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sparrow_hawk writes: "One of Linux's strengths has always been the wide variety of older/obsolete hardware it supports. However, most modern distributions seem to assume that the user has a brand-new machine with processor and RAM to spare. Linux Journal reports on the RULE project (Run Up2Date Linux Everywhere). They are trying to come up with a low-resource-requirement, easy-to-use Linux installation for use on older hardware, intended as an option when you install Red Hat Linux. The FAQ has more information."

sparrow_hawk writes: "One of Linux's strengths has always been the wide variety of older/obsolete hardware it supports. However, most modern distributions seem to assume that the user has a brand-new machine with processor and RAM to spare. Linux Journal reports on the RULE project (Run Up2Date Linux Everywhere). They are trying to come up with a low-resource-requirement, easy-to-use Linux installation for use on older hardware, intended as an option when you install Red Hat Linux. The FAQ has more information."

(outer-limits) writes "In a significant ruling in a California court, a judge has ruled the standard EULA licensing agreement to be invalid. This must be the biggest upset in software licensing ever. No more are we powerless End Users of software, having to agree to every restriction a software company makes (Expect an appeal on this, though)." Note that this is about the resale of bundled software, so it's not like EULAs are dead, but this ruling could have broad effects. Update: 02/12 03:45 GMT by J : Yeah, this is a repeat - sorry.

Bruce Perens writes: "He'll have to change its name, but Tom Lord's arch revision control system is revolutionary. Where CVS is a cathedral, 'arch' is a bazaar, with the ability for branches to live on separate servers from the main trunk of the project's development. Thus, you can create a branch without the authority, or even the cooperation, of the managers of the main tree. A global name-space makes all revision archives worldwide appear as if they are the same repository. Using this system, most of what we do using 'patch' today would go away -- we'd just choose, or merge, branches. Much of the synchronization problem we have with patches is handled by tools that eliminate and/or manage conflicts -- they solve some of the thorny graph topology issues around patch management. Arch also poses its own answer to the 'Linus Doesn't Scale' problem. This is well worth checking out." If you're asking "What about subversion?", well, so is Tom.

WrinkledShirt contributed this review of a Professional Linux Programming, a tome he says can "bend light" by its sheer size -- 1155 pages of multi-author, multi-language instruction and examples. Read on for his thoughts on the book's shortcomings as well as its strengths, and remember, lift with your knees, not with your back. Professional Linux Programming author Neil Matthew, Richard Stones, et. al. pages 1155 publisher Wrox rating 8 reviewer WrinkledShirt ISBN 1-861003-01-3 summary A brilliant book for anyone wanting to gain new Linux programming skills.

Introduction

Large programming books have a special sort of gravitational pull to them. It's a sort of siren's song for us techie types, with lyrics promising an endless fountain of information, more than you could ever possibly hope to use, superfluous only in the same way that you don't plan on reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica cover-to-cover anytime soon, either.

Unfortunately, this branch of the publishing industry responsible for these books is well aware of this, and as such there's a veritable critical mass of crap in that corner of the bookstore, some of it reading like blood being squeezed from a stone, with any number of useless chapters thrown in there just to meet some predefined page quota. Which is why it's such a relief to get a book like Professional Linux Programming that's 1155 pages long and contains a ton of material, with very little of it page-filler. Unless you already know it all, there is something valuable in this book for just about every Linux developer out there.

The Good

This book is loaded. Go straight to the table of contents if you need to see what I mean. The book's sheer ambition almost makes it worth picking up a copy. We need more like this -- not just for Linux, not just for programming, but for computer references in general.

If you've thought about developing for Linux, you've probably rubbed up against the impression that Linux and C go together like a wink and a smile. This book delivers on that impression, and it delivers huge. There are chapters on how to use C with PostgreSQL and MySQL databases, LDAP services, GTK+/Gnome/libglade and Qt/KDE, Flex and Bison, XML, sockets, RPC and CORBA (using ORBit). There are also sections on applied professional development theory, like design, debugging, security, deployment, and encryption.

If C isn't your bag, you might not find as much to get out of this book, but there are still sections on PHP, Python, documentation, package deployment, internationalization and shell database manipulation. Ever wondered how CVS or patching worked? It's in there. There's even material on device drivers and Beowulf clusters. By the end of this book you'll have more than just proof-of-concept familiarity with just about all the topics. For all but the more exotic subjects, you start at the simplest example, and the complexity gets increased with subsequent scenario, until the point where the chapter gets applied to the book's ongoing case study, which is the development of a hypothetical system to track a DVD store's business operations.

To give you an idea about what sort of depth to expect from this book, I'll talk about what it does with PostgreSQL. It shows you how to install it and maintain it from the command line; walks you through how to create basic databases; gets you comfortable with running SQL queries from the command line or scripts from a file; shows you how to interface with it using C (using both libpq functions and embedded techniques); shows you how to handle different kinds of transactions and cursors; talks about bringing it into PHP; and uses PostgreSQL for the core engine for the case study. Now, database work is obviously going to be getting special treatment when it comes to commerce development, but that's still only one of many subjects that this book tackles, most of which are designed to get you on the ground running before needing to resort to supplementary material.

