Practical Technology

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August 10, 2007
by sjvn01
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SCO Goes Down in Flames: Novell owns Unix

The day Linux fans have been waiting for since SCO attacked Linux on May 12, 2003 has finally arrived. U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball has ruled that Novell, not SCO, owns Unix’s IP (intellectual property) rights. This, in turn, means the end of SCO’s cases against IBM.

In his 102-page decision, Kimball went on to rule that “SCO is obligated to recognize Novell’s waiver of SCO’s claims against IBM and Sequent” [story], Thus, not only does Novell own Unix, SCO’s cases against IBM have essentially been destroyed.

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August 10, 2007
by sjvn01
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Linspire executives exodus?

According to multiple sources close to Linux distributor Linspire, former CEO Kevin Carmony was not the only executive to leave Linspire at the end of July. Sources say that Chad Olson, the company’s CFO, and other high-ranking officials including the comptroller and the head of the Linux engineering team had also left by July 31.

We have made numerous attempts in the last week to get either a formal confirmation or a denial of these rumored executive changes from Linspire and its founder and primary owner, Michael Robertson, without success. The new Linspire CEO and president, Larry Kettler, had no comment on these rumors except to say that Linspire is focusing on its recent release of Freespire 2.0 and the imminent release of Linspire’s multi-Linux distribution software update and management system, CNR.com.
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August 6, 2007
by sjvn01
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Lenovo to offer SUSE Linux Preload on ThinkPad Notebooks

Dell and Ubuntu broke the barrier for major vendors to preload consumer desktop Linux, and now Lenovo and Novell have shattered the wall for Linux-powered business desktops. On Aug. 6 at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, the companies announced an agreement to provide preloaded SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) 10 SP 1 on Lenovo ThinkPad laptops with Lenovo also providing Linux support.

The companies will offer SLED 10 SP1 to commercial customers on Lenovo’s popular ThinkPad T Series, a class of notebooks aimed at typical business users, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2007. The ThinkPad notebooks with the Linux-preload will also be available for purchase by individual customers.

While Lenovo has offered SLED before on ThinkPads, its offerings have been very limited. In 2006, after going back and forth on desktop Linux Lenovo finally released its high-end T60p ThinkPad with SLED. This turned out to be a limited release, which left the user to load SLED on the system and to seek support from Novell.

In July, Lenovo appeared to be set to continue this limited Linux desktop support with the release of the T60p’s successor, the T61p. Things have changed. For the first time, Lenovo will provide direct support for both the hardware and operating system. Novell will provide maintenance updates for the operating system directly to ThinkPad notebook customers.

The two companies have a history of joint research and development spanning more than five years. For several years Lenovo has Linux-certified its ThinkPad notebook PC line and provided customers with the necessary tools to optimize the Linux experience on a ThinkPad notebook. Lenovo will continue to offer Help Center support for SLED10 that started with the ThinkPad T60p mobile workstation notebook.

“We have seen more customers utilizing and requesting open source notebook solutions in education, government and the enterprise since our ThinkPad T60p Linux announcement, and today’s announcement expands upon our efforts by offering customers more Linux options,” said Sam Dusi, Lenovo Notebook product marketing manager, in a statement. “Known for hardware- and software-based innovations like our roll cage and ThinkVantage Technologies, we continue our tradition of building the industry’s best-engineered PCs and delivering excellent customer solutions, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 from Novell.”

Roger Levy, Novell’s vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions, said in a statement, “We are extremely pleased to partner with Lenovo in delivering this pioneering Linux preload to the enterprise client
computing market. Pairing Lenovo’s quality and innovation with the stability, flexibility and security advantages of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 operating system gives enterprise customers the fully certified and supported Linux-based solution they have been seeking.”

The companies claim that the ThinkPad Notebooks and SUSE Linux Enterprise Leading Business Technology Notebooks in the ThinkPad T Series feature the latest technologies along with Lenovo’s newest innovations, such as a Top Cover Roll Cage for extreme durability, ultra-fast wireless connectivity with Ultra Connect II and maximum battery life along with the Battery Stretch tool. Customers also benefit from the business applications delivered in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, including the OpenOffice.org productivity suite, which includes Microsoft Office file compatibility; the Evolution e-mail client; and Firefox Web browser.

ThinkPad notebook PCs running Linux will be on display at Novell’s booth at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo from Aug. 6-9.

