[Fwd: Linux Newsletter #11]

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From: Linux News <wgsnews@WGS.com>
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To: ozerk@corbina.ru
Subject: Linux Newsletter #11

Linux Newsletter <--> Issue #11 <--> Date: September 29, 1997

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Table of Contents

1. From the Editor: Linux on the move
2. Why Linux: Linux Administration must become easier,
but MS-Windows isn't easy either.
3. Hot News: The latest Linux related News
-- Java Article mentions Linux
-- HotFlash from Web Monkey, Thumbs up to vi
-- IEEE says future is Linux & NT
-- WebKit / Webworx applications run major sites
-- PC-o-cide? Man Arrested
-- Linux Super Computing and Great Linux reputation
-- Open Hardware Initiative and I20 group
4. Useful tips
-- Applications & Howto documents you may find useful
-- A short and realistic Web page about Linux
5. Upcoming Linux Events
-- Comdex/Fall, November 17-21, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
6. User Success Stories
-- Linux Lockups
-- Linux Record Ends
-- Linux versus MS-Windows
-- Never Ending Kernel
7. Reader Feedback
-- Software? Or Solution?
-- Freeware? Caldera?
-- Linus in Wonderland
8. Top 10: Linux Best Sellers
9. FREE Linux items
10. New Products & Specials at the Linux Mall
11. Linux Newsletter Subscription & Policy statement

Reader submissions for any portion of this newsletter will be paid for if we
use them. The Linux Newsletter is a *FREE* publication for all that desire
to receive it. See Section 11 for subscription and submission details. For
more information about the Linux Newsletter visit
http://www.LinuxMall.com/announce/lxnann.html

All items prefixes by Ed: are Editor's comments.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. From the Editor: Linux on the move
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone who doesn't think that Linux is taking off, hasn't looked at the
evidence. Commercial software is coming out of the woodwork; so is more
freeware and GNU software. You will find references strewn throughout this
newsletter to both sorts of software. You should also take a look at the
commercial software on the "New software at the Linux Mall" list at:
http://www.LinuxMall.com/newprods.html for products like Corel WordPerfect
version 7, Visix Vibe Java IDE, which recently won IDE of the year from Unix
Review Magazine, TalentSoft Web +, WebCheck, and much more. In addition we
have included some software announcements below in the news section.

While Microsoft adapts the X-Window system to NT and calls it Win-Term, and
continues to adapt NT to Posix standards a step at a time... they still have
a long way to go in reaching their stated goal of creating a better Unix
than Unix. A long time ago it was stated that "those that do not accept Unix
are doomed to reproduce it", Microsoft appears to be slowly proving this.

BUT: Why wait? Apparently even SCO thinks Linux is rather important: note
that SCO has recently released 'lxrun', an emulator which runs Linux
binaries (both a.out and ELF) on OpenServer and UnixWare systems. lxrun
release 0.8.6 is freely available in both binary and source versions at:
http://ftp.sco.com/skunkware/emulators

Also see what IEEE thinks below. Yup, definitely major motion behind the
scenes!

Meanwhile at WGS they are in the process of putting the finishing touches on
Linux Pro 5.0, and an entirely new Linux book to go with it. You are going
to be amazed, but please don't ask about it just yet... WGS expects to send
it off to manufacturing in another week or two, and then that process takes
a month or so. But as Earnest & Julio Gallo say, no wine before it's time.
It's gotta be great before it ships.

Hope to meet each you someday, until next time, Enjoy!

Mark Bolzern, Editor

From: DAVID ROVNYAK - rovnyak@ccnmr.mit.edu

I am writing this response mainly because I hope it will inspire
people behind-the-scenes. If you would like to include this in a
future Newsletter, that would be fine, but mainly I just thought I
would add my voice to the others who support the development of
Admin&Install tools for Linux.

Keep up the good work,

------------

I was re-reading through the recent newsletter (#10) and wished to
add a comment to Bob van der Poel's article. Bob writes, "...but I
still spend hours doing simple things which just shouldn't take so
long." When I saw this again, I felt compelled to offer two
insights.