As an aside, from a coordinating standpoint, this book is a marvel. Content was contributed from 15 separate authors and yet continuity is practically a non-issue.

The Not-So-Good

Typos. Oy vey. It's like getting a buddy to lend you his Ferrari, only to discover that there's a little bit of bird crap on the windshield that nobody can wipe off. Nice car, shame about the bird crap. Now, this book isn't horribly bad for it, but you shouldn't be surprised to find the odd error at the rate of one or two per chapter, usually in the form of an incorrect diagram symbol here or there or a formatting character that didn't quite translate into a code listing. Not too bad, but it's enough to be a mentionable problem. The Wrox people were good about putting up an errata page, but, unfortunately, it's empty. This may speak to the fact that the intended audience are hackers who can probably figure out the problem for themselves anyway.

Then there's the timeliness factor. This is a review of the first edition, which came out in September 2000, and it's unfortunate that with all the new technologies coming out (Bonobo, KParts, Mono, etc.) there isn't a second edition in the works as of yet. As such, people hoping to find useful information on programming with the more volatile APIs (specifically the GUI stuff) might want to look elsewhere. The information in this area isn't completely obsolete, just not as cutting edge as it was when the book first came out. Most of the other chapters are still current, and had this review been done near the publication date, the rating would easily be a 9 out of 10. That it still merits a review at this point, after being out for almost a year and a half, hopefully says something.

There's also the fact that even though this book contains so much, it doesn't really act as a definitive reference in any area that it describes. For instance, I was toying with the idea of making a code mangler for an XML-type language, so the chapter on Flex and Bison had me drooling. It wasn't long after reading it, though, that I found myself needing to go to GNU's Flex website just to get a better listing of all the regular expressions I'd need to use. That's symptomatic of pretty much all the chapters here -- it doesn't take long to outgrow the material when you need to apply it to your personal project. In this sense the title seems misleading; if you wanted to program in some of these areas at a professional level, this book would only be a starting point to another, deeper reference.

The huge breadth of knowledge also makes some omissions seem glaring. There is nothing on Perl or some of the other popular shell languages. Outside of two chapters, C++ is avoided like the plague. The section on deployment using automake is tiny enough that it's practically not there, which is surprising given the amount of time a reader spends churning out source code throughout the rest of the book. There's also a brief section on multimedia that, given the context of the rest of the topics, just feels out of place. Some of these shortcomings are made up in the intended predecessor to this book, Beginning Linux Programming , so you might want to give that book a whirl as well (TCL, BASH, and Perl all get treatment there).

And just to leave no superficial stone unturned, the cover is just awful -- it looks like a police lineup. Although I suspect there's a focus group somewhere that needs to answer for this, maybe it bodes well knowing that, considering the slightly expensive nature of this book, none of that money went into its outer design.

Conclusion

There are some people who aren't going to want to buy this book. Specialists, or people who want to specialize, likely won't get enough of what they want on any of the subjects here. Also, this isn't so much a learning guide that will give you exercises and quizzes, so if you're still at the stage where you need that sort of thing, this book might be a bit rich. If you're hoping for bleeding-edge stuff, wait for a second edition.

Also, it's taken for granted that the reader understands C pretty well, so if you don't, invest some time in that area first.

However, if you've got the fundamentals of Linux programming down pat but don't know where you want to go next, buy this book. If you're a seasoned developer and just need to get the basics of a new area in order to apply it to your ongoing projects, buy this book. If you're a generalist or a hobbyist, buy this book. If you need to design application prototypes for the Linux platform, buy this book. If you want to compare different APIs without having to commit to buying different textbooks, buy this book. If you get off on knowing you can do more Hello Worlds than any of your friends, buy this book. And if you like your references so big and fat that they bend light, buy this book.

Table of Contents Introduction
Chapter 1: Application Design
Chapter 2: Concurrent Versions System (CVS)
Chapter 3: Databases
Chapter 4: PostgreSQL interfacing
Chapter 5: MySQL
Chapter 6: Tackling Bugs
Chapter 7: LDAP Directory Services
Chapter 8: GUI programming with GNOME/GTK+
Chapter 9: GUI Building with Glade and GTK+/GNOME
Chapter 10: Flex and Bison
Chapter 11: Testing Tools
Chapter 12: Secure Programming
Chapter 13: GUI programming with KDE/Qt
Chapter 14: Writing the dvdstore GUI using KDE/Qt
Chapter 15: Python
Chapter 16: Creating Web interfaces with PHP
Chapter 17: Embedding and extending Python with C/C++
Chapter 18: Remote Procedure Calls
Chapter 19: Multi-media and Linux
Chapter 20: CORBA.
Chapter 21: Implementing CORBA with ORBit
Chapter 22: Diskless systems
Chapter 23: XML and libxml
Chapter 24: Beowulf Clusters
Chapter 25: Documentation
Chapter 26: Device Drivers
Chapter 27: Distributing the application
Chapter 28: Internationalization
Appendix A: GTK+/GNOME Object Reference
Appendix B: DVD RPC Protocol Definition
Appendix C: Open Source Licenses
Appendix D: Support, Errata & P2P.Wrox.Com Related Links

