Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Gervase Markham writes: "The Mozilla Foundation is taking part in the Google Summer of Code again this year. If you are student, and would like to get paid over the summer to work on Mozilla stuff, please visit the projects page and see if there's anything you'd like to do. People should also feel free to come up with their own idea. Realistic and better-researched ideas would have more chance of getting chosen."

Tom Hoffman is leading an open-source software revolution from his Victorian house in Providence. His ‘SchoolTool’ software allows schools to manage schedules, grades and more – with no licensing fees.

Ask most people who have made the switch to a libre software product like Linux or BSD and they'll tell you that we're in a fight with Microsoft and everything that the closed-source world represents. It's not just us - Microsoft certainly thinks we're in a battle as well. Senior Microsoft leadership are actively engaged in spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt to undermine the public confidence in Linux. Lawsuits have been filed over "stolen code" in the Linux kernel. Thinly-veiled "IP infringement" threats have been made to businesses running Linux. Massive marketing campaigns are being waged to confuse the true Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of Windows and Linux products.

The GPL version 2 was written as a license to protect user freedoms that had been eroded by the increasingly closed attitudes of software designers, developers, and distributors ("What Will Drive Open Source?). It was Richard Stallman's intent, with v2, to create a barrier to these attitudes. The GNU GPLv3 is no different.

Mandriva is pleased to announce the upcoming release of its new distribution: Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring will provide up-to-date and freshly released open source software.

The virtual world known as Second Life is struggling under the weight of its increasing popularity. The number of concurrent users in Second Life is growing about 20% a month, from 18,000 in December to 36,000 earlier this month. At that pace, Second Life will hit maximum capacity--100,000 simultaneous users, says Joe Miller, VP of platform and technology development for Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world--well before the end of the year.

Novell India's global support and services organisation in Mumbai has achieved certification under Service Capability & Performance (SCP) Support Standard. The SCP Support Standard quantifies the effectiveness of customer support based upon a stringent set of performance standards and customer satisfaction. As a result, Novell customers will get predictable, reliable support from Novell in keeping their IT infrastructure in top condition.

What do you do with an old computer? Say, a 386-generation PC running Windows 98 that hadn't been patched in years, with a 20-Gbyte hard drive most likely infected with all manner of viruses, spyware, and other maladjusted programs? Sure, it could go to the landfill, or you might be able to get a tax deduction from donating it to a local school. Or, using a Linux-based operating system, you could turn it into a functional desktop, browser, and e-mail client, and put it back to work.

Schools in the Manchester area have been linked together with a networked system that uses open-source software.

It has been pointed out that the PR and marketing done on behalf of the Free Software Movement is rather lacking in polish and professionalism. The majority of it is done by volunteers, usually posting pictures taken at events and unedited audio recordings. So, is there hope for Linux? Yes there is.

The Ubuntu team yesterday announced the release of a beta of the forthcoming Feisty Fawn (Ubuntu 7.04) Linux operating system. Highlights include a built-in Windows migration tool.

Free software fans of YouTube jumped for joy last week when developer Benjamin Otte announced on his blog that the free Swfdec Flash player has reached the point where it can play YouTube's Flash video content. At that time the feature was only working in the project's Git repository, meaning only those users willing to clone the Git sources and automake their way to a binary could enjoy it. That, too, has now changed: Otte released updated packages to the public yesterday.

Chipmaker Infineon Technologies has enhanced the Linux-based software suite it provides with half-a-dozen broadband customer premises equipment (CPE) reference designs. The "Spinacer" suite adds an IMS-based (IP multimedia subsystem) device framework for FMC (fixed-mobile convergence), an optional TR-69 auto-provisioning extension, and support for Infineon VoIP chips with HD (high-definition) sound, the company said.

Thin Multimedia Inc. (TMI) will demonstrate its PAL-format MobileTV software stack for Linux on a digital TV receiver chipset from Siano, at the CTIA Wireless 2007 show next week in Orlando, Fla. Additionally, the company says it will collaborate with Siano on a "multi-standard, integrated mobile TV" product.

What is the key innovation of Spring? The breakthrough technology presented last January during the Solutions Linux event in Paris: Metisse, an innovative window management technology. Unlike the widely known 3D-accelerated desktops with the "cube" effect and other visual enhancements, Metisse offers an innovative way to manage windows: only the windows move, making the possible variations endless! Metisse is not a 3D-accelerated desktop but a Human-Computer Interface (HCI) technology that revolutionizes the user experience.

The news: The annual Linux Audio Conference is now underway at the Technischen Universität Berlin. Alas, I won't be there, but I can still enjoy the presentations through IRC, audio, and video feeds. Check the conference wiki's LAC2007 Live Streaming page for access details. For more information regarding the conference see the LAC2007 general information page. This is the Linux audio community's event of the season, so feel free to visit, whether or not you're actually in Berlin.

I've come to the conclusion that software should be free. And I mean really free--as in free beer. Or free advice. I know there's a free software movement, one that advocates the unencumbered use of software code, but the folks behind it pull their punches. On its Web site, the Free Software Foundation defines free software this way: "'Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer.'" See what I mean?

Researchers at Oxford have built an x86 emulator that runs purely on Java, making it ideal for security researchers who want to analyze and archive viruses, host honeypots and defend themselves against buggy or malicious software without hosing their machines. TheJPC also emulates a host of other environments, giving technophiles the ability to play Asteroids and other software that's sat on shelves for years collecting dust.

The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is a hybrid of two philosophical trends in technology: the well-known free and open source software movement, and the open access movement, whose goal is to provide free online access to scholarly research. By combining advocacy with the software tools needed to accomplish its aims, in nine years the project has grown to become a significant force in academic online publishing.

Open-source rivals Novell Inc. and Red Hat Inc. are each highlighting initiatives to bring Linux-based functionality to the desktop. At its BrainShare 2007 convention this week in Salt Lake City, Novell detailed improvements to its SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 product, introduced in July 2006, while Red Hat provided more details about the desktop capability of its new Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 operating system.