Wow, OpenOffice.org turns 7 today.
Recently in Linux Category
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
From the site:
Following on from GNOME's participation in Google's Summer of Code, we've decided to sponsor three projects in a similar fashion to the Summer of Code, but for women only. GNOME had no Summer of Code applications from women, and we think it's time to do something to encourage more women to join our development community.
So, Gnome presents the Women's Summer Outreach Program 2006
Great writeup detailing more of the details behind Mono making it in to Fedora Core 5.
It's great to have this built in now, makes it one less repository I have to try to shove in to rawhide once some libraries have changed from the stable tree.
UPDATE: Just re-read this post in my aggregator. My favorite part? "detailing the details". Damn, I have some writing skills. So sad.
Joe Shaw announced the availability of Beagle 0.2.3 today.
Fer was talking about a new Bug Buddy he has been working on. As a frequent bug reporter, this will definitely affect me, so I thought I would post some comments.
So, he asked two questions. The first was:
* Should we ask the user what was he doing during the crash? (Windows and other reporting tools are not doing it)
Most definitely. Knowing what someone is doing can be very important to someone trying to track down a bug. Unless there is some obviously bad coding which is doing something backwards or something like that, tracking something down without knowing what the person was doing could make things very hard. Also, this allows testers to see if they can easily re-produce the bug.
The second question is Should we ask email address to the user?
Again, I say yes. Again, as someone who regularly puts in bug reports, both via Bug Buddy and the web site, I like to track if my issues are getting fixed. One of the biggest problems to me with the Windows bug reporting tool is that I have NO IDEA if anyone is even looking at them or doing something about them. That's the joy of open source is to see things in the open that are happening and getting fixed. But, I guess you could make a "anonymous posting" option or something like that available so if people don't care, they can just send it in and hope it gets dealt with.
Reading the post, I guess I have one more small issue. What you are doing seems to make this VERY dependent on being online when something crashes. Well, what about when I get an offline crash with something like Evolution. It would be nice to be able to save the bug report for later. Maybe even be able to have bug buddy try and resend things next time it is online or something. Maybe a NetworkManager connection so it knows if it is on or offline and can make decisions based on that?
So, there are my initial thoughts. Otherwise, sounds real nice. Since this was recently on the Thngs that suck in Gnome list, it would be cool to get this out in the open some time in the near future :)
How FREAKIN cool is this? Boston University has their own Linux distribution. It's based on Fedora Core and then has BU specific things added to it. Being that I went to BU, I think this is a super cool way to get people to run Linux at college. I remember back when I went to BU and there were about 4 of using Linux and we did a good job helping each other, but there definitely wasn't anything like this.
So, go BU! I hope other schools are doing siimilar things. If they got rid of Windows at some of these colleges, it could help with many of the virus and spyware issues out there.
Anyone have a clue of how to get these working? When I run MPlayer, I get:
Cannot find codec matching selected -vo and video format 0x31637661.
It looks like maybe I need to re-compile a current CVS snap of mplayer and a cvs snap of ffmpeg, but I'm not sure. Ideas?
Since the "official" packages linked on WineHQ are about 4 or 5 versions back, is anyone else maintaing RPMs of Wine for Fedora Core 4?
Been a busy boy, but just wanted to mention Beagle 0.1.0 is out.
GNOME 2.12 Desktop & Developer Platform has been released.
RML announced today that inotify is in 2.6.13-rc3. YAY!
I've filed Bug 163186 in Red Hat's Bugzilla to get this enabled in Fedora Core Rawhide.
According to this e-mail from Andrew Morton, he's going to try and push Inotify in to the mainline kernel for 2.6.13. And all Beagle users rejoiced!
UPDATE: Read this again and he says more slogging needed. Whatever that means. With all the Beagle users using this already, I'm not sure what the concerns are as "concerns about the userspace API and internal implementation details" is kinda vague.
Excellent. Can't wait to see this in available source.
Just read this on Sun's Java site:
Most testing of Java RE for Linux in the English-locale has been conducted on Red Hat 7.2, with kernel patch 2.4.9-31. Most testing in non-English locales has been conducted on Red Hat 7.1. However, Java RE has undergone limited testing on these other Linux operating systems:* Caldera Open Linux 3.1 (kernel 2.4.2, glibc 2.2.1)
* Turbo Linux 7.0 (kernel 2.2.18, glivc 2.1.x)
* SuSE Linux 7.1 (kernel 2.4, glibc 2.2.14)
* Turbo Linux for Simplified Chinese locale
Umm, Sun, RH7.2 is so ridiculously outdated that you should be taken out back and shot. The current incarnation, Fedora Core, is on version 4 (as of Monday) which means you are testing on a release that is 6 (RH8, RH9 and the 4 FCs) versions behind the times. This version has been unsupported by Red Hat for a few years. Please update your test environment to something modern. Thankyouverymuch.
