LXer Weekly Roundup for 14-Dec-2008

LXer Feature: 14-Dec-2008 Hello everyone, It seems that in the search to bring the infections under control, the USB drive ban I told you about last week has been expanded to the entire military now. AbiWord 2.6.5 just hit the streets and it boasts better compatibility with Word 2007 and OpenOffice Writer and Amarok 2.0 with a host of cool new stuff was released earlier in the week as well.

Hello everyone, It seems that in the search to bring the infections under control, the USB drive ban I told you about last week has been expanded to the entire military now. AbiWord 2.6.5 just hit the streets and it boasts better compatibility with Word 2007 and OpenOffice Writer and Amarok 2.0 with a host of cool new stuff was released earlier in the week as well.

A former programmer for Microsoft and recent convert to Linux has written a book entitled "The Software Wars" proving that Microsoft Developers can embrace the Dark Side and survive to tell the tale. I would expect a review of it from me in the near future. ;-) Symbian has announced that their open-source operating system should come out sometime in 2010.

On Monday an article came out that asked "What Are The Issues With Open Source Linux?" and to say that it was a little short on facts is being extremely kind. One of our readers wrote a response to it that takes on every point and pretty much takes it apart piece by inaccurate piece.

In something that is of interest to online only publications like LXer, The Pulitzer Prize Board announced that it will consider entries from online-only publications in addition to print outlets for the 14 journalism categories for the first time ever. Up until this year the Board had refused to consider online only entries. In the face of becoming irrelevant due to the growth of online media they decided finally give "us" the same recognition that traditional media has always enjoyed.

In some big news for web applications Google unveiled Native Client, their answer to Java and Flash. And they also announced that Chrome is already out of Beta. Already out of Beta, a Google product? What about my Gmail? I have been using it for years now and its still in beta but Chrome gets out in a couple of months? How can it be out of beta already with no Linux or Mac versions even in the works?

To wrap things up we have a review by Hans Kwint entitled "A Gentoo User Gives Debian a Go Around" where Hans tells us of the fun he had in configuring Debian for the first time in years and HP has finally seen the forest for the trees and offered Linux pre-installed for the first time on some of their computers. Have a great week!