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Domain: linux-magazine.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to linux-magazine.com.
Stories · 13
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Free Software Supporter and Canadian MP David Graham Talks OSS In Government (linux-magazine.com)
New submitter ShawnX writes: If David Graham sounds familiar, you might know him better as cdlu (short for "confused debian linux user"). For years, cdlu was my colleague at Linux.com and Newsforge and well-known in Debian circles as well. Since then, he has been a presence in the back rooms of the Liberal Party until, in the federal election in October 2015, he was elected for the first time. He now describes himself (no doubt correctly) as "the only Member of Parliament to be in the Debian key ring." (And here's video of Graham discussing greater use of Open Source in government, from the perspective of someone with a foot in each of those worlds.) -
When Enthusiasm For Free Software Turns Ugly
An anonymous reader writes: Bruce Byfield writes for Linux Magazine about the unfortunate side-effect of people being passionate about open source software: discussions about rival projects can get heated and turn ugly. "Why, for example, would I possibly to see OpenOffice humiliated? I prefer LibreOffice's releases, and — with some misgivings — the Free Software Foundation's philosophy and licensing over that of the Apache Foundation. I also question the efficiency of having two office suites so closely related to each other. Yet while exploring such issues may be news, I don't forget that, despite these differences, OpenOffice and the Apache Foundation still have the same general goals as LibreOffice or the Free Software Foundation. The same is true of other famous feuds. Why, because I have a personal preference for KDE, am I supposed to ignore GNOME's outstanding interface designs? Similarly, because I value Debian's stability and efforts at democracy, am I supposed to have a strong distaste for Ubuntu?" -
Is SaaS Killing Native Linux App Development?
jfruhlinger writes "In a world where 'app' is the new buzzword, the development of native Linux apps is lagging. Some of this can be attributed to the usual community infighting (the latest version of which is argument about Ubuntu's Unity interface), but there may be something deeper at play: Linux advocates have for so long advocated browser-accessed software as a service as a way to break out of Microsoft's proprietary desktop. Now that this world has arrived, there's less incentive to work on native Linux apps. But of course, entrusting your functionality and data to a cloud provider like Google has its own set of concerns for free software fans." -
G2 Detects When Rooted and Reinstalls Stock OS
RandyDownes writes "And you thought the Droid X's kill switch was bad. HTC and T-Mobile's new G2 can detect when it's been rooted and responds by reinstalling the factory OS. This seems like a violation of the Apache license Android is licensed under and is especially ironic given Eric Schmidt's recent statement about not requiring carriers to give consumers the option to install Google's own version of the OS. Schmidt called it a violation of the principles of open source." Update: 10/06 17:47 GMT by S : As readers have noted, the G2 is not from Motorola. Here's a better source, and here's the XDA Developers thread discussing the issue. -
Dell Releases Streak Source Code
RandyDownes writes "Members of the developer community called Dell out for not releasing the complete source code for the Android-powered slate, thus violating the GPL. Dell has since complied and released the total custom Android 1.6 ROM to the public. Maybe now someone can get the minitablet/smartphone to run Froyo without breaking everything." -
What Happened To Obama's Open Source Adviser?
