Evidence of 'Counterattack' Lacking as Linux Conference Convenes
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The first day of an important Linux developers' conference was launched yesterday on the campus of Google headquarters in Mountain View. That conference made major headlines yesterday - though for reasons that reality shows us may not have been legitimate.
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New platform chief, Ashim Pal, says software giant has been on the defensive against Linux and other rivals.
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(InfoWorld) - While stopping short of volunteering to host the event, Mozilla chief security official Window Snyder said that it could prove helpful for the open-source community to meet at its own conference to debate secure coding, vulnerability reporting, and product patching issues. In a recent interview with InfoWorld, Snyder -- whose official title with browser maker Mozilla is "chief security something or other" -- said that she would back a meeting of open-source software developers centered on a discussion of security issues. Working at Microsoft as part of its Secure Windows Initiative prior to joining Mozilla in 2006, Snyder helped organize Blue Hat, the software giant's now annual closed-door meeting with security researchers. Security has vastly improved in the open-source community over the last several years as an increasing number of contributors have stepped up to identify software vulnerabilities and help ward off potential attacks, but such a meeting of the minds could help developers improve their products even further, Snyder said. The event wouldn't likely adopt the same closed-door approach as Blue Hat, to which media members and other security industry onlookers remain uninvited, and security researchers and open-source developers would need to focus on both existing issues, such as improving vulnerability disclosure methods, and emerging topics, such as new threats aimed specifically at open-source technologies, according to the expert. If created, the event would likely take on the same grassroots feel of smaller security research conferences, such as the annual ShmooCon gathering in Washington, she said. "It would take a lot of work to coordinate, and we would need a lot of people to organize it, but something like [an open-source Blue Hat] could be very useful," Snyder said. "Anyone who wanted to contribute would have to be welcomed, and the idea would have to be to help people make their own security decisions more intelligently rather than to put pressure on people to change the ways they build things." Backers of the open-source model have long defended that they enjoy a significant advantage over makers of proprietary software -- such as Microsoft -- in the area of finding and patching security flaws in their products. Unlike Microsoft, which keeps its code under wraps and issues monthly updates that typically contain patches for multiple vulnerabilities that have been publicly identified by researchers, open-source companies like Mozilla -- perhaps best known for its Firefox browser -- have legions of contributors who attempt to find and fix any problems in its freely-distributed code on an ongoing basis. The ability to respond to problems so rapidly, and tap into a wider group of security experts in the form of the larger open-source community currently makes Firefox a more secure alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer and other proprietary software products, Snyder contends. By meeting as an industry, open-source security experts could also glean more detailed feedback from researchers, she said, as open-source flaws are typically only approached as an element of any published papers issued by security technology vendors. "The majority of reports that come out of the security researchers have a tremendous amount of knowledge, and we would love to get further involved in the overall process and understand the coding implications of what they find," Snyder said. "We could get more suggestions on building out our architecture in the future, which is something we always want to have an eye on." Overall, the security expert said that the open-source model continues to prove itself as advantageous in fighting off attacks, especially as Mozilla continues to hear from a growing number of people who are actively scouring its products for potential issues. "Transparency continues to be one of Mozilla's key factors for success," she said. "Some people might see it as an obstacle in terms of doing security with the whole world watching, and at times it can be a challenge, but we have ten thousand people testing our nightly builds, which is a lot more than you find on your typical browser development team."
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PC Magazine - The issues of patents, indemnification and the potential risk of using open-source software took center stage at the keynote panel of industry leaders at the Gartner Open Source Summit.
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In a bid to bring Linux to the marketplace, the open-source community and manufacturers agree on new rules for Linux. The often unruly world of open-source software drew closer to marching in lockstep Monday
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More and more companies that in the past might have been wary of open-source alternatives to commercial software are rethinking their stance and are now more receptive to the idea, according to panelists at an SDForum conference.
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Those that didn't get a chance to check out this year's PHP UK Conference can get a little taste of what it was like from Rob Allen's perspective in his latest blog post today.   Included in the happenings he mentions were the talk that Cal Evans of the Zend Developer Zone gave on mashups, Kevin Henney's look at Object Orientation, and Rasmus Lerdorf's look at PHP5 performance/security. He also mentions meeting up with Dagfinn Reiersol (author of PHP in Action) to "talk shop" a bit about writing books.   You can check out all of the details about the conference that was over on their website including summaries of the talks that were given during this jam-packed one day event.
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Users force enlightenment OSCON Sometimes being the open source software leader means distancing yourself from open source claims.â¦
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Microsoft is not the realÂ patent threatÂ Linux and open source developers should be worried about, said Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. In fact, the software giant will itself be fighting against the software patents system within a few years, Shuttleworth predicted.
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Frontline internet-crime fighters from security companies, law enforcement agencies, banks and e-commerce sites huddle at a secretive conference to confer on new tactics to fight cybercrime. Participants field lots of strategies, but no one can quite agree on what do.
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Linux advocates have long insisted that open-source development results in better and more secure software. Now they have statistics to back up their claims.
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So what's new with Linux at CES this year? That's our question. If you have the answers, let's have 'em. Because we'll be there on a Linux Hunt, just like we are every year. The difference this time is that we'd like to make this a Team Thing. read more
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Explaining tech concepts to the masses Comment The following is a written version of a speech I gave at The Open Solutions Summit (AKA LinuxWorld NY) in New York City in February. It's long, but I think you will find it interesting. If you want to get to the website I announced, jump to the last section.â¦
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Microsoft and Novell officials this week defended their controversial business agreement to collaborate and promote integration between Windows and SUSE Linux. But many of those at The Open Source Business Conference remained skeptical.
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The following information has been provided by the product vendor and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Linux Journal.
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Supporters of the free PC operating  system Linux are preparing to counter a recent Microsoft Corp.   deal which established for the first time the  principle of paying the software giant to use Linux.
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Three years ago, out of more than 2300 CES exhibitors, the word &quot;Linux&quot; appeared in text associated with just 11 of them, in the show's online guide. This year at CES 2007 has more than 2700 exhibitors; yet &quot;Linux&quot; appears in text associated with just 3 companies: Interact-TV, Neuros Technology and Pixel Magic Systems. Yet it is clearer than ever that Linux has become the bedrock on which more and more companies build their solutions.