"UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group
 in the United States and other countries."

The postazcentral command updates a log file that records records my posting to the AzFoo blog at AzCentral.com.

The poststuffer command helps ensures that the end-of-week postings to the Stocks Stuffer blog have consistently formatted titles.

   NewsFactor.com; Richard Koman posted on 7 August 2008 
   "IBM Vice President Bob Sutor has challenged Linux developers 
    at LinuxWorld to 'stop copying 2001 Windows' and focus on 
    usability design. IBM is putting its weight behind a drive 
    to advance Linux, and Sutor also urged a focus on business 
    and efficiency. IBM has joined with Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell 
    and Red Hat to promote 'Windows-free' PCs."

This is excellent news for the FLOSSers.

NewsFactor.com::IBM Urges Better Linux Design, More Business Focus

   "One of the reasons why I don't talk about the LSB as 
    much anymore is I don't want to exceed expectations 
    for what it can deliver."--Jim Zemlin, executive 
    director of the Linux Foundation [InternetNews.com]

I remember when Java took center stage in the computing world with the motto: "Write once, run many." The Linux community must adopt the same WORM motto.

   "It is critically important for Linux to have an easy way 
    for software developers to write to distro 'N,' whether 
    it's Red Hat, Ubuntu or Novell," he said. The reason you 
    need that is because we don't want what happened to Unix 
    to happen to Linux in terms of fragmentation." 

Like them or not, standards are important.

InternetNews.com::Will LSB 4 Standardize Linux?

Joe Barr died at the age of 63. Barr was editor and writer for the SourceForge sites Linux.com and IT Manager's Journal.

• Linux.com::In memoriam: Linux evangelist and Linux.com editor Joe Barr
• JoeBarr.org::About::The personal site of a doddering old geek

Joe Barr has been added to the GDT::DeadTeam.

   "The two major things to come out of Berkeley are 
    BSD and LSD.  We don't believe this is a coincidence."

ThinkGeek has a webpage that is their "local fortune file that will randomly select one of the many customer-submitted comments and present it to you for your reading pleasure (or horror, as the case may be)." Some of the "fortunes" are fun.

ThinkGeek.com::Customer Fortunes

   "Supercomputers around the world are running on SUSE 
    Linux Enterprise Server from Novell®. According 
    to TOP500, a project that tracks and detects trends 
    in high-performance computing, SUSE Linux Enterprise 
    is the Linux of choice on the world's largest HPC 
    supercomputers today. Of the top 50 supercomputers 
    worldwide, 40 percent are running on SUSE Linux Enterprise, 
    including the top three -- IBM eServer Blue Gene at the 
    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, IBM eServer 
    BlueGene/P (JUGENE) at the Juelich Research Center 
    and SGI Altix 8200 at the New Mexico Computing 
    Applications Center."

Novell's name dropping continued...

   "Customers such as Audi, MTU Aero Engines, NASA Advanced 
    Supercomputing Division, Porsche Informatik, Seoul National 
    University, Swinburne University of Technology, Tokyo Institute 
    of Technology and Wehmeyer are running supercomputers and 
    computer clusters on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to handle 
    mission-critical workloads with minimal downtime."

Keep up the good work Novell!

[Extra] The openSUSE® Project announced that "openSUSE 11.0 is available for download at openSUSE.org. openSUSE 11.0 is the latest release of the community Linux distribution. [...] openSUSE 11.0 includes everything you need to get started with Linux on the desktop and server. The openSUSE distribution provides the foundation for Novell's award-winning SUSE® Linux Enterprise products."

                Revenue: $156.6 million
             Net Income: $ 17.3 million
    Operating cash flow: $ 63.4 million
   Cash and equivalents: $1.35 billion

During the 1st-quarter 2009, Red Hat spent $9.1 million to repurchase approximately 500,000 RHT shares ($18.20 per share).

RHT closed at $22.30 on 25 June 2008.

