OIN or the Open Invention Network is an industry-supporting independent group consisting of Linux users in a royalty-free environment and be protected from lawsuits for license infringement by proprietary software owners. The confrontation between SCO vs Novell; Microsoft’s claim of more than 235 patents being violated by Linux and open software community;
the list is long and lawsuits plenty. The organization protects small users from being exposed to corporate lawsuits given the larger patent pool and protection Open Invention Network offers.
As the starting point for many IT perimeter defense architectures, the firewall is a critical piece of security technology. In the upcoming, Fedora 15 Linux distribution release, a new dynamic firewall technology will help to improve the critical cornerstone technology for server and desktop users.
Fedora is a Linux community project sponsored by Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) and is set to release Fedora 15 on May 24th. Security improvements are a key focus in the Fedora 15 release with a number of innovations.
"We have better support for encrypted home directories that get mounted when you log in and that goes a long way to help people feel that their data is secure," Jared Smith, Fedora Project Leader told InternetNews.com.
"Most Linux systems use IP tables type firewalls and the problem is that if you want to make a change to the firewall, it's hard to modify on the fly without reloading the entire firewall," Smith said. "Fedora 15 is really the first mainstream operating system to have a dynamic firewall where you can add or change rules and keep the firewall up and responding while you're making changing."
Smith added that the dynamic firewall technology will still need development work, but it is available in Fedora 15 for users to start playing with to see how it works with their environments.
The dynamic firewall isn't just for inbound traffic either. It can also dynamically adjust to the needs of outbound traffic originating behind the firewall.
"One of the cool things about the dynamic firewall in Fedora 15 is that it has a dbus interface, so individual applications can communicate with the firewall," Smith said. "The apps can tell the firewall to open up a port for a period of time and then shut it back down."
royalty-free environment and be protected from lawsuits for license infringement by proprietary software owners. The confrontation between SCO vs Novell; Microsoft’s claim of more than 235 patents being violated by Linux and open software community;
