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From : Sergey Lentsov 2:4615/71.10 05 Apr 2001 17:11:07
To : All
Subject : URL: http://lwn.net/2001/0405
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Here is the [45]permanent site for this page.
See also: [46]last week's LWN.
Leading items and editorials
Wind River Systems buys into free software. Wind River Systems is well
known as the largest vendor of proprietary software for embedded
systems. It has been clear for a while that embedded Linux is a
serious threat to this company's business; many have wondered just how
Wind River would respond. Now we know. The company has [47]announced
the acquisition of all the "software assets" from BSDi, a long-time
seller of BSD-based systems, and the current home of the FreeBSD
project.
With this deal, Wind River gets the commercial BSDi system. It also
gets the FreeBSD.org server, and, importantly, the services of FreeBSD
hacker Jordan Hubbard. Wind River is also picking up Mike Karels and
Kirk McKusick for good measure. The company thus has managed to create
an impressive BSD-oriented staff in a major hurry.
Why BSD? Given the business climate, Wind River likely could have
found an embedded Linux company that was willing to talk deals. Part
of the explanation, certainly, is Wind River's distrust of the GPL.
From the press release:
We believe that BSD's business-friendly license will allow our
customers to take advantage of a widely tested and deployed
infrastructure OS while protecting their intellectual property as
they make modifications to the BSD source code or extend the
functionality of the kernel. Offering BSD technology allows our
customers to continue differentiating themselves in a very
competitive marketplace.
Companies that modify and distribute an embedded Linux kernel must
make their changes available in source form; BSD has no such
constraint. Of course, applications running over the kernel can be
purely proprietary with either system. But Wind River seems to think
that this licensing difference will be enough to allow it to compete
effectively against embedded Linux.
What may thus be developing here is the first full-scale commercial
confrontation between Linux and BSD. The two systems compete in other
areas as well, of course, but they don't often go directly against
each other. It will be interesting to see how this one turns out. The
fun part, of course, is that free software may well win either way.
[48][LSB] The Linux Standard Base needs you. The May 28, 1998 LWN
carried [49]this proposal for the creation of a "Linux Standard Base."
It was signed by an impressive list of Linux luminaries, and had these
plans:
The Linux Standard Base project will provide a vendor-neutral
standard, backed by source code, upon which to build Linux
distributions, much as the Linux kernel project provides a single
kernel that is shared by all distributions. This standard base will
be distributed as a reference platform from which Linux
distributions may be derived and which application producers may
use for testing, but it will _never_ be targeted to be an end-user
solution in itself, as that is the role of the Linux distributions
that incorporate the standard.
The purpose, in short, was to encourage the development of Linux
applications by ensuring that these applications could easily run on
all (LSB-compliant) Linux systems. Conversely, it was hoped that the
LSB would help to maintain the diversity of Linux distributions by
preventing situations where users had to buy a particular distribution
to run the applications they needed.
That was almost three years ago. Since then, progress on the LSB - at
least, to outside observers - has seemed painfully slow. The
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard has helped to move the distributions
toward standard file layouts, but the full LSB has not been
forthcoming.
The wait is almost over. The LSB project now has a whole set of
offerings, and is looking to the Linux community to look it all over
and provide feedback. With luck and some help, the 1.0 LSB release
will happen by the end of this year.
Here's what's available:
* [50]Version 0.7.5 of the LSB specification is available for
review. It's a lengthy document, but it is the core of the LSB.
It's ready for a wider crew of debuggers; please consider having a
look. There is [51]a review page available which makes it easy to
provide comments on the specification.
* The [52]lsbdev package is [53]available for download. This package
currently provides two utilities. lsbappchk will check an
application for LSB compliance; it makes sure that the application
only uses standard libraries, functions, etc. lsblibchk, instead,
checks a distribution to be sure that it is offering all the
libraries and associated facilities that the LSB requires. Both
utilities are in need of review; check out your applications and
systems. If the checkers produce bogus information, the [54]LSB
review page can be used to report problems.
* Finally, there is even a reference implementation of an
LSB-compliant system which is available for download and review.
It is based on the public beta of Caldera OpenLinux
Workstation 3.1, so you first have to get that. Then an add-on
package is available from [55]the LSB download site. Put the two
together, and you'll have an LSB system. Once again, testing and
feedback are needed.
We need a good LSB. It is the standard that will help us to maintain a
free operating system that is rich in both applications and
distributions. With enough eyeballs, with LSB 1.0 release will be both
solid and timely. Taking a look at the LSB is a good way to help the
World Domination cause; please consider taking some time and giving
the project a hand.
The Linux 2.5 kernel hackers summit was held on March 30 and 31 in San
Jose, California. It was an intensive two days of [56][Kernel summit]
presentations and discussions on the directions that 2.5 development
might take. LWN editor Jonathan Corbet, by virtue of being a kernel
hacker wannabe (and the co-author of the second edition of Linux
Device Drivers, which is due out from O'Reilly this
(northern-hemisphere) summer) was able to be present at this event;
please have a look at [57]LWN.net's Kernel Summit Report for a
description of what transpired.
