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According to the Universal Clock, it's now the year 2004. As we look with anticipation to the year to come, let's take a look back at the ten most-read stories of 2003.

10. IBM, Industry Respond to New SCO Threats

This story, written by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols before he was absconded by eWeek (alas, Steven, we knew ye well...) was one of the first articles posted that got IBM's initial response after SCO decided to charge a license fee to all commercial users of Linux. Little did we know at the time that the merry SCO ride was just beginning.

Complete Story July 22, 2003, 19,546 reads, 77 talkbacks.

9. InfoWorld: Torvalds to SCO: Negotiate What?

If you don't want to call it the Year of SCO, you could certainly get away with calling it the Year of the Open Letter. SCO seemed determined to fight their battles against IBM, Red Hat, and indeed the entire open source community in the court of public opinion. But when they got too outrageous, leave it to luminaries like Linus Torvalds to set the facts straight.

Complete Story September 11, 2003, 20,074 reads, 29 talkbacks.

8. ESR: After Sun Goes Out

Eric S. Raymond, President of the Open Source Initiative, was certainly very outspoken this year on issues ranging from SCO to Linux in the enterprise. In this article, ESR predicts the future of Open Source projects after the doomsayers prematurely fingered Sun Microsystems for an early death.

Complete Story October 2, 2003, 20,570 reads, 90 talkbacks.

7. DivisionTwo: A Linux Distro for Barbie?

This weekend story's rise to the Top 10 is one of those surprises that I have yet to fathom. Was it the humor of the article? The possibility that it might be real? We may never know...

Complete Story October 24, 2003, 22,399 reads, 84 talkbacks.

6. OSNews: Arch Linux: A Better Distribution

This seemingly innoculous review had a big interest amongst the Linux Today readership. Posting it on a Friday gave this article a weekend boost in traffic, but the fact remained that Arch Linux was still one of the more popular small distros with a release in 2003.

Complete Story October 17, 2003, 25,030 reads, 5 talkbacks.

5. Linus Torvalds: Linux 2.6.0

Well, you know something would be wrong if this announcement had not made the Top 10. Honestly, the only reason this story is not in the Top 2 for the year is because it came out so close to the end of December.

Complete Story December 19, 2003, 25,813 reads, 51 talkbacks.

4. Update: ESR Confirms DoS Attack; Hacker to End Attack

One of the more repetitive stories that came out this year were a series of DDoS attacks on the sco.com Web site. Analysts, pundits, and luminaries alike all came forth to decry these activities. Eric Raymond would go further than that and indicate that he was in indirect contact with the anonymous attacker during the first such attack on SCO. Later in the year, though, the community questioned the validity of these attacks, since SCO kept falling to them time and again.

Complete Story August 25, 2003, 31,957 reads, 98 talkbacks.

3. Community: MobiliX.org Is Now TuxMobil.org

Cartoon publisher sues German Linux notebook retail and support company for trademark violation. Linux company defends heartily, yet loses in court. What should have been an amusing tale of a nuisance suit turned into one of the more pivotal stories of the year.

Complete Story February 22, 2003, 56,615 reads, 11 talkbacks.

2. Response to SCO's Open Letter

One of the outcomes of the initial DDoS attacks against sco.com was a scathing open letter from SCO CEO Darl McBride that tried to malign the entire Open Source community, possibly for the benefit of SCO's stockholders and potential licensees. It did not stop Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond from firing back a public response of their own.

Complete Story September 10, 2003, 68,168 reads, 79 talkbacks.

And now, the most-read Linux Today story of 2003...

1. Community: SCO Use of Samba Code Under the GPL

Throughout all of the attacks SCO would make against the GPL this year, it was interesting that the company continued to use GPL'd software in its ongoing UNIX product lines, most notably Samba. The Samba team, led by Jeremy Allison, definitely took notice, and published this open letter denouncing the hypocracy of SCO's actions versus their words.

Complete Story August 20, 2003, 70,749 reads, 85 talkbacks.

And, for those of you who miss the Top 50 Hall of Fame Page, here are the Top 50 Stories of All Time as of December 31, 2003.

