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From : Sergey Lentsov 2:4615/71.10 08 Feb 2001 18:31:32
To : All
Subject : URL: http://lwn.net/2001/0208
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Here is the [39]permanent site for this page.
See also: [40]last week's LWN.
Leading items and editorials
The case for competition. Those who would criticize free software
often pick on competing projects (GNOME and KDE being the classic
example) as an example of inefficiency and inability to work together.
Many free software supporters take a similar view. According to many,
the free software community would be better off if everybody worked on
a single project in each area. Think of how much more could be
accomplished that way.
Recent events, however, have provided us with a counterexample of
utmost clarity. The [41]Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) server is
one of the classic free software success stories. It is free software,
and plays a crucial role in the operation of the Internet. It runs
almost every DNS server on the planet; its "market share" makes
Sendmail and Apache look like bit players.
And therein lies the problem. When a security problem turns up in
BIND, the entire net is immediately vulnerable. In this respect, the
net is a monoculture. Imagine the damage that could be done by a
malign individual who is able to find and exploit a new BIND bug.
Given that (1) BIND bugs seem to turn up regularly, and (2) BIND 9
contains a large amount of new code, this scenario is a real
possibility. The fact that ISC plans to create a closed forum for the
discussion of BIND security issues (see [42]this week's LWN security
page) does not add confidence in this area.
BIND shares a lot of characteristics with sendmail. It is a piece of
near-universal infrastructure which performs a crucial function. It is
also too large and complex to ever be audited thoroughly. Sendmail,
however, faces viable competitors; those who do not want to run it can
do very well with [43]qmail, [44]Postfix, [45]Exim, or others. These
mailers handle a small piece of the Internet's mail traffic, but they
add a great deal of security and robustness to the system.
BIND is not entirely without competition either. Some of the other
free (or "almost free") DNS servers out there include:
* [46]djbdns. This DNS server was written by D. J. Bernstein, who
also wrote qmail. It shares a number of the characteristics that
qmail has: the code is compact, fast, and highly secure. It also
shares qmail's downsides: Mr. Bernstein's aggressive personality
(see his [47]Buggy Internet Name Daemon page), not-quite-free
licensing (you can't redistribute modified versions), and code
that is at times difficult to read. djbdns also lacks some
capabilities (TCP service, zone transfers, ...), making it not
necessarily suitable for larger domains.
Update: we've received mail saying that we have understated the
capabilities of modern versions of djbdns; we're investigating,
and we regret any errors on that front.
* [48]CustomDNS is a DNS server, written in Java, which is intended
for highly dynamic domains. DNS lookups are handled "on the fly,"
so that, say, associating domain names with DHCP-assigned
addresses can be handled. CustomDNS uses HP's [49]e-speak
technology under the hood. The whole package is covered by the
GPL.
* [50]Dents is a DNS server written in C. It features a control
architecture built on CORBA and a modular plug-in system for added
features (there is, for example, the inevitable module that calls
a Perl script to resolve queries). It is licensed under the GPL.
Dents appears to have much of what is required, but development
seems to have stalled (the last release on SourceForge (0.3.1) is
from September, 1999; no CVS commit appears to have happened in
the last three months) and the documentation is nonexistent. The
force behind Dents was Johannes Erdfelt; he is now heading up the
Linux USB project, and is likely too busy to work with Dents.
Dents is not yet ready for prime time.
* [51]ENS is a small DNS server which is intended to be used in
embedded systems.
From the above list, one can conclude that BIND's competitors have
some ground to cover yet. Energetic hackers looking for a project may
want to consider the creation of a viable competitor to BIND; the net
will be a safer place when we have one.
Speaking of the KDE/GNOME competition... if you [52]search for KDE on
Google you'll find, among the expected things, a "sponsored link" from
Ximian. Not everybody thinks that's quite the form the competition
should take...
SuSE lays off most of its U.S. staff. We have now received word from
several SuSE employees that they have been laid off as part of a
general cost-cutting measure. Evidently, almost all of SuSE's U.S.
presence will be closed down, leaving "about two dozen" people out of
work. The people affected were doing installation support, consulting,
and some development work. Some of them have been saying their
goodbyes on the SuSE English mailing list; it is clear that they will
be missed. We wish the best for all the SuSE folks.