The first point: we have all read (and experienced!) the
impressive testimonials on how Linux has fundamentally enhanced
productivity in business or personal applications. But the need
for a comprehensive and standardized set of admin&install tools
highlights a relative vacuum where _even_more_ productivity
enhancements can be added to Linux. Researching the HOW-TO's, the
newsgroups, the man pages, the many texts & magazines, etc...
takes _time_, a precious commodity. Continued progress in reducing
these time sinks, would make Linux not just the obvious choice,
but the easiest.

The second point: I regularly read the popular PC journals and
often see horror stories on W95 system and software installations,
not to mention the wealth of nightmare stories I hear from friends
and family. The W95 'simple', 'menu-driven', 'friendly'
installations are not always what they're cracked up to be.
Hardware is not supported; system files and whole partitions
disappear; plug'N'play is anything but that; hours on-hold for
tech support ("please stay on the line--we value your
call"...sure, whatever); we've all seen if not experienced it.
Could Linux problems, the answers to which are often contained in
HOW-TO's, web sites and man pages, be any worse? Of course not--
in fact, in my experience, I have never experienced problems
remotely as traumatic as in my 'Windows daze'. Improved,
standardized and more extensive Admin&Install tools will only
widen that gap.

From: Oleg Dulin dulino@polaris.clarkson.edu

Found at Yahoo! - "Independent Tests Demonstrate Write Once Run
Anywhere Capabilities of Java"
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayTC.pl?/970915analysis.htm

Ed: I think with Vibe, newly announced at the Mall, the situation may be
even better, and include a great Interactive Development Environment to
boot. See below for more information on this great product.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.2 Hot News Item #2: HotFlash from Web Monkey, Thumbs up to vi!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In Hot Flash 4.40, WebMonkey says:

vi, anywhere any time text editing! Still one of the best there
is. See: http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/html/97/37/index1a.html

Ed: WebMonkey included a pretty fair vi tutorial in this article too. So,
check it out. I personally love vi, and don't know anyone who truly knows it
well that would give it up. It is kind of like Unix itself, eh?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.3 Hot News Item #3: IEEE says future is Linux & NT
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Workstation Shift, a Summary by Oleg Dulin:

I have found an interesting article in the September issue of
IEEE-Spectrum. The article is on page 21, it is called "The
Workstation Shift" by John R. Hines. It is a fairly long article
so I'll just quote what I find important.

Hines is president of Semiconductor and Software Consulting
Engineering Inc. of Richardson, Texas. In his article he states
that as Windows NT and Linux become more popular, it is more
important to support both these platforms than all other desktop
operating systems and proprietary UNIX platforms:

"In 1995 1.4 million workstations were sold, 800,000 running Unix,
500,000 running Windows NT, and well over 100,000 running Linux.
All the Linux systems ran on Intel boxes, and almost 40 percent of
all workstations were Intel boxes, not proprietary hardware. Sun's
and HP's combined market share had shrunk to 30 percent of the
total market, despite a 17 percent growth in units shipped
annually (420,000 units in all).

The workstation market in traditional UNIX-on-proprietary-hardware
continues to expand, at a respectable 10 percent per year. But the
Linux-and-Windows-NT-on-Intel-box-workstation market is growing
exponentially. Figures on Linux are difficult to get, but its 1997
sales are likely to be about 500,000, equal to half the sales of
all proprietary UNIX systems for workstations. For its part,
Microsoft predicts that in 1997 it will sell 1 million Windows NT
Server workstations, which is equal to the predicted number of
proprietary UNIX-based workstation sales.

