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But Wait, There's More
Web Services: Programmers Say Spanning Platforms More Vital Than Spanning Languages
According to a new survey on Web services programming conducted by Evans Data, what programmers really want is a Web services programming environment that spans many platforms, and they are not so much concerned with having an environment that spans many languages. The survey of more than 500 programmers indicated that they were just about evenly split into Java and Microsoft .NET camps, but 70 percent of them said that what they really valued was a platform that would work on any operating system platform. Having an environment that spans many languages is not as important.
That would seem to imply that Java, which runs on all modern platforms, has an edge against Microsoft's .NET and Common Language Runtime environment, which is officially only supported on Windows but is being cloned for Linux and Unix through the Mono open source project. CLR is very slick in that it can run C#, Visual Basic, C, C++, RPG, and COBOL, among others. However, according to the Evans Data study, just about all .NET programmers use C#.
Judge Makes Rulings in SCO Cases with IBM, Novell
Federal Judge Dale Kimball of the United States District Court for the District of Utah, who is hearing the lawsuits launched by The SCO Group against IBM and Novell, has handed down two rulings that move those cases forward. Kimball denied Novell's motion to dismiss the SCO suit and plans to keep the case in his court. This suit alleges that Novell has slandered SCO by claiming that Novell, not SCO, owns the copyrights to Unix. SCO thought it bought all the rights to Unix a few years ago, but Novell claimed it did not, in the aftermath of the intellectual property suit that SCO launched against IBM last year. SCO has 30 days to file with Kimball to seek specific damages from Novell. Now SCO and Novell will end up fighting out the copyright issue in court, which seems to be a setback for both companies.
In the SCO-IBM case, Kimball granted SCO's request to push the trial date from April 2005 to November 2005 (SCO asked for July 15), but Kimball also said that he would not allow the discovery process, which is vital to SCO's case, to go beyond April 22. SCO had also asked for the patent issues in the suit, which also has counterclaims against IBM's suit that was a response to SCO's suit, to be split into two cases. Kimball denied this request. Before these rulings, SCO had complained once again to the court that IBM had not supplied source code for AIX and Dynix Unixes, so it could a code check against the Unix System V source code that SCO bought from Novell.
Linux 2.4, 2.6 Kernels Have Security Bugs
Last week, two smart nerds accidentally discovered a way to lock up a Linux machine, and immediately set about writing a program they dubbed "Evil C" that exploits the flaw that they discovered. The C program dispatches code to the floating point math co-processor in X86 chips. Anyone with shell, cgi-bin, or FTP access to a Linux machine could upload and run this program and thus crash a Linux box. The Linux community last week was issuing patches for the problem, and thus far no one has tried to create a worm or virus that exploits the flaw. Linux 2.6.7-RC3, the next release of the Linux kernel, includes a patch for this flaw.
Scalix Upgrades Linux-Based Groupware
Linux email and groupware server provider Scalix has announced an upgrade to its eponymous software. Like prior versions of its software, this one is based on the core OpenMail software that Scalix has licensed from Hewlett-Packard. (HP stopped selling OpenMail in 2001, even though it has a huge installed base on its HP-UX Unix servers.) Scalix is supporting the core groupware software on Linux, but with Scalix 9.0, it is now supporting integration with Microsoft's Outlook 2003 and the open source Ximian Evolution client that is controlled by Novell. Scalix 9.0 also supports the Scalix Web Access client, which can be used to provide Webmail access from either Internet Explorer or Mozilla browsers. Scalix had already supported earlier Outlook clients with its software, as well as Eudora, Entourage, Mozilla Mail, and the integrated mail features of BlackBerry handhelds.
Scalix 9.0 also includes a Web-based administrative server and support for single-signon, which simplifies groupware administration since end users can use their user names and passwords for systems to also gain access to their groupware. This single signon capability can be integrated with Microsoft's Active Directory for Windows servers. If you log onto a Windows desktop or server, you can jump right to the Scalix groupware server without having to log in a second time. Finally, Scalix is now supported on Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Server; it had previously been certified to run on Red Hat's Linux. Scalix 9.0 costs $60 per user.
Novell Sponsors Open Source IPsec Security for Linux
Novell bought commercial Linux distributor SuSE and email client maker Ximian because it wants to sell Linux into places where it knows its NetWare operating system could never go: into the vast Unix market. But to do that, Linux has to have rock-solid security. To that end, Novell announced last week that it would sponsor the Openswan project, which is implementing an open source version of the IPsec protocol for the Linux platform. Openswan itself is based on the FreeS/WAN project, which was started in 1998 and which shut down further development in April. IPsec is the security protocol that is used to convert the public Internet into a virtual private network. Openswan is supported on Linux 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, and 2.6. Openswan 2.1.2 was released on May 18. With Novell behind Openswan, the project will have the funding and technical expertise to keep improving IPsec support for Linux.
Earthquake Highlights Lack of Preparedness Among L.A. Companies
It was an eerily prescient finding. One day before a magnitude 5.2 earthquake rolled through Southern California last week, telecommunications provider AT&T announced results of a survey that found 35 percent of companies in the Los Angeles metropolitan area are completely unprepared for a disaster. While the temblor, which was situated about 60 miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean, didn't cause any damage (save for the evacuation of Sea World and frayed nerves in a few thousand souls), it served to highlight the ongoing tenuousness of business continuity in susceptible regions of this country. The report, "Disaster Planning in the Private Sector: A Post 9/11 Look at the State of Business Continuity in the U.S.," which was based on interviews with business continuity executives at 100 Los Angeles firms, found that 35 percent of business have no disaster recovery plans.
"About a third of Los Angeles companies don't seem to think they're vulnerable," said Ken Allen, executive director for Partnership for Public Warning, which is working with AT&T on disaster planning. "That's a dangerously naïve position to take, especially when you consider history." The report also found that 20 percent of companies surveyed had suffered a disaster serious enough for them to close down for some period of time. The most common culprit for shutting down was found to be earthquakes, with a 35 percent share, followed closely by fires, which caused 10 percent of the shutdowns. "Local companies without business continuity plans should make it a priority to develop them," Allen said. "They need to focus on protecting the networks their businesses rely on and securing critical applications and data to keep their businesses up and running."
Oracle Acquisition of PeopleSoft Would Hurt: Daimler-Chrysler IT Exec
The Department of Justice's case for blocking the acquisition of PeopleSoft by Oracle got a boost last week, when a Daimler-Chrysler IT executive testified that it would harm his company to the tune of $50 million to $100 million if it was forced to replace its PeopleSoft application if rival Oracle's bid succeeded and it proceeded to neglect the software. Although Oracle wasn't invited to bid for a contract with Daimler-Chrysler, which considered only PeopleSoft and SAP for a recently installed human resources package, having Oracle in the wings increased Daimler-Chrysler's bargaining power, testified Michael Gorriz, the manufacturer's vice president of information technology. "I think there was a benefit to having three independent competitors in the market," Gorriz was quoted by CNET as saying in court. Although Oracle has since committed to supporting PeopleSoft's Enterprise suite of applications for at least 10 years, it is hard to entirely forget Oracle's preliminary pledge to kill its competitors' products if it ever got its hands on them, which is exactly what it said in the days immediately following its hostile takeover bid about a year ago.
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SUSE LINUX
