Showing headlines posted by dcparris

Bruce Perens has posted an open letter to Novell regarding its patent agreement with Microsoft. I likewise find it troubling that Novell may lobby in favor of software patents while claiming to have the interests of the Linux and FOSS communities in mind.

Some Linux distributions have longer lives than others. After two years of supported life, Novell is discontinuing support for SUSE Linux 9.2, effective yesterday. Its closest competitor, Red Hat's Fedora Core 3, which was released at roughly the same time as SUSE Linux 9.2, remains supported. "With today's release of "pam_ldap" we discontinue the security support for SUSE Linux 9.2," SUSE developer Marcus Meissner wrote in a mailing list posting.

Raw Therapee is a free RAW photo converter application developed single-handedly by Gábor Horváth. It has been available on Windows for some time, but on October 11, Horváth released the first build for Linux. If you are familiar with other graphical RAW converters, such as UFRaw, you will feel quite at home using Raw Therapee.

[Program is gratis, not sure about libre. - dcparris]

Having formed last year to provide Linux with intellectual property (IP) protection, the Open Invention Network has declared itself ready to respond to Microsoft Corp's 'baseless' claims that Linux contains its IP.

GRISOFT, the developer of AVG security software, announced several new versions of its antivirus offerings for GNU/Linux and FreeBSD open source platforms. The products include AVG Email Server Edition 7.5 for Linux/FreeBSD now with integrated anti-spam as well as new products for the GNU/Linux platform – AVG Anti-Virus Professional Edition 7.5 for Linux/FreeBSD and AVG File Server Edition 7.5 for Linux/Free BSD.

I am glad to announce a new edition of MCNLive, code name Cherbourg, a portable live Linux system based on and 100% compatible with Mandriva Linux 2007. Highlights: 2.6.17 kernel; 3D desktop (AIGLX) with the free X.Org drivers for Intel and ATI video cards; desktop environment: KDE 3.5.4; office suite: KOffice; Opera 9.02; music, video and image applications with most common codecs; Internet and networking applications for all your needs; NTFS read-write support. All this on less than 360 MB.

It must be the season for big announcements, because they seem to be flying right now. I'd like to point out two of them from the Ruby community.

Virtualization is a trendy topic in the server room now, especially as commodity computers begin to support features that mainframes have had for decades. Mainframes aren't standing still, however; IBM's POWER5 architecture supports powerful virtualization features on AIX... and Linux. Ken Milberg describes some of the benefits of the recent work on this platform.

Tis the season to be deluged with ads for all manner of crap for kids, including “educational” computer games. Yeah, right. Wouldn’t you rather give your kids something of value, and that will help them develop real skills? Instead of turning into nearsighted wheezing lardbutted obsessive-compulsive button-pushers?

From robots to ice cream machines...

Without a strong enough reason to change to Linux people aren't. If only there were applications that people really wanted that were exclusive to Linux. Enter Mythtv, the most mature open source media application available. Boasting features that put Windows Media Centre to shame and a zero price tag, Mythtv is just the sort of application that could change peoples perceptions on what Linux is and what it is capable of.

On the day after Thanksgiving, Xandros Inc. will be giving business Linux users an early holiday present: Xandros Desktop Professional version 4.0. This new version of this well-regarded Debian-based desktop is designed to work in both Linux- and Windows-based office networks. It comes ready for use on NT domain, AD (Active Directory), and Linux/Unix NIS (Network Information Service)-based LANs.

Forget about Tivoization. How about adding a clause to the next version of the GPL that counters Novellization? The clause would say (in proper legalese), that if any code infringes on intellectual property or patents held by third parties, and the third parties take legal action, the contributors of the offending code assume 100% liability. In short, if Novell injects Microsoft IP into open source and Microsoft wants to sue, it must sue Novell and nobody else, because Novell assumes liability under this new license. This would render any"promise not to sue the end customer" agreement with Novell meaningless.

Most people think that OpenOffice.org is a strong office-suite in its own right. But, when it came to a back-office document collaboration and management engine, like Microsoft SharePoint to enable OpenOffice users to work together, it was a different story.

When Open Source Systems got its start in 2001, the field wasn’t quite booming the way it is now, just a handful of years later, but the company could see a change coming in the way that data centers were operating. “People were getting tired of paying exorbitant licensing fees,” says Jared Giles, OSS’ vice president of marketing and product management. “Linux was gaining momentum, and it seemed that the opportunity was tremendous.”

After months of promises, and with backing from the Eclipse Foundation, Borland has released an overhauled edition of JBuilder that promises to overtake Eclipse on quality. JBuilder 2007 updates Borland's previously closed-source Java development environment by employing the Eclipse open source framework and by swapping in the Eclipse Visual Editor for Borland's own more developed Swing GUI Editor.

In a recent interview with IT Business Edge, LXer.com editor-in-chief Don Parris said the patent problem that has arisen between Microsoft and Novell could be resolved amicably — well, as amicably as anything involving Redmond and open source can be – if Microsoft would simply issue cease and desist requests to the open source coders that it thinks have infringed its patents.

With Don Parris, Editor-in-Chief of LXer.com, a news/community Web site for Linux enthusiasts, on the patent covenant between Microsoft and Linux distributor Novell. Even Microsoft admits that the patent covenant falls short of the mark and is seeking input from the open source community.

UK Members of Parliament have identified Department of Education and Skills (DfES) and Becta policies as favouring proprietary software vendors thereby blocking the adoption of Open Source software by schools and colleges. An Early Day Motion tabled by Liberal Democrat MP John Pugh, has called for a fair approach to ICT procurement in the education sector.

Linspire announced at the GITEX Dubai 2006 Trade Show last week a strategic partnership with marketer Business International to bring Linspire's desktop Linux operating system to 17 Middle East and African countries during the next several months.