   [item]  "Novell announced it is the "first Linux vendor to appear 
    on the U.S. Department of Defense Unified Capabilities Approved 
    Products List (APL), as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service 
    Pack 2 (SP2) has received the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) 
    Special Interoperability Certification from the department's 
    Defense Information System Agency. "

   [item]  "Novell announced it is "collaborating with VMware to improve 
    Linux performance in VMware environments by incorporating support for 
    the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) into the SUSE Linux 
    Enterprise kernel. Demonstrating their commitment to provide 
    open interoperability and optimization for virtualized environments, 
    the companies have worked together to optimize SUSE Linux Enterprise 
    for the VMware platform."

   [item]  "In order to meet increasing global customer demand for Linux 
    on client systems, Novell today announced that Micro-Star International 
    (MSI), a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and 
    solutions based in Taiwan, is pre-installing SUSE Linux Enterprise 
    Desktop 10 on MSI's low-cost mini-notebooks."

Carlos Montero-Luque, VP of product management for Linux and Open Platform Solutions at Novell, was quoted saying.

   "We continue to hear from customers that they want to 
    run Windows Server 2008 as a virtualized guest on top 
    of SUSE Linux Enterprise. Novell is excited to extend 
    the on-going technical collaboration efforts between 
    Novell and Microsoft to the Server Virtualization Validation 
    Program, which will give customers the performance, security 
    and reliability that comes with running Windows Server 2008 
    as a virtual guest on SUSE Linux Enterprise."

Novell's press release stated the following.

   "As part of its extensive interoperability agreement 
    with Microsoft, Novell holds a unique position as 
    SUSE Linux Enterprise is currently the only Xen 
    hypervisor on which Microsoft will provide full 
    support today for Windows Server 2008 and Windows 
    Server 2003 running as a virtual guest."

By the way... Xen is a "free software virtual machine monitor for IA-32, x86, x86-64, IA-64 and PowerPC 970 architectures. It allows several guest operating systems to be executed on the same computer hardware at the same time." Xen is a product of XenSource, which in turn is a Citrix® company.

   "Computer scientist and compiler expert Alfred V. Aho is a 
    man at the forefront of computer science research. He has 
    been involved in the development of programming languages 
    from his days working as the vice president of the Computing 
    Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs to his current position 
    as Lawrence Gussman Professor in the Computer Science Department 
    at Columbia University."

Aho says the AWK creators were "heavily influenced by grep" (a powerful and easy to use string-matching command).

AWK has always been a standard program that came with Unix systems.

ComputerWorld.com.au::The A-Z of Programming Languages: AWK

                Revenue: $156.6 million
             Net Income: $ 17.3 million
    Operating cash flow: $ 63.4 million
   Cash and equivalents: $1.35 billion

During the 1st-quarter 2009, Red Hat spent $9.1 million to repurchase approximately 500,000 RHT shares ($18.20 per share).

RHT closed at $22.30 on 25 June 2008.

   IBM and Red Hat introduced a Solaris-to-Linux server migration 
   program that includes what the companies are calling a "Solaris 
   to Linux Migration Factory."  Sun Microsystems have created 
   Solaris 10 calling it the "most advanced operating system on 
   the planet." In addition, Sun has created an open source source 
   version of Solaris 10 named OpenSolaris.

Fast forward to 5 May 2008...

   "Live from CommunityOne, Sun Introduces OpenSolaris - Free, Open, 
    Easy-to-Integrate With World-Class Support and Unique Features 
    to Fuel Innovation"

Stephen Lau, OpenSolaris Governing Board member, was quoted saying the following.

   "OpenSolaris provides an ideal environment for students, developers 
    and early adopters looking to learn and gain experience with 
    innovative technologies like ZFS, Zones and DTrace. And yes, 
    it uses BASH by default."

Wow... "uses BASH by default."

The following hyperlink that was posted three years ago...

