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NewsVac: News from around the Web
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Open Source 101: An Executive Guide to Open Source
3 hours, 18 minutes ago
The success of open-source software has been remarkable, forcing even the largest commercial software vendors such as IBM , Hewlett-Packard , Oracle and Microsoft to acknowledge its influence and, in some cases, adopt its methods. It seems likely that most companies with information technology departments of any size are familiar with — if not actively using — open-source products on a daily basis. -
Simplifying MySQL Backups with Zmanda Recovery Manager
6 hours, 48 minutes ago
MySQL has become a core component of many data management solutions. Zmanda Recovery Manager (ZRM) provides a comprehensive open-source solution for backup and recovery of MySQL databases. In this review, we've evaluated ZRM for MySQL Enterprise edition version 2.2. -
Ulteo unveils the first Open Source virtual desktop, providing businesses with quicker, cheaper deployment and easier applications management
20 hours, 48 minutes ago
Following its commitment to desktop virtualization solutions, Ulteo, an Open Virtual Desktop Infrastructure company, announced today that they were releasing the first installable version of their Open Virtual Desktop solution for enterprises. Delivering faster deployment times and ease of management for the IT department, this first release can be integrated easily into an existing professional Linux or Windows IT environment. The solution can be up and running in a few minutes, delivering rich desktop applications to corporate users. -
The Individualism of Open Source
1 day ago
When most people hear about open source software, they think of charity, altruism, and "free stuff." At a deeper level, however, the open source movement is often highly individualistic. -
VIA Publishes 2D/3D Documentation, Partners With OpenChrome
1 day, 2 hours ago
Earlier this year VIA announced they wanted to join the open-source bandwagon by establishing an open-source driver development initiative, releasing documentation and source-code, and to better engage with the Linux community at large. They have made a few small steps over the past few months, but today they have made their largest open-source contribution yet by releasing four programming documentation guides that cover the video, 2D, and 3D programming for their Chrome 9 graphics processor. In addition, they are now partnering with the community-spawned OpenChrome developers. -
Planning Extensions in TYPO3
1 day, 3 hours ago
In this article we will discuss why planning an extension is important and how to plan an extension. Planning issues related to web development are covered in depth in many specialized books. Here, we will cover planning only with regard to TYPO3 extensions. -
New Open Source Database Offerings from Ingres and Sun
1 day, 4 hours ago
This has been a big week on the open source database front. Yesterday, Ingres launched version 9.2 of its database, which you can download here. And today, Sun Microsystems announced the new version 5.1 of MySQL, with a near-final candidate release downloadable here, and a final version expected on December 6th. -
How Low Can Public Open Source Companies Go?
1 day, 5 hours ago
While I remain in agreement with many observers who see the economic downturn as potentially very positive for open source, I have to wonder whether we're going to see some of the leadership open source companies swallowed up in all the financial carnage. Red Hat, Novell, and Sun Microsystems are all companies that I'd like to see continue their open source leadership without the meddling of huge corporate parents, but one has to wonder how cheap these companies can get in the public market before their independence is threatened. -
85% Of The Enterprises Use Open Source? Math Is Right But Needs To Show Work.
1 day, 6 hours ago
The Gartner numbers seem positive, and encouraging -- especially in light of the acknowledgement that the remaining 15% are planning to move toward more open source software in the near future. Then Gartner drops the bad news -- cases that Moody says don't end badly (they are usually remedied with a polite phone call) or even happen terribly frequently (12 or so cases a year) -- that 69% of companies have no formal method of evaluating and cataloging their open source applications, leaving them at risk of intellectual property liabilities. -
Boxee Media Center App Gets $4 Million in Funding
1 day, 8 hours ago
A few days ago, in a roundup of open source media center applications, I covered Boxee. It's an open source mashup of a sophisticated media center application that can run and organize videos, photos and more on the Mac, AppleTV, Windows (soon) and Linux, and a social networking application. I mentioned that it's one of the most compelling media center applications I've seen, and it appears I'm not alone. Boxee has announced that it has secured $4 million in first round funding, led by Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital. Here's why I think Boxee is going to become a household name. -
Laid Off? Top Ways to Find Opportunities in Open Source
1 day, 9 hours ago
While it may seem illogical that making free contributions to free products is a good idea when the pink slip pops up, they make some good arguments for how it can improve both job and pay prospects. You'll find some good ways to improve your odds here. -
Open Source is Good in a Recession, but Thought is Still Required
1 day, 11 hours ago
While I agree wholeheartedly that open source software is a great option for businesses (regardless of economic climate), there is more than cost to consider. "Just switching everything to Linux" likely will save money in the long term, but it might not be right to do, right now. -
Open Source Business Cluster launched in New South Wales
2 days, 4 hours ago
On the 7th November 2008, at the Australian Google Headquarters in Sydney, New South Wales, an Open Source Business Cluster was announced. The aim of the cluster is to more effectively market, deliver and provide support for Open Source technology to business and government agencies. -
Mounting Xen virtual machine storage on physical hosts
2 days, 9 hours ago
If a Xen virtual machine fails to start up, having its storage back end-mounted to your Xen server physical host is beneficial. An expert explains how to do so if you use a device as your storage back end. -
PHP Zend Framework 1.7 adds Adobe support
2 days, 10 hours ago
The open source Zend Framework 1.7 is now available expanding the PHP framework to work better with Adobe Flex and AIR applications. Adobe and Zend announced back in September that they would be collaborating for Zend Framework and now they've delivered. - More News
Linux.com : Open Source
The tanking economy and OSS
The economy is falling as fast as temperatures in November. Recession seems certain, if it's not already here. The stock market's performance resembles Disney World's Space Mountain roller coaster. And every open source vendor, every Linux project, will be touched in one way or another.
