Free Republic

What do you get when you cross Sun Microsystems and the open source community centered on Linux? I thought the answer was lower-cost servers that run Linux, which is what Sun announced this week. But Sun CEO Scott McNealy has far grander ambitions that he hopes the open source community will help him achieve: breaking Microsoft's grip on the desktop and expanding Sun's hardware offerings. I don't think anyone can break Microsoft's desktop grip at this point, but Sun has the right idea in formulating an alternative that is more coherent than the pieces you can cobble together to create...

A serious flaw in SSL certificate handling reported by Mike Benham, affecting IE and Konqueror, has already been fixed by KDE's Waldo Bastian, we're pleased to mention. The fix is available only in the CVS (Concurrent Versions System) tree at the moment, but KDE reckons it will have patched binaries available for its 3.0.3 version, available early next week. A patch for KDE 2.2.x is currently in the works. As for Microsoft? According to Benham they haven't even replied to him yet. Apparently, real Trustworthy Computing takes an enormous amount of time. Conversely, the speed with which the open source...

Fantastic news for the Linux desktop. This great office suite, gobeProductive, will be releasing all its source code under the GPL in less than 3 months, according to its new owners, FreeRadicalSoftware. They purchased the source code and rights from Gobe Software recently, and their business plan requires them to GPL the code!

CERT: Flaw could allow root access in some Unix, Linux systems A buffer overflow in the ToolTalk RPC database server used in the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) on systems from vendors such as Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM could allow an attacker to run code with root privileges, according to a security alert released today by the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC). CDE is a graphical interface used on Unix and some Linux systems. The ToolTalk component of the software allows applications to communicate with each other across different platforms and hosts via remote procedure calls (RPC). The RPC database server...

Microsoft 'hoovers millions' from UK schools - update By Drew Cullen Posted: 08/09/2002 at 06:44 EST Bob Blizzard, the Waveney, Suffolk MP who is campaigning against "unfair" Microsoft licence terms for schools, has published an email from the software giant, replying to his complaints. David Burrows, education head at Microsoft UK, says the firm has no plans at present to alter licence terms, which see schools pay much more than colleges for their software. "In response to your specific request, we have discussed this extensively with colleagues in Microsoft Corporation and conclude that we are not able, at this point,...

A security hole in the XDR Library provided to a number of vendors by Sun Microsystems Inc. could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected system or cause a denial of service, according to an advisory from the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC). The flaw also affects the widely used Kerberos authentication software that allows users to securely log on to remote systems. The vulnerability exists in XDR (External Data Representation) libraries derived from SunRPC (remote procedure call) used in products from Sun, as well as from Apple Computer Inc., IBM and a number of Linux and Unix...

Frustration with Microsoft is prompting more companies to consider "un-Windows" alternatives, according to a study released Tuesday. "Corporate user resentment and dissatisfaction with Microsoft and some of its practices is at an all-time high," says Laura DiDio, senior analyst with the Yankee Group and the report's author. That frustration is pushing more companies to consider Linux-based operating systems as well as Apple's OS X, she says. Licensing Hostility The survey, conducted last April and May by the Yankee Group and Sunbelt Software, asked 1500 corporations about their satisfaction with Microsoft. Bottom line: Many customers aren't happy. At the heart of...

Security researchers have warned of a flaw in communications software that could allow attackers to take over computers running Windows, Unix-based operating systems and Mac OS X, as well as Kerberos authentication systems. The problem is widespread because it affects some implementations of XDR (external data representation) libraries, used by many applications as a way of sending data from one system process to another, regardless of the system's architecture. The affected libraries are derived from Sun Microsystems' SunRPC remote procedure call technology, which has been taken up by many vendors. The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), a security network...

Study: Linux sales down, but not out Linux sales lost some ground to Windows last year, but are expected to climb in coming years as distributors of the alternative operating system create new revenue streams. According to market research firm IDC, Linux sales declined nearly 5 percent in 2001 to $80 million, but are expected to grow to a $280 million market in 2006. Meanwhile, Windows sales climbed 11 percent to more than $10 billion last year, according to IDC analyst Al Gillen. "The Linux operating system market, from a revenue perspective, accounts for one half of 1 percent of...

SEATTLE — When investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein began making the switch to the Linux computer operating system in 1999, it did so to save money. The Germany-based bank sought a less-costly way to calculate risks associated with its portfolio of investments. So it replaced 32 computer servers, based on the time-tested Unix operating systems, at an average cost of $50,000 each, with 40 Linux servers, at $3,000 a pop. Then Dresdner discovered a bonus: Linux, the upstart open-source operating system, was not only cheaper — but also faster. The Unix servers took 17 hours to calculate how much cash...

