Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader submits: "internetnews is reporting that JBoss has started distributing compensation in the form of profit-sharing and options to developers that worked on the application server. The article can be found here. I can't find the announcement on the JBoss site but it can be found on any number of release wires like newsalert."

dtype writes "Now we can begin to see where some of Apple's latest purchases are heading. Shake 2.5 for Mac OS X was announced today. It is notable that the Mac OS X version costs half as much as versions for other operating systems, and that current customers have the option of doubling their current number of licenses at no cost by migrating to Mac OS X." Mac OS X 10.2 will be required, so add $120 to the cost of each license, too. It's still a bargain at just over $5,000, though.

Eugenia writes: "Two individual reviews of LindowsOS running on the MicroTel/Wal-Mart hardware were published today. The first can be found over at NewsForge and the other one at BayArea.com. Both reviews are not positive for the Lindows solution and they are not excited about the idea of Click-n-Run."

An Anonymous Coward writes: "This story by LinuxDevices.com founder Rick Lehrbaum provides in-depth coverage of today's important joint announcment by Red Hat and FSMLabs of Red Hat's adoption of RTLinux as its real-time Linux technology of choice. The article is based primarily on interviews with Michael Tiemann and Victor Yodaiken, has a comment from Alan Cox, and includes numerous links to further details and background information. Guess it's time for another round in the never-ending debate over real-time Linux architectures!"

El Blasphemouso Padre writes "According to this Reuters story Intel is building 250,000 AOL-Branded Web-Appliances to be given away by a Spanish bank. It runs Linux and soon many people in Spain with no computer will say hola to Tux!" Gotta wonder what the actual cost is on a box like that if they can give away a quarter million of them.

bstadil writes: "In the early days of Linux' entry into the mainstream (late 1998) Slashdot covered interesting wins for the OS like Burlington Coat Factory. Maybe its time to do it again. Within 48 hours Linux has made two HUGE inroads that merits mentioning. The first is the announcement of Home Depot plannig 90.000 Cash Registers running linux and Telia in Scandinavia replacing 70 Sun servers + Solaris with one IBM mainframe running Linux. One machine serving 800,000 internet accounts." ZDNet has a few more details.

Phexro writes: "According to this story at newsalert, Debian has been awarded the $25,000 IDG/Linus Torvalds Community Award. It will be presented during the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo on Tuesday, Aug. 15. Go Debian!" Congratulations to the Debian crew for this. Non-Debian users benefit from the pressure that Debian puts on other distros -- just by existing -- to mind their P's and Q's when it comes to Free software, and for proving that elegant upgrade systems don't have to be glitzy or labyrinthine.

Phexro writes: "According to this story at newsalert, Debian has been awarded the $25,000 IDG/Linus Torvalds Community Award. It will be presented during the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo on Tuesday, Aug. 15. Go Debian!" Congratulations to the Debian crew for this. Non-Debian users benefit from the pressure that Debian puts on other distros -- just by existing -- to mind their P's and Q's when it comes to Free software, and for proving that elegant upgrade systems don't have to be glitzy or labyrinthine.

Softimage Announces Availability of Toonz Version 4.4 for Linux available at the end of this month. Press release is here. Could someone give a few words about Toonz please? I wonder when Softimage will port their XSI & DS products for Linux.

Chilliware, officially announced a set of Linux-based tools, most noteworthy for the Apache community being the Mohawk Server Configurator. According to the announcement, Mohawk is an application "wizard" designed to cut the system administration time to configure Apache by more than 50% as well as optimizing the server's setup and use. Unfortunately, more detailed information doesn't seem to be available, so we'll keep our eye on this.

Thanks to all of the fine folks who contributed these updates, you are in for another illuminating, invigorating, inspiring round of fruity nuggets picked from the tree of wisdom, irradiated, waxed, polished, chilled, packaged and shipped (metaphorically) to your browser. Swallow two of these a week, call if symptoms recur.

