[4137] in linux-announce channel archive
Linux-Announce Digest #429
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Digestifier)
Fri May 30 14:13:59 2003
From: Digestifier <Linux-Announce-Request@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>
To: Linux-Announce@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu
Reply-To: Linux-Announce@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 14:13:02 EDT
Linux-Announce Digest #429, Volume #4 Fri, 30 May 2003 14:13:02 EDT
Contents:
[blore-linux] Germany to replace 15 000 Windows desktops with Linux ("Frederick Noronha (FN)")
President of India - Think different ("Frederick Noronha (FN)")
Press Release - Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Uses Lextek's Onix Search (Art Pollard)
SCO is to sue Novell over UNIX rights (goat troll)
ANNOUNCE: LinWiz 1.06 - On-line IPTABLES Wizards (Chris Lowth)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred@bytesforall.org>
Subject: [blore-linux] Germany to replace 15 000 Windows desktops with Linux
Date: 29 May 2003 19:35:02 GMT
========== Forwarded message ==========
Munich breaks with Windows for Linux
By Stephen Shankland
CNET News.com
May 28, 2003, 12:28 PM PT
The local government in Munich, Germany, has voted to move 14,000
computers from Microsoft's Windows to the rival Linux operating
system, despite efforts by the software giant to hang onto the
multimillion-dollar contract.
The council of Germany's third-largest city said Wednesday that it
will spend about 30 million euros, or $35 million, on the transition.
In addition to switching operating systems, the city plans to move
from Microsoft's Office productivity software to the open-source
OpenOffice.
Microsoft had fought hard to retain the business, offering deals and
discounts, with CEO Steve Ballmer interrupting a ski vacation in
Switzerland to pay a personal visit to Munich's mayor about the issue,
the city said.
Munich, faced with the end of support for its Windows NT computers,
pitted Linux and OpenOffice against Microsoft products, the council
said in a statement. That competition helped lower prices, it said.
With Linux, the city has more freedom from reliance on products from a
single company, it said. Boris Schwartz, one of Munich's councilors,
said in a statement that Munich's move breaches Microsoft's
"monopoly-like position."
The deal also is notable because it involves desktop computers. Until
now, Linux has been popular chiefly on more-powerful networked server
computers, where Microsoft doesn't have as strong a presence in the
market.
Though Munich doesn't intend to select open-source technology
providers until the first quarter of 2004, computer maker IBM and
Linux seller SuSE helped Munich evaluate the move and are candidates,
the companies said.
"I consider our position as quite good, because we (have been) heavily
involved from the beginning," said SuSE Chief Executive Richard Seibt
in an interview Wednesday. SuSE and IBM also have sold Linux products
to the governments of Schwaebisch Hall and Dortmund in Germany.
Microsoft isn't throwing in the towel, however. "With respect to the
Munich administration, we will continue to work closely with them to
explore additional programs and offerings that best meet the needs of
Munich's citizens and businesses," the company said in a statement.
The software giant pointed to a new agreement it had signed with
Frankfurt, under which the German city joined a Microsoft program that
offered products to German local governments under "inexpensive and
flexible terms." Frankfurt Mayor Petra Roth said in a statement that
the city will save money as a result of the deal.
Some governments enjoy the fact that they can see all the source code
underlying Linux, as it reassures them that, among other things, there
is no secret code that could compromise their systems. Microsoft has
countered this with a carefully controlled code-sharing process of its
own.
Germany, the country in which SuSE has its headquarters, has been more
eager than most countries to embrace Linux. The federal government
there is funding some improvements to the KDE desktop and user
interface software for Linux, for example, and almost a year ago, it
signed a contract that made it easier for smaller German governments
to buy Linux products.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-1010740.html
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From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred@bytesforall.org>
Subject: President of India - Think different
Date: 29 May 2003 22:20:01 GMT
<http://presidentofindia.nic.in/S/html/speeches/others/may28_2003_2.htm>
a quote
Think different
I would like to narrate an event that took place in Rashtrapati Bhavan a
few months back when I met Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft. While
walking in the Mughal garden, we were discussing the future challenges
in Information Technology including the issues related to software
security. I made a point that we look for open source codes so that we
can easily introduce the users built security algorithms. Our
discussions became difficult since our views were different. The most
unfortunate thing is that India still seems to believe in proprietary
solutions. Further spread of IT which is influencing the daily life of
individuals would have a devastating effect on the lives of society due
to any small shift in the business practice involving these proprietory
solutions. It is precisely for these reasons open source software need
to be built which would be cost effective for the entire society. In
India, open source code software will have to come and stay in a big way
for the benefit of our billion people. I2IT has to play a major role in
this national mission.
