Enhydra XMLC and next-generation protocol support guarantees
application
delivery to any analog, WAP, i-mode, or J2ME cellular device.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 16, 2000–Lutris Technologies Inc., the
leading
Open Source enterprise software and services company, today announced
Lutris
Enhydra Wireless, the latest product in Lutris’ family of certified and
supported Open Source Enhydra Java/XML application servers. Lutris
Enhydra
Wireless offers developers, systems
integrators and corporate IT departments the ability to develop a
single
internet application that delivers content to any device, in any
geographic
region, by supporting every major wireless protocol: i-mode, WAP, J2ME,
and
VoiceXML.

“Supporting the protocols that make targeting every device possible is
only
the beginning. What Lutris Enhydra Wireless delivers to our customers
and
ISV partners is the ability to seamlessly deploy one application that
is
accessible by all of their customers, regardless of their Internet
device or
geographic location,” said Yancy Lind, president and CEO, Lutris
Technologies. “Through the power of Open Source, Lutris Enhydra
Wireless
benefits from a worldwide community of developers with local wireless
expertise, and thus guarantees the ability to deploy global
applications.”

Lutris Enhydra Wireless provides developers with the first development
platform specifically designed to deliver content to wireless and wired
devices including phones, PDAs, handheld computers, desktops and
laptops.
Further, unlike other application servers that require a unique
code-base
for each device that will access the application, Lutris Enhydra
Wireless
leverages Enhydra XMLC, a technology developed by Lutris, to
effectively
separate the business logic from the presentation layer, enabling a
single
application to deliver content to any number of devices. This
“one-to-many”
approach significantly decreases time to market and dramatically
improves
application manageability. Additionally, this extensible XML
architecture
ensures that future wireless devices that depend on new presentation
technologies can be easily added to the application with minimal
impact.

“Wireless technology adds yet another level of complexity to the
deployment
environments that today’s application developers must support. A lack
of
standards means that applications targeted at wireless devices must
support
multiple protocols. To ease the burden on the developer Lutris is
taking
their support one step further, beyond just supporting all the
available
wireless protocols,” said Tracy Corbo, senior analyst, The Hurwitz
Group.
“In addition, Lutris is using XML to separate business and presentation
logic making their wireless applications more flexible. This enables
developers to focus on writing applications without worrying about the
wireless protocol du jour.”

To ensure that developers using Lutris Enhydra Wireless have the
technologies needed to meet the new demands of wireless development,
and to
address the absence of a global wireless standard, Lutris has included
support for a variety of leading presentation protocols. These include
HTML,
WML, cHTML, XHTML-Basic, VoiceXML and the new J2ME/MIDp protocols
required
for the emerging Java phones. In addition, Lutris has bundled emulators
for
many of the leading mobile phones, empowering developers to see how the
applications they have built will appear on the phone’s screen at run
time.
To aid in development and deployment, the product also includes
PostgresSQL
7, JBuilder Foundation, Forte for Java Community Edition and
comprehensive
wireless sample applications and source code.

Pricing and Availability
Lutris Enhydra Wireless will be generally available in December 2000.
Pricing for the product is still under consideration, and will include
options for selected training and support packages.

About Lutris Technologies
Lutris Technologies, a leading Open Source enterprise software and
services
company, is the original developer and primary sponsor of Enhydra, a
leading
Open Source Internet application server supporting Java, XML, and
wireless
technologies. Lutris offers a full range of support services and
technical
training to Lutris Enhydra customers and provides complete Internet
consulting services, including strategy and development services, to
the
Enhydra community and to Internet-savvy businesses. Clients range from
entrepreneurs and companies launching new Web ventures to Fortune 500
IT
organizations growing their business with an online presence.
Additional
information about Lutris products and services is available at
www.lutris.com.

Lutris and Enhydra are registered trademarks of Lutris Technologies,
Inc.
Java is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and
other
countries. All other trademarks belong to their respective holders.

Open Source print-and-file server vendor Samba Corp. announced Friday plans to fork its code base because of two warring camps in the company, and reactions have ranged from ho-hum to “we need this like we need a hole the head, reports ZDNet. Linux.com also has an opinion piece called “The Right to Fork.”

LinuxToday.com.au looks at some of the system administration issues that the Red Hat Network confronts users with. “The first thing that you will need to know is that currently only Red Hat Linux 7 is
supported by the RHN, although soon 6.2 will also be supported. So if your
company is running an old 5.2 box, as well you might be, for 5.2 was quite a
reliable release, then forget about the RHN. It’s not supported.”

