Showing headlines posted by Sander_Marechal

"Why free software and Apple's iPhone don't mix" is the second article in our series describing the threats posed by Apple's iPhone to free software. Apple has imposed TiVo-like restrictions that prevent users from having freedom, and developers from writing free software. These restrictions argue for more developers to use the GPLv3 as their license of choice, in order to block the threat of Apple stripping freedoms away from free software. People aren't going to hear about these restrictions from the Apple marketing machine, and reviewers so far have bought into the hype and ignored their significance.

When you think about it, it's surprising how many programming tasks don't require the use of floating point numbers. If you're an embedded systems programmer, you'd probably get fired for using "double" in a C program. If you write PHP or JavaScript, quick, do they even support floating point? One language that doesn't support it is Bash, but let's not let that stop us.

KDE 4.1 is finally out today, as you probably already know, and it comes with a lot of innovations for the Linux desktop. KDE 4 is the next generation of the popular K Desktop Environment, which seeks to fulfill the need for a powerful yet easy-to-use desktop, for both personal and enterprise computing. The new version provides increased stability over the first KDE 4 version and more eye candy! So, if you don't want to download an openSUSE-based KDE 4.1 Live CD or to wait until a stable distribution is released with KDE 4.1.0 as the default desktop, we will teach you how to install it on your existing Ubuntu 8.04 or 8.04.1 LTS desktop.

Not too long ago, Marc Fleury went public with his newest venture, an open source home automation "project" (not yet officially a company) called OpenRemote. Marc describes it as "an open community in the Home Automation or Domotics space", that "promote[s] open standards, open collaboration, and open implementations in the field."

Whenever I write about software liabilities, many people ask about free and open source software. If people who write free software, like PasswordSafe, are forced to assume liabilities, they will simply not be able to and free software would disappear. Don't worry, they won't be. The key to understanding this is that this sort of contractual liability is part of a contract, and with free software -- or free anything -- there's no contract.

Recently Greg Kroah Hartman showed some very interesting Linux kernel development stats. I decided to do some too and the result are 5 cool things you probably didn’t know about the kernel code ;-) These aren’t anything I’ve seen so far about the kernel.

KDE 4.1 was finally released to the public today. After all the controversy since the release of KDE 4.0, I'm happy to announce that KDE 4.1 simply rocks. The introduction of KDE 4 marked the introduction of the new Plasma desktop, which provides not only the panel that you interact with, but also widgets (or "plasmoids") that extended the desktop further. In KDE 4.1, one of the most welcome changes to Plasma is the return of multiple and resizable panels from KDE 3.

"Microsoft is becoming a sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation [ASF]. This sponsorship will enable the ASF to pay administrators and other support staff so that ASF developers can focus on writing great software," said Sam Ramji, senior director of platform strategy at Microsoft. He announced the move on Friday in a speech at the Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon. Ramji also noted Microsoft's support of Apache on the software company's Port 25 blog.

Microsoft has installed a software development laboratory in the Bandwidth Barn innovation hub that is currently the only one that offers open source developers the opportunity to test their software running on a proprietary system. Called the Microsoft Innovation Centre and Interoperability Laboratory, it will combine various software approaches to assist in developing solutions for various sectors within the local economy. The initiative is also aimed at start-ups and incubators that want to take their products and services to market in the near future.

A company is now selling what it calls the "world's cheapest laptop," which, at $130, is not a bad deal if you can bear some hardware limitations. The Impulse NPX-9000 laptop has a 7-in. screen, a 400-MHz processor, 128MB of RAM and 1GB of flash storage -- but you need to buy 100 of them.

The other day when I was in Vancouver and using the XO while sitting in a nice café someone started asking me about the machine and the current state of OLPC. When I mentioned that Give 1 Get 1 was going to make a comeback in autumn the person asked me whether I would recommend him donating this time â??round since he missed out back in December 2007. I have to say that I scrambled for a couple of seconds before being able to give him a real answer.

Products Editor James Gray recently sat down for a virtual gab fest with Håkon Wium Lie Chief Technology Officer of Opera. They discussed Opera 9.5, Opera's history, why Linux users should choose Opera and much more.

The trial of Terry Childs, the network administrator who locked down the city of San Francisco's network when threatened with dismissal from his job, has taken another turn, with around 150 usernames and passwords for the San Francisco city government's VPN being exposed to public view. The accounts, associated with the mayor's office, the district attorney's office, the police department and other city agencies, were tendered as an exhibit in the court case.

We at InfoWorld are sorry to announce that Ed Foster, InfoWorld's venerable The Gripe Line blogger died this past Saturday. We are all saddened by Ed's passing but grateful for his 15 years of consumer advocacy in the field of technology products through The Gripe Line column and blog. Ed has contributed to InfoWorld and the technology-using community at large in many ways during his 20-year association with us, as a reporter, writer, editor, and columnist at InfoWorld. We will all miss his passion and professionalism.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta 2 is available in preparation for an official September release. Here are some quick first impressions of the Writer word-processor program. While I was hoping that Writer 3 would adopt a Word-like interface, with its tabbed menus, but this is not the case. Although the icons have been updated, the overall look and feel of OO.org is not radically different from its predecessor. Nevertheless, you can now import Word 2007 documents into OO.org 3, which is critical to its continued success and relevance.

We donâ??t normally start tracking the Ubuntu releases until they hit about the Alpha 3 stage; after all the big software updates have made it in, any theme work is mostly done and the final release is starting to take shape. Well, that happened yesterday: Ubuntu 8.10 â??Intrepid Ibexâ?? Alpha 3 was released. The first thing you notice looking at the Ubuntu desktop is the new themeâ?¦ itâ??s trendy, dark, refined and overall a pretty different look for the desktop and just desktops in general.

During OSCON last week, I met with Canonical's Pete Goodall to discuss the company's strategy for Ubuntu in the mobile market. Although he could not tell me any specifics regarding plans for upcoming Ubuntu-based subnotebook products, the word is that good stuff is coming soon. He seemed very enthusiastic about emerging opportunities for Ubuntu in the mobile space. Goodall demonstrated the Ubuntu Netbook Remix on an Atom-based subnotebook that he had brought with him to the event.

Canonical, the company behind the Linux distro Ubuntu, has collaborated with software distributor ValuSoft to sell a boxed version of Ubuntu 8.04 into Best Buy retail stores. Is $19.99 a better price point for Ubuntu than $0? Now, on the face of it that sounds like a good deal, and on the whole it is, but I can't help but feel that targeting the kind of people who might be looking for an OS for $20 at Best Buy might not be the best thing that Canonical could be doing.

Well, last week started out with a bang thanks to Monday's announcement of the new, Debian-powered CherryPal PC. That the low-power machine runs Linux is, of course, good news. The twist is that users won't even see it, because the entire user interface is presented through Firefox. Slashdot and LXer immediately picked up the news, and most bloggers seemed to be skeptical. Generating far more heated discussion on the blogs, meanwhile, was a recent post from ZDNet's Jeremy Allison arguing that Linux needs more "haters." In his article, Allison points to the Linux Hater's Blog, which asserts, "We hate Linux. And you should too."

Open source software and open standards were high on the agenda at the opening of the GovTech 2008 conference in Durban this morning. During her keynote address, minister of public service and administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi highlighted open source software and open standards as key components of efficient IT in government.