Using Linux just got a lot safer as users got two
separate, new
indemnifications against lawsuits that might be brought by SCO
for
copyright infringement: Novell said on Tuesday that it will
indemnify
users. On Monday, the Open Source Development Labs, IBM
and Intel were among
the companies launching a $10 million
indemnification fund.
Last year, Hewlett-Packard said it will indemnify
userse. However,
the HP indemnification was limited, it only protecting users
who
received code from HP and did not modify the code. Since modifying
the
code is a major reason why users use Linux and open source,
HP's
indemnification doesn't seem to be very useful.
We have a nice review of the latest distro from
SUSE, Version 9.0.
Reviewer Ross M. Greenberg says it's free software worth
paying for.
Because Novell plans to buy the company, SUSE's software will
become
more important to the Linux community, especially the American
Linux
community, where SUSE has achieved only limited market penetration.
Attorney Michael Overly provides advice on how to
protect yourself
against legal risks when deploying open source software.
Since we
posted the article a short time ago, we've already received
letters
from open source advocates criticizing the piece by saying
Overly
holds open source software to a higher legal standard
than
proprietary software. We'll post the best of those letters in
a
couple of days, until then, read the article and decide for
yourself
whether Overly's advice makes sense.
My $0.02: Lawyers advise you of legal risks. It's
one of the things
lawyers do. It's up to you to decide whether those risks
are worth
taking. That's my first reaction to the criticisms of
Overly's
article, I'd like to re-read the letters and the article
before
making up my mind for sure.
Finally, we received quite a few responses to last
week's
predictions for open source and Linux in 2004. Readers
said:
virtualization, blade servers, and SANs will continue to
grow.
Microsoft may port SQL Server to Linux. SCO must win its lawsuit,
or
the company will die. And there's more to open source than just
Linux.
Read it all here
--Mitch Wagner, Co-Editor, Linux Pipeline
http://www.linuxpipeline.com/
mwagner@cmp.com
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IN
THIS ISSUE
1. Only The Best Linux And Open-Source News
2. Review: SUSE
9.0: A Distro Worth Paying For
3. Trends: Protecting Against Open Source
Legal Risks
4. Trends: Big Blue Penguin
5. Voting Booth: What's The Best
Linux Distro?
6. Expert Views: Embedded Linux Tool Market Won't Hold
Water
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1. ONLY THE BEST LINUX AND OPEN-SOURCE NEWS
2. REVIEW: SUSE 9.0: A Distro Worth Paying For
SUSE 9 offers a superb printed manual, a great
installation
interface, a modern KDE system in
addition to the more standard,
older GNOME
interface, and a new kernel build. It's easy to see
why
Novell thought enough of the software to buy the
company.
http://www.linuxpipeline.com/howto/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=17300224