Aloke Majumdar

Suman Sarkar

LINUXjunkies Foundation
The GNU/LINUX Fanatics’ Group

Wanderers' Avenue
21, Baksara Road, Baksara , Howrah
West Bengal, India. PIN: 711110
E-mail: info@linuxjunkies.org

Web: www.linuxjunkies.org
Online Forum: www.linuxjunkies.org/forum

March 2004 ã Copyright 2004 - 2005, LINUXjunkies Foundation. All Rights Reserved.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no
Back-Cover Texts.

A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

FREE SOFTWARE has significant market share in many markets, is often the most reliable software, and in many cases has the best performance. FREE SOFTWARE scales, both in problem size and project size. FREE SOFTWARE software often has far better security, perhaps due to the possibility of worldwide review. Total cost of ownership for FREE SOFTWARE is often far less than proprietary software, especially as the number of platforms increases. These statements are not merely opinions; these effects can be shown quantitatively, using a wide variety of measures. This doesn’t even consider other issues that are hard to measure, such as freedom from control by a single source, freedom from licensing management (with its accompanying risk of audit and litigation), Organizations can transition to FREE SOFTWARE in part or in stages, which for many is a far more practical transition approach. Of course, before deploying any program you need to evaluate how well it meets your needs, and some organizations do not know how to evaluate FREE SOFTWARE programs. FREE SOFTWARE options should be carefully considered any time software or computer hardware is needed. Organizations should ensure that their policies encourage, and not discourage, examining

Would I get Software and Support in FREE Software Platform?

Security Solutions

FREE Software benefits

Ease of Administering

a) Removing unwanted codes

b) Tailoring functionality

c) Third party Security enhancement

d) Greater flexibility

Security By choice, Not by Market.

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.

You should also have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately in your own work or play, without even mentioning that they exist. If you do publish your changes, you should not be required to notify anyone in particular, or in any particular way.

The freedom to use a program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job, and without being required to communicate subsequently with the developer or any other specific entity.

The freedom to redistribute copies must include binary or executable forms of the program, as well as source code, for both modified and unmodified versions. (Distributing programs in runnable form is necessary for conveniently installable free operating systems.) It is ok if there is no way to produce a binary or executable form for a certain program (since some languages don't support that feature), but you must have the freedom to redistribute such forms should you find or develop a way to make them.

In order for the freedoms to make changes, and to publish improved versions, to be meaningful, you must have access to the source code of the program. Therefore, accessibility of source code is a necessary condition for free software.

In order for these freedoms to be real, they must be irrevocable as long as you do nothing wrong; if the developer of the software has the power to revoke the license, without your doing anything to give cause, the software is not free.

However, certain kinds of rules about the manner of distributing free software are acceptable, when they don't conflict with the central freedoms. For example, copyleft (very simply stated) is the rule that when redistributing the program, you cannot add restrictions to deny other people the central freedoms. This rule does not conflict with the central freedoms; rather it protects them.

Thus, you may have paid money to get copies of free software, or you may have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and change the software, even to sell copies.

``Free software'' does not mean ``non-commercial''. A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important.

Rules about how to package a modified version are acceptable, if they don't effectively block your freedom to release modified versions. Rules that ``if you make the program available in this way, you must make it available in that way also'' can be acceptable too, on the same condition. (Note that such a rule still leaves you the choice of whether to publish the program or not.) It is also acceptable for the license to require that, if you have distributed a modified version and a previous developer asks for a copy of it, you must send one.

In the GNU project, we use ``copyleft'' to protect these freedoms legally for everyone. But non-copylefted free software also exists. We believe there are important reasons why it is better to use copyleft, but if your program is non-copylefted free software, we can still use it.

See Categories of Free Software for a description of how ``free software,'' ``copylefted software'' and other categories of software relate to each other.

Sometimes government export control regulations and trade sanctions can constrain your freedom to distribute copies of programs internationally. Software developers do not have the power to eliminate or override these restrictions, but what they can and must do is refuse to impose them as conditions of use of the program. In this way, the restrictions will not affect activities and people outside the jurisdictions of these governments.