A couple of software packages I follow had releases today.
J5 announced the availability of D-BUS 0.34 and Trow announced the availability of Beagle 0.0.11.
Linus has announced kernel 2.6.11. He has declared: "So it's now _officially_ all bug-free." Why do I think that comment is going to get him in trouble?
Noticed Gnome Outliner when the announcement asking for people to help working on spec/code came out. They have released version 0.1 as of today. Something people who are fans of outliners may want to try out.
Spent a bunch of time this evening hacking the install process for GMime. The current CVS didn't build as an RPM with the spec file included, so I spent a bunch of time fixing it and the configure scripts to handle the addition of the Mono bindings, as well as build without them. Hopefully they will commit the changes RSN.
With the release of Fedora Core 3, the development branch of Fedora is back in full effect. I noticed yesterday afternoon that the blue check had turned in to the red exclamation point, so I knew I had some updates. I moused over and I had over 160 updates, WOOO! Tried to update, but it seems that not everything has been re-compiled with the new updates yet :( Slowly, fixes are coming in. Updates are up to about 180 now, but still a few missing packages before this mother update can go in. Hopefully it will get there in the next day or two. Some highlights:
Python 2.4.0
GCC 3.4.3
Firefox 1.0RC1
MySQL 4.1.7
I can't wait til everything gets updated :) Yes, I am a geek.
Two new distributions released today.
First, Fedora Core 3 was released today. It can be downloaded here or Bittorrent'ed here.
Second, Novell has put out the first relesae of their Novell Linux Desktop.
I've been running FC3 for a while (actually, development) and it kicks much ass. Gnome 2.8, Evo 2.0, etc etc. Lots of cool new bells and whistles. I could really see this being used by a normal user.
I've heard a lot of good things about NLD from the Novell/Ximian folks. The only bad part thus far is that you can download it, but only get a key to update it for 30 days. After that, I guess you have to pay. Guess I will have to see if work's partner status can get me some full keys.
From the Evolution Blog, Evolution 2.1.0 has been released.
This is a development release that will eventually go along with Gnome 2.10.
Guess it's time to start building snapshots again.
Another program I started playing with some this weekend is NetworkManager. It's a program to automagically figure out where to connect and try and be smart about it.
The best part about this program is what it will be able to do in the future. It is built on top of DBUS and HAL. This means that once applications get smarter, it will be able to do things like send a signal that it is going to change networks, have all your applications go offline, then when it is back up, send another signal and have all your applications come back up.
The only problem with this right now is that it seems like the IPW2100 driver doesn't seem to give the correct information on signal, so I can't tell what the signal is like on any of these connections. Doesn't matter much for my home connection, but would be nice when I was out in the "wild".
I'm not sure if its Gnome 2.8 or the Updated X.org server, but I'm definitely notcing a speed increase while using FC Development.
First thing I noticed. Yum (the update mechanism for FC) is TOTALLY hosed. They have upgraded to a version which is not backwards compatible and noone seems to support it yet, not even the original FC2 repository. Not good, not good at all.
So, I spent much of the day yesterday upgrading my machine to Fedora Development branch (it has Gnome 2.8). Over the next couple of days, I'm going to start documenting issues I have been encountering, etc. I'll try and put some highlights out there too :)
While I'm talking Linux. I noticed this morning that Nat mentioned he now has an OpenCarpet repository on his site. Well, I checked yet again to see if Ximian, errr, Novell had yet to release Red Carpet for Fedora Core 2. And lookie here, they actually have! I used to check on this on a regular basis and it was never there. Great to see it finally got out there. Anyone know when it was actually introduced?
Update: Sadly, adding Nat's channel says cannot determine distribution :( Being he is a Novell guy, I guess it's SuSE specific.
Anyone out there made Gnome 2.8 RPMs for Fedora Core 2 yet? Seems like Rawhide is still at 2.7 and I really would like to be updating. If anyone knows of any, please let me know. Danke.
