Anonymous Reader writes, “The Embedded Linux Consortium (ELC) will hold an open
technical meeting tonight in San Francisco, during which the
two-year-old organization will move beyond its initial role of primarily
evangelizing the adoption of Embedded Linux, to one of creating a
unified Embedded Linux “platform specification”. . Among the over 100
attendees expected are representatives of many of the world’s largest
and most influential software, semiconductor, and electronics companies:
HP, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp,
Sony, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, and Wind River.”

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6526424457.html

–
By John Lettice of The Register –

Major businesses could well be poised to embrace Open Source software, with cost, control over development and “an alternative to the status quo” being prime considerations, according to survey data released today by OpenForum Europe. OpenForum, which aims to accelerate the deployment of Open Source software in business and government, jointly funded the survey with the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry.

Over three months, 79 CIOs and financial directors in financial services, retail and public sector were interviewed, and the results suggest both a receptiveness on their part to moving to Open Source, and problems ahead for Microsoft’s “upgrade escalator” sales model. Perceptions actually varied surprisingly little between users and non-users of Open Source software. Some 64 percent of users felt a benefit of Open Source was to decrease general costs, against a still substantial 49 percent of non-users. This was by far the biggest perceived benefit, with development control (23 percent and 14 percent respectively) and lower software licensing costs (23 and 24 percent) coming next. Licensing costs are the major issue as far as total cost of ownership is concerned.

Then comes “an alternative to the status quo,” with 23 percent and 14 percent, and we think we know who they mean here. Access to source, cross-platform capabilities and customisability come fairly low down, which suggests that they really just want a cheaper, commodity alternative, rather than to be able to sing and dance as well. Another item of concern for Microsoft will surely be that reasonable numbers of them (26 percent in the retail business) propose slowing down the upgrade cycle as an important part of their licensing cost strategy.

So why don’t they jump? Availability of support is seen as the major challenge, and beyond that they’re all over the place. Cross platform compatibility also comes second in the challenges section (23 percent and 16 percent), but there’s a whole raft of other concerns of a similar order. Here, though, the users and non-users diverge most clearly, with non-users worrying hard about no track record (24 percent), “due diligence process unproven” (a legal thing) 19 percent, and credibility of supplier (19 percent).

So there’s still a sales job to be done on the people who haven’t bought into it yet, and over at the purse strings of the banks we barely seem to have started yet. Only 6 percent of bank financial directors admit to having heard a little about Open Source from their IT departments, while the balance confidently assert “none.”

But the good news: 86 percent of CIOs intend to run Open Source at infrastructure level, 17 percent will use it for business critical apps, and 14 percent apiece reckon it will play on the desktop and handhelds. So we can’t expect a major desktop and device rollout soon, but the server end of the business looks plausible, which is of course as it should be, given the current nature of the platforms.

Unlike the more overtly geeky Open Source organisations we’re familiar with, OpenForum Europe has set itself the tricky task of evangelising the software in business and government, which means having a few suits on board itself, and working the line between suit and geek. As we’ve suggested previously, blood may well be spilt on this one, but the survey is a credible first effort, and more details are available here. The next stage, spokesman Graham Taylor told The Register, is to get together some credible case studies, and a migration guide.

All Content copyright 2002 The Register

The TOLIS Group, Inc., a Talented Organization Leveraging Intelligent Solutions, today announces BRU-Pro[tm] 2.0 will begin shipping to customers on March 19, 2002. The advanced features of BRU-Pro 2.0 running on a cost effective, reliable Linux box provides ultra-reliable backup and data recovery services on medium to large heterogeneous network systems. Introductory pricing will be in effect for the first 30 days of product availability.

“The market need for the functionality of BRU-Pro 2.0 is clear. The importance of data and its availability has never been greater, and the impact of interrupted access spans from disruptive to catastrophic. But what if the backup system fails? BRU-Pro 2.0 literally backs itself up,” said Tim Jones, president of the TOLIS Group. “BRU-Pro 2.0 running under Linux provides a most compelling backup system argument.”

In addition to storing archive catalogs on the server disk like other backup applications, BRU-Pro 2.0 also writes the catalogs and indexes to tape along with each archive. The redundant locations are critical since the server disk drive is the device with the highest failure rate within the backup management system. Should that hard disk fail, simply replace the drive, reload BRU-Pro, and the catalogs and indexes are automatically recreated on the drive. In contrast to alternative approaches, the renewed availability of archived data is not measured in terms of lengthy downtime and expensive, manual rebuilds of the catalogs and indexes.

Additional key features of BRU-Pro 2.0 include: encrypted data streams from the client to the server, client-side data compression to optimize use of available network bandwidth, NFS/SMB mounts to backup NAS boxes on the network, QFA (Quick File Access), native SCSI library support (no costly add-ins) and the ability to backup multiple clients to multiple tape destinations simultaneously for optimized throughput.

