Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

The MEPIS distribution has been one of the bigger KDE-centric distributions around for some years now, created to make desktop GNU/Linux easier to use. As part of our KDE and Distributions series founder and main contributor Warren Woodford talks to KDE Dot News about the history and current vision of the distribution.

Sun Microsystems is gradually providing more details on how it plans to open source its core Java technology, delivering on a promise the company made to developers back in May at its JavaOne conference.

Red Hat says 29 ISVs (independent software vendors) have joined its Telecommunications Partner Program during the last six months. Additionally, the company says it is working with leading NEPs (network equipment providers), ISVs, and operators to define requirements and ensure that RHEL can be deployed in carrier-grade settings.

Blake Ross, one of the more high profile members of the Firefox team1, has been quietly working on a new start up for a while. He has been successful in keep the wraps on his new startup, Parakey, but now it seems is close to revealing plans for his next big idea.

Collaboration battleIBM is drawing on some Web 2.0 weaponry to push developers into dumping Microsoft as a collaboration and messaging platfrom and adopting Java and Lotus.

Firefox 2.0 received a ton of fanfare on its official release recently. A few days before that release, and with much less fanfare, Songbird 0.2 was released to the wild as well and, although not ready for prime-time yet, it could represent a very disruptive stab at the media player market upon its official launch sometime in 2007.

Theo de Raadt has announced the release of OpenBSD 4.0: "We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 4.0. This is our 20th release on CD-ROM (and 21st via FTP). We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of ten years with only a single remote hole in the default install. As in our previous releases, 4.0 provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly all areas of the system. New/extended platforms: armish - various ARM-based appliances, using the Redboot boot loader, currently only supporting the Thecus N2100 and IOData HDL-G; sparc64 - UltraSPARC III based machines are now supported; zaurus - support for the Zaurus SL-C3200."

ACCESS has announced it plans to release an Application Framework to the open source community under Mozilla Public License (MPL) v1.1. Security features that extend the Linux kernel are planned for release under the General Public License (GPL) v2. The Framework will be released before the end of the year and will be the industry’s first open source mobile Linux application framework for commercial use.

While Chairman Gates has traded his megalomaniac persona for that of Uncle Bill the philanthropist, one of the old guard continues to be unapologetic in his Machiavellian manoeuvrings.

With Krita's recent 1.6 release enhancing its usability for professional artwork, the Krita team is looking into creating a gallery where Krita users can contribute their art made with it. Any decent gallery needs to be seeded with some initial artwork. So we are asking any Krita user who might want to show his painting skills, to consider making us a pretty painting. With some luck, it'll get selected to be put on the site. Read more on how to participate.

The Jepp project, which lets you use Python to access Java objects, has just packaged its 2.0 release, with added javax.script support, a new import feature, and other improvements.

While the Linux world still ponders the implications of Oracle's footprint on Red Hat, Inc., other projects--which are demonstratively more important to the future of Red Hat Enterprise Linux than whatever plans Larry Ellison might have--are continuing to progress.

Building a community is at the core of any free and open source software (FOSS) project, but few projects have faced challenges equal to Fedora's and openSUSE's efforts to create FOSS communities around formerly commercial projects, or Ubuntu's efforts to manage growth in a widely popular distribution. How to define communities, how to encourage participation from non-programmers, what community values to foster -- these are questions that community leaders from these projects have had to struggle with. Their attempts to answer the questions provide guidance to others trying to build communities within FOSS.

The folks at Slashgear recently posted an interview with Benjami Zores, one of the core developers of the embedded Linux distribution knows as GeeXboX. In summary, GeeXboX, which incidentally has no affiliation or tie in with the Microsoft console, is a fully operational Media Center solution available on what's known as a LiveCD. It works on both x86 and PowerPC based computers and is as easy to use as dropping a CD in a PC since no installation is required.

German software vendor SoftMaker announced earlier this week that it has ported its office suite to Linux and FreeBSD. SoftMaker Office 2006 includes updates to both TextMaker and PlanMaker, two popular stand-alone applications that are combined into one office suite, according to the company.

Trolltech reports that its developer-friendly, Linux-based "Greenphone" was named "best embedded Linux product or initiative" at LinuxWorld, London. Additionally, the company's Qtopia Phone Edition (QPE) stack won a mobile phone tools award presented by a Chinese trade magazine devoted to mobile phone multimedia.

The first "dynamic coalition" resulting from the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has vowed to get governments interested in adopting open standards for both hardware and software. A panel, which included academics, business, and standards bodies argued its case in Athens, where one of the aims of open discussions between different groups has been to get like-minded people together.

With the release of Krita 1.6, it seems like a good time to compare the two big raster image editors for Linux. Coming as they do from the divergent GTK+ and KDE programming camps, it can be hard to assess the differences between the GIMP and Krita without being swayed by politics and emotion. Let's take a cold, hard look at the two, and compare the features side by side.

The powers that be at Free Software Magazine decided to be a media sponsor of LinuxWorld Expo UK at Olympia, London held on the 25th and 26th of October. As I make a habit of going to that expo, and I also write for the magazine when I remember to hand articles in, I was contacted and discovered I was to be handed a “press” badge for the event. So, on the day, I set off early from Cambridge to enjoy the privileges of my new super-status.

Red Hat users should carry out compatibility tests of Oracle’s Linux set-up because it offers a “more complete” support package, analyst firm Gartner has urged. The call follows Oracle’s launch of its Unbreakable Linux support package for the Red Hat Linux distribution, in direct competition with Red Hat’s own support.