So maintaining applications that run only on a couple of versions
of Unix is no longer the best use of resources, when with only a
few modifications the same applications could run under NT and
Linux, too

Ed: How about that. I have been saying this for several years now. Nice to
see others pick up on what is happening! Too bad the real penetration of
Linux is not more visible than it is. Their numbers are a factor of 10 too
low, and even so, they still think Linux is significant. As does Microsoft
who buys a lot of it from us.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.4 Hot News Item #4: WebKit / Webworx applications run major sites
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Stephan Hermann - sh@nwu.de
techn. Leiter Netzwerk u. Telekommunikation
NWU Gesellschaft fuer Netzwerke und Telekommunikation mbH

Here are some examples of web applications for which we are using
Linux kernel v2.0.29 and apache 1.2.1 with FlagShip & WebKit:

German Online Shopping System for one of the biggest fantasy
role-playing-game businesses in Germany http://www.f-shop.de/

A Health Database for regulatory affairs, contract manufacturing
etc. http://www.kind-net.com/

Our next application, in beta and planned for released in October,
is a film clip database in cooperation with a multimedia video
clip system. You can find the functional application (with a very
fast binary search engine under flagship and several customer
management modules) at: http://www.clipworld.com/

Ed: For those of you who do not know, like the above applications,
http://www.LinuxMall.com is implemented with Webkit ... and after we release
Linux Pro 5, we also will continue to improve and promote WebWorx (see
http://www.WGS.com), an Internet commerce server which includes Webkit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.5 Hot News Item #5: PC-o-cide? Man Arrested
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Paul Poduska - poduska@ix.netcom.com
and Pete Tasiopoulos - tas@deltanet.com

Considering all the trouble people have with computers, why hasn't
this been happening more often?

http://167.8.29.28/life/cyber/tech/cta834.htm

Ed: I bet it does happen a lot more often than we know.

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3.6 Hot News Item #6: Linux Super Computing and Great Linux reputation!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In government computer news there is an article about Super Computing with
Linux. See:
http://www.gcn.com/scripts/dbml.exe?Template=/ArticleSQL/display/GetArticle.dbm&id=619&bgcolor=FFFFFF&header=head_2&article=hilites_2

And another article about the good reputation that Linux is getting. See:
http://www.gcn.com/scripts/dbml.exe?Template=/ArticleSQL/display/GetArticle.dbm&id=810&bgcolor=FFFFFF&header=head_2&article=hilites_2

Following is a Reader Response to the Government Computer User publication
written by the person who sent me the information about these articles in
the first place.

From: burchell@jung.mwac.nps.gov - Dave Burchell
Computer Specialist, National Park Service MWAC
To: jbreeden@gcn.com (John Breeden)

Mr. Breeden,

I want to thank you for your article in the July 28 issue of
Government Computer News about using a network of Linux machines
to do the work of a supercomputer ("Scientist links PCs to run at
'super' speed", However, I thought GCN readers might benefit from
a little more information about Linux.

A casual reader not familiar with Linux or Red Hat might come away
with the mistaken notion that Linux is a version of Unix available
only from Red Hat, much as Solaris is an OS available only from
Sun Microsystems. On the contrary, Linux is a free operating
system. It is available at no cost from many sources and in many
distributions. Red Hat is but one distribution; others include
Debian, Caldera, and Slackware.

These distributions are available on CD-ROMs sold by private
companies, often with additional proprietary software. However,
the OS itself -- including all its source code -- is available
free-of-charge.

I would guess that any of the many popular Linux distributions
could have been used by Pozo in his quest for supercomputer-class
power. As a Linux user, I'd be interested to know why he chose Red
Hat over the others. Does Red Hat include some proprietary code
that makes JazzNet work better?

Again, thanks for the fine article.

Ed: If more Linux users took the time to write journalists and editors with
nice letters such as this, Linux would be adopted even faster. Please do not
ever write the abusive letters that journalists so often receive from so
many claiming to be Linux people. Note that Dave was quoted in the second
article because of his great response to the first! This is how to do it!

Oh, and Dave, next time please list Linux Pro too! It existed before Red
Hat, and before Caldera. And I am sure SuSE would like to be listed as well.
They have the largest market share in Europe.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.7 Hot News Item #7: Open Hardware Initiative and I20 group
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

There has arisen a controversy over the I2O specification:
http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/5343.html

The following message is one response by the Linux Community, and Debian in
particular.

From: Bruce Perens - bruce@debian.org

Please see our web site for information on the Open Hardware
initiative.

http://www.debian.org/OpenHardware/

So far only one manufacturer has certified their products, but I'm
sure there will be many more. After all, this effort has only just
begun.

