Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

The Python developers have released the first beta of Python 3.1. The new version of the free scripting language is a development version, not for production use. The developers plan this as the only beta and aim to release the final Python 3.1 in June.

Thanks to netbooks, 2009 will be "The Year of GNU/Linux," says blogger Robert Pogson. A netbook running Android has been spotted in the wild -- the Skytone Alpha 680. Though its specs may be somewhat anemic and its price may be somewhat high, it's stirring up a lot of excitement in the Linux community as the harbinger of netbooks to come.

As they did in the past with Java and HTML (just to cite two cases), Microsoft has now invested at least 12 months of work to try to fragment the ODF in the IT market: A shame.I swear I was ready to publish this week a post praising Microsoft for finally released SP2 of Office 2007 with native support for ODF, but unfortunately after the initial tests of various users, what we see is an absurd attempt to mislead consumers (who payed for the software) and fragment ODF in the IT industry.

When Google released the first version of its Chrome web browser, many eyebrows were raised over the fact that it updated itself automatically and silently, in the background, without user intervention or even so much as a notice. As it turns out, this has been a brilliant move by Google, as Chrome users are the most likely to have up-to-date installations of their browser, followed at a respectable distance by Firefox users. Safari and Opera trail behind significantly.

South African open source specialist Obsidian Systems has added Untangle, a commercial-grade open source security solution, to its line up of supported products. Muggie van Staden, MD of Obsidian Systems, says that Untangle is ideally suited to small- and medium-sized businesses wanting to block spam, spyware, viruses, adware and unwanted content from entering their network while still being able to allow approved users remote access to the network.

As part of a small personal project, I've been reading through the court exhibits presented in Comes V Microsoft. One of those exhibits is a chain of internal Microsoft emails discussing how to get Windows XP on the OLPC. In these mails, there is a "recap" (and some later email discussion) of a meeting between Orlando Ayala, Craig Fiebig, and Tom Phillips from Microsoft with Rodrigo Arboleda of OLPCA and Marcelo Calure of Brightstar.

Novell announced it is developing a Moblin-based version of SUSE Linux that is optimized for Intel Atom-based netbooks. In addition, Intel and Novell today announced a partnership to collaborate and encourage original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs) to adopt the Linux-based Moblin distribution.

Mozilla has issued a broadside against Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 7 operating system, by claiming it stifles the browser market and gives Redmond’s Internet Explorer an unfair advantage over its rivals. According to the Financial Times, Mozilla’s chairwoman Mitchell Baker said: "Our initial review suggests this is a blatant use of the Windows operating system to change the market dynamics of browser usage."

As the Internet becomes more vast open source communities need to be not only educating potential users on the benefits of open source software but also encouraging them to become part of the community. There once existed a common misconception that, “if we have coped with the tools we’ve used until now, why adapt to something new?” The answer is simple: change. Given the considerable impact that the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies have had on the way governments and businesses operate today, we now have a completely revised approach to sophisticated technology solutions – and need to forget this misconception in its entirety.

Despite the positive buzz generated by Windows 7, it is only a matter of time before Linux takes its rightful place at the top of the operating-system pile. Microsoft's failings are finally catching up with it and will cause the once-unstoppable juggernaut to cede to Linux. A key event was September 14, 2000, when Microsoft set a tiny snowball rolling with the release of the deeply flawed Windows Me. That snowball has been gaining momentum, despite some ups and downs along the way--XP was an up, for example. In many respects, the public mood has already shifted against the operating system that was once considered the heart of personal computing.

With a short message on his blog, Debian developer and maintainer Auréllian Jarno has announced a fundamental change in future Debian releases. The EGLIBC (Embedded GNU C Library), originally developed for embedded systems, is to replace GLIBC (GNU C Library).

When Google launched Android, its open source mobile operating system, it knew full well that it might have a trademark battle on its hands. Google had been denied a mark for the name "Android," due to possible confusion with the "Android Data" trademark held by the owner of a company that had gone defunct. The case could air some interesting legal arguments but, like most lawsuits, it will likely settle.

Adeona has been widely touted as the Open Source solution to recovering a stolen laptop or netbook. Adeona helps you track it down when the thief connects to the Internet. But Adeona isn't quite ready for prime time yet; A. Lizard goes into the whys and hows.

With three months having passed since the release of ALSA 1.0.19, it is now time for an update to the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. ALSA 1.0.20 was announced this morning and it brings forth a slew of bug-fixes and other audio driver updates for Linux.

If there's one fact of life for large companies, it's that small companies and individuals are going to sue to try to get a piece of your much bigger pie. As corporate pies come, Google has a pretty big one, and they've had no shortage of suits over the years from those looking to get their knife in the company's pie-pan. Such is the case again, as according to reports the search giant has been served with a lawsuit over its use of the name "Android" for its popular mobile phone platform.

The developers of the CoreBoot project have released version 0.9,0 of FlashROM, which is able to read, delete, rewrite and verify the flash chips which store a systems BIOS. FlashROM runs on Linux and UNIX derivatives such as FreeBSD, DragonFly BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X and allows re-flashing to take place from the command line on a running operating system. With most manufacturers' flash programming utilities, there is only support for Windows or DOS and they require the user to reboot into DOS, from a floppy disk, or an installed Windows system, re-flash the BIOS, then reboot back into Linux.

I have just uploaded Embedded GLIBC (EGLIBC) into the archive (it is currently waiting in the NEW queue), which will soon replace the GNU C Library (GLIBC). The EGLIBC is a variant of the GLIBC which stays source and binary compatible with the original GLIBC. While primarily targeted for embedded architectures, it has some really nice points..

Business continuity planning and disaster recovery is an essential business risk management technique which is great on paper but often doesn't deliver when it needs to. Business continuity planning is also expensive and has always been something only large corporates, with large budgets, could afford. But now, with cloud computing, even small businesses can put a plan in place to ensure they are able to continue their business in the face of a radical environment changes.

Merger activity in the tech sector has dropped precipitously from a year earlier, but the landscape is quickly changing as confidence returns. M&A activity in the first three months of the year plunged 85% from a year earlier, with only 625 deals worth $8 billion completed, according to tech research firm 451 Group. The first quarter of 2008 saw 835 deals worth $55.2 billion inked.

Code has been released for the open-source version of Silverlight that closes the gap on the as-yet-unfinished next version of Microsoft's browser-based media player. Moonlight 2.0 has been delivered for preview featuring APIs from Microsoft's Silverlight 3.0 that the project's organizers said it made sense to add. Moonlight puts Microsoft's Silverlight on Linux and Unix. Moonlight 2.0 is modeled on Silverlight 2.0 but since work began on the second version of Moonlight, Microsoft released a beta for the third edition of Silverlight with final code expected later this year.