OpenSolaris.org::Get, Share, Learn

[Extra] Neil Young and Jonathan Schwartz (Sun's CEO) are both on the GDT::DreamTeam.

Sun.com::Neil Young to Join Opening Keynote at JavaOne

   Company    % of Total Changes
   =============================
   None.......... 13.9%
   Unknown....... 12.9%
   Red Hat....... 11.2%
   Novell........  8.9%
   IBM...........  8.3%
   Intel.........  4.1%

There are "nearly 1000 Linux kernel developers" working for more than 100 companies. Between 70 and 95 percent of those developers are being paid for their work.

I'm not a big fan of LOC (Lines Of Code) measurements, but an average of 3,621 lines of code are added to the kernel tree every day.

I'm not a big fan of rapid release schedules, but a new Linux kernel is released approximately every 2.7 months.

Linux-Foundation.org:: Who Writes Linux and Who Supports It

In addition, Novell announced a SUSE Appliance Program to "enable independent software vendors (ISVs) to create appliances combining their applications with the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform in one integrated package for end-customer deployment. Novell also announced the beta release of SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS, a minimized version of the award-winning SUSE Linux Enterprise platform that ISVs can use as a platform for creating appliances."

JeOS is Just enough Operating System...

Novell announced "simplified pricing and discounts throughout 2008 for SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server for IBM's System z mainframes. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z lets customers consolidate distributed workloads onto System z servers to help minimize costs, reduce downtime and data center complexity, and increase flexibility."

The following was from the Novell press release.

   "Under the new pricing, customers can purchase a three-year 
    basic subscription to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for 
    System z for the cost of two years, or for 33 percent 
    less. A five-year basic subscription to SUSE Linux Enterprise 
    Server for System z can be had for the price of three years, 
    for a 47 percent discount."

Note: The Unix & Linux Logger is a Novell shareholder--Go Novell!

PCWorld.IDG.com.au:: History of Linux Quiz

I scored 70 out of 100.

   Score 50 or less: Stick with Windows!
   Score 60: Time to dual-boot!
   Score 70 or 80: You've been around this Linux stuff for a 
                   while! If you are a guy it's time to grow 
                   a beard if you don't already have one.
   Score 90: You do everything at the command line!
   Score 100: Can you write the next quiz for us?

I do almost everything at the command-line and I have a beard; therefore, I should have scored more than 70%.

In a nutshell, I didn't know what operating system Linus couldn't afford. In addition, I'm not up on all the various hardware platforms Linux runs on. And, I wasn't aware of the Linux versioning scheme.

   "Computers that run the Linux operating system instead of 
    Microsoft Corp.'s Windows didn't attract enough attention 
    from Wal-Mart customers, and the chain has stopped selling 
    them in stores."

The Wal-Mart computers were running gOS and they got decent reviews. Wal-Mart will continue to sell the gOS-based computers online.

ThinkgOS.com:: Discover a good OS

   $ date
   Fri Feb 29 06:54:06 MST 2008

   $ cal
       February 2008
   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 
                   1  2
    3  4  5  6  7  8  9
   10 11 12 13 14 15 16
   17 18 19 20 21 22 23
   24 25 26 27 28 29

During February of 2005, I wrote this 'isleap' shell script which uses the 'cal' command to figure out if a year is a leap year.

   $ isleap
   Usage: isleap year ...

   $ for i in 2008 2012 1900 2000 2100 2038 ; do
   > isleap $i
   > done
   2008 is a leap year
   2012 is a leap year
   1900 is not a leap year
   2000 is a leap year
   2100 is not a leap year
   2038 is not a leap year

On leap day of 2008, I wrote this C++ program that determines if a year is a leap year.

The following was copied from TimeAndDate.com.

   In the Gregorian calendar, the calendar used by most modern countries, 
   the following three criteria determine which years will be leap years:

      1. Every year that is divisible by four is a leap year;
      2. of those years, if it can be divided by 100, it is NOT 
         a leap year, unless
      3. the year is divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.
         
