An anonymous reader writes "Uh-oh. PJ is not a happy camper. 'Sun has made its choice and opted for The Way Things Used To Be,' she declares in a Linux Viewpoint at LinuxWorld. 'It's a new world, and Sun is not in it,' she declares. Her gripe is with the Java Desktop System, which she argues is grossly cavalier with the GPL and doesn't properly acknowledge its roots. Her main objection: 'You really could get the CD and run it without every knowing it had anything GNU/Linuxy in it or that the GPL provides you with guaranteed freedoms that Sun would like you not to know you have.' Feisty read, as ever, from Groklaw's founder and editor. That Jonesian coinage 'GNU/Linuxy' is worth the read alone!"

Simon P. Chappell writes "Linux programming is the C Programming Language. Elaborating a little, Linux programming is C, with the GLIBC library and the POSIX standard API. Even a language as powerful as C needs libraries and to get the Holy Grail of cross-platform portability, it's necessary to have them standardised. The POSIX API is that standardisation and Linux adheres to it very well (opinions from those litigious folks in Utah aside). For those of us who already know C, Linux Programming by Example sets out to teach you the rest in a step by step, helpful, relaxed and incremental manner."

jon787 writes "An email to LKML about the Linuxant's HSF Modem drivers lying to the kernel about their license has prompted some interesting replies. Lots of talk about how to effectively blacklist these kind of things; a patch is here. One of the more interesting is this one. Linus as always has his $0.02."

orasio writes " Joe's Own Editor , a unix editor very much like the old Turbo-Pascal 4 editor, or WordStar, used and enjoyed by us console freaks who still miss the old DOS days, and cannot finish understanding vi's modes, has been revamped, adding syntax highlighting and internationalization support after many years without new features. The Sourceforge project is open for contributors since a year ago, but this is the first major feature improvement, that brings new life to JOE as a neat console-based programmer's editor." Joe is one undervalued program -- less arcane than vi, less cumbersome than emacs.

An anonymous reader submits "Debian's Release Manager Anthony Towns announced that after the Grand Resolution to amend the Social Contract has been successful (it does not only apply to software any more), vital parts to modern Linux systems, such as important documentation, firmware needed for proper hardware support will have to be removed from the distribution before the next release. Moreover, the upcoming installer will need to be changed. He goes on to say that he does not expect this to happen by the end of this year which means that Sarge will not be released in 2004."

bdowne01 writes "Gentoo Linux has experienced rapid growth in the past year--much to the credit of Daniel Robbins, the founder and Chief Architect of the project. Earlier today, he announced his resignation from his role on the gentoo-nfp mailing list." Tester adds "But before leaving, he has set up a non-profit foundation that will own all of the copyrights to Gentoo. The initial board of trustees will be appointed by Daniel, but next year they will be elected. The membership of the foundation will be open." Reader burnitall points out a note on the Gentoo homepage reading "... We are extremely sad to see Daniel Robbins depart, and we both wish him the best in his new endeavors and promise that the door will always be open for his return." Robbins' message also indicates he hopes to continue working on the release engineering aspect of Gentoo.

An anonymous reader writes "Lindows is using bankers WRHambrecht and their OpenIPO process when they go public. The lower end of the pricing range will net them more than 50MM. But OpenIPO is designed to let ANYONE bid on IPO shares. If Linux can keep investor's attention and Google announces their own IPO, they could raise much more which could have impact on desktop Linux. Same CEO had near perfect timing raising 300MM with MP3.com IPO." OpenIPO is the same route Andover.net took back in the day.

theblkadder asks: "Our company is currently undergoing a company-wide transition to Linux on the desktop. While there are numerous excellent guides and tutorials for the admin crowd, I haven't been able to turn up much for the non-technical user. I'm looking for something that would cover such topics as basic desktop do's and don'ts, like 'do choose a non-dictionary password' and 'don't blindly drop to root and install an unverified/unauthenticated RPM that you receive via email,' etc. Anyone seen a guide like this?"

morrison writes "BZFlag, a 'free multiplayer multiplatform 3D tank battle game', is the Sourceforge [part of OSDN, as is Slashdot] April 2004 Project of the Month, and the award page features details and an interview with the creators. Hopefully other well-deserving Open Source games will receive recognition down the road." The creators explain the game "runs on Irix, Linux, *BSD, Windows, Mac OS X, and other platforms", note: "There are about 53,000 players in the statistics", and mention plans: "We hope to build a karma system that enables the community to guard against cheats and abuses."

