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This April Mandriva presented its new distribution called Spring. Despite the fact that it is “only” 2007.1 it has changed a lot since 2007.0. Changes can be seen everywhere — starting from installation through chosen applications till the 3D desktops.

"So, considering what we have seen and what the OSI is currently doing, the question begs to be asked. After 10 years, do we really need Open Source or can we get back to the real issues at stake, that being software freedom?"

Despite the resent FUD campaign that Micro$oft has launched against Free and Open Source Software they seem to be supporting FOSS at the same time by sponsoring FOSS advocacy events such as FOSS-ed, look for the "Gold Sponsors" at the end of the page.

LXer Feature: 24-Jun-2007

The big stories this week include Bolivarian Computers made in Venezuela, an illuminating comparison of ODF and OOXML, Mandriva's CEO says publicly that they will not sign a cross licensing deal with Microsoft, Miguel de Icaza shows off Microsoft's Flash replacement and an "expert" on Innovation vacillates on his own definition in reference to Open Source software. All these stories and more for your reading enlightenment.

There's a very interesting paper published by Goldman Sachs and posted by Hewlett Packard, Fear the Penguin [PDF]. You will recall that both companies sent representatives to join Steve Ballmer and Ron Hovsepian on the stage and to speak about how wonderful it all was on the day Microsoft and Novell announced their deal. According to the paper, Linux is going to take over the corporate data center.

[The report is a few months old, it will be interesting to see how accurate its predictions turn out to be. - Scott]

For many years, the term "open source" has been subject to abuse. Despite efforts by the OSI (Open Source Initiative) to trademark the phrase, the USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) claimed the phrase was too generic to be trademarked, thereby weakening efforts to guard against its improper usage, according to Danese Cooper, secretary and treasurer of the OSI board.

To tune Jboss 4.0.5 instance as advised in HP Manual and make it connects to Oracle Server, perform the following steps on the JBoss Application Server.

TimeSys has published a second podcast on achieving rapid boots on Linux devices. "Fast boots -- the sequel" discusses the relationship of footprint and boot time, post-2.6.15 kernels' CONFIG_EMBEDDED option, application pre-linking and profiling, filesystem selection, execute-in-place (XIP), and initramfs, among other interesting techniques.

The trade press reported a lot of rumors this past week about the chances for a patent protection pact between Red Hat and Microsoft similar to the agreements Microsoft negotiated with Novell, Xandros, and Linspire. Red Hat doesn't appear to be interested in the least. Here's why.

After having a meeting with a medium sized business owner about his need for a website it became painfully clear to me that "we" as the FOSS "community" need to do a much better job at making what it is we are offering more visible. We need something that communicates what FOSS is and what benefits there are for using FOSS applications. To communicate in simple terms that by using FOSS you are in fact staking a claim to reliability, usability and security. It is time to get your work done the way you choose to do it. One size fits all is cr@p! But that is what many businesses owners are sold and that is what they buy and then try to sell themselves. There is nothing else! Right? Well we know differently. Now how do we communicate what FOSS is in simple terms. The answers may be easier than you think.

The latest LinuxQuestions.org Podcast. Topics include LinuxQuestions.org turns seven, the LQ HCL backlog has been cleared, Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit updates, more Microsoft Patent dealings and will the real Open Source CRM please stand up.

A start-up located in the French Alps near Grenoble is readying a tiny ARM-based Linux single-board computer (SBC) in a USB key form-factor. Calao, based in Sant Martin le Vinoux, is also readying a tiny Linux SBC designed to plug into QIL (quad in-line) IC sockets.

Quick -- name an open source product that's innovative. If you said "Linux," you failed the test. Linux -- the darling of counter-culture programmers, for its "free software" advocacy and for providing an alternative to Microsoft Windows -- is not an innovation. It's essentially a copy of another operating system, called Unix, that has been around since the 1970s. Making a copy of existing product? No one that I know would call that "innovation."

[Contradictions abound in this article. - Scott]

Mandriva this week announced the general availability of Mandriva Corporate Desktop 4.0, the latest version of its enterprise-dedicated, KDE-based Linux work station. The new desktop features a 2.6.17 kernel and can be installed in under 15 minutes and extensively customized, thanks to a new post-installation tool, the company said.

This article is a step-by-step guide to using two passwords with EncFS. The primary password is required and may be used to secure all data; the secondary password is optional and may be stored on USB stick or other removable media and used to secure more sensitive data. EncFS can also be combined with block [...]

What does Xandros get out of its recent deal with Microsoft? Well, for one thing, the well-known Linux desktop distributor will get Open XML/ODF translators for OpenOffice. These translators are being developed through the SourceForge-hosted Open XML/ODF Translator project. This is the same translation project that Novell and Microsoft have been working on for some time now.

Welcome to this year's 25th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The first release candidate of Slackware Linux 12.0, Linus Torvalds' entertaining exchange with Sun Microsystem's Jonathan Schwartz, and Linspire's promise of a "better Linux" through a partnership with Microsoft were the most interesting headlines of the past week. We comment on these and other events of the week. In other distro-related news, the Debian project announces a tentative release schedule for Debian "Lenny", Max Spevack talks about the upcoming Fedora 8, and, in an exclusive DistroWatch interview, Adam Williamson introduces a number of projects that will shape the future of Mandriva Linux. Finally, don't miss the list of changes and updates to the DistroWatch package list as used for tracking version numbers of important software applications. Happy reading!

Michael Tiemann responds to the many people who have asked "When is the OSI going to stand up to companies who are flagrantly abusing the term 'open source'?" The answer is: starting today.

Since piloting this video series, we’ve received lots of questions about the XO’s mesh network. How can these laptops “talk” to each other even without widespread internet access? How is the network they create different from the network at your home or office? Episode 03 explains it all.

Learn how IBM Rational Software Development tools, their broad range of functionality and their use throughout the entire software development process leads to project success.