Who needs an atmosphere? Xibalba writes "As a follow up story to the orbiting Web server, NASA already has an ftp server installed on UoSat-12 and has been sucessfully transferring images for the past week." Soon there should be no shortage of IP-addressable tin cans floating around space.

World domination, increment 00000003707391: xaniamud writes "NVidia have released version 0.93 of their OpenGL XFree86 drivers, check it out." Hopefully, nVidia is interested enough in selling video cards to the faithful to wipe it's nose clean of GPL violations, too.

This time, let's help DivX succeed ... Mike Hicks writes "An update to a previous story. FlashingYellow has combined with OpenCodex, and they now have a $10,000 prize along with an iMac DV for the first individual or group to produce an open source DivX ;-) plugin for Quicktime." Added to which, I will supply the second individual or group with a letterboxed DVD of Carlito's Way, Heat or The Godfather.

You may already be a winner! You may recall that Dr. Günter Bechly recently offered a $3000 incentive to the developers of KDE if the license under which KDE is released were amended such that it could be distributed with Debian's main (free) distribution.

Dr. Bechly has now withdrawn the offer, for the reasons he outlines below. He writes:

"Hello, I just wanted to let everybody know that KDE did not bother to send an official answer to my offer of a donation of $3000 in case that they fix their licence problems that currently prohibits an inclusion of KDE in Debian GNU/Linux. Just two people of the KDE camp answered at all, and both basically said that the licence change is impossible to do since there is too much code of third parties (including those who sent patches) involved who can hardly be traced. This is quite interesting, since in the past most KDE representatives claimed that the licence issue is moot since the requested exception clause in the licence is implicitly given due to the fact that the KDE programmers coded KDE-software for the QT-toolkit. Now they admit that they use a lot of GPL'ed code of non-KDE programmers which have never given such an implicit permission to link their GPL'ed code to QPL'ed libraries.

Just as a reminder: The issue is not how to use KDE with Debian (e.g. by adding the link site to apt-sources), but how to legally include KDE as free software in Debian main. The issue is also neither that KDE is indeed free software nor that QT is indeed free software, but the issue is that the two involved free licences (GPL versus QPL) are mutually incompatible, which makes any distribution of binaries of GPL'ed software that is linked to QT simply illegal! The KDE project obviously does not care at all that it violates the GPL licence of other peoples code. This is not only rude behaviour but simply unacceptable. I hoped that my offer would help to solve the problem, but the reaction or rather the non-reaction of KDE shows that this attempt failed, just like any other attempts to solve this issue before. Apparently KDE and the distributions that include KDE are relying on the mean consideration that private authors of free software will not take the finacial risk to sue them for their licence violation. Maybe the only hope for the final solution of the problem could be that one of these authors proves this consideration to be ill-founded!

Allegations that Debian is just using the licence issue as camouflage for their general dislike of KDE are absolutely unwarranted, since I got only very positive responses from the Debian camp including the Debian leadership. There is no doubt that Debian would happily include KDE as soon as the licence problems are solved. Anyway, it does not look like that is ever going to happen. KDE unfortunately has a long tradition in violating the free software spirit:

1.) It was founded by Matthias Ettrich who developed the very fine program Lyx, but then used the non-free toolkit xforms for its GUI, instead of e.g. using a free alternative like TCL/TK.

2.) When the KDE project was started, it was built on a non-free toolkit, too, since QT1.x was not under QPL or any other free (open source) licence. KDE attempted from the very beginning to become the standard desktop of Linux by using a non-free toolkit. They could not know that QT would later be forced by the outcry in free software community and the attempt to develop a free replacement (Harmony) to release QT2.x under an open source licence (which unfortunately is still not compatabile with GPL).

3.) When the free QT replacement Harmony was still in development (it achieved a rather advanced state!) the KDE project refused to agree to switch to this toolkit in the future and they even announced that they will incorporate any useful new features of future versions of QT, which made it impossible for Harmony to ever reach compatability.

