multiprocessing and one called Is Linux the Business? from ZDUK's Linux Focus Week. We also have a Freeware Roundup over at InfoWorld. Aaron Stone sent us another InfoWorld article, this one examines Linux and Business and comes up positive.

Justin Hahn writes "Take a look at Nick Petreley's Latest. It's a good rundown of TMS, and actually gives a decent metaphor to what MS really is doing. Also gives a top ten as to what will happen if OEMs get a choice. " I dig Petreley. Unlike most of his peers, he almost always is on the money.

Jim Hall writes " InfoWorld Magazine reports in their 06/01/1998 edition that UMAX computer has ceased production of its Macintosh clones. UMAX was the last remaining licensee of the MacOS after Apple stopped allowing clones. This is too bad. I think clones were the way for Macs to become accessible to others. Competition among Mac vendors might have made the Mac cheaper to upgrade and to own. Oh well. "

Eric Stephens wrote in to tell us that InfoWorld is running this story on the Open Group's release of the UNIX 98 specs.

Allright the news is just filled with stuff on TMS, so let's get them out of the way in a lump. Cappella wrote in to tell us that the SPA has denied MS a seat again. Tjl wrote in to send us this story where you can read that apparently Clinton is backing the DOJ on TMS. Static (aka Wade Bowmer) wrote in to send us a bird's eye view of MS's legal situation.

Brian Kimball writes " link The rumor is that the mac look-and-feel is being ported to Linux. Supposedly this will be announced at the upcoming Apple developers conference. Steve Job says it's bogus; I'll wait and see. " Without the Macintosh's standard everything the Mac GUI would blow on Linux. But the article does claim that Apple does have some sort of Linux related announcement coming...

Simon Karpen sent us a link to Nick Petreley's Latest InfoWorld Column. It is a moderately cheesy detective story, but I guess since Dvorak just did a stage play, this is normal behavior for mainstream computer press columnists. Petreley is cool: he has written a lot of positive Linux stuff before, so I tend to cut him a lot of slack... Anyway, he talks about something that many of us have gone through- trying to debug some crazy kernel device driver problem. (In this case, its a 3com 3c905b). There's a even a nice happy ending. Oh, and I've decided that my next editorial will be instead be a Performance Piece- I'll dance suspended by chains 6 feet above a stage to protest the suffering I've had with my laptop's sound support and 2.1.99 kernels. Gotta do something to keep up... *grin*.

Conor writes "It seems the Linux Advocacy HOWTO may be working, Columnist Mark Tebbe at infoworld was forced to reconsider his dismissal of Linux as a 'Renegade OS' when he heard about the number of large corporations relying on it for large parts os their IT infrastructure. See his article for more details. "

While I know that most of our readers prefer Mysql and Postregsql, it still is interesting to read what Dan Kirkpatrick sent in: " Just a rumor from Cringley. However, he says that an "IT manager at a large health-care organization" has tweaked an SCO version of Oracle 7 for Linux, and has it running on a 180 MHz box. Seems to me that Oracle is one of those mission critical apps that *has* to be ported to Linux before many corporations can consider Linux for their mission critical apps. " True enough.

Andy Tai writes "Infoworld just did a short but "top news story" report describing how Free Software is entering the corporate world. It states in brief terms how GNU Tools, Linux, Apache, Sendmail, etc. are used in business. It also describe the Free Software business model, where commerical support businesses will grow in revenue by 50% in 1998. It defines the term "freeware" in terms of source code availability, not cost. Clearly our definition of the name "Free Software" is gaining acceptance by mainstream media." here is the story.

This link was sent to us by Eric Andreychek and it is a pretty darn scathing writeup on The Microsoft Situation (which I will now refer to it in its abbreviated form, 'TMS'). Eric is right- it needs a read.

cpg wrote in to give us this infoworld article about JavaSoft, the trouble they've been having, and their plans to reorganize things to better handle the competition. And for competition, they actually mention free software Java VMs as being an issue. Kinda cool.

LVK wrote in to give us this link where you can read the formal letter that was anonymously sent to the US Gov. on Microsoft, and what needs to happen. It pretty much sums up my opinions on the situation, as well as most of the less extreme viewpoints. We would have a happier industry if this document was implemented.

Paul Dwerryhouse writes "Infoworld have done a report on the existence of a number of free Java Virtual Machine implementations. Both Kaffe and Japhar have been mentioned. Mind you, I'm always surprised by the way journals describe such products as "weakening Sun's control of Java" - I'd always thought the point of Java was that Sun would make their money by licensing the name and by "providing the best Java environment" - ie, enabling real competition."

James Baughn writes "InfoWorld has posted an interview with Linus at this location "Linus Torvalds talks economics and operating systems" "

From Os News, HP is reconsidering its decision to gather a set of partners and set up its own standards process. Instead it will work with Sun to make a common Embedded Java standard. Then again, as a reader pointed out maybe not.