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Free software has been made mandatory for IT practicals of SSLC examination slated for March, 2008. The Director of Public Instruction (DPI) has issued orders making free software compulsory. It says Linux Operating System should be used for IT education in eighth, ninth and tenth standards. Till last year, schools had the freedom to conduct the examinations either in free software or in Microsoft platform.

LXer Feature: 17-Sep-2007

As I write this, I'm two weeks away from Ohio Linux Fest, a community event in Ohio focused upon Free Software.

I get to use Linux a lot these days. It's ingrained in my professional and personal life so much that it's easy to forget just how much territory the Free Software movement has gained. That realization made me aware that possibly we've taken a lot for granted.

The 19th of September Gnome 2.20 will be released. A few of the more interesting (IMHO) improvement offered by the new and shiny new release:A new version of Evolution, A new version of Epiphany, GNOME's image viewer, eog, is now faster and more stable, GNOME's Evince viewer, for PDF and Postscript files now supports interactive PDF forms, Support for right to left languages and plenty of new things for developers.

Standards don't rule the computing world. Today, ninety-two percent of desktops and now seventy percent of servers run the completely proprietary and non-standardized Microsoft Windows operating system. Even though POSIX was an ISO standard the weight of the market got behind the de-facto standard of Windows. Network effects matter. This historical record makes the recent global activities over the "Office Open XML" (OOXML) document format so interesting.

The official release date for OpenOffice.org 2.3.0 is September 17th, 2007 but has it already been released for the public. Yes it has and I’m really exited about it. This new version an be downloaded from several mirrors such as OSUOSL. Choose “OpenOffice.org-2.3.0″ as the distribution, your platform and language.

This laptop was meant for the people who need it the most. Those who are disadvantaged in the technological field could use this laptop as a means to grow and better themselves. I was reminded of a small snippet of information which made me at first chuckle then think. This snippet was that Microsoft was testing the laptop to see if windows would run on it. My first thought was HA! Here is an example where Open Source technology is clearly a better solution than Proprietary. Then a second and darker thought crossed my mind. Why is Microsoft testing the laptop?

Free and open source software (FOSS) is a better alternative to pirated software, a local open source advocate has said. "There is an alternative to pirated software. You don't need to pirate software to use good software. We often read raids of shops and businesses using illegal software. People want to use software, and FOSS is an alternative," said Dr. Giovanni Tapang, member of the Computer Professionals Union and Agham, an organization of Filipino scientists and engineers, in an interview last week.

In the past, ITWire has been less than flattering over Microsoft’s OpenXML document format. Make no mistake, an open file format is definitely a must-have. Nevertheless, it exists so let’s be pragmatic: OpenXML can greatly bridge the gap between Windows and Linux. In fact, it can open up whole new opportunities for Linux coders to produce documents in a Microsoft-friendly format.

There are many implications to be considered here. Let us begin with the fact that Novell has awoken the sleeping giant which is software patents. The deal gave credibility to an argument that Linux infringes on Microsoft patents and is therefore required to license Microsoft technologies. Another important issue is the exclusionary nature of the deal with Microsoft. Novell gains access to and develops various bits of software that other Linux distributors cannot have. This undermines the principles and spirit of Free software which — among several other things — thrives in collaboration and sharing. The relationship should be reciprocal in order for progress of Linux as a whole to be fast.

A European Union court upheld most of a landmark 2004 European Commission antitrust decision against Microsoft on Monday in a crucial victory for the European competition regulator against the U.S. software giant. The EU's Court of First Instance dismissed Microsoft's appeal on all substantive points but one.

Update: A more detailed story is available on Reuters UK.

[Not directly Linux related, but definately of interest here – Sander]

As recently reported on Slashdot, Apple, in its infinite wisdom, has added a checksum to the iPod database apparently to restrict non-iTunes products (like Amarok via libgpod) from having the ability to add music. To me this sounds pretty familiar. This is the same thing they did to iTunes 4.5 to make it harder for other apps to read off their DAAP shares, they changed it again in iTunes 7; open source apps are still unable to read iTunes 7 DAAP shares. But there's better news on this iPod front. The guys from #gtkpod reverse engineered the hashes.

[Site is being slashdotter and dugg, so may take a while to load – Sander]

We all know how far open source software has progressed, but has it come so far to not only challenge Windows, but replace it? Can you really install Linux and open source software in place of Windows, and want for nothing? In the first of this multi-part series we send in Ashton Mills to take on the challenge of using nothing but Linux and open source software... for absolutely everything. Will he find nirvana in the process, or lose all his hair in frustration? Follow him in and find out.

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Continued work in Plasma, including a KMLDonkey data engine, a RSS data engine and news feed applet, and a Virtual Desktop switcher applet. More interface work for Amarok 2.0, with progress on alternate music service integration. Support for webseeding in KTorrent. Support for network access of colour palettes in KolourPaint. An Akonadi resource for the del.icio.us bookmarking service. CMake support for PyKDE4 applications. Wider logging support in KSystemLog. SVG caching optimises usage, resulting in speed gains in many applications. KTeaTime rewritten for KDE 4, KPlayer ported to KDE 4. New game based on "Deal or No Deal" arrives in playground/games. More code reorganisation in KDE SVN. KAider translation utility moves to kdereview.

Review of two of the most featured terminal emulators, for both Gnome and KDE. Multi-Gnome-Terminal and QuadKonsole, both of them let you open multiple terminal windows, on the same screen.

Let's imagine that you set up a non-profit to recycle electronics and divert computers from going directly into landfills or otherwise being destroyed by a grinder. You look for ways to refurbish these components and possibly recombine them into functional computers that go out to areas and institutions that have difficulty obtaining computers. You might even collect some of the vintage electronics that comes through the door and hang on to this stuff because you think it's cool and somebody may want it someday.

Patents are making trouble again. This time the upcoming wireless network standard 802.11n is the victim, its finalisation potentially blocked because of a patent held by an Australian research institution.

Open Source Systems Management Leader to Support Worldwide Education and Awareness Event

Over this past week end I have posted three Microsoft Office on Linux with Wine articles.

As the Atheros driver issue continues to simmer on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list and the Linux Kernel mailing list, with debate continuing over when the license of source code can be altered or added to, Eben Moglen made a statement for the Software Freedom Law Center. He began by defending their own actions, "it might be useful to recall the first stage of this process, when OpenBSD developers were accused of misappropriating Atheros code, and SFLC investigated and proved that no such misappropriation had occurred? Wild accusations about our motives are even more silly than they are false." He went on to acknowledge, "we understand that attribution issues are critically important to free software developers; we are accustomed to the strong feelings that are involved in such situations. In the fifteen years I have spent giving free legal help to developers throughout the community, attribution disputes have been, always, the most emotionally charged."

Bad URLs, every Web site's bane, generate the infamous 404 error. Make your 404s useful by customizing redirects based on your site's content. This article shows you how to create your own 404 error-message intelligent CGI handler to provide useful links and 404 error page redirects for the contents of your site.