Newsforge reader pulrich submitted this announcement: “Qbizm Technologies, Inc., the premier software component provider has announced its Prague project. The Prague project enables third party companies to outsource their software component development in Qbizm’s award winning European facilities at a fraction of a cost in the US.
“The Prague project is primarily focused at US system integrators and software houses fighting the need for professional software developers. With the Prague project their work can be fully or partially outsourced by our skilled engineers at a fraction of their US cost.” – said Peter K. Ulrich CEO and founder of Qbizm Technologies, Inc.

“Communication is arranged by the latest Internet collaborative tools linking together high-profile project managers, analytical group and developers with a customer ensuring smooth project handling, even across the ocean.” – said Rene Michalek CTO of Qbizm Technologies, Inc.

Qbizm Technologies, Inc. is a partner in the delivery and deployment of added value software building blocks for sophisticated and scalable mobile commerce solutions. Qbizm’s European award winning research and development team has developed a new open architecture (HyperQbs) for Internet application developers enabling reusable software components with a dynamic face.

Let the Qbs roll . . .

Issued by the Press office of Qbizm Technologies, Inc. on Monday, December 11th, 2000

For more information refer to:
Qbizm Technologies, Inc.
2033 Gateway Place
Suite 500
San Jose, CA 95110 USA
Tel. +420 602 711 890
press@qbizm.com
link HyperQbs

“Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems CEO, said that Linux and Unix are the same OS. Linux advocates disagree with him, as this Techtarget/SearchEnterpriseLinux poll reveals.”
You can read the full story over at techtarget.com. Thanks to Max Kincora for submitting the link.

Slashdot has posted a report from the Real-Time Systems Symposium that was held in Orlando, FL. It was written by Kenneth J. Hendrickson of the Melbourne (FL) Linux User’s Group.

David Faure, a developer with the KDE project and maintainer of apps such as kfm and Konqueror, is interviewed by Linux Online. “Konquerer is the promising new web browser designed by the folks at KDE. He has also given lectures on the Linux circuit around the world. Linux Online interviewed him about himself, his work for KDE and Linux and the future of KDE.“

– By Grant Gross–

A pessimistic attitude about Open Source, Linux companies in particular, didn’t abate this week. In response to this down cycle of news, a column at Canoe.ca questions how Linux companies are positioning themselves in the market, going after the consumer market, instead of focusing on their traditional strengths.

Another sign of the time?

Red Hat closed its San Francisco office, laying off half the staff there. According to the company, the layoffs were caused by redundancy created by recent acquisitions and have nothing to do with the Linux market.

Better signs of the times?

The Linux-on-handhelds market continues to create a buzz. A story at Brighthand.com showed readers how Linux on Compaq’s handheld, the iPAQ, looks and works. Also, Hitachi has recently rolled out a Linux-powered Internet appliance, to good reviews.

IBM also announced a Linux initiative this week, making available the DB2 Universal Database for Linux on IBM zSeries and S/390 mainframes. And computer-maker Dell announced a partnership with desktop gurus Eazel.

Even the big announcements have their downsides, it seems. A ZDNet column asked why Open Source advocates aren’t afraid that big companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard will dictate the Open Source market. That came on the heels of news that HP hired Open Source activist Bruce Perens for its Linux initiative. NewsForge’s own Tina Gasperson talked to Perens about his decision to sign on to HP’s payroll.

India’s Ciol.com praised HP’s Linux initiative, even though “no major Linux company has ever earned a dollar of profit.” The story says profitable companies can use Linux to their advantage.

Linux, with double cheese

A story based on an odd trend: Apparently, pizza makers are early adopters of Linux for point-of-sale applications. Maybe it’s all those sausage-mushroom-and-double-cheese pies delivered at 3 a.m. to Linux programmers.

This week at NewsForge

Jack Bryar says that companies can really make money on Open Source. He even gives examples.

Dan Berkes challenges the Java Community Process as being too cumbersome. Apparently, some Open Source community members agree.

Julie Bresnick chats with Jay Fenlason, the creator of what evolved into the popular Nethack game.

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments posted on our discussion page.

In the “neat-and-fun” category, kOrbit (an object request broker for 2.4.x kernels) has been released, as published by Slashdot. From their press release: “This opens the door to a wide range of experiments/hacks: We can now write device drivers in perl, and let them run on the iMAC across the hall from you. 🙂“

“On behalf of freedesktop.org, the GNOME Project, and the KDE Project,
I’m happy to announce that version 1.0 of the freedesktop.org extended
window manager hints specification (EWMHS) is now available. This
document specifies extensions to the Inter-Client Communication
Conventions Manual (ICCCM) which allow desktop environments to
implement features such as pagers, task lists, or full-color icons via
communication with the window manager.” The announcement is at LWN.net.

From LWN.net: “Alan Cox discovered that GNU ed (a classed line editor tool) creates
temporary files unsafely.
Please verify these md5 checksums of the updates prior to upgrading to
ensure the integrity of the downloaded package. You can do this by
running the md5sum program on the downloaded package by using
‘md5sum package.rpm’.”

Linux PR has a press release announcing that MPT Data Products Limited (the exclusive UK Main Distributor for Cyclades Corporation products) have appointed RedWire as official Cyclades E-Commerce Distributor for the UK and Ireland.

Linuxdevices.com discusses embedded Linux.
“This article is the introduction to a new LinuxDevices.com series by Jerry Epplin that will explore the history, status,
alternative architectures, and future developments of Linux on PDAs and handheld devices.“