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Leading items and editorials

According to the report, server operating system sales in 1999 broke down as follows:

OS	Percent
Windows NT	38
Linux	25
Netware	19
Unix	15

The folks at IDC had predicted that Linux would get up to the number two position - in 2002 or 2003. So the revolution would appear to be well ahead of schedule.

A lot of the standard objections can be brought to these figures, of course. IDC is only counting Linux sales. Downloads do not figure into their results, and multiple installations from a single CD are also left out. It is hard, after all, to get a handle on those numbers, while sales are easily quantified. So one might think that the Linux figures are understated, but it is hard to say by how much.

Also interesting: Linux has 4% of the desktop market, according to this study. Linux is frequently criticized as not being a desktop operating system, but that result puts it just one percentage point behind MacOS (at 5%), which most certainly is considered to be a desktop system. Linux on the desktop may be closer than a lot of people think.

More surveys: The latest Netcraft report is out. This survey turned up over 11 million sites - and 58% of them are now running apache.

After the gold rush. Here, for your reading pleasure, is an essay on the state of the programming field by Gary Chapman, which was posted to the excellent Red Rock Eater News Service mailing list. Chapman, quoting extensively from a book by IEEE Software editor in chief Steve McConnell, makes the point that all of the money in the software business has pushed companies and engineers into a "code first, design later" mode. Code is bashed out, then debugged to a "good enough to ship" state. But the software is fundamentally flawed, and sooner or later collapses under its own weight.

The development of the Netscape browser is cited as an example of where this model can lead. The programmers involved were pushed to the point of exhaustion, and the quality of the final product, well, speaks for itself.

Solutions mentioned in the article include certification of engineers and a return to traditional design practices. Good design is crucial, of course, but LWN would like to suggest that this article has missed an important path toward quality software: open source. Think about it:

• Open source projects have, to a great extent, managed to avoid the ridiculous deadlines that characterize so many proprietary software development projects. Free software ships when it is ready, not before.

• Open source projects stress good design - at least, many of them do. Consider Netscape as an example again: one of the reasons Mozilla has been so slow to come out is that the developers realized they needed to step back and start over with a better thought out approach. The result is the Gecko engine and a number of other modules that are starting to generate some real excitement.

  Much of the competition between GNOME and KDE, once you get past licensing battles, has been based on design. And the Linux kernel is a classic example of a project stressing design and long-term maintainability over immediate features.

• The openness of the open source development process brings out problems early - hopefully before they ship. Open source developers are not lacking in willingness to speak their minds. Or to walk away, for that matter. A free software project that is obviously flawed will either get fixed, or will lose developers to better-run endeavors.

UCITA looks set to become law in Virginia. UCITA, remember, is the "shrink wrap license law" that promises to outlaw reverse engineering and to enable a lot of other unpleasant things. The sad thing is not just that this malevolent law got through the Virginia legislature, but that it happened with a unanimous vote. Getting a more acceptable result in the other 49 states does not look like an easy thing.

Our U.S. readers need to start thinking about how to educate their state governments. The Virginia legislature evidently didn't know that there are serious problems with UCITA. Legislators in the other states should not be allowed the bliss of that particular ignorance. It's time to start making phone calls and writing letters. It should be possible to stop this thing.

EFF seeks nominations for Pioneer Awards. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has put out a call for nominationsfor the 9th annual Pioneer Awards. Nominations are due by March 15. While Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds have already received Pioneer Awards (in 1998), there are many other free software figures that may be deserving of one. Jon Johansen, poster of the DeCSS code, comes to mind...

Eric Raymond responds to editorial. Eric Raymond has sent us a response to Scotty Orr's editorial on VA's purchase of Andover.Net that ran in LWN. "I think the community instinctively understands that we can't afford to mess with Slashdot; it would be suicide to try. That's a brute fact. Your editorial is all hypotheticals, second-order stuff, what might happen to this perception if that perception changes. Your concern is, IMO, understandable but way too fine-spun."

Review: DocBook: The Definitive Guide. After a long hiatus, LWN has added a new entry to its Book Review Page with this look at O'Reilly's DocBook: The Definitive Guide. We conclude that this book, which is under an open content license and is also available from the net, is a high-quality reference, but that beginning DocBook authors will struggle with it. The world still needs an introductory book for this important documentation standard.

Inside this week's Linux Weekly News:

• Security: ISPs and DDOS attacks, security-related kernel patches.
• Kernel: Softnet and devfs join 2.3, Scheduled Transfer Protocol, Capabilities in ext2.
• Distributions: Linbox Network Architecture, Debian Bug Horizon.
• Development: Openflow, new weekly reports from AbiWord and Lyx.
• Commerce: Inprise and TurboLinux do a deal; a whole set of Linux-embedded consumer products.
• Back page: Linux links and letters to the editor

This Week's LWN was brought to you by:

• Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor
• Elizabeth O. Coolbaugh, Managing Editor

See also: last week's Security page.

Security

News and editorials

Are ISPs responsible for the current DDOS attacks? One discussion thread on BugTraq this week suggested that ISPs are ultimately responsible for the distributed denial-of-service attacks that have garnered so much attention as of late. The question is whether such attacks would be possible if ISPs had implemented network ingress and egress filtering to prevent spoofed packets from proliferating on the Internet. The answer is not clear. Filtering would definitely mitigate the impact of DDOS attacks, as mentioned in Elias Levy's summary of DDOS mitigation techniques. Bruce Schneier commented in this month's CRYPTOGRAM that "Large-scale filtering at the ISPs can help, but that requires a lot of effort and will reduce network bandwidth noticeably."

Implementing network filtering would impact performance as well, or at least require expenditure of funds on new routing equipment to handle the performance loads. Some smaller ISPs might find it too costly; some educational institutions might not be willing to spend such money. If filtering is determined to be truly effective in limiting or mitigating the impact of DDOS attacks, it will likely still not happen unless the courts choose to hold ISPs liable for attacks enabled through their equipment.

Meanwhile, one recent response to the problem has been the development of Linux kernel patches to improve filtering and auditing of network packets. Jens Hektor has backported features from the Linux v2.3 ipfilter package to augment the capabilities of the Linux v2.2 kernel. In addition, Dragos Ruiu has made available a klog patch to provide "a quick and dirty forensic logger to track down or follow the path to the origin of attacks". Last, a patch implementing Mandatory Access Control was released. It divides a Linux system up into multiple "compartments," each of which behaves like a separate virtual machine and does not see the others.