From the Evolution blog, Novell announced today Connector for Exchange is now GPL'ed.
This is great. Between this and Groupwise support, Evolution can pretty much connect to anything with the 2.0 release.
Now, I need GW for Linux, so I can start testing it on my company's hardware and see if we might be able to use it in-house.
Gotta love security updates like these
Overview A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a computer running Windows and gain complete control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.
Yet another reason to run Linux.
BBC NEWS | Technology | PCs 'infested' with spy programs
Article says the Earthlink is seeing an average of 28 spyware programs per PC. That's UGLY. And you were wondering why your PC was running so slow and money was slowing draining from your bank account (they have found tons of malicious spyware).
[via BoingBoing]
Network World Fusion has an article entitled Windows Media on Linux and Unix? It says someone is about to come out with a player that will allow Windows Media to be played on Linux and Solaris. So what? I've been doing this for a LONG time using MPlayer. And now with MPlayer Plug-In, it works right in my browser too. Windows Media and Quicktime work no problem.
And even before all of this, I used Codeweavers' Crossover Plugin without a hitch to play Windows Media and Quicktime.
Update: Jason notices and responds to this post. Very disconcerting seeing your own name in your aggregator when you aren't expecting it.
I've been runnign development snapshots for the last few weeks. Good stuff. Still learning about some of it. Runs real nice.
Now just waiting for Ximian Evolution 2.0 to come out. It was originally scheduled for a Gnome 2.6 release, but got pulled. I'm running snapshots which are slowly getting there. I have to throw huge props to the Ximian developers. They have been a huge help with some problems I have been having over the last week or so. It definitely is the best part of open source. You can go find the developers in a chat room and get your bugs fixed quick.
You have to love it when things just work. I have been burning CDs for a while on my laptop, but usually they are music CDs, so I have scripts to do a lot of the work for me. Well, I finally needed to transfer some data to another computer, so I decide to try out nautilus-cd-burner, which is part of the Nautilus File Manager in Gnome.
I was rather worried as it didn't seem to let me set where my recorder was or anything. So, I dragged some files in to the burn window and hit burn cd. Well, it popped up asking me where I wanted to burn, with my CD burner already selected, and a bunch more options. I changed the options to my liking and told it to go. Well, it just worked. Files safely burned to disk and then read on the other machine. Very very nice.
This article is hilarious!
The first funny bit:
IBM made a serious mistake in introducing Unix code into Linux without proper notification to—or approval from—SCO, which is the current, documented owner of Unix.
Two errors in this statement. First, Novell claims SCO does NOT own the copyrights that they claim to own. Second, IBM has said they put no copyrighted code in Linux. Until EITHER of these is decided in courts, these statements can not be made.
Funny bit two:
Efforts to position this as a war between SCO and open source—or as having anything to do with Microsoft—are simply misdirection.
According to the letter in Halloween 10, Microsoft has plenty of money involved in this fight. Even if it turns out to be untrue or confusion on the part of a consultant, as has been claimed, you can't say definitively today that MS is not involved.
Next up:
In a period when executives who misuse their authority are punished to extremes, the more likely cause of this problem is the apparent attempt to cover up an ill-advised decision by an IBM executive that unnecessarily exposed IBM and Linux.
Again, there is no proof at this point that IBM did anything wrong. It is quite possible that some of the disputed code was put in by Caldera employees. And, if you want to talk about abuse and misuse of power by people in high ranking positions, what about Darl McBride's attempts to make his company money by suing everyone around him. The constant press releases about various lawsuits, press releases attacking Linux (usually containing lots of incorrect information), etc are not also misuse of power?
Next bit:
# If SCO has no evidence and is in the wrong, why is the company being so viciously attacked?
For exactly that reason. They are spreading much fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about Linux. This is hurting many more companies than just IBM. It also hurts all the people who have spent time over the past 10+ years working on the Linux kernel. If SCO filed a lawsuit, produced proof and showed that they are correct, people would be much more interested in listening. When the attacks by SCO are against a whole community without proof, the people who spent time working in this community tend to become very unhappy. Yes, there are some juvenille people in the Linux community who do stupid stuff, like writing viruses and the like, but many very smart people are talking out agsinst this in a clear manner.
