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Avocent has announced a Linux-based media extender aimed at presentation and signage applications. The MPX1000 can extend audio and HD video content from one or more sources to up to eight synchronized display devices, over wired or wireless Ethernet, according to the company.

Two hot issues are making the rounds. First, Debian and Firefox are having a spat, and the end result may be that Debian will distribute Firefox under a different name. Second, the war betwen Linus Torvalds and other Kernel developers and the Free Software Foundation over GPLv3 is continuing, with Torvalds saying he's fed up with the FSF. Here is my take on both, and related issues.

The KDE contributors conference part of Akademy 2006 in Dublin kicked off Saturday morning bright and early, much to the dismay of those who had been out late the evening before at the registration desk, conveniently located in a pub.

When most people think about the Mozilla Firefox browser, they think of it as being open source and free. The truth is, while Mozilla Firefox is open source, it is not entirely free, and it may not even be legally compatible with Debian GNU/Linux, one of the most popular community Linux distribution bases.

Here is a perfect example of licensing follies, and perhaps unintended consquences- Firefox cannot be modified and distributed without approval from Mozilla. But it can be modified and distributed without approval if you name it something else. -TC

The emergence of the Internet has given creators the opportunity to collaborate in ways that have never before been available. Using the Internet, collaborators can edit documents in real time, discuss those changes with other collaborators and readers around the world, and with a single click distribute the end result to countless readers. But how does one of these collaborators enforce rights in the resulting works?

I'm a power user in some ways when it comes to software, but I've never been similarly inclined towards the hardware side of things. Don't get me wrong - I still love a good processor or a graphics card, but in my case, I'm more interested in the stuff that runs on the hardware. I mean, you may have that horsepower, but it's not going to do you any good unless you have some powerful applications that utilize it.

Sun Microsystems, Inc., hosted an open source education symposium, spotlighting more accessible education resources, featuring the Open Source Solaris Operating System. The discussion focused on collaboration and community, in an effort to rethink traditional education models.

IBM swung a haymaker at SCO on Sept. 25. The corporate giant asked the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, Utah for summary judgment against all of SCO's claims. The SCO vs. IBM case is over three years old. Although The SCO Group Inc. has had little success in persuading the court or the buying public that IBM did indeed take SCO's Unix intellectual property and place it within Linux, the company has stayed its course.

Software as a service (SaaS) has been one of the most widely talked about topics in IT circles over the last few years for a number of reasons. Rightly, one of these reasons has been the benefits SaaS can deliver to businesses; another has been the hard work of some of the leading proponents of this delivery model in getting the message out there.

Non-patentable shared "open energy technology" has the potential to have a profound impact on the reduction of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, in the same way that open source software has changed computers and the Internet.

Platform Computing has introduced Platform Open Cluster Stack (OCS), a modular and hybrid stack that integrates open source and commercial software into one cluster operating environment.

There's no shortage of messaging and collaboration suites trying to unseat Microsoft Exchange, but many of the suites are still playing catch-up with Microsoft in terms of features. Zimbra, on the other hand, seems to be on par with Exchange in many ways -- and ahead of Exchange for hosting providers and in collaboration features.

Claiming that, from an open source standpoint, things haven't changed with its recently acquired Berkeley open source embedded database, Oracle Corp is now releasing its next version under the same licenses.

Both Linux and Solaris Support Available

The IBM alphaWorks services are on-demand applications developed by various teams throughout IBM Research. The services are prototypes of emerging technologies and concepts available as online applications through any Web browser. Services are provided at no charge.

Even though there is still a lot of frustration in regards to the CNR client, thanks to the issues that are yet to be resolved, I’ve begun to see a glimmer of hope.

LinuxInterviews.com has a second interview since the site launched few days ago, this time with the lead developer of BMPx - Milosz Derezynski. BMPx launched a new version of the auio player just a few days ago, dropping the Winamp-like look and choosing a new iTunes-like skinnable interface. A lengty and detailed interview.

With arguments about changes to the GNU General Public License (GPL) still sizzling, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has released a discussion draft of the new version of the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL). Many of the changes to the FDL mirror those to the GPL, including increased clarity of language and changes in wording to make internationalization clearer. In addition, the draft expands the license to make it suitable for audio and video, defines fair use, and introduces the Simpler Free Documentation License (SFDL), which is presented as a more straightforward alternative to the FDL. However, it seems questionable whether these changes will be enough to silence previous criticisms.

Are you in control over your own digital life? It just isn't fun to have someone else tell you what you can or can't do with your own property, from your computer to the music you bought. This article was written to contrast the two worlds and inspire you to make the leap, escape an increasingly dystopian system.

Lately, I have found myself becoming more and more disenfranchised with the whole concept of flash media. I’ve been feeling that way ever since the original Macromedia days and continue to feel that way now with Adobe.