Medusa DS9. The Medusa DS9 security system extends the Linux architecture to provide additional security while maintaining backwards compatibility. It uses a kernel patch and a user-space security daemon called "Constable". "Before execution of the certain operations, the kernel asks the authorization server for the confirmation. Authorization server then permits or forbids the operation. Authorization server can also affect the way operation is executed in some cases, which are described later. This method allows to implement almost any security architecture." Medusa is the product of the Slovak Linux User Group.

Securing Linux (Information Security). Information Security Magazine has put up a lengthy article about Linux security. "What makes Linux security a special case is that never before has such a powerful, adaptable and potentially dangerous operating system been made available to such a large population of novice users." Worth a read. (Thanks to Jay R. Ashworth).

Security Reports

SNMP communities. Many devices with SNMP support have "communities" defined that are world-writable and may allow an attacker to manipulate route tables, corrupt arp caches and, as a result, allow further compromises. [ BugTraq ID 986, BugTraq posting.] It is recommended that you check the posting and database for your network device, to see if you are vulnerable. The list of affected devices is quite long.

nameserver configuration-based vulnerability. Improperly configured nameservers (named) are vulnerable to a traffic amplication denial-of-service attack. [BugTraq ID.] In addition, one vulnerable nameserver on a network can cause correctly configured nameservers to also be impacted.

Updates

Debian's security procedures seem to have broken down slightly as well. The Debian Weekly News reported four security-related updates this week, none of which were posted to the debian-security-announce list or to the Debian security page.

MySQL 3.22.32 released. The latest version of MySQL contains fixes for the remote access vulnerability, discussed in the February 10 LWN security page. Distribution updates for MySQL have been released from:

• SuSE
• Caldera

mount/umount. A buffer overflow problem has been found in the mount command. Distribution updates:

• SuSE
• Caldera

majordomo. Two vulnerabilities in majordomo were previously reported in our January 6th Security Summary. Caldera has also issued an update for this problem.

• SuSE (old)
• Red Hat (old)
• Caldera

GNU make. GNU make versions 3.77-44 and earlier contain a /tmp vulnerability. Here are the distribution-specific updates:

• SuSE
• Debian

Additional Debian updates. Debian also issued security-related updates for the following packages:

• ntop
• mirrormagic
• slrn

Resources

T.Rex "open source" firewall announced. T.Rex is an open source firewall announced by Freemont Avenue Software. The firewall is being released under the "LPL" license, a copy of the QPL license with a name change and venue (state of Texas).

spidermap-0.1. Spidermap is "a collection of perl scripts which enable you to launch precisely tuned network scans".

Events

Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh

See also: last week's Kernel page.

Kernel development

Also in 2.3.46: devfs. The story of devfs is one of impressive determination and persistence on the part of Richard Gooch. Richard's devfs replaces /dev with a virtual directory structure created at run time. It makes device handling much more flexible, deals with a number of annoyances (like the business of adding one SCSI disk renaming all the others), and replaces the typical cluttered /dev directory with something much cleaner, and which contains only entries that actually correspond to hardware on the system.

Almost since the beginning, devfs has come under attack from a large and vocal group that sees it as unnecessary kernel bloat. The lack of consensus on devfs was almost certainly one of the reasons why it did not make it into the 2.2 kernel. Undaunted, Richard kept on advocating devfs, developing the code, and releasing patches (the current, and perhaps last, is version 157. As of 2.3.46, he has achieved his goal of getting it into the mainline kernel.

For now, devfs is marked "experimental," and could remain that way into 2.4. But it has been out there and extensively used for some time, and should be stable. Those interested in playing with it should probably start with Richard's devfs README file, which explains how it works in detail.

One reason for the shakiness of recent kernels is the integration of the softnet patches. Softnet is a reworking of the core networking subsystem to make it fully multithreaded and more cleanly done in general; the work is being headed up by Linux networking master Alexey Kuznetsov, with lots of contributions from many other people. Those wanting a terse, technical history of softnet development in "changelog" form can take a look at Alexey's README.softnet file.

Softnet will make for better Linux networking, but in the short term it requires quite a bit of thrashing of the code. See, for example, this note from Dave Miller on changes in the network driver interface. These changes require changing every network driver in the system - it is a fundamental API change. Again, the end results will be good, but it leads to some instability in the short term. 2.4.0 is still somewhat distant. (Those needing to update drivers can also look at the softnet drivers HOWTO).

The integration of the new RAID code is also a prominent feature of recent kernels. RAID integration is still a work in progress; see Ingo Molnar's message for details. Current 2.3.x RAID should not, shall we say, be used on production systems. But for those who have waited a long time for the new RAID to go into the mainstream kernel, this is good news.

Scheduled Transfer Protocol for Linux. SGI this week announced the release of a Scheduled Transfer Protocol (STP) implementation for Linux. It's an alpha-level release, in the form of a patch to the 2.3.16 kernel, so it won't be showing up in the mainline kernel release for a while yet. But it's a good start.

STP is a relatively new networking protocol which is aimed at very high bandwidth and low latency. It works by setting up transfers in advance, and preallocating the necessary buffers. Thus data can go directly from the wire to its resting place in the system. It functions almost like a DMA transfer over a network cable.

STP can be used to carry higher-level protocols. For example, one can layer SCSI on top of STP, and use the result to implement a new, faster line of network-attached disk drives. Larry McVoy stirred things up a bit with a related suggestion: add a processor to each disk drive so that the drive itself runs Linux. Each drive becomes an autonomous system plugged directly into the network, able to serve up data via STP.

The idea has some appeal. Processors and memory are cheap enough to do this. Massive servers are getting harder to scale; distributed networks (think "disk farm cluster") can get better performance cheaper. Drives running Linux are easy to set up and customize to particular needs. And drive manufacturers are desperate for anything that can increase the value of their products and give them a margin they can actually survive on.

Larry may be a bit ahead of his time. But things could conceivably go that way, and SGI's latest contribution to Linux could be a step in that direction.