On to ownership:
Unix—which forms the core of AIX, Solaris, Digital Unix, BSD and HP-UX as the major variants—was originally owned by AT&T, which licensed it to others. The ownership rights passed through various paths to Santa Cruz Operations. Santa Cruz Operations then sold the rights to Caldera, along with the company's shortened name of "SCO." Caldera is now known as SCO. Every one of the Unix licensees knew of the transfers. There were no known, timely challenges to the related ownership transfers. Through this period, IBM, among others, maintained through documentation its responsibilities under its licenses with various Unix owners, including SCO.
Again, this is being challenged by Novell. They claim they did not grant all rights to Unix to SCO.
This is great:
Firms like Entrust and NTP are designed for litigation and are run by attorneys and intellectual property experts. SCO is not. Rather, despite accusations otherwise, SCO remains, first and foremost, a software company.
SCO has become a litigation company, nothing more. When was the last time you heard Darl and crew talk about their latest release of software or something similar?
The entire section of the article entitled "IBM executive error: Linux and IBM legal likely out of decision loop" is somewhat amusing as well. First off, where is the proof that any Unix code is in Linux? There is none to date. Second, if IBM's legal team is so strict, how did this happen? Well, likely, it didn't. The author is making large leaps of faith here in believing that SCO is correct in all its claims. Any code that SCO has shown to the public to date, that they say proves their complaint, has been code that has already been released to the public domain. So, I would love to know what code the author has seen for him to be able to so quickly take the stance that SCO is right.
Oh man, this guy is reaching now
SCO did, however, have to develop a unique strategy due to the unique nature of the Linux license and community. This uniqueness allowed IBM to position the Linux community against SCO and distance itself somewhat from the less-agreeable parts of the war and, hopefully, conceal the connection between the IBM decision maker and the resulting problem. These moves were incredibly well-orchestrated and apparently included donated equipment for sites like Groklaw. This unprecedented effort by IBM supports the position that IBM actually knows it misacted and is at extreme risk. No other explanation fits this massive and unique effort to destroy a vastly smaller firm.
IBM did not position the Linux community in any way. The community has always been against any smear campaigns. Think about when MS put out the web server comparison a few years back that said IIS was faster than Apache on Linux. It very quickly came to the front that MS has paid for the research to be done. Also, the community spent much time doing their own comparisons and getting actualy results.
The Groklaw piece is just plain HILARIOUS. Pamela Jones has already said these claims are 100% false. The SCO spin doctors took some completely unrelated bits and put them together to make it seem like this was true.
On buying SCO:
So why doesn't IBM simply buy its way out? Because it can't. To do so would force an internal review that likely would identify both the decision maker and the career-ending mistake.
Or maybe, they don't because they are RIGHT. Why give money to the Canopy Group, SCO or the people that run these companies and justify their claims. It's like settling a claim out of court when you know you would win if it went to trial.
Could I agree??
We simply cannot afford any precedent that would encourage a group to use viruses, DOS attacks and additional illegal threats against any entity, be it a company or a government. The courts, not the streets, are the place for such a fight.
Very true. The overzealous idiots putting out viruses out, launching DOS attacks, etc are plain dumb and making the community look bad. The few bad apples should not represent the whole community.
And if we want to talk about the courts, not the streets being the place for this battle, then tell your buddies over at SCO that their press room is not the place for the fight either, its in the courts with real proof, not lots of FUD sent out through the press, to the government, etc.
And finally:
We should also not allow any company, even one as broadly loved and trusted as IBM, to misuse its power to take another company's property rights by use of force or to cover up a clear mistake. IBM's actions put the company's clients, partners, investors and virtually everyone who uses a computer at risk.Therefore, because might does not make right, because an SCO loss would open us up further to attack, and because if we don't protect SCO's property rights we weaken our own, SCO must win.
First off, IBM trusted? I'm not so sure I can agree with that. I've been on their side on this fight, but there are plenty I am against them with. Hell, my company directly competes with theirs and I point out all the problems with their equipment on an almost daily basis.
I agree, if SCO is REALLY right, yes, they should definitely win, but it seems like the author here is blindly trusting that the claims they are making are true. No proof has been put forward yet and until it is, you cannot jump to the conclusion that IBM is bad and SCO is good.
If anyone is going to be around LinuxWorld this week, stop by the Egenera booth and say hello.
I'm hoping Doc will be around and I can grab a few minutes with him. Been thinking about some stuff since reading Cluetrain and am hoping to put them in to action in the near future and would love to talk to him some about it.
Also, Nat said he will be around. Would like to meet him face to face after talking to him a bunch on irc while working on Dashboard.
