Showing headlines posted by dcparris

The open source graphics community is debating the creation of an open specification for a new raster graphics file format. Many feel that the time has come to define an extensible, shared format to exchange complex documents between a variety of application programs -- including raster image editors, viewers, and related tools like vector and page-layout programs.

Norwegian open source software company Trolltech completed an IPO on July 5 and is now listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (Oslo Børs).

Microsoft backed down on its proprietary stance over document formats but, if it was hoping for a pat on the back from the wider internet community, it should have known better.

[A better headline would have been "Microsoft proves how obstinate they are". - dcparris]

The Zenwalk team on July 2 released its first live CD version, ZenLive 2.6, featuring a 2.6.16.16 kernel and the latest (v4.3.90.2) XFCE windowing environment. The new distribution takes advantage of the latest current Zenwalk updates, which include extensive UDEV support.

Net Neutrality is a snowball.That is, it's an idea that started small but grew steadily as it rolled forward, gaining mass and speed as it accreted the passions and opinions of many -- on all sides of the issue. Today the topic is so large and complex that it's hard to find where it began. It has also become so highly politicized that it may sink the telecom reform legislation that carriers have been working on sincethe last round of reform, in 1996.

Debian has issued an update for xine-lib. This fixes a weakness, which can be exploited by malicious people to crash certain applications on a user's system.

One IP attorney says the suit, which relates to JBoss' Hibernate 3.0 object mapping technology, could have serious ramifications for the Linux company and other software developers.

ARinfotek is shipping an entry-level, fanless network security appliance platform said to draw just 2.4 Watts. The Teak 3011 is based on an x86-compatible AMD Geode processor, comes housed in a compact steel chassis, and targets security appliances for SMBs (small- and medium-sized businesses).

Following the successful community-based marketing efforts that raised awareness of the FireFox browser, another grassroots organisation is planning a similar campaign to market the OpenOffice.org suite. The campaign's first project is to place a full back page advert in New York's free daily <i>Metro</i> newspaper.

So now I'm a blogger. Well, this column has been a kind of journal anyway, a chronicle of my life and times in the world of Linux sound and music software, and hopefully it's as enjoyable for you to read as it is for me to write. You can expect little change from the style and content of my previous articles, despite my imminent bloggification, but in accord with the popular definitions of a blog I'll be a little less formal and sometimes a lot more personal. Not that there's much fuel for acrid controversy in the world of Linux sound and music software, but there are issues occasionally and I'd like to speak plainly regarding them.

A new era is halfway here, and nobody has recognized its impact--even though we've all participated eagerly in its arrival. The way we educate ourselves to use and program computers is shifting along many of the same historic lines as journalism, scientific publication, and other information-rich fields. Researchers have pounced on those other trends, but computer education remains short on commentary.

Four Debian enthusiasts in New York City got together in 2003 and created the Community Free Software Group (CFSG), a non-profit entity to promote the use of free software in the local community. Since the group's inception, CFSG members have been busy helping young people in city neighborhoods learn how to install and run Debian Linux on hardware donated by area businesses and individuals.

What has caused the effective price of virtualization to head toward zero -- and how? In contrast to many who seem to feel that open source and proprietary software operate in two parallel but separate universes — that open source is used by people who can’t afford ‘real’ software, while proprietary commercial software is for organizations that need reliability, scalability, and all the other ‘abilities’ — I believe that open source is already challenging the proprietary software world.

The company is setting up an open-source project to create a series of tools that translate between the OpenXML and OpenDocument formats.

Ron Gilbert can’t find any support for his new game project. Who’s to blame? Well, Gilbert cites unimaginative publishers who are too short-sighted to appreciate his concept. Perhaps it’s time that Gilbert considered the alternative to proprietary game development. Perhaps it’s time we offered him this alternative.

Solaris and PostgreSQL love in

An integrated suite of open source middleware stacks featuring Solaris and PostgreSQL, potentially offered to developers as a service, are on Sun Microsystems' radar.

Start-up Trinity Audio Group (TAG) is using Linux and open source audio applications in a small, portable, inexpensive digital audio workstation (DAW) claimed capable of professional-quality recording and mixing. The Trinity DAW is based on an Intel PXA270 processor, and targets field recordists, podcasters, and producers.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds announced the first release candidate for the upcoming 2.6.18 kernel, "the merge window for 2.6.18 is closed, and -rc1 is out there". He noted that the changes are extensive, "the changes are too big for the mailing list, even just the shortlog. As usual, lots of stuff happened. Most architectures got updated, ACPI updates, networking, SCSI and sound, IDE, infiniband, input, DVB etc etc etc." Find the shortloghere. Linus went on described additional changes:

"There's also a fair amount of basic infrastructure updates here, with things like the generic IRQ layer, the lockdep (oh, and priority-inheritance mutex support) stuff by Ingo&co, some generic timekeeping infrastructure ('clocksource') stuff, memory hotplug (and page migration) support, etc etc."

Like all pieces of electronic equipment, computers have a tendency to malfunction and break; if you have never experienced kernel core dumps or unexpected crashes, consider yourself lucky. Many common hardware problems are caused by bad RAM modules, overheated or broken CPUs, or bad sectors or clusters on hard disks. In this article we will introduce you to some open source tools you can use to trace these problems, and thus save time, money, and headaches.

Recently, Qlusters announced some of the progress it is making with openQRM, its open source systems management solution for virtual environments and data center automation. Since the product was launched in January, Qlusters has seen more than 17,000 downloads, and the number of active contributors to the project has doubled. It has also garnered some recognition in the form of achieving finalist level in three categories of SourceForge's first annual community Choice Awards, and was named "One to Watch" in a recent review of open source systems management solutions by Computer Business Review. In May Qlusters co-founded the Open Management Consortium, which seeks to establish conventions and standards to enable open source integration and interoperability. Qlusters launched this group along with five other companies, and there are now more than twenty members. The cofounders include Ayamon, Emu Software, Symbiot, Webmin, and Zenoss.