   According to the above criteria, that means that years 1800, 1900, 
   2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years, while year 2000 and 
   2400 are leap years. [source: TimeAndDate.com]

   It is interesting to note that 2000 was somewhat special as it was 
   the first instance when the third criterion was used in most parts 
   of the world. [source: TimeAndDate.com]

   In the Julian calendar--introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and 
   patterned after the Roman calendar--there was only one rule: any 
   year divisible by four would be a leap year. This calendar was used 
   before the Gregorian calendar was adopted.  [source: TimeAndDate.com]

Google morphed their logo to celebrate leap year 2008.

LeapYearDay.com:: The Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies [opens new window]

   "That said, Unix and some other operating systems use a 
    form of metric time in their internal workings."

Clay Thompson has a great last name because it was Ken Thompson who created Unix.

AzCentral.com:: 60-minute hours exist because people can't "stan" to go metric [2008.02.16]

$100 million is a nice investment amount. Kudos to SCO for staying alive.

   "The dynamic Asia-Pacific region offers significant growth 
    prospects for Red Hat. Strengthening our operations in 
    Japan is part of our strategic initiative to build a global 
    community for collaborative innovation that includes accelerating 
    the deployment of enterprise-class, open source solutions and 
    nourishing a vibrant open source development and user community 
    in Japan and the whole of Asia Pacific."--Gery Messer, President 
    of Red Hat Asia Pacific

Red Hat needs to "expand the global community for collaborative innovation."

I found a YouTube video about Unix and it features Ritchie along with Thompson. I also think Stallman is in the video, but I'm not 100% convinced it is him.

I like how Ritchie mentions that Unix was created to help form a "community" of computer users.

• YouTube.com:: Unix History
• YouTube.com:: Googlers (Bell Labs West) Say Happy Retirement To Ritchie

[Extra] While searching around YouTube, I came across this Blit video.

   "I have a policy that he who does the code gets to decide.
    --Linus Torvalds, Linux project coordinator 

According to NetworkWorld.com, Torvalds has "written approximately 2% of the Linux code since creating the operating system in 1990."

   "But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is 
    actual code and the technology itself." --Linus Torvalds

NetworkWorld.com:: Torvalds breaks down Linux

   "I have watched kids testifying before Congress. It is clear 
    that they are completely unaware of the seriousness of their 
    acts. There is obviously a cultural gap. The act of breaking 
    into a computer system has to have the same social stigma as 
    breaking into a neighbor's house. It should not matter that 
    the neighbor's door is unlocked. The press must learn that 
    misguided use of a computer is no more amazing than drunk 
    driving of an automobile."

Anybody who breaks into a computer is a cracker and crackers are criminals. And this is true independent of the cracker's age.

Bell-Labs.com:: Reflections on Trusting Trust by Ken Thompson

   "We are a mission-based company. Democratizing information is 
    a social good. We will be open source. We will be the leader 
    in open source."

At the time of this posting, Red Hat stock was at $19.85 giving the company a market value of $3.85 billion. Red Hat's balance sheet had $1 billion in cash and current ratio of 3.3.

   "Hemingway could talk better about his work than somebody who 
    could just copy it. The same is true about software. We are 
    built around core values about being open and being collaborative 
    ... We are enabled to provide better value because it is part 
    of our culture."

Red Hat's Fedora Project writes it motto in a format that looks like a Unix shell command-line that contains pipes.

   Fedora "infinity | freedom | voice"

FedoraProject.org:: Infinite Possibilities

Peter H. Salus reports "Ken Thompson retired to California" and "Phil Winterbottom is CTO at Entrisphere." Note: Thompson is a Fellow at Entrisphere.

UnixReview.com:: Dept. 1127: going, Going, GONE!

The Unix & Linux Logger starts 2008 with a total of 438 postings.

Unix & Linux Logger Archives: 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999