NEWS World

■Linus is a hero 365 heros on one poster – this is how the (nominally) catholic Dutch radiostation World News KRO (“Katholieke Radio Omroep”) bid farewell to old year 2002. Most of the choosen men and women are Dutch, the ■Norwegians free to use DeCSS It was back in January, 2000 when the “If one holds a letter against a light in Motion Pictures Association of America, order to glance at the content, this and the DVD Copy Control Association means irregular access. But as it’s my Inc. contacted Økokrim, Norway’s police own letter, it’s not criminal.” department to deal with economical and 7th January, 2003, the unique law suit environmental crime. In turn, a 16 year at Oslo court finally found a happy end: old from Lardal south of Norway’s won on all counts capital Oslo, was accused to have acted when judge Irene Sogn declared access- illegally when he released the DVD ing legally bought using means not decryption program DeCSS (developed intended by the DVD producers was by him using decryption code by others) legal, and thus made it clear that unli- on the internet. This, claimed the pro- censed DVD-players are legal in Norway. secutors, could enable pirate copying of Økokrim failed to prove evidence for DVDs. pirate mass copying of DVDs using Although the original DeCSS was a DeCSS in Norway, and the court ruled Windows program, Jon Lech Johansen’s that “DVD Jon” couldn’t be punished if defense strategy mainly used the argu- others used his program to illegally ment that he intended to watch his watch DVD movies as long as the soft- legally bought DVDs under . As no ware had a legal right to exist. Økokrim rest internationally known politicians, licensed player for Linux had been considers filing an appeal. ■ artists, activists, athletes, scientists, available at this time, his defense lawyer http://www.aftenposten.no/english/ celebritites and heros of a day like Kofi came up with the following argument: local/article.jhtml?articleID=466519 Annan, Marlene Dietrich, Jane Godall, The Dalai Lama, Rigoberta Menchú and New Yorks firebrigade. Plus two single ■India discusses Open ■Knoppix distribution goes computer people: Tim Berners-Lee of Source business model Taiwanese WWW-fame and Linus Torvalds. ■ In a cash-strapped economy, earning Many Taiwanese Linux users have been http://www.kro.nl/gevoeldelen/helden/ from Free/Libre and Open Source amazed by the power of the Knoppix dis- view.php software (FLOSS) can still be a major tribution that allows a more flexible use concern. Dr. Tarique Sani (tarique@ of Linux. Consequentially, a Taiwanese sanisoft.com) has published the SANIsoft version named “bv0103” using Chinese ■Israeli army to deploy Open Source Business Model on his Big5 characters recently came into being. Linux company’s site to enforce discussion. If The latest version adds the iocharset= Briefly after the Israel Defence Forces you think: “What’s the fuzz?”, Raj big5 mount option to the /etc/fstab (IDF) signed a three years contract with Mathur ([email protected]) of Delhi’s so that windows files on FAT16, FAT32, Microsoft, the new commander of the arguments may help Westerners to see and NTFS partitions automatically show IDF’s central computer facility “Mam- the problems: up with Chinese Big5 filenames, and ram”, Avi Kochba, admitted that the “India is a very human-resource-rich resolves problems with spaces in file deployment of Linux and Open Source country, so perception of product value or directory names. Further changes software is being considered by the tends to be much higher than service include an update of the knx-hdinstall armed forces – mainly as a means of cut- value. I personally believe that Linux program that installs Knoppix on a hard ting cost. and FLOSS are the means to switch an IT disk to version 0.37 and a newer kernel In an interview with Israelian daily economy from product-based to service- 2.4.20. “Ha’aretz” he said: “We will, for exam- based. However, that’s not going to Contrary to the original Knoppix, ple, be the first in Israel to operate Linux happen in India until the person who bv0103 can be restarted from USB (not based on the IBM mainframe computer” can get a haircut for 20 cents and a live- only from floppy) disk. It detects LCD but added that Microsoft won’t be on the in maid for $30 per month starts monitors and PS/2 mice, and shuts down way out of the army in the near future. ■ appreciating the value of time, expertise monitor power automatically. ■ http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/ and experience.” ■ ftp://cle.linux.org.tw/pub2/KNOPPIX/ objects/pages/PrintArticleEn. http://www.sanisoft.com/openmodel.php bv1al/KNOPPIX-bv-20030108.iso jhtml?itemNo=246791