• Wrox website
• Sample chapter from the book
• Wrox's P2P page for this book
• Linux Journal's Review of this book
• ACCU's Review of this book

You can purchase Professional Linux Programming at Fatbrain.

usermilk writes "Linux Journal just posted a pretty cool article, A Penguin Angle on the Ox: Day One at Macworld. It features a Linux user's perspective on MacWorld, OS X, Darwin, and how all these things play together. Most interestingly, he comments on the large number of open-source-Unix bigwigs who are now on Apple's payroll. There's also a pretty concise description of the difference between Apple building off of BSD compared to Microsoft trying to also reap the benefits of open source." Doc Searls' perspective makes a great companion to the report from the floor (and part II) that chrisd posted.

liquide writes "The DMCA affects every American, indeed, every human on the planet. The problem is that the average person doesn't realize this. EFF wants the input of our supporters to come up with slogans that will raise the mainstream consciousness to the destructive effects of the DMCA and inspire us all to continue the fight for free expression. Put on your thinking caps, summon the creative muse and submit ideas for slogans and 'soundbytes' to help us fight the DMCA. If your idea is chosen, you will win your choice of vintage EFF T-shirts. Send your entry to slogan@eff.org. Thanks for your help." And Seth Schoen writes: "The EFF, Linux Journal, and Free Dmitry activists are pleased to present a combination going-away and birthday party for Dmitry Sklyarov. (According to Reuters, today is Dmitry's 27th birthday.) The party is Wednesday evening in San Francisco. (LJ article, Craigslist post.)"

liquide writes "The DMCA affects every American, indeed, every human on the planet. The problem is that the average person doesn't realize this. EFF wants the input of our supporters to come up with slogans that will raise the mainstream consciousness to the destructive effects of the DMCA and inspire us all to continue the fight for free expression. Put on your thinking caps, summon the creative muse and submit ideas for slogans and 'soundbytes' to help us fight the DMCA. If your idea is chosen, you will win your choice of vintage EFF T-shirts. Send your entry to slogan@eff.org. Thanks for your help." And Seth Schoen writes: "The EFF, Linux Journal, and Free Dmitry activists are pleased to present a combination going-away and birthday party for Dmitry Sklyarov. (According to Reuters, today is Dmitry's 27th birthday.) The party is Wednesday evening in San Francisco. (LJ article, Craigslist post.)"

iconian writes: "The Linux Journal has a story on IT students and their perception of Linux. One of the funnier myths perceived to be true is that 'Microsoft's technical support is the best in the industry and is superior to that offered by the Linux community.' It just goes to show how little real world experience students have. It's a bit disturbing considering they will be the next generation of technology workers."

iconian writes: "The Linux Journal has a story on IT students and their perception of Linux. One of the funnier myths perceived to be true is that 'Microsoft's technical support is the best in the industry and is superior to that offered by the Linux community.' It just goes to show how little real world experience students have. It's a bit disturbing considering they will be the next generation of technology workers."

solferino writes: "LinuxJournal has a good overview article about linuxBIOS and where it's currently at (hint : moving like a sleek penguin under arctic ice). Why linuxBIOS? To quote from the article "Currently two different interest groups are working on LinuxBIOS: one working on embedded systems and one building large-scale computer clusters. For these applications the legacy x86 firmware is suboptimal." Yes, this was a slashdot story in March this year but this article is relevant for updating the project status and for providing indepth information."

Raziel writes: "The Register is reporting in this article that a district court has ruled in favour of "software users that wish to extricate themselves from restrictive software licenses". The case in question is Adobe vs Softman, and in its ruling, the District of California seems to vacate Adobe's claims of "irrepairable damage" caused by the resale of Adobe products without forcing the use of Adobe's registration process. The full ruling is available in PDF format here. Any chance of a precedent here?" You can also read the Don Marti piece piece that sparked this discussion.

Linux Journal has just posted who won its awards this time - and KDE got 3 of them: Konqueror, KDE-2, and KDevelop. Congratulations to the KDE team and to all their supporters.

Linux Journal has just posted who won its awards this time - and KDE got 3 of them: Konqueror, KDE-2, and KDevelop. Congratulations to the KDE team and to all their supporters.

savaget points to this Linux Journal article which covers building a superior personal computer for general usage. See if you agree with the choices that Rick Moen, Daryll Strauss and Eric Raymond made in building their dream box.

cigarky sent us Paul Ferris' account (fwiw, Paul is a good guy) of the LinuxToday astroturfing that we mentioned a few weeks ago. Much more explanation about how Executive Editor Kevin Reichard was posting numerous comments under numerous aliases on the LT forums. Even more scary is the editorial war regarding linking outside content. My opinion is that LT's only value was the outside content they linked: until Dave and later Paul left, they were the best url for finding comprehensive Linux news. A real eye-opening piece about "Journalism" and Internet.com. (Note: LT and Internet.com are sorta competitors, although I never really cared much. My opinions are probably skewed somehow because of that ;))