BRU-Pro 2.0 was carefully designed to assure the accuracy of archived data, and the ability to successfully recover it. The tape format of BRU-Pro 2.0, unlike tar-based products, allows verification that audits the first bit of data taken off a client system to the last bit written to tape. Since recovery can only be as accurate as the backup, this approach assures the accuracy of the backup and eliminates the 30% – 50% data recovery failure rates users typically experience. Should a tape be damaged following a backup, advanced BRU-Pro 2.0 error detection and recovery schemes assure the maximum amount of data will be recovered.

BRU-Pro 2.0 is priced at $999 and ships with 3 client licenses. Additional clients are priced on a cost-effective sliding volume scale. For the first 30 days of shipping, BRU-Pro 2.0 will be available at a special introductory price of $699.

An annual, post-warranty Extended Support Plan that provides unlimited access to expert technical support for one year via phone, fax, and email is priced at $499. The coverage also includes free updates as they may become available.

ABOUT THE TOLIS GROUP, INC.

The TOLIS Group Inc. a privately held business located in Scottsdale, Arizona, is dedicated to provide leading-edge products to OEMs and end-users that are effective, reliable, and of excellent value for computer users. Product focus centers on data protection solutions, and our service mark of “Software You Can Trust” guides our business.

The majority of TOLIS’ products are based on the BRU backup engine, an elegant piece of software first developed in 1985 that has evolved and remains on the leading edge of backup technology to this day. Numerous product excellence awards have recognized BRU.

TOLIS is a Corporate Supporting Member of Linux International and the Linux Professional Institute. TOLIS is also the sponsor of the Linux Tape Device Certification Program (www.linuxtapecert.org). Contact the TOLIS Group at PH: 1.480.505.0488, FAX: 1.801.327.6177, E-mail: info@tolisgroup.com, or visit TOLIS on the Web at: www.tolisgroup.com.

The recent changelog is below.

2.2.21rc1
o Add farsync driver (Bob Dunlop)
o Fix x86 cpu type reporting in some cases (Barry Nathan)
o Fix module_license tag compatibility macro (Keith Owens)
o Update MAINTAINERS entry (Mark McClelland)
o Fix fb.h comment error (Krzysiek Taraszka)
o Zlib fix (Arjan van de Ven)
o Back out problem mce change

2.2.21pre4
o Fix FAT breakage in pre3 (Dmitry Levin)
o Add S/390 LCS driver (IBM opensourced it now) (DJ Barrow,
Frank Pavlic)
o Update COPYING file to match FSF update (Dan Quinlann)
| basically swap 19xx example for this century..
o Fix a file name comment (William Stearns)
o Add realtek phy support to 2.2 sis900 driver (Allan Jacobsen)
o Fix MCE address reporting order, fix oops with (Dave Jones)
newer gcc due to bad asm constraints
o Starfire update (Ion Badulescu)
o Always victimise the dcache a little when
short of memory (John Lash, me)

Frank writes, “This white paper from IBM (PDF) presents the results of the test conducted on a 58-node Cluster 1300 system, simultaneously running eight instances of e-Business Trade 2 benchmark tests on Redhat Linux. This all-IBM solution mounted in only three racks supported 800,000 users, serving an unprecedented 12,547 requests/sec with an average response time of 0.27 sec/request.”

From LinuxSecurity Contributors: “Just when you thought your data was removed forever, Anton Chuvakin shows us how to recover
data and even how data can surruptitiously be hidden within space on the filesystem.”
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/feature_stories/data- hiding-forensics.html

Jeff Gerhardt writes: Tuesday, March 12th, 2002 from the home of Wayne’s World, Aurora IL
Tonight LIVE on
www.thelinuxshow.com,
at 6pm pt, 7pm mt, 8pm ct, and 9pm et, Kevin Hill, Jeff Gerhardt, PJ
Hyett, Doc Searls (Linux Journal), Arne Flones and Russ Pavlicek have
another great show lined up tonight on The Linux Show!!

In Segment One – Hot News: We will be covering the hot Linux news of
the last few weeks. In particular we will a series of stories/events that
continue to embattle the technology development community. It has come to a
point where TLS is shifting its editorial posture to a more aggresive tone.
We are “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.” So, tonight we
introduce a new theme of political confrontation.

In Segment Two- Sputnik “launches” into Orbit

Well at least to an 802.11 network near you. It is very sad when you see
people you admire have a difficult time. But, it is really cool when you
see those same people stick together as a team, and launch a new busines.
Tonight we will be joined by Art Tyde, Dave Sifry and Dave LaDuke. These
should be very familiar names as these were the guys who founded the one time high flying Linux Services organization Linuxcare.