4.) KDE had no problems in the change of the licence of kisdn, which was developed under GPL, and as soon as it was accomplished was transformed into shareware. I am quite certain that they did not ask all people who sent patches for their permission for this licence change!

5.) Finally, KDE is blatantly ignoring their constant violation of the GPL of other peoples software that is used in KDE (e.g. in kflopppy). To sum up: There is no other volunteer project in the Linux world that has shown so much disrespect and ignorance of the free software movement than KDE (just for the record: this is said by someone who used KDE since beta4 and once in a flamewar with Bruce Perens even strongly defended the KDE-project; sorry Bruce, I did you wrong!). Therefore, even though KDE is very nice and usable software, I will say goodbye to all KDE stuff and will now only use Gnome which is rapidly evolving into a comparably mature desktop environment (current Helix-Gnome is certainly as good as KDE 1.1, and forthcoming Gnome 2.0 with Nautilus will be on a level with KDE2 and konqueror). Even koffice will soon be made superflous by The Gimp, Sketch, Sodipodi, Gnumeric, Abiword, gcalender, etc. I hope that many will follow this migration from KDE to Gnome.

My offer of 3000,- $ will not be lost for free software and will now be given to Debian for an improvement of the Debian installer. Further details will be discussed with the Debian project.

With kind regards,
Dr. Günter Bechly

Dontcha love it when life imitates pundits? styopa writes "It seems that TurboLinux and Compaq Computing have announced an Alliance. Compaq will support TurboLinux on all of their platforms. Could this be the beginning of the end of TRU64?" Of course, this was carefully arranged to follow the recent story on Linux mergers, which now seems a bit more relevant. Of course, ZDNet had Compaq pegged for a date with Mandrake, but close enough.

WhyteRabbyt writes: "ActiveState have announced Komodo, an open-source IDE for Perl, Python and Javascript. The application framework is to be based on Mozilla. The press release is here." tenchiken contributed a bit more information about the project, writing: "More information is here , including the announcement a few days ago that they would be writing python and perl bindings to XPCOM. Like Perl? How 'bout client side perl!" No, it's not out yet -- but it's cool to see Mozilla as the engine behind yet another project.

SuSE has announced that they are going to release a beta SuSE Linux for IBM's S/390. A beta version will be out in late June. TurboLinux has signed an agreement to port their Linux distribution to S/390 as well. The only major distributor that is missing here is Redhat. What do you think about Linux distributions and the S/390??

Anonymous Coward writes: "'On an official basis on the Nasdaq, Cisco's stock closed up 1-9/16 at a record 79-3/8 while Microsoft eased 3/16 to 111-11/16. Based on those prices and on fully diluted stock totals from quarterly statements, Cisco ended the day with a stock market value of $579.2 billion, slightly ahead of Microsoft's $578.2 billion. On Thursday, Cisco briefly overtook Microsoft, earning the moniker of the most monied.' This is expected to continue. See NewsAlert's story for more details."

Stock evaluations are far from the only way to measure a company's worth, but they certainly are convenient. Cisco seems to have avoided much of the limelight (and searchlights) that Microsoft seems to lives beneath, though in a similar time period it's established a similar market dominance. Is it because Cisco doesn't live by "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish"?

Thrakkerzog writes: "Here is an article about Qt/Embedded, a version of Qt which is source-compatable with Qt/X11 and Qt/Windows. It doesn't use X11, and just uses the Linux framebuffer. This is very ideal for embedded systems. Check the link for more info."

According to Trolltech's release, "Qt/Embedded will also provide functionality not found in the X Window System, such as anti-aliased text rendering and alpha-blending of images. For increased performance, Qt/Embedded can utilize hardware graphics acceleration and it is well suited for multimedia and Web applications."