Zurk writes "Here's an article with the inside scoop on how animation studios and special effects shops actually deploy Linux in house. Also mentions how the Linux systems are replacing SGI systems at a rapid clip and some regular user comments on working with linux for graphics work."

rleyton wrote in to tell us about yet another Microsoft related GPL story. He says "The Linux Journal has an interesting article analysing why Microsoft is attacking the GPL. It makes for interesting reading, and ends with a comment on the possibility that Microsoft will be seeking to pursuade the U.S. Government to forbid distribution of federally funded software under the GPL."

rleyton wrote in to tell us about yet another Microsoft related GPL story. He says "The Linux Journal has an interesting article analysing why Microsoft is attacking the GPL. It makes for interesting reading, and ends with a comment on the possibility that Microsoft will be seeking to pursuade the U.S. Government to forbid distribution of federally funded software under the GPL."

lhdentra writes "Linux Journal is carrying an article by Brandon Wiley of the Everything Over Freenet project explaining how you can create your very own turn-based game, running over Freenet. He claims it's faster than playing chess by post."

lhdentra writes "Linux Journal is carrying an article by Brandon Wiley of the Everything Over Freenet project explaining how you can create your very own turn-based game, running over Freenet. He claims it's faster than playing chess by post."

awa asks: "I'm writing on behalf of the Costa Rican LUG (Grupo de Usuarios de Linux de Costa Rica). We are organising a conference on the use of free and Open Source software in Costa Rica, by proxy of its use in third world countries in general, but applied to our own case. Phil Hughes (of Linux Journal fame) is in our Country and has agreed to be a speaker at the event. We were lucky to get permission to use the auditorium of a private university (Universidad Latina de Costa Rica) for the conference, as it has all kinds of goodies (audio-, video- and networkwise). The stage has three giant screens, each with its own projector, and we thought a good use for them would be to show promotional Linux videos, however we have not found anything (film/movie-wise) that would suit our needs aside from short 'How-To' videos. Does anyone know where we can find such films, what format they might be available in, and so forth. We are willing to pay any reasonable fees for transfer and/or shipment of anything that suits our intended use."

grubby writes: "A member of my local LUG NCOLUG has written an article in LinuxJournal about what the PowerPC and Linux could do together. He brings up many good points about the history of the WinTel PC and what he hopes the future may bring. I have personally had numerous conversations with him about his ideas and would like to know what the slashdot population thinks about them. Check it out, it's a good read." This piece takes a somewhat broad view of things -- which makes sense, given that radical changes can take time to grow in the background before they actually make public waves. Also of interest on the PPC front: kilaasi writes "Looks like IBM is getting back to it's PowerPC which is/was/will be co-developed with Motorola. IBM has some tricks that will increase speed and at the same time decrease power consumption." Here's CNET's brief story on upcoming PPC developments."

grubby writes: "A member of my local LUG NCOLUG has written an article in LinuxJournal about what the PowerPC and Linux could do together. He brings up many good points about the history of the WinTel PC and what he hopes the future may bring. I have personally had numerous conversations with him about his ideas and would like to know what the slashdot population thinks about them. Check it out, it's a good read." This piece takes a somewhat broad view of things -- which makes sense, given that radical changes can take time to grow in the background before they actually make public waves. Also of interest on the PPC front: kilaasi writes "Looks like IBM is getting back to it's PowerPC which is/was/will be co-developed with Motorola. IBM has some tricks that will increase speed and at the same time decrease power consumption." Here's CNET's brief story on upcoming PPC developments."

SEWilco has comprehensive report from the Spring Comdex show in Chicago. Good listing - show was smaller, but I think there was still some good exhibits put on there. Click thru to read more- you can also read the final report that Newsforge has.

"At Spring Comdex in Chicago, Linux was scattered around the exhibit floor in addition to the cluster under the Linux pennant. There were quite a few embedded and handheld Linux items in addition to the expected Linux software booths.

• Identifiable small Linux things:
• The Agenda PDA had high visibility.
• In the Korean booths, HNT was showing several tiny Linux machines in their Exilien line, using Linuette from MIZI. I won't call these multimedia devices a PDA.
• Hacker & Packers had Linux inside their web pad design.
• Up front, Century Software was showing their embeddable Linux on some Compaq iPaq handhelds, although their WebMedia (not yet on their web page) is aimed at larger appliance-sized devices.
• Milletech was showing a WinCE or Linux webpad prototype.
• Tuxia was tucked in the NEC area with their settop/webpad/thin client software.
• Lineo featured tiny boxes, although their line ranges up to high-capacity clusters.

• The assorted Linux items that caught my eye:
• Appgen was showing their personal-to-Fortune range of accounting applications.
• ACCPAC has some of their accounting modules on RedHat.
• FreeDesk.com was showing their collection of web/Java based services and applications.
• Equinox was showing the Linux label due to Linux support for their multiport serial/modem line.
• Linux support in the distributed machine control system *this, which is generalizing proprietary industrial control equipment.
• Starnet X-Win32 helps an unstable desktop access your stable server windows.
• neTRAVERSE was running MS-Windows 95/98 apps within Linux.
• A GeekCruises.com brochure for a Fall Linux Lunacy cruise was floating about.

