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Operating Systems Software Linux

State Of Open Source In 2003 Reviewed 82

Posted by simoniker from the was-it-good-for-you? dept.
uninet writes "Open for Business' latest Year-in-Review article regarding GNU/Linux and Free/Open Source Software is up here. Things that made our list of notable occurrences include (not surprisingly) SCO's legal issues, MandrakeSoft's financial problems, our product pick of the year (Shuttle XPC SB62G2) and many more small and large items of note. For an interesting look back, you can find previous Slashdot coverage of OfB Year in Review articles here (2002) and here (2001)."
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State Of Open Source In 2003 Reviewed More

State Of Open Source In 2003 Reviewed

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  • I think it was a very important year. (Score:3, Troll)

    by James A. C. Joyce ( 733782 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @02:45AM (#7851418) Homepage Journal
    Linux went 2.6 with a massive scheduling and memory management system, and the SCO case kicked off. Microsoft launched new security 'initiatives' and Mozilla came out with about three or four new major versions. The next 12 months look as if they'll be just as exciting as the previous, and I myself can't wait. I bet there'll be legal, financial and technical issues abound. My personal favourite at the moment is freeciv [freeciv.org]. I like to hack it.
    • Personally favorite milestone: Mozilla Firebird. A beta that works so well-and a Mozilla variant that doesn't make me reach for a book while pages are loading.
      • I'm using 0.6 to write this right now, and I've been following Phoenix-cum-Firebird since the first 0.1 release. I only use Mozilla for the Mail client now. (That reminds me; I need to bzip up my Junk mail folder and send it off to spamarchive.org.)
        • It seems your probably not looking at the OTHER varient. Mozilla Thunderbird is to Mozilla Mail what Firebird is to the browser. Actually they are damn near identical. You don't have to open your browser to check your email anymore my friend ;)
      • > a Mozilla variant that doesn't make me reach for a book while pages are loading.

        Hmmm, I use Mozilla 1.5 on a 400MHz Celeron and it seems pretty snappy to me.

        (Hint: Just because you can run NT on a 486 with 32MB RAM doesn't mean you should really be running a 486 with 32MB.)

        Moz 1.6 should be out in a week or two, so I can have all my themes broken again, yippeee.

        More seriously, I am *very* glad to see Mozilla survive the "not with a bang, but a whimper" demise of Netscape, and doing quite well at i
    • Can't *anyone* spot a troll that's whoring for karma so that it can remain "karma positive" and won't have to post at 0? Buelller? Bueller?

  • GNU/LiNux (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 01, 2004 @02:47AM (#7851425)
    open for Business' latest Year-in-Review article regarding GNU/Linux
    Even in year 2003 its still GNU/Linux. Will Linux gain independence in 2004?

  • 2003 in Review: One Step Backward, Two Steps Forward

    By Timothy R. Butler
    Editor-in-Chief, Open for Business
    December 31, 2003, 19:58:35 EST

    This year was a year that wasn't exactly how we might have hoped, but overall, the state of GNU/Linux was overall better at this side of 2003 than it was at the other. In our annual tradition, what follows is a look at the ups - and downs - of GNU/Linux and Free/Open Source Software in 2003.

    The year started hopeful - in our last year-end article, I said, "all indi

  • Forgot Red Hat changing focus to RHEL (Score:5, Informative)

    by dobedobedew ( 663137 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @02:53AM (#7851442)
    They mention Fedora Core 1, but I believe that the support and distro changes RH made this year are a VERY significant event for OSS. Regardless of whether you think that it was a good thing, it was definitely a BIG thing.
    • I agree with you. From the article:
      "Red Hat's Fedora Core, release in October, along with Mandrake Linux 9.2 and SuSE Linux 8.2 were major advances over similar distributions even just a year ago concerning ease-of-use and functionality."

      I think that a big step seemingly in the direction of ease-of-use and functionality is a very good thing. If you asked someone why they still use Windows and not Linux, they might say because Linux is too hard for them. Anything to increase the ease-of-use of Linux ju
      • umm no, redhat had previously changed focus to work on ease of use and functionality. The Fedora change was redhat ditching download edition and giving a subdomain to a third party called Fedora who makes a modified redhat and telling people to fsck off and go download that instead.

  • Real Player (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Alcohol Fueled ( 603402 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @02:57AM (#7851450) Homepage
    "Real, whose aging Real Player for UNIX has fallen far behind its Windows and Mac OS X counterparts, announced the Helix Player project that would produce a new, Free Software client for a wide array of media files. While the actual Real codec will remain proprietary, the client will also support many Free Software formats, such as Ogg Vorbis."

    *sigh* Who thinks the Helix Player will be just as bloated as Real Player?

