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Leading items

We have put together a Linux 1998 timeline for your enjoyment. Please have a look and fill us in on the stuff that we missed; we'll put out a final version our next newsletter. Creating this timeline was a fair amount of work, but rewarding. It's impressive to see all that has happened (or even a small subset thereof) in one place.

Here, in your editor's view, are some of the more significant developments in the Linux world over the past year:

• The public perception of Linux changes. Once seen as a toy system for hobbyists, it's now the hot system du jour. The hype will subside sooner or later, but the penguin is now taken seriously, and that will not change.

• Big business discovers Linux. Be it Oracle, IBM, Intel, Sun, Dell, or even Microsoft, large corporations have caught on to Linux (and free software in general) and are trying to figure out how to deal with it. The result is more software for Linux, more high-profile deployments, and also more serious thought on how to compete with Linux.

• The bazaar approach shows its viability for large projects. GNU struggled for ten years to produce a significant set of utilities; now a project like KDE or GNOME can set very ambitious goals just months in the future - and meet them. Even WINE, long held up as an example of the limits of free software development, is making good progress. This change is a direct result of the increasing popularity of free software; more users translates into more developers.

• Kernel development runs up against human limits. The limits of the "single benevolent dictator" model are demonstrated through a couple of burnout scenes over the year. Kernel development remains vibrant and healthy, and a 2.2 kernel of outstanding quality will be available in the very near future. But some of the problems we have seen will come back again.

What do we have to look forward to next year? 1999 will be the year that Linux consolidates its gains and proves that it will be around for the long run. Talk of the "Linux fad" will fade away. We will see what Microsoft will really do to compete with Linux; "Windows 2000" alone will prove insufficient, to say the least. Preinstalled systems will be available from the large PC vendors. More consumer "shrink wrap" software will be ported. Between KDE and GNOME Linux will have not one but two top-quality graphical desktops. The Linux community is likely to suffer new stresses due to a large influx of new users and due to the increasing presence of large corporate players with their own agendas.

In other words, next year will be at least as interesting as this year was, and likely more so. We have only just begun.

LWN is shorthanded this week due to sick authors and sick disk drives. What you're reading is essentially the work of one person; please accept our apologies if some of the sections are a little thin.

This is the last issue of LWN for 1998, as we will be taking next week off to celebrate the holidays. Our next issue will come out on January 7, 1999. (There will be occasional daily page updates in between). We thank you all for being such a great reader community, and wish you the best of holidays and a great new year.

See also: last week's Security page.

Security

Wietse Venema responded to several claims of security vulnerabilities in Postfix/Secure Mailer. His position initially was that no significant problems had yet been found. Read his responsefor the whole thing. Subsequently Daniel Bernstein (author of Qmail) posted this strongly-worded message about a particular problem he had found. Wietse responded thusly. To say that there appears to be some bad blood between those two would be an understatement.

CERT sent out an advisory regarding a vulnerability in BSD-derived TCP stacks; this problem exists in a large number of systems out there (see the advisory for more). However, Linux does not have this vulnerability. Linux is one of the few systems out there that does not have a TCP implementation derived from BSD; it's an independently developed stack.

A modified version of tcplogd was posted which is able to detect a wider variety of attempted TCP protocol attacks. Here's the posting with the source for those who would like to give it a try. A "more advanced" version is promised for the future.

Due to editor error, three security alerts from Red Hat failed to make it into last week's security page. Please note that Red Hat has issued updated RPMs for XFree86 3.3.3, the ftp client, and Netscape. All contain fixes for known security problems and upgrades to these packages are recommended for everyone that has them installed.

See also: last week's Kernel page.

Kernel development

The Linux kernel archive mirror system will likely be active by the time you read this. This system will provide an extensive and easy to use mirror network for the Linux kernel, thus ending the problems with getting into kernel.org. Watch the daily updates page for the actual announcement once it's available.

Problems with core. There's been a rising number of complaints about the "net/core" directory in the kernel distribution. Many systems out there are infested with programs that assume that something called "core," even if it's a directory, should be removed, ignored, or otherwise treated like garbage. Automatic core dump removers run out of cron are can be particularly obnoxious to those trying to keep a kernel source tree around. CVS also ignores things called "core" by default.