Because of an ill timed attempt at an IPO, Linuxcare sort of stumbled, and had to reorganize. In April 2001, the intrepid Trio (Art, Dave and Dave) left Linuxcare and formed a new company that they basically put under wraps. Last month did they launch the Web site to inform the world of their plans. To this point (almost a year later)there has been no marketing or advertising of the (uhhh) Product (no its a service I think).

The secrecy was to “under-promise and over-deliver,” as Sifry put it. What it does is very cool. It is an Open Source 802.11b wireless gateway designed to allow wireless access providers to authenticate users while sharing their bandwidth. This is based on the explosion of wireless mesh networks that are poping up across the world. It allows service providers, and even users to build their own Sputnik Node. Bandwidth Providers will share in the revenue, once the commercial side of the service goes live. At present over 100 service providers have signed up to provide access points.

Please join us on the show, check our IRC Chat(irc.thelinuxshow.com
#linuxshow).

Remember tune in at 6pm pt, 7pm mt, 8pm ct, and 9pm et.

Catch the Linux show at www.thelinuxshow.com

The Register distills Mandrake’s request for more subscribers. “Claiming a short-term cash crunch, Linux distributor Mandrake is asking individual users to join a ‘club’ for $5 per month and up, and business users to join one for $2,500 per year and up.”

MSNBC has a Newsweek article questioning the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The article asks: “Can it be illegal to give people the tools to break into their own property? The U.S. government thinks so.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
today chided media conglomerate Vivendi Universal
Publishing for threatening gamers who created their own
multiplayer gaming community.

On behalf of its Blizzard Entertainment division, Vivendi
sent a “cease and desist” letter to Internet Gateway Inc.,
the Internet Service Provider (ISP) host of a free software
project called “bnetd” that emulates Blizzard’s Battle.net
gaming service. Blizzard game purchasers can meet online
or on a local area network to chat, find competition, and
start multiplayer games using the bnetd software.

Vivendi demanded that the ISP disable the website hosting
the bnetd software, claiming it violates copyright law and
the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA).

EFF responded to Vivendi’s letter, explaining that its
claims were unfounded and stating that the bnetd software,
which was removed upon receipt of the demand, would be
reposted in 10 days.

“A group of volunteers decided to write a server for
Blizzard games because the Blizzard servers were
undependable and we wanted increased functionality,”
explained Tim Jung, owner of Internet Gateway, based in St.
Louis. “Vivendi claims that the server violates the law
because it does not implement checking the game’s CD-KEY,
designed to prevent the use of illegal copies of their
games. We asked them to give us the information we needed
to do the checking, but they refused.”

“This is yet another example of misuse of the DMCA and
copyright law,” noted EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “Bnetd
developers engaged in legal reverse engineering without
circumvention or any illegal activity.”

The DMCA has no requirement that one must include every
feature of a program or system like CD-KEYS; in fact, the
DMCA’s “no mandate” provision states that developers of
interoperable programs do not have to respond to CD-KEYS
and similar technology.

“Corporations have wielded the DMCA to censor magazines,
academic researchers, and competitors,” said EFF Senior
Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann. “Now
Vivendi is using the DMCA to threaten customers who simply
want to improve the gaming environment for a product
they’ve purchased legitimately.”

Cease and desist letter sent by Vivendi Universal:
http://www.eff.org/sc/bnetd/20020219_blizzard_bnetd_letter.html.

EFF reply to cease and desist letter:
http://www.eff.org/sc/bnetd/20020312_eff_blizzard_letter.html

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/sc/bnetd/20020312_eff_bnetd_pr.html

Bnetd website:
http://www.bnetd.org

Blizzard’s explanation:
http://www.battle.net/support/emulationfaq.shtml

Media coverage and websites related to the case:
http://www.bnetd.org/news_links.php
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/03/11/020311opsource.xml
http://www.boycottblizzard.org/
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=149

A Penny Arcade comic about the case:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-03-04

About EFF:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
statement, privacy, and openness in the information
society. EFF is a member-supported organization and
maintains one of the most-linked-to websites in the world at
http://www.eff.org/

About Internet Gateway:

Founded in 1995, Missouri-based Internet Gateway provides
Internet and networking solutions, as well as consulting
services, to businesses and end users across the country.
Internet Gateway provides Internet access, consulting and
support to other ISPs as well as to its own customers. In
addition to nationwide consulting and support, Internet
Gateway currently provides Internet access to five cities
including the St. Louis metro area, Cape Girardeau,
Sikeston, Perryville and the St. Charles/St. Peters metro
area. The company website can be found at
http://www.igateway.net

About bnetd Project:

The bnetd project is a collaboration focusing on
development of a server that attempts to emulate Blizzard’s
Battle.net gaming server. The bnetd project is run by
volunteers and is neither supported by nor affiliated with
Blizzard Entertainment. The project website is at
http://www.bnetd.org