Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Welcome to this year's 41st issue of DWN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Due to unfortunate circumstances the weekly newsletter stopped being released weekly and will only be finalised when enough people have contributed. Thanks to Sebastian Feltel for nearly writing this issue alone. Bill Allombert began to evaluate package set upgrades from sarge to etch to find out how smooth the upgrade goes.

The OpenDocument Format Alliance (ODF Alliance), a broad cross-section of organizations, academia and industry dedicated to improving access to electronic government documents, today applauded Brazil's decision to recommend ODF as the government's preferred format; India's decision to use ODF at a major state government agency; and Italy's decision to recognize ODF as national standard. The Alliance also recognized Poland, too, for demonstrating serious interest in adopting ODF in the wake of a national meeting held for its government with broad participants from industry and non-profit agencies.

Chinese Handset Supplier Datang Mobile Joins Open Source Development Labs

Linux vendor Xandros Inc. today unveiled its latest Xandros Desktop Professional Version 4 of its enterprise Linux operating system, which debuts two days before Microsoft Corp. launches the enterprise version of Windows Vista.

When he was an editor in the 1950s, Jason Epstein made the paperback book ubiquitous. Now he's about to do the same for a Linux-powered printing press.

[How can you not love a machine that can make you a book that runs on LAMP? - Scott]

India's Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement just has got a new poster-boy, or rather girl -- Suparna Bhattacharya, the star of the just-concluded FOSS.in event held here and presenter of the inaugural keynote, is seen as one of India's most respected Linux kernel developers.

Trolltech, perhaps the most successful Linux smartphone software provider, is readying a more comprehensive stack aimed at simplifying Linux-based phone development. The company's "Greensuite," due in Q2, will offer a menu of pre-integrated browsers, Java virtual machines, messaging clients, and other software, along with complete source code and branding flexibility, the company says.

Portable Document Format, designed in the early 1990s by Adobe Systems, is slowly replacing PostScript as the preferred format for saving and viewing generic documents. Early on, only Adobe supplied programs that enabled users to view PDF files. But since the format's specification is open, Adobe Reader (formerly "Adobe Acrobat Reader") is now only one among an increasing set of PDF viewers. Here's a guide to the best alternatives for Linux users.

It's starting to look like the greatest enemy to PS3 "security" is the PS3 itself. Thanks to that handy OS named Linux, which conveniently comes prepped for the console, we're already seeing some pretty nifty things being done with the PS3, and now it's being put to good use to siphon data off of those nifty Blu-ray discs. So far nothing more than a straight transfer has been achieved, but it appears the PS3 game file structure is similar to that of the PSP. We're not sure how well on the way this puts us towards the ability to create "backup" discs of PS3 games, but at least it's a start.

Xandros today announced the addition of Xandros Desktop - Professional, a new plug and play desktop product that has been designed to work in any Microsoft/ Linux mixed environment. Xandros believes it provides a "zero learning curve" for users migrating from Windows to Linux.

P.I.M. announced that a new version of its cross-platform desktop filing system for Linux and Windows users is now available for free download. SqlDesktop v3.00 arranges desktops like an ordinary office: documents, spreadsheets, images, and other items are stored intuitively in folders residing in an SQL database, according to the French company.

Web browser company Opera has released another beta version of its popular mobile browser, Opera Mini.

Novell is releasing Basilisk Lizard, its codename for Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of openSUSE 10.2. RC1 is intended to help Novell fix "shipment blockers" and is, says, the last development build before v10.2 of the Linux distro hits the streets in its final version.

For nearly three years, I've resisted the temptation to turn my monthly visit to this soapbox into a mélange of punditry and prognostication. I've tried to stick mostly to hands-on experiences with Free Software, and to telling you how to get the most out of those offerings. But this month, two recent news stories have me itching to comment. So, welcome to the first-ever Free Agent grab bag column.

The Ubuntu Open Week starts today. From 5pm South African time a series of online workshops will take place. During the week participants can chat to Ubuntu developers and join an open Q&A with Mark Shuttleworth.

Global IT Consultancy, ThoughtWorks today announces the release of dbdeploy . An open source tool for developers and database administrators (DBAs), dbdeploy is a simple solution to the problem of managing and deploying database refactorings to development, quality assurance (QA), user acceptance testing (UAT) and production environments.

Open-source software is becoming ubiquitous, but companies need to be aware that its use must be carefully managed. Even Microsoft has admitted the attractiveness of this business model through its engagement with open-source companies such as SugarCRM Inc.and Zend Inc. Problems can arise because many open-source licenses require that users who incorporate open-source code in their software must make their code available for free (at reproduction cost), permit modifications of the software and permit redistribution without charging a fee.

The head of IT at the University of the Western Cape tells Novell he will do his utmost to develop an exit-strategy for all Novell products at the university. "Novell has let us down badly."

As a standalone office suite, OpenOffice.org lacks a back-end solution similar to Microsoft Office SharePoint, the software that integrates the office suite into a document collaboration and document management environment. Sure, there are applications that can handle both version control and user management, but until now, none of them offered seamless integration with OpenOffice.org that was easy enough for an average office worker to use.

OpenMoko jas announced the availability of a completely integrated open source mobile communications platform in partnership with FIC, a company who specialises in in motherboards, graphics cards, mobile solutions, and electronic devices. The announcement of the OpenMoko mobile communications platform coincides with the unveiling of FIC’s Neo1973 smartphone, which utilizes the full OpenMoko platform, and promised to be available in January 2007.