Most free software licenses are based on copyright, and there are limits on what kinds of requirements can be imposed through copyright. If a copyright-based license respects freedom in the ways described above, it is unlikely to have some other sort of problem that we never anticipated (though this does happen occasionally). However, some free software licenses are based on contracts, and contracts can impose a much larger range of possible restrictions. That means there are many possible ways such a license could be unacceptably restrictive and non-free.

We can't possibly list all the possible contract restrictions that would be unacceptable. If a contract-based license restricts the user in an unusual way that copyright-based licenses cannot, and which isn't mentioned here as legitimate, we will have to think about it, and we will probably decide it is non-free.

When talking about free software, it is best to avoid using terms like ``give away'' or ``for free'', because those terms imply that the issue is about price, not freedom. Some common terms such as ``piracy'' embody opinions we hope you won't endorse. See Confusing Words and Phrases that are Worth Avoiding for a discussion of these terms. We also have a list of translations of "free software" into various languages.

One of the most important aspects of GNU/Linux is the huge community of developers working on it. This incredible development force is made possible by the concept of open source, or free software, which allows thousands of highly skilled developers throughout the world to create and build software quickly and efficiently.

As a result, GNU/Linux has quickly become one of the most promising operating systems available. Not only has GNU/Linux proven its superiority in the server field as a robust and efficient system, it has also greatly matured as a full-featured desktop alternative. So why are more and more users - individuals and corporations - using these strange free software products instead of traditional equivalents from the proprietary world?

First of all, GNU/Linux is valued as a high-performance operating system due to its modular nature - entire portions of the operating system can be easily added or removed to greatly affect performance. Additionally, GNU/Linux now supports most PC hardware devices, including even the "latest and greatest" products. GNU/Linux's extensive range of features has increased dramatically over the past few years. GNU/Linux is certainly not a computer hobbyist's plaything anymore; it's becoming more and more difficult to find areas that it cannot handle. Finally, the commercial offerings based around Linux have dramatically improved, including certification, training, support, and deployment of complex solutions.

Another key advantage of GNU/Linux is that it includes only open technologies based on public standards (when available). This means that GNU/Linux is always a smart choice because the included technology is very likely to already be a standard in the IT world - technology that is compatible and interoperable with other operating systems. With GNU/Linux, you will never become a prisoner of technology as often happens in the Windows and Macintosh worlds.

For example, with GNU/Linux it's very easy to communicate over a network with just about any other computer platform, with various protocols, such as for exchanging data files. Even in the office productivity field GNU/Linux is rapidly gaining superiority with its OpenOffice and KOffice office suites, which understand a number of different office file formats, including MS Office documents.

On the other hand, the way that GNU/Linux and its applications are developed and produced ensures that it's very perennial because in the free software world, even if a software project is abandoned by its original authors, there is always someone, or even a new team of developers, willing to maintain and release new versions of the software.

Another distinctive advantage of GNU/Linux and free software applications, maybe the most important, is that software is designed and created for users by users. In the traditional software industry, new features are introduced by a software company solely because the company thinks it will be a good idea, perhaps as the result of a marketing survey. In the GNU/Linux world, the approach is totally different: users request new features and free software developers implement them. The resulting products and features answer real needs, which is really the purpose of designing and building software in the first place.

Basically is due to two reasons: First of all software owners have to update to the software, even if there is no reason to interest in doing so. Otherwise they risk facing a situation where there programs are not capable to process documents and files, created by newer versions of the same product. The second coercion to upgrade evolving from this dependent situation is the ending support of 'older' version.

This situation has thus major consequences for the cost side of IT management. Additionally for the costs for new licenses and update implementation, software users constantly have to be trained in new program versions. User performance in the phase after the implementation of the software always decreases. On the hardware side this dependency leads to an increase of expenditure.

Though migration to another reliable and interoperable technology requires not much effort and cost nowadays, the organization faces a typical lock-in situation. The longer the situation goes on, the worse it becomes. After a while the proprietary software vendor does not have to fear competition, since the client has to take the product anyway. A typical – at least de facto – monopoly situation evolves in which the vendor dictates prices, conditions, and 'quality'.

