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Legislation and More Legislation
EU IP Enforcement
The EFF has reported on a recent vote in the European Parliament, adopting the Directive on Intellectual Property Enforcement. This gives rights holders new tools with which to attack intellectual property infringers. The proposals make little distinction between unintentional, non-commercial infringement by consumers, as opposed to the for-profit quasi-industrial infringement practised by professional pirates.
European Microsoft Case
As reported by The Register The European Commission has found that Microsoft has abused its position as a monopoly in the market. The findings centered on Microsoft's use of its dominant position in the OS sector to acquire market share in associated products (e.g. media player).
The remedies imposed include requiring the disclosure of interface documentation to allow non-Microsoft work group servers to inter-operate with Windows systems. This information must be updated as products change, and Microsoft will be entitled to remuneration "To the extent that any of this interface information might be protected by intellectual property in the European Economic Area". Microsoft will also have to offer to PC manufacturers a version of Windows without Windows Media Player. A fine was also imposed.
Though some, such as Sun Microsystems, have strongly welcomed the ruling, others are more sceptical about its potential to change matters. Indeed, the licensing of APIs may offer a welcome new revenue stream to the Redmond company.
Linux Links
Concerns about European patents
LinuxDevices.com's Embedded Linux Market Survey
How Not To sell Linux Products
LXer (pronounced Elexer) is a newish (January) Linux news site. Well worth a look.
8 rules for open-source business strategy
creating PDF files with ps2pdf
A look at the state of Linux on PS2
Linux 2.6 at illuminata
Macromedia to offer Linux support on a trial basis
Linux Warcry asks what are the alternatives to XFree86 while The Age has a useful report on the licence issues between Apache, XFree86 and FSF
CEOs say Open Source keeps IT spending down and and saves money
Comic-book publisher turned IT-company aims to bring Linux and new hardware platforms to China at large
Ian Murdock on the future shape of Linux distributions
Linux distributions around the world
SCO goes quiet in Germany following an out of court settlement with Univention. Effectively, they seem to be prevented from publicly expressing most of the statements behind their case.
Copyright law stifling art with DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album
Networking improvements in the 2.6 Kernel
Introduction to the Gumstix, a tiny Linux computer
Creating UNIX screen-capture movies
Cold war between open and closed source camps
Comparison of Linux 2.6.4 vs 2.4.25 while NewsForge asks is the 2.6 kernel ready for general distribution?
News in General
GNOME
The GNOME Project had the misfortune to experience an intrusion on the server hosting www.gnome.org and some related gnome.org websites. However, it is unlikely that sources were tampered with, and by all accounts this was a minor intrusion.
Apache
The Apache Software Foundation, and The Apache HTTP Server Project have announced the release of version 2.0.49 of the Apache HTTP Server. As well as fixing three security vulnerabilities, this new release also includes numerous enhancements and new features.
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org has released a new version of the popular office productivity suite: OpenOffice.org 1.1.1. This is primarily a bug-fix release though it does include a few new features as well.
The Gimp
The Free image manipulation and graphics tool the Gimp has reached version 2.0. This is a major release, and marks the advent of official support for the software on MS Windows and Mac OS X, as well as the traditional Unix-based operating systems. As well as the official press release you may be interested to read the descriptions of the new features included in this release. The software can be downloaded now from various mirror sites.
Distro News
Debian
Debian votes to keep non-free.
The Debian package Popularity Contest aims to help order the applications that will be included on the estimated 13 binary CDs sarge will ship on when released. Participation is simply a matter of installing the popularity contest package.
Gentoo
The O'Reilly Linux devcenter has published an account by Danny O'Brien of a talk given by Daniel Robbins, Gentoo's chief architect. Also of interest is the review of Gentoo at LXer.
Mandrake
Mandrake has relisted on the stock market after filing a plan for the repayment over the next nine years of its outstanding debts.
Mandrake has also released a new revision of their operating system Mandrake 10.0 Community, which features the new 2.6 kernel.
UserLinux
Software and Product News
GFI
GFI has announced that it is developing a Linux version of its GFI MailSecurity product, and that it will be adding support for Linux-oriented features in all its products. Previously, GFI MailSecurity was available for Microsoft Windows.
Linux Pocket Guide
O'Reilly has launched a new Linux reference book. The new "Linux Pocket Guide" by Daniel Barrett aims to be a useful reference for new and experienced Linux users who need a quick and handy means to look up Linux commands.
Mick is LG's News Bytes Editor.
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.
![[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.