Storing capability bits in the filesystem has come up again. The question of how to represent capabilities (or "privileges" for the old VMS folks out there) has been an active topic of discussion for over a year. Capabilities describe the actions a given program is allowed to perform, and must be associated with the program's executable file somehow. Those who want to store capability bits in the filesystem itself would appear to have won over those who wanted to put them in the ELF executable header; the current discussion is about implementation of the filesystem option.

The problem is this: there is room in the ext2 inode structure now to hold 32 bits worth of capabilities. Linux currently has 28 capabilities defined, but everybody expects that list to grow. If it grows beyond 32 (considered likely), a more elaborate method of storing them will need to be devised.

Given that other sorts of file permissions metadata (such as access control lists) also need to be stored, it would seem that a definitive answer to the problem should be implemented now. Otherwise things will just have to be done over again in the near future.

There is, however, a point of view (championed by Ted Ts'o) that more capability bits are not necessarily a good thing. Managing of capabilities looks like it could be one of the truly big system administration challenges of the future. Given the amount of trouble people (and distributors) have with the existing permission bits, how will they cope with dozens of capability bits that must be correctly set on every file? Capabilities, poorly handled, could become a major security problem instead of the solution they were intended to be.

The human factors side of capabilities has really not been addressed so far. Without some attention in that area, there could be some real problems waiting in the near future.

Future projects for the ext2 filesystem were brainstormed at an "ext2 puffinfest" attended by Ted TS'o, Ben LaHaise, Phil Schwan, Alexander Viro, and Matthew Wilcox. The result was this list of interesting things that could be done with the Linux filesystem. It may take a while to work through the whole thing...

Other patches and updates released this week include:

• Netfilter 0.90 has been released. Netfilter is getting close to the point of being merged into the 2.3 tree, and needs testers now.

• Jens Axboe released a module for "packet writing" of CD-RW drives. Writing in this mode allows for transparent access to the device, without the need for a separate recorder program.

• Timpanogas has released a "NetWare Volume Imager," which looks a lot like a NetWare backup and restore system. There's a GPL version, and a commercial variant that adds extra functionality.

• Dave Higgen has posted a merge of the latest NFS fixes for the 2.2.14 kernel. Those who are running 2.2.14 and still having NFS problems (a number of people, seemingly) might want to give this a try.

Section Editor: Jonathan Corbet

For other kernel news, see:

• Kernel traffic
• Kernel Newsflash
• Kernel Trap
• Linux 2.5.x Porting help

Other resources:

• Kernel Source Reference
• L-K mailing list FAQ
• Linux-MM
• Linux Scalability Effort
• Kernel Newbies
• Linux Device Drivers

See also: last week's Distributions page.

Distributions

SuSE, Mandrake, and Linbox to distribute networking code. SuSE, MandrakeSoft, and Linbox have announced that they are joining forces to incorporate Linbox's cool network computing technologies into the SuSE and Linux-Mandrake distributions. The Linbox Network Architecture (LNA) supports diskless computers and provides a facile way to allow end-users running Linux boxes to access legacy Mac or Windows applications.

This partnership will publish the LNA specification under an open source license, with continued development centered in the Linbox R&D center in the Lorraine region, France.

One Disk Linux. One Disk Linux is a Spanish mini-distribution that fits onto a single floppy disk. It was designed for a university environment where the available computers may not have Linux installed. It allows a computer to be rebooted off the floppy and to give basic Linux functionality with networking without touching the computer's hard drive. (Thanks to Hap.)

Best Linux

Coyote Linux

Debian GNU/Linux

Leadership Debate Opening Speeches. The opening speeches from this week's debate have been made available, along with the nominees platforms and more information about the debate.

Debian Awards. Here is the BROKEN LINK Debian press release covering their recently-received awards, Slashdot's Free Software distribution the "Most Deserving of a $2000 award" and GeekCast.Com network's "The Linux Show" Editor's and Listener's Award for "Best Linux Distribution of the Last Millenium".

Debian Weekly News. For more Debian information, check out this week's Debian Weekly News.

DragonLinux

LEM

Linux-Mandrake

LinuxPPC

Storm Linux

However, they did have some nice comments to make as well: "My conclusion here is that Storm Linux addresses many important points to needs to be addressed in order to bring Linux further onto the desktop, their boot loader and GUI installer is top of the crop. "

SuSE Linux

TurboLinux

Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh

Please note that not every distribution will show up every week. Only distributions with recent news to report will be listed.

Leading
Caldera OpenLinux
Debian GNU/Linux
Linux-Mandrake
Red Hat
Slackware
SuSE
TurboLinux

Also well-known
ASPLinux
Best Linux
Conectiva Linux
e-smith
Kondara MNU/Linux
Progeny
Rock Linux

Non-technical desktop
easyLinux
Icepack Linux
Independence
LibraNet
Redmond Linux
WinSlack

Education
Boston University
kmLinux
LinuxFromScratch
OpenClassroom
Red Escolar

General Purpose
Alzza Linux
aXon Linux
Bad Penguin Linux
BearOps
Black Cat Linux
BluePoint Linux
BYO Linux
CAEN Linux
Cafe Linux
ChainSaw Linux
Circle MUDLinux
cLIeNUX
Complete Linux
Console Linux
Corel Linux
CRUX
Darkstar Linux
DLite
easyLinux
Elfstone Linux
ESware Linux
Eurielec Linux
eXecutive Linux
Fried Chicken
FTOSX
FullPliant
Gentoo
Go!Linux
HA Linux
Halloween Linux
HispaFuentes
IceLinux
Ivrix
ix86 Linux
J-LINUX
JBLinux
Jurix
KRUD
KSI-Linux
Lanthan Linux
Laonux
LASER5
Leetnux
Linpus Linux
Linux Cyrillic Edition
Linux MLD
LinuxOne OS
LinuxPPP
Linux Pro Plus
Linux-SIS
LNX System
LoopLinux
LSD
Lute Linux
MageNet
Mastodon
MaxOS
minilinux
MSC.Linux
nmrcOS
NoMad Linux
Omoikane GNU/Linux
PingOO Linux
Plamo Linux
PLD
Project Ballantain
PROSA
Rabid Squirrel
Repairlix
Root Linux
Scrudgeware
Serial Terminal
Sorcerer
spyLinux
Stampede
Stataboware
TechLinux
TimeSys Linux/RT
Tom Linux
Trinux
Turkuaz
Ute-Linux
VA-enhanced Red Hat
Vine Linux
Virtual Linux
WholeLinux
WinLinux 2000
XTeamLinux
ZipSpeak

Country-specific
Argentina
GNU/Linux Ututo
Britain
Definite Linux
Eridani
China
COSIX
Red Flag
France
Linux/MNIS
Italy
LinuxEspresso
Madeinlinux
Vedova
Spain
Linux Esware
Thailand
Kaiwal Linux
Thai Linux Extension

Related Projects
Chinese Linux Extension

Historical (Non-active)
Dualix
Gentus
Giotto
MCC Interim Linux
OS2000
Storm Linux
Yggdrasil

See also: last week's Development page.

