Linux News Desk

The week's most useful address is arguably ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/live-eval-9.0 - this is how you can download it to a CD and start SUSE LINUX from there without changing the partioning of your hard disk before using it. Novell's hope is that allowing people to see the new functionalities and the look-and-feel of SUSE LINUX before installing it will help drive adoption. At the address above you can find the ISO of the so-called SUSE "Live Filesystem. Once written on a CD, says a note on the SUSE site, "It allows you to start SUSE LINUX from the CD, nevertheless with certain speed limitations." Hopefully a LinuxWorld reader will post a review over the weekend. ... (more)

Does Anyone Other Than Linux People Visit Linux Sites?

Wanted: a LinuxWorld reader with superb inside connections to BusinessWeek or The New York Times or Fortune. . . It is LinuxWorld reader James Smith who raises the issue. Referring to the pair of open letters to SCO's supremo Darl McBride released last week, one by Red Hat co-founder Bob Young and the other by Linux International's Jon "maddog" Hall, he writes: I agree with everything in these two letters. They both bring up some good points that show what a loser Darl is. However, I get the distinct feeling that they're both preaching to the choir. Darl's open letters have receiv... (more)

SCO Specifies Alleged "Offending Code"

The following posting, just made in another thread here at LinuxWorld, is a cross-posting from lwn.com.]   This is a copy of SCO's December 19 copyright letter, as received from Avi Dines via Don Marti. December 19, 2003 Re: The SCO Group, Inc. (“SCO”) Dear Unix Licensee, In May 2003, SCO warned about enterprise use of the Linux operating system in violation of its intellectual property rights in UNIX technology. Without exhausting or explaining all potential claims, this letter addresses one specific area in which certain versions of Linux violate SCO's rights in UNIX. In ... (more)

Stallman to Linux.SYS-CON.com: "We Developed a Free-Software Operating System So Users Could Live in Freedom."

[responding to the Linux.SYS-CON.com item last week announcing the initiative by Bruce Perens, James Anthill and others to develop what they are calling "UserLinux" - a single distro based on Debian GNU/Linux, free software activist Richard Stallman writes the following Letter to the Editors of Linux.SYS-CON.com] Dear Editors, James Anthill, who is helping to develop a version of the GNU/Linux operating system with added non-free software, says that "people always go for the path of least resistance". Ironically, there is no clearer counterexample to this supposed rule than the ... (more)

Linux Looking Back: Review of LinuxWorld Coverage in 2003

JANUARY: Prescient Perens - "I suspect that the first major PC OEM to preload and sell Linux desktops in the US might be Sun." Joe Barr talked to Bruce Perens, the former Linux/Open-Source strategist for HP,about his work with the Cyber Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, his new Prentice Hall book series and his life since departing HP. One of the key questions Barr put to Perens was "Who do you think will be the first major PC OEM to preload and sell Linux desktops in the United States?" Here was the ever-prescient Perens's reply: I think it is almost a ye... (more)