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From: Art Pollard <pollarda@lextek.com>
Subject: Press Release - Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Uses Lextek's Onix Search
Date: 30 May 2003 01:05:01 GMT
For Immediate Release
For more information contact
Art Pollard, President
Lextek International
1051 E. Fir Ave.
Provo, UT 84604 U.S.A.
Tel: 801-375-8332
Email: pollarda@lextek.com
Internet: http://www.lextek.com/
Lextek's Onix Search Technology Chosen for Adobe Acrobat v. 6 Search
Capabilities
Provo, Utah. Lextek International announces that its Onix Text Indexing and
Retrieval Engine has been incorporated into the Adobe Acrobat v. 6.0 family
of products. The Adobe Acrobat family of products includes Adobe Acrobat
6.0 Professional, Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard, Adobe Acrobat Elements 6.0
and Adobe Reader 6.0.
Adobe joins other developers who have found that Onix makes it easy to add
full text search capability to document management system, as well as web
based and CD-ROM applications.
As an integral part of Acrobat 6.0, Onix makes it easy for Acrobat 6.0
users to search a folder of Acrobat PDF files for any word or phrase.
Searches can be on your local computer, on any computer on your LAN.
Bringing its lightning-fast indexing and searching capabilities to the
Acrobat 6.0 product line, Onix assists users and allows them to quickly
search through their PDF files and collections. Onix also enables Acrobat
or users to search additional elements of PDF files, including document
structure, bookmarks, annotations, and metadata.
In addition to its use in Acrobat v. 6.0, Onix is used in a wide variety of
computer applications, from electronic publishing, document management, and
imaging applications to web crawlers, search engines, and mail routers. The
Onix full text indexing and retrieval toolkit provides flexibility and
speed to applications that manage enormous amounts of text.
Onix provides fast indexing speed, even on systems where memory use is
critical. Its indexing technology provides extremely high indexing
throughput, allowing you to index gigabytes of data very quickly. Onix's
proprietary index compression and storage technology allows the index for a
given query term to be located and processed quickly even for large indexes.
Onix supports a variety of index formats, allowing developers to tailor the
toolkit to fit their application. Standard boolean operators are supported,
along with range searches, phrase searches, and proximity searches.
With its easy-to-use API it's simple to integrate Onix into applications in
Windows, DOS, MacOS, MacOSX, and all major varieties of UNIX and Linux. For
more information on licensing Onix for your text-intensive application,
contact Lextek International, 1051 E. Fir Ave., Provo, UT 84604. Phone:
(801) 375-8332 Fax (801) 221-1121 Email: sales@Lextek.com Internet:
http://www.lextek.com/.
# # #
About Lextek International
Lextek International is a leading supplier of high performance tools for
automatically indexing, categorizing, summarizing, and classifying text and
other forms of digital knowledge. Lextek's technologies have been
integrated into a wide range of Internet portals, as well as document and
knowledge management systems. Lextek is a privately held company with
headquarters in Provo Utah, and has been supplying advanced technologies to
software developers and OEM customers since 1993. More information may be
obtained by visiting the company's website at: http://www.lextek.com/.
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------------------------------
From: gyges@gyges.net (goat troll)
Subject: SCO is to sue Novell over UNIX rights
Date: 30 May 2003 01:05:04 GMT
Not content with already having issued IBM with a lawsuit, SCO is to
sue Novell for illegally placing UNIX code in Novell Netware.
