Linux in the news

• Builder.com's Frederic Paul has a set of predictions for 1999. Number 4 has to do with Linux and open source software. "This is the year we see a new open source killer app that runs only on Linux. Microsoft will scramble to re-create it for Windows, but whatever this application turns out to be, it will give open source devotees even more encouragement."

• Tech Capital has a long feature article about Linux and the businesses surrounding it. It talks about, among others, Red Hat, Corel, Applix, and Linux Hardware Solutions. "At a trade show like Comdex, attendees interested in a particular company swipe their name badges through a reader to request follow-up information. At the 1996 show, LHS got 40 swipes, 60 in 1997, and some 1,500 in 1998." (Found in Linux Reviews).

• A worthwhile read is Nicholas Petreley's lengthy LinuxWorld column on why he thinks Linux could lose a lot of its application support if the Microsoft trial goes the wrong way.

• Here is an interesting New York Times column asking a number of lawyers what they expect to see happen in "cyberlaw" this year. The predictions are worth reading. Most relevant here is this one, regarding the Microsoft trial: "The right answer is to make slight compulsory licensing changes to allow the volunteer programmers all over the world who write the free GNU/Linux operating system to release code freely that would make GNU/Linux run Windows applications programs. That way anyone who now uses Windows-based programs of any kind could run those programs either under Windows or under a much more technically sophisticated but completely free alternative operating system." (Thanks to John Franks). (Note that the New York Times is a registration-required site. As usual, "cypherpunks" as username and password will get you in if you do not wish to register).

• Here is an extremely positive review of the GTK+ toolkit in "PCHelp." "The API used by GTK+ is one of the best that I have ever used." (Thanks to Joshua Go).

Once again, the press this week was dominated by articles of the "retrospectives and predictions" variety. Here's a selection:

• This PC Week column on New Year's resolutions has a rather lukewarm sort of endorsement. "You owe it to yourself to seek as many alternatives as possible. You don't like Windows? Try something else. If that means learning Linux and having your PC be idle for months while you figure how to mount the hard drive, then so be it."

• ComputerWorld ran this retrospective. "Indeed, 1998 'could probably be called the year of Linux. It became a market force to be dealt with,' says George Weiss, an analyst at Gartner Group Inc. in Stamford, Conn."

• Dan Gillmor has come out with a set of highly optimistic predictions for 1999. "Eighth: A revolution called ``open source'' will become much more popular in large enterprises and in the consumer market.... IBM and other major companies will offer soup-to-nuts open-source support to their big corporate information-systems customers, who will increasingly realize that it's at least as good as the commercial competition."

• A prediction from InfoWorld: "Linux will become just another Unix. The Internet lost its charm when big business discovered it. The same will happen with Linux. Linux will wipe out SCO and Unixware and gain ground against NT, but will lose its soul in the process."

• Yet another retrospective: this one from the Boston Globe's Hiawatha Bray. "Once in a while, I hit the bull's-eye. Back in February, I began singing the praises of the free Linux operating system as an alternative to Microsoft Windows. I even suggested that embattled browser-maker Netscape Communications Corp. do a deal with a Linux distributor to hit Microsoft where it hurts. From my keyboard to Jim Barksdale's brain."

• Here's a Raleigh News-Observer retrospective which mentions Red Hat as a local business. "Red Hat and its Linux brethren are supposed to play David to Microsoft's Goliath, breaking the giant's grip on software that runs PCs. Microsoft executives and techies are quaking in their T-shirts. Really, they are."

• This 1999 "look forward" in CNN (seemingly reprinted from InfoWorld) puts Linux in its number 1 spot. "Look for Linux to get support from chief information officers across IT organizations."

• Here's an MSNBC retrospective with numerous mentions of Linux. "Linux and the open source movement is the big story. It's not that Linux was new, but it became the most famous story of the year. Every major hardware vendor, like Sun and Apple, has supported it. Nobody wants to lose a hardware sale because their hardware doesn't support Linux."

• There's a brief mention in news.com's 1998 retrospective; "open source" is number 8 on their list of interesting happenings. "In 1999, look for Linux to gain more usage among corporate America's 'mission critical' servers."

  Another brief mention is in this Information Week look forward. "Linux, the freeware operating system, will become a more viable option for enterprise deployment this year."

• Another retrospective, this one from net.Opinion. Linux wins as a server, but the author is undecided about Linux on the desktop. "The Linux community's unwillingness to unify behind KDE -- a killer GUI for Linux that is easily equal to Windows or the Mac OS -- is also keeping this sector from moving forward." (Thanks to Paolo Amoroso).

• Here's Salon's retrospective for 1998. "Why did it spread so fast? First, people are passionate about open source -- it's just more fun to be part of a world in which people are encouraged to share and cooperate. Second, the evidence keeps mounting that the open-source development model actually produces better code." (The article will shift out from under this link at some point; we'll try to catch that and fix it when it happens). (Thanks to Robert Graziani).

• CBS News has a 1998 retrospective that briefly mentions Linux; they seem to think Linux was invented by Red Hat, though.

• This ABC News column says that "Many analysts are predicting that 1999 could be the year that competition returns to the operating-systems market." They see most of the competition coming from Apple, but Linux also gets a mention.

• Red Hat's Bob Young is one of the Triangle Business Journal's top newsmakers of 1998 (scroll to the end). "In February, Red Hat will move more than 130 employees into more than 60,000 square feet of office space. It's now the area's most famous start-up. As Young and Szulik note, Red Hat now faces the task of living up to its huge national stature."