Regarding the question of data security, FREE software is believed to be less vulnerable than proprietary software due to a simple reason: the source code is available. Proprietary software hides the code. For administrators’ proprietary software is a "black box", they have to trust regarding its security. Not only intentionally created "backdoors", but also conventional bugs are not perceivable. For instance there are much more defacements of websites running on proprietary software than on FREE software. FREE software developers actively ask to check security gaps. If there is one, awareness of this security problems, and possible remedies, become public immediately.

Organization seeking a balance between enabling accesses to users and safeguarding mission-critical data must contend with a wide range of security issues. Each week brings report of new threats to computer system and attacks that succeed in compromising the privacy of data, disrupting operations in ways that stifle productivity and threatening organizations' viability.

Among the wide variety of security threats, most common include :

 Sniffing for authentication data – the use of tools that can be used to detect password by recording data transmitted over your network and identifying common login statements. Sniffing can be used to find any unencrypted information you send,

including administrative password.

 Denial of Service (DOS) and other direct attacks that can cripple a system by flooding it with improper requests that overwhelm servers and prevent access by

legitimate users.

 Viruses, among the greatest threats to security, are increasing in frequency and severity. ICSA Labs' 2000 Computer Virus Prevalence Survey found that the likelihood of company experiencing a computer virus has doubled in each of the past five year. More than 90% of respondents experienced downtime due to viruses in previous year, with an average cost for virus disasters 9affecting 25 or more PCs) of up to $ 1 million in hardware and software cost.

 Website defacements–including insertion of unauthorized content, digital graffiti, etc.

Organizations also are at risk from a number of bugs or loopholes exploits that exist in the proprietary software, including :

 Buffer Overflows – which are programming errors that may allow malicious users to gain unauthorized privilege – for example, enabling them to access data such as customer credit card data.

 Improper file handling – which are programming errors that may allow malicious users to alter or replace important files such as passwords or corporate documents.

 Poor security algorithms – which are easily deciphered, creating a false sense of security even as they enable intruders to steal information – for example to break into the file holding administrator's password to gain full control of the system.

These problems may be detected and the threats defused before intrusions or exploits occur, but only through a comprehensive review of the operating system or application source code. This is allowable only in FREE Software software.

Objections of proprietary software vendors that no FREE Software software developer guarantees the security of the product are valid. However the license conditions of proprietary software generally excludes any liability resulting from damages arising from security gaps within the software. Normally just a substitution of storage medium (e.g. the hard disk) is provided in case of harm causing defects of software. This scenario is hardly reported and results in any case of harm causing defects of software. This scenario is hardly reported and results in any case only to comparatively low costs. The real damage, such as loss of data, wrongly executed commands, or the loss of possible profits is not compensated. Producers or vendors of proprietary software do in general not give guarantees for the correct functioning of the programs. Indeed, most End- User License Agreements (EULAs) for the proprietary software explicitly exclude any liability arising from security or other "bugs" in the software product.

The issue of "security versus obscurity" has been widely discussed by academics and professional security and cryptography communities, with the universal conclusion that true security never arises from obscurity (i.e. the hiding of internal structures, such as source code).

Let us take a few examples of the obsecurity in proprietary platform:

The vulnerability of Windows and NT were vividly illustrated in July 2001 with the launching of the Code Red worm. The worm scans the Internet for Web servers, attempts to take control of them and if successful, defaces infected web pages with the text "Welcome to http// www . Worm . Com! Hacked by Chinese". It then utilizes those servers to scan and take control of additional servers. The worm was designed to change tasks at predetermined time and attack the IP address www. Whitewhouse. Gov in an apparent attempt to force a denial of service attack. Code Red, which succeeded primarily against M$ Internet Information Servers (IIS), spread rapidly to more than 300,000 servers worldwide and was depositing terabytes of data per hour onto the Internet at its peak.