In addition to Linux Magazine, Linux Journal, and Embedded Linux Journal, Pen Computing magazine chose to feature the Agenda on their cover.

The overall Comdex exhibit area seemed smaller than two years ago, with Waste Expo taking the south hall this year. But maybe the way the space between the three buildings was arranged was deceptive."

SEWilco has comprehensive report from the Spring Comdex show in Chicago. Good listing - show was smaller, but I think there was still some good exhibits put on there. Click thru to read more- you can also read the final report that Newsforge has.

"At Spring Comdex in Chicago, Linux was scattered around the exhibit floor in addition to the cluster under the Linux pennant. There were quite a few embedded and handheld Linux items in addition to the expected Linux software booths.

• Identifiable small Linux things:
• The Agenda PDA had high visibility.
• In the Korean booths, HNT was showing several tiny Linux machines in their Exilien line, using Linuette from MIZI. I won't call these multimedia devices a PDA.
• Hacker & Packers had Linux inside their web pad design.
• Up front, Century Software was showing their embeddable Linux on some Compaq iPaq handhelds, although their WebMedia (not yet on their web page) is aimed at larger appliance-sized devices.
• Milletech was showing a WinCE or Linux webpad prototype.
• Tuxia was tucked in the NEC area with their settop/webpad/thin client software.
• Lineo featured tiny boxes, although their line ranges up to high-capacity clusters.

• The assorted Linux items that caught my eye:
• Appgen was showing their personal-to-Fortune range of accounting applications.
• ACCPAC has some of their accounting modules on RedHat.
• FreeDesk.com was showing their collection of web/Java based services and applications.
• Equinox was showing the Linux label due to Linux support for their multiport serial/modem line.
• Linux support in the distributed machine control system *this, which is generalizing proprietary industrial control equipment.
• Starnet X-Win32 helps an unstable desktop access your stable server windows.
• neTRAVERSE was running MS-Windows 95/98 apps within Linux.
• A GeekCruises.com brochure for a Fall Linux Lunacy cruise was floating about.

In addition to Linux Magazine, Linux Journal, and Embedded Linux Journal, Pen Computing magazine chose to feature the Agenda on their cover.

The overall Comdex exhibit area seemed smaller than two years ago, with Waste Expo taking the south hall this year. But maybe the way the space between the three buildings was arranged was deceptive."

MisterBad writes: "Once again the USPTO is taking open submissions for its advisory board. This group helps to set patent and trademark policy for the future. Having a friend of software freedom on this board is just too important to ignore. Don Marti of Linux Journal has the details on how to submit a name for consideration. Don't YOU want Lawrence Lessig or RMS helping to make patent policy?"

K asks: "As a long time subscriber to many magazines(Linux Journal, Dr. Dobbs, Byte, etc.) and as a person who can't throw away anything written for fear it might one day be useful, I was wondering if anyone knew of any high speed scanners that would allow me to archive these magazines for (possible) future use. My house is just getting too clutered and I would hate to lose these data. In addition, are there any legal questions about this. I have purchased the magazines so I believe that I should be allowed to archive them in any fashion I choose. Is this wrong?"

Carlie Fairchild writes: "Big Mouth Billy Bass as a webcam? This and 99 other projects were selected as finalists in Embedded Linux Journal's "Win a MZ104 -- Embedded Linux Design Contest". The contest is based on products by Tri-M, ZF Linux Devices, BlueCat and M-Systems. One hundred finalists have been selected to receive kits and build the projects submitted in their proposals. A full list of the finalists' names, titles of their projects, project descriptions and project URLs can be found at [the linuxjournal site]."

Cabal writes: "I recently came across this article on Linux Journal. It discusses some of the more interesting legal ramifications of the theft of Microsoft's source code that I hadn't even thought of and it's effect on open-source projects. Basically, it's saying don't go near any code claiming to be stolen from MS, and with good reason, including quotations from the Samba project. Check it out, it's a good read."

Cabal writes: "I recently came across this article on Linux Journal. It discusses some of the more interesting legal ramifications of the theft of Microsoft's source code that I hadn't even thought of and it's effect on open-source projects. Basically, it's saying don't go near any code claiming to be stolen from MS, and with good reason, including quotations from the Samba project. Check it out, it's a good read."

An Anonymous Coward asks: "Does anyone out there have current information on the use of biometrics with Linux? There was an article in the Linux Journal, but it was more of an introduction to the topic than a discussion of the state of development. Are there any biometric products that have decent Linux drivers for them? If so, is anyone currently using them to replace password authentication?" We last touched on this subject last May with little commentary on the subject. Has a year made any difference?