Ed: A worthy effort. Please, people, support the Debian organization in this
effort. Email or talk to your favorite hardware vendor about it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Useful tips: Information that all Linux fans will want to know about.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.1 Tip #1 Applications & Howto documents you may find useful
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Deepa Vasudevan - deepav@pol.net

Database-RDBMS-SQL HOWTO document Version 1.0 for Linux

Database-RDBMS-SQL How-To document for Linux will really help the
users to setup a powerful SQL database for applications or for the
WEB database on your Linux system.

Please read this document at :
http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Database-HOWTO.html

And mirrors sites are at :-
http://www.caldera.com/LDP/HOWTO/Database-HOWTO.html
http://www.WGS.com/LDP/HOWTO/Database-HOWTO.html
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/linux/LDP/HOWTO/Database-HOWTO.html
http://www.redhat.com/linux-info/ldp/HOWTO/Database-HOWTO.html

Ed: Some more neat references and information:

KDE project, a complete CDE like User environment for use with
Linux
http://www.kde.org

Applications for sound on Linux
http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linux_soundapps.html

Arena, a freely distributable web browser now sponsored by
Yggdrasil
http://www.yggdrasil.com/Products/Arena/

An Open GL (Open Graphics Language) like 3D Graphics library
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~brianp/Mesa.html

How to use Linux as a home server to share printer, modem, and
more
http://www.imcnet.net/~jpollman/mini-home-server.txt

What can you do with Linux? EyCar, a model car running on Linux,
navigates itself. Look out embedded systems developers, the day of
Linux is here!
http://escape.unterland.de/~erik/eycar/e_index.htm

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.2 Tip #2: A short and realistic Web page about Linux
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Check out this Linux Web page, as it tells a fairly good story

http://www.swcp.com/~jimhill/linux/linux.html

Ed: I asked for a link to the Linux Mall too of course. I would like to ask
all our readers to do us the favor of requesting links be placed for
http://www.LinuxMall.com on any appropriate web pages you visit, if the link
is not already there. For more information see
http://www.LinuxMall.com/mallrfr.html . Remember to tell them about our huge
selection, our Free Linux CDs, and about the Free Linux Newsletter!

Thank you.

This year's Fall Comdex is right around the corner. With 2,000 vendors and
over 200,000 attendees, Fall Comdex is an industry show not to be missed.
The show is held in Las Vegas, Nevada through November 17 - 21, 1997. More
information at: http://www.Comdex.com

Each year, Linux vendors get together and form a Linux Pavilion at Fall
Comdex. This year's pavilion is lining up to be the largest Linux Pavilion
at any Comdex yet. Don't miss out!

If you are a vendor of Linux-related software or hardware, and would like to
exhibit within this year's Linux Pavilion, please e-mail the address below
immediately so that your company can be included in pre-promotional
materials.

If you are a member of the Linux community and would like to volunteer some
of your time during the show, please also email the address below.

We appreciate any help!

If you would like to attend Fall Comdex, the admission to the entire trade
show is FREE, just volunteer to put in a bit of time at the Linux
International booth! We'd love to see you there!

If you have any questions regarding this year's Fall Comdex Linux Pavilion,
or want to participate in any way, please feel free to contact Carlie
Fairchild at mailto:li-show@ssc.com or call (206) 782-7733.

Ed: We need *more* of the mainstream press talking about Linux, and more
people learning about it. This is why I started the Linux Pavilion concept
at Fall Comdex several years ago... and it does seem to be taking off.

6.1 Success Story #1: Linux Lockups
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Stephen Halliburton - steve@hsix.com - Halliburton Systems Inc

I wish we could claim that our Linux systems had been running
non-stop for the entire two years since we installed them, but we
have actually had to reboot them twice in that period. Once was
because we were moving all the equipment in the office and had to
unplug the power cords to do so. The second time was to install a
newer version of Linux; of course this needed a reboot.

