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"As an open, nonproprietary operating system, Linux provides flexibility, freedom of choice and a cost advantage that makes it compelling as a viable alternative to Windows Mobile, Symbian and other proprietary offerings," said analyst Stacey Quandt.

With the release of the 2.6.18-rc3-mm1 kernel, Andrew Morton [interview] included a brief note stating, "fwiw, I recently took a position with Google." He then linked to aLinux Today article which details the reasons behind his recent move. The article begins, "Andrew Morton has started working for a new company, but his day job as the Linux 2.6 kernel maintainer will remain exactly the same." In the article, Andrew discusses one of the reasons Google was a good fit, "in my position as kernel maintainer I feel that I should not be employed by a company which has a direct interest in the kernel.org kernel because this would put me in a position of making decisions which are commercially significant to my employer's competitors. As Google maintains their own kernel variant for internal use, their interests are largely decoupled from what happens in the kernel.org kernel."

Texas Instruments (TI) has published an 18-minute videocast about programming its DaVinci RISC/DSP chips using Green Hills Software's (GHS) "Multi" IDE (integrated development environment). Used with a hardware JTAG probe, Multi permits simultaneous OS-aware debugging of Linux and DSP BIOS executives running on the DaVinci chips, GHS says.

This article discusses the shared libraries concept in both Windows and Linux, and offers a walk-through through various data structures to explain how dynamic linking is done in these operating systems. The paper will be useful for developers interested in the security implications and the relative speed of dynamic linking, and assumes some prior cursory knowledge with dynamic linking.

[This should be interesting. - dcparris]

U.N. official urges governments to"seriously consider" the OpenDocument Format; applauds Microsoft's move to create ODF plug-in.

[Sunil] Abraham explained: "Most governments in this region are older than the software vendors that they are talking to, and they will almost certainly outlive the software vendors and developers. For government [document] archives, it is thus critical that [they] use open formats."

[I couldn't find a mention of any software implementing ODF except OpenOffice.org, in spite of efforts by KDE, Abiword, IBM and others. The article seems to be pulling some of the same stunts as Steven Titch. It includes commentary by the BSA in opposition to ODF and support of MS. -- grouch]

As many of you know, we utilize Oregon State University's Open Source Lab for our hosting and support. They do a fantastic job of taking care of us here, as well as a number of other great projects including phpBB, Drupal, Gentoo, mozdev, the Mozilla Foundation/Corporation, and many others. The OSL is kicking off their 2006 Rackathon today to raise money in support of their efforts to provide great hosting support to the Open Source community.

While MySQL has garnered most of the attention with respect to open source database solutions, there are plenty of other options, such as PostgreSQL. This week I take a look at PostgreSQL and explain how you can utilize it as the backend for .NET applications.

Telnet is a popular way to access a remote system, unfortunately, it is incredibly insecure.

Santa Clara-based Foundery Networks has filed a "Son of Rambus" law suit alleging that French telecommunications giant Alcatel engaged in exactly the same sort of "submarine patent" trap-setting that the FTC slammed Rambus for last week.

Levanta on Tuesday released the Intrepid M 4.2 Linux management appliance, which can virtualize entire Linux configurations in minutes through a unique kernel plug-in technology.

The Franconia region around Nuremberg, Germany, hopes to establish Europe's first "Linux Valley" with the launch of a new business campus focused on open source innovation. Linux Business Campus Nuremberg e.V. (LBCN) has opened the doors of its new Innovation Center in the Maxtorhof office center north of the city's historic center, the association said Wednesday. The group is targeting young companies interested in developing new Linux-based or open source-based software applications. Companies locating in the new complex will pay no rent for the first three months, and an "attractive" rent after this period. The offices have air-conditioned rooms for server farms.

High level languages are increasingly being used in preference to C and C++ in new desktop software. One of these languages best supported in KDE and Qt is Python. To find out about the history and current state of PyQt KDE Dot News talked to Phil Thompson, author and maintainer of the bindings.

When ZDTV (later renamed TechTV, then G4TechTV and finally G4) first broadcasted its signal across the airwaves, I was intrigued by the ongoing enthusiasm that was expressed for a little operating system called Linux. Mention was made of the OS on The Screen Savers, Call for Help, and pretty much every other program on the network.

[Very strange editorial. One try with Red Hat, circa 1998, followed by one try with Mandrake "a few years later", and then this writer dismisses GNU/Linux as not worth the effort: "I haven't installed another distribution of Linux since that time [...]"!

As much as I dislike Microsoft Windows, and despise the consistently unethical behavior of Microsoft, I have at least given each version of MS Windows a chance to show me that it is not as untrustworthy and antagonistic to the user as the previous versions. In each mutation, MS Windows has become less trustworthy and more antagonistic toward the user, even as it became more filled with "features" and eye-candy.

If I followed this author's model, I would be rejecting MS Windows based on experience with MS Windows 3.0 and 3.11. Likewise, I could dismiss Apple based on the shortcomings of the Apple II and Lisa, compared to a commodity PC with Kanotix or SUSE or Debian GNU/Linux today. I just don't understand the purpose of the article. -- grouch]

As Mozilla prepares to release updates for its calendar applications Sunbird and Lightning, project developers are calling on the user community to participate in the final stages of testing. Mozilla has proclaimed today as Test Case Writing Day, and users worldwide are encouraged to participate.

Looking for the best way to get ready for the Linux Certification exam or just want to improve your Linux skills? With these top LPI exam prep tutorials you will be on your way. The topics, in order, include: Linux Kernal, System startup, Filesystem, Hardware configuration, Networking Configuration, Mail and News, Domain Name System, Web services, File and service sharing, Network client management, System maintenance, System security, System customization and automation, and Troubleshooting.

One thing most people are bad at is remembering things -- anniversaries, deadlines, schedules. Computers, on the other hand, are very good at tracking things -- so long as you have a way to tell them to do so. Remind, a GPLed calendar and alarm application from Roaring Penguin, is a good way to keep track of your appointments and commitments on your computer so you don't need to worry about keeping them in your head.

Health IT Strategist isreporting that a bill has been introduced to congress to unify the DOD and Veterans Affairs EMR/EHR software systems:'...Joseph Dal Molin - a director of the not-for-profitWorldVistA, which promotes the use of open source VistA software - said that if the DOD used VistA"[i]t would lower software costs for both organizations." He added that if the DOD adopted the VA's EHR architecture, both organizations would benefit from individual and joint development efforts...'

Free Software is often believed to only benefit developers. Of course, in reality every one of us is affected by our ability to use, enhance, and redistribute code. This story serves as a reminder that our entire infrastructure is growing more and more dependent on these abilities with each passing day.

his introductory article explores what it means to be a mashup, the different classes of popular mashups constructed today, and the enabling technologies that mashup developers leverage to create their applications. Additionally, you'll see many of the emerging technical and social challenges you face when you deep-dive into mashup development.

The second beta version of developer platform Mono 1.2, based on the open-source framework .NET, is out! The Mono project has two goals: it both makes running .NET-based applications on a Linux platform possible and provides developer tools with which developers using Linux workstations also become able to write .NET applications.