Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

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Open Source Software:
(slightly skeptical) Annotated Chronicle

1999

(For chronological information about events in 1999 see LWN 1999 Linux timeline -- actually I recommend to start with it -- it's really good)

Most important topics

• Midas touch for OSS: All of this crazy OSS wealth is going to be an interesting social experiment.  What if IPO bubble will burst? How soon Linux commercial space will be overcrowded ? How soon the resentment will affect the community (as one Slashdot user put it: "First I don't think that it is the biggest contributors that got the richest (Linus, RMS, the gcc/libc/... hackers). Second, while I would be eager to contribute to RedHat, today I'd be reluctant to work for free for millionaires." He is probably not right about Linus Torvalds. From the unconfirmed information of Slashdot Anonymous Coward #105 "...I know for a *fact* that he got 80,000 VA options. That's $16 million at $200. Who cares how Transmeta does! " Some suggest that Linux IPOs became one of the grand financial speculations of 1999. It's not clear it this day traders speculation or what...
   

• Linux under fire  -- paradoxically Unix vendors like SCO are suffered most from the growth of Linux popularity; it's not accidental that SCO now became the driving force of the Monterey project.  It looks like HP should also join this effort as HP-UX will probably be abandoned in a couple of years. Solaris also now became more attractive to developers as source code is freely available.

  • Thompson -- Linux is buggy

  • Metcalfe  -- Linux role will be limited to a stimulus to MS to create a decent OS

  • Return of BSD -- Linux after all benefited from infamous lawsuit and desktop orientation. From that point of view Linux is a Microsoft-style OS (see also Net Stealth OS)

  • Monterey threat as a new standard commercial Unix

    • Oracle to Back IBM-Led Unix Standardization Effort

  • Solaris 8 will compete with Linux in non-profit segments

    • THE REGISTER Sun touts pre-launch Solaris 8 for $20 -- it contains Perl and GNU utilities

• LinuxDOC project problems

• Mindcraft saga  -- Linux is not the fastest as a static page WEB server. But it's decent enough to compete with NT and commercial Unixes

• Netscape 5 saga:  undermines open source promise

  • Resignation and postmortem of Jamie Zawinski -- open source is not an untimate answer to all software problems. software is hard. 

• John Ousterhout -- alternatives to GPL

• Open Source licenses proliferation

  • Community Open Source license from Sun -- the number of OSS licenses may became really huge and compete with the number of major OSS products. Why use old license with a new product ?  :-)

• Linuxbox offers FREE hosting to the GNU/OSS development community

• 1998 most important articles