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NewsVac: News from around the Web
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OpenOffice.org Beta Fails the Office 2007 Test
18 minutes ago
I'm not embarrassed to admit it: I'm a big fan of Office 2007. I think Microsoft got a lot right with its latest release, starting with the ribbon interface and including any number of tweaks and improvements that make my day easier. I can't say I'm thrilled about the price of the suite, however; nor the countless SKUs to choose from. Plus, I'm also a big Linux fan. That's why I always try to keep my eye on the current state of OpenOffice.org, the open source office suite founded by Sun Microsystems. -
VIA Gives 16,434 Lines Of OSS Code
1 hour, 18 minutes ago
Back at the Linux Foundation Austin Summit, VIA had announced plans to develop a new open-source initiative in a similar fashion what AMD has been doing. However, in the weeks following that they haven't done much for the open-source community. As was highlighted in VIA's Open-Source Efforts A Bluff?, their Linux website just contains two binary drivers right now and not much of anything else -- not even bug tracking software or a mailing list. This has upset some, but fortunately VIA has stepped up to the plate and shown they are actually doing more than a media blitz. -
How one vendor learned to stop worrying (about open source) and love Microsoft
2 hours, 18 minutes ago
Aras Corp. was a small, struggling software maker that stirred up a hornet's nest early last year, when it made a pair of seemingly contradictory decisions. First, the Andover, Mass.-based company made its expensive — we're talking up to a million dollars for a single license — product life-cycle management (PLM) software available on a free and open-source basis. Second, rather than trying to curry favor with the mainstream open-source community by making even a vague commitment to port its software to Linux, Aras said outright that it would continue developing only for Windows. And instead of distributing its wares through a mechanism such as the GNU General Public License, the company decided to use one of Microsoft's so-called shared-source licenses, which at the time had yet to be accepted by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) as legitimate open-source licenses. The reaction, unsurprisingly, wasn't favorable. -
SaaS, Open Source and the Migration of Burden
3 hours, 18 minutes ago
Last week, I recorded a podcast with Dennis Byron, analyst at eBizQ. Dennis wanted to talk about how open source is the fundamental enabler of Software as a Service, an idea he started writing about after a conversation with some guy named Jim Zemlin. ;-) -
MySQL Remains 'Fully Functional and Open Source'
4 hours, 18 minutes ago
When Sun announced it would offer certain plugins and features for enterprise customers only, and maybe even make them closed-source, the open source community was up in arms. It seems that MySQL and Sun have listened to the criticism, as these plans are now off the table. In fact, these plans did not originate within Sun in the first place. -
House Democrats Try Again With Net Neutrality Bill
4 hours, 48 minutes ago
Two House Democrats today introduced another bill that would prohibit Internet service providers (ISPs) from slowing or degrading the delivery of some content over their networks. -
NASA, SGI Plan Petaflop Computer Breakthrough
5 hours, 18 minutes ago
The race to petaflop supercomputers is heating up, with the latest entry coming from NASA, Intel and SGI. The trio announced plans to build what will be a petaflop-capable supercomputer by next year, and up to 10 petaflops (define) by 2012. -
Panel PCs support PoE, Linux
5 hours, 48 minutes ago
Contendo Systems announced two flat-panel PCs that run Linux or Windows CE, and can use PoE (power over Ethernet). The ITP-070 and ITP-104 feature touchscreen displays, microSD storage, sealed aluminum cases, and Marvell PXA270 or PXA320 processors running at up to 806MHz. -
Sun demo's RIA tools on Android
6 hours, 18 minutes ago
At this year's JavaOne conference, Sun Microsystems demonstrated its JavaFX technology for creating Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). The Linux-based, GPL-licensable technology will first appear for desktop operating systems (OSes) this Fall, says Sun, with JavaFX Mobile and JavaFX TV due in Spring 2009. -
Article explores Linux hot-patching utility
6 hours, 48 minutes ago
LWN.net has published an article about ksplice, a hot-patching utility for the Linux kernel that was developed by an MIT grad student. Ksplice lets users make changes to running kernel code -- for example to apply a security patch -- without rebooting the system or interrupting services running on it. -
Embedded Linux is doomed. DOOOMED!