To address these inconveniences, people occasionally request that the "core" directory be renamed to something else. Linus is unsympathetic, stating instead that the tools should be fixed. There have also been calls to rename core dump files, perhaps to something that incorporates the name of the program that created them.

A new kernel patch archive has been announced. This one, called, appropriately, the Linux kernel patch archive, aims to be an index of all the non-official kernel patches out there. It is set up to allow patch maintainers to maintain their index records themselves, "less effort than sending an announcement mail").

Breaking the 2GB file size barrier. Matti Aarnio got tired of hearing talk of how hard it was to implement large files on 32-bit machines, so he went and did it. Here's his announcement describing what he has come up with so far. Needless to say, he's looking for help and for testers.

Speak up! Version 0.04 of "speakup," a set of kernel patches which create audio output from a Linux system console, has been released. It applies to late 2.1 kernels; see the announcementfor more.

Rik van Riel has released a using Linux with > 1GB RAM HOWTO, in response to the increasing numbers of questions along those lines recently. He's looking for feedback on the early version; see his announcement for more.

Since we're a weekly publication, chances are we'll be behind a rev or two on the kernel release by the time you read this page. Up-to-the-second information can always be found at LinuxHQ.

See also: last week's Distributions page.

Distributions

Mandrake

Red Hat

A preferable solution from the customer's point of view, of course, would be to get the updates on the CD with some sort of indication that those updates have occurred. A 5.2.1 release, say. Red Hat absolutely refuses to do that, because they don't want to take returns from distributors when the version number increments. So the resulting solution is not optimal, but consistent releases are at least a step in the right direction.

For those who haven't yet heard the news...KDE RPM's have appeared in Red Hat's "Rawhide" distribution, and can thus be considered likely to appear in 6.0... Evidently the QPL is considered "good enough" by Red Hat.

Tomsrtbt

Trinux

Please note that not every distribution will show up every week. Only distributions with recent news to report will be listed.

See also: last week's Development page.

Development tools

Java

Perl

Python

Here's this week's Python-URL, full, as usual, of Python goodness.

Tcl/tk

The tkWorld project has a new web site at http://www.tkworld.org/.

Development projects

GNOME

Zope

See also: last week's Commerce page.

Linux and business

Informix has released their "Informix dynamic server" for Linux, available for a free "30 day trial" download. They even include email technical support.

Red Hat has released a new version of their secure server product. Upgrades are available for those who have already purchased an older version of the product. See the announcement for more.

PC Plus Magazine (in the U.K.) will include StarOffice on the cover CD for their January issue. They claim some sort of exclusive arrangement wherein they will be the only magazine able to distribute StarOffice in this way.

Press Releases:

• Indelible Blue, starting up a program to promote Linux solutions to business. (Also looking to hire some Linux folks).
• SQRIBE Technologies, Web-based reporting system.
• Oracle, "holiday promotion" on Oracle8 for Linux.
• Syntunix Technologies, password synchronization tool.
• nStor, fiber channel storage system.
• Wave Technologies, "Linux boot camp" training.
• Phobos Corporation, P430 Quadport ethernet adapter.
• IDG World Expo, registration for LinuxWorld Expo open.
• IISG, Wingz Professional spreadsheet available for free download.

See also: last week's Linux in the news page.

Linux in the news

This week's recommended readings:

• This Sm@rt Reseller article about IBM and Linux created a lot of controversy this week, due to its suggestion that IBM would like to change the licensing of the Linux kernel. "For the past month, channel sources have expected IBM to announce a sweeping service and support agreement for Red Hat Software's Red Hat Linux... But what's really held IBM back from an official support alliance with Red Hat, say sources close to the company, are legal issues."

• The Motley Fool briefly mentions Linux in an article about Microsoft. "...a recent study from International Data Corporation found that over the past year Linux shipments have more than tripled from 6.8 percent to 17.2 percent of the server OS market. NT shipments remained steady, around 36 percent over the same period, although the market as a whole grew about 25 percent. Companies recently publicly increasing their support for Linux include: Apple, Compaq, and Sun. I can't really comment on the rumors coming out of IBM, but I might be able to get away with nodding a lot."

• Here's a PC Week article about "Linux's enterprise evolution." It talks about GNOME, the possibility of support from IBM, and even the Coda file system.

• Internet Week looks at the Burlington Coat Factory and their information systems. They have installed hundreds of Linux systems on desktops. "The company also plans to port its Solaris in-store, line-of-business applications to Linux to let the company have the same operating system across clients and servers, as well as extend the life span of about 300 aging Sun Microsystems SPARC servers." Another good example for people who say Linux is only used by hobbyists. (Scroll just over halfway down to find this article).

• Diary of a Linux bumpkin is a longish ZDNet article describing one writer's encounter with the OS. "Luckily, I'm beginning to realize that Linux isn't really hard, it's just a lot. It isn't easy, but it is really, really simple. I expect that once you know it, anything else would seem confusing and needlessly complex. Not to mention unstable."

• Numerous people have written in to tell us that Science Magazine ran an article about Linux in their December 11 issue. Science articles are not available to non-subscribers, so we can't provide a link. It's a fairly standard, accurate, and positive introductory article in a high profile publication. "Linux, by all accounts, is stable, powerful, and fast--and it's free. Yes, free: Linux is the fruit of a kind of online commune, an intellectual descendant of the counterculture of the 1960s."

Much of the press that we did see this week was, unsurprisingly, 1998 retrospectives, often with only passing mentions of Linux.

• The Industry Standard has a review of 1998 that includes a brief piece on free software. "While Microsoft struggles mightily to fend off antritrust charges, its dominant position in the software world is being challenged by a quiet but dangerous development: the coming of age of open-source software."

• ZDNet ran an incredible number of such articles, including: this predictions article suggests that U.S. export laws might be changed to restrict exports of Beowulf cluster technology (seems like a hard thing to do). This look back says that Red Hat 5.2 was "the biggest NOS spash of the year." This one briefly reviews Beowulf and the coming of the database vendors. Yet another retrospective says that "The longest-lasting result of the Linux upswing may be its prompting Novell and IBM to start adopting the open-source model." Linux made the "Inter@ctive 101." This one seems to say that Linux isn't serious because its COMDEX presence was substandard. Finally, here's a Babcock column about the increase in Linux's market share.

• Linux made Time's list of the top ten technology stories of 1998. "Nineteen ninety-eight was the year Linux came into its own. Beloved of techies worldwide, passed by hand from geek to geek, Linux has gained an international cult following of around 7 million." (Found in LinuxToday).

• Nicholas Petreley's 1998 retrospective is less positive about Linux than one might expect, given the source. "Someone will undoubtedly label 1998 as the year Linux took the market by storm. This conclusion is premature... Should Microsoft ultimately win the [antitrust] case, however, I guarantee vendors will abandon Linux faster than a rat out of an aqueduct."

• As it seemed was going to happen, Jenni of the JenniCam beat out Linus to win the ZDNN "newsmaker of the year" award. At least, the article says so; people clicking through the results are seeing a different outcome and wondering why. As mentioned before, the JenniCam, while most certainly not a Linux site, is at least hosted on a Linux server (and that must be why so many of you clicked through and visited there when we discussed this poll before, right?)

• There's another top technology events of 1998 poll out there, this one on MSNBC. Linux sits at fifth place as of this writing. (Thanks to Delbert Matlock).

Some articles were of the business variety, either talking about the business of Linux, or in the form of product reviews.

• ComputerWorld has an article about the enterprise backup systems (like SpectraLogic's "Alexandria") that are moving into the Linux world. "'I think a lot of organizations are evaluating use of Linux right now ... but [Linux's] backup utilities aren't sufficient,' said Dave Hill, an analyst at Aberdeen Group Inc. in Boston."

• In Internet Week: Linux didn't quite win their Coolest of the Cool award. "What dropped [Linux] into second place with the rest of the pack was that we wanted Coolest of the Cool to be about technical excellence, and what we thought cool about Linux was mainly its sudden and amazing political and market presence. Any product that's free, open and can still make Microsoft sweat is definitely cool in our eyes. On a technical level, though, it still has a way to go in terms of ease of use and cross-platform support."

• VAR Business reflects on the increasing popularity of open source in this article. "The main attraction of working with open source code, say VARs, is that it offers the opportunity to provide clients with a more granular level of customization."

• Here's a ZDNet article about Corel, jBridge, and WINE. "[Corel CEO] Cowpland predicted that within the next twelve months, WINE would enable Linux servers to run a whole slew of Windows applications."

• Inter@ctive Week ran a brief article about the growth in Linux shipments in 1998, with mentions of Corel and BSDI.

• MSNBC reviews the Corel Netwinder. They like it. "I can report that even in this early beta form, the Netwinder is wonderful." (Thanks to Richard Storey and "llornkcor").

• Here's an article (in German) in Schwäbischen Zeitung Online. It talks about Java and Linux, and why Microsoft is worried about them. As usual, translations are available via Babelfish for the non German-capable. (Thanks to Lenz Grimmer).

Other miscellaneous and introductory articles:

• This long article in Newmedia.com compares open source software to Native American Potlatch ceremonies; it's a highly positive treatment. "Open source lets users take advantage of innovation rather than be victimized by it. There's a world of difference between receiving buggy binaries and reporting problems back to the developers who promise a new release 'real soon now,' and receiving source code that allows your own engineers to make the fixes." There are also sidebars on Eric Raymond, different open source licenses, and a comparison between Linux and Windows NT. (Found in LinuxToday).

• "Project Heresy," C|Net Radio's experiment with working with a Linux-only system, has posted a 1998 wrapup of their experience. It's available in RealAudio format on the Project Heresy page. (Thanks to Benji Selano and Jeffery Cann).

• Information Week speculates on an unhappy new year at Microsoft. "Based on the amount of E-mail I've received from Microsoft and its public relations agency regarding Linux and open source software, it's clear that someone is concerned. There's one predictable outcome to these two factors-you can expect Microsoft to play both the FUD card and the pricing card as it gets closer to releasing Windows 2000"

• PC Magazine UK has a brief article about Linux as a network operating system.

• Is Linux a fad? asks ZDTV. When we first mentioned this poll in the daily updates page the "yes" votes were winning decisively; the situation has since turned the other way. ZDTV also has a chat topic entitled Is Linux here to stay?.

• This article in the National Post talks about the new IDC numbers, mentions the possibility of Linux systems from Apple, and finishes out with a bit of support FUD. (Thanks to "aandres").

• Finally, here's a Detroit News article about the "Squeak" programming language. Squeak is an open source implementation of Smalltalk that seems to be gaining in popularity. "Companies such as Disney like Squeak because it is open source, and taps potentially thousands of developers all over the world."

See also: last week's Announcements page.

Announcements

Projects

Resources

The Linux Kernel Module Programmers Guide is a new addition to the online book collection at the Linux Documentation Project. This guide is currently at version 1.0.

Events

Web sites

The Samovar Awards page now has the "three most important tech industry events" listed; Linux is one of them.

Software Announcements

Our software announcements are provided courtesy of FreshMeat

See also: last week's Back page page.

Linux links of the week

The Giant Java tree is a project to create a comprehensive set of Java classes, all implemented with open source code.

Letters to the editor

From: cbbrowne@godel.brownes.org
To: editor@lwn.net
Subject: Free Software (Gift) Exchange Registry - FSEX
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 10:59:14 -0600

I have been known to write essays on occasion :-).

The latest is more directly a "call to action" than most of the others.
See the URL <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/fssp.html>

The premise is that I would like to establish a "registry" where
reasonably authoritative lists of addresses of developers of free
software may be collected.  

- Individuals would be encouraged to send gifts to people on the list.  

- By collecting (voluntarily contributed) information on what gifts had
been sent, this allows people to "optimize" their preferences towards
where contributions may "need" to go.  Thus, they have opportunity to
pick developers themselves based on some perception of "need."

[This building of a distributed self-optimizing economic system
somewhat parallels the way Linux development works...  That can't be
a bad thing!]

- This approach *avoids* the bureaucracy entailed by the formation of
a formal charitable organization.  I would expect this to discourage 
corporate "gifts," but avoids a whole host of complexity by its
informality.

- From a tax perspective, gifts may not be tax deductible to the giver,
but by the same token, would not be taxable in the hands of the one who
receives it, so that the overall situation is a "wash."

As the Christmas season arrives, a thought to pass on:

Why not locate a nice Christmas card with a penguin on it (has
everyone noticed that penguins are "in" this year?), drop $20 into
it, and send it to some developer that has built software you found
useful?  (And remember that if Linus' wife has to fight through bags
of mail, she knows martial arts, and may have complaint about this!
Rather better to distribute any wealth...)
--
cbbrowne@hex.net  - What have you contributed towards Linux today?
North Texas Linux Users Group <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/fssp.html>

From: Matthew Benjamin <MBenjamin@comshare.com>
To: "'nicholas_petreley@infoworld.com'" <nicholas_petreley@infoworld.com>
Subject: Pretreley Linux Fandom on the Wane?
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 13:21:06 -0500


I found your "rat out of an aqueduct" remarks disturbing.  Seeing as
you have been active in promoting Linux of late, are you now trying to
be among the first to sling mud at Linux?

