Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Oracle is not buying Red Hat The rumor mill has it that Oracle may be buying Red Hat. Don't believe it. All it took was one mention that Oracle might do well to own Red Hat, but that the timing wasn't right, by Jefferies & Co. analyst Katherine Egbert for people to start talking up Oracle buying Red Hat. Folks, it's not going to happen. IBM will buy Sun. Oracle buying Red Hat? No. This isn't the first time that Egbert has dreamed up fantasies of Oracle buying Red Hat in the minds of silly investors. She was wrong then. She's wrong now. Why? The reasons why it didn't make sense in 2006 are still the reasons the move makes no sense today.

Earlier this week, Psystar released yet another Mac clone -- choosing to ignore the copyright infringement lawsuit pending against it in federal court in San Francisco. InformationWeek's Antone Gonzalves points out that the move is a risky one given that Apple is asking the court to require the Florida-based startup to recall the clones it has sold. Never mind the compatibility problems that could crop up running OSX on non-Apple hardware.

You may be running non-free programs on your computer every day without realizing it—through your web browser. In the free software community, the idea that non-free programs mistreat their users is familiar. Some of us refuse entirely to install proprietary software, and many others consider non-freedom a strike against the program. Many users are aware that this issue applies to the plug-ins that browsers offer to install, since they can be free or non-free.

LXer Feature: 22-Mar-2009

An acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. by IBM might have its good points, especially for Sun's long-suffering shareholders. But IT users and analysts have concerns about the prospective deal that can be summed up in two words: uncertainty and fear. While Sun is a diminished company these days, it remains influential, thanks largely to its open-source products and the massive development communities that have built up around them — Java and MySQL in particular.

In Part I Eric Geier showed us how to turn a cheap wireless router into a hotspot gateway with CoovaAP, to safely offer wireless Internet access to visitors. Today we'll learn Coova's free services to centrally manage and control our hotspots, how to customize our portal page, and how to manage users.

Command-Line-Fu is a new, bash.org-style site for collecting command-line tips and tricks. Juliet Kemp gives us a quick tour of this endlessly-useful new site.

Free-software activist Richard Stallman has warned the open-source community against falling into the trap of downloading Javascript code that's not "free". Stallman said the spread of AJAX-based web services like Google Docs means you many be running Javascript code on your machine that's not free without realizing it. He pointed to Google Docs that downloads a half-megabyte Javascript program to your machine as an example.

The GPS maker, which is being sued by Microsoft, is joining the Open Invention Network, which also counts Red Hat, IBM, and Google as members.

In the seemingly never-ending browser wars, monthly usage statistics are an important metric of just what is really going on on the "battlefield." For Open Source advocates, these statistics are equally if not more important, as they give a reasonably reliable overview of Open Source adoption. That may explain some of the excitement surrounding February's browser statistics, which seem to show Firefox topping the list.

The student application period for Google Summer of Code begins at 19:00 UTC today, and closes at 19:00 UTC on April 3rd. Students should be sure to seek feedback from their mentors as early as possible, to ensure that their application is in top shape for the grading period. Good luck to all students!

While a relatively simple device, web-cameras are still an area on Linux that can be problematic when it comes to compatibility and the device functioning properly. The level of Linux support for USB web-cameras has improved quite a bit in recent years, and for many devices it is now a plug-and-play experience, but that is not the case for all devices. In this article we are taking a brief look at the Logitech QuickCam Communicate Deluxe. The QuickCam Communicate Deluxe has a 1.3 mega-pixel sensor with the capabilities to capture video up to a resolution of 1280 x 1024 at 30 frames per second.

For those interested in turn-based strategy games, Battle For Wesnoth 1.6 is now available on Linux and other supported platforms. This major update to Battle For Wesnoth brings a new campaign (called The Legend of Wesmere), many multi-player improvements, improved game graphics, new terrain types, user-interface improvements, and an improved map editor.

The open source GNOME desktop project has changed version control systems (VCS) to Git. The Git version management system was originally created by Linus Torvalds for the development of the Linux kernel. Other projects managed with Git include Ruby on Rails, WINE, X.org and Perl.

It will only ever truly support Jabber/XMPP/Google Talk, but Synapse, a new alpha-level IM app, is a pretty—and pretty efficient—way to chat if you're all about open-source communication. The developer of Synapse has a goal of spreading the love for XMPP, which is an open, extensible chat standard. That's great for the open-minded set, and users of Google Talk, which conforms to the standard, but is obviously a bit restricting, given the number of contacts one might have on "legacy" systems like AIM or MSN.

You don't learn to ride a bike by reading books. No one can become a pilot by listening to someone else talk about plane journeys they've been on. Instead, we learn by doing, by trying, by failing and - most importantly - by succeeding. Because when you feel like you're winning, you get confidence in your skills and know that you can do anything.

The design of the Sugar Labs logo was an opportunity to create a coherent visual identity for both the revolutionary educational software and also the organization behind it - a growing community of volunteers from diverse backgrounds and professional disciplines. A simple, typographic approach was used for the logo to set it apart from the primarily iconographic Sugar. The conceptual link to the user interface is color, applied to the letterforms through an outline and an interior color - the same technique used to represent identity in the interface for icons of children and activities.

Maker Faire's got started in the US, the first being held on April 22 – 23, 2006 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. Created by Make: magazine these events celebrate D.I.Y. technology with all kinds of weird and wonderful creations ranging from toys to artworks and gadgets. This year Newcastle hosted the first UK Maker Faire.

Recently, a new browser war has erupted all over the internet, with various browsers making massive improvements in each release to trumpet those made by others. While Firefox certainly ignited this new browser war, Chrome is the one who started the JavaScript war. The first release of Google's web browser came with a brand new JavaScript engine that was a lot faster than those of its competitors, forcing them to improve their JavaScript performance as well. This whole JS thing has gotten to the heads of the folks at Google, and they've created a site for experiments which show off the power of JS.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority is denying that a list posted on Wikileaks.org is the same list it maintains of sites believed to be hosting harmful content such as child porn and malware. The official blacklist is a closely guarded secret.