Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

During the FUDCon in Toronto, the Fedora team discussed changes to central infrastructure, among which the change to Git.

Michael "Monty" Widenius wrote a nicely-worded response to my previous post "Oracle, Mysql and the GPL: don't take Monty's word for it", and I thought it deserves more visibility, so I'm quoting it below. For the record, I'm not an Oracle "fan" and am in agreement with Steven O'Grady, who wrote that Monty mostly just wants to get the band back together and is pursuing the shortest path to that destination. I can't fault him for that. What I objected to was what I felt was a conflict of interest that hadn't been seirously reported. That, and I really dislike how this brouhaha has resulted in unfair attacks on the GPL and dual-licensing in general.

Good looks was never supposed to be a priority for Linux apps. It wasn't so long ago that we seemed to be struggling to get even basic eye-candy such as anti-aliased fonts to work on the Linux desktop, but things have changed almost beyond recognition. It's now fair to say that the Linux desktop is at the forefront of visual effect, a cornucopia of eye-candy overflowing on to your desktop. And with a few tweaks, it can look even better.

On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, IBM's developerWorks site for software developers and IT professionals has compiled a list of the top ten developments in the Linux world. The list leaves out several things that Linux enthusiasts might be inclined to include: no Debian, no KDE or GNOME, no Android, Moblin or other embedded system, no exciting advancements in the Linux kernel – IBM's perspective on Linux is a little different.

In January 2010 Novell will consolidate four business units down to two and eventually say farewell to managers Jeff Jaffee and Roger Levy.

Among the broad selection of software offered in the KDE Software Compilation is Parley, an application for vocabulary training. Recently people from Vox Humanitatis came in and provided a set of vocabulary data files for Parley for less known languages. This piqued our curiosity, so we did an interview with Sabine Emmy Eller, CCO of Vox Humanitatis.

Barnes & Noble's Android-based Nook e-reader device was rooted by a site called NookDevs. Meanwhile, Intrinsyc revealed that it led the systems integration of the delayed Nook, which has has suffered from some early negative reviews, and Spring Design's lawsuit against Barnes & Noble over the Nook is moving forward.

OpenLogic, Inc., a provider of enterprise open source software solutions encompassing hundreds of open source packages, today announced Open Source Fulfillment Center, an OpenLogic service that helps companies ensure compliance with open source licenses and avoid lawsuits such as happened with fourteen well known consumer electronics manufacturers this week who are alleged to have violated terms of the GPLv2.

Canonical announced that Mark Shuttleworth will be stepping down as CEO in March to be replaced by Canonical COO Jane Silber, reports eWEEK. Meanwhile, the Ubuntu project has released its first alpha of Ubuntu 10.04 ("Lucid Lynx"), which speeds boot-time while kissing the GIMP editor goodbye.

The Mono framework compatible with Microsoft's C# .NET is available in version 2.6. Developers also upgraded its associated MonoDevelop environment to version 2.2.

The Novell-backed Moonlight project released the final Moonlight 2, an open source Linux/Unix clone of Microsoft's Silverlight framework that offers improved media streaming. Novell and Microsoft also announced that they will continue their Moonlight collaboration and extend Microsoft's patent covenant to Moonlight distributors other than Novell.

You've made your beautiful custom holiday cards with GIMP, and now you're ready to print them. What's the best way? Your own inkjet printer at home, or farm the work out to someone else?

Thailand-based NorhTec announced a device touted as "the world's most energy-efficient desktop computer," offered for only $99 with the Linux version. Built into a standard-sized keyboard, the "Gecko Surfboard" runs on a 1GHz x86 SoC (system on chip), operates fanlessly, and uses just five Watts, the company says.

Canonical has revealed plans to bring social networking integration and GNOME panel improvements in the next major version of Ubuntu. Notification area icons will be replaced by a new application indicator system. The panel will also feature a new Me Menu for setting messaging status.

The new version of Moonlight is out, and with it, an expanded patent covenant enabling any Linux user to run Novell's open source Silverlight implementation.

The VideoLAN project, developers of the open source VLC multimedia player, is urgently seeking developers to work on the Mac OS X port. According to a posting on the VLX forums "there are now effectively zero active developers for MacOS" which has already led to the 64 bit releases of VLC for the Apple operating being put on hold. The original appeal in May 2009 for developers seems to have had no response.

Earlier this week, the latest round of BusyBox GPL lawsuits were announced by the SFLC. The current offenders are Best Buy, JVC, Samsung, Westinghouse and 10 others. It seems that every few months, there are a new round of violations or lawsuits announced, so it behooves every company that distributes software or products containing software to ensure they aren't ever on the list. We announced our Open Source Fulfillment Center service earlier this week that helps companies ensure they comply with the GPL. Jason Perlow of ZDnet gave a pretty good explanation of the challenges in complying with the GPL. Dana Blankenhorn, his colleague, talks about why those explanations are not an excuse. I want to focus on some concrete steps companies can take to avoid being the next defendants.

[Thought this was interesting considering recent events. - Scott]

Reading the recent discussions about GNOME's position in the GNU Project, I'm reminded of Utah Phillip's comment that "a long memory is the most radical notion in history." The way that the discussion has been reported in the media, you would hardly guess that the discussion is the latest round in an ongoing and disquieting dispute -- largely because the origins of the dispute were never widely reported. The current discussion began on the GNOME Foundation mailing list, when Richard Stallman, president and founder of the Free Software Foundation, suggested that Planet GNOME, (http://planet.gnome.org/) the conglomeration of GNOME developers' blogs, should exclude all references to proprietary software.

What partition setup should you use when dual-booting Windows and Linux? Should you have a separate partition for /home? Why do some people put /boot into its own partition? These are the questions that have plagued mankind since the dawn of time (or thereabouts). This guide aims to answer some of those questions and demonstrate some partition schemes that may save you some space, hassle, or data loss down the line.

Once again, Microsoft have lifted from outside sources for their own product without paying heed to license restrictions. However, this time they have taken from proprietary code.