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 From : Sergey Lentsov                       2:4615/71.10   08 Nov 2001  17:11:38
 To : All
 Subject : URL: http://www.lwn.net/2001/1108/history.php3
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    See also: [13]last week's Linux History page.
    
 This week in Linux history
 
    Correction. Last week we said that "Unisys has never tried to enforce
    its patent" on the LZW compression algorithm used in GIF images. We
    didn't do our homework very well on that. Don Marti [14]wrote in to
    set us straight. Software patents show up again in the year 2000 this
    week.
    Three years ago ([15]November 12, 1998 LWN): Stop terrorism. Use free
    software.
    
      Brad Smith, Microsoft general counsel international, says he has
      seen a still more ominous element in the software piracy food
      chain. "I'm not prepared to talk about specifics," he says, "but we
      have seen organized criminal groups using the proceeds from
      software counterfeiting to pay for terrorist operations overseas.
      We have seen a couple of terrorist organizations get involved in
      software counterfeiting."
      -- [16]PCWorld.com
      
    The current development kernel release was 2.1.127. This kernel drew
    some complaints, mostly about compilation errors. Alan Cox released an
    -ac1 patch containing numerous minor tweaks seemingly aimed at the
    "jiffies wraparound" problem, MCA stuff, and an apparent return of the
    AVL tree for mapping virtual memory areas.
    
    The Halloween documents were covered [17]last week, but they remained
    in the press. [18]Robert Cringely's take, at PBS.org, is worth
    reading.
    
      What a week ago was a discussion about the inroads Linux and Apache
      have made against commercial software has suddenly and instantly
      been redefined into a discussion of the threat Microsoft poses to
      Linux and Apache, and what those two development efforts have to do
      to survive. The very fact that we are talking this way means
      Microsoft is successful in redefining our way of looking at the
      whole subject. This is both dangerous and wrong. While Linux and
      Apache may be threats to Microsoft, the truth is that Microsoft in
      no way represents a threat to either Linux or Apache. No threat,
      none, zilch, nada.
      
    Two years ago ([19]November 11, 1999 LWN): RedHat and Oracle announced
    a collaborative distribution based on RedHat Linux that was intended
    to be aimed at high volume e-commerce sites.
    
    U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's findings of fact
    revealed that [20]Microsoft had a monopoly in the operating system
    business. In the ruling, Linux was written off as a viable
    alternative:
    
      Fortunately for Microsoft, however, there are only so many
      developers in the world willing to devote their talents to writing,
      testing, and debugging software pro bono publico.... It is unlikely
      ... that a sufficient number of open-source developers will commit
      to developing and continually updating the large variety of
      applications that an operating system would need to attract in
      order to present a significant number of users with a viable
      alternative to Windows.
      
    Publicly traded Linux stocks jumped up in price after the
    announcement. Cobalt Networks fortuitously chose this week to go
    public, and immediately jumped to $130/share - then the third biggest
    opening day "pop" ever.
    
    Rumors circulated that Red Hat would buy Cygnus - these turned out to
    be true.
    
    Journaling for ReiserFS was released by Hans Reiser. Another
    Journaling filesystem, Stephen Tweedie's ext3 version 0.0.2c
    filesystem was released.
    
    The freeze of Debian 2.2 was pushed back - until January of 2000. That
    seemed like a long time away, but the eventual 2.2 release was even
    further away.
    
    One year ago ([21]November 9, 2000 LWN): [22]FreeDevelopers.net
    announced its existence.
    
      FreeDevelopers is a democratic entity for the development of free
      software. The free company, probably the first of its kind in the
      world, will be owned and run by developers worldwide on a
      democratic basis in a sacred trust for the benefit and protection
      of the world's citizens. It will pay all developers to work on free
      software, and all developers will receive company shares and stock
      options
      
    As an official 2.4.0 grew ever closer to reality, the "getting close
    to release time" ritual of last-minute queries as to why some
    particular subsystem is out of date and working poorly, focused on the
    IrDA (infrared) subsystem. This [23]rant pointed out that the version
    in the mainline kernel not only didn't work, it could crash your
    system as well. In this case it was not that IrDA was not maintained;
    the problem was just that the patches are not getting into the kernel.
    Linus wasn't getting patches in the way he wanted them. The IrDA
    developers did learn to send small, clear patches frequently, instead
    of large chunks of code at long intervals, which were inevitably
    ignored. After a few months IrDA patches started getting into the
    2.4.2 kernel.
    
    LWN [24]looked at a LynuxWorks patent covering loadable kernel
    modules.
    
      But the basic claim is "A computer operating system that can be
      flexibly constructed by inclusion of any of a plurality of
      processing components." That, of course, would describe many of the
      operating systems created over the last twenty years. This patent
      is not so old, however - it was granted last June. One can only
      assume that the company will not attempt to enforce it.
      
    As far as we know, this one has not been enforced. No doubt someone
    will tell us if we are wrong.
    
    ZDNet [25]interviewed Raph Levien on software patents. The following
    quote comes from [26]patches by Raph in response to the article.
    
      So it was something of a surprise when Levien posted a notice on
      his Web site earlier this year, offering a free license to anyone
      who uses his patented ideas in software protected by the Gnu Public
      License. In other words, anyone who shares "open source" or free
      software doesn't have to worry about Levien suing for patent
      infringement.
      
      Wrong. The patent grant is for GPL software only. If you want to
      release software under a non-GPL open source license, I'd love to
      have a discussion with you about royalty payments.
      
    The [27]LWN Linux Stock Index was upgraded to include stocks traded in
    currencies other than US dollars.
    
    Section Editor: [28]Rebecca Sobol.
    November 8, 2001
    
    LWN Linux Timelines
    [29]1998 In Review
    [30]1999 In Review
    [31]2000 In Review
    
    
                                                         [32]Next: Letters
    
    [33]Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright Л 2001 [34]Eklektix, Inc.,
    all rights reserved
    Linux (R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
 
 References
 
    1. http://lwn.net/
    2. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/pageid=pageid=132-000-001-001
    3. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/
    4. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/security.php3
    5. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/kernel.php3
    6. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/dists.php3
    7. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/devel.php3
    8. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/commerce.php3
    9. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/press.php3
   10. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/announce.php3
   11. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/letters.php3
   12. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/bigpage.php3
   13. http://lwn.net/2001/1101/history.php3
   14. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/a/burngifs.php3
   15. http://lwn.net/1998/1112/
   16. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article.asp?aid=8566
   17. http://lwn.net/2001/1101/
   18. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit19981105.html
   19. http://lwn.net/1999/1111/
   20. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-201-1431107-0.html
   21. http://lwn.net/2000/1109/
   22. http://www.freedevelopers.net/
   23. http://lwn.net/2000/1109/a/IrDA.php3
   24. http://lwn.net/2000/1109/kernel.php3
   25. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2650749,00.html
   26. http://www.levien.com/wayner-patch.html
   27. http://lwn.net/stocks/
   28. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   29. http://lwn.net/1999/features/1998timeline/
   30. http://lwn.net/1999/features/Timeline/
   31. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Timeline/
   32. http://lwn.net/2001/1108/letters.php3
   33. http://www.eklektix.com/
   34. http://www.eklektix.com/
 
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