Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Chinese domestic software company Redflag Linux has set up a joint venture company with Japan's Miracle Linux and South Korea's Haansoft to jointly promote the Linux operating system.

Open source software advocate Eric S. Raymond is reporting that his name and copyright information for a bit of MIT-licensed code called the GIFLIB library are included in the end user license agreement of a Microsoft application called Expression 3.3.

Linus Torvalds has had an opportunity to examine the testing and analysis by Hans-Werner Hilse which we reported on yesterday, and has blessed it as being correct. The reason that the virus is not propagating itself in the latest kernel versions is due to a bug in how GCC handles specific registers in a particular system call. He has coded a patch for the kernel to allow the virus to work on even the latest Linux kernel.

A week before the spring LinuxWorld tradeshow got underway in Boston in March, Novell's chairman and CEO, Jack Messman, was quoted in the trade press as saying that eventually, when all the dust clears, there would only be two commercial suppliers of the Linux operating system: Red Hat and Novell.

Open source advocate Bruce Perens has launched an initiative to discourage owners of undeveloped Web domains hosting them on servers running proprietary software. Perens wants domain owners and resellers to redirect unused Web domains — which have been registered but not yet developed — to OpenSourceParking.com. Perens says this site will always run on Apache, the popular open source Web server software.

Andrey Savochkin leads the development of the kernel portion of OpenVZ, an operating system-level server virtualization solution. In this interview, Andrey offers a thorough explanation of what virtualization is and how it works. He also discusses the differences between hardware-level and operating system-level virtualization, going on to compare OpenVZ to VServer, Xen and User Mode Linux.

Andrey is now working to get OpenVZ merged into the mainline Linux kernel explaining, "virtualization makes the next step in the direction of better utilization of hardware and better management, the step that is comparable with the step between single-user and multi-user systems." The complete OpenVZ patchset weighs in at around 70,000 lines, approximately 2MB, but has been broken into smaller logical pieces to aid in discussion and to help with merging.

To enable channel partners in the usage of open source software and promote it aggressively, Red Hat has joined hands with Intel to form a global program to help customers plan for, accelerate and optimize their deployments of Linux solutions.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said that Oracle may be considering buying a Linux company in the future. After considering open-source and Linux's pluses and minuses, Ellison has concluded that for Oracle, "We don't have to fight open source, we have to exploit open source," Ellison reportedly said.

Genesi has quietly announced a new line of tiny PowerPC- and OpenFirmware-based boards and systems. The Efika 2 line will ship in mid-May, and comprise three models that mix and match Altera FPGAs, onboard graphics chips, and PCI slots. The systems will run Linux, standard Java, and "Polaris," a PowerPC port of OpenSolaris. [I want to get one and run DSL on it! - Scott]

A cloud is rising over Mac OS X and its future unless Apple makes its boldest move ever: turning OS X into an open-source project. That would make the battle between OS X and Linux the most interesting one on the computer scene. With all attention turned in that direction, there would be nothing Microsoft could do to stem a reversal of its fortunes.

China, South Korea and Japan plan to set up a joint venture next week to develop and sell an Asian version of Linux software products, a Beijing-based software company said yesterday. The joint venture, called Asianux, will be formally launched at a news conference on Monday, said Chase Fan, market manager at Red Flag Software Co.

Thanks to one of our readers, NewsForge has obtained a copy of the widely reported Windows/Linux cross-platform "proof of concept" virus. News reports thus far on the code have contradicted themselves: some reported the virus can replicate itself on both Windows and Linux, others saying it has a viral nature only on Windows. Testing by both NewsForge staff and Hans-Werner Hilser may reveal why the confusion.

Ever wonder if that ISO or backup CD or DVD you burned last year is still good? This week we'll take a look at a small command-line utility called cdck that checks the condition of data on the media and let you know if it's still good.

If your laptop computer is a complement to your desktop machine, you're probably well aware of the need to synchronize data between the two. This article from Jem Matzan will show you two ways to accomplish this on GNU/Linux-based machines.

Back in the mid 1980s, it would have been hard to imagine anyone breaking the IT market dominance of the mighty IBM. Big Blue was seven times as big as the number two player. Then along came Microsoft, changed the rules of the game and usurped the throne. Now along comes Google and the open source movement and the rules have changed again. In an era of open source, web services, wireless connnectivity and converged communications, can Microsoft maintain its market grip going forward?

LIC, India's largest life insurance company, will deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux across its 2,048 branches, 100 divisional offices, seven zonal offices, head office, subsidiary offices and overseas locations.

The use of closed-source software to give Linux slick graphics is keeping a thorny legal and philosophical dispute alive.