I've seen a number of my show buddies already who work the booths at a lot of the shows, but still have a bunch of them to see. Hopefully will bump in to a lot of them tomorrow before the show actually starts.
Well, LinuxWorld Expo New York is next week. I'm off to New York tomorrow morning. Going to spend some time with the family on Saturday and Sunday, then head to the city on Monday. Setup is Monday and Tuesday and then the show is Wednesday through Friday.
I think this is going to be a good show. I really think 2004 is going to be THE year for Linux. Enough banks and other large institutions are using it on their servers that I think its just going to pick up even more momentum and become the operating system taht everyone uses.
I also hope to see a ton of things on desktop linux this year. Besides Ximian's Gnome Desktop, there is lots of other work to be done out there.
OpenOffice.org is the first project that comes to mind. Though a great office solution, it still needs more work. Being able to be fully compatable with other word processors is huge and will be a big win for Linux. Also, adding every feature that people use is really necessary.
Fonts are another thing that is lacking in Windows. Though the first set of Bitstream fonts are great, there need to be more. A full set of anti-aliased fonts will be great.
Desktop publishing is an area which Linux has had little penetration and could use some work. I've seen a few projects recently like Passepartout, though I haven't played much.
I've mentioned before that I would love to see a lot more music applications on Linux. Something like Apple's GarageBand on Linux would be excellent. I really want a bunch of composition software, music recording software, etc etc. I want to be a rock star and need the software to make it possible.
There are probably a ton more, but these are the things that I can think of off the top of my head right now.
GROKLAW: Intel Steps Up to the Plate -- New Legal Defense Fund For Linux Users
Good company, Intel. Though, I am confused. OSDL set up this fund? Didn't Red Hat already have a fund set up? Is Red Hat going to throw their fund in to the OSDL fund now? Or are there going to be 2 funds? Or did Red Hat kill their effort for this? I'm confused.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports in Google making effort to avoid lawsuit by SCO:
Google Inc., the world's most-used Internet search engine, has held discussions with SCO Group Inc. to avoid a possible lawsuit over the Linux operating system, SCO spokesman Blake Stowell said.
Please Google, DO NOT pay SCO. It will first off give them ammunition in their fight against IBM, which to this point seems to be a lot of FUD. Second, it will start to make other companies think about this FUD, instead of waiting to see the outcome of the trial. Third, it will give SCO more money to fight with IBM. This is just not a good idea in any way.
GROKLAW: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20031205143009441
This is the end for SCO. Thirty days and hopefully we will see a nice dismissal.
Lawrence Lessig posts on his blog an article titled More SCO fud, this time insulting the constitution.
This is a very good legal look at the latest letter from Darl McBride. Hopefully some day soon SCO will realize this is dead in the water and cut it out.
I posted a few weeks ago about which linux to run now that Red Hat has dropped their desktop versions. Well, there is an article over at Newsforge about the experiences of one user moving from RH to Mandrake. Sounds like it all went pretty smooth.
I glanced through the comments and there were a number of good suggestions in there as well, so if you are interested, I would make sure to take a look at those as well.
So, I was just switching disks on my first install of Fedora and I noticed the last package it said it had installed. It was Tux Racer. Normally, this would not bother me, its a neat little game. But, I had selected the Workstation install, not the Personal Computer install. Why in the world would someone who was using the machine as a workstation need a game like Tux Racer? Just annoying to me that Red Hat continues to bloat default installs especially for something like a workstation. For a workstation, I need office applications, not games.
So, I have one problem so far in using Gentoo Linux. There are certain applications that I want to use bleeding edge software. Things like my new aggregator and my IM client. I pay attention to the development, so using the latest stuff is important. Well, in Gentoo, the way to do this is to tell it to accept packages which aren't yet in the general distribution. Well, since I only want to do this for certain packages brings my problem out.
Normally, to update my system, I would do something like:
emerge sync
emerge -uvDp world (to see what's updated)
emerge -uvD world (to actually update everything)
Well, if you have packages which are still unsupported, trying to do this tries to force downgrades. I feel that it should be smart enough to see that the packages I have installed are newer (which it actually does), but to just ignore them unless there are newer packages instead of trying to downgrade them.
Is there a way to do this that I am missing? I know if I just accepted ALL packages that are in development, I could just add an ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" to my make.conf, but since I only want it for some packages, I don't know if there is a way.
