News Bytes
By Michael Conry
|
Contents:
|
Selected and formatted by Michael Conry
Submitters, send your News Bytes items in
PLAIN TEXT
format. Other formats may be rejected without reading. You have been
warned! A one- or two-paragraph summary plus URL gets you a better
announcement than an entire press release. Submit items to
bytes@lists.linuxgazette.net
Legislation and More Legislation
Software Patents
Following the European Council of Ministers' decision to
discard Parliament's amendments,
the legislative process continues.
The
FFII
has
reported
the publication of
the report by Michel Rocard, European Parliament
rapporteur,
on software patents. The findings and recommendations
in the report have been welcomed by FFII president
Hartmut Pilch.
FFII has also
published a recording and some transcripts
from the JURI meeting at which the rapporteur's findings
were presented.
Although, currently, campaigning for the European
Constitution referenda is dominating European politics at
the moment, the importance of contacting your MEPs on this
matter should not be underestimated. Only by paying
attention to their actions, and calling them to account for
them (whatever your personal views), can citizens begin to
reduce the democratic deficit manifest in EU institutions.
FortiOS
gpl-violations.org
has
been granted a preliminary injunction
against
Fortinet UK Ltd., a company that produces and
distributes firewalls.
Granted by the Munich district court, the injunction follows
claims by gpl-violations.org that Fortinet have included
various GPL software, including the Linux kernel, into their
firewall offerings. Harald Welte, the Linux kernel
developer involved in this case, also
claims that Fortinet attempted to conceal their appropriate
of the relevant code by using cryptographic techniques.
Fortinet have
admitted that GPL code was included in their product,
but have so far
failed to satisfactorily resolve the issue.
Linux Links
Using Python
on the Nokia S60 mobile phone.
Userspace filesystem encryption
with EncFS.
O'Reilly
article on Sound editing with Audacity, and meanwhile
Linux Journal has
looked at Csound.
Comparison
of Microsoft Visual Studio and KDevelop.
Ongoing
history of open-source software
by Peter H. Salus.
Are free-software developers
the glimmer of hope for software quality?
Creating a custom Linux LiveCD With PCLinuxOS.
Linux Journal has published
A Reading List for Linux in the Classroom, covering
topics like OpenLDAP, Samba, and more.
IBM developerWorks has
an interesting article that discusses running GNU/Linux or
NetBSD
on Apple's new
Mac mini.
Groklaw's Pamela Jones argues that
the SCO case has been good for Linux
Slashdot discussion of
Linux laptop compatibility, while OSnews has
Linux on A Laptop: A Tinkerer's Journal.
NewsForge has published
a brief review
of the
UseMod Wiki.
The challenges of analysing GNU/Linux use.
The maturation of 64bit free OSs.
Has acquisition by Novell
hurt SuSE on its German home turf.
Volvo are now doing
crash simulations on GNU/Linux, in partnership with IBM.
Lawrence Lessig
tells Flash developers how how he believes their work and
technology is perceived
in the open-source community.
News in General
Who's The Git?
Over the years we've seen a number of heated arguments
among the members of the Linux kernel project. Favourites
among these have included the debates over preemption
strategies and discussions of how to manage memory most
effectively. A repeated focus for acrimonious discussion
has been Linus's choice of source-management
tool:
BitKeeper.
The selection of a proprietary piece of software for this
fundamental part of the development infrastructure has rankled
many of the more idealistic open-source/free-software
purists in the development community.
This issue came to major prominence in the past month, as
Andrew Tridgell publicly revealed that he had reverse
engineered the BitKeeper protocol to allow developers to
obtain project meta-data from the repository.
On seeing this, the lead-developer of BitKeeper, Larry McVoy,
responded by revoking the free BitKeeper licences that have
been used by kernel developers since the tool was adopted by
the project.
This sequence of events drew the ire of
Linus Torvalds,
who accused Tridgell
of acting irresponsibly and
jeopardising an effective and working system without
offering any alternative. Others in the free software
community, such as
Bruce Perens, see these criticisms as unjustified, and
point out that Tridgell was essentially engaged in the same
type of activity that allowed him to develop
Samba.