<p>SEATTLE -- When investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein began making the switch to the Linux computer operating system in 1999, it did so to save money.</p> <p>The Germany-based bank sought a less-costly way to calculate risks associated with its portfolio of investments. So it replaced 32 computer servers, based on the time-tested Unix operating systems, at an average cost of $50,000 each, with 40 Linux servers, at $3,000 a pop.</p>

Microsoft: breaking with licensing tradition By ComputerWire Posted: 08/02/2002 at 04:40 EST These are critical times for Microsoft Corp. The company deliberately broke its software licensing model with Thursday's introduction of the unpopular Licensing 6.0. Until now customers paid Microsoft's licensing charges, shelling-out hard-won IT budget while complaining of expense and confused details. For Microsoft, this was a reliable - if imperfect - revenue model. After all, what alternatives were there to Microsoft's products? As Microsoft ushered in Licensing 6.0, though, alternatives were - for the first time - emerging. Unfortunately for Microsoft, those alternatives compete in the company's lucrative...

AMD confirms IBM DB2 Hammer support Corporate migration easier, says IBM By Mike Magee: Tuesday 30 July 2002, 20:58 IBM'S DB2 DATABASE for Linux will be supported on AMD's Opteron (Hammer) processors, confirming benchmarks posted on c't magazine a few weeks back. AMD confirmed the story in a release which said a DB2 database using SuSE Linux was successfully ported to X86-64 technology in just a few days. The news is good for AMD and indicates positiive application software support for its Opteron servers, due to be launched next year. The chip firm said that using X86-64 architecture will mean...

Linus Torvalds prays Intel will adopt Yamhill And so adopt AMD's X86-64 By INQUIRER staff: Monday 29 July 2002, 11:26 A POSTING BY Linus Torvalds on the LINUX KERNEL newsgroup yesterday has him praying that Intel will adopt its secret "Yamhill" project and turn to the ways of X86-64 righteousness. Torvalds, who had a key part to play in Transmeta's fortunes at startup, says in the post that Linux developers are "generally praying that AMD's X86-64 succeeds in the market." That, he says, would force Intel to make Yamhill its standard 64-bit platform and allow for improvements in the Linux...

IBM and Linux our biggest threats - Microsoft By ComputerWire Posted: 07/26/2002 at 06:47 EST IBM and Linux combined represent a threat and inspiration as Microsoft Corp drives into enterprise computing, top company executives said yesterday. Computing giant IBM wages war against Microsoft in lucrative corporate accounts while Linux, the low-coast threat to Windows, wins supporters in fertile developer communities. Speaking at Microsoft's 2002 Financial Analysts Day yesterday, executives heading-up Microsoft's developer and enterprise server divisions spoke with frankness. They also revealed product and strategic initiatives to combat the double-headed threat. Eric Rudder, senior vice president developer and platform evangelism,...

<p>A new beta release of red hat linux, code-named Limbo, hit FTP servers earlier this month, giving users a first look at what is likely to become Version 8.0 of Red Hat Inc.'s most popular Linux distribution.</p> <p>In addition to the latest versions of GNOME, Mozilla and OpenOffice, Limbo includes a nice set of new system administration tools, which significantly ease tasks such as X server, network and peripheral configuration.</p>

Linux: Twelve Steps to Desktop DominancePosted on Monday, July 22 @ 18:24:33 EDT by staff by Lou Grinzo While I normally turn a cold shoulder to all those increasingly arcane ways of dividing people into two groups we keep inventing, there's one that I think holds the key to Linux's prospects for success on the mainstream desktop. The first group thinks Microsoft's virtual monopoly of the mainstream desktop is a Very Bad Thing For Everyone, and that the contender with the best chance of ending that monopoly and restoring genuine choice is Linux. This group also believes that Linux...

Hollywood adopting Linux Rendering, cheap and fast By Egan Orion: Wednesday 24 July 2002, 06:09 BIG MEDIA COMPANIES have a well-deserved reputation for being deeply clueless about information technology. Studio executives view it as a necessary evil, albeit useful for padding byzantine accounting in order to pay their actors and investors as little as possible. But the smaller studios producing the computer animation wizardry driving many popular movies are more sophisticated. They are moving to Linux on x86 platforms, and are realizing both lower costs and higher performance. Thus Cnet is reporting that Industrial Light and Magic(ILM), the operation responsible...

osOpinion®Tech Opinion Commentary For the People, By the People. The x86 OS X Success StrategyContributed by Kelly McNeillosOpinion.comApril 10, 2002http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/17176.html If one were to ask the computing masses how Microsoft achieved its operating system success, they likely would answer, 'By providing a superior product.' For those of you who have been wishing for a copy of Apple's Mac OS X to run on your x86 PC, your wish may soon be granted if recent reports regarding graphics accelerator companies ATI and Nvidia are to be believed. According to the reports, the two companies apparently have set up teams to investigate...

By Egan Orion: Friday 19 July 2002, 09:05 LAWRENCE LIVERMORE National Laboratory in the US has announced a purchase of the fastest supercomputer running Linux yet configured. It will have a peak theoretical speed of 9.2 TeraFlops (trillion floating point operations per second), which will place it right up there among the fastest five supercomputers. It will be tasked to perform National Security computing, which -- at Lawrence Livermore -- means simulations of performance for the US inventory of aging nuclear weapons devices. Of course this won't be your local university math department's typical Beowulf Cluster of older boxes interconnected...