Just a minor problem, but an annoyance, as it makes updating much more difficult.
Open Source Development Labs has released a new position paper on SCO. From the press release:
In his paper, Professor Moglen makes two main points:
- SCO Group last August showed two examples of what it claimed were infringing literal copies of UNIX software code to Linux, but the demonstration backfired, showing instead SCO's cavalier attitude toward copyright law and its even greater sloppiness at factual research, Moglen argues.
- SCO Group has argued that the GPL software license offers the firmlegal protections while at the same time it argues that the GPL is not valid. SCO's legal situation contains an inherent contradiction, Moglen says.
redhat.com | Which Red Hat Linux is Right For You?
A chart from Redhat on which version you should be running. Unless you are an enterprise customer, you probably want to use Fedora.
The thing is, Fedora seems to be going completely bleeding edge, much like what Rawhide used to be. So, what is the correct free distro for newbies these days?
Debian, from what I understand, since I have not used it a ton is much more developer oriented. Gentoo stays kind of bleeding edge and the whole concept of having to re-compile each package would scare most newbies away. SUSE seems to be up in the air right now with the Novell purchase. So, is Mandrake the way to go for newbies? I'm not really sure and would like to hear what other people have to say.
Novell Announces Agreement to Acquire Leading Enterprise Linux Technology Company SUSE LINUX
When Novell bought Ximian a few months ago, I felt it was at least a good move from Ximian. I felt some extra financial backing would help them out. I also saw that Novell could possibly make this a good investment by making themselves some extra cash.
Also, I think that if Novell did things well, they would put out an amazing version of Netware on Linux with some kickass GUI tools (from the Ximian folks). A strong directory service that was cross platform to Windows and Linux would be a plus for both, plus it does damage to Microsoft by pushing away things like Active Directory, which is Windows specific (well, unless you include a Samba and Kerberos hack).
So, Novell buying SUSE could be a good thing. It means deeper integration of Ximian, SUSE and Novell. It means the same system across the whole enterprise. The problem, it means deeper integration and the same system across the whole enterprise. Does this mean both Ximian's and Novell's products are now going to cater to ONLY the new Novell Linux? That worries me.
The biggest reason it worries me? If I can't get Ximian Desktop working on my linux dist, I am going to be very annoyed. I really dig Ximian, have used Evolution forever (I started using Evolution in late 2000) and would be really unhappy if I was forced to use Novell Linux to run it.
The second reason it worries me is Novell almost seems to be making the Netware mistake again. If they pigeonhole their customers and potential customers in to a single system (like Netware is these days) it would be a very bad thing and they would lose potential customers. If an enterprise is already standardized on something like Red Hat, they aren't going to want to run different system just for their directory services.
So, we'll see what happens. Hopefully they will be smart about all this and it will help propel Novell and Linux forward.
A while back, I heard about Dashboard. It's a program to associate information from many different programs and join it all together. It seemed really neat at the time, but I didn't have the time to dig in to it much.
Recently I started thinking about it again and took a look and see that nothing has been done on the project in over 3 months. This sucks. This seemed like it would be a great program to help out organizing information and using it in new ways.
The biggest obstacle to overcome when I originally looked at this project was the lack of projects supporting it. Many required patches or CVS releases with patches. Not fun to try and rebuild a all sorts of applications just to support one product.
I was really hoping in the few months that I wasn't paying attention to this product that some of that work would have been fully integrated in to applications and maybe even some support from more applications.
Well, hopefully Nat & crew will pick up work on this again some time soon. Maybe I will even drop him an e-mail and see what the status is.
Version 0.20 of Straw, the GNOME 2 desktop news aggregator has been released. This is the aggregator I use on a daily basis and very much like. I've helped out pretty extensively on QA / bug work on this project, so its great to see a new and improved version. Hopefully, I am actually going to try and contribute some code to this thing very soon. Python is on the top of my list of things to learn right now and have been slowly trying to learn this code. So, go grab the new version and hopefully soon it will contain some code of mine.
If you are in Europe and running Windows, you should grab The IDA Open Source Migration Guidelines.
SCO fined $10,800 for Linux claims
Yay! Can they get fined this much each day for being pains in the ass with their claims?
So, this morning I decided to do some searching on the Net for TiVo Home Media Service for Linux. I figured I should be at least able to find something. Initially I found a page which looked promising, but after looking around some, I saw no work had been done for more than 4 months and that the initial files were never fully realeased. I e-mailed the author and moved on.
