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One downside is that users must pay $99 a year for unlimited access to the warehouse, wiping out the roughly $100 savings from buying a PC without a Microsoft operating system.

(from the San Jose Mercury News review)

What made me laugh at this, not even entering the debate whether or not Lindows is any good, is that he is saying that you can download and automatically install any Linux program for $100 per year, yet compares this to paying the extra $100 for microsoft OS.

Excuse me, but the only way you can download free windows applications and install them on your computer is if they are pirated. I hardly think that paying $100 per year to be able to download the Linux equivalent of photoshop, excel, word, etc equates to getting the base install of windows in your machine.

I have spent considerable time and money defending the GPL. Generally those violating the license immediately recognize their error and correct the problem. The "Right Thing" happens very frequently, and no one notices that there was ever a problem. Each situation usually takes a two or three hours of my time, and perhaps a follow-up letter from a lawyer. That might not sound like a lot, but the cost in time and money adds up quickly.

Have you ever defended the GPL?

Donald Becker

This is not a "cross-compiler" from Sun.

This was a porting kit, including explicit instructions that listed the eepro100 and tulip drivers by name, and included code from the Linux kernel (e.g. a modified net_init.c) with the copyright notice removed.

The introductory lines from the Sun web page make their intent clear:

This document describes how to set up a Solaris 8 build machine for porting a Linux network driver to run in the Solaris kernel. Follow these steps to convert a Linux network driver to a Solaris network driver.

____

The Linux Network Driver Porting Kit provides a wrapper module for a Linux network driver to run the driver under the Solaris kernel.

----

This is both contributory infringment and active inducment to infringe the copyright and license of the code. Describing in text the principles of converting drivers is perfectly acceptable. Sun provided a script to do part of the job, and cookbook style instructions for the fix-ups that need to be done by hand. This is copyright infringement just the same as if they had distributed the already-modified code. (Note: Nor is distributing a patch file a legal end-run around copyright.)

The Sun press release tried to spin this as an aid to vendors that allowed them to convert their network drivers to Solaris, but the examples (and all of the common Linux network drivers) were written by me and released under the GPL.

Another claim is that this is actually permitted by the GPL. The GPL wording explicitly notes that GPL programs may be run on proprietary operating systems. It does not allow GPL code to be extracted and linked into a non-GPL OS. "Run on" and "incorporated as part of" are distinct concepts.

(To forestall the obvious pedantic "but what about..", Solaris is not a microkernel OS. There is a clear distinction between user-level code using e.g. the defined C library interface, and code linked into the Solaris kernel at run-time.)

Network ICE Releases Open-source Carnivore

They are saying this gives ISPs the ability to do what Carnivore is supposed to do on their own, and thus eliminate any need to allow Carnivore to be installed to comply with an intercept order.

The Altivore Page

Newsalert coverage.

According to this Linux Today story/press release, "Network ICE is disclosing the source code to a new e-mail sniffing program called 'Altivore.' This software provides a potential alternative to ISPs who do not want to install the FBI's secretive black-box known as 'Carnivore.'" The press release is at NewsAlert, and the source is here.

Can't stop snickering... :-)

Gee whiz, I must be a psychic. Look at this

A list of what is included is here.

Corel® LINUX® OS Second Edition is available for download here. You can choose to download an ISO image (451 MB) or compressed version (347 MB) in the form of a gzipped ISO image.

If you do not have a CD-writer, a download CD can be ordered from Corel Customer Service for US $4.95 plus shipping, handling and applicable taxes.

Press Release is here

Same PR says that CorelDRAW 9 Graphics Suite for Linux is scheduled to begin shipping by the end of August, 2000 for a suggested retail price of US $249.

BTW Corel rep says there is no truth to Mac WordPerfect Office rumors.

here is the non blue version.

See the announcement here, and the meeting publicity material on upnp.org.

Quick, everybody, /. NASA so they can't do the final burn like they need to. With any luck it will hit a city where either Metallica, Madonna, or the RIAA happens to be.

The paper notes the increasing dominance of newer toolkits like gtk and Qt, and the fact that they can make migration to X-NextGen easier. On the other hand, they could also make abandonment of X viable. This soul-searching may well reflect an awareness that alternatives loom in the still-distant horizon.

Troll Tech has already announced Qt/Embedded: this allows Qt apps to run without X, using Linux's framebuffer. It offers anti-aliased text and alpha-blending of images, as well as hardware acceleration. Imagine a Gtk/Qt system that can share the framebuffer and bypass X. You could get a lot done with the latest generation of apps, faster, and with less memory.

With the recent collaboration between Troll Tech and Inprise, you can expect someday Delphi/C++ Builder for Linux using Qt.