The latest issue of EFF's newsletter covers the HackSDMI challenge. Probably not surprisingly, they're urging the same thing as Don Marti, who Salon interviewed.Update: 09/19 3:33 PM by michael : The RIAA, EFF, and 2600.com debated SDMI on Pacifica radio today.

phu170n writes "Don Marti, technical editor for the Linux Journal, has called for a boycott of the hacker challenge recently announced by the music industry's SDMI collective. Looks like principle can be worth something (more than $10,000, at least) these days."

phu170n writes "Don Marti, technical editor for the Linux Journal, has called for a boycott of the hacker challenge recently announced by the music industry's SDMI collective. Looks like principle can be worth something (more than $10,000, at least) these days."

The mainstream media has followed yesterday's story about Microsoft Asking Slashdot to Remove Comments with several stories. These include one from The Washington Post, Salon, news.com Wired, and Linux Journal. Finally, After Y2k has a comic (important, pecs shown in pixels may be larger than those in real life).

phantomlord writes "Linux Journal has a very good summary of how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act came about and how it relates to DeCSS. " Well, how it came about was simple: the copyright industries just paid a lot of money to the right Congressmen. How to get rid of it is the more interesting question.

werdna was one of many to submit a Motley Fool column which takes the MPAA to task, neatly summarizing the events to date. But the best DVD story so far has to be this Linux Journal article, Crackers and Crackdowns. The author has some personal experience with crackdowns, and offers tips on what you can do to fight them.

Matra DataVision has decided to LGPL a set of components that currently earns 3.5 million dollars a year, cost 75 million dollars to develop and has been sold since 1995. Why? Because they hope to sell services to the scientific market that currently uses its own proprietary technology rather than commercially sold components -- a market they value at 450 million dollars. Where's the source? It will be available from opencascade.org on December 20th. Commercial support is at opencascade.com. Some screenshots are available.

Carlie Fairchild writes "Linux Journal opened its polls for its fifth annual Readers' Choice Awards. The polls will be open until October 15, 1999. It's your opportunity to vote for your favorite Linux software, hardware and companies." Seems like there are quite a number of options in each category this year

smock writes "An interesting (and, IMO, excellent) suggestion is over at Linux Journal. " Essentially, an argument for better opening security, given the lack of experience of many new Linux users.

smock writes "An interesting (and, IMO, excellent) suggestion is over at Linux Journal. " Essentially, an argument for better opening security, given the lack of experience of many new Linux users.

Dean Povey writes "LinuxJournal has a great article on the plethora of bogus software patents and their possible effects on the Open Source community." This isn't "new" news (it was published Aug. 10), and a lot has aleady been written on the subject, but this is one of the most thoughtful articles I've seen about software patents, and their effects on Linux and free software development in general.

Dean Povey writes "LinuxJournal has a great article on the plethora of bogus software patents and their possible effects on the Open Source community." This isn't "new" news (it was published Aug. 10), and a lot has aleady been written on the subject, but this is one of the most thoughtful articles I've seen about software patents, and their effects on Linux and free software development in general.

Red Hat is now worth serious money. Exactly how much changes hour by hour. Check the Red Hat Wealth Monitor for up-to-date information. This page is by no means anti-Red Hat, and it has a bunch of commentary on it that's well worth reading. We also got some excellent comments about the Red Hat IPO from professional investors Jay Roseman and Frederick Berenstein of The Linux Fund, and a perceptive note from "an anonymous insider" (he'd lose his job if we published his name) that may help put Red Hat's IPO in perspective -- and serve as a cautionary tale for other Linux and/or Open Source-related companies that decide to sell stock to the public. (Lots more below.)

Nothing Succeeds Like Success
by Jay Roseman and Frederick Berenstein

New York, NY - Five years ago, if you asked a Linux hacker if he thought a Linux company would have a market valuation of $5.6 billion by 1999, he probably would have said, "Yeah, right". His pessimistic outlook would not have been because he didn't think Linux had what it took, because everyone within the community knew of Linux's potential value, but because with Linux making money was not the great motivator - lack of money was.

And so, what five years ago might have seemed like an absurdity - here we are. Wall Street, meet the Linux Community - Linux Community, meet Wall Street.

Bob Young and his team have done something that many in the Linux community thought impossible several years ago. And we're not just talking about Red Hat's IPO. There is much more to this story than an IPO.

When any company goes public at $14 and trades within three days over $90 per share, it isn't just Wall Street that notices - everyone does!

IPOs occur every day, so what's so special about Red Hat? Answer: this is a Linux IPO, and it's the only play of its type in the financial markets. So naturally, all arrows point one way. The Linux phenomenon has just begun, and we can expect it to continue.

We should all thank Red Hat for pioneering Wall Street. There was a time when being a pioneer often meant being scalped. On Wall Street being scalped is not taken literarily, although scalpings of a different sort occur daily. Not so with Red Hat, Wall Streets newest sweetheart. As individuals and institutions clamored to own a piece of the first Linux software company to go public, hackers and computer enthusiasts in San Jose acknowledged Red Hat's meteoric rise with a sense of satisfaction. Wall Street has finally discovered what every nerd has known for the past five years: that Linux not only works - it works better!

The fact that Red Hat has shot out of the box quicker than Seattle Slew has been a boon to the Linux community (especially if you are lucky enough to own it), but the real benefit of Red Hat's success is that the entire investment world is saying, "Wow!" What's good about "wow"? Well, on Wall Street "wow' translates to "Holy Cow!" and we all know that "Holy Cow!" means, "Linux is now the worlds domain".