Bug Labs creates open source Lego for software engineers
Most of the new breed of open source hardware centers on specific products. Bug Labs is taking a different approach. Instead of developing particular devices, Bug Labs' goal is to provide a Lego-like collection of open source hardware and software that customers can use to build their own devices. According to CEO Peter Semmelhack, the result should be not only a higher degree of innovation, but also a forerunner of the hardware business of the future.
Ace Suares: A big Linux advocate on a small island (video)
The word "big" has two meanings here. Ace Suares is not only a big-time GNU/Linux and FOSS advocate, but he is close to 2.5 meters tall and built like a football lineman. He lives on the island of Curacao in the Netherland Antilles, where he and his wife run a small Web design and hosting firm that (of course) runs Linux servers. But trying to convert other IT people on Curacao to the FOSS cause has not been easy, and has caused Ace plenty of frustration over the years. Somehow, he keeps going; arranging conferences, holding LPI Certification classes, and generally talking up Linux to his clients, friends, and even to strangers whose businesses or government agencies might be made more efficient by using FOSS instead of proprietary software. Now we'll get out of the way and let Ace tell his story directly to you in the following video. (It's about 13:20 long.)
How to get VC investment for your open source business
So, you've got the greatest open source idea since Firefox. It's guaranteed to be bigger than TCP/IP. All you need now is some scratch to get your project off the ground. Given the genius of your idea, you're sure you'll have to beat off potential investors with a stick. If you think that's reality, I've got some subprime mortgages to sell you. Getting venture capital (VC) to fund your business is hard work, even if you have a commercial product to sell. The degree of difficulty ratchets up many times if you're an open source developer. It can be done, but it takes such single-minded focus that getting turned down multiple -- maybe even dozens -- of times won't faze you.
Indian political party turns to FOSS
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is India's largest political party, with around 20 million Ordinary Members and about 4 million Active Members. In June, BJP announced its goal to become one of the most high-tech political parties in the next two years, and free and open source software (FOSS) will play an essential role in this project.
Manou Chen of Open.Amsterdam (video interview)
Open.Amsterdam (in Dutch; English PDF download available here) is working to convert most of the city of Amsterdam's computers to GNU/Linux and open source software, and to make sure that any remaining proprietary-OS computers owned by the city use open file formats instead of closed, proprietary ones. In this interview, project director Manuo Chen tells us how the project is going and a little about its goals -- and a little about some of the pitfalls it has encountered, too.
Attorney Shaalu Mehra discusses emerging GPL trends (video)
Shaalu Mehra, an attorney with Perkins Coie, spoke at LinuxWorld 2008 about the legal implications of adopting the GPL within one's organization, and about outsourcing and performing due diligence on the software stack. This was a high-level but compelling conversation about legal matters that are important to all open source software developers.
Drupal developer Barry Jaspan discusses Acquia (video)
At the Linuxworld 2008 conference, Drupal developer Barry Jaspan discusses Drupal, development, and the recent formation of Acquia, a software and services company for Drupal. This interview explores the functioning of Drupal and how its development will be complemented by Acquia.
The maturing of the software PBX (video)
Jose Luis Landivar Chavez, vice president of sales and marketiing for Elastix, discusses his company's appliance, which complements its GPL software PBX. Chavez talks about the overall PBX market, how open source is taking it over, and about the innovations that distinguish his company's solution from others.
OpenSolaris 2008.05 is robust and ready
Sun has been getting serious about opening up its software for a few years now. OpenSolaris, an open source Unix operating system like Linux and BSD, released in May, is its latest foray into the open source arena. I found OpenSolaris to be a production-ready OS that works equally well on desktops and servers.
Ask Linux.com: document wrangling, lighter distros, and Boot Loops II
[In memory of Don LaFontaine, please read the following paragraph in as gravelly a voice as you can muster - ed.] In a world where anyone can ask, but few can respond ... they compress standard-out on the fly, impose order on your personal document chaos, and ponder who is the slimmest distro of them all. Plus, an old favorite from a previous week's column returns -- with a vengence. So microwave some popcorn and unplug the phone, because it's time for more tales from the Linux.com forums.
Second Life recognizes open source community with 2008 awards
Linden Lab, creator of the online virtual space Second Life, recognized the accomplishments of outstanding individuals in its open source community this week at its Linden Lab Innovation Awards. Seven winners were announced at a "mixed reality" ceremony held both at a convention center in Florida and simultaneously within the Second Life system.
Linux Foundation to host End User Collaboration Summit
The Linux Foundation plans to hold an End User Collaboration Summit in New York City in October. The press release we received introducing the event said, "It's by invitation, but registration is free, in keeping with the idea of opening it to 'real' end users."
Gerald Carter of Likewise talks about LDAP for Linux (video)
Some GNU/Linux desktop deployments require secure authentication from a Windows Active Directory server. Gerald Carter, a long-time member of the Samba team and an enthusiastic free software developer, now works for Likewise. You can learn from this discussion if you are considering becoming a software developer, are looking for a good business model for your free software-based company, or are looking to manage your network more securely.
Voiceroute execs talk about going (mostly) open source (video)
Voiceroute, a software PBX vendor, originally started as a proprietary software company but went (at least partly) open source earlier this year. In this video, CEO Ming Guang Yong says the company should have moved toward open source "a lot sooner," and explains why. He and CTO Navin Kumar also talk about some of the specific differences between their open source and proprietary versions, including how and where they draw the line between the two, and share their thoughts about dealing with open source developers and building a successful open source development community.
A business built on open source, virtualization, and clouds
ReadyTechs provides network support services for companies that don't want the expense of hiring and caring for their own employees. Now CEO Gerry Libertelli says the company is using Linux virtualization to open a new income stream based on cloud computing.
New Scalix open source groupware is competition for Microsoft Exchange
Scalix collaboration platform, with its latest release version 11.4, aims to be a good alternative to Microsoft Exchange. Based on the HP OpenMail platform, discontinued by Hewlett-Packard in 2001, it has been further developed by Scalix and now acts as an enterprise email and group calendar server with the option of integrating systems like ERP, CRM, and billing into the Scalix system using its open API. It is compatible with most LDAP authentication mechanisms, such as those in Windows Active Directory, Novell eDirectory, and Red Hat Directory Server. The most prominent feature of Scalix is its Exchange compatibility; you can use an Outlook client to access the Scalix platform. Scalix also provides an AJAX-based client that is nearly identical to Microsoft Exchange Outlook Web Access (OWA). Aside from Outlook compatibility, Scalix also claims to coexist peacefully with other existing Exchange email systems.
Meet Open Invention Network CEO Keith Bergelt (video)
Linux.com correspondent R. Scott Belford caught up with Open Invention Network CEO Keith Bergelt at the 2008 LinuxWorld Expo and had a pleasant (on-camera) conversation with him.
Learn about the Open Source Census (video)
The Open Source Census goes way beyond the traditional, too rarely used Linux Counter. It claims to be "the first collaborative, global project to count the number of installations for each open source software package." A lofty (and possibly unobtainable) goal, perhaps, but in this video, shot at LinuxWorld 2008, OpenLogic's Kim Wein explains why OpenLogic, along with more than a dozen other companies and groups, is sponsoring the Open Source Census.
Fluendo walks the line between free and proprietary codecs
Despite all its advances, GNU/Linux remains weak in its support for proprietary audio and video codecs. Because these codecs are often encumbered by patents, distributions must choose either to include support of questionable legality or else exclude it altogether. In the middle of this controversy sits Fluendo, a Catalan company of about 50 employees that is a main contributor to projects like GStreamer, and supports open formats, but also offers licensed, proprietary codecs such as Windows Media Video and MPEG4. While many would argue that this dual position is necessary, it's one that sometimes creates an unasy balance for the company, says Muriel Moscardini, Fluendo's sale director.
