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 From : Sergey Lentsov                       2:4615/71.10   10 May 2002  19:51:20
 To : All
 Subject : URL: http://www.lwn.net/2002/0502/
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    Here is the [30]permanent site for this page.
 
    See also: [31]last week's LWN.
 
 Leading items and editorials
 
    The European Union's Sixth Framework Program is a proposed program for
    the funding of scientific research and development across Europe. It
    has many goals, including:
 
      ...enabling the Union, within the next ten years, to become the
      world's most competitive and dynamic knowledge economy.
 
    A budget of over EUR 16 billion is proposed for this activity, which
    will last through 2006. Of that, about EUR 3.6 billion is to be set
    aside for "information society" projects. That, of course, is a
    substantial chunk of change, with the potential to bring about some
    truly interesting developments.
 
    It is not surprising that the European branch of the Free Software
    Foundation [32]has something to say about what kind of software should
    be developed with these funds. FSF Europe sees a possible escape from
    an undesirable situation:
 
      As a result of the proprietary software model, we are currently in
      a situation where almost the whole European information
      technologies industry is dependent on an oligopoly of U.S. software
      companies. Viewed from the European perspective, such a situation
      is highly unstable and unfavorable
 
    The solution to this problem, of course, is to fund the development of
    a European free software industry. The potential, they say, is great:
 
      Free Software is clearly a model of the future and Europe already
      has an increasingly vibrant Free Software scene unrivaled anywhere
      in the world. This gives Europe a very unique chance to capitalize
      on the benefits of Free Software and get a head-start into the
      knowledge economy.
 
    FSF Europe is asking that at least 50% of the "information society"
    budget go to free software and documentation, and that free software
    be preferred in all the program's funding decisions. In some areas
    (fundamental science and "eEurope"), they would like to see 100% free
    software.
 
    For the most part, one would expect these recommendations to be
    uncontroversial - at least, outside of a Microsoft boardroom. Software
    developed with public money should, in general, be available to the
    people who paid for it. There may be, however, a bit more disagreement
    over one other recommendation from the FSF:
 
      Additional positive scores in the evaluation process should be
      granted to projects employing ``Copylefted'' Free Software and
      projects taking steps to ensure the enduring availability and legal
      maintainability of the Free Software created through copyright
      assignments to appropriate institutions.
 
    LWN has often pointed out the benefits of the GPL. But this sort of
    attempt to create governmental preferences for a specific software
    license could well be self-defeating. Reasonable people - all of whom
    support free software - can and often do disagree over software
    licenses. This recommendation looks like an attempt by one group to
    grab preferential treatment over the others. Is it not enough that the
    resulting software be free?
 
    (See also: [33]the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme
    page).
 
    OpenOffice 1.0 released. The [34]announcement went out on May 1:
    OpenOffice 1.0 is now available. OpenOffice has been covered on this
    page [35]before, so we'll say little about it here. Suffice to say
    that OpenOffice is the most comprehensive, feature-complete free
    office suite available for Linux today.
 
    The OpenOffice team started with a large pile of corporate code,
    complete with proprietary bits cut out and comments in German. The
    better part of two years of work has turned it into a highly capable
    package with many of the worst features (i.e. the StarOffice desktop)
    removed, an open, XML-based file format, and, of course, a 100% free
    code base. It is a great achievement; congratulations are due to the
    OpenOffice.org developers.
 
    Catching up with Linux companies. A few Linux and free software
    companies came out with news this week, so here's a combined article
    to catch up. Some of these companies, we might say, are doing better
    than others.
 
    Remember EBIZ Enterprises? The company once ran TheLinuxStore.com and,
    through a high-profile merger with [36]LinuxMall.com, was trying to
    set itself up as one of the primary Linux retail outlets. EBIZ also
    announced an agreement in March, 2001 to acquire Linux NetworX. Things
    didn't go so well, of course; the Linux NetworX acquisition was called
    off, and EBIZ went into bankruptcy last September.
 
    EBIZ has now [37]made an SEC filing describing its plan for emerging
    from bankruptcy; it's a grim document. The big, secured creditors (The
    Canopy Group, Caldera, Ingram) will get their money back in full -
    over several years, if the company lasts that long. The Canopy Group
    will, if it exercises its options to exchange some of the debt for
    equity, emerge with a controlling share of the company, along with the
    right to name three directors.
 
    The other creditors are not so lucky; they get 7% of what they are
    owed (over two years) and a chunk of stock in the post-bankruptcy
    company. The worst treatment, however, is reserved for the
    stockholders: their shares will simply be "canceled" and replaced with
    a 60-day "right" to buy new shares at $0.65 each. Essentially, this
    company is being taken from its owners and handed over to management
    and the large creditors.
 
    The reformed company still plans to make its living through sales of
    Linux-oriented products to consumers and VARs. EBIZ also plans, it
    seems, to run a Linux news site, a bad business idea if there ever was
    one...
 
    It may have happened more quietly, but Lineo appears to have gone
    through a similar process. Since Lineo is a private company, there is
    less information available on what went on; the best coverage of the
    company's "recapitalization" seems to be in these articles on
    [38]LinuxDevices.com and [39]NewsForge. Lineo went through some sort
    of legal routine that involved foreclosing on the old company, but
    transferring most of its assets to "Lineo 2." More money got pumped
    into Lineo, with the end result that the company is controlled by,
    once again, the Canopy Group. Lineo is claiming that it will reach a
    profitable status any minute now; if those words are true then the
    company should soon be past its problems.
 