Development projects

OpenFlow 0.2 released. OpenFlow is an ambitious project which is intended to handle all aspects of document management; its initial target user is the Italian government, but it could clearly be more widely used than that. Document management in its full glory involves a lot of separate tasks, from simple storage through to process management, authentication, digital signatures, etc. OpenFlow intends to handle all of that, but this release concentrates on getting the process repository going.

OpenFlow is basing its work on Zope, and it is all free software. More information can be found on the SourceForge project page, and, in Italian, the OpenFlow home page. An English-language page is under construction here, but is still missing most of the information.

Open source development study. A team at the University of Kiel (Germany) is conducting a research project on the open source development process. "The goal of our study is to scientifically analyze the processes involved in Linux development from a social science perspective. This includes, but is not limited to, the investigation of the motivation of contributors (e.g. fun, cognitive challenge, using worldwide resources for problem solving, development of new skills, etc.) and success factors of the project (e.g. mutual trust, norms in the cooperation, feedback processes, organization of the projects, decision procedures, etc.)."

They have put up a questionnaire, with the hopes that open source users and developers will provide them with some information. They have some goodies from SuSE to give away, and all of their results will be publicly available. If you've got a moment, please consider giving these folks a hand.

The Universal Source Package (Freshmeat). Here's a Freshmeat editorial claiming that current package managers are inadequate and proposing a way to fix things up. "The solution to the problem seems to be to extend the autoconf approach to package systems. This requires providing the necessary tools, standards, and guidelines to software and/or package authors to enable a single source package to produce a wide variety of binary packages for the various platforms and packaging systems."

Software Carpentry design competition news. Here's the latest news from the Software Carpentry design competition. Among other things, the winners of the competition will be invited to speak at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Monterey this summer, more prizes have been donated, and the web site has been reworked.

Browsers

Mozilla Status. Here is this week's Mozilla Status.

Databases

Education

Linux For Kids. A review of the Gutenberg Project was posted this week, along with a link to Bill Kendrick's CircusLinux game.

Office Applications

AbiWord Weekly News. This week's edition of the AbiWord Weekly News has a new editor, Sam TH. This new, more formal edition covers the latest development news, burgeoning mailling lists and a new Project of the Week.

Lyx Development News. Lyx Development News came in for the first time this week. Lyx is an advanced open-source document processor based on LaTex. "It is called a "document processor" because, unlike standard word processors, LyX encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents not their appearance." The news this week indicates that they are in the process of changing their development model and plan on releasing frequent, stable releases in the future, rather than maintaining a separate development and stable tree.

On the Desktop

Gnome Users And Developers Conference (GUADEC). We have been sent some information about the upcoming Gnome Users And Developers Conference (GUADEC), March 16, 17, 18 in Paris, France.

KDE Component Model demonstation. Mosfet has posted a picture of Kword being used to display a document within Konqueror, the KDE2 browser, as an example of the functionality of the portions of KDE that have been ported to the new component model system.

Website Development

Midgard Weekly Summary (Feb. 16th). This week's Midgard Weekly Summarytracks the progress of the latest beta release and discusses the need to add a good calendaring system to Midgard.

Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh

Project Links
EmbedLinux.net
EMLAB
linux-embedded.com
Gnome
High Availability
ht://Dig
KDE
MagicPoint
Midgard
Mozilla
PHP
YAMS
Wine
Worldforge
Zope

More Information
AppWatch
Freshmeat
LinuxDev

Development tools

A Perl Hacker in the Land of Python (Byte). Here is a lengthy article by Byte's Jon Udell comparing Perl and Python. As such comparisons go, this one seems relatively fair and complete - recommended reading. "For Perl, OOP was a bolt-on, not a built-in. Objects didn't arrive until the fifth incarnation of Perl. By contrast, OOP was built in to Python, not bolted on. That said, I'm not inclined to make as much of this point as some people do. Perl's object-orientation, though it has more of a blue-collar feel to it than Python's, can certainly get the job done." (Found in Portalux News).

Java

The page also notes that Caldera Systems will be distributing this product with the OpenLinux distribution.

"Javascript Event Handlers" is the title of an article on event handlers are and how to utilize them.

Perl

Perlmonth #9 available. The ninth issue of Perlmonth is now available, with six articles on a range of Perl programming topics.

Perl survey by O'Reilly. Apparently, someone declared this survey week and didn't tell us. Here's a link to O'Reilly's perl survey.

Python

This week's Python-URL. Here is this week's Dr. Dobb's Python-URL. It contains pointers to more coverage of last month's Python conference, and a lot of other good stuff.

PySol 3.4. A new version of PySol, a collection of over 163 solitaire card games, has been announced.

IDLE 0.5 released. Version 0.5 of Guido's IDLE Python development environment has been released. This is the first release in some months, and it contains a number of interesting new features.

Tcl/tk

Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh

See also: last week's Commerce page.

Linux and business

"Working together, Inprise/Borland and TurboLinux expect to identify performance and feature enhancements, incorporate and distribute their technologies worldwide, and develop educational programs to increase the global awareness of the Linux OS. TurboLinux, which boasts a market dominance in various channels throughout the world, will help facilitate Inprise/Borland's penetration into the Global Linux market. Together, the companies will be able to provide the service, support and training for Linux products worldwide."

There is no discussion of how Corel ties into all this. Since Inprise and Corel are merging, one would think that Corel would have a role to play in this arrangement. This silence could be fodder for no end of fact-free speculation. Corel has stated that it's planning to acquire more Linux companies, and that it has a $250M war chest for that purpose. Corel Linux and TurboLinux are aimed at different markets, and thus do not really compete with each other. Together, they could cover a much wider part of the Linux market. Hmm...

