News in General
 Comdex Conference
17 Oct 1996
Please join Linux International at The Linux Technology Showcase, COMDEX FALL/96. This will be the largest presentation of Linux to date outside the Internet. The show will run November 18-22, 1996 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Linux Showcase will be promoted in the show preview, show guide, show daily and other materials on a par with the Multimedia, Windows, Internet, Networking and other showcases. The location is downstairs at the Sands Expo & Convention Center, just off the famous Las Vegas Strip.
For additional information:
Linux International, http://www.li.org/
Free Software Union
"Free Software Lovers Unite!"
The FSU is a volunteer, democratic organization dedicated to the Free Software community. It provides all users, developers, and enthusiasts with full-voice, free membership in a voting decision making body. It channels resources, manpower, and community feedback for voter endorsed project implementation.
The FSU gives developers guarantee of wide acceptance and support by providing guidelines and tools for development to produce consistent and inter-operable software, and volunteer man-power recruiting assistance for large endorsed projects.
Some of the projects that the FSU is currently considering is the adoption of CORBA or SOM, licensed porting/re-implementation of OpenDoc, a "Free Software Map" database of all known free software projects (a superset of LSM), and much more!
FSU Founder/Contact: Jan Vicherek,
FSU Mailing List Posts:
Find out more and join at: http://www.jagunet.com/~braddock/fslu/org
Lasermoon, Linux-FT
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996
Clarification - Linux-FT, The Road Ahead
Linux-FT is a Lasermoon Ltd product which was developed with the intention of achieving POSIX.1 and XPG4 certification as part of a project Lasermoon started in January 1995. Lasermoon obtained the required licenses (POSIX.1, XPG4 etc) and X/Open membership to facilitate this fully GPL'ed effort. Unifix were involved in the development of the distribution, and components from Linux-FT were fed back into other Unifix products (hence the similarities).
The technology behind Linux-FT was acquired by Caldera during 1996 and will be incorporated into the Caldera's Linux products.
Caldera's involvement with Linux-FT has been the subject of many postings and press announcements over many months and details can be found on the Linux-FT WWW site at www.lasermoon.co.uk and Caldera (www.caldera.com).
Unifix have no connection with, or control over Linux-FT. Whilst we are flattered that Linux-FT is receiving such attention, BOTH Unifix GmbH and the Unifix 2.0 RELEASE HAVE NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH CONTINUING Linux-FT DEVELOPMENTS.
Caldera and Lasermoon are continuing the work of developing a truly Standards Certified/Branded Linux (released under the GPL). Working with the original developers, we welcome all contributors to the POSIX.1 and XPG4 standardization effort which is essential for the long term success of Linux.
By working together, we can accomplish this effort in a much more effective manner and comply with the licensing requirements of The Open Group and other such organizations.
For additional information:
Lasermoon Ltd, The Forge, Wickham, Hants, England
http://www.lasermoon.co.uk
Linux Consultants HOWTO Reaches Hundred Entry Mark
October 17, 1996 -- Only one month after its debut on September 18, 1996, the Linux Consultants HOWTO, a listing of companies and individuals providing commercial support for the freely redistributable operating system Linux, now contains over a hundred entries.
The Linux Consultants HOWTO is free and can be downloaded from http://www.sypher.com/tbm/Consultants-HOWTO
For additional information:
Martin Michlmayr,
http://www.sypher.com/tbm
Linux in the News
News Articles about Linux:
- "Linux Operating System Cheap, Powerful Red Hat Linux 4.0 Has No Web- Connection Limits"
Infoworld, October 14, 1996
"I'm in awe of how quickly the Linux operating system is moving forward. Last summer I predicted that Linux...would infiltrate mainstream corporate America. If Red Hat Software Inc. (and all the unsung Linux contributors) continue advancing Linux at the present rate, such widespread adoption is guaranteed."
- "Taking a Second Look at Linux" PC Week, 10/21/96,
- "Spreading the Linux Gospel", PC Magazine, 10/8/96, a review of books relating to Linux.