In May 2001, NT's security liabilities prompted J.S. Wurzler Underwriting Managers, one of the first companies to offer hacker insurance, to increase rates by 5% to 15% for client using Microsoft Windows NT for their Internet operations. The rate increased followed a Wurzler assessment of, more than 400 small and mid-sized companies, which discovered that NT-based clients were experiencing more downtime due to hacking and other attacks than clients utilizing free operating systems. They also found that system administrators who worked with FREE Software systems tended to be better trained than their Windows counterparts, and tended to stay with their companies longer.

According to the Attrition. Org site, from August 1999 through November 2000, more than 56% of all successful attacks occurred on system using Microsoft server software. Statistics kept by alldas.de show that since April 2000, Windows operating systems suffered 63% of all successful defacements, compared to GNU/LINUX-based systems (18%). While these statistics would seem plausible if there were three times many Windows systems as GNU/LINUX systems in use, that is simply not the case.

Indeed, whatever product you use or support; you can probably find a study to show it has the lowest TCO for some circumstance. Not surprisingly, both Microsoft and Sun Microsystems provide studies showing that their products have the lowest TCO. Xephon has a study determining that mainframes are the cheapest per-user (due to centralized control) at £3450 per user per year; Centralized Unix cost £7350 per user per year, and a decentralized PC environment costs £10850 per user per year. Xephon appears to be a mainframe-based consultancy, though, and would want the results to come out this way. There are indeed situations where applying a mainframe makes sense.. but as we’ll see in a moment, you can use FREE SOFTWARE in such environments too.

In short, what has a smaller TCO depends on your environment and needs. To determine TCO you must identify all the important cost drivers (the "cost model") and estimate their costs. Don’t forget "hidden" costs, such as administration costs, upgrade costs, technical support, end-user operation costs, and so on. However, FREE SOFTWARE has many strong cost advantages in various categories that, in many cases, will result in its having the smallest TCO.

FREE SOFTWARE costs less to initially acquire. FREE SOFTWARE costs much less to get initially. FREE SOFTWARE isn’t free in the monetary sense, because the "free" in "free software" refers to freedom, not price. This distinction is usually summarized as "free speech, not free beer". Merrill Lynch executive Robert Lefkowitz found what might be a better way to describe it: "We like to think of it as ‘free as in market.’"

FREE SOFTWARE isn’t cost-free, because you’ll still spend money for paper documentation, support, training, system administration, and so on, just as you do with proprietary systems. In many cases, the actual programs in FREE SOFTWARE distributions can be acquired freely by downloading them (LINUXjunkies.org provides information on how to get distributions). However, most people (especially beginners and those without high-speed Internet connections) will want to pay a small fee to a distributor for a nicely integrated package with CD-ROMs, paper documentation, and support. Even so, FREE SOFTWARE costs far less to acquire.

For example, examine the price differences when trying to configure a server, such as public web server or an intranet file and email server, in which you’d like to use C++ and an RDBMS. This is simply an example; different missions would involve different components. Using the prices from "Global Computing Supplies" (Suwanee, GA), September 2000, rounded to the nearest dollar, here is a quick summary of the purchasing costs:

Basically, Microsoft Windows 2000 (25 client) costs $1510; their email server Microsoft Exchange (10-client access) costs $1300, their RDBMS server SQL Server 2000 costs $2100 (with 10 CALs), and their C++ development suite Visual C++ 6.0 costs $500. Red Hat LINUX 6.2 (a widely-used GNU/LINUX distribution) costs $29 for standard (90 days email-based installation support), $76 for deluxe (above plus 30 days telephone installation support), or $156 for professional (above plus SSL support for encrypting web traffic); in all cases it includes all of these functionalities (web server, email server, database server, C++, and much more). A public web server with Windows 2000 and an RDBMS might cost $3610 ($1510+$2100) vs. Red Hat LINUX’s $156, while an intranet server with Windows 2000 and an email server might cost $2810 ($1510+$1300) vs. Red Hat LINUX’s $76.

Both packages have functionality the other doesn’t have. The GNU/LINUX system always comes with an unlimited number of licenses; the number of clients you’ll actually use depends on your requirements. However, this certainly shows that no matter what, Microsoft’s server products cost thousands of dollars more per server than the equivalent GNU/LINUX system.