If you are not one of the people involved, this step is actually not
all that significant. SuSE apparently has no intention of cutting back
on its English edition or backing out of the U.S. market - SuSE Linux
will be available as always. And, in the end, a couple dozen people
out of a worldwide total of around 600 is a pretty small reduction - a
number of Linux companies have made much larger cutbacks than that.
SuSE remains alive and well. (See also: [53]this Slashdot comment
posting from SuSE employee Michael Hasenstein on the layoffs and what
they mean for SuSE).
Amusingly, SuSE's U.S. PR agency [54]dismissed LWN's initial reporting
on the layoff as "totally rubbish". We're waiting for our apology...:)
It's time to make a choice about software licensing. At least, that's
what we read on the front of a piece of junk mail that Microsoft, in
its wisdom, chose to send to the LWN offices. On the back, the choices
are clearly spelled out:
* A. Big Penalties from the BSA
* B: Big Savings from Microsoft
You'll be glad to know that the Business Software Alliance has
declared a "28-day truce" - for the month of February, it will "hold
off on software investigations." Now is the time to go out and be sure
you've bought licenses for everything you (and your employees) are
using, or "pay the price."
Microsoft hopes to simultaneously take advantage of and dissociate
itself from this ugly aspect of proprietary software. Come to terms
with the Good Cop (Microsoft), and it will protect you from the Bad
Cop (the BSA).
This brochure, of course, leaves out an important alternative:
* Run free software and tell the BSA to take a hike
Anybody who has administered a network of systems can attest to the
hassles of dealing with software licensing. The up-front cost is one
thing, but the administrative time involved in managing software
licensing is considerable. Tracking software on systems, maintaining a
database, running license manager daemons, getting everything working
again after a hardware or software upgrade, and so on, takes a great
deal of effort. Proprietary software is a costly game to play if you
stick to the rules.
And if you don't, there's the BSA with its audits and [55]raids and
[56]penalties. The BSA has become a sort of software industry police
force, with the willingness and ability to go to the courts for the
authority to raid companies and "audit" their computers. And this is
not just a U.S. phenomenon; the BSA is a worldwide organization.
Free software brings freedom, and that includes freedom from threats
and raids by BSA bullyboys. How much is that freedom worth to your
company?
LinuxWorld 2001 New York. If you didn't catch the links to our
LinuxWorld coverage on the daily page this past week, here is your
chance to [57]check it out. This year's conference was a study in
contrasts; the exhibit floor was twice the size of last year, but
several vendors canceled their attendance at the show at the last
minute. The venture capitalists were no longer circling, but that
didn't mean that money wasn't present. This time, it came in the form
of a large new presence from the big computer companies, IBM in
particular, but also Intel, Dell, Compaq and more.
In many ways, there was more money around than ever; IBM's investments
were part of that, but also it was clear that the large companies were
confident that Linux was moving into the enterprise. Maybe we've only
got our toe in the door at the moment, but that is changing quickly.
And the enterprise is where customers can and will spend money to get
what they need.
Overall, the mood was upbeat. While Linux IPOs and other
get-rich-quick schemes were definitely in disfavor, the feeling that
Linux and Open Source software is an unstoppable movement was still
present, possibly bolstered by the preview release of Revolution OS, a
documentary about Free Software, Linux and Open Source and its impact
on many people's lives. Even if you aren't one of the people in that
film (it could only focus on a few), it is an experience to see the
world we've lived in portrayed on film. We hope it will do well at its
official opening in March and move on to become available for more
people to see.
Meanwhile, our coverage is not yet complete; interviews and feature
articles based on last week's work will be forthcoming in the near
future.
We are not "Linux Weekly". Recently a tabloid publication called
"Linux Weekly" [58]announced its existence. One of our readers sent
them a note saying that their name might just cause confusion with
LWN.net (also known as "Linux Weekly News"), which has been using that
name for, well, just over three years now. Given that they have
started [59]sending spam to Linux vendors with the Linux Weekly name,
we sure would like to avoid that sort of confusion... The response
that came back said "I appreciate your comments. Who knows how many
others may feel this way?"