See also [58]the annotated group picture from the summit; we've
attached names to the faces and made the result available in a single,
400KB image.
The summit sessions were taped, and will be made available on the web
in the near future; we'll put out a note when that happens.
Things that upgrade in the night. Well-known human-computer
interaction expert Bruce Tognazzini recently posted [59]this rant
about an automatic "upgrade" to his Replay TV box that, for him,
downgraded the value of the system. Bruce thus joins the growing crowd
of people who realize that it is important to have control over the
computers in our lives:
Unless people are protected from purposeful and involuntary
downgrades in the usability of already-purchased products, we will
see a deterioration of consumer rights unimagined before. 'Buyer
Beware!' is one thing, but how can you beware of what the
manufacturer will do to damage or degrade your product years after
you bought and paid for it?
Another midnight upgrade story can be found via [60]the RISKS Forum.
It seems that an automatic upgrade for MSN users resulted in many of
them unknowingly calling long-distance numbers to connect to the
service. They only found out when their phone bills arrived.
Both cases are examples of a remote corporation empowering itself to
change the operation of equipment that does not belong to it. This
sort of behavior is a threat to freedom. The ability to add
undesirable "features" has been documented in the two postings
mentioned above, and in many other places. There are also, of course,
some serious security issues. The ability to drop software changes
into other people's computers is guaranteed to attract the attention
of unpleasant people. Given the industry's inability to protect its
internal systems, or the credit card numbers of its customers, it
would be a mistake to expect them to do better with their automatic
upgrade facilities. Expect to see a major crack along these lines
sooner or later.
Of course, we Linux users need not fear this sort of problem. The
source is open, and we have control over our systems. We'll never get
nailed by an automatic upgrade from outside.
Right? Well, maybe not. Let's ignore the problem of embedded systems
(LWN has harped on that problem before) and take a look at plain old
Linux computers.
Consider all the businesses out there that have chosen update services
as one of the growth areas of the near future. Acrylis, Aduva, Eazel,
Red Hat, Ximian, and others are all pushing offerings in this area.
And the Debian distribution, ahead of its time as usual, has had this
capability for years. The services offered by these companies can be
configured to automatically fetch and apply updates. In the middle of
the night, of course.
Many LWN readers would never enable this sort of automatic update on
their systems. But as the adoption of Linux grows, there will be an
increasing number of Linux administrators with relatively low
technical skills; many of them will be happy to accept this sort of
service. And perhaps they should; none of the recent batch of Linux
worms would have gotten very far had the widely-available security
updates been applied everywhere. Automatic updates could, perhaps,
increase the security of the net as a whole.
But, as we have seen, automatic updates also bring risks. The Linux
community is not immune to the problems that these services bring, and
could even turn out to be more vulnerable than many others. There is a
real potential for trouble here.
Microsoft's Passport License. Many pixels have been expended on the
[61]terms of use for Microsoft's Passport service, which would appear
to give Microsoft a free license to use any material or ideas that
pass through the service. People have expressed fears that, for
example, GPL code which is mailed through Hotmail could end up with a
dual license that would allow Microsoft to use it in a non-GPL way.
There have been loud protests, and some sites are beginning to block
mail from Hotmail as a form of protest.
LWN doesn't have much to add to what has been said already. For those
who are curious about this situation, we recommend a look at [62]the
Microsoft Passport License Dangers page on the TroubleShooters.com
site.
Inside this week's Linux Weekly News:
* [63]Security: "Adore, a worm", Engarde Secure Linux, No backdoor
in the Linux kernel, new vulnerabilities in BEA Weblogic and
Tomcat, FreeS/WAN 1.9, Alamo, an "antidote" to Knark.
* [64]Kernel: Is 2.4 ready for prime time?; fixing the scheduler;
the new kbuild system.
* [65]Distributions: A man page for every command, transitions for
the Debian project, Rock Linux distribution survey, Engarde Secure
Linux, and more.
* [66]On the Desktop: Printers galore, GNOME 1.4, and the KDE core
(release, that is).
* [67]Development: Perl6 design, state of embedded Linux, streaming
media, FreePM.
* [68]Commerce: Atipa sells hardware division to Microtech;
Norwegian State Consulting coordinating agency recommends use of
Linux.
* [69]History: Three years ago, Mozilla is all the rage; One year
ago, Microsoft is a monopoly says the court.
* [70]Letters: Mozilla at 3; ideological differences.
...plus the usual array of reports, updates, and announcements.
This Week's LWN was brought to you by:
* [71]Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor
* [72]Elizabeth O. Coolbaugh, Managing Editor
* [73]Michael J. Hammel, Senior Editor
April 5, 2001
[74]Click Here
[75]Click Here
[76]Next: Security
[77]Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright Л 2001 [78]Eklektix, Inc.,
all rights reserved
Linux (R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
References
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http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?bw.040401/210940959&ticker=WI
ND
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77. http://www.eklektix.com/
78. http://www.eklektix.com/
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URL: http://lwn.net/2001/0405 |
Sergey Lentsov |
05 Apr 2001 17:11:07 |
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