Linux Group Promotes Standard Version
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which has been making headway with companies and governments -- potentially face headaches if the open-source operating system fragments into differing and incompatible versions.
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Back in February, Ralph Green asked me to speak at the North Texas Linux Users' Group. I discussed Linux administration and then took questions. Some one in the audience asked me about Mono. I gave a cavalier answer having a bias against it. Then someone else in the audience said that I needed to get my facts straight.
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Linux e-mail and calendaring vendor Scalix has joined the nonprofit Open Source Development Labs to help push the implementation of desktop Linux.
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(InfoWorld) - A day after Linux creator Linus Torvalds publicly questioned the authenticity of Sun's interest in serving the open-source community, Sun CEO and President Jonathan Schwartz invited Torvalds for a sit-down over dinner to discuss how Sun and the overseers of the Linux kernel can join forces. "I wanted you to hear this from me directly," Schwartz wrote in an entry on his blog. "We want to work together, we want to join hands and communities -- we have no intention of holding anything back or pulling patent nonsense. And to prove the sincerity of the offer, I invite you to my house for dinner." Schwartz was defending Sun against comments Torvalds made in a post Tuesday on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. Torvalds suggested that Sun is keeping some of the more interesting features of its OpenSolaris open-source project -- such as ZFS, a file system in Sun's OpenSolaris Unix OS that is generating a lot of buzz -- close to the vest because the company doesn't want to help Linux, which has hurt Sun's position in the market. Schwartz begged to differ that Sun is punishing the Linux community for how commodity servers running the OS trumped Sun's Solaris-based hardware after the dot-com bust, a phenomenon that eventually led Sun to release Solaris as an open-source project. "Did the Linux community hurt Sun? No, not a bit. It was the companies that leveraged their work," Schwartz wrote. "I draw a very sharp distinction -- even if our competition is conveniently reckless. They like to paint the battle as Sun vs. the community, and it's not. Companies compete, communities simply fracture." Torvalds also took issue with the fact that Sun has not released OpenSolaris under the GNU GPLv2 (General Public License Version 2), which currently governs Linux. The license for OpenSolaris is the Community Development and Distribution License, which Sun created based on the Mozilla Public License. However, Schwartz is leaning toward supporting GPLv3 (GPLÂ Version 3), which should be released in its final version in the next few weeks as an option for OpenSolaris and other Sun open-source projects before GPLv2, which Torvalds prefers. In fact, the differences between GPLv2 and v3 have caused a public rift between Torvalds and other key members of the open-source community. "We love where the FSF's GPL3 is headed," Schwartz wrote. He cited a "variety of mechanical reasons" why it would be difficult to license OpenSolaris under GPLv2 and insisted it has "nothing to do with being afraid of the community. "Why does open sourcing take so long? Because we're starting from products that exist, in which a diversity of contributors and licensors/licensees have rights we have to negotiate," Schwartz wrote. "Indulge me when I say it's different than starting from scratch. I would love to go faster, and we are all doing everything under our control to accelerate progress.... It's also a delicate dance to manage this transition while growing a corporation." Torvalds in his post seemed unlikely to buy such an argument. "To Sun, a GPLv3-only release would actually let them look good, and still keep Linux from taking their interesting parts, and would allow them to take at least parts of Linux without giving anything back (ahh, the joys of license fragmentation)," he wrote. As to whether Torvalds would accept Schwartz's offer, he joked in an e-mail Wednesday that while he does not get to the San Francisco Bay area very often, "free food is a big draw." Torvalds lives in Portland, Oregon. He also said that though his post was not strictly meant for Schwartz, he appreciates the executive's response, especially his assertion that Sun would not seek patent fees for ZFS, as some in the Linux community wanted to port the file system to Linux. Still, Torvalds' mistrust of Sun's motives in the open-source industry is deep-rooted, though he remains optimistic that Sun and the Linux community still can come together on common interests. "I'll just have to say that I still have the old Java licensing mess fresh in my memory, and I'll take a 'wait and see' attitude to what actually comes out of Sun," he wrote, saying he is the kind of person who "would rather be pleasantly surprised by people's (and companies') actions, than expect too much and be disappointed." Robert McMillan in San Francisco contributed to this report.
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A number of software makers and well-known IT vendors have agreed to endorse the Free Standards Group&#39;s latest Linux standard to help create common ground for companies building open-source technologies, the organization said Monday.
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IBM is extending its support for the products of one of its software competitors, Sybase, to present a Linux server-software package.
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Linux-based Open Workgroup Suite includes enterprise server and clients, plus tools.
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Supporters of PC operating system  Linux are preparing to counter a recent deal penned by  Microsoft Corp  which establishes for the first time  the principle of paying the software giant for the operating  system, whose license requires it to be free.
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The two second-tier Linux companies will adopt common Linux software and engineering. Alas, this idea doesn't have a great history of success.
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&quot;If the Linux industry can unite and pull this off, there&#39;s a real shot at a true open alternative to Microsoft,&quot; said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Free Standards Group.
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Aaaar! Linux leader uses salty sea-dog language to introduce 2.6.18 update to the kernel of the open-source OS.
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The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux in the enterprise, today announced the creation of a Open Source Software Licensing &amp; Legal education track at its upcoming Enterprise Linux
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In an effort to encourage software and hardware providers to support Linux Standard Base 2.0, four smaller Linux vendors are joining together to ensure their core binaries are compatible with each other and with the standard.
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Ziff Davis - With a preview of Firefox 1.0 ready for release, the open-source development group says it is also preparing for a grassroots marketing push.
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A series of security holes in three common Linux components has led open-source vendors to rush out several updates. Two of them, rated &quot;highly critical&quot; by security company Secunia, are in libpng, a library
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Ziff Davis - Analysts say a new standard version of Linux should go a long way to raise the platform's chances in the enterprise by improving open-source software's interoperability.
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A number of the larger Linux developers like Red Hat and Novell are likely to back the plan, bolstering its uptake in the market. The agreement aims to ensure compatibility between Linux versions