Upgrade/maintenance costs are typically far less. Long-term upgrade costs are far less for FREE SOFTWARE systems. For example, upgrading a Microsoft system will typically cost around half the original purchase. What’s worse, you are essentially at their mercy for long-term pricing, because there is only one supplier. In contrast, the GNU/LINUX systems can be downloaded (free), or simply re-purchased (generally for less than $100), and the single upgrade be used on every system. This doesn’t include technical support, but the technical support can be competed (a situation that’s not practical for proprietary software). An anti-trust lawyer would say that FREE SOFTWARE technical support is "contestable." In short, if you don’t like your GNU/LINUX supplier (e.g., they’ve become too costly), you can switch.

FREE SOFTWARE does not impose license management costs and avoids nearly all licensing litigation risks. Proprietary vendors make money from the sale of licenses, and are imposing increasingly complex mechanisms on consumers to manage these licenses. Customers who cannot later prove than they paid for every installed copy of proprietary software (e.g., due to copying by an employee or losing the license paperwork) risk stiff penalties. In short: by using proprietary software, you run the risk of having the vendor to sue you.

To counter these risks, organizations must keep careful track of license purchases. This means that organizations must impose strict software license tracking processes, purchase costly tracking programs, and pay for people to keep track of these licenses and perform occasional audits. In case of GNU/LINUX there is no space for your bother. You are entitled to install as many copies you like.

FREE SOFTWARE can often use older hardware more efficiently than proprietary systems, yielding smaller hardware costs and sometimes eliminating the need for new hardware. FREE SOFTWARE runs faster on faster hardware, of course, but many FREE SOFTWARE programs can use older hardware more efficiently than proprietary systems, resulting in lower hardware costs - and in some cases requiring no new costs (because "discarded" systems can suddenly be used again). For example, the minimum requirements for Microsoft Windows 2000 Server (according to Microsoft) are a Pentium-compatible CPU (133 MHz or higher), 128 MiB of RAM minimum (with 256MiB the "recommended minimum"), and a 2 GB hard drive with at least 1.0 GB free. According to Red Hat, Red Hat LINUX 7.1 (a common distribution of GNU/LINUX) requires at a minimum an i486 (Pentium-class recommended), 32MiB RAM (64MiB recommended), and 650MB hard disk space (1.2 GB recommended).

There are many other factors; their effect varies on what you’re trying to do. There are many other factors in TCO, but it’s difficult to categorize their effects in general, and it’s generally difficult to find justifiable numbers for these other effects. Windows advocates claim that system administrators are cheaper and easier to find than Unix/GNU/LINUX administrators, while GNU/LINUX and Unix advocates argue that fewer such administrators are needed (because administration is easier to automate and the systems are more reliable to start with) - and quantitative studies are beginning to back this latter claim. Some GNU/LINUX advocates have told us that GNU/LINUX lends itself to hosting multiple services on one server in cases where Windows installations must use multiple servers. License compliance administration can be costly for proprietary systems (e.g., time spent by staff to purchase CALS, keep track of licenses, and undergo audits) - a cost that simply isn’t relevant to FREE SOFTWARE.

Netproject reported that the TCO with GNU/LINUX on the desktop was 35% that of Microsoft Windows (a 65% savings). Netproject’s Cost of Ownership report found a very significant savings, and it reported the following causes:

1.The elimination of license fees for both the system software and office software

2. Elimination of vendor churn that forces unnecessary software updates.
3. Reduction in the number of software security updates.
4. No need for anti-virus software for GNU/LINUX computers [anti-virus software for GNU/LINUX is only needed to check for viruses that run on Microsoft PCs].
5. Reduction in the number of support staff.

In the 1980s and 1990s, people had to choose between relatively inexpensive, market driven operating system from Microsoft and expensive, technology-driven operating system such as UNIX. Free software were created all around the world but lacked a common platform to rally around. GNU/LINUX became that common platform. These days’ people have to choose from inexpensive technology-driven GNU/LINUX or from expensive unreliable proprietary operating system.