Nonetheless, in spite of these travails, Linux kernel
development has not been stopped in its tracks. An
alternative tool,
git,
to manage the kernel source
(advice for
beginners).
Following the
successful import
of kernel source into git, the 2.6.12rc3 release
is the first to be built up completely using git.
An interesting aside to consider is
the response of the Subversion project to discussion
among users that Subversion might be a suitable BitKeeeper
replacement. Highlighting the difficulties in achieving a
compromise between Linux development practice and the
current Subversion feature-set, attention was instead
briefly focussed on three new version control systems that
have emerged in the past year or two
Monotone
GNU Arch
and
SVK. All three of
these support the use of distributed repositories, and have
recently been gaining popularity.
Linux Kernel
The newest iteration of the stable
2.6.x series of
Linux Kernels is now available.
Linux 2.6.11.7, released on April 7th, includes a
collection of fixes.
In line with the
new kernel numbering scheme, post 2.6.11, this release
should only include minor fixes to the original 2.6.11
release.
HURD
Debian Weekly News
has reported
the availability
of a HURD Live CD.
This is a great opportunity to try out the long (long!)
awaited
HURD kernel.
Distro News
Arch
Archie
is a complete live
Arch Linux
system (v0.7) that can be run from a CD/USB. OSDir has a
screen-shot tour of the distro.
Debian
Debian stable (Woody) has been updated with the
release of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r5.
The complete list of accepted/rejected packages in this
release can be seen at
http://people.debian.org/~joey/3.0r5/
Branden Robinson has been elected as the new leader of the
Debian Project. He has given
an interview where he outlines some of his plans.
From Debian Weekly News,
Hanna Wallach has written
an essay about making Debian a friendlier place for both men
and women.
Apparently, a significant number of men participate in the
Debian Women project because it offers of a much more
positive, welcoming, and friendly atmosphere than other
Debian fora.
Kanotix
LinuxTimes.net has a
review
of
Kanotix, a Debian Sid
based live CD.
Linspire
OSnews has a
review of Linspire.
Linspire is a GNU/Linux distribution aimed at providing
an easy-to-use environment for users migrating from Windows.
SuSE
Mad Penguin has taken
a look at SuSE 9.3 Professional.
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
has released a new edition of its popular, Debian-based,
GNU/Linux distribution.
Ubuntu 5.04, (The Hoary Hedgehog Release)
is in the wild and
ready for download.
In parallel with this,
The Kubuntu project has released Kubuntu 5.04 (Ubuntu
combined with the latest KDE goodness).
Linux Journal has
recently taken a look at this rapidly growing distro.
Software and Product News
Apache
The Apache Project has announced the release of the newest
version of its omnipresent web-server software.
Apache HTTP Server 2.0.54,
now available for download, is principally a bug fix
release.
Blender
Those more familiar with the interface used by
Blender, the popular open-source 3D modelling package
may be interested in
instinctive Blender. This fork has been
profiled at NewsForge.
Mastering *BSD Security
Not directly Linux related, but surely of interest to most
Unix-like system admins (or should that be admins of
Unix-like systems!), O'Reilly has recently released a new
title focussing on security issues and techniques on BSD
systems:
Mastering FreeBSD and OpenBSD Security.
Mick is LG's News Bytes Editor.
![[Picture]](../gx/2002/tagbio/conry.jpg)
Originally hailing from Ireland, Michael is currently living in Baden,
Switzerland. There he works with ABB Corporate Research as a
Marie-Curie fellow, developing software for the simulation and design
of electrical power-systems equipment.
Before this, Michael worked as a lecturer in the Department of
Mechanical Engineering, University College Dublin; the same
institution that awarded him his PhD. The topic of this PhD research
was the use of Lamb waves in nondestructive testing. GNU/Linux has
been very useful in his past work, and Michael has a strong interest
in applying free software solutions to other problems in engineering.
Copyright © 2005, Michael Conry. Released under the Open Publication license
unless otherwise noted in the body of the article. Linux Gazette is not
produced, sponsored, or endorsed by its prior host, SSC, Inc.
Published in Issue 114 of Linux Gazette, May 2005