From a column at OS Opinion: “Transmeta has the world watching them now that the first Crusoe-based laptops have been made commercially available. At present, the only place you can purchase one is in Japan but they will be available worldwide by the end of October. I’m not licking the stamp on a letter to Saint Nick begging for one to play with Christmas morning, but I’m very interested in how it performs in benchmarks and in the marketplace.” — Submitted by Kelly McNeill

The announcement is posted at LWN.net: “Ok, so Im back and its time to shift the backlog. Nothing too bad has come up
so far. This merges the pending DSL driver and NFSv3 patches and fixes
further bugs along the way. The big chunk is the m68k patches which dont
touch non m68k code.”

– By T. Bruce Tober –

This is a non-story. Or is it? It seems that according to the press announcement for
the WebMasters 2001 Exposition in London last week, “Microsoft will be providing copies of Visual Studio .NET Beta 2 for all attendees.” And this it did, packaged in a cutsie accordion fold-out pack. However, the press announcement also advised us the
behemoth would “be providing copies of the Linux Migration Guide.”

According to Microsoft, “The Guide contains technical information to aid developers and IT specialists in migrating Linux e-commerce solutions to a Microsoft
web solutions platform.” (While the Guide was apparently never distributed at the conference, it’s online at Microsoft.com.)

And according to the program for the expo, Microsoft had a booth. However, there was no Microsoft booth, nor were there any of the company’s representatives or
spokesmen anywhere in sight, except during the seminars they were conducting. When this reporter contacted one of the company’s offices in the U.K. and
asked to speak to a public relations spokesman, true to form for Microsoft, we were connected to the human resources department.

When the event organizer tried to chase up a Microsoft spokesperson or seminar speaker, he was told the guy couldn’t or wouldn’t talk with me. No need to try
to divine why that might be.

This reporter spent all day trying to track down one of these wondrous publications. They proved to be as elusive as company personnel. The event organizer then informed me the company had apparently decided, after publication of the press announcement, not to distribute “The Guide” and not to take a booth.

So rather than go away empty-handed, our intrepid reporter tracked down a spokesperson from a major Linux distribution company. She agreed to speak on
terms of anonymity.

Anyway, when asked “why Microsoft would want or feel a need to give out a migration guide for Linux to .Net,” she speculated, “Because they realize the Linux market is
growing. They would like to find a way to get some of the Linux market back to Microsoft.”

But, what percentage of Linux users do you think would be crazy enough to be interested in migrating to Microsoft, she was asked. “I’m not aware of any at the moment.”
“None?” I asked. “Not that I’m aware of,” she reiterated.

Finally, I asked, “why do you think Microsoft gave up the idea of distributing The Guide?” To which she responded, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s costing them too
much in marketing budget to send them out to customers.”

“You mean in terms of return of investment,” I suggested.

“I just don’t know,” she demurred.

By Grant Gross

Managing Editor
Is it really all about Microsoft?

More fallout this week about Microsoft’s decision to invest in the Linux-friendly Corel. Several news organizations reported on an SEC filing that claimed Corel will be able to port Microsoft’s .Net service model to Linux and ease itself into the Open Source community. The question is, how many Linux users want to play with .Net?

Red Hat: We’re no Microsoft

Linux distributor Red Hat continued to take some flack this week, with Upside Today lamenting the fallout from Red Hat’s attempts to become a Linux market leader: “From a plummeting stock price to exaggerated reports of buggy code to growing outcry over the company’s perceived attempts to set itself apart from the rest of the Linux distributor community, Red Hat has been buffeted by nothing but bad news in recent weeks,” wrote an Upside staffer. Earlier reports in the week gigged Red Hat for some capability problems Red Hat 7.0 had with earlier versions.

Finally, Red Hat chairman Bob Young went so far as to write an open letter to Slashdot readers, focusing on the criticism the company has received for its 7.0 release. Young also wrote: “There is one recurring comment that I could not resist addressing. Namely the regular habit of our critics of comparing Red Hat to Microsoft. I just don’t get it. There are many things for which we should be justifiably criticized (I have no idea what these might be, but I’m certain they exist 😉 but trying to act like Microsoft is not one of them.”