Flashy graphics without the overhead of X looks like a winner for all the companies providing embedded Linux devices and sofware.

Corel has announced that Corel WordPerfectOffice 2000 for Linux is now shipping. You can find all the details about what each version includes at the URL above. Here is a link with a review of Wordperfect 2000 for Linux. Oh, they also include in the package this little cute bean-filled penguin. I read the review and I'm not sure if this shipping date isn't a bit too early though.

JohnZed writes, " A press release just came out announcing that a member of Inprise's board of directors, Robert Coates, has resigned in protest over the terms of the pending Corel-Inprise merger. Apparently, all is not going well with Corel's attempts to capture a place in the Linux market. "

HeUnique sent us the NewsAlert press release regarding SourceForge's new compile farm. For the projects hosted there, it means that they will be able to do test compiles on both Linux and *BSD systems.

aaf writes "VA and HP are working together to improve printing under Linux and Samba. Everything is and will be Open Source and the initial focus will be on improving existing Open Source printing software and enabling advanced functionality for Laserjets. It's all being developed and managed through SourceForge." While this is all LaserJet specific, I can't help but think that open sourcing everything will enable the community to build stronger cross-platform printing solutions for Linux.

Buxley writes "CBSMarketWatch is reporting that NASA quietly concluded a three-day seminar with Russian space experts Friday, to discuss better ways to send humans to Mars. Right now, there are no official NASA plans to send people to Mars, but perhaps there are some unofficial plans?"

Scooter writes "News.com is reporting that Diamond Multimedia has announced a Web-Pad product based on Transmeta's 3120 processor. The report also mentions that NEC, and possibly a dozen other companies are investigating similar possibilities. It's nice to see things taking shape for Crusoe so quickly. " For more details on the chip itself, check out our recent story.S3 has also announced development work that will be done with Transmeta. They are working on a "Linux-based Internet appliance".

AlphaBrav sent news that LinuxOne is planning to up their IPO price range. For those who don't know who LinuxOne is, don't feel bad: read this amazing article that point by point shows that there are more problems with this company then I can list in this space, although my favorites include their CEOs questionable past, GPL violations, and a corporate web server that not only doesn't run their own distribution but offers to sell you a (binary only) CD if only you send your credit card unencrypted to them. Best of all, their ticker symbol is set to be LINX.

After A long time, Adobe finally start to release few applications for Linux. The first application is Adobe Distiller server for Linux. The other (which I find more interesting) is Adobe FrameMaker 5.5.6 (it's beta) and you can get it Here. Its good to see Adobe start porting their applications to Linux, and I hope they will port all the others (hmm, Illustrator maybe?)

Sun has announced that it will sell Redhat 6.1 Sparc version in it online store. This is due to the customers interest in RH 6.1 for Sparc. I wish I had one of those UltraSparc machines.. (Credit for the news goes to Linux Weekly news)

Nathan Ehresman writes "According to this "Corel Corporation will use GraphOn's Bridges(TM) software to allow access to Windows applications from Corel's(R) Linux desktops." Does this mean Corel is dropping support of WINE? " I sure hope not. They've put a lot of effort in to the project, and I think they raised a lot of peoples hopes and expectations...

LocalLinuxLobbyist wrote in to point us to this clever patent that apparently says GraphOn owns what VNC has done forever: the displaying and using of Windows apps over X. Oh, don't forget that this is the same GraphOn that is making Linux the Official OS of China.

Gino writes "Model Technology Inc. will be making their two most powerful tools ModelSim(TM) EE and SE available for the Linux platform in VHDL, Verilog and mixed HDL configurations. Demand for Linux support has been tremendous, apparently due to customer migration to simulator farm environments - multiple node machines configured with Linux as simulation farms proofed to be quite effective. It is good news to see the big HDL boys paying attention to Linux at last. "

jimmcq writes "A User Friendly book is going to be published by published by O'Reilly & Associates. See the Press Release for more details. " It's been in the works for quite awhile, but it looks like O'Reilly has finally set a date: October, 1999.

