Linux News from O'Reilly Network

The leaves are in full color here in New Hampshire this week, which combined with the 80 (!) degree weather has made it a wonderful time to be outdoors. Unfortunately, your humble editor spent a good piece of Monday afternoon stuck inside an MRI machine, rather than enjoying the season. But while I was trying to listen to classic rock over the sound of a 3 Tesla magnet aligning my hydrogen atoms, I was able to relax a bit and think about the great article coming up this week.

One of the great dichotomies in the Linux world is that between the Gnome and KDE communities. With both desktop environments having recently put out new releases, and a major 4.0 release of KDE coming up, we thought it would be a good idea to have Judith Myerson take a look at the current state of both, and make some recommendations for where each might be appropriate. If you want a good snapshot of what each desktop shines at, and where there is room for improvement, you should check out our Gnome vs KDE Face-Off, available on Thursday.

What's New in Ubuntu 7.10 (a.k.a. Gutsy Gibbon)
Last week's Ubuntu update was a real crowd pleaser. We're getting the message that technology overviews are a popular topic among the readership, and we'll be running more of them as time goes by.

Available at Finer Bookstores
Last week, we found out why Pearl and Gwen are stuck in the middle of the desert. This week's "Watering Hole" continues the increasingly dire journey.

Does Corporate Mandated Innovation Mean Innovation Will Never Exist
Noah Gift makes the case that if a corporation is mandating innovation, it will never be innovative.

PyMOTW - itertools
If you want to iterate over data in Python, Doug Hellmann's Module of the Week is just your thing: itertools.

Covering Essential Python Libraries for System Administration
Noah is also looking for essential open source libraries to include in his new Python System Administration book.

Municipal Networks: Still a Growth Market
What's the trend in municipal governments providing broadband access? Andy Oram has data to share.

Cryptography: A Belt We Can't Seem to Put on Right
Justin Troutman uses the Windows Vista Bitlocker as a jumping off point to discuss cryptography done wrong.

Inadvertently Proving the Opposite by Knowcking Down a Strawman
This week, chromatic takes exception to one journalist's take on Ubuntu security updates.

Weblogs Under Spam Attack
Carla Schroder would like to send blog spammers on a long one-way trip.

Wanted: A Free-as-in-YOUR-Freedom Grid
How does Software as a Service (SaaS) interact with the four GNU Freedoms? Some thoughts from chromatic.

JRuby Performance on Final Approach
Timothy O'Brien has the latest performance numbers for JRuby on Rails.

The Case of the Mischievous Perl Script
Chris Josephes has a dandy little two-party Perl mystery story.

The Solution to the Mischievous Perl Script
You may want to sleep on the answer to this one...

Looking forward to next week, assuming I'm not either partying in the streets over a World Series win for the Red Sox (or drowning my sorrows over a loss), we'll have piece from Federico Biancuzzi, who has interviewed some of the key developers involved in OpenBSD 4.2. Find out what's changing, and what new features you can expect. Plus a new "Watering Hole," and (hopefully unspammy) blogs.

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James M. Turner
Site Editor, ONLamp.com
turner@oreilly.com