Next, I decided to check SourceForge and I found a number of things on TiVo. The one that best fit what I was looking for was byRequest TiVo HMO Server. I compiled it, set up the configuration file and let it go. And now I am able to play the TONs of MP3s I have on my laptop on my TiVo. Now, this doesn't sound all that amazing, BUT, my TiVo is hooked up to my home theater system, which means I can now play anything I have on MP3 on the Home Theater system. Now, that is sweet.
So, anyone else looking to get this working should definitely check out this project.
SGI's letter to the Linux Community:
SCO's references to XFS are completely misplaced. XFS is an innovative SGI- created work. It is not a derivative work of System V in any sense, and SGI has full rights to license it to whomever we choose and to contribute it to open source. It may be that SCO is taking the position that merely because XFS is also distributed along with IRIX it is somehow subject to the System V license. But if so, this is an absurd position, with no basis either in the license or in common sense. In fact, our UNIX license clearly provides that SGI retains ownership and all rights as to all code that was not part of AT&Ts UNIX System V.
That's my favorite part. Even more peopel calling SCO absurd. :)
SAMBA 3.0 has been released. Biggest new feature is compatability with Active Directory. I need to set up some Samba shares at home, so I can mount them with both Linux and Windows (well, I guess others can mount them with Windows, since I don't have any Windows machines). Will have to look in to this some more. Maybe I can get some single sign-on / centralized authentication stuff going here.
Having all sorts of trouble getting my system to do WEP.
I downloaded Linux-Wlan and compiled and installed it and the prism2 driver seems to work well with my WPC11 with an unencrypted line. The problem is trying to figure out some of the cryptic settings in the configuration file to enable WEP and then what needs to match between it and my WAP.
My WAP is a Linksys BEFW11S4, which is basically just the Wireless-B Broadband Router. I think I sort of understand how to get the WEP set up on there.
I try and get the two working together and they just don't seem to want to talk.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Yahoo! News - Bill Gates Gives $51 Million to New York Schools
Sweet! Now the schools should have plenty of money to buy cheap PCs to put Linux on! ;) (yes, I am a wise ass)
Geeks on Bikes: The SCO Group/Caldera Product Development Plan:
To my fellow folk in the Linux community, you need not fear. I specifically asked if, in making that broad a statement about UNIX, The SCO Group was making any legal claim to Linux. According to McBride, "obviously Linux owes its heritage to UNIX, but not its code. We would not, nor will not, make such a claim."
Now that is amsuing.
Can someone please explain to me how the hell SCO's stock can up $2.22 when just about everyone has shown why their "proof" is a bunch of BS?
Nice! One of my favorite coding projects now has a blog. One LITTLE TINY problem. They only have a partial feed. I vow to make it my mission to beg and plead until they put a full one in.
Update: A quick message to the mailing list and it's fixed! Woo! Thanks guys!
A good article which seems to take a very good point by point look at the issues facing users of Linux. Somewhat pro-Linux, but not terribly. Tries to be rather factual, thought out and calm, unlike SCO's press releases or the Linux zealots, etc. A good read for anyone looking at how this issue might affect their business.
(oh, yeah, the conclusion is basically you need not buy a license from SCO right now)
SCO not exactly the lovable little guy
An article from The Salt Lake Tribune (which I guess could be considered a local paper to the SCO folks). Talks against SCO pretty hard in the article. One thing that annoyed me? Fact checking. The article says that SCO is seeking $1 billion from IBM, no, that was upped to $3 billion a while back.
A trade show that no one shows up to?
at Linuxworld? All the Red Hat folks are wearing buttons that say "Prove It". Bahahahhaha.
when Maddog goes walking by and you don't even think twice about it.
Novell Acquires Ximian to Expand Linux Solutions and Open Source Commitment
Does this mean I have to say I run Novell Desktop 2 now?
Red Hat files suit against SCO | CNET News.com
I guess I will have to walk over to their booth and say thanks.
InfoWorld: SCO readies new Linux licensing program
This is just HILARIOUS. I mean, first off, doesn't selling a license for linux violate the GPL? Second of all, no one is going to buy a license for the FREE kernel. SCO has gone about this is such a bad way, its just a freakin PR scam at this point. IBM should just buy them and then fire everyone involved.
SCO vs IBM Wiki: Great source for all information about the case.