Sand_Man wrote to us with the latest public relations stunt with crack-a-machine trials. This is a month long trial, pitting Linux vs. NT boxes against each other. Details are in the story, but does this whole thing strike everyone else as tired PR stunts now?

Fourier writes "There's an article on NewsAlert that says Lineo has released Embrowser, an embedded micro browser designed for applications like set-top boxes. It is currently being ported from DR DOS to the infamous Embedix. " I guess this means that not only do we have another browser for thin-clients and low-end hardware, Linux will have more leverage in the embedded market. Licensing terms are unclear, however...

Fourier writes "There's an article on NewsAlert that says Lineo has released Embrowser, an embedded micro browser designed for applications like set-top boxes. It is currently being ported from DR DOS to the infamous Embedix. " I guess this means that not only do we have another browser for thin-clients and low-end hardware, Linux will have more leverage in the embedded market. Licensing terms are unclear, however...

skroz writes "At Linux world today, 3dfx announced plans to bring their direct rendering infrastructure to its Linux drivers. Their hope is to broaden high-end graphics support in Linux. Check out the story here. "

An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us about a new expanded distribution for the SuSE distribution- it will now appear in places like CompUSA, Fry's, Microcenter, Waldenbooks, Borders, and Best Buy. Always nice to see those shrink wrapped boxes up on the shelves.

Branden Robinson writes "The Open Group has created a new sub-organization, X.Org, to hold stewardship of the X Window System. X.Org will be a membership organization similar to the old I2O group, with open membership but voting restricted to paying members, and rules for expulsion of members. Check out their site and this NewsAlert story for more. "

fusion94 wrote in to send us a story about Caldera Winning a 'Well Connected Award' in the Network OS category at Networld+Interop. Nice little publicity there. Nifty.

Mike_Miller writes "The lastest Mindcraft Study claims that Microsoft Windows NT Server is 2.5 times faster than Linux as a file server and 3.7 times faster as a web server. Their white paper shows that NT beats Linux on every test. " Anyone have a critique?

Anonymous Coward writes " Linus and maddog will be on a panel, along with a Microsoft guy (Jim Ewel) and someone from DH Brown (Tony Iams). This will be in Atlanta at the AIIM '99 conference. " The actual date will be April 14, 9-10 AM.

Steve Bergman sent us a link to a Linux Today Article that talks about claims that MacOS X Outperforms Linux running Apache on machines under $5k. What do you think? Anyone have some numbers?

Wingz and Wingz-Professional are the latest new tools to be brought to Linux. They appear to be spreadsheet applications with scripting capabilities which allow one to make HyperSheet applications which run on Linux, Windows and MacOS. It will be available at no cost on Linux, and other apps are to be ported. Link courtesy of Linux Today. update: changed title from "New advanced spreadsheet at zero-cost for Linux", since it's not new to other platforms.

update: Apparently it's not new..., so I changed the title again. Thanks to the AC who posted this. Is the professional version new then?

John Reynolds writes "Finally! The powers that be have decided to open up the I2O spec! Check out this article" This is great news. I2O was a big nasty thorn for a long time.

Red Hat Linux Secure Web Server 2.0 won the Best Of Show Award at Networld+Interop '98 Atlanta today, according to the editors of Data Communications and LAN Times. Link courtesy of LWN

Pacific HiTech is to enter the US market. Currently it has has more than 50 percent of the Japanese Linux market, making it the second largest Linux distribution worldwide. Interestingly Pacific HiTech has been successful in the chip corporate market, and includes as customers the Japanese Broadcasting Corp., HSBC Securities Japan Ltd., and the Otsuka Shokai group, one of Japan's largest office supplies and systems integration firms. I'm also guessing that TurboLinux 3.0 is to be released soon. Any Japanese capable readers care to confirm? The first link was found in LWN.