August 5, 2007
by sjvn01
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Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony resigns

In an interview today, controversial Linux leader Kevin Carmony confirmed rumors that he had resigned as CEO of desktop Linux vendor Linspire on July 31. Carmony said he plans to work on several of his own business projects, and on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

Carmony said that, after six years at Linspire, it was time to move on. Projects he plans to work on include continuing as Chairman of the Board of Sadie’s, a nationwide children’s photography studio chain, and serving as CEO of Dating DNA, an online dating service based on social networks. In addition, Carmony will be working more on Mitt Romney’s campaign to become the Republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency in 2008.

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August 3, 2007
by sjvn01
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Red Hat Global Desktop delayed

Red Hat confirmed on Aug. 3 that it would be delaying the release of the newest member of its desktop Linux family, Red Hat Global Desktop, because the company is seeking to provide certain multimedia codecs. Sources close to Red Hat said obtaining some of these codecs was dependent on Red Hat coming to an agreement with Microsoft.

In Red Hat’s official statement, company spokesperson Leigh Cantrell Day said, “We have finished the development phase of producing Global Desktop and are now polishing it up and testing it. We initially were trying to bring Global Desktop to market by August, but decided to delay until September. To improve the user experience, we have been looking at how we can provide legal versions of the most popular multimedia codecs needed to listen and view the majority of the content on the internet. We are wrapping those negotiations up and hope to deliver those codecs with Global Desktop when we launch in September.”

Sources close to the Linux distributor said Red Hat was seeking to conclude negotiations with Microsoft for access to its popular WMF (Windows Media Format) codecs. These codecs have been included in other Microsoft deals with Linux vendors including its partnerships with Linspire, Turbolinux and Xandros.

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August 1, 2007
by sjvn01
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Developers free to work on open-source Atheros Wi-Fi

While Linux desktop users have long been able to use Wi-Fi cards based on Atheros chip sets, they haven’t been able to do so without using proprietary Atheros code. Now, the Software Freedom Law Center has given the green light to developers working on an open-source substitution for the closed-source code.

The technology in question, OpenHAL, enables users with wireless cards based on technology from Atheros Communications to connect to networks using exclusively free and open-source software.

OpenHAL is low-level interface software for Atheros 802.11 Wi-Fi cards. Without OpenHAL, Linux-based systems need a proprietary HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) plus a wrapper driver to use these wireless cards. Thus, OpenHAL is an open-source replacement for Atheros’ proprietary HAL.

OpenHAL was initially based on the ar5k driver, which was used as the basis for a proprietary HAL replacement for the OpenBSD operating system. Support for Atheros cards is especially important for desktop Linux, since Atheros wireless chip sets are commonly used by dozens of Wi-Fi vendors such as 3Com, D-Link and Netgear, as well as many laptop manufacturers, such as Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Toshiba.

The developers of OpenHAL faced allegations that their project might include material that infringed Atheros’ HAL copyright. The programmers then asked the SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) to investigate these rumors.

The SFLC agreed to help on a pro-bono basis, and subsequently conducted a confidential audit that carefully compared OpenHAL to Atheros’ proprietary HAL code.

After performing the audit, SFLC concluded that OpenHAL does not infringe copyrights held by Atheros. As a result, OpenHAL development can now continue safely, so long as the OpenHAL developers continue their work in isolation from Atheros’ proprietary code, it said.

“The OpenHAL developers can now continue development with legal clarity,” said Karen Sandler, an SFLC attorney. “We thank Atheros for granting us confidential access to its proprietary HAL source code for purposes of the review. We join Atheros in encouraging developers to avoid proprietary code in their work, using clean room approaches like the techniques used in the development of OpenHAL.”

Historically, Atheros, while not allowing access to its HAL, has been very supportive of open-source development. It is because of this support that MadWifi has long been able to supply Linux kernel device drivers for Wi-Fi cards that use Atheros-based chip sets for 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g compatibility. Eventually, 802.11n cards will also be supported.

“Our ultimate goal is to have full support for Atheros devices included in the Linux kernel,” Luis Rodriguez, a Linux wireless developer, said in a statement. “By providing legal clearance, the Software Freedom Law Center has helped us get one step closer to making this a reality.”

“We believe that this outcome will clear the way for eventual acceptance of a new wireless driver into the Linux kernel,” said John Linville, the Linux kernel maintainer for wireless networking.

A version of this story first appeared in DesktopLinux.