    Some better news can be found in [40]this press release from MySQL AB.
    This company claims "unprecedented growth," with first quarter sales
    being "53 percent over projections." According to the PR, the
    dual-licensing scheme, wherein companies incorporating MySQL into
    their products pay for a proprietary license if they do not wish to be
    bound by the GPL, is working out well. MySQL has also received a new
    round of venture financing.
 
    The "dual license" approach may yet prove to be a workable business
    model - at least, for bits of software infrastructure that other
    companies wish to use in their products. There are problems, of
    course: not all potential contributors will be willing to allow their
    code to be sold as a proprietary product. In some areas, however, it
    may be possible to put together a reasonable development community
    behind a free product and still sell GPL "indulgements" to companies
    willing to pay.
 
    Samba and the CIFS Specification. The Samba Team has [41]released a
    statement regarding the Microsoft CIFS specification license and its
    effect on Samba. This specification, remember, prohibits use of the
    described technology in GPL-licensed code. The Samba developers,
    however, are not worried:
 
      The Samba Team wishes to reassure the Samba community that this
      document will not have any impact on the use or further development
      of Samba.
 
    Essentially, the Samba Team is saying (1) they have no need for
    Microsoft's documentation, since the relevant information has already
    been published elsewhere; (2) Microsoft's CIFS patents do not apply to
    the Samba code, and (3) the Team does not accept Microsoft's criticism
    of the GPL:
 
      While Microsoft labels the GPL as "Intellectual Property Impairing"
      in their license document, it has in fact proved to be a very
      successful vehicle for encouraging the development of a high
      quality CIFS/SMB implementation. Far from "impairing" intellectual
      property the Samba Team believes that the distribution terms of the
      GNU GPL has provided an environment which has encouraged a high
      degree of industry collaboration to the benefit of both Samba users
      and the many successful companies that have built a wide range of
      products on top of Samba technology.
 
    In other words, it's business as usual for a development group which
    has been producing high-quality, seriously useful free software for
    many years.
 
    Inside this LWN.net weekly edition:
      * [42]Security: Mozilla flaw; sudo root exploit; another DNS based
        vulnerability
      * [43]Kernel: Block driver work; kbuild is ready; kernel books.
      * [44]Distributions: More about RunOnCD, EvilEntity Linux, Server
        optimized Linux.
      * [45]Development: The future of omniORB; OpenNMS 1.0, ghostscript,
        etc.
      * [46]Commerce: D. H. Brown Linux Study; Dell and Oracle will
        deliver database solutions with Linux.
      * [47]Letters: BitKeeper, OpenCD.
 
    ...plus the usual array of reports, updates, and announcements.
 
    This Week's LWN was brought to you by:
      * [48]Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor
 
    May 2, 2002
 
                                Sponsored Link
 
    [49]Cheap and Effective
 
    LWN's text ads are a cheap and effective marketing tool for your
    organization. You can now purchase text ads automatically through our
    own credit card gateway. (No more PayPal).
                                                        [50]Next: Security
 
    [51]Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright Л 2002 [52]Eklektix, Inc.,
    all rights reserved
    Linux (R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
 
 References
 
    1. http://lwn.net/
    2. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/security.php3
    3. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/kernel.php3
    4. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/dists.php3
    5. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/devel.php3
    6. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/commerce.php3
    7. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/press.php3
    8. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/announce.php3
    9. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/letters.php3
   10. http://lwn.net//2002/0502/bigpage.php3
   11. http://lwn.net/daily/
   12. http://linuxcalendar.com/
   13. http://lwn.net/stocks/
   14. http://lwn.net/Reviews/
   15. http://lwn.net/Gallery/
   16. http://lwn.net/archives/
   17. http://lwn.net/op/headlines.phtml
   18. http://lwn.net/mediakit/
   19. http://lwn.net/corp/paypal/donate.php3
   20. http://lwn.net/corp/supporters.php3
   21. http://lwn.net/op/Contact.html
   22. http://lwn.net/2002/features/rms.php3
   23. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Timeline/
   24. http://lwn.net/2001/features/oreilly2001/
   25. http://lwn.net/2001/features/OLS/
   26. http://lwn.net/2001/features/MandrakeSoft.php3
   27. http://lwn.net/2001/features/KernelSummit/
   28. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Singapore
   29. http://lwn.net/2001/features/djbdns.php3
   30. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/
   31. http://lwn.net/2002/0425/
   32. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/a/fsf-europe.php3
   33. http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/fp6/index_en.html
   34. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/a/openoffice1.0.php3
   35. http://lwn.net/2001/1213/
   36. http://www.linuxmall.com/
   37.
 http://www.FreeEdgar.com/search/ViewFilingsData.asp?CIK=1094944&Directory=950147
 &Year=02&SECIndex=567&Extension=.tst&PathFlag=0&nStartLoc=710&nEndLoc=298587&Tex
 tFileSize=298603&DateFiled=4/24/2002&FormType=8-K&SFType=&SDFiled=&tabletype=1&t
 ablename=&SourcePage=FilingsResults&OEMSource=&UseFrame=1&CompanyName=EBIZ+ENTER
 PRISES+INC
   38. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8242600702.html
   39. http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/04/12/2042218.shtml?tid=3
   40. http://mysql.com/news/article-96.html
   41. http://us1.samba.org/samba/ms_license.html
   42. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/security.php3
   43. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/kernel.php3
   44. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/dists.php3
   45. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/devel.php3
   46. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/commerce.php3
   47. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/letters.php3
   48. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   49.
 http://oasis.lwn.net/oasisc.php?s=2&c=5&cb=1372688939&url=http%3A%2F%2Flwn.net%2
 Fcorp%2Fadvertise%2Ftext%2F
   50. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/security.php3
   51. http://www.eklektix.com/
   52. http://www.eklektix.com/
 
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