The electronic Linux book. Here's a brief article (in French) in Transfert describing the Everybook, an electronic book running Lineo's Embedix distribution. Linux was adopted, they say, because it is the best operating system on the market, and to increase the speed and capability of the device. English text is available via Babelfish. (Found in Portalux News).

More information on the Everybook can be found in this press release from Lineo. It seems that 55,000 licenses for Embedix and the Embrowser embedded web browser have been purchased for the initial run of everybooks, which will hit the market this summer. The document format used is PDF, so getting material into the Everybook should not be hard.

This is exactly the sort of application that comes to mind when people say that Linux will do well in the embedded systems space. The Everybook people had to do relatively little - after all, creating a Linux-based PDF viewer is not particularly difficult. They could concentrate on the packaging and other aspects that make their product special, and simply fall back on an OS that works. Millions more people will be running Linux in the near future, but many of them will not know it.

Sigma Designs demonstrates Linux-based digital set-top box. For another example of embedded Linux: Sigma Designs has announced its new Linux-based set-top box. "The set-top box can be used as a combination DVD player, web browser, and e-mail client. By adding an adapter for broadband communications, cable companies, telecommunications companies, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can also offer movies on demand. Service providers can also add an MPEG encoder to provide time-shifted recording capability."

The Linux-based Internet car radio. And here's yet another embedded application: the Internet car radio. Evidently this radio, being put together by PenguinRadio, Inc. and Ineva.com, will be able to receive any Internet radio station (of which there are thousands) by way of a satellite service. As long as you don't try to tune while you drive, it sounds like a pretty nice setup.

Salon.com to launch 'Free Software Project'. Salon has announced the launch of a new web site entitled "The Free Software Project." The intent appears to be to showcase a book being written by Salon author Andrew Leonard; it will be released to the site one chapter at a time and subject to review much like Eric Raymond's The Art of Unix Programming. Leonard has written some truly excellent columns in Salon, so there is reason to hope that this exercise will come out well.

Eazel's web site is up. www.eazel.com is now online. Eazel is the company working on Nautilus - the file manager/graphical shell for GNOME 2.0. The main item of interest on the site at this point, however, is likely to be the list of Linux job openings. (Thanks to Pat Eyler and "foggy").

SourceXchange update. Here's an update from the sourceXchange. They have a new set of Requests for Proposals out there, and five projects currently under development. Things would appear to be picking up over there.

Connectix teams with Red Hat for Linux on Macintosh. Connectix has announced that it will be shipping a new version of its "Virtual PC" package (which allows running PC applications on a Mac) that includes the Red Hat distribution. Thus Mac users can run PC Linux... Of course, they can also run one of the Macintosh Linux distributions directly, but this product may make it easier for Mac users to try things out.

Section Editor: Jon Corbet.

Press Releases:

Open Souce Products:
• Inprise has announced the creation of a new company (called InterBase) to handle the open-sourcing of the InterBase code.

• Red Hat, Inc. announced the immediate public availability of GNUPro tools for IA-64.

• SGI has announced the demonstration of its Itanium compilers - and its intent to release the compilers as open source.

• VA Linux Systems, Inc. announced the public beta release of VACM 2.0, the VA Cluster Manager, which enables remote management of large numbers of Linux servers.

  Commercial Products for Linux:

• AmbiCom, Inc. announced that Linux support is available for its entire PC Card product line.

• DataFlux Corporation announced the availability of a Linux version of its software development kit product, dfSDK.

• e-solutions Software, Inc. announced the availability of its flagship product, e-volve for the Linux open source operating system.

• easyPress, the publishing division of easyLinux.com, announced the following titles: "Linux and Windows", and "EasyOffice and EasyMoney". Both books inlude a CD ROM full version of easyLinux and additional software.

• Joydesk.com announced plans to release Joydesk 2.1, a Web-based groupware suite for the Cobalt Qube and RaQ server appliances.

• Knox Software sent us a note to remind people that the individual version of its Arkeia Software is available for free.

• MoJo Designs announced that the company has ported Eyelet GUI to Linux. Eyelet is a small embedded GUI.

• Oracle has announced the latest version of Oracle8i for Linux. It will be up for download "within 30 days."

• Rogue Wave Software announced the availability of Nouveau 2.0 for Linux.

• Silicon Motion announced that it supports Linux, with drivers that enable GUI acceleration and power management, for the entire Lynx product family.

• Stonesoft Corporation announced worldwide support for Red Hat distribution of the Linux operating system to its StoneBeat FullCluster for Check Point Firewall-1.

• SuperAnt, a retailer of Linux software, is offering Diskless Linux, a CD with tools, documentation and resource links for diskless, headless and terminal systems under Linux.

• WatchGuard has announced the availability of its LiveSecurity software for Linux. LiveSecurity allows for the management of its (Linux-based) firewall boxes from a remote system.

  Products Using Linux:

• NamePlanet.com has put out this press release hyping its web email service ("Up to a billion people can now get their own personal e-mail address of the type firstname@lastname through the service of NamePlanet.com."). The bulk of the PR, however, talks about how they use ReiserFS to implement the service. (ReiserFS was discussed in the November 11 LWN kernel page).

  Java Products:

• Espial announced the availability of Escape 4.0 Professional edition, an embedded device browser.

• O'Reilly reported that their "Java in a Nutshell", by David Flanagan, is in the lead for the Java Developer's Journal 2000 Readers' Choice Awards - Best Book.

• Random Eye Technologies Inc. introduced Random Eye images, intelligent software for conceptualizing and creating images.

  Products with Linux Versions:

• Auto-trol Technology announced the expansion of its Denver Corporate Education curriculum to include Linux, Java, and UNIX courses.

• BiTMICRO NETWORKS, Inc. announced an EIDE solid state flash disk, E-Disk ATE35.

• Cambex Corporation announced that its FibreQuik PC1000 and MC1000 Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBA) and FibreQuik HB2000 digital Fibre Channel hub successfully completed SANMark interoperability testing.

• Cell Computing, Inc. announced the addition of a high-end, 0.18 micron Intel mobile Pentium III 400 MHz model to its Plug-N-Run System-On-A-Module product line.

• CoCreate Software Inc. announced ME10 2000, the latest version of its 2-D CAD software.

