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, https://www.li.org/
li@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, honza@ied.com
FSU Mailing List Posts:
fslu@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca
Find out more and join at:
https://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
info@lasermoon.co.uk
https://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
https://www.sypher.com/tbm/Consultants-HOWTO
For additional information:
Martin Michlmayr, tbm@sypher.com
https://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,
https://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
jon.hall@li.org
New Linux Q&A Site
A new threaded Linux Q&A and
discussion area has been created at The Forge Foundation web site:
https://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, hal@theforge.com
The Forge Foundation,
https://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
https://www.northcon.org.
For additional information:
northcon@ieee.org 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:
https://www.mcsp.com/OSW-FedUNIX.html
Przemek Klosowski, przemek@nist.gov
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 https://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:
https://www.troll.no/contest.html
contest@troll.no
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),
https://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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