• A brief mention in this CBS Marketwatch "Serious Scores 1998" column. "NouveauGeek writer Rebecca Eisenberg: 'I would say that the biggest surprise victory of the year was the fast ascent towards credibility of the free operating system Linux...'"

We had the usual assortment of introductory articles:

• Business Week has an introductory article about open source software. "Linux makes the strongest case for the somewhat improbable claim that the army of volunteers that updates and maintains it can produce better software than Microsoft's well-paid minions." (Thanks to Ramana Juvvadi).

• Jon Hall's Penguin's brew column for February (in Performance Computing) is up. As with the first one, it's of a highly introductory nature, talking about Linux documentation.

• The New York Times has run this positive article about open source software. "Once widely denigrated by commercial developers as chaotic programming by committee, open source is now expected to come into its own this year as a business model, with potentially far-reaching consequences for developers and consumers of computer software." (The New York Times is a registration-required site). (Thanks to Donald Braman).

• The L. A. Times has an article about open source software, the threat it poses to Microsoft, etc. "Microsoft faced an unexpectedly tough opponent in 1998 in the form of the U.S. Department of Justice, but in 1999 the software giant is likely to contend with an even more potent force: the free-software movement..." (This article also appeared in the (Canadian) Financial Post).

Business-oriented articles:

• Here's an article in Salon about Transvirtual and Kaffe (their open source Java virtual machine). Transvirtual's business model is a centerpiece of the article.

• Multimédium has an article (in French) about some folks who are building a video recorder which records onto disk in MPEG2 format - and which is powered by Linux. More details (still in French) can be found in this VNU Newswire article. For folks wanting to read in English via Babelfish, here's the links for Multimédium and VNU Newswire. (Found in NNL).

• Network World Fusion's Linux vs. NT faceoff is still going on, with a continued series of posts in their discussion area. (Registration required).

• Here's a lightweight article in Information Week about the future of Linux. "Such conditions could be ripe for Linux to grab enough seats in IT shops to move out of its niche role and score that once-in-a-lifetime hole in one."

• The Puget Sound Business Journal has an article about the Internet and business which includes Linux in its survey. They suggest Microsoft may offer a low-cost "embedded NT" product as competition.

• Here's some mild support FUD from news.com. The subject is databases, and how support may be harder to obtain than the database itself. "[Giga Analyst] Sun adds that even if database software and application makers offer a full range of support options on Linux, getting answers to technical problems with Linux itself can be a problem." (Found in Slashdot).

• Is the Linux desktop DOA? asks PC Week. "According to International Data Corp.'s preliminary 1998 numbers, Linux captured only 2.5 percent of the worldwide desktop market, positioning itself between the Macintosh and IBM's OS/2 in the OS pecking order. Compared to Microsoft Windows' 86 percent market share, it isn't much to base a business on." (Thanks to Richard Storey).

• As a sign of the times we now live in, here is the entire brief mention of Linux in this PC Week article about the new Silicon Graphics NT box: "The ease with which the new SGI boxes will run Linux is a question many resellers would like answered. While SGI has worked with Microsoft on the new systems, in 1997 the company began working with the open source community on a Linux port."

• Sm@rt Reseller talks of The Cathedral, the Bazaar, and the Reseller. "By focusing on service, on exploiting our technical expertise, resellers can do more than make profit, they can grow rich from installing and running open source software." They also hint that they will be reporting more on open source in the future.

• Computer Reseller News ran an interview with Silicon Graphics' Rick Belluzzo. The last question has to do with Linux. "Linux is increasingly important. I can't go on a customer visit without somebody asking about Linux. Basically, people want the robustness of Unix, but they want a more vendor approach to it. We will look at it, and I believe we will have some announcements about that in the future." (Found in LinuxToday).

• This article in Sm@rt Reseller talks about how great Cisco routers are. But then: "I'm going to let you in on a dirty, little open secret about Cisco routers. There's nothing in them that the PC on your desk does not already have in it. You can buy a half dozen Pentium IIs and rig them up as routers, using Linux or BSDI, for about the price of one Cisco 4700." Great stuff. (Thanks to Richard Fane).

• Our previous issue mentioned this PC Week article which suggested that Beowulf clusters may force changes in U. S. export laws. This week they ran a letter to the editor from Jonathan Day explaining why he thinks any such move would be useless.

• This article in the Australian "I.T." is about GNOME, Rasterman, and the Enlightenment window manager. "Enlightenment now looks set to become the default graphical user interface for upcoming distributions of Red Hat Linux." (Thanks to Hao He).

• Performance Computing's "Unix Riot" contemplates the pronunciation of "Linux," Apache's increasing market share, WordPerfect, and so on. (Thanks to Alberto Schiavon).

• Here is a positive introductory article (in German) in Der Spiegel. It gives special attention to KDE, among other things. (The Babelfish translation is available but is tough going). (Thanks to Thomas Jaeger).

• There is a pair of articles (in French) in Libération. One talks of Netscape and its "Gecko" release; the other is an interview with Richard Stallman. The articles may also be read in English via Babelfish. (Thanks to Gael Duval).

• The Australian APC Magazine considers the future of Linux in the context of previous disappointments like Java and network computers. "If Linux has one advantage over these previous pretenders to the throne of IT supremacy, it's that it grew a significant user base before the hype began." (Found in LinuxToday).

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