This is the dumbest thing I have seen Gartner do in a while.
Ximian is set to release an updated version of their Linux desktop next week. Saw numerous articles on it and it sounds like it will be real nice. I am suprised that they did not do a beta period publically (like they do with Evolution). I hope they had a very good test team whomever they were, because I know I have found TONS of bugs in Evolution, especially the kind you only get by letting real life users use the product rather than just letting a select group of developers use it.
Being that I was a software developer for a lfew years (and still play one from time to time), I know the many strange things that users can do. As the saying goes, you make the software idiot proof and they go and make bigger idiots. If this is something that is supposed to be aimed at the Windows users of today, well, there is definitely a large base of idiots out there.
From this article:
"Now Microsoft has stepped in and licensed the source code and patents associated with the Unix operating system from SCO. The stated purpose is to ensure that Microsoft's software complies with SCO's intellectual-property rights and that it can ensure compatibility with Unix software."
The part about complying with SCO's IP strikes an interesting chord with me. Are they doing this because MS stole code from Linux?
That's my conspiracy theory for the day.
An open letter from Matthew Szulik
To me, this basically says, hey SCO, fuck off. Now come and get us.
Microsoft to license Unix code
This is just plain not good. This is going to make this battle much uglier. And the worst part is WHY they did it. According to the article:
"Late Sunday, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said acquiring the license from SCO "is representative of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to respecting intellectual property and the IT community's healthy exchange of IP through licensing. This helps to ensure IP compliance across Microsoft solutions and supports our efforts around existing products like services for Unix that further Unix interoperability.""
So, no, its not for the technology or anything else, its to help SCO battle with Linux. That's just plain nasty. IBM should just buy them and put an end to the whole thing. Hell, open source all of Unix :)
Can someone please tell SCO to stop trying to get publicity and just let this go? This is going to cause them nothing but trouble, especially if companies like IBM, Red Hat, SuSe, etc ban together and sue SCO for slander or something along those lines?
So, I noticed new packages are out for apache on RH 6.2 -> 8.0. So, I say, I should update. Best way to do this is to just run up2date (since I am reg'ed on RHN). I am SSH'ed in to my box, so I run the following command:
up2date-nox -u apache apache-devel
And I get the following error:
X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication.
Gdk-ERROR **: X connection to localhost:10.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
Umm, shouldn't the -nox on the command mean NO X11 CONNECTION?!?!?! Does on any other application with that notation. Argh. Fuckin idiots. Now I either have to wait for this to show up in Red Carpet or else wait to get to the box, log in to X (which isn't even running on the system anymore) and run the damned thing in X. I know I have run up2date as a non-X application before, so what the hell is up with this?!?!
Update: It looks as if the up2date-gnome package installs some stuff in /usr/bin which then means the up2date binary in /usr/sbin doesn't get run. Seemingly the package is still broken because the -nox package should work fine, but the solution for now is to run /usr/sbin/up2date. And of course, the apache and apache-devel packages don't seem to EXIST at the moment. Argh.
In NYC, ready for bed, a quick start. Booth all set up. Up way too late trying to make sure all is well. At the Marriot Marquis. Sleep now, hopefully lots more tomorrow when the show is actually open.
Well, I am pretty much packed up. Just have a few things to grab in the morning. I'm heading down to Mom's in the morning for the weekend and then in to NYC for LinuxWorld. Booth setup Monday and Tuesday and then the show floor is open Wednesday through Friday. Hopefully it will be a good time. I am hoping that they will have WiFi access through the trade show floor and I will be able to blog it some. I have my camera packed up too, so you never know what you are going to see if I get some WiFi. Well, off to get some rest before I have to get up and drive all day. Bye bye!
So, yesterday, when I plugged in to my docking station, I came out at 800x600. The sucked. I ran Xconfigurator and put it up to something like 1300 or something by something. It looked like CRAP. I quickly jumped on irc and asked how I could set up anti-aliasing, whcih I thought was the problem. I also re-ran Xconfigurator and put the resolution all the way up to 1600x1200. After doing these two things, X/Gnome2 looks AWESOME. I'm psyched. I even have 1024x768 or something on the regular laptop screen. The best part of the whole thing is that now the web looks awesome. With some new fonts and the anti-aliasing stuff all done, everything on the web comes out exactly like it is supposed to. Very nice stuff. Nice to finally see what some web sites I previously thought looked like crap now look pretty nice :)
