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SubjectRe: *** draft 4 - press release ***
Hi all,

I've made some changes to Greg Smart's draft v4.

What it needs now are comments from Linus, commercial distributions, and
commercial partners. For the last one, I can think of the following: Netscape,
Oracle, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and Corel. We don't have to have all of them, and
some of them carry more weight than others (for example, IBM or Intel over
Netscape).

If anyone can get quotations from any of these companies, please do, and then
send them to me. I'm also open to more company names.

I have made comments throughout the draft; please take the time to read them.

Bye for now,

Ed Lang <Ed.Lang@pcug.org.au> denethor@sdf.lonestar.org
39 Urambi Village woot on #debian and #linuxaus
Crozier Circuit Kambah on irc.linux.org.au
ACT 2902 AUSTRALIA
Phone: +61 2 6231 7353


**** DRAFT **** PRESS RELEASE - LINUX KERNEL 2.2.0 **** DRAFT ****


LINUX KERNEL 2.2
Santa Clara CA, January XX, 1999

Today Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux software development team, released
a major new version of the Linux operating system. This update brings advanced
scalability, broad support for newer hardware, and a large collection of
low-level features.

Highlights include:

* Advanced network routing and WAN support, which gives Linux the
ability to replace many expensive proprietary network devices.
Users can take control of their intranet with priority traffic,
usage limits, accounting, and virtual private networks. Strong
256-bit encryption is available as an add-on component.

* With Y2K compliance, and new Euro support, Linux 2.2.0 is ready
for the next millenium.

[COMMENT - AFAIK, Linux has always been Y2K compliant. I hesitate to change
this though, as it isn't quite as bold and punchy as what we have at the
moment.]

* Enterprise-level network filesystem support, complete with data
replication for performance, mobility, and reliability.

* Video capture support, TV tuner support, enhanced audio support,
and other multimedia enhancements.

[COMMENT - But not USB, and a seemingly limited PnP. This may detract from it's coolness and up-to-dateness. :-(]

* Support for a large variety of parallel port devices including
disk drives, tape drives, and other easy-to-use external devices.

* The already legendary linux performance is significantly enhanced.
High end SMP scaling gives good performance on 12 processor
machines. Linux 2.2 supports up to 64 processor systems.

* Compatibility support for reading BSD and NT filesystems. Easy
access to documents stored on NTFS-format disks will facilitate
the upgrade from legacy NT systems to Linux.

Advanced technical users are already using this update, available
from the Internet. Linux vendors will begin shipping fully integrated
systems using the new kernel in March. Business users will be
able to obtain the update on CD-ROM distributions. For the adventurous and
eager, Linux 2.2 is available for download from the Linux Kernel Archive
<http://www.kernel.org>. Users are encouraged to chose a local site from the
list of servers mirroring the Linux Kernel Archive, to help reduce the strain,
as many thousands of current Linux users are expected to rush to download it.

[NOTE - I mentioned a site (kernel.org) which could be quoted, so that people
who aren't geeky enough to know what the exactly all this is about, but are
game to give it a try, can. However, I feel somewhat apprehensive about
mentioning that it may be congested and slow. Any thoughts?]

Linux is a secure network operating system for demanding users.
It interoperates well with a wide variety of other systems.
Linux can take advantage of modern PC and PowerMac hardware
or give new life to older 386 and 486 based computers. Several other
processors, including the 64-bit Alpha and UltraSPARC are also
supported. Support is widely available via both traditional contracts
and cost-effective Internet groups. Linux is provided under an
unlimited-use license that lets users make in-house customizations
to the system itself. Initial estimates suggest that Linux has up to
20 million users worldwide.

[COMMENT - Will Linux 2.2 run on the new Pentium III? I saw some mention of
this in a newspaper. I assume that it's going to 32-bit, but it's going to
look bad if it's 64-bit, and 2.2 won't run on it.]

According to Cohen and Valloppillil of Microsoft, Linux "poses a direct,
short-term revenue and platform threat to Microsoft, particularly in
server space. Additionally, the intrinsic parallelism and free idea
exchange [of Linux] has benefits that are not replicable with our
current licensing model." They also note that "Linux has been deployed
in mission critical, commercial environments with an excellent pool of
public testimonials."

Valloppillil has been impressed with the quality of Linux, and the open
source model it was developed under, stating "Linux represents a
best-of-breed UNIX, that is trusted in mission critical applications,
and - due to it's open source code - has a long term credibility which
exceeds many other competitive OS's."


Microsoft Netherlands' spokesperson Aurelia van den Berg commented on the
openess of the Linux kernel development method, stating "Linux is a philosophy
as much as technical phenomena. On the positive, and Microsoft is interested
in better understanding and finding ways to accomodate this dynamic, it
provides for extensive peer review, and for a lot of independant parallel work
on a variety of features."

[COMMENT - Should we ask for permission to use this quotation? I assume that
all the Halloween documents are GPL'd, but that still doesn't seem to clarify
what permission we need to quote quotations from it.]

Linus Torvalds, originally from Finland, lives with his family in Santa
Clara CA, USA. He and others created Linux as an alternative to
proprietry operating systems after becoming disillusioned with the
poor quality of commercial alternatives.

[COMMENT - Here we need quotes from Linux,, and from distributions. The latter
should be along the lines of how much time has been spent on making sure the
distribution is ready, what new capabilites will be taken advantage of, and
fairly firm release dates. 2 months is a fairly long time (Jan -> Mar), and
people may have forgotten by then. In addition to this O would some of the
commercial distributions to make some comment as to how they will be
supporting (and possibly guaranteeing) the release.]

Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. PowerMac is a trademark of
Apple Computer, Inc. UltraSPARC is a trademark of Sun Microsystems Inc.
Alpha is a trademark of Compaq corporation. All other trademarks and
registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

For more information on Linux, open source software and
Linux distributions, see some of the many Linux internet resources.


[COMMENT - For this next section, I propose we also include the names of the
sites. It will clarify some (www.li.org is an example), and just make others
easier to refer to.]

Linux web sites

Linux Online http://www.linux.org/
Linux Resources http://www.linuxresources.com/
Linux International http://www.li.org/
Linux Standard Base http://www.linuxbase.org/
LinuxHQ http://www.linuxhq.com/

Open Source Software

Open Source Organisation (?) http://www.opensource.org/
Free Software Foundation http://www.fsf.org/
The Linux Kernel Archive http://www.kernel.org/

Linux Distributions

Caldera Systems http://www.calderasystems.com/
Debian GNU/Linux http://www.debian.org/
TurboLinux http://www.pht.com/
Red Hat Software http://www.redhat.com/
Slackware Linux http://www.slackware.com/
S.u.S.E Linux http://www.suse.com/

Linux Press

Linux Journal http://www.linuxjournal.com/
Linux Today http://www.linuxtoday.com/
Linux Weekly News http://lwn.net/
LinuxWorld http://www.linuxworld.com/


Other Open Source Projects

Apache WWW Server (?) http://www.apache.org/
The Mozilla Organisation http://www.mozilla.org/
SAMBA http://www.samba.org/

-----------------------------------------------------------

**** DRAFT **** PRESS RELEASE - LINUX KERNEL 2.2.0 **** DRAFT ****


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