Despite the much-talked (though not true, nowadays) high cost of migration (which would also arise by migration to another proprietary technology) this shift should be gainful in any case. The situation after the migration to FREE Software software will lead to lower life-cycle costs. Furthermore costs of service, support, and maintenances can now be contracted out to a range of suppliers, being placed in the competitive environment of functioning market. The cost of this more service-oriented model of FREE Software are then also normally spent within the organization.

The Dravis Group LLC published in April 2003 "FREE Software: Case Studies Examining its Use", examining several specific use cases in depth. Their study of several different organizations deploying FREE SOFTWARE concluded the following:

1. Cost is a significant factor driving adoption of FREE Software software.
2. Control and flexibility are considered benefits as well.
3. Implementation of open solutions is evolutionary, not revolutionary.
4. FREE Software extends across the entire software stack.
5. Product support is not a significant concern.
6. FREE Software is not a magic solution.
7. Open standards may be more important than FREE Software.

One of the biggest difficulties in migrating from Windows to GNU/LINUX is the lack of knowledge about comparable software. Newbies usually search for GNU/LINUX analogs of Windows software, and advanced GNU/LINUX-users cannot answer their questions since they often don't know too much about Windows.

We found that the most commonly used software in many enterprises was all from proprietary platform. But they were all looking for an alternative as they were always in a state of insecurity. Here we give a list of all those software and our
recommended alternatives in free platform.

The important ideological difference between Windows and GNU/LINUX:
The majority of the Windows programs are made on principle "all-in-one" (each developer adds everything to his or her product). In the same way, this principle is called the "Windows-way". The ideology of UNIX/GNU/LINUX - one component or one program must execute only one task, but execute it well. ("UNIX-way"). The programs under GNU/LINUX can be thought of as being like the LEGO building blocks. (for instance, if there is a program for spell checking, it can be used with the text editor or email client; or if there is the powerful command-line program for files downloading, it is simple to write the graphic interface (Front-end) for it, etc).
This principle is very important and it is necessary to know it while searching for analogs of Windows-programs in GNU/LINUX.

This list of GNU/LINUX equivalents / replacements / analogs of Windows software is based on our own experience and on the information obtained from the various GNU/LINUX User Groups(GLUGS).

IDC estimates that the shipment of the GNU/LINUX server operating system more than doubled between 1998 and 2000 to approximately 1.6 million units. Today, the Internet abounds with the free software in heavy commercial use. Among the most widely used and well-known :

 Apache – which is utilized by more than 62% of the world's websites, according to the most recent Netcraft survey.

 PERL – the engine for most of the live content on the Web today.

 BIND – the leading domain name service software for Internet.

 Sendmail – the most widely used email transport software on the Internet.

 GNU/LINUX – the second-most widely used operating system following Windows

Well-known web sites using FREE Software include Google (GNU/ LINUX) and Yahoo (FreeBSD). Perhaps the simplest argument that GNU/LINUX will have a significant market share is that Sun is modifying its Solaris products to run GNU/LINUX applications and IBM has already announced that GNU/LINUX will be the successor of the IBM's own AIX

A growing number of vendors offer solutions utilizing the FREE Software software business model including Red Hat, IBM, Apple Computers, SGI, Netscape, Covalent, Corel, and Caldera. Also Sun Microsystems now ships a separate CD of FREE Software software with its commercial distributions. Dozens of other incorporate FREE Software code with their product or other tools for managing networks that utilize FREE Software system, including a wide range of security tools.

Active deployment of GNU/LINUX, the most popular FREE Software operating system, doubled from 1999 to 2003, according to the recent IDC study. The study found that GNU/LINUX enjoys significant perceived advantages compared to other major operating systems such as Unix and Windows in term of price, cost of operation, reliability and performance, including the inherent benefits of operating as an FREE Software system. A total of 44% of the same study participants indicated that GNU/LINUX has or would replace Windows NT as their server operating system, while another 34% said it has or would replace Windows 9x or Windows 2000. Approximately 40% of respondents are deploying GNU/LINUX for new applications or actively evaluating it.

In a world where secure business-critical data is the foundation of any business' viability – and organizations spend millions of dollars defending their network and data against a growing number of threats – does utilizing software with widely available source code make sense? In fact, IT managers interviewed for the Forrester study cited security issues most often as the reason for adopting FREE Software software.

