Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Real-time Linux and middleware from Concurrent Computer Corp. and Real-Time Innovations Inc. (RTI) are supporting the U.S. Navy's Aegis Open Architecture program, the companies announced Aug. 28. Aegis Open Architecture is the foundation for the modernization of the Navy's Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers, the companies said.

Philipp H. Poll started the Linux Libertine Open Fonts project in September 2003 because of his dissatisfaction with the fonts shipped with GNU/Linux distributions. "In SUSE 9.x," he recalls, "you had to use a script to download the Microsoft core fonts if you wanted to have good TrueType fonts." To improve the situation, Poll chose to start with the basics with Linux Libertine, an alternative to Time Roman and Times New Roman, the most commonly used typefaces in computing, and to develop it using free software methodologies and tools under the GNU General Public License.

The New Zealand Open Source Society(NZOSS) has claimed a moral victory in the patent office after Microsoft amended its patent on XML schema. NZOSS president Peter Harrison says the changes made to the patent were such that the organisation was no longer concerned about the threat posed by the patent.

Okay, I don't really know how many chances I've given GNOME, but I've tried to switch to GNOME as my default desktop many times. I always ended up switching back to KDE (to be fair, I use other window managers, too, such as Fluxbox, which is one of my favorites). Thanks to the rumors that Xgl/Compiz/cgwd worked best on GNOME, I gave GNOME another shot.

[I know how he feels. - Scott]

The Association for Progressive Communications has established a new award to reward organisations or people who make it easier for others to start using free and open source software.

The Unified Modelling Language (UML) has firmly established itself as the lingua franca of the object oriented development world. It offers the right levels of abstraction, independence from programming language implementation to make it pretty much ubiquitous.

Open source software is a given in most enterprise data centers, so it's not surprising to see the ranks of open source companies and projects swell. It's not just Linux anymore - community-developed software is offering alternatives for everything from databases to application servers to network management to disaster preparedness. How do you know which open source approach is right for you? We've pulled out a few start-ups that you might not be familiar with, but we think should be on your radar.

Sun Microsystems has unveiled a portal that will detail its efforts to make its Java programming language available as open source code. After the announcement, Bob Brewin, Sun’s chief technology officer for software, talked to Computerworld about the state of the company’s effort to make Java SE (Standard Edition) code available to the open source community.

Only the very brave can pick winners amongst the current crop of Web 2.0 start-ups, social networks and other sundry services. And whatever the outcome might be, it is safe to say that the popularity of open source database MySQL and programming language PHP will only increase.

If you ask any Novell watcher to rate the software vendor's abilities, the chances are that observer will give the company a low grade for marketing. Novell has struggled with how to position its products for years and now hopes it's finally on the right track with a new focus for its SuSE Linux distribution.

Reliance on open source code runs deep among Google's developers, and the company uses open source in its production systems, too. The software has been Google-ized--something new added to make it fit Google's way of doing things.

[I wrote a piece similar to this when Google presented at my local LUG some months ago. - Scott]

Trusted Computer Solutions Inc. (TCS), a supplier of multi-level security and cross-domain information sharing applications for government and industry, announced in partnership with IBM the launch of the TCS SecureOffice suite of cross-domain guards based on Linux.

Luis Villa is absolutely right in his castigation of our X update on Wednesday this week. As a team we made a series of errors, and the result was a desktop that was broken for thousands of users, for several hours. It has been a severe lesson in QA, something Luis knows plenty about.

TheAssociation for Progressive Communications (APC) Chris Nicol FOSS Prize [more infohere] recognises initiatives that are making it easy for people to start using free and open source software (FOSS). The prize will be awarded to a person or group doing extraordinary work to make FOSS accessible to ordinary computer users.

Open-source advocate Eric Raymond on winning over the iPod generation, the need for open source to conquer hearts and minds beyond geekdom, and why Linux advocates don’t have much time to beat Microsoft.

Vancouver BC - Prosilica has just released a Linux GigE Vision SDK for their GigE Vision cameras. The Linux GigE Vision SDK provides programmers the means to control, and capture images from, Prosilica gigabit Ethernet cameras. These GigE Vision gigabit Ethernet cameras, which have been used in wide range of Windows-based computer vision applications, can now also be easily used on Linux computers. The SDK also includes sample code to help programmers more easily use Prosilica's cameras into their Linux-based applications.

Technologic Systems is offering a freely downloadable, Debian-based Linux OS image said to boot from an SD card in less than two seconds, on the company's ARM9-based SBC (single-board computer). The TS-7300 SBC targets embedded applications requiring "extreme design security, flexibility, and reliability," according to the company.

Every now and again, someone will loudly proclaim that Slackware is dead. Wrong. While it's not as popular as young whipper-snapper Ubuntu, its long-time competitor the Debians, or the solid SUSE family, Slackware is still alive and well with a healthy user community.

OpenUsability, the organization of software interface usability experts, has begun taking applications for the first in a series of funded student projects. Similar to the Google Summer of Code, selected students will be paired with mentors and set to work on projects to be completed over a three-month period, with a reward of $700 upon success. Students applying now will be competing for the first such position -- an opportunity to do interaction design for the GIMP.

Here's what you need to know about today's best free Linuxes if you're a reseller.