Red Hat Sues Switzerland Over Microsoft Monopoly

Linux vendor Red Hat, and 17 other vendors, have protested a Swiss government contract given to Microsoft without any public bidding. The move exposes a wider Microsoft monopoly that European governments accept, despite their lip service for open source, according to commentators.

The Red Hat group has asked a Swiss federal court to overturn a three-year contract issued to Microsoft by the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics, to provide Windows desktops and applications, with support and maintenance, for 14 million Swiss Franc (£8 million) each year. The contract, for "standardised workstations", was issued with no public bidding process, Red Hat's legal team reports in a blog - because the Swiss agency asserted there was no sufficient alternative to Microsoft products.

Read more here: Red Hat Sues Switzerland Over Microsoft Monopoly - News - eWeekEurope.co.uk

New Linux.com Goes Live

The new Linux.com site has been launched. For those who don't remember the Linux Foundation took over the site in March and have been planning the relaunch since then.

In addition to Linux news, product listings, and more, Linux.com is designed to be interactive; 'for the community by the community.' You can:

• Gain Guru Points for contributions to the site and compete for the "Ultimate Linux Guru" recognition and prizes
  
• Create a group for your LUG or developer group and invite friends to stay informed. (linux.com/community/groups)
  
• Add an Event to the Linux.com Calendar. No event is too big or small. (linux.com/community/events)
  
• Post a comment in our Forums to get help with Linux (linux.com/community/forums)
  
• Ask a question or give a solution in Answers (linux.com/learn/answers)
  
• Add a listing or a product review in our Directory (linux.com/directory)
  
• Create your own tutorial (linux.com/learn/tutorials) or blog entry (linux.com/community/blogs)
  

When you add content to the new Linux.com, you gain the goodwill and support of your fellow Linux.com users. As you participate in the site's community by providing content, you will gain guru points that will move you towards the rank of Guru that can help you connect to jobs and collaboration opportunities.

The top-ranked Linux.com user will be recognized each year as the “Ultimate Linux Guru” and be given a fully loaded “dream” Linux notebook, personally autographed by Linux founder Linus Torvalds, as recognition of his or her guru status. The top five contributors to Linux.com will be invited to the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit to participate in the planning for the future of Linux.com.

FSF and Cisco Kiss and Make Up

The Free Software Foundation and Cisco have announced that they have reached a joint agreement and settled the law suit which the FSF initiated in December. The settlement announcement, which had been expected after an order to dismiss, was filed with the district court, sees Cisco agreeing to appoint a Free Software Director for the Cisco subsidiary Linksys who will enforce the company's compliance with the terms of the GPL. Cisco have also agreed to notify customers who have received products which contain FSF programs of their rights with regard to the GPL and to publish notices on their web site. The settlement also involves Cisco making a monetary contribution to the FSF of an undisclosed amount.

Read more here: FSF and Cisco Settle - Officially - News - The H Open Source: News and Features

Linux Foundation Buys Linux.com

It was revealed yesterday that the Linux Foundation, a non-profit consortium chartered to foster the growth of Linux, has bought the Linux.com domain from SourceForge.

I (Gary Sims) have worked with the Linux.com team for several years and they have published several of my artivles and even a video review of Picasa for Linux. At the moment I am undecided about what this means for the Linux community, time will tell as we see what the LF make of the site.

Some key points about the deal are:

• LF is taking over the editorial and community stewardship for the site.
  
• The SourceForge and LF will collaborate to create a vibrant and long-lasting community destination for Linux users and developers.
  
• SourceForge will support the Linux Foundation by continuing to sell the advertising for Linux.com.
  
• Much like Linux itself, Linux.com will rely on the community to create and drive the content and conversation.
  
• According to ComputerWorld, the Foundation will be keeping the old Linux.com articles on-site. What is good news for me as I would like to continue to see my articles on the Linux.com site.
  
  

LF Press Release

Ubuntu 9.04 Boots in 21.4 Seconds with EXT4 as the default filesystem

Ubuntu 9.04 boots in 21.4 Seconds when using the EXT4 as the default filesystem. This is compared to Ubuntu 8.10 with EXT3 filesystem which boots in 26.8 seconds and Ubuntu 9.04 Alpha (Build 20090112.1) with EXT3 filesystem that boots in 24.5 seconds.

The boot times were calculated from the moment the GRUB boot loader appeared on the screen and until the login manager was displayed. As you can see, there is an approximately 8.7 second difference between an Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) installation and an Ubuntu 9.04 Alpha (Jaunty Jackalope) one on the first system and 5.4 second difference on the second system.

Read more here: Ubuntu 9.04 Boots in 21.4 Seconds with EXT4 as the default filesystem.

Linus Torvalds: "I laugh in your face!"

There is one way to get Linus Torvalds to laugh in your face; submit code to fix Linux that might solve a major difficulty, but also introduce new problems.

Linux originator Torvalds is following his long-standing policy of attending the Australian Linux.conf.au conference but not appearing as a presenter in the formal program. However, he offered a number of comments from the floor during a presentation by LWN.net founder Jonathan Corbet on the kernel development process.

Read more here: Linus Torvalds on regression, laziness and having his code rejected

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 is Out

Red Hat announced the availability of a new version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) via Red Hat Network to customers with a Red Hat subscription.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 Release Notes note over 150 updates and upgrades, but here are a few key highlights:

Virtualization enhancements: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 supports larger x86-64 systems. The number of supported physical CPUs is increased to 126, while maximum memory is increased to 1TB. Virtual server CPU and memory limits have been increased to 32 and 80GB respectively.

Next-generation hardware enablement: The soon-to-be-released Tylersberg/Nehalem platform is the next-generation of Intel x86-64 hardware. Support for the virtualization and performance features provided by this processor combined with numerous optimizations have already demonstrated exceptional performance over previous processor generations in internal Red Hat testing.

OpenJDK: Red Hat is taking a leadership position in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 by shipping the first productized implementation of OpenJDK.

Disk encryption: Critical for laptop use, but also becoming increasingly important in server deployments (due to concerns with hardware disposal at the end of its lifecycle), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 includes full support for encryption of storage, either at the block level or file system level.

Read more here: Virtualization gets a boost in RHEL 5.3