• Computer Associates International, Inc. announced the immediate availability of updates to its eTrust Intrusion Detection and eTrust AntiVirus. The software offers immediate detection for the four major tools employed by hackers in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

• Concurrent Computer Corporation announced a Linux version of its NightStar Development Tools and its C/C++, FORTRAN, and Ada compilers.

• CyPay, Inc. announced the availability of their high-performance eCommerce module for the Apache Web Server.

• DataMirror Corporation announced that it is extending its Transformation Server technology to support IBM's NUMA-Q server platform for large-scale business intelligence.

• ECCS, Inc. introduced the Synchronix 2500, a fault-tolerant, scalable RAID storage system offering data transfer rates of 160MB per second.

• Exent unveiled the EXEtender, which allows executable files to be delivered securely over the Web.

• Freshwater Software, Inc. announced the release of the next generation of SiteScope, the company's Web performance monitoring tool.

• Hitachi Data Systems announced new capabilities for its flagship storage subsystem - the Hitachi Freedom Storage 7700E.

• IEA Software introduced RadiusX 3.0 for Linux, for billing, customer care, and user authentication solutions for Internet Service Providers (ISP) and other distributed networks.

• ILOG announced it intends to support the Intel IA-64 architecture.

• Integrated Research announced the commercial availability of PROGNOSIS UNIX (Linux), part of a family of systems management solutions.

• Interface Systems announced that it has added support for the Linux operating system within Cleo 3780Plus, its e-Commerce communications software.

• MAPICS, Inc. announced they will offer Thru-Put, a leading Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) solution, as an expansion of the current MAPICS product family.

• McAfee announced an update for VirusScan. The updated version will detect the "Zombie" code responsible for launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

• MODCOMP, Inc. announced the release of WAP66 Portal Server.

• Motorola Computer Group introduced the PATX5000 motherboard, a dual processor design that supports the Pentium III processors, and the CPV5400 Pentium III processor card.

• Network Engines will OEM Giganet's 30-port cLAN5300 cluster switch for its family of scalable Internet appliances.

• Novell, Inc. announced the availability of Novell eGuide.

• Open Market, Inc. announced the localization of its browser-based online store building product, ShopSite, into German, French and Italian.

• S3 Incorporated announced the Diamond Fire GL1 professional graphics accelerator. S3's professional graphics division has released new drivers, included one with Linux support.

• SCO announced that it is readying its Tarantella web-enabling software for the Monterey/64 and 64-bit Linux platforms utilizing an Intel Itanium processor-based server prototype.

• Sigma Designs, Inc. announced that it is adding new features to its REALmagic NetStream 2000 card to shorten the evaluation cycle typically experienced by systems integrators.

• SoftBase Systems, Inc. announced the release of NetLert 2.0, the latest version of its instant messaging software for corporations and call centers.

• Southernview Technologies, Inc. announced that on February 21, 2000 its Atlanta-based training center, Southernview University, will officially open for business. Some Linux classes will be offered.

• sTupidPC, Inc. has setup a new division to offer connectivity services to small, medium and large businesses in Atlanta, GA and Charlotte, NC.

• Synopsys, Inc. announced plans to support the Intel Itanium processor with its high performance VCS Verilog simulator.

• Teknor Applicom Inc. introduced the PCI-P3D840 and the PCI-P3S840, two new single board computers.

• VisioWave S.A. announced new building blocks for its digital video networking and editing solutions using Wavelets compression.

• WebTrends Corporation announced the release of a new version of its WebTrends Security Analyzer product, which includes detection of Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack agents.

• Ziatech Corporation introduced a new peripheral master CPU board for CompactPCI, the ZT 5541 Peripheral CPU Board with Pentium III Processor.

• Ziatech Corporation also introduced a new System Master CPU board for CompactPCI, the ZT 5522 CPU Board with Single/Dual Pentium III Processor.

  Partnerships, Investments and Acquisitions:

• The Adrenaline Group announced that they landed a multimillion-dollar contract with Linuxcare Inc. Adrenaline will design and build an advanced Linux-based business-to-business application, in support of Linuxcare's recently announced custom solutions service.

• Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) announced it is exploring a new Linux+ certification and has entered into discussion with Wave Technologies International, Inc. about its Sair Linux and GNU Level I Certification.

• Enlighten Software Solutions, Inc. announced EnlightenDSM will be available at TheLinuxStore.

• eOn Communications Corporation welcomed Picazo Communications, Inc. as the latest company to announce plans for a Linux-based telephony server.

• IDG Books, publishers of Linux for Dummies, has announced a partnership with SuSE to create "SuSE Press," a new line of books about the SuSE distribution.

• Information Architects announced that it has joined the Red Hat Independent Software Vendor Partner Program, to deliver Linux-based solutions for driving eBusiness across the Net.

• Informix Software and JBSi (Jones Business Systems Inc.) announced new software packages that combine Informix's Foundation.2000 software and the Linux operating system.

• Lineo has announced a deal with six Taiwan OEMs; those companies will now be shipping Embedix with their internet appliance systems.

• Linuxcare, Inc. and Windward Consulting Group, Inc. announced the formation of an alliance to deliver Linux-based solutions to Internet, application and telecommunication service providers.

• The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) and the founders of DigitalMetrics announced the final terms of the merger of the two Linux certification efforts.

• Macromedia, Inc. and Corel Corporation announced they have entered into a licensing agreement that will bring Macromedia Flash technology to Corel LINUX and CorelDRAW 9.

• Maxspeed Corporation announced that the company has joined the ASP Consortium, a group formed to promote the application service provider industry.

• Radstone Technology and Lynx Real-Time Systems have announced a deal wherein they will deliver PPC-based single-board computers with Lynx's BlueCat Linux installed.

• Samco Software, Inc., in conjunction with RealWorld, offers the Samco Power Accounting product line. Linux versions are available.

• Stormix Technologies announced Frank Kasper and Associates, Inc. will carry Storm Linux 2000 Standard Edition to major retailers.

• Total Impact announced that it has entered into a partnership with LinuxPPC, Inc. to co-develop a Linux software version for Total Impact's new mPOWER line of systems, upgrades and servers.

• XETA Technologies announced a strategic partnership with Darwin Networks to offer high-speed Internet access to its customers in the lodging industry. The XETA/Darwin offering will include XETA's Linux-based Virtual XL call accounting system integrated with Darwin's Linux-based high- speed DSL Internet access system.