KDE and Gnome: We borrow from Microsoft

The Atlanta Linux Showcase and Conference was this week, and along with it came a flurry of reports from the showroom floor. Among them: KDE and Gnome developers saying they’re looking to Microsoft for some inspiration, and book publisher Tim O’Reilly hinting at a new peer-to-peer project. NewsForge reported on two companies hawking their wares at ALS, PocketLinux and Epitera.

Gates: We’re Microsoft and we’re proud

All this news about Microsoft, and we get to hear from the man himself! Bill Gates spoke at an Intel event this week, saying Microsoft is in great position to do just fine in the wireless and voice technology areas. Could you expect less from Mr. Gates?

Commentary: We’re flushing money down the Microsoft toilet

We can’t break away from all this MS news without someone in the Open Source community getting a good jab in. This week’s cut on the Bill and Steve show comes from 32bitsonline: “Actually, all you have to do is take the current value of all of Microsoft and divide that into the number of machines ever loaded with WinWhatever, and multiply that by the number of hollow marketing promises that M$ has ever made. That is what it has cost business and end users alike to leave the Redmondites to their own devices … several (hundred?) trillion dollars, any way you cut it.”

Microsoft isn’t the only one with security issues

If you like a bit of irony with your breakfast, check out the story about the Secure Digital Music Initiative’s not-so-secure start. Salon.com reported that not one single watermark resisted attack in the SDMI’s hacking contest. Oops! In other security news — or lack thereof — a Swedish hacker team cracked what was supposed to be the “world’s toughest code” from author Simon Singh’s bestseller “The Code Book.”

New at NewsForge

Among the original reports at NewsForge this week:

News editor Tina Gasperson talked to LXNY secretary Jay Sulzberger about what makes a successful Linux user group.

Tina also busted one Open Source company, Collab.net, for having a closed-source mentality about doing business, specifically about talking to the press. It should be noted that Collab.net is a competitor of one of NewsForge’s sister sites, SourceForge.

We also reported on the beta release of the Opera browser for Linux. Developers say they believe Linux users will find the browser good enough to pay for.

Linux Expo Canada-Toronto will be held
at
the
Metro Toronto Convention Center on Oct. 30-31 and Nov. 1, 2000.This show offer you three days tutorials and conferences with Linux experts recognized around the world.

October 30: Tutorials
October 31: Keynote session Conferences
November 1: Conferences

Price to attend the conferences:

$210 (Canadian dollar) for pre-registered people on our Web site

$350 for on site registration (expo day)

Students : $75.

If you want more details, please visit www.linuxexpocanada.com.

Appian Jeronimo 2000 Now Available For All Major Platforms

REDMOND, Wash. — Appian Graphics has announced the
availability of a Linux operating system driver for the PCI version of
their
Appian Jeronimo 2000 extended-desktop graphics card. Interested parties
may
download the drivers free of charge at ftp.xfree86.org.
The Appian Jeronimo 2000 Linux driver is supported by Xfree86.org in
cooperation with Appian Graphics. This is the latest platform to be
supported by the Appian Jeronimo 2000, which also supports Windows
98/2000/NT 4.0 and Mac OS9.

“The recent development of a Macintosh driver has been a huge success
for
us, and Linux drivers were the next logical step to take” said Michael
Larson, Director of Business Development at Appian. “We want to make
clear
that we offer a turnkey solution for anyone, and Linux drivers help us
deliver that message.”

About Appian Graphics
Appian Graphics markets a complete line of Xtended Desktop Solutions
designed specifically for the professional user. As reported in Jon
Peddie
Associates’ multi-monitor study, Appian dominates the Extended Desktop
Solution arena with nearly half the market share. The company’s
solutions
have been recognized by world-renowned technology leaders such as
Compaq,
Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell and Microsoft. Additional information about
the
Redmond, Wash.-based company can be found on the World Wide Web at
www.appian.com.

###
Appian Graphics is a registered trademark of Appian Graphics. Appian
Jeronimo, Appian Gemini, Appian Traveler, AppianXtras, AppianDX,
AppianRotate, AppianSync, AppianColor, AppianMode, HydraThread, Xtended
Desktop Solutions and HydraVision are trademarks of Appian Graphics.
Appian
software programs and Appian hardware devices are covered by one or
more
of
the following U.S. patents: 5,835,090; 5,848,294; 5,949,437. Additional
patents are pending. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners. (c)2000, Appian Graphics.

Maxmimum Linux talked to representatives of the Free Software Foundation last week at the Annual Linux Showcase. FSF is still fighting against software patents, in case you were wondering.