According to SCO CEO Darl McBride , Novell never owned UNIX's patents
or copyrights in the first place.
In the release McBride said, "Novell continues to say that it owns the
UNIX System V patents, yet it must know that it does not. A simple
review of U.S. Patent Office records reveals that SCO owns those
patents." Further, "We believe it unlikely that Novell can demonstrate
that it has any ownership interest whatsoever in those copyrights
because we purchased these rights in August 1995 directly from IBM"
Also this morning, in SCO's 2nd quarter earning call, Jack Messman SCO
CEO said that there's no mention of copyright and patents in the
Novell law suit and that contract issues are really what the IBM law
suit is about. At the same time, though, he admitted that SCO had been
talking with IBM over UNIX IP issues and that Novell's 1990 purchase
agreement of UNIX from IBM was 'confused' on the issue of UNIX's
patents and copyrights.
Bruce Perens, director of Software in the Public Interest, a
non-profit, Open Source development organization, says, "SCO's brief
reply to Novell explicitly acknowledges that SCO owns the UNIX
copyright."
McBride said that SCO believes that the company owns the UNIX
copyrights and that all four of the people who signed the
contract-none of whom are still with Novell or SCO-thought at the time
that the intent was to transfer copyright. So, "SCO has the absolute
right to UNIX's copyright" and we're confident on how a judge will
come down."
Gary Schuster, Novell's senior VP of communications responded to this
claim by saying, "SCO will find out in court the the true force of our
vengeance - we shall wreak havoc."
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------------------------------
From: Chris Lowth <chris@lowth.com>
Subject: ANNOUNCE: LinWiz 1.06 - On-line IPTABLES Wizards
Date: 30 May 2003 07:35:28 GMT
Version 1.06 adds some new IP services, provides extended help texts and
corrects the firewalling of Samba.
LinWiz can be found at .. http://www.lowth.com/LinWiz
LinWiz is a growing set of on-line tools for the automated generation of
IPTABLES rule sets. The tools aim to avoid the user's need of any in-depth
technical knowledge - and allow novices and experts to set up firewalls
with ease. It performs a similar task to the "lokkit" utility, but covers
more services and has more features and options.
*** LinWiz://ServerFirewall ***
iptables wizard for Linux servers.
This wizard creates an intermediate-level "iptables" configuration for a
linux server, hosting popular services such as Web, FTP, SSH, Telnet, NFS,
DNS, DHCP, etc. This is suitable for servers with a single network card
that does not act as an IP router (ie: not forwarding IP traffic).
The tool allows you to set up ...
* Blocking of common IP attacks and exploits.
* Definition of which IP services running on your server you are willing
to "export" (allow access to).
* Controlled NFS access (this is more complex than Web servers). The
tool provides all the information you need to set this up.
* Controlled access to "X" servers and clients
* Controlled "ping" responses.
* Filtering of the IP addresses and/or MAC addresses that are permitted
(or refused) access to your services.
* Logging of rejected IP packets.
It produces a file that can be read by the "iptables-restore" utility (such
as is used by recent RedHat, Mandrake and other linux distributions) or a
classic "rc.firewall" shell script.
*** LinWiz://PersonalFirewall ***
'Novice' iptables wizard for personal workstations.
This wizard is suitable for creating a simple "iptables" configuration for a
linux workstation, with a single network card, not acting as a router (not
forwarding IP traffic) and not providing any IP services to other hosts. It
allows you to block a number of common IP 'exploits' and sets up your
system in a highly 'locked down' manner - exposing no IP services to other
systems, but not restricting the internet or other IP services (such as
Web, Ftp, Mail etc) that you can use. It produces a file that can be read
by the "iptables-restore" utility (such as is used by recent RedHat,
Mandrake and other linux distributions) or a classic "rc.firewall" shell
script.
LinWiz can be found at .. http://www.lowth.com/LinWiz
Chris
--
For GPL e-mail anti-virus, On-line IPTables wizzards and help,
web filtering for Smoothwall and IPCop, Security and Linux book
recommendations and more go to -- http://www.lowth.com
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