• YARC Systems Corp. is preparing a revised offer to buy the controlling interest in Autologic. YARC's turnaround plan revolves around the injection of YARC's Linux server technology into Autologic's product range.

  Other:

• Last July Borland/Inprise ran a survey on Linux development. Now they are running a new study for 2000. The 2000 survey is a more overall Linux market study and less developer focused than last year's survey so the results should be of greater use to a wider audience. Results will be posted later this month at the end of the study period.

• Computer I/O Corporation announced that they received the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Show Favorites Award in the Server category for its Easy I/O client-server technology and products.

• Diamond Technology Partners looks at the benefits of the Open Source model.

• EBIZ Enterprises Inc. announced financial results for the fiscal quarter ending on December 31, 1999.

• eSoft Inc., the company that develops and markets the TEAM Internet Linux software suite for small businesses, announced aggressive expansion plans for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

• Government Technology Services, Inc. announced that they have added Red Hat products and services to its GSA IT Schedule.

• Neoware Systems, Inc. announced that it has appointed Michael Kantrowitz President and Chief Executive Officer. The Company said that the appointment of Mr. Kantrowitz was motivated by Neoware's strategy to extend its market focus to Linux and Windows-based information appliances.

• Netizen announced Perl training in Brisbane, Australia.

• O'Reilly released Charles Spurgeon's "Ethernet: The Definitive Guide".

• Red Hat has announced the opening of new offices in France and Italy.

• Software Development Magazine has announced the finalists for its annual "Jolt awards." Most of them are proprietary packages, but included in the list one will find Python (Languages), Red Hat Linux, and even "The Open Source Revolution" (Special/Other).

• This edition of the Sangoma News contains info about Sangoma products, including WANPIPE for Linux.

• StarBase Corp. announced three strategic corporate initiatives designed to provide comprehensive support for the open source and Linux movements.

• Terra Soft Solutions, Inc., developer of Yellow Dog Linux and Black Lab Linux for PowerPCs, announced their year 2000 Board of Directors.

• TUCOWS.com Inc. announced the appointment of Josh Elliott as director of TLD (Top Level Domain) Operations for the Assigned Names Division (AND), the domain name registration service arm of TUCOWS.com Inc.

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol.

See also: last week's Linux in the news page.

Linux in the news

Here's an interesting Inter@ctive Week article on how the world has changed while Windows 2000 was being developed. "All of which shows how much the ground is shifting beneath Microsoft's feet as it approaches the launch of its most ambitious OS to date. As Unix continues to form a difficult-to-penetrate layer above it, Windows is also under siege from below, not just from Linux on Internet servers, but from a new generation of essentially stripped-down computers popping out below the traditional turf of desktop computers and corporate servers."

UCITA:

Wide Open News covers the progress of UCITA in Virginia, where it has apparently passed both the House and the Senate. "To become law, the bill must first be approved by Governor James Gilmore. The Virginia Republican, who has expressed support for the bill, is expected to approve it shortly."

According to this InfoWorld story, the Virginia House has passed the UCITA bill. If it also gets past the Senate, Virginia could become the first state to turn UCITA into real law. "Opponents also do not like a provision that says users who do not uphold software licensing agreements could have their software 'repossessed' by the manufacturer. They assert that the bill would give the manufacturer the right to reach into the user's computer and disable the software." (Thanks to Gary Shears).

The Washington Post looks at attempts to pass UCITA in Maryland and Virginia. This is the beginning of the next phase of the battle over UCITA, which would give proprietary software vendors much more power over their consumers. "And once UCITA is passed in one state, softwaremakers potentially could exercise the right to have disputes over license agreements resolved there--effectively setting a national standard." (Thanks to Scotty Orr).

Corel/Inprise:

ZDNet's Evan Leibovitch writes about the Corel/Inprise merger. "Inprise/Borland tools may not be as well-known to the Linux community as, say, those from Cygnus, but they are familiar to Windows programmers, not all of whom may have been aware of the company's big Linux push this past year. As it should be, the target of the new merged company is not to take people away from existing Linux distributions, but to offer a comfortable point of entry to those who have never touched Linux before."

The New York Times looks at the Corel/Inprise merger. "Can two losers from the Windows world marry and find happiness -- or at least better sales -- in the Linux world?" (The New York Times is a registration-required site).

The Globe and Mail looks at Corel's acquisition plans. "Mr. Cowpland [Corel's CEO] said no deals are imminent but Corel has a war chest of at least $250-million and expects to spend a good chunk of it to bolster its Linux portfolio. He wouldn't want to spend the money all on one company, Mr. Cowpland added, but wouldn't be shy about a price that topped $100-million."

Distribution and Development News:

LinuxPower interviews David Hinds, the guy behind the PCMCIA subsystem. "...I don't have final editorial control over what goes into the kernel PCMCIA subsystem. Linus generally takes my patches as-is, but we have not always agreed on where PCMCIA development should be headed, and when we don't agree, you can guess who gets the last word."

The E-Commerce Times ran this article about SourceForge. "KDE and CMU Sphinx will join more than 1,750 other open-source projects that have access to SourceForge's 10,500 registered users and testers. The developer Web site also offers access to resources for development, such as communication and distribution, project management and bug-tracking tools, mailing lists and discussion groups, and Web, FTP and archival server space."

Information Security Magazine has put up a lengthy article about Linux security. "What makes Linux security a special case is that never before has such a powerful, adaptable and potentially dangerous operating system been made available to such a large population of novice users." Worth a read. (Thanks to Jay R. Ashworth).

TheNewOS has put up a detailed look at the Crusoe processor. "The easiest definition to understand code morphing software is x86 instructions done through software rather then hardware."

Bob Metcalfe rides again with a column trashing Transmeta for not releasing its chip designs. "Linus Torvalds gave the keynote speech at LinuxWorld Expo last month, right after announcing Transmeta Corp. Am I the only one to see that Torvalds and other open-source software revolutionaries are acting out the finale of George Orwell's Animal Farm? Orwell's farmhouse is full of open-source pigs, which are now almost indistinguishable from the proprietary humans they recently overthrew." (Thanks to Scotty Orr).

