Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Semiconductor firm Cavium Networks announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire embedded Linux pioneer MontaVista Software for $50 million. After the acquisition wraps up in December, MontaVista will run as a separate operating unit, retain its own brand name, and support multiple architectures, MontaVista execs Jim Ready and Dan Cauchy told LinuxDevices.

Photos, slide stacks, and huge documents can take up a lot of file space and we frequently need to distribute those files out to colleagues working on a project. When everybody is working in the office, you might have the luxury of being able to put your stuff on an Alfresco (Linux) or Sharepoint (Microsoft) server. The situation gets problematic when your team is working at a virtual office at the coffee shop downtown or off-site in some client conference room somewhere.

Microsoft has pulled the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from the Microsoft Store website after a report indicating that the tool incorporated open source code in a way that violated the GNU's General Public License (GPL).

Is MySQL free in a free-market? With the European Commission's ongoing investigation, a debate over what makes free software free has emerged, ironically, centred on how money is made from free software.

Desktop developers are starting to understand that netbooks need different interfaces than workstations -- or even notebooks. The smaller screens on netbooks are a usability challenge, comparable to designing a business card when you're used to creating full-page ads. A case in point is KDE's Plasma Netbook interface, now available in a preview in Kubuntu 9.10. Scheduled for official release in January 2010 with KDE 4.4, the interface is still in development. But it's advanced enough to show the developers struggling with the screen size limitation, sometimes overlooking it but at other times showing enough promise that the main KDE desktop could learn a thing or two from it.

The idea of Microsoft releasing Visual Studio for Unix and Linux was once - quite literally - a joke. Not only was Visual Studio only built for Windows, but Microsoft's licensing had prevented people using its premier development environment with non-Windows platforms. Now, there's a little less to laugh about. Microsoft partner Novell has delivered a plug-in designed to help Visual Studio developers easily build, debug, test, and port applications built using C# in Visual Studio 2005 to Linux, Unix, and OS X. The plug-in has Microsoft's full blessing.

Linux lies at the heart of yet another big takeover deal in silicon valley. Chip makers love Linux. That was why, in part, Intel bought Wind River. And it is very definitely the main reason behind Cavium Networks acquisition of MontaVista Software. A truism of today's processor industry is that embedded Linux is the operating system of choice for developers.

Remote Linux PC access over the Internet requires extra security precautions. Today we lock down the OpenSSH server more tightly, get through a firewall without opening the LAN to the world, and decide if we want password authentication or certificate authentication.

Lordy, lordy, lordy. They have no shame. It appears that Microsoft has just patented sudo, a personalized version of it. Here it is, patent number7617530. Thanks, USPTO, for giving Microsoft, which is already a monopoly, a monopoly on something that's been in use since 1980 and wasn't invented by Microsoft. Here's Wikipedia's description of sudo, which you can meaningfully compare to Microsoft's description of its "invention". This is why what the US Supreme Court does about software patents means so much. Hopefully they will address the topic in their decision on Bilski. Sudo is an integral part of the functioning of GNU/Linux systems, and you use it in Mac OSX also. Maybe the Supreme Court doesn't know that, and maybe the USPTO didn't realize it. But do you believe Microsoft knows it?

In my last article, Teaching with Tux, I wrote about teaching children with the Tux Educational programs. Today, I'm going to discuss the Gcompris education suite. Gcompris is meant for younger children from 2 to 10 years old, though it seems to focus on the younger part of this range.

It was over a year ago that I wrote about the “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” (ACTA), a new global standard for the enforcement of intellectual monopolies currently being discussed by representatives of the United States, the European Commission, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Korea, Mexico and New Zealand. Since then, the secret negotiations have been continuing, and the threats it poses to the Internet as we know it grow ever larger.

The Free Software Foundation is having a video contest on the subject "Why is free software important to you?" It's a timely topic, with Windows 7 just out and with the free software community's bickering so bitter as of late that common goals sometimes seem in danger of being forgotten. I lack any talent for making videos, but the contest has me thinking: Why is free software important to me? And why isn't it important to most people around me? The two questions are more closely connected than you might at first think.

Opponents of cloud computing cite data loss and vendor lock-in as a primary dangers of relying on such services. They're valid points, but since cloud computing isn't going away anytime soon, it's time to start finding solutions instead of simply sounding alarm bells. Today's guest editor, Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange, shares his thoughts about what it would take to make cloud services more reliable and trustworthy.

Samsung announced an "open" mobile platform called "Bada," which appears to be a programmable UI layer that runs on its proprietary feature phones, although one report defines Bada as Samsung's own Linux OS. Meanwhile, a Korean analyst report claims that Samsung plans to discard Symbian and downshift Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

In a talk at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe in Grenoble, France, a speaker took a critical look at the design and development model of Google's first step toward Linux.

The European Commission has launched an in-depth investigation of Oracle's planned takeover of Sun Microsystems. According to a press release, preliminary investigations have indicated that there may be competition problems in the database market. The investigation now has to decide by 19th January 2010 whether the merger will seriously hamper effective competition.

While I like the Linux desktop a lot, I don't pretend that it's that popular. That's why I found it fascinating that, despite everything Microsoft has been able to throw at it, desktop Linux still managed to claim 32% of the netbook market. And Microsoft has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at desktop Linux. For example, the Redmond giant has strong-armed vendors into not selling Linux-powered netbooks; lied about Linux sales; and all but gave XP Home away to keep vendors from including Linux instead . Despite all that, it seems, according to ABI Research, that desktop Linux has actually grown in the last year.

Martin Michlmayr has published several guides about running Debian on the Linksys NSLU2 ("Slug") router/NAS device, including one on migrating a Debian NSLU2 installation to Marvell's SheevaPlug NAS design. With the latest guides on troubleshooting, booting, modifying, and cloning Debian on the NSLU2, the documentation is essentially complete, says Michlmayr.

SourceForge Inc. has announced that it has officially changed its name to Geeknet. According to Scott L. Kauffman, President and CEO "Renaming the company Geeknet is the latest step in our rapid transformation.” The company believes that the new name will be a more accurate articulation of its business. Kauffman said "With Geeknet as our calling card on Madison Avenue, we are now able to clearly define the audience we serve and more effectively capture the business opportunity that we are addressing,”.

Like other Open Source activities, the 'rising tide' is lifting SCALE: SCALE 8x will add developer and beginner tracks along with the regular general interest conference tracks. The Try-It lab, which was a huge success at SCALE 7X, will also return. If you'd like to speak at SCALE 8x, see http://socallinuxexpo.org to submit your presentation proposal. The deadline for proposal submissions is 15 Dec, 2009, but if you are considering speaking, we recommend submitting your proposal very soon. There are limited speaker slots, and if last year is any indication, the Expo will have a tidal wave of proposals to wade through. Don't be left out!