IceFox writes "While working on the KDE on Darwin project I have only had one Mac to do development with. At the same time I have been playing around with distcc for Linux/x86 compiling. Combining the two projects I built a Mac OS X cross-compiler (for Linux/x86) and have created the DistccPPCKnoppix distribution. DistccPPCKnoppix is a 46MB Knoppix distribution based on distccKnoppix; with it you can use your extra x86 computers to build Linux/x86 or Mac OS X/PPC binaries. It might not be as shiny as an Xserve cluster, but it is a heck of a lot cheaper."

ron_ivi writes "In a move reminiscent of the 1997 MSFT/Borland Lawsuits, Microsoft has hired the SUSE sales guy who won Munich for SUSE. So if you want a job in this tough job market, just be wildly successful at your current job and Microsoft will come recruit you. (Another interesting Microsoft hire is the chair of the ISO C++ standards body as their VisualC++.NET architect.) Personally I think it's great that they recognize talented individuals and reward them well."

mbanck writes "The Debian Linux kernel maintainer has announced that he will remove firmware from GPL'd drivers which obviously lack source code in its preferred form (i.e. something more appropriate than a hexdump inside a char[]), in accordance with the release manager's decision. The alternatives are user-space loading of the firmware via hotplug's request_firmware() API or making the vendors aware of the issue. How do the other distributions handle this?"

Joe Barr writes "NewsForge is carrying the news that the founder and president of Linux Users Los Angeles (LULA) has resigned because of his opposition to the war in Iraq and the U.S. Armed Forces' use of Linux."

darthcamaro writes "Looks like we don't need to speculate on what Linus' opinion is on backporting. Internetnews.com is running a story this morning that includes Linus' comments on the issue which was a /. topic yesterday. When asked by e-mail to comment for internetnews.com, Torvalds wrote: 'I think it makes sense from a company standpoint to basically "cherry-pick" stuff from the development version that they feel is important to their customers. And in that sense I think the back-porting is actually a very good thing.'"

jbecherv writes "According to LinuxDevices.com, new-fangled Montreal parking meters run embedded Linux (Google Cache). The City of Montreal is planning to roll out 500 to 800 wireless, solar-powered parking payment stations based on embedded Linux. There is even a device profile (Google Cache) that show some details about the meters... These meters run kernel 2.4.19 on a 206MHz StrongARM SA-1110. Each system has 64MB of RAM, boots from a CF device, and is networked wirelessly via GPRS."

securitas writes "Businessweek's 'Linux Spreads its Wings' Special Report discusses the growing use of Linux in a wide range of products that include mobile phones, cars, telecom gear and consumer electronics; Linux in China; an analysis of the SCO litigation; a look at how Novell's Linux strategy may bring the struggling, former technology high-flyer back from the dead, as well as other articles and interviews related to the growth and spread of Linux as a viable platform for both enterprise and consumer technology."

Sir Joltalot writes "Over at OSNews they're covering the newly-renamed LinSpire's LSongs and LPhoto apps. Take a look at those screenshots, and you'll notice a striking resemblence to Apple's iTunes and iPhoto. Take a look at this flash presentation and you'll see that LPhoto and iPhoto are almost exactly alike. They look like nifty apps, to be sure, but how long will they last? I would have thought LinSpire might have learned from the whole Lindows name fiasco..."

tmu writes "According to a recent press release, the Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels are free of any code that violate copyrights. OSRM, the new startup formed by Daniel Egger and including groklaw founder Pamela Jones, completed a 6-month review of all code in both kernels. They must be pretty confident of the results, because they're offering product liability insurance to both developers and users."

Jan Stafford writes "Need to monitor Linux performance without purchasing a pricey diagnostic package? Try these simple, built-in command line tools. This article was written by site expert and author (Rapid Application Development with Mozilla) Nigel McFarlane."

prostoalex writes "Linuxfest Northwest 2004 took place in Bellingham, WA this past Saturday, as announced on Slashdot before. Check out the ever-expanding photo album and what people are saying in their blogs. I also have an extensive and highly subjective write-up on my site, but I can only vouch for the events I've been to myself. Compare that to Linuxfest 2000 coverage to see how things have changed."