Here's one for you lawyers out there:
Is Slashdot/Andover violating the privacy of underage posters by publishing their comments in a book, even if they are stripped of user names?
Could the parents of one of those posters take legal action against Slashdot/Andover?
I don't know the answer, which is why I am asking...

Now here is what went wrong:

Many people didn't first hear about this from reading Rob's comments here. They found out about it through Andover's press release. If you read the original press release there is no mention that proceeds of the book are going to a charity. Also the release calls the book 'Jon Katz's'. Anyone practiced at the art of trolling through PR can easily see the release as an incredibly unsubtle attempt to firstly get attention on the year memorial of the massacre and secondly to sell the book by attaching Katz's name to it rather than the more-true-but-not-as-market-sexy 'written by slashdot posters'.

I think Rob's intentions were good, BUT someone on the Slashdot team MUST start reading Andover's PR firm's announcements before they go out on the wire. Because they are destroying Slashdot's reputation. In this case the offending PR was released by: CONTACT: Andover.Net Janet Holian, 978/635-5300
janet@andover.net
or Schwartz Communications, Inc.
Manya Rossignoli/Chris Stamm, 781/684-0770
cstamm@schwartz-pr.com

Hope that helps...

In Linux Weekly News I noticed a CSoft International and Neoware Systems press release. CSoft is bringing their POS system to Linux. Well, iPos is Java-based so can run on Linux, so this seems to be actually an announcement that it will be used with Neoware's systems... but it is a POS system which uses Linux.

Rumor no more .

I hate to say it, but...

2000-03-22 02:01:47 NASA knew Mars Polar Lander was Doomed (articles,space) (declined)

Many of these stories have been submitted to $slashdot recently, yet they don't seem to get posted - why? Because Andover is getting desperate as is the whole Linux community.

The nightmare for Linux is comming true, Win2K is a serious, stable OS that is a strong contender as a server and light years ahead of Linux for the desktop.

Microsoft is great at comming through in a clinch, remember the internet?

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Since $lashdot/andover hasn't seen it worth mentioning any of these it seems important to mention them here.

Microsoft's latest OS is selling well

INTERVIEW-China approves Microsoft Windows 2000

Users lap up Windows 2000 despite warnings

New operating system is a hit

Windows 2000 Sales Brisk; and Musings on "Pure Java"

Read the full thing here.

I spoted an article at NewsAlert. Most Linux News sites, including LinuxPlanet, also has articles on the subject.

Mallet estimated that during the attack's peak, Yahoo! was drowning in one gigabit of incoming data every second.

"Most sites don't get that in a year," spokeswoman Diane Hunt said. "That's an incredible amount."

Not that 1gb/s isn't a lot of bandwidth, but Yahoo claims that most sites don't do 1gb/year! Yahoo claims that the attack subjected them to *30 million* times the bandwidth that "most sites" use. Yahoo claims that most sites don't use 32bits/sec of bandwidth - that's right, less than the slowest modems used in the past two decades. So throw away your T3s and just use a 300bps modem. It's cheaper, and provides 10 times the bandwidth that Yahoo says you need.

It is interesting that Metacreations is in this deal with minolta. It seems like a perfectly good fit of a great graphics software company and a great camera company. But Metacreations has had it's own difficulties lately. Metacreations is a company with really neat products and what seems to me almost no good marketing skills. This has led to a sustained loss every quarter last year. They are often over shadowed by the big boys in Microsoft and Adobe. Well, it seems obvious to me that they should consider opening up their software at least in the graphics genre. If they had the gimp on their side...

Even nicer would be if an open source company bought them flat out and opened them up. This would be chump change for RedHat but also very possible for Corel.

I know you all have heard it a thousand times before. Open it up! In fact I will probably be moderated down because it is so off topic. But first read what I have to write. Why did Netscape open it up? Because they couldn't support a free browser like Microsoft could indefinitely. What compelling reason would one have to buy Metacreations software over Adobe's products? Features? Certainly not because of that, very few people buy software for the features. Cost? Well it is a concern but only to people not making money at doing graphic work. What else then is going to bouy metacreations? Their e-commerce? Maybe, but even then this product line has nothing to do with their graphic software. So spin it off!

For example, OurBeginning.com, which spent over $3.5 million dollars, saw a spike on their web site today, from 40 connections per second to over 500 connections per second
(see http://www.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=Cojpfub Kby teWmJu&Topic=Internet-News&Nav=na-search-&StoryTit le=Internet-News)

Another advantage of the commercials is name/brand recognition. According to an article (http ://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/supe rbowl_netads_000113.html) on ABCNews.com, HotJobs.com, which had commercials in last year's SuperBowl, found it was much easier to raise VC funds. To quote the article:

HotJobs.com CEO Richard Johnson said the name brand recognition earned from the Super Bowl commercial last year made it easier to raise funds from venture capitalists. The company's revenues for the first nine months of 1999 jumped from $2.2 million to $12.1 million for the same period in 1998

I find it funny, though, that the vast majority of the commercials were .com related. It seemed all commercials fit into one of three categories:

• .com/Technology
  
• Beer/Soda
  
• Cars

One thing I thought was interesting, were the couple of commercials geared towards women (the Oxygen.com commercial, for example). That seems like wasted money, since the demographics for the SuperBowl viewer, I'd assume, are heavily skewed toward the male gender.