For example, an internal Microsoft memo obtained by Sm@rt Reseller revealed that Windows 2000 version released in February of that year shipped with more than 63,000 known potential defects., including 28,000 bugs that were likely to be "real" problems. Now suppose your organization is affected by a bug in process software that is utilized by comparatively few users, but it is critical to your business. Unless it moves quickly to the top of the priority list of your software vendor, you must wait for a patch while your systems and data remain vulnerable. If that code were open and freely available, you would have the option of fixing the bug yourself, paying a programmer to create a patch or finding one in the user community.

The principle is simple, yet powerful – the more people who have access to the source code and can employ their expertise to examine it, the fewer secrets are embedded in the code and the harder it is to compromise that code by hiding backdoors, bugs or other security- threatening code in it.

Given the sheer breadth of the FREE Software community (an estimated 15 million people have "touched" just the GNU/LINUX code) a few facts become readily apparent :

 With few exceptions, bugs that occur in a given release do not remain undetected.

 Experienced development talent, though unrecognized in the corporate sense, can be focused on bugs and problems literally around –the–clock via the Internet. When the famous Ping 'O Death bug occurred several years ago, literally thousands of kernel programmers, armed with the source code and a thorough understanding of the problem, raced one another to create and secure credit for posting the first fix. Anyone can propose a fix to the code's maintainer, and those fixes will be posted or included in the next revision.

 Strong, active communication among the user community through user groups – and online resources such as Sourceforge, GNU/LINUX Kernel Mailing List (and Kernel Traffic), Slashdot, Freshmeat and Bugzilla – help ensure economical debugging and security, since duplication of effort is minimized when fixes are communicated and distributed quickly.

 When found, bugs and exploits are fixed quickly – the Ping ' O Death was identified and fix for GNU/LINUX posted within hours. In comparison, the response took far longer for Windows operating systems because fewer programmers had access to the code, and, therefore, fewer resources were focused on the task. In the analysis of 1999 security advisers. SecurityPortal found that GNU/LINUX vendor Redhat, with 31 total advisories, took an average of 11.2 days after a bug was discovered to respond with a patch. In contrast, Microsoft, with 61 advisories took an average of 16.1 days to issue a patch, while Sun, with 8 advisories took an average of 89.5 days from advisory to patch release. Realistically, few organizations can afford to review any operating system line-by-line for security weakness. This makes FREE Software software even more attractive to those that lack the resources for exhaustive code reviews or comprehensive audits. Deployment of FREE Software software allows all users to benefit from the ongoing scrutiny, reporting and expertise of programmers throughout the world.

FREE Software code also enables administrators to take a more proactive approach in hardening their operating system against security threats in a number of ways unavailable to users of closed source software.

 Removing unwanted codes

Consider the virus threats you would avoid if you could access the source code for Microsoft Word and Exel and eliminate the code that enables macros. Bugs are an unavoidable fact of life – industry experts place the average occurrence of bug at one for every 15 lines of code. The ability to remove unwanted or unnecessary functionality and the corresponding blocks of code prior to installation can greatly improve security, along with performance and operating efficiency. OpenBSD is the most extreme example – it is "secure by default" because it disables all but essential processes at install and requires you to add desired processes one by one.

 Tailoring functionality

FREE Software operating systems also enable an individual or organization to take even firmer control of security. For example, you can build your own kernel without an executable stack segment or add customized authentication mechanism tailored to your requirements, in essence strengthening any portion of the software to meet your unique needs and security strategy. This flexibility is rarely, if ever, available with closed source application.

 Third party Security enhancement

A wide range of security tools is now available for FREE Software software. For example, you can utilize tools that restrict access to GNU/LINUX files on a process-to-process basis – so even if an attacker gains access to your system, they cannot exploit programs beyond the process through which they entered. There also a verity of GNU/LINUX kernel and compiler patches that are extremely successful in halting buffer overflow attacks.

 Greater flexibility

For example, GNU/LINUX enables users to import their choice of Access Control Lists (ACLs) including newly developed ACLs – an important consideration for organizations that are migrating from older existing file systems.

