2004.02_South African Impi Linux, Linux Business in Asia, Lindows Trademark Battle Extends.pdf

NEWS

World

World News

Trademark Battle Extends

Dutch Lindows-retailer de Vries Com-

puter Systems, a one-man company, got

the scare of his life when Microsoft

phoned him announcing that he would

be involved in the trademark dispute

between Lindows and Microsoft. The

company promised a visit to explain the

case and to convince him not to retail

the desktop-Linux anymore. At least four

other companies got a similar phone

call. Instead of removing the product

from his catalog, Hans de Vries turned to

Lindows, and CEO Michael Robertson

promised to miss his Thanksgiving Day

and stand by his business partner.

Microsoft confirms the story. “Trade-

marks have to be protected in each and

every nation in order not to lose your

rights.”, says Robert de Moll, spokesper-

son for Microsoft, “Since Lindows has no

office in the Netherlands, we have to pur-

sue the case with the dealers.” However,

when the media picked up on the story,

Microsoft decided not to go ahead with

the case. Robertson postponed his visit to

early December when he announced a

US$ 50,000 defense fund each for dealers

in the Netherlands and Sweden. This was

following a verdict by the Stockholm city

court 10th December prohibiting Lindows

from using the Lindows, Lindows.com

and LindowsOS trademarks until the case

had been finally settled. The defense fund

is to be raised by selling Lindows life-time

memberships.

■

Home-brew: A South African Linux Distribution

It took the Gauteng Linux Users Group

(GLUG), and other South African Linux

activists forming “The Impi League”

three years and three attempts to create a

South African Linux distribution dedi-

cated “to all South Africans”. The proud

survivor of this testing ground, living

proof “that Africans can be self deter-

mined in the digital world” (as spokes-

man Ross Addis puts it), goes by the

name of “Impi Linux”, and was recently

released as version 1.13. Its name,

“impi”, refers to a warrior regiment in

the armies of the warrior king Shaka

Zulu (1785–1828) and his successors.

Being an Open Source project, the

desktop distribution does not

attempt to reinvent the wheel but is

based on Debian, borrows compo-

nents from Knoppix, and ships with

GNOME, OpenOffice and Mozilla.

One notable native South African

addition is Cubit, a Web-based Open

Source accounting and business

software package. You can either

use the distribution as a live CD, or

install by clicking the install icon on

the desktop (alternatively installa-

tion at boot-time is possible).

There is still a huge translation effort

required to fulfill the promise of being

available in all eleven official South

African languages Afrikaans, Ndebele,

Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swati,

Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu,

and English. Unlike many other distros,

Impi Linux already has an operating

24/7 telephone support center which can

be reached via South Africa’s conven-

tional telephone network.

■

http://www.impi.org.za/

ftp://ftp.is.co.za/linux/distributions/

impi/impi_1.13.iso

http://www.glug.org.za/

http://www.cubit.co.za/

■

Linux Goes Business in Asia

“Adopting Linux in the Enterprise” was

the theme of the LinuxWorld Conference

and Expo Hongkong 4th and 5th Novem-

ber, 2003, and they meant it: When it

debuted in March 1999, LinuxWorld San

Francisco was the domain of developers.

Of the almost 1,300 visitors of its 2003

Asia Pacific counterpart, about 55 per

cent were directors, CIOs and CTOs.

Accordingly, the conference agenda

focussed on management and business

talks, and most of them were held by

management and sales representatives of

global players and big companies with a

regional focus like the Thiz Technology

Group (known for the ThizLinux prod-

ucts) or China’s Red Flag Software

Company.

Hence, instead of the latest

developments of the Linux kernel

or desktop environments, the

conference talks featured busi-

ness products like Red Hat

Enterprise Linux 3 and Oracle,

buzzwords like high-availability,

backup and recovery, and carried

headlines like “The business and

economics of Linux and Open

Source” or “Linux – an indispens-

able component for running

profitable business in small and

medium enterprises, enterprise

or government bodies”.

Catering to the huge demand for Linux

certification especially in Asia (see also

Issue 36, p13), the Linux Professional

Institute held exam labs on both confer-

ence days in cooperation with the LPI

Hong Kong .

■

http://www.linuxworld-hk.com/

February 2004

www.linux-magazine.com

■

Developer Conferences Specialize

As Linux goes mainstream, Linux conferences become increas-

ingly specialized: GNOME users and developers will meet at

the GUADEC in Kristiansand/Norway 28th to 30th June 2004

(see Issue 38, p13), and for August or September, their KDE

counterparts are busily planning the 2004 KDE Conference at

the Film Academy in Ludwigsburg, a small German town near

the city of Stuttgart.

But to organize a conference, it’s not actually necessary

to work on one common project – there is an obvious trend

towards developer conferences focussing on one particular

topic: For example, the German Unix Users Group (GUUG)

announced a “Free Software/Open Source Telephony Summit”

16th to 20th January 2004 in Geilenkirchen/Germany, thus

providing a venue where developers from projects like Gnome-

Meeting, Bayonne or Linphone can meet, hack and exchange

information in the course of a three-day workshop, a confer-

ence, and a subsequent tutorial day.

Developers interested in audio and music applications can

look forward to meet at the “2nd Linux Audio Developers Con-

ference” 29th April to 2nd May, 2004. Again it is the turn of a

German city, Karlsruhe, to play host for the event. Among the

projects that will be presented there, are Aeolus (a GPLed

church organ program), ALSA of course, and Ardour.

NEW

■

http://2004.guadec.org/

http://linuxwiki.org/KDEkonferenz

https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-conference

http://www.guug.de/veranstaltungen/telephony-summit-2004/

http://www.zkm.de/lad

Islands for Linux

Sometimes the so called developed countries of the “First

World” can learn a lot from so called developing countries, for

example when it comes to the deployment of Open Source. So

it came as no surprise when Brazilian Open Source proponents

shared their experiences with their Portuguese hosts, during

the 1st Azores Linux Workshop at the University of the Azores

in Sao Miguel November 29, 2003.

While Rubens Queiróz de Almeida of the Campinas State

University gave general introductions to Linux and Open

Source, Marcelo Branco, a representative of the Porto Alegre

City Council, spoke about free software in Brazil in general,

pointing out the governmental decision to adopt Open Source

software solutions all over the country. His presence finally

lead to a technology transfer cooperation agreement between

the Porto Alegre City Council and Terra-Mar Virtualazores, an

association for local development in the Azores, which intends

to involve the Azores government.

This, however, was not the only practical outcome of the

workshop that ended with a Linux installation party on

November 30. Adetti, a Lisbon-based non-profit organization

for the development of IT and telecommunication techniques,

and Terra-Mar Virtualazores agreed on the creation of a Linux

Azores Abilities Center. So it looks like Linux has gained a

foothold in Portugal.

SUSE LINUX 9.0 – the complete

suite for newcomers and professionals.

Also runs parallel to Windows ® !

SUSE LINUX 9.0: An Operating

System with 1,000 possibilities,

not a 1,000 vulnerabilities

With SUSE LINUX 9.0 you get a com-

plete Desktop Operating System with

all the productivity and multimedia

applications you need. In addition, its

secure system architecture and built-

in firewall will free you from the

annoyances you've come to expect

from the Windows world of crashes,

viruses, and worms. Also available for

the first time in 64bit version for

AMD64 processors. Get the facts now.

■

www.suse.co.uk

WWW.suse.com

http://www.linuxazores.org/

■

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: