Showing all newswire headlines

Microsoft (MSFT) has gone and done it, they've filed suit in U.S. District Court claiming Linux violates their patents. The case centers on portable GPS device maker Tomtom, which uses Linux in its device.

For simplicity's sake, I keep all of my general-purpose boxes running the same Linux distribution. That minimizes conflicts when sharing applications and data, but every substantial upgrade means downloading the same packages multiple times — taking a toll on bandwidth. I used to use apt-proxy to intelligently cache downloaded packages for all the machines to share, but there are alternatives: apt-cacher, apt-cacher-ng, and approx, as well as options available for RPM-based distributions. This article will take a look at some of these tools.

It's arriving about two months later than originally scheduled (and didn't arrive in 2008 like Intel wanted), but X Server 1.6 has been officially released this afternoon and it wasn't 212 days late like the infamous X Server 1.4.1 release.

In the previous part of the article, we saw how Drupal handles JavaScript and we created a JavaScript tool.

In this part we're going to:

1. Create a simple theme
2. Add JavaScript to a theme.

Learn about Open source Content Management Systems options for UNIX. AIX® provides an ideal environment for blogs and for the Web Content Management System (CMS) tools running those blogs because of its Web and text-processing power. You get the best of both worlds by combining open source CMS and AIX for a complete and ready-to-use content management tool with extensive support from the open source community, along with a secure and reliable server with high availability, scalability, and enterprise-level support from IBM®. This article introduces some of the best CMS solutions for AIX available from the open source community, and helps readers understand the important differences among them.

To date, I don’t think I have ever seen any other operating environment support so many file systems and volume managers. You name it and I can assure you that one way or another, it runs on Linux. The problem with having multiple choices of methods or applications in configuring and managing your storage is that there may come a time where you will have to toggle between multiple interfaces in order to accomplish one set of tasks.

Weblog software (also known as blog software or blogware) enables users to maintain an ongoing chronicle of information on a website. Typically, a blog is a frequently updated, personal website, with diary-type commentary, descriptions of events, and sometimes includes graphics and video as well as links to articles on other sites. However, blogs can also be used for business purposes.

With a new government policy on open source announced, The H sounded out open source vendors for their reactions. Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems was the first person The H called. He was pleased to see the updated policy, "It's a great thing to see it published, as the 2004 policy didn't help very much". The new policy had "a lot of good things in it" such as the costing in of exit, or as Phipps calls them, sundown costs and the preference towards open source because of, as the policy puts it, "its inherent flexibility". Phipps explained "Open source has inherent benefits in that it gives a CIO control of the complete life-cycle. The four freedoms put the CIO in control".

The Falcon Programming Language is a typeless language born for rapid development, prototyping, and ready-made integration. We may also describe Falcon as a “scripting” language with features that enable the programmer to create even complex multi-threaded applications. It mixes several different programming paradigms into an unique blend of constructs, overcoming the limitations and partialities of other languages. The objective of this brief article is to be very practical with code examples as well as step by step simple instructions. Read the full tutorial at Free Software Magazine.

As Microsoft pumps up Windows 7 for a potential Fall 2009 release, the operating system has received generally favorable buzz. But now, some folks are starting to wonder if Windows 7 will somehow save IT sales. The VAR Guy thinks not.

What is Lean Software Development? Fortunately, that's an OK question to ask if you are reading this book. It's not written for developers who are well versed in "lean" or "agile" development. That's good for the rest of us. For instance, in my "day job" we are slowly moving towards a more Agile development model. I suppose if some folks around here weren't all that sure what "agile" meant, reading up on it would be helpful. That's the sort of role this book hopes to fill relative to "lean", with the understanding that the "pro-lean subculture" is well associated with Agile development.

Dell is taking the netbook market by the horns, it would seem. First it refuses to accept that the Psion netbook trademark is a valid one, and now it bucks the market trend for not being able to sell Linux powered netbooks.

Today (February 24th) Quake Live -- a new game from id Software, that plays entirely in a web browser -- was released as an "Open Beta." Great! Right? The bad news, not yet available for GNU/Linux.

Since releasing the Phoronix Test Suite to the public a year ago, one of the most popular feature requests has been for a graphical user interface. The Phoronix Test Suite is not exactly difficult to use from a command line, but this feature has been in development for Phoronix Test Suite 2.0. However, with this morning's release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.8.0 Alpha 2, a preview of this GUI has been introduced. Those testing Linux, OpenSolaris, BSD, and Mac OS X systems now have a simple yet intuitive interface for facilitating their system benchmarks.

The UK Government's new “Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use: Government Action Plan” sounds impressive. But what's the reality? Here's a detailed analysis of what's good and what's not so good.

This is WFTL Bytes!, your occasiodaily FOSS and Linux news show for Monday, February 23, 2009, with your host, Marcel Gagné. This is episode 52. On today's newscast . . . we ask why government isn't saving big with FOSS, what constitutes good personal marketing, who's buddying up to Microsoft, why are things so tough over at OpenSUSE, and who put the ram in the ramma lamma ding dong?

The logic bomb episode at Fannie Mae is an illustration of the destruction that's possible when enterprises fail to properly monitor user privileges. IT managers must be aware of who has what privileges and determine the appropriate level of access for all users.

We are certain that many of you want to try Linux to see what it is like, but have no idea where to start or how to get into it. This article is the first installment in a four-part guide that will gradually introduce you to the Linux environment and how to adjust to it if you are a new user. One of the hardest things to do while starting out is finding a distro that is right for you. Many users try several before settling on one of two that they really like. Once they find a distro that feels right, they are often reluctant to switch unless the distro becomes unsuitable for their needs for whatever reason.

Microsoft filed suit against TomTom today, alleging that the in-car navigation company's devices violate eight of its patents -- including three that relate to TomTom's implementation of the Linux kernel. It's believed to be the first time Microsoft has filed a patent suit over Linux, after claiming for years that elements of the open-source operating system violate its patents. However, Microsoft says open-source software is not the intended focal point of the action. Five of the alleged patent violations relate to proprietary software.

[Maybe we will finally get to see some of those 200 or so patents Microsoft keeps (not) talking about. - Scott]

Project Oekonux researches the economical, political and social forms of Free Software and similar forms of production we collectively call peer production. In Project Oekonux, different people with different reasons and different approaches get together to build something new. A lot of participants want to know, whether and if so, how, the peer production can serve as a basis for a new society.