Kernel release: 2.4.23-rc1, Nov 10, 2003

2.4.23-rc1 has been released today.
See changelog for full details.

Files added: 201
Files changed: 1526
Files removed: 13

I read an article this morning, written by Howard Strauss that was published in the Princeton University Syllabus. In it, Mr. Strauss suggests that using Open Source Software is tantamount to falling for one of the Nigerian advance fee scams.

No doubt there will be many replies to such flame bait from the community; a more reasonable response may be just to ignore the ignorance. However, I decided to write an open letter to clarify a few things that Mr. Strauss obviously has difficulty with.

School should teach students ways of life that will benefit society as a whole. They should promote the use of free software just as they promote recycling. If schools teach students free software, then the students will use free software after they graduate. This will help society as a whole escape from being dominated (and gouged) by megacorporations. Those corporations offer free samples to schools for the same reason tobacco companies distribute free cigarettes: to get children addicted (1). They will not give discounts to these students once they grow up and graduate.

Webmaster's note: NY Times requires free registration

But last week, Novell made an effort at a recovery when it announced a $210 million deal to acquire Germany's SuSE Linux, the world's second-largest seller of the Linux operating system. In addition, I.B.M., which resells Linux from both SuSE (pronounced SOO-za) and Red Hat, the largest vendor, said it would invest $50 million in Novell. With the deals, Novell is battling Microsoft on its home turf: the PC operating system.

Although Microsoft is pitching Virtual PC primarily as a way to run several versions of Windows on one machine, or even the old OS/2, the software also will run various versions of Linux. Microsoft said it will refer Linux-related problems to the Linux vendor but that if the problem appears to be a bug in Virtual PC, it will work with the Linux company to resolve the issue.

IBM's other Linux shoe could drop Monday, as Big Blue is expected to endorse the idea of Linux on desktop computers at a conference.

Big Blue has heavily promoted the open-source operating system for use on servers, but Sam Docknevich of IBM's Global Services group plans to discuss how Linux's popularity now has spilled over into the desktop market, according to the agenda for the Desktop Linux Conference in Boston.

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