I can say, however, that we have *never* had any one of our five
Linux systems shut down or need rebooting because of a problem
with the system. We run several large commercial web sites here
and also use the systems for program development. One of our web
site customers asked that we move his site to a Windows NT server
so it would be "compatible" with his other systems; we just
laughed and left it right where it was.

Ed: There was a time when the slogan went "No one was ever fired for buying
IBM". Well today it seems to apply to Microsoft... And unfortunately I know
a lot of people who were fired for buying IBM.

I just visited the largest ISP in the Rocky Mountain region. They said that
they will set up NT boxes instead of Linux boxes or Solaris boxes if a
customer insists. They say that they warn the customer that NT takes twice
to 4 times the administration, needs to be watched closer and fails much
more often, and costs much more while not doing nearly as much. An amazing
number of customers insist upon NT anyway, and so they get what they asked
for: higher costs, less ability, and lower reliability. However the ISP
refuses to state this publically for fear of Microsoft retaliation. Just how
typical is this? Unfortunately, in my experience it seems to the the rule
rather than the exception.

What would happen if more people took a stand? What happened when this
country had a "Tea Party?"

When a customer goes to a knowledgeable service provider, but insists on
having the job done his way or he'll take his business elsewhere, the
customer generally gets what he wants even if "his way" is based on
ignorance and will hurt him.

Isn't this a lot like hiring an attorney, and then telling him how to do his
job? Either you have confidence in the person you hired to do the job or you
don't. If you don't, don't retain them.

Also, why can't Netscape see that if they don't start giving their browsers
away for free, they are handing the SERVER market to Microsoft? He who
controls what the browser can do, controls what the server can do. There is
still time for Netscape, but they don't have much longer to turn it around.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.2 Success Story #2: Linux Record Ends
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Otterboy - jong@seaotter.com - Jonathan D. Gross

To all those rooting for Linux and long uptimes, I am sad to
announce the demise of my personal record. The Fire Marshall paid
a visit and wasn't very happy with the nest of snakes that fed
power to two of the servers, and I was forced to unplug the
venerable maceater.

Right before I powered it down, I got this from it:

Linux maceater 1.3.74 #2 Sat Mar 16 15:08:40 GMT-0800 1996 i386
2:36pm up 395 days, 20:14, 1 user, load average: 0.11, 0.03, 0.01

This served as gateway, DNS, SMTP, FTP and "internet services box"
for 20 Macs for about six months. Now it only does DNS and
gatewaying.

Ed: There are many systems that have to break a record winning streak in
this way. It is a shame, as we will never know how long it really could have
run.

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6.3 Success Story #3: Linux versus MS-Windows
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: esmeltz@mcdmail1.fwrdc.rtsg.mot.com - Ed Smeltz
Applied Systems Engineering - Texas Products Division - Motorola, Inc.

My main Linux box (I have two of them) at home is an AMD 486DX120
with 16MB of RAM, a 2GB EIDE hard drive and an 8X CDROM mounted in
a mini-tower case. There are two 33.6 USRobotics modems and one
Heath serial terminal connected to the four serial ports. I have
been running Linux kernel 1.2.8 from Slackware since shortly after
it came out. I normally leave my main Linux box on all the time
and use it daily for various things such as word processing,
games, network access using Netscape, dialing in to work from
home, programming in Perl, bash and "C" and self-education in
UNIX. All five of the people in my household use it, and it is not
uncommon for one person to be on the main console while someone
else is logged on via the serial terminal.

Late last year I was in a surplus electronics store and found a
device for tracking the runtime of electronic equipment. It looked
similar to an odometer in a car, but it was designed to display up
to 100,000 hours in increments of hundredths of an hour. As it ran
off of 12VDC, I thought it would be easy and interesting to
install it in my Linux box and track total runtime for the system
as well as time between reboots.

The runtime meter read 1852 hours before I finally had to reboot
the computer due to a lockup while running Xfree. This long of a
runtime was not unexpected as prior to this I had noted that the
unit would run for months at a stretch with no trouble whatsoever.
Shortly after that, I was speaking with a high-ranking person in
the computer support group at work about Linux. He had complained
just minutes before that his laptop, which was running Windows 95,
would lock up about once a day. When I asked if he considered
running Linux, he stated he did not want to cripple his machine. I
just shook my head and walked off. It did not compute how daily
lockups and a bunch of buggy, overpriced Microsoft applications
could in anyone's mind be better than 1800+ hours of trouble- free
computing with over 20,000 freely-available software packages on
the net. If someone is that gung-ho on running Microsoft stuff,
WABI can handle that. Go figure.

