At the Oracle OpenWorld event, the database giant revealed some details about its Java roadmap. Oracle unsurprisingly wants to continue improving Java Enterprise Edition, but the company also highlighted its commitment to improving client-side Web support and mobile application development with JavaFX.
Read more at Ars Technica
At last weeks Westminster eForum, participants called for more action from the UK Government on the adoption of open source by public authorities. FSFE President Karsten Gerloff called Britain “the sick man of Europe in terms of Free Software adoption”
After focusing on education and emerging markets, start-up NComputing is now taking aim at businesses in the U.S.
I think the most significant announcement at this year’s GPU Technology Conference was the one that didn’t get a press release. You have to forgive IBM, as they had a lot of Deep Things going on, I guess, but this is a big deal; Tesla M2070 GPUs are coming to BladeCenter.
Read more at insideHPC
Fifty-two per cent of developers believe that Google’s Android is “best positioned to power a large number and variety of connected devices in the future,” whereas only 25 per cent favor Apple’s iOS, according to a new study.…
With Mesa 7.9 just around the corner and it sporting a new GLSL compiler, support for new OpenGL extensions, and months worth of other changes to core Mesa and its drivers, we decided to run some benchmarks of the latest Intel Arrandale graphics processor with the past few Mesa releases to see how the performance compares. We also have ATI and Nouveau Mesa benchmarks on the way.
Intel has updated its processor pricing list with new Core i series chips. The update focuses on Core i5 and i7 chips for laptops and mobile devices.
An effective open source compliance program depends on a mutually supportive triad of tools, process, and people, as the well-known illustration from the Software Engineering Institute depicted back when the Capability Maturity Model was first constructed:
The Linux Foundation recognized the importance of this “trinity” in announcing the Open Compliance Program at LinuxCon in August, 2010. The Linux Foundation Launches Open Compliance Program | The Linux Foundation.
Tools support and enact an organization’s existing processes. Sometimes, the tools are so powerful and encompassing that they form the foundation of an entire process. And, of course, teams envelop a tool with procedures, work instructions, and other artifacts to guide its use within the context of an overall program.
In constructing the Open Compliance Program, the Linux Foundation contributed several open source tools to complement existing commercial compliance tools. The Dependency Checker identifies source code combinations at the dynamic and static link levels and provides a license policy framework that enables FOSS compliance officers to define combinations of licenses and linkage methods that are to be flagged if found as a result of running the tool. The Code Janitor helps a team “cleanse” its code of inappropriate comments and content prior to making a public release in compliance with open source license obligations. White papers and source code for these tools can be found at Compliance Tools | The Linux Foundation.
The process for an open source compliance program encompasses artifacts such as policies, process workflows, procedures, guidelines, checklists, forms and templates, plans, progress reports, metrics and so on. Many supporting elements help implement the core compliance processes of open source disclosure and discovery, review and approval, and obligation satisfaction, and community contributions, as depicted below.
The Open Compliance Program has developed a Self-Assessment Checklist as a confidential tool to help organizations gauge their progress in implementing a rigorous compliance process and prioritize their process improvement efforts. The checklist incorporates compliance practices found in industry-leading compliance programs, focusing on what must be done to achieve compliance goals. The Self-Assessment Checklist will be published November 1, 2010, on the Linux Foundation web site. Interested readers can also request a copy at Self-Assessment Compliance Checklist | The Linux Foundation.
The People dimension of a compliance program is especially crucial to its effectiveness. A compliance program must deploy a core compliance team of skilled and knowledgeable people, adequately staffed and with clear roles and responsibilities, organized in a way that makes sense for the business. And everyone in the company must understand its open source policy and appreciate what they must do to respect license obligations and follow company procedures. To assist organizations in defining and implementing an effective open source compliance program, the Linux Foundation has created compliance training in three versions: a half-day course for executives to help lay the groundwork for a compliance program; a comprehensive full-day course to lay out the compliance framework and implementation practices needed; and a two-day course that adds time for detailed working sessions with the compliance team on implementation specifics. And, by the way, the training emphasizes the critical role that tools play in a compliance program. To learn more about the training or to register, please go to Training and Education | The Linux Foundation.
Lastly on the People side, the FOSSBazaar site, FOSSBazaar | FOSSBazaar, hosts a community of people dedicated to increasing the adoption of free and open source software, which will be achieved, in part, through effective governance and compliance practices. Many industry leaders have contributed their thoughts on ways that tools, processes, and people can be coordinated to achieve compliance objectives.
