Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

The browser maker moves the Dragonfly debugging toolkit to publicly hosted servers, setting up the BSD-licensed software as an open project.

A few days back we reported on a new Mutter release, which is the window and compositing manager for GNOME 3.0, and now with the GNOME 2.29.91 beta release coming up on Wednesday there is also the release of another new GNOME 3.0 component. Perhaps the single biggest new component for the GNOME 3.x stack is the GNOME Shell and this is the package that just reached version 2.29.0. GNOME 2.29.0 brings a lot of improvements.

Hall agreed to serve pro bono publico (at no charge, for the public benefit), and asked the court for a declaratory judgment that the patent was unenforceable. Katzer responded by bringing a SLAPP suit against Jacobsen. SLAPP is a law that was meant to defend little folks sued by big rich companies, but is increasingly used in just the other direction. And the judge upheld this, which meant that Jacobsen would have to pay Katzer's lawyer's fees before the case was even decided. After some court argument, the unreasonable fees asked were reduced to $14,486.68 and $16,976.25, for two lawyers used by Katzer, and Bob Jacobsen paid them.

If you have been following my live tweets today you will know that day 1 of the "New Millenium Learners Conference 2010" taking place here in Vienna at the moment was really interesting. The opening session led by people from the Austrian Ministry of Education introduced some of the projects that the Ministry has been working on in Austria. Our small Austrian OLPC project in Graz was also mentioned but unfortunately due to time constraints the information on all the projects remained relatively superficial.

Microsoft and Amazon.com have reached an agreement that gives each company a license to the other's patent portfolio, in a way that could revive one of the Redmond company's longest-running controversies. That's because Microsoft says the deal grants Amazon patent-related "coverage" for its use of open-source and proprietary technologies in its Kindle e-reader, and for its use of Linux-based computer servers.

[You smell what I smell? Microsoft FUD.. - Scott]

Occasionally, your editor will be struck by a series of topics all associated with a common theme. The recent fuss about Android's presence (or the lack thereof) in the mainline kernel ties in well with a couple of other items of notice: the Nexus One phone and the role of free software on the Android platform in general.

Microsoft and Amazon announced on Monday that the two have entered into a patent cross-licensing deal. As part of the pact, Amazon will pay Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money, though the two sides did not disclose more details. The deal covers both Amazon's Kindle product as well as the company's use of Linux-based servers. Microsoft has maintained that many implementations of Linux infringe on its patents and has signed numerous licensing deals that cover Linux with both companies that sell Linux-based software and those that use the operating system in their hardware.

Edubuntu is Ubuntu customized for the classroom, with a wealth of educational applications for different age groups. Eric Geier reveals some of the many treasures in Edubuntu.

We have extremely promising open source media editing applications for Linux like the Jokosher audio editor and PiTiVi video editor, both built on the powerful GStreamer framework, reaching a point of maturity where the focus can shift from making sure the underlying infrastructure of the application is solid to adding all the cool features that everyone's been waiting for. These apps will make multimedia editing simple and easy yet still fully featured. Projects like the recently announced VideoLAN Movie Creator (you know, from the people behind the VLC media player) and OpenShot are certainly cool projects which show that FOSS video editing is really progressing, but PiTiVi will still be my NLE of choice. VLMC is sure to be a great product, but being cross-platform drives the focus away from our OS of choice, and OpenShot while perhaps adding as many features as quickly as possible, lacks the same focus on proper design that PiTiVi has.

The Microsoft Browser Ballot screen will begin arriving in Europe this week, but according to a YouGov survey commissioned by Mozilla, 77% of Britons don't know it is coming. Microsoft announced its plans to provide a choice of browser, as required by the European Commission, last week. The ballot will be delivered to Windows computers by means of a software update and will prompt users that they have "An important choice to make" before offering a randomised selection of alternative browser choices.