The debate about the relative security benefits of FREE Software and closed source code will continue for some time. However, it is clear that FREE Software code offers a number of offers of security benefits that can be leveraged by every administrator – along with open communication among thousands of other who share your interests in the security and usability – as part of comprehensive security effort. Chief among these is the ability to create and implement stronger security regardless of the vendor's interest in providing protection. In a number of quantifiable ways, FREE Software software offers the opportunity for greater security than the closed source counterparts, along with the flexibility that enables an organization to take a more active and effective role in managing the overall security of its computing environment.

 Independence - LINUXjunkies Foundation acts in the best interest of GNU/LINUX and the local GNU/LINUX community. LINUXjunkies Foundation is independent and operates on its own to achieve this goal. LINUXjunkies Foundation is not led, directed, or influenced in any way by any other organization or vested interest, be it private, public, or commercial.

 Education - LINUXjunkies Foundations encourages its members to freely provide information about GNU/LINUX to anyone who is interested.

 Promotion - LINUXjunkies Foundations makes public statements for the local GNU/LINUX community to promote the use of GNU/LINUX. LINUXjunkies Foundation endeavors to make this advocacy effective, well supported, and free.

 Solution - LINUXjunkies Foundation is dedicated to provide Free or economic solutions on GNU/LINUX and other Free software to individuals in a organized and professional manner, so that they can get more out of the GNU/GPL'ed software.

We call it " Empowering You with GNU/Linux " !

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

Version 2, June 1991

Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

Preamble

The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users.This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.

Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.

Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,

either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).

Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.

b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.

In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to

refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.

It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice.

This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License.

8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License.

9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

NO WARRANTY

11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms. To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least

the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

<one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>

Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.

If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:

Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author

Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.

This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it

under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program.

You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:

Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program

`Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.

<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989

Ty Coon, President of Vice

This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.

GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.2, November 2002

Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

0. PREAMBLE

The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.

This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.

We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.

1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The "Document", below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you". You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyright law.

A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.

A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.

The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. If a section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections then there are none.

The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text may be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.

A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for revising the document straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available

drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup, or absence of markup, has been arranged to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount

of text. A copy that is not "Transparent" is called "Opaque". Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification. Examples of transparent image formats include PNG, XCF and JPG. Opaque formats include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some word processors for output purposes only.

The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats, which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.

A section "Entitled XYZ" means a named subunit of the Document whose title either is precisely XYZ or contains XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ stands for a specific section name mentioned below, such as "Acknowledgements", "Dedications", "Endorsements", or "History".) To "Preserve the Title" of such a section when you modify the Document means that it remains a section "Entitled XYZ" according to this definition.

The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice, which states that this License applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has no effect on the meaning of this License.

2. VERBATIM COPYING

You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or non-commercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.

You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies.

3. COPYING IN QUANTITY

If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.

If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.

If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a computer-network location from which the general network-using public has access to download using public-standard network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to the public.

It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.

4. MODIFICATIONS

You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:

A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.

B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.

C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.

D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.

E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.

F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.

G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.

H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.

I. Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.

J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the "History" section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.

K. For any section Entitled "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications", Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.

L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.

M. Delete any section Entitled "Endorsements". Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.

N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled "Endorsements" or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.

O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.

If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice.

These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

You may add a section Entitled "Endorsements", provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties--for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.

You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.

The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.

5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.

The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.

In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled "History" in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled "History"; likewise combine any sections Entitled "Acknowledgements", and any sections Entitled "Dedications". You must delete all sections Entitled "Endorsements".

6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.

You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.

7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves

derivative works of the Document.

If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.

8. TRANSLATION

Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the license notices in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include the original English version of this License and the original versions of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.

If a section in the Document is Entitled "Acknowledgements", "Dedications", or "History", the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.

9. TERMINATION

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such

parties remain in full compliance.

10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:

Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the "with...Texts." line with this:

with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.

If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.

1. Free Software Foundation
2. Red Hat Inc.
3. various GNU/Linux Users Groups
4. Also some GNU/Linux related Websites for various statistics.

 

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