IBM's Developer site has put up a detailed article looking at Linux, with an emphasis on distributions and history. "One of the misconceptions about Linux is that it was started out of a desire to create a competitor to Microsoft[tm] operating systems. This could not be further from the truth. Like many open source projects, Linux grew out of dissatisfaction. In the case of Linux, it was Linus Torvalds' dissatisfaction with the operating systems available for the PC."

Nicholas Petreley says that multiple distributions are good in this InfoWorld column. "It occurred to me as I walked the aisles of LinuxWorld Expo in New York that the multitude of distributions is one very important reason Linux will flourish after Windows has faded into the land of legacy operating systems."

This osOpinion column claims that Mozilla and Wine are leading open source in the wrong direction. "The new mutants of Mozilla and Wine are unfortunately a peek of the perverted future we face. AOL's announcement of releasing Netscape 6.0 and Corel's release of Wordperfect 2000 for Linux this spring are clear examples of the philosophical rift that exists between two different species."

The Linux Show has run this wild rant against LinuxOne, which results from the author's discovery that "LinuxOne Lite" is a repackaged version of Phat Linux. "It is one thing to rip off a billion dollar corporation. It is another thing to rip off a 16 year old kid. It may not be illegal, but MAN THIS SUCKS!!!!! Linux One is nothing, it is a hollow shell of a company, and I have proof." It seems that LinuxOne didn't bother (or know) to clean up the bash history file for the root account...

Internet Week trots out the old fragmentation fear. "...the multitude of different Linux distributions have their own installation programs, management tools, user interfaces and add-ons such as clustering technology. Moreover, without a single authority to enforce APIs, there is nothing to prevent a vendor from coming out with a distribution of Linux that breaks compatibility with other vendors' versions of the operating system, critics said."

Business:

ZDNet UK reports on Nokia's home networking plans. "Telecoms giant Nokia has attacked Sky and other digital content providers, claiming their use of proprietary technology is holding up the market for converged digital TV and Internet services. The solution says Nokia, is in open source, which will drive the uptake of networks in the home. Putting its money where its mouth is, Nokia announced its home networking product strategy Thursday, with its prototype digital Media Terminal -- much like a set top box -- running Linux and the Mozilla browser."

The Arizona Republic looks at VA Linux Systems in this article (reprinted from the New York Times). "So far, VA Linux's major customers are all Web start-ups themselves, companies like Akamai Technologies and eToys, and most are less than 2 years old. But Augustin, whose buttoned-down shirts, neatly creased khakis and well-trimmed hair may qualify as the height of formality among Linux users, has positioned himself as the person to take the Linux message to corporate America."

La Tribune reports (in French) on the French Ministry of Culture, which is deploying a Linux-based server network. They eventually expect to have some 6500 Linux systems installed. Babelfish doesn't like this article, but the new beta version does - you'll need to feed it the URL yourself, however. (Found in Portalux News).

Linux.com ran this editorial about the Andover.Net acquisition - and about how it won't affect things. "How can we make such a sweeping statement about VA policy when we, as volunteers, obviously have little to no knowledge about what happens behind their doors? It's rather simple, really. VA didn't get where they are by being stupid. They have to know that the community backlash against them for such actions would be far worse than any fallout they could suffer based on a little article."

Finally:

The latest "Dear Lina" column from Linuxcare looks at time synchronization and X server access control. "Finally, darling, I assume you've already passed your ssh key along to your other self, so ssh won't ask silly questions of its own while you're merging X access data around."

The BBC's "The Money Program" ran a 20-minute segment on Linux as a competitive threat to Microsoft. A summary of the piece can be found here, and it's possible to see the program via RealPlayer as well. (Thanks to James Heald).

Computer Weekly looks at the future of Windows and its competitors. "Microsoft's Windows 2000 Professional product marketing manager, David Weeks, says one of the biggest problems for Linux is the variety of versions that have appeared from companies such as Red Hat and Caldera. 'There isn't one standard thing, like Windows, which is tried and tested,' he says." (Thanks to Alan J. Wylie, who warns that Computer Weekly stories can crash Netscape 4.7 on Linux, though your editor did not experience that).

Here's an Upside article commenting on the lack of response to the Windows 2000 release from the Linux community. "Do the Linux companies that once sponsored and participated in media events such as 'Windows Refund Day' see the bout as already decided or do they simply think their time could be better spent elsewhere? [IDC analyst Dan] Kusnetzky, an admitted Linux community outsider, assumes the latter explanation is more realistic. 'My sense is that the members of the Linux community are too busy doing what they're doing to worry about Microsoft products.'"

News.com has chimed in with a "life is not all roses for Windows 2000" article. "Linux, for instance, has altered the assumption that Microsoft operating systems will be the de facto choice for low-end servers. At the same time, Sun Microsystems has strengthened its position in the market as the dominant choice for servers to power corporate sites."

The Ottawa Citizen has run this introductory article. "For many people, Linux represents a return to the good old days, when someone would disappear into their garage for a month and come out with a really cool new way of doing things. The community could embrace the idea, and the individual who created it didn't need to have a strategy in place to deal with Microsoft -- and a ready bank of lawyers."

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol

See also: last week's Announcements page.

Announcements

Resources

One year of Brave Gnu World. The "Brave Gnu World" column has hit its first anniversary. Congratulations to author Georg Greve, and we hope you see many more!

Events

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has put out a call for nominations for the 9th annual Pioneer Awards. Nominations are due by March 15. While Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds have already received Pioneer Awards (in 1998), there are many other free software figures that may be deserving of one. Jon Johansen, author of the DeCSS code, comes to mind...

The Internet Security Conference TISC will be held April 24 - 28 in San Jose, CA.

Advanstar Communications has announced a deal with the Linux Journal to create a set of Linux events. The first will be "Linux Canada," May 15-20, 2000 in Toronto; the usual keynote speakers (Ransom Love, Bob Young, Linus Torvalds) are included.

Michael Hammel has posted a pair of reports from the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. The first one is a general report from the show, while the second concentrates on graphics issues. Both contain a fair number of pictures.

Web sites

LinuxLinks.com sent us an announcement. They have more links, a Java chat room and other new features.

Linux Stock News has announced enhancements to its web site.

Jobs

User Group News

There will be a meeting of the local Linux User Group in Assen, the Netherlands on Wednesday February 23, and every 4th Wednesday of the month. Meetings are open to all.

Software Announcements