gov_coder writes "Back in January of 2009, various news articles announced that former Sun CEO Scott McNealy was to become the Obama administration's Open Source Technology adviser. Currently, however, a search for Scott on the whitehouse.gov website yields zero results. Searching a bit more, I found that Scott is currently working on CurriWiki, a kind of Wikipedia for school curriculum. So my question is, what happened? Did some lobbyist block the appointment? Did Scott decide his other activities were more important? Scott, if you are out there — please tell us what happened. There are many people working in government IT, such as myself, who were really excited about the possibilities of an expanded role for open source software in government, and are now wondering what went wrong." -
Become an SSLAdmin In a Few Easy Steps
Renderer of Evil writes "With news that it is rather simple to mimic authority with many webmail providers in order to coax an SSL certificate authority into creating one for the domain, a Canadian security expert has decided to take it upon himself to see who out there is actually vulnerable and provide information to the public on how prevalent this issue is as we speak. Out of eleven webmail services chosen at random and without prejudice, just under half of them permitted him to register with credentials (ssladmin) that allowed him to create an SSL certificate in their name. In most of these cases, there was a pre-existing, legitimately-acquired certificate." Update: 04/19 01:30 GMT by S : Kurt Seifried's original paper, on which the BetaNews article is based, provides more detailed information on the subject (PDF). -
DRBD To Be Included In Linux Kernel 2.6.33
An anonymous reader writes "The long-time Linux kernel module for block replication over TCP, DRBD, has been accepted as part of the main Linux kernel. Amid much fanfare and some slight controversy, Linus has pulled the DRBD source into the 2.6.33 tree, expected to release February, 2010. DRBD has existed as open source and been available in major distros for 10 years, but lived outside the main kernel tree in the hands of LINBIT, based in Vienna. Being accepted into the main kernel tree means better cooperation and wider user accessibility to HA data replication." -
FOSS Sexism Claims Met With Ire and Denial
Last Friday Bryce Byfield gave us a little insight into the fallout surrounding his article on sexism in the FOSS world. Unfortunately it seems that FOSS junkies did little better than the rest of the world with respect to sexism, displaying similar levels of denial, abuse, and ignorance. "But the real flood of emotion comes from the anti-feminists and the average men who would like to deny the importance of feminist issues in FOSS. Raise the subject of sexism, and you are met with illogic that I can only compare to that of the tobacco companies trying to deny the link between their products and cancer. Because I took a feminist stance in public, I have been abused in every way possible — being called irrelevant, a saboteur, coward, homosexual, and even a betrayer of the community. I know that many women in the community have been attacked much more savagely than I have, so I'm not complaining. Nor am I a stranger to readers who disagree with me, but the depth of reaction has taken me back more than once. I think the reaction is an expression of denial more than anything else." -
How GNOME and KDE Spend Their Money
bluescarni writes 'A side-by-side analysis of GNOME's and KDE's quarterly reports sheds some light (and dispels some myths) on the nature and the quantity of the funds of the two projects.' -
IBM Policy Switches From MS Office To OO.o
eldavojohn writes "It's frequent that we hear of a country or city or company switching from Windows to Linux, but it's rare that we hear of one third of a million employees being told to use Lotus Symphony (IBM's OO.o variant) over MS Office, and also to use the Open Document Format when saving files. The change has been mandated to take place in the next 10 days. Of course, they are doing this to illustrate that they actually offer a full-fledged alternative to Microsoft. With i4i stirring stuff up against MS Office and absolving OO.o from litigation, are we on the verge of a potential break from Microsoft's dominant document suite? Hopefully IBM supports OO.o past Sun's acquisition by Oracle instead of concentrating on Lotus Symphony." -
Zack Brown Taking a Break
Jon Dowland writes "Zack Brown's once-weekly Kernel Traffic summary of happenings on the linux kernel mailing list, is now on indefinite hiatus. From the announcement: 'Kernel Traffic has become more and more difficult over the years. From an average of 5 megs of email per week in 1999, the Linux kernel mailing list has gradually increased its traffic to 13 megs per week in 2005. Condensing that into 50 or 100 K of summaries each week has started to take more time than I have to give.' Fear not, because we still have kerneltrap and Linux Weekly News, amongst others. Zack still writes a regularly Kernel column for Linux Magazine and occasionally in others such as the UK Linux Format." -
Skolelinux Project Releases Version 1.0
jakobgrimstveit writes "After about three years of hard work, Skolelinux (with its own cute Tux-with-bag-mascot) 1.0 is released to the public. The distribution was started as a reaction to how much the Norwegian schools and the government relied on systems using closed source. Skolelinux is meant to be an easy way to set up a large and secure network of LTSP thin clients (normally PXE boot) for regular users. The Skolelinux-organization won the Norwegian Free Software Prize in 2002. The distribution is based in Debian GNU/Linux, and is also being used and evaluated [1] [2] several places in Africa due to its low demands for the client PC. Kudos to the developers and good luck!"