No longer is Linux destined to be the operating system of the knowledgeable few that appear to have this uncanny ability to decipher the secrets of the universe. Or at least it appears that way to middle Americans who only recently unraveled the secrets of programming their VCR. Whether the community likes it or not, Linux has been catapulted into Middle America, and the rest of us will just have to hold our ears as well-meaning Wall Street types pronounce Linux as "linex" and saunter around their offices smirking if it was they who just discovered this "extraordinary new operating system."

The Linux community may not know it, but Linux is now caught in a turbulence that is pulling it into the stratosphere. Whether or not this is a good thing depends on who you talk to. There are those within the community who feel anything that Linux has to do with Wall Street is a parasitic relationship. But it doesn't have to be that way. If we honor the GPL and don't all turn into pigs, it is possible and even advantageous to engage in a symbiotic relationship.

What we have to do is make sure that Linux companies don't take to the skies while the hackers who set the groundwork are left sitting on the sidelines with binoculars in their hands.

When Wall Street grants its blessing, as it has with Red Hat, the entire world notices. In normal business circles Red Hat's performance is cause for celebratory cocktail parties, but somehow cocktail parties and Linux don't seem to mix. Surprisingly, most hackers we have met seem to look at Red Hat and its success with an internal sense of satisfaction, thinking, "I am part of that even if I don't get any monetary benefit from it."

That is what drew us to Linux. It wasn't the prospect of money. When we walked into the San Jose Convention Center last March, which was the first time we attended a Linux conference, it felt like we were meeting an Underdog team that had just won the high-school championship. Missing were the smirks of "I told you so". What we found instead was a community, in the truest sense of the word.

Besides the excitement of the San Jose celebration, we were mesmerized by the $150,000 IBM Beowulf cluster that trounced the performance of a $5.5 million dollar Cray supercomputer using an "off the shelf" Linux distribution. When the challenge was over, and Linux was the victor, the cheers shook the San Jose Convention Center and we got goose bumps watching. At the time, we weren't quite sure what we were watching, but we were swept up in the enthusiasm and found ourselves cheering along with everyone else. What we did know was that this was the cumulation of thousands of programmers making a difference, and proud of it.

We remember the first time we listened to Bob Young saying how he would speak to venture capitalists and explain to them his idea of packaging an operating system that would challenge UNIX and Microsoft and be free to anyone that wanted to download it off the web. We assure you, the venture capitalists may not have laughed in Bob's presence, but that was only out of pity for a man that they thought had gone sorely astray. Who would have thought at that time that Linux would have such an impact?

Some analysts still aren't convinced about Linux's ability to challenge Microsoft. But Red Hat doesn't have to challenge Microsoft; they just have to continue doing what they're doing. (Microsoft, pay attention here!) The Linux community discovered a long time ago that the challenge is with themselves, not Microsoft. Linux doesn't have to knock Microsoft out of the market. It just has to take a larger position in the market. And it has.

This is Linux's honeymoon period with Wall Street. In time, there will be analysts writing Linux's epitaph in their research reports. Linux will be compared to Microsoft in P/E ratios and every other ratio and multiple out there and the truth is that Linux just won't measure up. But analysts haven't yet realized the importance of the "Synergy Ratio." (i.e. one Linux programmer = 50 Microsoft programmers.) They don't realize that there's a community here unlike any they have ever experienced. Imagine the Chairman of Ford putting his arm around the shoulder of the Chairman of General Motors and saying, "great job!" This just doesn't happen in normal business, but it does happen in the Linux community every day.

Wall Street has learned a lot from Red Hat, and it isn't just that Linux may very well be the best operating system going. They've learned that a group of determined hackers could get the world's attention just by doing the right thing. Wake up, Wall Street. Linux has only just begun!

And to the nay-sayers, well, the Linux Community has made it a habit of forcing nay-sayers to eat their hats. Only this time what's getting eaten is Linux's own Red Hat.

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IPOs: More Than Meets the Eye
by an anonymous insider

After the dust has settled and Red Hat emerges from their quiet period they should offer a new training course in Durham: "Linux IPO 101 - A case study."

From what I know of Red Hat and the folks calling the shots, the various blunders and snafus related to the affinity offer and E*Trade were just that, blunders and snafus. These folks have been around the community far too long to allow something like this to transpire if they had any control over matters.

I have a feeling there were a lot of late-night calls trying to make sure that deserving people got a fair shot at shares. I'm also sure that no matter how hard they worked, some folks slipped through the cracks, and that is unfortunate. Let's not lose sight of the fact that they were sincerely trying to do the right thing.

Bob Young collaberated on the first few issues of Linux Journal with Phil Hughes (which partially explains the difficulty in scoring back-issues for #1,2 and 3). Then Marc Ewing hooked up with Bob and they hired a couple of guys fresh out of NC State and started working full-time on a Linux distribution before almost anyone else. There were others at the time (WGS was around, Caldera was coming on the scene, and Pat Volkerding was working on Slackware) but these guys were out there on the bleeding edge. They've always released everything under the GPL or a similar license and provided support to a variety of community projects.