Ed: The Linux OS probably remained running despite the XFree lockup you
mention. I assume you tried logging in from another port, or Ethernet
connected system?

Isn't it sad? People often think we Linux enthusiasts recommend Linux
because we are cultists, while the logic and possibly profits escape them.
They rarely stop to think that we might have perfectly rational reasons for
our choices. Why is it popular these days to be a [fill in here] dummy?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.4 Success Story #4: Never Ending Kernel
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jon Lewis - jlewis@fdt.net
Network Administrator - Florida Digital Turnpike

I just wanted to let people know that something IMO remarkable
happened at FDT today. We had a 1.2.13-lmp kernel pass 497 days
uptime. The jiffie counter wrapped, my ssh session to the system
got killed, but everything else seems to have survived. The main
sshd process, Apache, named, sendmail, etc. are all still running
5 hours after the big wrap.

It really confuses the heck out of procinfo...it thinks it booted
today when the wrap happened, but the idle times show it didn't.

Bootup: Sun Sep 14 19:41:10 1997 Load average: 0.16 0.08 0.02 1/28

user : 2d 13:42:04.18 1195.5% page in : 8271435 disk 1: 18126041
nice : 0:00:00.00 0.0% page out: 18239002
system: 6d 12:55:00.67 3040.4% swap in : 1055969
idle : 248d 13:13:56.47 -115580.-3% swap out: 9430
uptime: 5:09:46.54 context : 231353133

Can anyone tell me what the record is for linux uptimes? Is there
anyone left to beat?

Ed: Incredible, Linux does continuous uninterrupted uptime past what it is
designed for, and still keeps ticking. A minor adjustment to a reporting
utility (procinfo). What is more, you may be right back in the chips without
ever missing a beat!

Can anyone answer Jon's question with evidence of a Linux site that has had
over 1.38 years continuous of uptime?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Reader Feedback
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1 Reader Feedback #1: Software? Or Solution?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Richard L. Goerwitz III - richard@goon.stg.brown.edu

Eek, you're doing it: Using "solution" to mean "software" (e.g.,
as in "workgroup solution"). Solutions are for chemists and
marketdroids. If you mean "software," say it. If you mean "good
software," then say that. Plainspeak, you know ;-).

Ed: Actually WGS does more than just software. WorkGroup Solutions (WGS) is
a full service company with support and also consulting available. We can
and will build complete solutions. WGS publishs and sells tools because they
were first created for WGS own use, and then WGS feels these tools will be
useful to others too.

For instance WGS built WebWorx and WebKit in order to do the Linux Mall, and
did Linux Pro to have a reliable professional quality OS to run it all on
(our entire company). This is not to sleight Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE or
anyone else (they are better for some people, and different from what Linux
Pro is). WGS started this work before these other vendors were even on the
scene. What WGS releases must be industrial strength, anything less won't
do, regardless of how long it takes. The same is true of AcctOnIt and
321Contact, both in beta..

WGS solves problems.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.2 Reader Feedback #2: Freeware? Caldera?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Joe Buck -jbuck@synopsys.com

> From Linux Newsletter #7
> Many corporations are wary of Linux because they associate it with
> "Freeware" or "Shareware". This is very wrong, and in this article
> I attempt to clearly demonstrate why.

And you fail: Linux is freeware as the term is commonly used, as
are the GNU tools. Also, there is a lot of extremely high-quality
freeware that is not GPLed: Tcl/Tk, BSD, etc. Please don't attempt
to change the meaning of "freeware" or to slam it by saying
"freeware == low quality".

> One common misunderstanding about Linux is that in order to make
> available software that runs on Linux, one must release it under
> the GPL license. This is patently false. It would only be true
> in the special case where someone else's software that was already
> GPL was used within your software, AND you modify IT.