Quite frankly, I don't think those ISVs supporting Linux are
significantly motivated by the MS anti-trust action.  (The case may be
different among PC vendors, I don't know.)

At my company, there is significant support among developers to do
Linux--because "Linux is cool."  Strategic marketing is potentially
interested in _anything_ that customers say they want, and many are
saying they are interested in Linux.  This has the power to change
opinions at companies large and small.

I, for one, had enough "Windows NT is the future" sloganeering years
ago, and I question its relevance now.  Microsoft, of course, can say
whatever they want.  However, they will find that consumers take a
quite different attitude towards such posturing than they did
pre-Linux emergence, and, indeed, pre-anti-trust.  Microsoft is big,
but they are neither invincible nor the permanent direction of
technical evolution.  As consumers become more sophisticated, in fact,
Microsoft looks less like a technology company, and more like KMart.
That is inevitable, and will not assist Microsoft in the least.

Meanwhile, the Linux and OSS communities have evolved their own (very
effective) mechanisms for generating publicity, and they are so
informative and effective that I believe no trade press FUD campaign
can have the choice-damaging effects that the all-commercial trade
press allowed previous MS campaigns to exert.  This, of course,
resounds to the benefit of consumers.

Linux, for its part, got where it is by being technically viable
_before_ a single one of the usual suspects had anything to do with
it.  Larry Ellison and Nicholas Pretreley can abandon Linux whenever
they like--but since they neither own nor develop Linux, I submit that
this will only leave a desirable market to the new generation of ISVs
and IHVs who have made Linux their business over the past 4 years.  In
accounts where I've deployed Linux commercially, there is no intention
to replace it with anything.  It just works too well, is too
hassle-free.  There is talk about migrating other functions to Linux.

Hard as it may be to believe, Linux, the free UNIX, is winning on
quality, not cost.

Just the same, are you suggesting that you're a rat looking for a way
out of this aqueduct?  I think a lot of Linux supporters would be
interested to know.


Matt Benjamin
mbenjamin@comshare.com 

Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 11:05:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Jonathan C Day  <j.c.day@larc.nasa.gov>
To: editor@lwn.net
Subject: "Newsmaker of the Year" article

Dear editor,

   ZDNN's "newsmaker of the year" award was a blatant confidence trick,
IMHO. Their "results", as described in the article, have NO connection
with the results actually given in the poll. In the poll itself, Linus
beat Jenni by over 10%! It seems very clear that the "poll" results had
a fixed outcome, regardless of the votes cast. It is one thing for an
editor to "prefer" one newsmaker over another. Indeed, it would be very
unusual for an editor to have so suppressed their own feelings as to
have no preference at all. It is another to produce an article which is
completely false, in an effort to "promote" that preference.
   Linus won that poll, fair and square. (Well, as fair as on-line polls
ever get. :) He deserves the credit for that achievement.

Jonathan Day

Subject: Re: (Online News, 12/10/98 05:17 PM)
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 01:15:44 -0700
From: Alan Robertson <alanr@henge.com>
To: Tom_Diederich@cw.com

Mr. Diederich:

In the article referenced above, you state:

	However, because Linux predates Windows NT and has
	problems taking advantage of capabilities packed in
	current-generation hardware, Enderle said he doubts the
	operating system will ever become a mainstream desktop
	alternative. 

I believe this information is incorrect and misleading.  Version 1 of
Linux came out in 1994.  Version 1 of Windows NT predated that by
several years.  Linux takes advantage of every chip feature (including
3D graphics) of each of the various PC manufacturers, in addition to
those of Sun's chips, COMPAQ's Alpha, SGI's MIPS chips, IBM/APPLE's
Power PC chips, and numerous other chips in addition to the three major
Intel vendors.

