Showing headlines posted by azerthoth

This decision finally explains how U.S. courts should analyze open source and open content licenses. The bottom line for us is that copyright law provides the remedies but contract law provides the analytical tools. [This pdf file was posted to the OSI license-discuss mailing list, with permission to rebublish -Az]

Debian GNU/Linux is now 15 years old -- which isn't too shabby for an operating system. Yet though Debian is still alive and kicking, I'm not so sure it holds the market position that it should at this point in its maturity.

Today's IT managers face tough choices. PCs that run fine today have an uncertain upgrade path, now that Microsoft has chosen to discontinue Windows XP. Upgrade costs associated with Vista, coupled with the ever-escalating cost of application licenses, make switching to desktop Linux an increasingly attractive option.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom met with jailed IT administrator Terry Childs Monday, convincing him to hand over the administrative passwords to the city's multimillion dollar wide area network.

Is the true open source revolution finally coming to college campuses this fall? Many universities are big users of open source, and Internet resources. But when it comes time to deliver the goods â?? the coursework â?? they order textbooks and throw their students the bill.

The cheap answer is “as good as you make it.” The real answer is more complex. As our friend Big Money Matt notes today, open source vendors are not really selling software, just support, and they have an image problem.

[There is a poll attached to this one. -Az]

Well, the odds were good, but I know I never actually thought about it. Most people would recognize LAX as the three letter airport identifier for Los Angeles International or CHI for Chicago. So what is one of our (computer geek) favorite TLA (three letter anacronym), why GNU of course. In this case, as an airport identifier GNU is Goodnews Bay, Alaska.

I hate to go all Bond villain on Mr. Ballmer, but the question of whether Microsoft talks to open source, about open source, or even engages open source is just not relevant any more.

Judge Kimball rules in SCO v. Novell! Here it is [PDF] at last! I haven't read it yet myself, just quickly skimmed it enough to see that SCO owes Novell some money ($2,547,817 plus interest probably -- SCO can oppose -- from the Sun agreement) and it had no right to enter into the Sun agreement, but it did have the right to enter into the Microsoft and other SCOsource agreements. Requests for attorneys fees are separate, and that part comes next. Then appeals. I know you want to see it immediately, so let's read it together, and after it's clear, I'll come back and explain some more.

If your interested in having the speed and stability of a Gentoo based system with the improved ease of use and management of modern desktop, perhaps better than most. Also having the Out of the box functionality that so many users crave with little to no mucking about with things after installation, give Sabayon a try.

A free and simple piece of open source software is helping manage the spread of disease in developing countries. The Open Medical Record System (OpenMRS) is providing countries, such as South Africa, with an online patient medical record system.

Make no mistakes, this is not another undocumented "feature". This is a breach of public trust. Your browser is tracking EXACTLY what you have told it not to track or retain. I love using Firefox, but this revelation has set me to taking a serious look at other broswers for personal use, as should anyone who is concerned with personal privacy.

Steve Ballmer finally gets to join his buddy Bill Gates in the "food target club" after a visit to the Hungarian University of Economy. A guy (grad student? just some dude?) stood up, yelled "Give back the money of the taxpayers" in an accent Ballmer probably couldn't understand, and started throwing eggs at him.

Want to install a DVD release of Linux but dont have a DVD drive or recorder? Your CD/DVD drive has died but you still want to install a new or updated version of Linux? You can, and you can do it all from your hard drive without burning a single CD or DVD.

A handy little set of scripts for KDE that puts video conversion for ipod/psp just a right click away.

Apple has been battling renegade Linux hackers, upgrading the iPhone's firmware every time they hack into the device. "It has been a little bit of an arms war," said Saurik, aka Jay Freeman. Will things change now that Apple has opened up its SDK to developers, welcoming the gaming community and targeting the enterprise space?

While not directly related to Linux or Open Source, this is the man whose vision predicted so much of our current world. His visions of future have directly and indirectly shaped the technological playground that we take for granted today. Men like him show us not only where we have been, but where we can go if we only set our minds to it.

The latest beta version of Sabayon Linux has been released to the general public. Included in this release is the new Gentoo compatible binary distribution system and GUI package manager (Spritz) for it, which finally brings Sabayon the ability to do a rolling release instead of a static release for those not intimately familiar with the portage system.

The organisers of the CanSecWest security conference are talking about giving attendees to this year's event a prize for hacking the two platforms, and another shot at the Mac OS, to "see which one goes first", said Dragos Ruiu, the principal organiser of CanSecWest.

This whole cloud-computer effort makes sense for Google to pursue, if it hasn't already grown its own cloud OS in secret. Google already has server-based versions of Google Docs, which duplicate the functions of Microsoft's Office software. However, the Google Apps aren't always as full-featured or heavy-duty as Microsoft's software.