Not quite right; you can't link to GPLed software either unless
you GPL your own software. This isn't a problem with Linux since
the system libraries use a different license, the LGPL, which does
allow proprietary software to link to them.

> Caldera OpenLinux Standard 1.1

And how *dare* they say "OpenLinux" to describe their less open
(because of the proprietary components) Linux distribution. The
name offends me.

> very good image to those outside the Linux Community.
> Unfortunately many of the hackers who built the Linux community
> in the first place see Caldera as an enemy because of its slick,
> upscale marketing, or for other reasons of their own.

Well, for some Linux folk (e.g. the Debian project) the whole
reason for Linux is freely redistributable software, maintained
and improved by the community, so Caldera isn't interesting to
them. I have no problem with Caldera's basic model. But Caldera
has made a few blunders: "OpenLinux" is about as bad as "Lignux"
and likely to piss people off for the same reason. Similarly,
making deals to port popular applications to Linux, but then
agreeing to terms that mean the tools may be run only on Caldera,
are causing some anger. That's not really doing a Linux port, it's
doing an "OpenLinux" port.

> This does not mean Caldera is better than other vendors, as
> they all have their strong points. It means that I want to
> see the Linux community remain cohesive, and not be destroyed
> by infighting like the Unix wars of a few years ago.

Then tell your Caldera friends not to attempt to fork off a
different "OpenLinux" system, not to sign deals that require that
a popular proprietary tool be run only on Caldera (it's
self-defeating anyway as it cuts the available market). Caldera
ports should be able to run on any system obeying the standards
and having the appropriate libraries installed. To do otherwise
(to attempt to use application sales to move OpenLinux sales)
violates your little motto below:

> It can happen, if everyone says to themselves, "It starts with me",
> and "Needs of the community before greed."

Ed: Actually yes, Linux is Freeware as the term is commonly used by those
that understand. It is not, as the term is commonly used by many "Suits".
While you make some good points you do it in a very "assaultive" manner.
This will only cause people to fight back.

As for Caldera, they are also aiming their naming toward people that need to
hear the term "Open". It is a marketing thing, and not meant to imply that
their Linux is any more open than any other. Please, let's not fight among
ourselves. Marketing is a tricky thing, and one must often say what people
want to hear (while not lying) in order to get them to even look at what is
good for them. Caldera is not after the people that Debian attracts, but
rather, they are after the people that Microsoft and other commercial
vendors attract. The ones who don't even know what real openness is.

If Caldera would like to provide a more complete response, I'd be happy to
print it. It is a subject that comes up fairly often.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.3 Reader Feedback #3: Linus in Wonderland
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Rob St. John - robstjohn@gomontana.com

To: letters@sjmetro.com

Howdy Linuxers,

While reading the latest edition of the Linux newsletter from WGS
I came across the link to your "Linus Inside" article.
http://metroactive.com/papers/metro/05.08.97/index.html

I just wanted to drop you a note expressing my appreciation for
you folks publishing the article. It was great! Two points in the
article stood out. Number one was the conscious decision by Linus
to unselfishly share his OS with others. And secondly, the seeming
inequity of folks who have parlayed millions by marketing others'
ideas while the idea generators do not share in the reward, albeit
money is not the bottom line. And believe me I'm not condemning
those entrepreneurs who have profited.

Anyway, I had this crazy idea. If there are eight million Linux
users out there and each sent Linus and his family 1 measly
dollar... well you can do the math. Hey man, what has the Linux
experience been worth to you? Sending one dollar by the millions I
think tweaks the nose of the giant. So, if this idea has merit
what we would need is someone with organizational skills and
integrity, to organize such an effort.

Ed: Good luck. You are elected as the promoter! Bear in mind that although
we (the entrepreneurs, me included) have made millions of dollars with Linux
we have turned around and spent those same millions promoting Linux. This
money just greases the wheels for everyone. No one I know of is getting
rich, and many are just barely making a living. This article, while fun, was
really rather National Enquirer-ish. Still, better any press than no press.

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