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The Linux Foundation, on behalf of its members, would like to register its serious objections to the current BBC/OFCOM proposal, which would impose content management controls on new free-to-air high definition channels. The plan, which involves restrictively licensing the Huffman codes used in the electronic programme guide, would have a negative effect on open source applications and would distort the markets which have built up around those applications.

My son’s hand-me-down motherboard recently gave up the ghost, and I decided that was a good excuse for an upgrade. Shopping around, I found that multi-core CPUs were finally in my price range, so I decided to build him a quad-core system. This build worked out extremely well, with almost no configuration problems, not even for accelerated 3D graphics or ALSA sound — all using the latest Debian GNU/Linux (which means it’ll also work with Ubuntu or other derivatives). This one has that “classic” feel — everything just clicked into place. So I wanted to document it here. This also serves as a technology update to my earlier article on selecting hardware for a free-software-friendly system. Read the full howto at Freesoftware Magazine.

LinuxCertified Inc, a leading provider of Linux training and services, announced its next Embedded and Real-Time Linux Development class to be held in San Francisco Bay Area from May 5th - 7th, 2010.

VLC is among the most sought after media player application in Ubuntu and we had already featured VLC Media Player in our post describing Top 5 must have multimedia applications for Ubuntu. Recently VLC Media Player version 1.0.5 has been released. Following is what you need to do to get the latest updates of VLC in Ubuntu, whenever it happens.

Venture Capitalists, drooling over the financial success of Red Hat, are investing a serious chunk of change into other OS projects geared to the enterprise. In turn, those projects are adopting business models that look a lot like their proprietary counterparts.

After many successful months of GNU Generation, GNU Generation 2.0 was officially announced at LibrePlanet 2010. This builds upon the original GNU Generation by lowering the entry barrier to free software contribution, and making the program more extensible. So what is new?

Red Hat has pushed out another rev of its Linux variant. With Enterprise Linux 5.5, support for the latest processors from Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, and IBM has been back-ported to the Linux 2.6.18 at the heart of the RHEL 5 stack.

Built with Linux-Live scripts 6.2.9, the Debian-based PureOS 2.0 Linux distro has been released recently. This distro and live CD feature the KDE 4.3.4 desktop environment, Linux kernel 2.6.33 w/ Squashfs 3.4 and LZMA. Popular applications you'll find on PureOS include GIMP, Iceweasel, FileZilla, K3B, Songbird, VLC, and many more. Check out the screenshots.

Earlier today (March 24th, 2010), I submitted this response to the IPEC call for public comment on future Intellectual Property enforcement policy. Given the short notice (only six days!), I was not able to come up with a more detailed response, but I did want to express my dismay at the way these policies are being framed. Read the full submission at http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/open_letter_vict...">Freesoftware Magazine.

Not only have I been able to crash FreeBSD 7.3-release with GNOME by trying to automount FAT partitions on USB-connected drives, but those crashes rendered both the FAT partitions and the ext3 partitions that otherwise could be mounted automatically on those drives, for lack of a better word, unmountable.

British organization Public-i has made its ePetitions software publicly available under European Public License (EUPL) on the Forge page of the Open Source Observatory and Repository Europe (OSOR) information service.

Document Freedom Day is a "global day for document liberation". A job offer posted by Microsoft just a couple of months ago explains very well why Document Liberation is important... and, by corollary, why any campaign from Free Software advocates focused on promoting "Gnu/Linux vs Windows", instead of "open file formats vs proprietary ones" is doomed to fail...

A security researcher has managed to create a proof-of-concept PDF file that executes an embedded executable without exploiting any security vulnerabilities.

Ever wondered how Ubuntu fits the ecosphere? UK community manager, Dave Walker, offers his view of how the world's most popular Linux distribution is made…

Elizabeth walks readers through the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) ecosystem describing how and why contributing can help your organization.

Packing more power than the average nettop, the Zotac MAG is a mini marvel… Ultra-small, so-called ‘nettop’ computers are fast becoming a favourite for home and office users. Thanks to their diminutive dimensions they’re easily stowed out of sight, preserving precious desk space and (despite their size) they pack enough punch for everyday operation like email and word processing.

Google and Adobe have announced that they are to collaborate on development of the Adobe's Flash plug-in. As a first step, Google's Chrome web browser is to have Adobe's Flash built in. Google have updated the Chrome developer channel with a new version which includes the integrated Flash Player and a basic plug-in manager. Google will also work with Adobe to enhance Chrome's sandbox technology to include plug-ins like Flash Player.

I've had a little time to think about it, and I realized that it's not yet time to give up on FreeBSD 7.3. I'm not in any way saying I'll be sticking with it long-term. But I think I should spend some more time running it before I end the test.

Open source software champions have been influential in excluding software from the scope of patents in the new Patents Bill. Clause 15 of the draft Bill, as reported back from the Commerce Select Committee, lists a number of classes of invention which should not be patentable and includes the sub-clause "a computer program is not a patentable invention." ...Christie and other supporters acknowledge the battle is not won yet. The Bill now goes back to the full Parliament for its second reading.

Late last week I came into possession of an old AT&T Tilt 8925. Just as when I receive any computer with a Windows based operating system on, my first inclination is to format said device to some variation of Linux on it.