Jeremy Lee has contributed another feature to Slashdot. This one attempts to address some of the issues surrounding the new commercialization of Linux and Open Source. This is a really good piece that raises a lot of good issues worth thinking about. A must read.

emptybody was the first of you to write in with this PC Week story that Compaq is about to ship RedHat 5.2 bundled on some of its servers, and provide 24-by-7 support for them. This apparently will save time for them, since they currently pre-load Linux by hand. If this is becoming a problem, it suggests demand for Linux Servers is increasing. Gateway also expects to deliver such servers by the end of the year. Kim Brown, an analyst at Dataquest Inc, says this means Compaq is walking away from SCO, and that Linux is starting to be acknowledged as the low-end Unix alternative.

rdsmith writes "This week's Info World has a short article on Linux and its growth over the past few years. It makes a couple of mentions of ESR and the Halloween document. Although the article bases Linux's growth on numbers provided by Redhat, it's still good press for Linux. "

Andy Tai writes "This InfoWorld story reports on RedHat's choice of GNOME as the desktop for the next version of its Redhat Linux. While the story is nothing new, this is a sign that GNOME has captured "mainstream" attention." The IDC analyst quoted does not seem to realize that GNOME is optional.

Panu Hällfors writes "The first one installfest ever in Finland takes place in Ulvila from 16. to 17. January. I'm expecting something like 60 to 70 new installs and of course about as much experienced users to drop by to lend a hand to new users. We'll probably install mainly the new RedHat derivate SOT-Linux which is translated to Finnish. More info can be found on the Internet site of the event, "> here (In Finnish and *only accesible from Finland*) "

Donnie Barnes wrote in to say " LinuxExpo apologizes for the confusion and does intend to provide several booth spaces to non-profit organizations on a first come, first served basis. " Interested folks should contact stacy@linuxexpo.org.

Hamlet Batista writes "Last time checked at 1:30 on 21 December 1998, the beta version of RedHat's Linux Intel distribution included KDE-1.1pre packages. This is very good news for Red Hat Linux users. Welcome, Red Hat. "

Oracle_Monkey asks: "I finally got my first LINUX box up and running with RedHat 5.1, and downloaded ORACLE8. Added path to $ORACLE_HOME/bin and still the apps - sqlplus, svrmgrl..etc won't execute. "shared libraries not found". Anybody elese got this up and running? I have visions of blowing my boss out of the water with a web - enabled (Apache ) datamart . I haven't been this excited about a new product ...well, ever , really.... Anyt thoughts , Ladies & gents? "

python_geek writes "Red Hat has announced a new training/certification program for those who want to be certified Linux Geeks. It looks like their certification will actually mean something as it includes a lab exam were you actually have to show you know how to solve problems, unlike the Microsoft tests which anyone who crams hard enough can pass. It looks really cool, now if I could just get my company to pay for the training and test..."

My recent essay on "Secrets of Linux", which chronicled my painful and clumsy first attempts to master the OS Beast, drew more than 2,000 e-mail messages in less than 24 hours, a record for me on any website. The responses ranged from talks about Slackware, Red Hat and Debian to quotes from Yeats and invitations to Installfests. Since so many of you shared with me, it's only fair to share back.

The OSI has sent us a report on the Open Source discussions they had with IBM. What's cool is that the opening-up of the Jikes Parser has been discussed, which would make Jikes more open, and provide a tool with better error correction capabilities than Yacc/Bison. The report is below, so people know what the fuss is about. update Dave Shields updated us on events at his end. There's a nice hacker anecdote at the end.

Sean Garagan writes "The PCWeek labs reviewed the latest RedHat offering as a desktop alternative. They had the usual problems of GUI interface and hard to configure sound subsystems. I have to agree on one point though, the RedHat package install interface needs to be cleaned up somehow."

Dr Mike writes "The Rasterman has released a spec for making any window manager compliant with GNOME. Window managers complying with this specification will gain: - the gnome pager will work "out of the box" - gmc will be able to get root window button presses (allowing a root menu which is the same/similar to the panel start menu to be brought up) - icons on the desktop will properly layer - the panel will be a managed app The specification is available at: link " Oh man - how cool is that? This come just in time for the upcoming gnome-libs 1.0 freeze (of which yours truly is assisting with).

ZDNET published an article regarding a Worm program who appears to attack IMAP servers with ISP's and others who run Redhat 5.0. Needless to say: People who use Redhat 5.0 - please install patch or upgrade (patch available at redhat FTP site)

Well, a friendly bird over at IDG has dropped me a line saying that a LinuxWorld press release has come. It's so new, it's not even up on the web site-click below for details. Exhibitors are signing up, and things are starting to take a more concrete shape-looking good. Rob and I will definitely be there-maybe more. Click below to read more-and to find out who the keynote speakers are.

Jason Haas writes "We have the first real beta version of LinuxPPC 5.0 running! It's running glibc2 and fvwm -- and looks identical to RedHat 5.x. I posted the update about it on www.linuxppc.org from the PowerBook G3 that it was developed on, so I know basic services are working. We'll post the beta for everyone to break/fix/contribute in a day or so. (Figure December 3 would be a realistic date to have it up with a working installer.) To read about the R5 beta's first boot, go to www.linuxppc.org/r5.html. We'll put up a large note there when R5b1 is available online. "

As usual, C|Net Radio with the Project Heresy. This week they talk about the Redhat & S.u.S.E support issue (24/7), Open source in other things like Squick (I really don't know what it is) and possibly combine it with Linux, BeOS 4.0 issue, MS vs Java, and finally - the Chrome program that MS dropped. Enjoy.

Alex deVries from Red Hat wrote in to tell us that they have a network called the Red Hat Contrib Net that will allow the world easy access to the contributed rpms that always seem to be on really slow mirror sites. You can read more at Red Hat's Developer Pages.

John A. Turner writes "Haven't seen anything on /. about how much Linux-related stuff there was at Supercomputing '98 so thought I'd mention it. One of the best things was a panel discussion titled "Clusters, Extreme Linux, and NT". There's a nice summary of the Linux-related events at SC '98 at the Extreme Linux site " Note that reactions to Red Hat's support options announcements included One area in which Linux is far ahead of the pack is clustering . Has any participant written up a summary we could post? Update Rahul Dave has written a report for us.

Dave Whitinger writes "Oh Boy did Red Hat make some serious announcements today. Check out the press release here. " Indeed. Check out even more news at Red Hat's page. The enterprise, GNOME, messaging, oh my!