Mozilla's mobile Firefox browser is coming to Google's Linux-based Android operating system. Although the porting effort is still at an early stage of development, it is moving forward swiftly. Mozilla's developers achieved an important milestone this week by demonstrating that the browser can run on the Nexus One smartphone. Due to the highly experimental status of the project, Mozilla has not yet published packages for testing, but that didn't deter us from getting our grubby mitts on the goods. As our readers know, we just can't resist the doughy flavor of half-baked software, and we will gladly brave the bugs for a chance to taste test the new hotness before it really heats up. In order to get our own hands-on look at Firefox on Android, we had to compile it from source code.

I have heard of my geeky friends talking about this Linux stuff. I wasn't sure what it was so I asked them about it. Honestly, I thought they were trying to sell me some religion the way they jumped all over me trying to explain what Linux is. They did make some very good points though. I have always felt uncomfortable with using a pirated version of windows but I can't justify the expense of buying an original version. I am also tired of all the problems I have been having because of virus and spyware infestations. These Linux guys tell me that they don't have any problems with that stuff.

Although Google's take-over of On2 Technologies has only just been completed, already the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is calling on the company to release On2's video codec technology as a patent free standard. In an open letter, it asks Google to release the VP8 video codec under a royalty-free licence and to promote that free codec by using it on the YouTube video site. The FSF says to Google that it "can end the web's dependence on patent-encumbered video formats and proprietary software (Flash)". The letter then suggests that "to sit on this technology or merely use it as a bargaining chip", for example, in negotiations over h.264 video licensing, "would be a disservice to the free world".

iWave Systems announced a COM (computer module) based on Freescale's i.MX51 SoC (system-on-chip). The iW-i.MX51 includes up to 512MB of RAM and 2GB of flash storage, runs Linux and Android, and works with an available iW-Rainbow-G8D development baseboard, the company says.

I thought it'd be fun to answer SCO's expert report from Dr. Gary Pisano, some more, on one point in particular, namely his inability to find any other reason SCOsource wasn't popular other than Novell's counterclaims to ownership of the code. Here's a list of media reactions, community and mainstream, that may illuminate him. Please note that not a single one even mentions Novell, and every single one would provide a sensible man with a reason, I think, to avoid SCOsource.

In a not unexpected announcement Google has said that it has stopped active development on Google Gears and is moving its efforts to the HTML5 database API to provide local database storage for web browsers. The H reported in December that Google was planning to retire Gears, but the official confirmation from Iain Fette of the Gears Team will allow developers who use the technology to plan ahead. The move comes after Google's Chrome browser was updated to support the emerging HTML5 Database API.

One of the more interesting people I've talked with in the last two years is a figment of his own imagination. "Craig Barth," the chief technology officer of Florida-based Devil Mountain Software, a company that makes and markets Windows performance metrics software, is, I have discovered, nobody. He doesn't exist. Barth is, in fact, a nom de plume, which is a fancy, French way of saying "alias." The real man behind the curtain is Randall C. Kennedy, a popular, sometimes outrageous blogger for and frequent contributor to Infoworld, a publication that like Computerworld is part of IDG. Kennedy's connection to InfoWorld was severed on Friday.

Medfoss.apfelkraut.org should provide a comprehensive and structured overview of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects for the health care domain. Moreover it should offer a platform to foster the exchange of ideas, knowledge and experiences about these projects.

LXer Feature: 21-Feb-2010

The big stories this past week included Intel and Nokia announcing that they are going to merge their mobile Linux efforts and call it MeeGo , the top 25 programming errors list gets updated, Eric Van Haesendonck says what he thinks is wrong with Android and Miguel de Icaza gives an update on what his team at Novell has been up too. Also, a list of 20 computers you will probably use in the near future, five great Netbook operating systems, Twitter shares their open source with the world and a whole lot more in This week's LXWR.

Canonical is developing a new 2D ARM interface based on Enlightenment Foundation Libraries for the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04 ("Lucid Lynx") version of Ubuntu Netbook Remix. In other Ubuntu news, Ubuntu Live CDs in Lucid Lynx will boot 33 percent faster, and The Linux Box will market Ubuntu in the U.S.