Here's a link to the full TurboLinux Press Release provided by LinuxToday.

I know piracy is a huge problem in the PRC, but for the self-claimed largest software retail chain in the country to basically admit it is selling bootlegged copies of Windows 2000 as an "Upgrade" is pretty amazing.

I hope MS is following up on this. If MS fails to ensure that their licenses are adhered to it will ultimately hurt Linux as fewer people will will bother to switch to Linux if they can upgrade to Win2k at bootleg prices.

In the press release they said that Mac OS X is a Linux like OS. Things have really changed. Not long ago we said that Linux was a Unix-like os, but now it is changing at instead the Unix-based OS are Linux like :-) On the other hand I have problems seeing how Apple hopes to come out ahead with this. Having a nice GUI isn't a real competitive advantage for long, with the progress being made in GNOME and X-windows, the advantages of Mac OS X will not last many months. AFAIK anti-aliasing is beeing added as part of XFree 4.0 and is already part of the GNOME canvas. The scalable icons is also something planned for the next release of GNOME, and AFAIK it is already at least partially implemented in the CVS version.

One of the other articles I read (at PRNewswire) said Jobs was Apple's iCEO. Is that a misprint or are they extending the over-used lowercase i thing all over the company? Normally I would say it was a misprint but with the iMac, the iBook, etc., I figured it was possible. Strange, hackneyed, but possible.

-- promote sales of all LinuxOne products in Taiwan
-- translate/localize LinuxOne products into Japanese
-- circulate a web-based newsletter for the Taiwan open-source community
-- actively promote the Linux software as a replacement for Window and MacIntosh
-- develop special new software products for the Asian markets

Interpret that how you will. The release goes on to specify that the office holds a manager, a salesdroid, an accountant and three software engineers, with more salesdroids to follow "in the next 10 days."

It'd be useful to find someone with exposure to the Asian tech industry and Linux scene to illustrate what's occurred on that side of the lake.

SGI has demonstrated the first Linux cluster based on Intel's IA-64 Itanium processor, using the Supercomputing 99 show as the venue for the event.

The demonstration achieved a number of public firsts including the first Itanium processor-based cluster and the first technical computing applications successfully run on the IA-64/Linux platform. The demo was based entirely on open source components including Cactus (an open-source simulation toolkit computing collisions of black holes), MM5 (a multidimensional weather simulation), Amira (an Advanced 3D Visualization and Volume Modeling System), C compiler, Fortran compiler, Linux kernel, and MPICH.

This might provide a little competition :) ISDCorp To Demo Its Port of Linux Kernel 2.2 to Cirrus Logic ARM 7 Market Specific Processor Family At COMDEX

Also from the thinner is better department, COMPAQ is announcing the release of the "iPaq" Internet PC for businesses. "iPaq is the industry's first "Legacy-Free" Windows 2000 device, using USB ports in place of ISA/PCI expansion slots or legacy ports. Available in January 2000 via the Web and phone, it will be aggressively priced, starting at $499 (U.S. price with Internet keyboard, without monitor)."

"The silver and black device, which weighs just over 10 pounds and is only 40 percent as large as the conventional beige box PC, is designed as a desk-side computer and runs Intel Corp.'s latest Pentium III chips."

A P-III for $499 sounds like a good deal, even if you can't put linux on it. I also can't figure out how you can get a P-III AND a copy of Windows2000 and keep the price under $500?

Regarding the name, even if they don't get sued by Apple, I expect this French Company will have some issues with it.

Also from the thinner is better department, COMPAQ is announcing the release of the "iPaq" Internet PC for businesses. "iPaq is the industry's first "Legacy-Free" Windows 2000 device, using USB ports in place of ISA/PCI expansion slots or legacy ports. Available in January 2000 via the Web and phone, it will be aggressively priced, starting at $499 (U.S. price with Internet keyboard, without monitor)."

"The silver and black device, which weighs just over 10 pounds and is only 40 percent as large as the conventional beige box PC, is designed as a desk-side computer and runs Intel Corp.'s latest Pentium III chips."

A P-III for $499 sounds like a good deal, even if you can't put linux on it. I also can't figure out how you can get a P-III AND a copy of Windows2000 and keep the price under $500?

