Showing headlines posted by tracyanne

The first public release of Moonlight — the Silverlight on Linux project from open-source leader Miguel de Icaza and his band of coders — is out. De Icaza, Novell Vice President for Developer Technologies, noted the release in a blog post dated May 13. De Icaza noted the release is available to testers in two forms: A no-media-codec-based version and one which will allow users to compile FFMpeg codecs themselves.

Recently, we took action against the Boston Public Library (BPL) demanding that they embargo the use of DRM technology on their collection and create a policy that respects the motto that hangs above their door: "free-to-all." To send a message to all libraries that they too should respect their patrons' freedom, we urge you to sign our open letter. To take action against your local library, we urge you to customize a letter from our template. Please, let us know if you have contacted or written your local library, and please let your friends and fellow patrons know about the open letter. In solidarity, Josh, John, Matt, Peter, and the DRM Elimination Crew.

The serious question here is, I think, hidden a bit behind two emotional red herrings: I dealt with one in my immediate response by quibbing that elitism is characteristic of rich left wingers who want to keep their inferiors inferior, whereas I’m sometimes arrogant but always right - and frequent contributor bportlock promptly called him on the other by pointing out the obvious hypocrisy involved when a Microsoft devotee attacks Unix for structural diversity and instability over time.

Vietnamese users turning to Mozilla’s Firefox to offer then security got a shock yesterday when the company revealed that the Vietnamese language pack for Firefox 2 was contaminated with malicious code and that this had been available for download for three months.

Maybe because of JavaOne and Sun’s well-known concerns about open source profit the idea of proprietary hooks which make people pay for open source software is big again.

Adobe is making a couple of big announcements today that relate to our openness and the openness of the Flash Player. Starting today, there will be no restrictions on the use of the SWF specification or the FLV and F4V specifications that make up video in Flash. Previously, in order to look at the SWF specification you had to sign a licensing agreement not to use it to create competing players but in the interest of expanding the reach of the Flash Player we’re removing all of those restrictions as part of what’s called the Open Screen Project.

Botnet fighters have another tool in their arsenal, thanks to Microsoft. The software vendor is giving law enforcers access to a special tool that keeps tabs on botnets, using data compiled from the 450 million computer users who have installed the Malicious Software Removal tool that ships with Windows.

When I received my super-cool Android PC from Eric Burke he thoughtfully installed a copy of Ubuntu 7.10 for me, so naturally when the new Ubuntu 8.04 (”Hardy Heron”) was released I wanted to upgrade it to the latest and greatest version. “Installation is a snap,” writes Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Ubuntu is user-friendly and ready for the mass market, so this should be easy, right?

So, Microsoft gives customers of now defunct MSN Music a final farewell kick in the teeth by pulling the plug on any future downloads or license activations. Your existing music will work until the authorized PC dies, after which it’s back to the store to repurchase the music. As of August 31st, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers.

Microsoft CEO defends Vista's critics - Now why would he defend Vista's critics? I asked myself. It's interesting how ill at ease he seems while defending Vista against those critics.

The European Commission Says that Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft at el Can't Keep Personal Search Data Longer Than Six Months

Installing software in Linux is nothing like it used to be, but there are still some pitfalls to watch out for. If you follow this little guide, your Linux life will be made simpler and safer. Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

Mandriva today announced the release of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring. The new release includes features such as full support for the Asus Eee, easy synchronisation with Windows Mobile 5 and later, Blackberry, and Nokia devices, a new parental control utility, the Elisa multimedia center, Codeina for easy installation of necessary media codecs, PulseAudio by default and much more. Software updates include KDE 3.5.9 (with 4.0.2 available from the official repositories), GNOME 2.22, OpenOffice.org 2.4, Linux kernel 2.6.24.4, X.org 7.3, Compiz 0.7, and more.

Microsoft’s Windows juggernaut is collapsing as it tries to support 20 years of applications and becomes more complicated by the minute. Meanwhile, Windows has outgrown hardware and customers are pondering skipping Vista to wait for Windows 7. If Windows is going to remain relevant it will need radical changes. That sobering outlook comes courtesy of Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald. Half of a full room of IT managers and executives raised their hands when asked whether Microsoft needed to radically change its approach to Windows. “Windows is too monolithic,” says Silver.

Over at Seeking Alpha, uber-schmoozer Joe Panettieri (left), now running Nine Lives Media, has one of those pieces that makes me go “waah?” Short version: open source is Microsoft’s secret weapon. Billgatus of Borg close-upThis is not another paeon to Firefox or OpenOffice. Panettieri is talking about Microsoft’s Windows Server business, its true crown jewel, and the effort to make sure open source projects work on it. Specifically he’s talking about working with Spikesource, whom I wrote about earlier today, in certifying programs to work with Windows Server. Open source, he says, is how Windows will kill Linux.

We are trying to gauge the level of interest consumers like you have in buying a new computer that features a Linux-based operating system. Help us to stay in touch with the needs of consumers by taking a quick moment to answer the following questions.

9000 computers in Swiss schools have been dual-booting Windows and and Ubuntu for some time now in anticipation of guidelines from the Switzerland’s Department of Public Instruction, whose motto is “Long Live Free Software.” The Tribune de Geneve featured a story on Friday about the elimination of dual boot capabilities in all of these machines and a migration exclusively to Linux (the original story is available here in French or here in English courtesy of Google’s language tools). Beginning this September, all 9000 computers will run only Ubuntu and free and open source software. While officials are happy to be saving money on licensing, the Department of Public instruction largely made the move out of what they considered best practices for student education

Bill Gibson, CIO of the Australian Tax Office, talks to ZDNet Australia about why he doesn’t completely trust open source software; how the ATO handles security and why competing vendors will have to learn to work together. He also discusses new collaboration technologies he’s exploring within his organization, such as instant messaging and video conferencing.

Nate: The flaw you discovered was in Adobe Flash, was this truly a cross-platform attack? Shane: Yeah, there’s a stack issue, where a type is accepting 3 parameters when it is defined to accept 2, possibly some polymorphism/name mangling bug, but either way, this object get’s called through the 3rd invalid/uninitialized memory that winds up jumping wherever we had pre-filled memory to. Nate: So then, do you have exploit code for all three of the operating systems, or are you certain that you could’ve written exploit code given enough time?

Has anyone else noticed an increasing number of Linux newbies who seem to think that Ubuntu is Linux and Linux is Ubuntu?