Last Monday at the Desktop Linux Consortium Conference at Boston
University’s Tyngsboro, Massachusetts Campus there was a lot of talk about
a “UserLinux” distribution. The topic was sparked by remarks by Bruce
Perens who voiced a need for a distribution that was designed to meet
community needs for a desktop operating system based on the Linux community
favorite Debian distribution.
I contacted Bruce who has been kind enough to interject some comments to my
own text. They are marked [thus].
The thought of UserLinux sparked my thinking. The thing I like about Linux is
that it’s infinitely customizable to meet the needs of almost any
situation. However, for it to be a viable desktop for the masses there seems
to me that there has to be some common features that a large nu... (more)
On January 26, 2004, a new virus became rampant. I have reports that the
virus payload has two purposes: to send an email spam for a mail-order
"Viagra" vendor, and to perform a denial-of-service attack on SCO's web site.
Denial-of-service attacks via virus have been a common trick of email
spammers. They were first used to take out some of the anti-spam blacklist
sites. Several of those ... (more)
Mr. McBride,
In your "Open Letter to the Open Source Community" your offer to negotiate
with us comes at the end of a farrago of falsehoods, half-truths, evasions,
slanders, and misrepresentations. You must do better than this. We will not
attempt to erect a compromise with you on a foundation of dishonesty.
Your statement that Eric Raymond was "contacted by the perpetrator" of the
DDoS ... (more)
Bruce Perens is an established leader in the free software and open source
community. As the former leader of the Debian project and the original author
of the Open Source Definition he has been deeply involved in the open source
community for most of its existence. Bruce was the original trademark holder
for the term "Open Source."
Along with Eric Raymond, Bruce cofounded the Open Source... (more)
On the GUI Selection in UserLinux
By Bruce Perens
[reproduced from the UserLinux site]
Version 0.1, December 15, 2003.
In the original UserLinux white paper, I made it clear that the project would
play favorites among the software choices available to it, and that the
resulting process would be painful. You can't say that you weren't warned.
But it turns out not to be particularly painful,... (more)
Bruce Perens, a leader in the free software and open source community, is a member of the International Advisory Board of Linux.SYS-CON.com. He is the creator of the Open Source Definition, the manifesto of the open source movement. Bruce is founder or cofounder of the Open Source Initiative, the Linux Standard Base, Software in the Public Interest, and No-Code International. He is the creator of Busybox, which has spawned its own development community and is part of most commercial devices using embedded Linux.
Saurabh Verma
Jocelyn Quimbo
Gary Hamilton
Jeff Anders
Vikas Aggarwal 
Jane Hearne
Vincent Kadar
Jill Starr
Christophe Dufourmantelle
Hovhannes Avoyan
