Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

ajaxWrite could easily become the victim of inflated expectations. The first of a series of online applications by Ajax13, a new company headed by Michael Robertson, the founder of Linspire, ajaxWrite was announced last month with a string of exaggerated marketing claims. Moreover, ajaxWrite's FAQ describes it as a beta, when its features seem alpha-quality at best. Surrounded by such hype, the current release of ajaxWrite risks being dismissed out of hand, instead of being seen for what it is: a basic foundation for a fresh entry into the field of online applications, a rapidly evolving but unproven area of development.[ED: The articles writer is not very impressed but I think it is pretty cool - Scott]

A senior Novell executive says Microsoft's recent decision to support two versions of Linux in its virtualization software is a ringing endorsement of open source in the enterprise. “It's a tremendous message from them,” said Novell Canada CIO Ross Chevalier.

The company reverses its decision to turn control of the free Fedora operating system over to the Fedora Foundation. (Linux-Watch)

Linus Torvalds first released the Linux Kernel in September of 1991 under a very restrictive license requiring that the source code must always be available, and that no money could ever be made off of it. A few months later, he switched to theGPL, or GNU General Public License, the license that has been used for the Linux kernel source code ever since. A recent thread on thelkml discussed some of the grey areas of legality where it's not explicitly clear what the GPL allows. Alan Cox [interview] was one of many kernel developers to offer some insights:

"The boundary of the GPL is what is called a 'derivative work'. This is the basic concept in law used by copyright and essentially asks 'is this work created in such a way that it is based on the original work in some meaningful fashion'. Its a complex area of law and only a lawyer can give definitive answers."

"The simple 'application for Linux' case is clear. The simple 'kernel modification' case is also clear. In the middle is the vague area that is for lawyers."

Behold the OQO model 01+ tablet edition palmtop. It's a self-contained mobile PC system in a 4.9x3.4x0.9-inch metallic case, tipping the scales at a minuscule 14 ounces. If you need a fully functional PC at the absolute extreme end of the portability scale, this is the machine for you.

The German developers of Kubuntu – Ubuntu's KDE distribution – are formally protesting Canonical's commitment to the project, taking down the German Kubuntu site and sending demands and requests to Canonical through public mailing lists.

The Тhird Install Fest 2006 organised by the Free Software Macedonia will took place in the Public Technique premises in Skopje this weekend (April 15-16) from 11:00 to 21:00. Apart from installing free software the visitors can attend lectures, participate in workshops, discussions and more.

rPath is a young company that is rapidly becoming a leader in package management innovation. At a time when traditional package management systems such as APT and dpkg or Yum and RPM are adding elements such as signed packages and plugins, and projects such as Autopackage and Zero Install are focusing on easy-to-use interfaces and giving ordinary users the ability to install desktop applications, rPath takes a top-down approach and focuses on simplifying release management.

Welcome to this year's 15th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. Martin Zobel-Helas [1]sent out an update of the [2]preparations for an updated [3]stable distribution. When this newsletter is released, the Debian project has [4]elected a new project leader. Congratulations.

BOSTON, MASS. -- Last Friday, after the LinuxWorld Conference& Expo, I sat in on the fifth Fedora User and Developer Conference (FUDCon) at the Boston University School of Management. Some of the buzz in the halls concerned Red Hat's announcement of the end of the Fedora Foundation (about which more in a moment), but there were some good talks too.

For those of you who don't know (and I'm sure there are many), Gentoo/BSD is a relatively unheard-of project with aims of merging both Gentoo Linux and the BSD systems respectively into one operating system. The project, which is sponsored by Gentoo Linux, has goals of creating a hybrid operating system using BSD underlyings, such as the kernel and system libraries, with Gentoo's portage system (package manager), administration facilities and design principles integrated on top.

Comment VMware has announced it is making its virtual machine file format freely available, with no license or royalties.

Great care has been taken to ensure interoperability with other office software that supports OpenDocument, most notably OpenOffice.org. We acknowledge, however, that the ODF support and interoperability is not yet perfect. We hope to be able to quickly identify and fix the incompatibilities that do exist in the upcoming 1.5.1 and 1.5.2 bugfix releases.

Firefox users can now immediately see a trusted search rating displayed next to each search result when using the Google search engine built into the Mozilla Firefox browser.

After the official announcement Monday morning, investment firm Goldman Sachs issued a statement praising Red Hat's move to buy JBoss for $350 million. The New York investment firm acknowledged it would come as a blow to many of Red Hat's Linux partners as well as operating system rivals Novell and Microsoft but asserted it's a good risk.

Australia's Academic and Research Network (AARNet) has launched a major upgrade of its mirror service that provides an Australian site from which users can download the most popular open source software.

Linux advocates are familiar with the refrain that would-be switchers in the graphic arts have to rely on Adobe Photoshop under Windows because it can do things that the GIMP can't. An important but altogether different hurdle is the installed (and paid-for) base of often expensive third-party Photoshop plugins. But a solution to that problem might be easier than you think.

To some, Dell marches to the beat of Intel and Microsoft drums, dutifully following their research and development plans. But to hear Kevin Kettler tell it, the PC maker often takes its own lead.

Welcome to our issue number 41 of Fedora Weekly News.

Naturally, Linux support was the thread through almost everything, but the event was about a very broad range of current topics and trends, including infrastructure, hardware, applications, open source, grid computing, virtualization, security, mobile, and many others. It was visually clear that these are all interdependent, and that Linux is here to stay.