1. 155,604: (161 talkbacks): Linus Torvalds: And oh, btw..2.4.0 is out
2. 117,281: (156 talkbacks): Joe Pranevich -- Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 (Quite Nearly There Edition)
3. 111075: (27 talkbacks): Joe Pranevich: Wonderful World of Linux 2.4
4. 93131: (170 talkbacks): Red Hat: ext3 information
5. 92141: (144 talkbacks): Spec.org: Second Quarter 2000 SPECweb99 Results [Linux beats Windows 2000 in benchmark]
6. 91191: (285 talkbacks): UPDATED: Richard Stallman -- Boycott Amazon!
7. 88455: (49 talkbacks): Bruce Perens: What's Going On About Open-Sourcing the OpenMail Program
8. 85360: (99 talkbacks): UPDATED: Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 - Final Candidate #2 - 4/01/00 (aka the "April Fool Update" Edition)
9. 79167: (194 talkbacks): Stallman on Qt, the GPL, KDE, and GNOME
10. 74104: (296 talkbacks): Guest Column: Will Open Source Lose the Battle for the Web?
11. 70750: (85 talkbacks): Community: SCO Use of Samba Code Under the GPL^*
12. 67471: (78 talkbacks): Eric S. Raymond: Beware the Microsoft shell game
13. 66942: (285 talkbacks): The Wonderful World of Linux 2.2 -- 'revised millennium penguin' version
14. 63169: (79 talkbacks): Response to SCO's Open Letter^*
15. 62032: (85 talkbacks): Ending Microsoft FUD: An Interview with Peruvian Congressman Villanueva
16. 57399: (109 talkbacks): We Won: MS targets Linux in German advertising
17. 56621: (11 talkbacks): Community: MobiliX.org Is Now TuxMobil.org^*
18. 56412: (80 talkbacks): UPDATED: Richard Stallman -- Why We Must Fight UCITA
19. 52379: (71 talkbacks): How to Build Your Own 1U Rack Mount Server and Save a Bundle
20. 52168: (86 talkbacks): What's in a Name? Richard Stallman on Linux vs. GNU/Linux
21. 50717: (97 talkbacks): GNU.org.pe: Peruvian Congressman's Open Letter to Microsoft
22. 50713: (28 talkbacks): CIN: Linux TCO: Less Than Half The Cost of Windows
23. 50678: (80 talkbacks): Redmond Wants a Few Good (Linux) Men
24. 50640: (108 talkbacks): Update: LinuxWorld Expo: Guess Who's Coming to Exhibit
25. 50250: (151 talkbacks): Red Hat Responds to Quality Allegations
26. 47245: (82 talkbacks): The Anti-Linux-IPO Howto
27. 45325: (161 talkbacks): Eric S. Raymond -- Microsoft is right, for once
28. 44934: (216 talkbacks): Editor's Note to the Linux Community
29. 41735: (33 talkbacks): Joe Pranevich: Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 (Final Draft)
30. 40433: (72 talkbacks): Red Hat: New Red Hat Beta, LIMBO, Announced
31. 37349: (47 talkbacks): Richard Stallman -- U.S. Congress Threatens to Establish a New Kind of Monopoly
32. 37209: (66 talkbacks): Richard Stallman -- On "Free Hardware"
33. 36956: (31 talkbacks): Linus Torvalds: Linux 2.5.16
34. 36647: (53 talkbacks): UPDATED: Joe Pranevich -- Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 - "Back on the Table Edition"
35. 36602: (48 talkbacks): Richard Stallman -- The Anatomy of a Trivial Patent
36. 36238: (42 talkbacks): KDE 2.2. Is Out
37. 35944: (39 talkbacks): ( News,Features ) Joe Pranevich -- Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 (10/02/99 "Final" Edition) (Edit) ( dwj )
38. 35546: (32 talkbacks): Jeremy Allison & Andrew Tridgell: Analysis of the MS Settlement and What It Means for Samba.
39. 35516: (66 talkbacks): Microsoft Releases IPv6 WWW Server Under GNU License
40. 33935: (193 talkbacks): Dave Whitinger -- The Battle That Could Lose Us The War
41. 33668: (31 talkbacks): Chris Lattner: Linux Kernel ORB: kORBit
42. 33408: (58 talkbacks): Eric S. Raymond -- Surprised By Wealth
43. 33270: (212 talkbacks): Richard Stallman: We can put an end to Word attachments
44. 32890: (37 talkbacks): SECOND UPDATE: Microsoft Parts Ways with Corel?
45. 32346: (117 talkbacks): Richard Stallman -- Waiting for the Knock
46. 32319: (147 talkbacks): Rant Mode Equals One: The Linux Reality Versus the Microsoft Dream
47. 31959: (98 talkbacks): Update: ESR Confirms DoS Attack; Hacker to End Attack^*
48. 31129: (179 talkbacks): Eric Raymond: Freedom, Power, or Confusion? [ESR on debate between O'Reilly and FSF]
49. 31014: (29 talkbacks): Joe Pranevich: Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 11/23/00 ("Turkey Day" Update)
50. 30641: (193 talkbacks): Linux kernel 2.2 explained

Index Mode   |   Flat Mode   |   Thread Mode   |   Thread Flat     Talkback(s) Name  and Date   hypocracy...    MartinV Jan 1, 2004, 09:14:41     speeeeeling    AdamW Jan 1, 2004, 20:54:54     SCO..... Dirt    Pete Gandy Jan 1, 2004, 21:00:33     Re: speeeeeling    MartinV Jan 2, 2004, 09:20:00     10 years    Eddie M Jan 2, 2004, 16:21:01     Re: 10 years    scott_R Jan 2, 2004, 22:29:17     Home | Search Talkbacks | Customize View    Top of Page   Enter your comments below: * Your Name: * Your Email Address: * Subject: CC: [will also send this talkback to an E-Mail address] * Comments: Tags allowed:<I>,<B> and <U>. See our talkback-policy for more about talkback content. Fields marked with * are required!