    • Re:Real Player (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dspeyer ( 531333 ) <dspeyer.wam@umd@edu> on Thursday January 01, 2004 @03:49AM (#7851564) Homepage Journal
      If it is, we don't have to put up with it. Most of the code is in our hands. If the gui code is ugly, we'll clean it up. We did it with Mozilla. This is much smaller, and will be much quicker.

      If they actually go and cram cruft into the binary codec itself, well then we'll drop the whole thing. mplayer supports real format, both audio and video (x86 only, but I suspect so's this). mplayer's very sleak -- no problem there.

    • Doesn't matter to me. I play all my RealAudio/RealVideo/RealCrap files with KMPlayer. It's really a very nice program.

      I tried RealPlayer for Linux a while ago and hated it (I'm not a fan of the Windows version, but at least it worked right)..the interface sucked, and it had no aRts support, which meant things like my volume wouldn't work right (my sound card isn't too well supported on Linux...the only volume control that works is artscontrol). So I said ``screw it'' and tried to configure XMMS to use the

  • And looking forward to 2004? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Peter Cooper ( 660482 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @03:16AM (#7851487) Homepage Journal
    I think 2004 is going to be a bumper year for open source (and Linux, in particular) thanks to the advances made in 2003. Linux is finally a term that is recognized by many businesses, and the concept of 'open source' is invading even the most stoic of companies. More developers than ever are joining the ranks (although many only because they're out of work, unfortunately), and there are lots of cool projects.

    Mike Home, who works on Wine, posted a great summary [slashdot.org] of planned open source developments in 2004, mentioning Wine's continuing development (0.9 should be out in 2004), and planned leaps in KDE and GNOME. GNOME will finally get a full and stable version of Epiphany, too.

    Development continues on Perl 6 and the Parrot virtual machine [parrotcode.org], and I am particularly interested in the development of Dashboard [nat.org], a GNOME 'just in time' information manager project created by Nat Friedman, of Ximian fame.

    Alan Cox should have his MBE this year, er, MBA, rather ;-) And perhaps he'll stop using Welsh only on his diary. [linux.org.uk] And as discussed over at KernelTrap, Reiser4 may also be merged into 2.6, although this is not certain, and may be merged into 2.7 first for further testing.

    So, what do YOU see happening in open source in 2004? Fill us in on what you plan to do, and why 2004 is going to be a bumper year for open source, Linux, and all. What technologies are going to spring up this time around?

  • Happy GNU Year (Score:5, Funny)

    by smasherjohann ( 66618 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @03:17AM (#7851488) Journal
    My new years resolution: 1280x1024

  • They Missed Gentoo (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    2003 marked the year that I switched to Linux for my main desktop.

    Un-important in the grand scheme of things, but still: go take a gander at the gentoo forums. Hundreds on thousands of new Linux users asking questions and getting answers (answers beyond RTFM, no less).

    Well-engineered distros, along with killer apps like Karamba, along with government after government adopting to Free/Open Source, along with the phenominal 2.6 kernel all combine to spell the best year for Linux yet.

    Off for more beer...

  • 1:43 AM? New year's! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sheesh come on guys...who is posting and commenting at this hour!

    Oh.. this is slashdot

    Double oh...I'm one of them.

    And no, I haven't been waiting up all night for the first /. article of 2004...honest...
  • The Shuttle article made a note about the low noise of the SB62G2. Can anyone verify the noise issue on other Shuttle models? I'm trying to decide between an EPIA system and an older Shuttle model, and I'd be interested in any experiences (with Linux, of course).
    • Just built an SB51G for my Son (his Christmas present) - Intel P4 2.4GHz chip, 1GB or ram, Lite-on DVD/CD-RW, 160GB WD HD. Its in our living room right now, and the final arbiter of what is too loud (my wife) hasn't mentioned it once. There is probably more noise from the hard disk than from the fan - althoug we havn't been able to stress it enough for the fan to get beyond its idling mode yet. Buy one.

  • Why free software is more free market. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by argoff ( 142580 ) on Thursday January 01, 2004 @01:54PM (#7853401)
    I think alot of people don't understand that free software is more accountable to market forces than closed software. If the government microregulated the supply and demand of stocks, commodities, services, or most other items - most people could easially see how this government intervention is less efficient and effective than open markets. But when they microregulate the supply and demand of certain types of information by imposing copyright laws - then all of a sudden people don't even question it.

    If the government gave a farmer a monopoly on growing oranges, and then called it free market because other farmers could buy and sell shares of that monopoly - i think most people would see it as a lie and a farce. But this is exactly what they do with companies like Microsoft, who are the only ones legally allowed to copy Microsoft software. Asserting the right to restrict what others copy that is freely at their disposal is bullshit morality and bullshit markets.

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