- "Building a Linux Web Server", Sys Admin: The Journal for Unix Systems Administrators, October 1996.
- "Linux: Microsoft's Real Competition?" PC Week, 10/7/96.
- "Unix Survey: Users Like Reliability, Scalability, and Performance" Byte October, 1996. Compares: IBM AIX, Digital Unix, HP-UX, SCO, SunOS/Solaris, System V, and Linux.
Linux on PCTV
The PCTV production company, http://www.pctv.com/, which produces Computer Chronicles, USER GROUP and @HOME, is producing four half-hour shows on UNIX and Linux. These shows are:
- History of UNIX (aired in October)
- Contemporary UNIX (airs first on November 4th)
- Linux (airs first in January)
- UNIX Futures (air times not yet set)
These shows will be aired as part of the USER GROUP show, which is carried on ME/U, Jones Computer Network (a 24-hour cable network dedicated entirely to the subject of computers) and the NBC Super Channel and CNBC Europe, as well as by Satellite. USIA WorldNet will begin carrying the Users Group show.
Please check your local cable or satellite company for viewing times of USER GROUP.
For additional information:
Jon "maddog" Hall, Executive Director Linux International
New Linux Q&A Site
A new threaded Linux Q&A and discussion area has been created at The Forge Foundation web site:
http://www.theforge.com/InterBoard
Create your own account or use the link that lets log you in anonymously, then choose the group "Foundry - Linux Q&A". This is an unmoderated group open to everyone.
For additional information:
Hal Reed,
The Forge Foundation, http://www.theforge.com/
Northcon Nov 4-6
Northcon is Nov 4-6 at the WA Convention & Trade Center (near the Kingdome) in Seattle, Washington. There will be 350 exhibits by "Leading Electronics Manufacturers".
Mon. Nov 4, 10-5
Tue. Nov 5, 9-5
Wed. Nov 6, 9-4
You can register on-line (free) at http://www.northcon.org.
For additional information:
or call 1-800-877-2668
Open Systems World/FedUnix Conference
There will be a Open Systems World/FedUnix conference/trade show in Washington DC on November 4-8. It is a traditional event devoted to open computing (read: Unix), attended mostly by government and commercial Information Systems types.
Since Linux has gained the attention of such circles, there is a 2-day Linux track at this conference. I am chairing a Linux-related session, scheduled for Thursday, November 7, 1996. Speakers will be people who apply Linux in real world situations, both in the government and the private sector, and will tell us about their good and bad experiences, and plans for the future. Among the speakers, there are some who use Linux as a primary OS, as well as those for whom Linux is just another environment.
For additional information:
http://www.mcsp.com/OSW-FedUNIX.html
Przemek Klosowski,
QT GUI Contest Announcement
On October 1 Troll Tech announced the Qt GUI programming contest (free entry).
A contest for programmers, writing free GUI software using Qt (a C++ GUI toolkit, see http://www.troll.no/). Anyone can enter, there is no fee for entry, and any program can be entered as long as it is written in C++ and uses Qt.
The winner will be paid US$2000 and two runners-up $500 after the contest has closed on May 1, 1997 and the jury has done its job.
We wish to encourage more free GUI software for X11, and we wish more people to experience for themselves how good Qt is.
For additional information:
http://www.troll.no/contest.html
Vulnerabilities in Linux
An October 10 CIAC (Computer Incident Advisory Capability, U.S. Department of Energy) bulletin describes a security hole in Linux when using a Bash shell as the default shell, and explains how to avoid it. Additional information can be found at the CIAC web site.
On August 15, CIAC announced a security hole in the mount and umount Linux programs, and gave fixes. Additional information can be found at the CIAC web site, CIAC web site
If you find code that could be potentially dangerous, you should contact the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), http://www.cert.org/, at Carnegie Mellon University. Reporting forms can be found at ftp://info.cert.org/pub/incident_reporting_form.
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