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LXer Feature: 25-Apr-06

This article is a response to "Microsoft Is Playing A Dangerous Game... One Which Linux Could Lose", which appeared on LXer a few days ago.
In his article, Ken Starks argues Linux could lose because of the anti-Linux tactics of Microsoft, including Port25 and DRM-technology. While Ken and I are both lobbying for Linux, and I think the same about DRM, I don't agree that Linux will lose. I feel obliged to inform US citizens about a bigger danger: The US as a country will lose because of Microsoft tactics, and not Linux. Most important, they will lose because of DRM.

The best things in life aren’t free, but you can get some great software without spending a dime if you have an Internet connection and know where to look.

WANSync Version 4.0 Features Significant Enhancements to the Management Module to Drive Simplicity and Automation, as well as Enhanced Support For New Platforms and Applications

Engineering and risk management consultancy ESR Technology has migrated to open source software in a bid to reduce its own exposure to risk.

A number of excellent questions arose out of the discussion following my recent post which attempted to demystify open source software and provide something of a definition for this intriguing commercial model. Thanks for your contributions and comments - I appreciate the feedback.

[Response to reader feedback, apparently from the first article. At a glance, it seems like the author knows less than the readers. To be fair, it does take a while to actually grasp the implications of FOSS licensing. - dcparris]

The previously rosy relationship between Oracle Corp and Red Hat Inc appears to have soured following Red Hat's acquisition of JBoss Inc and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's suggestion that his company could move into the Linux business.

The State of Sender Pay: While GoodMail struggles to keep AOL and Yahoo on the Sender Pay farm, Google issues an unequivocal refusal to take money for bypassing GMail filters. Still, Return Path thinks there's a buck to be made with a broken-down fixer-upper like Bonded Sender. Email Battles takes a stab at making sense of the whole mess.

Two significant upgrades are coming to Solaris this year, but Linux remains a fearsome rival.

Linspire will soon offer FarStone Technology's "personal disaster recovery" software via the Linspire Linux "Click and Run" (CNR) repository. RestoreIT allows users to restore lost data or an entire system that has been damaged due to computer errors or other common mishaps, according to FarStone.

On the heels of open source databases come business-intelligence tools, with smaller companies betting on open source practices to crack into that corner of the software market.

Freespire Community Project to Offer Unique Mix of Both Proprietary and Open Source Options in Free Linux Operating System

HELSINKI, Finland and WELLESLEY, Mass., April 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SSH Communications Security Corp. (HEX: SSH1V), a world-leading provider of enterprise security solutions and end-to-end communications security, and the original developer of the Secure Shell protocol, today announced that the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, has selected SSH Tectia(TM) to ensure secure system administration and to enable secure file transfers.

A newly published online article explains how to customize a bootable Knoppix Linux disk to be used as an emergency substitute in the event of a regular Linux or Windows meltdown.

Developers Patrick Luby and Edward Peterlin released NeoOffice 1.2, a port of OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 to Mac OS X, in early February. I decided to kick the tires a bit and see how well it performs. NeoOffice isn't perfect, but it's a great alternative for Mac users who don't want to shell out big bucks for Microsoft Office, and want a suite that's more full-featured than Apple's iWork.

Maandag 24 april 2006, 10:12 - A Mission Viejo, California, security researcher has posted code that exploits a number of newly discovered and unpatched bugs in the Mac OS X platform.

[The article is in English, but the rest of the site is Dutch. Here's to our Duth readership! - dcparris]

As more and more people use Linux, the number of malicious threats against it grows as well, on Friday Kaspersky Labs released the results of its database analysis for 2005, and has reported that the number of malware targeting Linux has doubled to 863 pieces compared with 422 in 2004. Windows had over 11,000 in the last of 2005 alone. But an interesting note in the article said to watch Apple as the biggest alternate target to Windows.

[So what does this bring the total number of malicious Linux threats to - 20? Compared to 11k for Windows in the last 6 months of 2005, I'll take my chances with GNU/Linux. - dcparris]

We all know and love Squid, the versatile HTTP caching proxy. Squid conserves bandwidth, speeds up Web surfing, and comes with all kinds of controls to rein in unruly users: bandwidth throttling, domain filtering, and user access controls, to name a few. But no matter how skillfully you configure your Squid server, it's easy to bypass it. All your users have to do is delete the references to it in their Web browser configurations. If all you're doing with Squid is caching, this makes no sense, but then some folks just like to get away with stuff. If you're using Squid for filtering, bandwidth control or any other restrictions, you will certainly have a rebel underground to deal with. Unless you set up Squid as a transparent proxy, that is.

rPath, a company recently launched by leading ex-RedHat engineers Erik Troan and Billy Marshall, has outlined a strategy in which developers can use the company's rBuilder to combine an application with a tailored version of rPath Linux.

KAM Industries has locked horns with the Java Model Railroad Interface (JMRI) open source software project over alleged patent violations.

Big news for Lego Mindstorms fans: the next generation of Mindstorms, NXT, will be open sourced.