Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Wikipedia users will be getting new tools for uploading, editing, and viewing video very soon. According to a Beet.TV interview with Erik Moller, who is the deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, these features will be made available shortly. What's interesting, however, is the Web encyclopedia's choice of video formats and how it fits into a fracas in the browser world.

Clutter, the free software tool-kit that makes it easier to develop compelling user-interfaces that use OpenGL / OpenGL ES, is now nearing its version 1.0 release. Emmanuele Bassi with the Intel Open-Source Technology Center has announced the release of Clutter 1.0 Release Candidate 3.

Despite what you’ve heard, the online version of Office 2010 announced by Microsoft earlier this week won’t be free to corporate users, and isn’t a threat to the likes of Google, Adobe, or even Zoho, which sells online productivity software to small and medium-sized businesses. It’s true that Microsoft will offer consumers a free “lightweight” version of Office 2010 through their Windows Live (formerly Hotmail) accounts. But that largess doesn’t extend to business customers, who will either have to pay a subscription fee or purchase corporate access licenses (CALs) for Office in order to be given access to the online application suite. Microsoft already does this with email – the infamous Outlook Web Access (or OWA, pronounced ow!-wah! because of the painful user experience). But wait – there’s more! A Microsoft spokesperson told me that customers will need to buy a SharePoint server, which ranges from $4,400 plus CALs or $41,000, all CALs included if they want to share documents using the online version of Office 2010.

The news has been abuzz about Google's upcoming OS. Many people have been arguing reasons for and against the system, its viability in such a market, and, if the OS is successful, even the morality of the company who may be trusted with even more private information than it already has. Well, here's another reason for Chrome OS: it could bring more jobs in the area of Linux IT.

After being in development for a number of months and being challenged by a few delays, Mesa 7.5 was officially released last night. What's most significant about this milestone is that it's the first release to include the Gallium3D architecture. The Gallium3D drivers are still incomplete and there are many state trackers to be added, but this code for the next-generation Linux graphics card drivers is now living in mainline Mesa.

Use of a new algorithm will allow Google to provide smaller, faster updates for its Chrome browser, and thereby significantly reduce server and network workload. For security updates in particular this results in a narrower window of vulnerability. In a blog post Stephen Adams describes the "Courgette" technique. Until now Google has used the bsdiff algorithm to identify differences in the binary versions of the browser. "We are big fans of bsdiff - it is small and works better than anything else we have tried."

Windows and Apple rely on endless upgrade cycles to keep the money flowing. Linux, on the other hand, is much more considerate of the planet and our finances. Eric Geier has five excellent ideas for giving new life to old PCs with Linux.

This morning VIA's Bruce Chang had submitted the DRM code for the Chrome 9 IGP with a request that it be pushed into the mainline Linux kernel. The DRM alone isn't usable to an end-user without a Mesa driver or something else to take advantage of this kernel component. VIA previously expressed interest in a Gallium3D-based Chrome 9 driver, but now today we find out they have no intentions on creating an open-source Chrome 9 3D driver. Instead, they just want this DRM into the mainline Linux kernel so that it can be used by their binary blob and to hopefully have some open-source developers come along and create a free software driver from their incomplete documentation.

They say that beauty is only skin deep — if that is true, then Linux has a good shot at Miss World, as its available skins are many and varied indeed. As the impending release of Ubuntu 9.10 — colorfully named the Karmic Koala — draws near, it's time to begin thinking about its skin, and that's exactly what the Ubuntu Artwork Team is up to.

Brad Spengler, the developer behind the Grsecurity project, has published an exploit for a vulnerability in the Tun interface in Linux kernel 2.6.30 and 2.6.18, used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL5), which can be exploited by attackers to obtain root privileges. Of particular interest is the fact that the exploit is even able to circumvent security extensions such as SELinux. According to Spengler's report, the vulnerability is only found in these two versions of the kernel. The core of the problem is a normally non-exploitable null pointer dereference, which becomes exploitable due to the GCC's optimisation function.

The Gargoyle project is working on an alternative web interface for better router configuration. The project has now reached its first stable version 1.0.

The path to the Oracle takeover of Sun Microsystems is nearly clear. On Thursday, during a special meeting at the companies headquarters in Santa Clara, California, Sun shareholders approved Oracle's offer. The only remaining obstacle to the planned takeover of the server, Unix and Java specialist is approval from the US Department of Justice.

Mozilla updated Firefox to version 3.5.1 for Windows, Mac, and Linux on Thursday, fixing a security problem, improving stability, and speeding launch time on some Windows systems, according to the release notes.

Going from Windows to Linux need not be done all at once. You don't need to throw yourself into the deep end of the pool in order to learn how to swim. For those with a Microsoft habit they want to kick but don't want to go cold turkey, here are some ways to ease into Linux without giving up Windows -- well, not immediately, anyway.

Btrfs, the designated "next generation file system" for Linux, offers a range of features that are not available in other Linux file systems – and it's nearly ready for production use.

Open source project Amarok, in an open letter to Palm, has invited the company to work with them. The reason: the Apple iTunes 8.2.1 update guarantees that the Linux-based Palm Pre smartphone can no longer use the iTunes music management software.

While we regularly discuss Ubuntu, and to a lesser degree Kubuntu, there's also a version of Ubuntu tailor-made for the Xfce desktop environment. As most of you are aware, it's called Xubuntu, and after trying it out for the first time, I have to say that I find that it provides a better and more coherent experience than Ubuntu (let alone Kubuntu).

It has been a while since we last had any major to report on VIA with their open-source efforts, but this morning they have finally published DRM code that supports their Chrome 9 IGP hardware. The announcement regarding this new Chrome 9 DRM was made on the dri-devel list and was made up of three patches.

Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5.1 to fix the recently reported security vulnerability in the Just-in-Time (JIT) JavaScript compiler, an exploit for the Windows version of which is already doing the rounds. Attackers can exploit the vulnerability to inject and execute code on vulnerable systems. Since JIT is a new feature that only appeared in Firefox 3.5, prior versions do not contain the vulnerability. Users who had previously deactivated JIT as a work around can now safely re-activate it, after installing the update.

For some, Redmond's decision to apply its "Community Promise" to C# and CLI came as a great relief. For others, caution was the watchword. Then there were those who were downright suspicious: "We do not respect promises of drug dealers and pedophiles; we should not accept the promise of a habitual offender of anti-competition law to restrain its evil tendencies," said blogger Robert Pogson.