7 hours, 18 minutes ago
In an opinion piece for Embedded.com, Green Hills Software CEO Dan O'Dowd has resumed his crusade against embedded Linux -- with a new twist. O'Dowd argues that recent marketing by commercial Linux distro vendors MontaVista and Wind River prove that they agree that embedded Linux is "chaos." -
Skype Withdraws Appeal Case and GPL Wins
8 hours, 18 minutes ago
After last year's case, when the high district court of Munich, Germany, issued an injunction against Skype for selling the SMC WSKP 100 Linux-based WiFi VoIP phone, the Luxembourg-based company seems to be plagued with legal problems once more, this time related to the violation of the GPL license. After the initial GPL violation, Skype provided a flier with the URL for the source code with the package and now they decided to make an appeal on the court's decision... and they've lost! -
Hector Ruiz Plans to Sell AMD's Consumer Division
8 hours, 48 minutes ago
Advanced Micro Devices CEO Hector Ruiz said during the meeting with the company's shareholders that he saw more changes coming as part of the restructuring policy. He also admitted that AMD had been a poor performer on the CPU market during 2007, but the new restructuring plans would make AMD "consistently" profitable. -
FreeRTOS - A Mini Real Time Kernel
9 hours, 18 minutes ago
If you're having trouble getting Linux to run on that 8-bit processor with 32KB of memory don't despair, there are open-source alternatives. FreeRTOS is an open source real time kernel that has been ported to a number of microprocessors. The website lists ports to over 40 different processor/compiler combinations. -
Multi-Pointer X Going Mainline
9 hours, 48 minutes ago
In our article earlier this week looking at the status of X.Org 7.4, one of the features originally planned for integration in this X Server release was MPX, or Multi-Pointer X. While it's been in development for over two years and has been at an experimental state, it's been featured in popular YouTube videos as this is the technology on Linux that allows multiple keyboards and mice to be attached to a single system and MPX allows these input devices to function independently on the same windowing system. For those of you interested in this desktop technology, it's been announced that MPX will finally be merged into the mainline X.Org tree later this month. - More News
Linux.com : Features
Meet Karl Paetzel, HP marketing manager for Linux and open source (video)
Karl Paetzel is quoted frequently about Hewlett-Packard's ever-increasing Linux and open source efforts, which now include open source licensing detection and governance tools. Here's a chance to see and hear him a little more "up close and personal" than in a traditional text interview.
Review: Hardy Heron converts an Ubuntu skeptic
I have to disclose that I have never been a real fan of Ubuntu. I've tried it about every release and had more than my share of issues with it. Ubuntu 8.04 was released last month, and the first reviews mostly spoke of how nice this version was, so I downloaded the i386 version to test. Sigh -- it's rough when you have to change a long-standing opinion.
Ubuntu Open Week unites community and developers
What's the next best thing for Linux users who can't attend an open source community conference in person? Online workshops like last week's Ubuntu Open Week, where upwards of 300 participants per session showed up to learn more about the popular Linux distribution, the community, and its teams.
Using a wiki for FOSS application documentation
For a lot of programmers, writing an application is fun, but writing its manual is not. Adding new features, refining the product, and responding to users' input are all more rewarding than writing instructions on how to use the software. However, good documentation is necessary to have happy, informed users who can contribute meaningfully to future development. A few months ago, Gilbert Ashley, the author of src2pkg (Slackware's "magic package maker") invited me and two other people to help him manage the user documentation for his program. The process we used to create the src2pkg wiki may be a useful example for other free and open source software (FOSS) application developers.
Book review: The power of group sharing
Clay Shirky's book on what information technology is doing to our world, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations, has important things to say to anyone interested in open source software (OSS). His thoughts on the evolving effects of the technological revolution we are all living in make for a fun way to spend a few hours.
Ubuntu 8.04: Upgrade or clean install?
Which path should you follow? Should you take advantage of Ubuntu's package manager and use it to upgrade your system to the latest 8.04 Hardy Heron release, or should you download a CD or DVD ISO image and do a clean install? Common wisdom says that doing a clean install is the better, safer course of action. There may be a little extra work involved configuring everything once the latest and greatest is installed, but that's nothing compared to the pain of an update gone wrong, according to traditional thinking. But that cautious approach may no longer be necessary.
Synchronize your databases with SqlSync
SqlSync lets you compare two databases to see which tuples have been added, removed, and changed. You can also use SqlSync to make one database a clone of another and maintain its contents to be that way. One benefit of using SqlSync to perform synchronization is that you can perform heterogeneous syncs -- for example, from MySQL to PostgreSQL.
Tomboy note-taker keeps you organized
I use Tomboy, an open source notetaking app, to cull and organize the hundreds of bits of information I track, and to prioritize it on to-do lists on the fly. When we first reviewed Tomboy 0.3.5, it had some obvious flaws. The project has had a number of updates since then, and the newest version, 0.10.0, really makes the grade.
Interview with Bluewhite64 creator Attila Craciun
Slackware Linux has stood strong for more than a decade by refusing to compromise. There was a time when people used to say, "If you want to learn Linux and learn it well, give Slackware a try." Attila Craciun, a Romanian software developer and Linux enthusiast, has ported the Slackware tree to the AMD64 architecture to create the Bluewhite64 distro. We spoke with him to find out about Bluewhite64, where it came from, and where it's going.
