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The WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE) is a lightweight J2EE application server built on Apache Geronimo, the open source application server project of the Apache Software Foundation. WAS CE is the follow-on product for Gluecode SE that the Gluecode company always envisioned. Find out what this new Community Edition app server, which is 90% Apache Geronimo, means to the open source Apache Geronimo development community.

Fault-tolerant server specialist Stratus Technologies Inc has confirmed that it will introduce a new line of Linux-based general-purpose fault-tolerant servers in January running Red Hat Inc's Enterprise Linux.

The Plone Foundation recently released the 2.1 version of Plone, the leading Content Management System for the award-winning Zope application server. Supported by thousands of developers from around the world, it is one of the most sophisticated, popular, and easy-to-use content management systems available today.

Google Inc. donated $350,000 to two Oregon universities Tuesday as part of the company's efforts to back open-source software development. The grant to Oregon State University and Portland State University is Google's first academic donation specifically directed toward supporting open-source development, Google said.

Tom Sanders writes: "Sun Microsystems plans to make its Java Desktop System (JSD) available for any Linux distribution through the new JDS Partner Programme, Sun executive vice president for software John Loiacono said at a town hall meeting in Sun's San Francisco office...

"The move will make the application available on any Linux distribution including Red Hat, Red Flag, Gentoo, Yellow Dog, and Linspire, Loiacono said. It also enables PC makers to start selling Linux systems that come bundled with the JDS suite and use the Java and JDS logos.

"The move is called for because there currently is no standard desktop Linux distribution, he said. This has lead many countries to create local distributions of the open source operating system. While the abundance of distributions is good for customer choice, it makes it hard for Sun to pick a single version to support."

[People who have worked with Sun over the past three years on the JDS desktop might suggest that you not hold your breath waiting. They promised an update of JDS 3 for February 2005. In December 2003, they also announced that they had sold 200 million copies of JDS to the Chinese Standard Software Company. Don't fein surprise if this never happens...you know the old thing about history repeating itself. -ED]

The company is providing royalty-free access to its patent portfolio for some healthcare and education software specifications built around Web services, electronic forms, and open document formats.

In answering a question on the Linux metaforum here at Lxer, bstadil wrote a splendid comment about how to figure out the optimial size of a new disk drive. He wrote: the optimal replacement size of a disk drive is e = 2.7 times what you have.

Related to: http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/18462/">Why do people switch to Linux

In the fall of 2004, Chris Stone, then vice-chairman of Novell Inc (NOVL )., took a nine-week executive education course at Harvard Business School. Stone was considered a rising star at the software company. Several Novell insiders say they thought his Harvard stint was the final step in polishing his skills before he took over as chief executive from Jack L. Messman.

Microsoft has picked up support from two powerful Massachusetts politicians for its stance on “open format” documents. The politicians are opposing an effort by the state’s administration, which last month approved a plan to require that state documents be formatted in OpenDocument format.

[ED-Note the euphemism Picked up, rather than bought ]

Let's play word association. I say "Web Hosting." I bet "fat margins" didn't jump into your head. More likely, you thought of some of the "where are they nows" of the bubble, like Exodus and PSINet. Let's do another round - I say "New York City," and I'd wager that "cheap rent" wasn't the first thing you thought of, either. So it may surprise you to learn that one hosting company that's been around since 1993 and that's actually making money, Logicworks (www.logicworks.net), just happens to be based in New York City.

A lot of Linux geeks are master scroungers, because Linux is so adaptable that old AMDs, classic Pentiums and even 386es and 486es can be put to use in some way. It's a shame to throw away old equipment when it can be repurposed as networking devices like firewalls, authentication servers and routers. But as fun as it is to recycle, I'll wager I'm not the only one who has gazed upon shiny new devices like the Linksys WRT54G and sighed "Wouldn't that be a great device for my network! It is small, cheap, and uses little power

Hi, and welcome to my second of a series of articles on Security Enhanced Linux. My previous article detailed the background of SELinux and explained what makes SELinux such a revolutionary advance in systems security. This week, we'll be discussing how SELinux security contexts work and how policy decisions are made by SELinux.

Multimedia ads are coming to taxi cabs in New York City and elsewhere. Secure electronic payment expert Verifone and NYC taxicab fleet management specialist TaxiTronic have formed a joint venture around Verifone's MX870, a Linux-based PIN-entry pad that doubles as an advertising kiosk.

Jeremy writes: I am very excited to announce that we have shipped version 5 of CrossOver Office. We have added initial support for Microsoft Office 2003, added a powerful new feature we call 'bottles', which lets you manage your Windows applications more easily than ever before, and dramatically improved the installation and execution process of nearly every Windows program.

[If you do not know about this commercial version of WINE, consider taking a look. -Ed.]

Linux desktop play:

Additionally Sun is looking to expand the reach of its Java Desktop System software to cover more flavors of Linux. Sun has a new "JDS partners program" for Linux makers, which it hopes will bring the desktop software suite to Linux versions such as Gentoo, Yellow Dog, Red Hat and SuSE.

Previously the company had moved away from efforts to sell JDS on Linux and focused on Solaris.

Beta testing is a tough and unappealing task, but 1 000 beers would certainly make the time worthwhile. One thousand German beers awaits the Linux enthusiast who crash tests BitDefender Mail Protection for Enterprises Beta most thoroughly.

What is the LOOP list?

This is a list of high-quality, open-source applications that run on Windows.

Purpose:

To demonstrate the quality of open-source applications and thereby advocate the open source software development model.

Instructions:

Tell all your non-Linux friends and family about the LOOP list. On this list they will find high-quality replacements for the software that they have purchased/pirated.

It's well known that the open Business Readiness Rating standard is still very early along in the steering process, but what would you say is the largest challenge BRR faces in going mainstream?

Joaquín Ruiz: Yes, we are still in the early going, but I would say it still is getting critical mass. However, we have been somewhat surprised in the early going in regards to BRR and in regards to the number of people downloading the proposal and asking to become part of board and steering committee..."

Mozilla Corp. has had to delay the first release candidate of Firefox 1.5 by a few days to smash some late-appearing bugs, a company employee announced late Monday.

Firefox 1.5, which is currently in its second beta version, was going to move on to the next step, Release Candidate 1, on Friday, Oct. 28. A code lockdown -- which meant that no new changes for RC1 would be accepted -- was scheduled for midnight Sunday, Oct. 23.

One of the largest Free Software event in the world, the 7th edition of the International Free Software Forum called for papers on October 18th. Proposals due on December 4th 2005.