Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Fighting fragmentationThe biggest obstacle in Java's path to becoming the dominant software architecture for mobile phones has been its fragmentation - both in terms of technical features and the various licensing schemes adopted by its early exponents. The past two years have seen the handset makers and large operators increasingly taking the steering wheel of the mobile Java movement, seeking to create unified platforms and work around the confusion caused by Sun's halfhearted open source approach.

The Beta sessions of the first South African LPI level 3 exams will be taking place in early December in Joburg and Cape Town. The exams can be written free of charge and registration is open to anyone with an LPI level 1 certification.

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Work on porting kdegames applications to SVG and other general improvements continues at a fast pace. Work continues on video support in KPhotoAlbum. Krita gets a new star shape tool. Okular gets support for freehand ink overlays in presentation mode. Kate gets syntax highlighting support for ActionScript and RapidQ code. Mailody continues to mature as an alternative email client. Strigi refactors to allow searching within multiple simultaneous indexes, with preliminary interoperability with Akonadi on the horizon.

NetBSD 3.1 has been released: "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that version 3.1 of the NetBSD operating system is now available in both source and binary form. NetBSD is a general-purpose Open Source operating system that provides interfaces for running a wide range of applications on a big number of different hardware platforms, all from one source tree. NetBSD 3.1 contains many bug fixes, security updates, new drivers and new features like support for Xen3 DomU."

Dell gets honest about its support for the Linux Desktop, A new trendy Linux-based Smartphone is on the way, then we get all excited about the new version of Amarok and talk the heck out of Novell and Microsoft’s new partnership. THEN!..We interview one of the guys from TVease and talk about their awesome Linux based Media center, follow that up with a listener question and so much MORE!

We've known that a major part of the Microsoft/Novell Linux co-operation agreement was about patents. What we didn't know, however, was what technologies would be covered, and what ones wouldn't, by the agreement. Now, thanks to Jason Matusow, Microsoft's director of corporate standards, we now know what's what.

For weeks the rumor mill has been full of guesses about what Oracle's big Linux news, if any, might be. None of them, however, were correct. In the end, Oracle has announced a competing support program for Red Hat Linux. It will be most interesting to see how things will evolve from here. At least nobody is complaining anymore that you can't get support for Linux. Oracle's program is easy to understand: Oracle starts with Red Hat Linux, removes Red Hat trademarks, and then adds Linux bug fixes... Every time Red Hat distributes a new version we will resynchronize with their code. All we add are bug fixes, which are immediately available to Red Hat and the rest of the community.

While gNewSense enjoys its initial introduction as a fully free as in freedom distribution, it seems at the same time an existing GNU/Linux distribution has turned to slavery. Excuse me a moment, while I remove the metaphorical knife from my back before continuing. Never before has the contrast between software freedom and intellectual slavery been more clear thanks to the proud efforts of gNewSense, and the craven ones of Novell.

Web 2.0 words -- from ajax to wiki

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says competing Linux vendors such as Red Hat and Oracle have strong incentives to follow Novell's initiative in reaching a patent liability settlement with Microsoft.

..The two companies also announced an agreement to provide each other's customers with patent coverage for their respective products. These agreements will be in place until at least 2012. Under this new model, customers will realize unprecedented choice and flexibility through improved interoperability and manageability between Windows and Linux.

[Here is your chance to tell Novell what you think of their deal with the devil. - Scott]

The Novell/Microsoft partnership had the desired short-term effect both companies were looking for: Red Hat stock went down, said Red Hat general counsel Mark Webbink in today's interview with SearchOpenSource.com. On the other hand, Webbink said, the hype surrounding the announcements from Oracle, Microsoft and Novell will be short- lived. In the end, Red Hat's high customer satisfaction ratings will allow his company to ride the tide. In one year's time, Webbink said, Red Hat would be the only Linux commercial vendor left standing, Microsoft support or not.

Which has more leverage in the marketplace— A) disclosure or B) secrecy? Which is more supportive of growing markets— A) public infrastructure or B) private platforms? Which is better for inventive entrepreneurs— A) sharing one's great ideas to drive development and adoption, or B) patenting and keeping secret one's"intellectual property"?I'm sure most Linux Journal readers would answer"A" to each of those questions, plus other questions like them. Yet I suspect that most venture capitalists would rather fund the"B" choices.

It has become something of a cliché that Linux has reached a critical point in its development and adoption. However, this is especially true now when we look at what events are lined up to occur in the near future, and particularly in the desktop area.

VoIP and VVoIP solutions provider Adiance Technologies Pvt. Ltd. launches Alpha Version of 1Videoconference — One of the World’s First open source web based video conferencing solution for Asterisk. Developers at Adiance have again succeeded in becoming some of the world's first innovators to stream asterisk audio/ video channels to web browsers, clearing the way for the most advanced video solutions such as, IP TV, video conferencing, video contact center, remote surveillance, video kiosk and video pbx etc.,

Stung by Oracle's entry into its Linux support market space and Novell's partnership with Microsoft, Red Hat has quietly sneaked in an indemnification guarantee for customers against any possible patent infringement claims. Oracle and Microsoft have stung Red Hat with a double blow, both companies providing Linux users with assurances that they will be protected against intellectual property infringement lawsuits resulting from proprietary software blended with open source Linux.

The Intel-Oracle collaboration will call for both companies to work together to ensure timely certification and coordinated delivery of their products into the data center. As part of this work, Intel and Oracle will establish industry-standard benchmarks for the data center for joint publication.

I had my "flying-pigs" moment on seeing the headlines: rapprochement, accord, peace between Linux and Microsoft. But when I try to delve into the details, I see just another incremental move in the competitive world of commercial software, with an extra dimension added by the nature of open source.

I am a linguist by training. Long before I delved into free software and was snagged by the quagmire of marketing, I pondered the marvels of morphology, the grimness of grammar and the splendor of semantics. It is only natural then that my wrangling criticism of industry-speak, in both technical and literary modes, is informed by ingrained linguistic sensibilities, descriptive and proscriptive. Given my background, I find it vexing when open source is used as a verb.

OSS in the real worldComment Right at the end of OSCon in September, I got the opportunity to harangue Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth about the support vacuum distros such as his create. He didn't have an answer. OK, I was putting him on the spot, but I don't think he'd have done much better if he'd had notice of the question. Frankly, I don't think there is an answer.