So what can you do to implement a compliance program or enhance the effectiveness of your company’s existing program? Contact the Linux Foundation to schedule the comprehensive compliance training. Download the Self-Assessment Checklist once it’s available and use it to assess your compliance practices. Try out the tools we’ve made available and contribute your improvements back to the community. Get involved in the FOSSBazaar dialogues and in workgroups such as the SPDXTM project to standardize open source bills of material. Above all, let us know how the Linux Foundation can help. Contact us at
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Fedora 14 is on track for a final release date of November 02, 2010. If all 14 does is improve upon 13, Fedora will have another winner on its hands. Why? Fedora 13 was one of the strongest releases the Red Hat sandbox has had in a while. And with what Fedora 14 has under and above its hood, the next release should up the ante yet again for the Fedora distribution.
But what exactly is in store for Fedora 14? And who is this release really targeting? Historically, Fedora was a distribution that attracted only those that wanted “bleeding edge” software and a distribution they could (and almost needed to) tinker with. With the release of Fedora 13 things started to change a bit. The end user could happily use Fedora out of the box. It was stable and it had plenty to offer users of all levels.
But when you first read the list of features highlighted for Fedora 14, you might think the release is targeting developers. What with new and updated programming languages, simpler and faster debugging, and better developer tools the feature list looks like the only users would be those that actually develop the distribution or applications for the distribution.
Not so. Fedora 14 offers a well-rounded list of new features that should make this release appeal to a wide range. And since it’s now in Alpha, we can all take a close look at what’s coming. I did just that…and I was very impressed. Below are my thoughts on the upcoming release.
As many of you know, I have been more than impressed with the 4.5 release of KDE. And Fedora 14 including the SC release of KDE brings to Fedora the first release of the KDE 4.x branch that is actually on par with that of GNOME. To those who have not used KDE in a while, the version you will see shipped in KDE-based Fedora spins will be quite stunning. It is, in my opinion, one of the most polished desktops you will see.
If you are used to higher-quality image formats, this does not apply to you. I prefer PNG formats in my image work. But for those that rely on JPEG formats you will be happy to know that the replacement of libjpeg with libjpeg-turbo will bring about approximately 25% increased performance when dealing with images in the JPEG format. And since many applications rely upon libjpeg, this should be a global improvement.
Sometimes it’s a challenge to discuss kernel improvements when readers only really want to see what will be “tangible” improvements. But the 2.6.35 kernel will bring about numerous improvements to the overall system. New features to this kernel include:
Direct I/O support for btrfs.
Support for spreading incoming network load across CPUs.
Support for CAIF protocol used in ST-Ericsson products.
Many improvements to the graphics stack.
Better laptop-mode support.
Of course that is only a tiny slice of the improvements to the kernel. There are also deprecated features in the CPU scheduler that are being removed.
A new tool that should make interacting with virtual desktops much easier is being included in Fedora 14. This tool is called Spice (Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments). The goal of Spice is to provide high-quality remote access to QEMU virtual machines. Spice will feature:
Accelerated 2D graphics.
Hardware cursor support.
Audio support (playback and recording).
Video detection with Mjpeg streaming.
Encryption.
Client-side mouse pointer support.
X Windows and Windows XP/Vista/7 drivers.
Although Spice will not directly benefit the average desktop user, it could make serious in-roads to business and enterprise usage.
And of course there will be serious improvements for those who fancy themselves developers. In fact, this release of Fedora might be one of the more developer-centric releases I have seen in a while. How will this benefit the average desktop user? More developers with better development tools/environments directly equates to a better end product. And better tools/environments abound in Fedora 14.
Fedora also features a brand new language. The D language combines the power and performance of C and C++ with the productivity-centric nature of Ruby and Python. D is a multi-paradigm language that will support many programming styles.
Fedora 14 will also include several new development tools:
The inclusion of NetBeans 6.9 in Fedora 14 will introduce OSGi interoperability for NetBeans Platform applications.
JavaFX SDK 1.3 and a new JavaFX Composer (a GUI tool for building JavaFX GUI applications).
Support for the PHP Zend framework
Support for Ruby on Rails 3.0.
Eclipse Helios (Multi-language software development tool) now includes the new Linux Tools project. This new project includes Eclipse integration of Linux utilities such as GNU Autotools, Valgrind, OProfile, RPM, SystemTap, GCov, GProf, and LTTng. There will also be support for Git using the EGit and JGit projects; improved JavaScript Development Tools; and Java EE 6 support.
As an end user you might not notice much difference between Fedora 13 and Fedora 14. You should notice an increase in speed overall, but from the perspective of the desktop — nothing much has changed. That doesn’t mean users of Fedora should not be excited. Fedora 14 promises to bring a much improved over all experience for the Linux user. And improving on Fedora 13 only means that Fedora is once again a serious contender for that much beloved best Linux distribution title.
Although it seems 14 is targeted primary toward developers, it will prove to be a distribution that anyone can happily use. As of this writing, September 25, 2010, Fedora 14 is still in Alpha. The first beta is scheduled to hit the pipes September 28th, 2010. Fedora pre-release images can always be found on the pre-release page.