Do you feel that way? If so, consider letting them know via a polite
note to [60]cheryl@sys-con.com. After all, they are curious...
Inside this week's Linux Weekly News:
* [61]Security: Privacy issues with HTML mail, ISC "members only",
NSA teams with VMWare, insecurities in Wireless protocol.
* [62]Kernel: Some 2.4.1 problems; the great kiobuf debate
* [63]Distributions: Ututo, Astaro and Relax join the list. SuSE
wins an award and enters the Internet Portal business.
* [64]Development: LDP update, multi-headed KDE, LAMP, Tkinter 3000,
DDD 3.3.
* [65]Commerce: LinuxWorld wrap-up.
* [66]History: "Open Source" turns 3.
* [67]Letters: On DirecTV's "black Sunday"
...plus the usual array of reports, updates, and announcements.
This Week's LWN was brought to you by:
* [68]Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor
* [69]Elizabeth O. Coolbaugh, Managing Editor
* [70]Michael J. Hammel, Senior Editor
February 8, 2001
[71]Click Here
[72]Click Here
[73]Next: Security
[74]Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright Л 2001 [75]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=001-012-132-000-000-001-000-000-012
3. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/security.php3
4. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/kernel.php3
5. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/dists.php3
6. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/devel.php3
7. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/commerce.php3
8. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/press.php3
9. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/announce.php3
10. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/history.php3
11. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/letters.php3
12. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/bigpage.php3
13. http://lwn.net/daily/
14. http://lwn.net/cgi-bin/webcal.pl
15. http://lwn.net/stocks/
16. http://lwn.net/Reviews/
17. http://lwn.net/Gallery/
18. http://lwn.net/archives/
19. http://lwn.net/op/headlines.phtml
20. http://lwn.net/op/Contact.html
21. http://linux.tucows.com/
22. http://news.tucows.com/ext2/
23. http://unixthemes.tucows.com/
24. http://lwn.net/2001/features/LarryWall/
25. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Momjian/
26. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Timeline/
27. http://lwn.net/2000/features/ESR/
28. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Comdex/index.php3
29. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Comdex/RansomLove.php3
30. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Guido.php3
31. http://lwn.net/2000/features/PaulEveritt.php3
32. http://lwn.net/2000/features/ESC/
33. http://lwn.net/2000/features/ESC/ELC.php3
34. http://lwn.net/2000/features/OLS/
35. http://lwn.net/2000/features/CBunks/
36. http://lwn.net/2000/features/pcb/
37. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Axis/
38. http://lwn.net/2000/features/FSLCluster/
39. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/
40. http://lwn.net/2001/0201/
41. http://www.isc.org/products/BIND/
42. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/security.php3
43. http://cr.yp.to/qmail.html
44. http://www.postfix.org/
45. http://www.exim.org/
46. http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html
47. http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/ad/unbind.html
48. http://customdns.sourceforge.net/
49. http://www.e-speak.net/
50. http://sourceforge.net/projects/dents/
51. http://www.kyuzz.org/antirez/ens.html
52. http://www.google.com/search?q=kde
53. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/02/07/2040225&cid=159
54. http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-02-07-003-20-NW-BZ-SS
55. http://new.bsa.org/usa/press/newsreleases/2000-07-07.154.phtml
56. http://new.bsa.org/usa/press/newsreleases//2001-01-31.439.phtml
57. http://lwn.net/2001/features/linuxworldny/
58. http://www.sys-con.com/2001/PR/code.cfm?page=01192001
59. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/a/linuxweeklyspam.php3
60. mailto:cheryl@sys-con.com
61. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/security.php3
62. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/kernel.php3
63. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/dists.php3
64. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/devel.php3
65. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/commerce.php3
66. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/history.php3
67. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/letters.php3
68. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
69. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
70. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
71. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/buttonpos=lwnbutton125top
72. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/buttonpos=125-001-016
73. http://lwn.net/2001/0208/security.php3
74. http://www.eklektix.com/
75. http://www.eklektix.com/
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URL: http://lwn.net/2001/0208 |
Sergey Lentsov |
08 Feb 2001 18:31:32 |
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