XML is considered by many to be the best thing o happen to computers since the invention of the Internet, but that doesn’t mean companies are rushing to embrace it. In fact, quite a few companies are still trying to figure out if XML is even worth more than a cursory glance. Story at Network World Fusion News.

Dan Meyers writes “RidgeRun, Inc., announced their Open Multimedia Interface(tm) (OMI), an API and multimedia plug-ins for Linux. With OMI, Linux software developers now have an easy way to integrate multimedia functionality into applications and games. OMI is simple, powerful and lightweight to meet the constraints of embedded devices as well as supporting high-end systems. The company’s intent is to help developers create multimedia-enabled applications and games for Linux. RidgeRun’s DSPLinux excels at running multimedia content on embedded systems by using the strengths of Digital Signal Processors.

RidgeRun has announced sponsorship for GStreamer, a popular Open Source streaming media framework, which is an important infrastructure component of OMI. “There are many great Open Source libraries out there,” said Phil Verghese, RidgeRun’s CTO, “but most are tied to specific applications and few scale well. GStreamer stands out from the rest, because of its good design and multimedia performance.” Verghese explained, “Within the Linux community today, there is a considerable excitement and activity around integrating multimedia into applications and games. At RidgeRun, we want to promote and foster that activity to enable more compelling Linux applications. OMI offers a powerful, yet simple to use API which easily supports current and future multimedia standards, in an application-friendly Open Source framework that extends the great foundation of GStreamer.”

Developers are encouraged to visit http://omi.sourceforge.net to contribute to this project. The first version of the OMI interface will be released there in the next few weeks, along with future enhancements to GStreamer. OMI and GStreamer are both released under the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL).

About RidgeRun, Inc.
RidgeRun, Inc. is exclusively focused on bringing the reliability and
flexibility of Linux to embedded Internet appliances based on DSPs (digital signal processors). RidgeRun’s DSPLinuxTM is an operating system that leverages the power of Texas Instruments’ dual-core DSP architectures to deliver performance leading platforms for wireless, broadband and multimedia appliances using DSPs. These include mobile phones; digital cameras, audio and video players, automotive systems, set-top boxes, home networking gateways, and PDA’s. The RidgeRun team has unparalleled experience in developing world-class embedded systems, fault-tolerant software and high performance Linux solutions. RidgeRun can be reached at www.ridgerun.com http://www.ridgerun.com/ or by e-mail to info@ridgerun.com.

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All products and trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.”

ZDNet reports: “Sun Microsystems has revealed a security hole in several versions of a critical component of Java that could allow an attacker to run harmful programs on a victim’s computer.
The vulnerability appears in versions of the Java Runtime Environment that Sun has released for servers running Windows, Linux and Sun’s Solaris operating systems. However, the company asserts that the flaw doesn’t affect the Java components included in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape’s Navigator browsers.”

AsiaBizTech reports that Linux won Nikkei’s top spot as the top Japanese business product for the second year running. Windows 2000 was a distant third, following rewritable CD drives.

LinuxWorld.com interviews Ximian CEO and co-founder Nat Friedman. Among the pressing questions answered: why the name change from Helix Code?

From Slashdot: “An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us that “The latest Free Software Foundation take on the newly released APSL v1.2
“In January 2001, Apple released another updated version, 1.2, of the APSL, but it too remains unacceptable. It still has the requirement that any “deployed” modified version must be published. So it is still not a free software license.” The dance continues.””

I have started a petiton to save this great (Maximum Linux) magazine. Why is it so great you ask, well, I will tell you! This magazine is great because it caters to Linux newbies right on up to Linux gurus, the articles are well written and very informative! If you want to see Imagine Media keep publishing this great magazine, then please go to the following URL and sign the petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/maxlinux/petition.html.

So, please sign this petiton!

Michael Lauzon
XPL Group, Founder
http://www.xplatypus.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xpl-dev/

LWN.net posts a email apparently from SourceForge, saying, “VA’s commitment to SourceForge has never been stronger.” (VA Linux owns NewsForge, too.)

Bloomberg (on CNet) reports that Microsoft may be rethinking its investment in rival office software company Corel after discovering that the purchase may somehow be called monopolistic by the U.S. Justice Department.

ZD’s Interative Week reports on HP teaming with Inktomi to “building caching and media streaming servers out of it existing, Intel-based Netserver hardware.”