Regarding the name, even if they don't get sued by Apple, I expect this French Company will have some issues with it.

For some strange reason, that is a function of the URL. If you remove a small part of the URL ("fq=Linux&", working from memory, could be wrong), it makes Linux red at ever occurance (and not a bitmap). To try it, check out this URL: http://www.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=Cob0Eub KbytaWmte&Nav=na-search-&StoryT itle=Linux

Check out list of StarPortal Partners: AOL, ATT,GTE, Bellsouth, USWest and others. See a number of ADSL players. Press Release here

I'm a software engineer, and love all news related to technology. Slashdot's announcements of tech. firms going public is key to showing the big picture of how the industry is growing and changing.
Since BeOS and MP3.COM went public, they are going to be viewed in a new light by investors which may adversely or positively influence their products and services.

Side note on mp3.com:
- Only certain people (such as artists on MP3.COM, employees, and big time investors) were allowed to buy mp3.com at the IPO (Initial Public Offering) price
- The IPO was initially around $12
- The IPO jumped to $18, $24, and finished on $28
- When the stock was available for the "everyday stock buyer" the price opened at 92!
- The stock hit a high of 103, and is now slowly slumping back to it's real worth. (At this writing it is 55.

For more information try going to
Datek Online which is a free site for stock info and quotes.

"As to whether the company plans to go public, Latman declined to comment. But one can only speculate, given that the company recently changed its name from Microworkz Computer Corp. to Microworkz.com"

Story is here

Hmm... Any other potential "converts"?

Linux is too famous ;) When any1 says "Linux" everybody starts running.

Likewise, the point is not whether CodeWarrior will work with other Linux distributions or not. The problem is that it is being marketed as exclusively Red Hat. Other major binary Linux product releases have not been marketed this way.

Let's look at the facts.

• MetroWerks has a very close association with Red Hat.
• CodeWarrior is a software development tool.
• Many Linux software developers use distributions other than Red Hat. How many? I haven't measured, but it must be significant. Red Hat is known for easy installation and integration, but not necessarily as a software developer's distribution. Other distributions have that reputation. I can cite Debian as an example.
• Linux has tools to facilitate the port of projects to different distributions. Who would know this better than software developers, MetroWerks prospective customers?
• System requirements on binary releases can be easily specified as CPU+kernel+library and the program will function perfectly, as has been pointed out by many people. Again, wouldn't MetroWerks customers be aware of this?
• Support issue can be handled separately and again can be along the same lines as the build. Again, MetroWerks' customers would know this as well.
• Although it may be difficult to support all the Linux distributions, it's extremely easy, and given the number of developers using other distributions, very cost effective to support more than one.
• The Linux communitee would be eager and proud to help bring about the global Linux support of a product like CodeWarrior. MetroWerks products have been a mainstay in the Mac environment for a long time. CodeWarrior is also the preferred platform for the Palm Pilot, the most popular handheld on the planet. MetroWerks products have a great reputation in the industry and would be highly desireable.
• Corel doesn't release a different version of their software for each Linux distribution. Neither does Star Division nor Applix nor Adobe (Acroread), etc. I could go on and on here. This list would include almost all of the binary-only Linux products up to the current date.
• The MetroWerks' press release which originally announced Linux support for CodeWarrior last October says nothing specifically about Red Hat. MetroWerks' similar announcement made in early April has Red Hat all over the place.

Why specifically put for Red Hat in the name of the product when that will only result in undercutting the sales to all the other distributions, especially in a market where the number of customers could be significant?

I'm not trying to bash Red Hat but this makes absolutely no sense. More important, it divides the community. And, it's not the way things have been done--until now.

The rules have changed. I want to know why. Don't you?

Oh... boy...

American Megatrends today released a new multithreaded driver for their MegaRAID controllers.

Check out www.linuxtoday.com or look here.

Sigh... The irony...

Reminder:

http://www.newsalert.com/bin /story?StoryId=CnWG1qbKbyteYoty

Tony Iams, the DH Brown author responsible for their Linux report, will be speaking at a panel at the AIIM '99 convention. Linus and maddog will also be on the panel as well.

Also, Jim Ewel will be on the panel too. He's the Microsoft marketing director for SQL Server. I wonder if he was involved with the alleged threats to Micron and Gateway for demoing Linux as Spencer Katt reported.

Berst just wanted the /. effect...
Here's the latest ZD Usurption: ZDTV's LinuxSuperguide...
Remember Paul Allen recently plopped down a $54,000,000 investment in ZDTV via his Vulcan Ventures which makes him a one-third investor...ZDTV is expected to reach 9 million homes by the end of the year and what better way to cash in on Open Source and Linux then to coax the /. effect to the TV...
Hmmm....

See report on News Alert