According to Microsoft, older releases of Linux run Netscape roughly 30%
faster than NT runs Internet Explorer.  This is not likely to be due to
being unable to take advantage of the hardware.  Additionally, (in the
second of the so-called "Halloween" documents) Microsoft has also stated
that doing OS development for Linux is cheaper and faster than
corresponding development for NT.  This is likely to be a result of
Microsoft NT designers carrying over large parts of the VMS system they
had designed before.  [Microsoft hired away Digital's key VMS designers
to create their New Technology operating system in the late 80's - this
resulted in a lawsuit against MS for stealing Digital technology, which
was settled by MS agreeing to port NT to the Alpha]

Linux is slated to run the new Merced chip in 64-bit native mode within
a month or so of its introduction.  Intel is rumored to be already
running Linux on it in their labs.  This is a reasonable thing for Intel
to do, since if they port Linux to it, then they can have a solid test
base for their new chip architecture, without relying on outside vendors
(since they already have the source).  In some ways, it is a CPU
designer's dream come true -- a portable, retargetable compiler, a
highly portable modern OS inside, and no need to motivate an outside
software company to do the work, or disclose details of your design to
them.

As you are no doubt aware, Microsoft does not claim that Windows NT will
run native on the Merced line until sometime in late 2000.  64-bit mode
will take longer.  If history runs true to form, it is nearly certain
that there will be some delay from a prediction made this far in
advance.  If recent history were used as a guide, one might conclude
that a significant delay is likely.

Although it started later than NT, it already runs in 64-bit mode on the
DEC Alpha, and the Sun UltraSparc CPUs.  On Sun's UltraSparc line, it
currently runs on 14-processor complexes.  Sun has committed to provide
test time for Linux developers on their 64-way multi-processor systems.

It seems to me that it if one were to make a comparative claim about the
age and modernity of Linux and NT, that a very different comparison
would be in order.  If you would like references for any of the
information I presented above, I would be happy to provide them on
request.


	Thank you for listening,

	-- Alan Robertson
	   alanr@henge.com

Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 07:51:26 +0800 (CST)
From: Hung(2) Chao(2)-Kuei(4) <ckhung@cyut.edu.tw>
To: editor@lwn.net
Subject: Re: Bittersweet victories


Dear Editor,


Most of us know that it will be good for the proprietary UNIX vendors
to become Linux VARs. Let's make this option clear to the proprietary
UNIX vendors. And there is something they need help each other with
along the way.

For one thing, the general public need to realize that the key to
productivity does not lie so much in obtaining and installing a lot
of software programs, be it proprietary or open source. Very often
it is how well they are configured that makes a real big difference
in productivity. As OSS goes main stream, 2 more dimensions of
activities, which were previously too costly with proprietary software,
emerge to affect productivity, namely choosing which programs to
download and hiring people to customize programs. Choosing, configuring,
and customizing free software (how about calling it "3C's for OSS")
requires IT proficiency. It is necessarily too customer-specific 
for the free copying of OSS to do much help (or harm, if one takes
the vendor perspective). In short, it is where business can make
money while customers can really see their IT expenditures turn into
productivity.

We know this all along, but the proprietary UNIX vendors (and
proprietary apps vendors, too, for that matter) need be shown a
clear .. uh .. road ahead. Instead of spreading FUD against Linux
in vain (read: resistance is futile), it will benefit themselves
and customers much more by lining up their propaganda towards
showing the difference that effective 3C's can make. Their business
can sail better along with rather than against the OSS currents,
by emphasizing that their experience in UNIX helps them supporting
Linux better, and that "that other operating system" lacks
flexibility in 3C's regard. 

And we as a community should credit vendors for advertising 3C's,
perhaps even more so than vendors porting apps to Linux. Personally
I am glad to see Corel releasing WordPerfect binary for Linux, but
can't help worrying about the sweet relationship turns sour and
bitter when an OSS alternative takes over. By helping the
proprietary software business seeing further, we help making our
community perceived as more helpful to the business. Besides, most
of us (and the future Linux professionals) depend on a prosperous
VAR business model. Yet a very large potential portion of the market
seems still very unmature and only vaguely defined as "support".
The OSS community will also benefit in the long term if the losing
proprietary UNIX vendors systematically advertise 3C's.

Any comments on these points are appreciated. If these points are
valid, I will expand this note and keep it at:
	http://www.cyut.edu.tw/~ckhung/published/oss3c.shtml
Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Chao-Kuei Hung
ckhung@cyut.edu.tw
http://www.cyut.edu.tw/~ckhung/