When no one else thought enough to have a Linux-centric conference or show these were the people making sure Linux Expo came together. Donnie Barnes started Linux Expo when he was a student at NC State and Red Hat kept it alive when the NCSU LUG couldn't. Erik Troan was a SunSite maintainer on top of his regular work. These are people who are true believers in the community.

Hopefully other companies who go public can learn from what Red Hat has suffered through. I doubt anyone can get it perfect, there are just too many variables involved. But we can always hope.

For better or worse Linux has made it to Wall Street. Here's hoping it's for the better.

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The Wider Implications
by Robin "roblimo" Miller

I believe we are watching the beginning of a Linux-induced revolution in corporate finance that may be more important than recent Linux-induced changes in the way software is developed and distributed. Why more important? Because this revolution has the potential power to change all business activity, not just businesses directly involved with computers.

Suddenly the phrase "World Domination" takes on a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

jbc writes "Linux Journal's cover story for May was an interview with Larry Wall, which is now online. Some good stuff on the future of Perl, whether or not Open Source is a passing fad, and why Activestate is not necessarily evil. "

jdesbonnet writes "Java 2 SDK preview is available". There is a bzipped file on his site, but I did not download it. edgy writes "According to LinuxHQ, Toshiba has relented and has released specifications for IrDA so that Toshiba laptops can use their built-in infrared ports." 3fer writes " The site interactive.linuxjournal.com is now open. Anybody who subscribes to LJ can now search all previous issues via the site. " It's really worth a visit. Tramm Hudson writes "After quite a long time, Digital (now Compaq) has released fast math libraries for Linux. Many people have been using DU's (now Tru-64) compilers to take advantage of the faster routines, but this runs afoul of the rather restrictive licensing on the output of the compiler. The hope is that this signals a possible first step towards releasing the DU compilers for Linux. Possibly one of the most discussed topics on comp.os.linux.alpha is the lack of high performance compilers for Alpha Linux. There is so much computational horsepower in these chips, but egcs just isn't harnessing it... " Finally ASUGeek writes "Reuters has retracted the satellite crack story." Update: 03/05 05:55 by S : Now AntiOnline says Reuters did not retract the story, and NASA's records indicate the satellite drifted by an abnormally high amount. Thanks to Kythe.

So I'm here at the Babylon Cafe, and all these people are chatting and drinking and having fun, and I'm in the corner posting morph- is asking for someone with a lick of design sense to design a Logo for SlashNET- email him if you come up with one. 600x150 pixels on black. mschmitt linked us to the UNIX pronunciation HOWTO. Carlie Fairchild wrote in to plug The Linux Journals online Store. An anonymous reader sent us a link to an InfoWorld article that talks about the recent warring in the free software movement. President John F. Kennedy wrote in to tell us that Propoganda 4 is out if you're looking for sweet background images. cpfeifer sent us a link to a site that is selling aluminum light sabers. I bet they don't work, but I still want one. Brian Craft sent us a link to the most Unusual Ergonomic Keyboard that I've seen in awhile. Lord Hiades sent us a link to a t-shirt based on Adminspotting. cpfeifer sent us a link to The Jesus Dance. An anonymous reader sent us a link to a freaky site where you can get funky contacts to scare your friends with. An anonymous reader sent us a link to the truth about Steve Balmer

Slashdot gets a lot of mentions out there, and I'm sick of devoting whole stories to them, so I'm lumping them together. First, I mentioned Cool Site of the Year before, but I just found out that one of the prizes is a New Guitar- so Go vote for us. You can vote once a day, and this is one poll I have no problem Slashdotting *grin*. Cheekyboy wrote in to tell us that we're the #5 site at at 100 Hot's Developer Site List. hatredonalog wrote in to say that the new issue of Linux Journal has Slashdot listed as the #1 Linux Web Page, beating out linux.org. Anonymous Harrison noted that a recent Jerk City cartoon mentions Slashdot. And lastly, the RC5 Team has been doing pretty well these days. In fact, we and the Evangelista's have been swapping the #1 daily keys spot. So go run clients on anything that boots and lets dust 'em.

The NSCA has done some not-very-novel research: build a cluster of computers and solve a parallelisable problem on it. The novelty? Well it runs on NT, so now Microsoft is crowing that NT is wonderfully scalable. As contributor Mark Harrison points out: "I figure if this NT cluster is using NT Server, which it must if it it is using more than 10 TCP/IP connections per node (I know nothing about these parallel systems, but with 124 two-processor nodes, each node must communicate with more than ten other nodes). NT server costs a bunch (about $1,000 per licence, I believe), so the cost is $124,000 for the OS. So much for their tagline, "High-Performance Supercomputing at Mail-Order Prices." How about "Save $123,975 on your supercomputer -- Use Extreme Linux." " Well... it might be time to help Ben Elliston who presented his encapsulation of IP in SCSI in August's Linux Journal which has a higher throughput than ethernet.