12 March 2003 www.linux-magazine.com World NEWS

■GNOME in Kannada ■GNUnifying festival ■Video Whale from Pakistan For a region struggling to get Linux Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies Computers in Pakistani schools and solutions working in languages spoken and Research (SICSR) is a college in the colleges? The only cost-sensible legal by tens of millions, some interesting central Indian city of Pune with over solution are low cost PCs running Linux developments are being reported of late. 16,000 students from more than 32 coun- and other Open Source software. Whilst Arun Sharma back in Septem- tries. Each year SICSR organizes a fest To provide educational institutions ber, 2002 showed off with KDE desktop called “Unify”, which is composed of with quickly set up videowalls for use in parts in Kannada on the Kannada mail- various cultural, academic events and the classrooms, Umer Anwar Sheikh ing list, it was recently Pramod R’s turn contests. from Peshawar based company “North to proudly present some screenshots of This year, the institution is adding on West Research” initiated and funded a GNOME applications in this South “GNUnify – The All India Free Software videowall implementation using Indian language spoken by some 47 Festival” in order to contribute to and Gstreamer and Xinerama. Developed by million speakers. Zeeshan Ali Khattak, the Video Whale Meanwhile, Gurupkar Waraich Project came into being. ■ ([email protected]) is about to http://www.gstreamer.net/apps/vw/ start a new team for Punjabi localization. Says he: “Volunteers please get in touch so that we can start working.” Punjabi is spoken by some 96 million, not just in India but also across the border in Pakistan. ■ encourage the Free Software movement in India by “awarding the best and moti- vating the rest”. Events scheduled on February 15–16, 2003 will include open- for-all code presentations in the fields of application and embedded Linux devel- opment, networking programming, kernel and device driver development. There will also be paper presentations ■UK Health & Safety http://kannada.sourceforge.net/ for students, hands-on workshops, a The UK’s Health and Safety Executive gnome-screens/screenshots.html Linux and GNU/Hurd install fest and has completed a preliminary assessment http://www.sharma-home.net/mailman/ more. If possible, this might coincide of Linux for safety related systems. listinfo/kannada with Richard Stallman’s visit to India. ■ The report (RR 011) considers the http://punjabi-linux.sourceforge.net/ http://www.sicsr.ac.in/gnunify/ availability and quality of evidence for the safety integrity of Linux – defining three criteria for the suitability in safety ■Open standards for The Netherlands related applications: The Dutch government puts its money several national and European initiatives • the operating system must be suffi- where its mouth is. In response to a and organisations, amongst them the ciently well understood, study by the Ministries of Economics and recently established OASE (“Open Aan- •that it must be suitable for the char- of the Interior showing that open stan- bod Software Expertise”, aanbod = acteristics of the safety related dards and Open Source software can offer) project. With the latter, Syntens, a application, help to economize public finances, a Dutch organisation promoting the usage • and that it must be sufficiently program to push both of them has been of and investment in information reliable. launched. and communication technology in Linux is assessed, and a framework for The “Programma voor Open Standaar- companies, wants to point small and the hazard analysis of the interaction den en Open Source” is intended to medium businesses at the existence and between applications and operating inform about open standards and Open benefits of Open Source. system is given. The report concludes Source, to advise and simplify its Whilst discussing the finances of the that Linux would be suitable for use in deployment during a three years period. ICTU program, it was suggested to many safety related applications with It will be implemented by the ICTU (the migrate all software used by governmen- Safety integrity level (SIL) 1, SIL 2 Dutch organisation for information and tal institutions to open standards and integrity requirements, and that certifi- communication technology and govern- Open Source until 2006. But this has not cation to SIL 3 would be possible. ment), and has a budget of 3 Mio. been decided yet … ■ It states it is not likely to be either Euros. http://www.ez.nl/upload/docs/ suitable or certifiable for SIL 4 appli- To avoid reinventing the wheel, the Nieuwsbijlage/PDF-Documenten/ cations. ■ program aims at cooperation with Programmavoorstel_OSOSS.pdf (Dutch) http://hse.gov.uk/research/

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