Creative Commons promotes standard license expression
If Creative Commons (CC) has any say in the matter, the Web will soon have a standard machine-readable notation for licenses. Named the Creative Commons Rights Expression Language (ccREL), the notation has been under development for the last few years, partly with the cooperation of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3). It is described in a paper by four Creative Commons employees and published by Communia, a European site that explores the relationship between technology and the public domain. Creative Commons plans future presentations of ccREL, and is also actively explaining the need for it -- which is what CC's Chief Technology Officer, Nathan Yergler, was doing when Linux.com caught up with him at the recent Open Web Conference in Vancouver.
Play multimedia content with style using Entertainer
Every major operating system has more than one media center solution for users who can't spend a day without watching a movie or listening to music. In Linux we're all familiar with MythTV and Freevo, two media center applications that are so appreciated they even have got their own distributions. Freevo is highly configurable, and Freevo 2 SNV builds look promising. MythTV has everything a personal video recorder needs, from scheduled recordings to weather plugins. The thing is, many people need a media center application just to watch Xvid files, listen to their favorite music, and watch family pictures on their television. If this is the case for you, give Entertainer a try.
FusionCharts Free: Cross-platform charts that rock
It has been said that the best things in life are free. While this isn't always true, it applies in this case. If you've struggled with GNUplot, JPgraph or other charting applications, FusionCharts Free is a breath of fresh air. Have you dreamed of finding a charting and graphing application that is simple to install, easy to configure, and drop-dead gorgeous? Stop dreaming and download a copy of FusionCharts Free. You'll be producing professional quality charts and graphs in no time.
Meet Inna Kuznetsova, IBM's Linux Strategy Director (video)
I always ask people who market (as opposed to develop) GNU/Linux and open source products or services what Linux distribution they use on their own computers. More often than not, the answer is along the lines of, "I'm a marketing person so I use Windows. The techies use Linux." Inna, on the other hand, uses not one, not two, but three different Linux distributions on her home computers. When she tells an IBM client Linux is the way to go, she obviously means it, and this surely makes a difference -- even if it's only a subtle one -- in her work.
Free Flash community reacts to Adobe Open Screen Project
From the presentation, you might imagine that Adobe's announcement of the Open Screen Project was major news. According to the news release, the project's goal is "to enable a consistent runtime environment" by relaxing some restrictions on the Flash format and releasing some specifications. However, in the free Flash community, the small group of developers dedicated to producing non-proprietary Flash tools, the reaction to the news was polite at best -- and serves as a much-needed reality check to the over-enthusiastic announcement.
What can you do with a second Ethernet port?
Purchase a new PC or motherboard soon, and the chances are good that it will come with two built-in network interfaces -- either two Ethernet jacks or one Ethernet and one Wi-Fi. Tossing in a second adapter is an inexpensive way for the manufacturer to add another bullet point to the product description -- but what exactly are you supposed to do with it? If you are running Linux, you have several alternatives.
OfflineIMAP makes messages and attachments available locally
OfflineIMAP allows you to read your email while you are not connected to the Internet. This is great when you are traveling and really need an attachment from a message but cannot connect to the Internet.
Tim Bray provides a bridge between Sun and developers
"I'm a genuine old fart," says Tim Bray as he looks back at his three decades in computing. Widely known for his standards work on XML and the Atom syndication format, at an age when many former developers have moved entirely into management, he seems to have found a niche that takes advantage of his experience. As director of Web technologies at Sun Microsystems, his job is to keep current with Web and general programming and to encourage adaptation of new developments within the corporation. At the recent Open Web Vancouver conference, Bray talked to Linux.com about how he fills his role at Sun, and the trends he sees in computing.
As the SCO rolls
Reality, as good writers know, is sometimes stranger than fiction. SCO's recent performance in the U.S. District Court in Utah is a perfect example. With years to prepare, SCO executives made some remarkable statements in their attempt to show that SCO, not Novell, owns Unix's copyright.
Korn -- an extended shell
Everyone knows what a Linux shell is -- you open up a Linux terminal window (such as Konsole or xterm), type in some commands, and there you are, using your Linux shell. Write your commands to a file, make it executable, run it, and you're a shell programmer. But did you know that there are different shells that you can use, and that each shell operates in a slightly different way? My personal favorite is the Korn shell; by the end of this article, it may be your favorite as well.
Four multimedia plugins make WordPress more fun
WordPress plugins for multimedia can make your blog more interesting. These four plugins make it possible to automatically generate and configure multimedia, making your site a richer experience for your visitors and for you.
