Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

I know for a fact that either Novell or Red Hat, or perhaps both, will be announcing next week that they'll be shifting their server virtualization offerings from Xen to XenServer. What I don't know is what, if anything, either one of them may be doing beyond that to further their virtualization partnerships with Microsoft. One or the other, however, is going to make a major move. This has been building for some time. Novell, of course, has long had a partnership with Microsoft

I recently joked that we might want to rename OSNews to CourtNews, and with each passing day that silly joke seems to become less silly. This week, it became clear that Psion Teklogix, the company behind various small computing devices back in the '90s, has started an all-out legal offensive to prohibit other companies from using the term "netbook".

The OpenSUSE project, a group that develops a Linux distribution that then feeds into Novell's SUSE Linux, has been hit recently by the layoffs at Novell. Some Novell developers, who were also contributors to the OpenSUSE project, were laid off by the company. This has caused some other contriburors to apparently ask the OpenSUSE board about the future of the project.

Sun Microsystems has announced that in 2009, there will only be a minor release, instead of a major jump from version 6.5 to 7.0, for its open source NetBeans Java development environment. The developers are following their guidelines to release versions that focus on smaller changes and on API compatibility, as intermediate versions.

Lucene open source software has provided the building blocks for enterprise search technology for a few years. Now, it has a commercial backer. Lucid Imagination hopes that putting itself out there as the business face of Lucene will convince more enterprises to build software upon it -- especially when budgets tighten and open source becomes a more attractive option.

If Google were to use Qt, things would be much simpler and Chrome would have a unified interface under Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. But Google isn't satisfied with Qt. Release of the native Linux version of the Google Chrome browser is still planned for June 2009. Unfortunately, more problems than first anticipated keep cropping up. According to recent OSnews, they mainly have to do with the graphical interface.

Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's vice president of intellectual property and licensing, just got a promotion to corporate vice president, as reported in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Gutierrez, who has taken an increasingly active role in Microsoft's intellectual-property strategy since moving back from Paris a few years ago, where he had served as Microsoft's associate general counsel for Europe, Middle East and Africa (and where I first met him for hot chocolate and coffee), is well-known to the open-source crowd for his involvement in Microsoft's accusations in 2007 that Linux violates 235 of Microsoft's patents.

Version 3.0 of the ACCESS Linux Platform has been unveiled at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. The new version offers a richer user interface and compliance with LiMo.

Xbox Live is being targeted by malicious hackers selling services that kick players off the network. The booting services are proving popular with players who want a way to get revenge on those who beat them in an Xbox Live game. The attackers are employing data flooding tools that have been used against websites for many years.

[Why am I not surprised? - Scott]

We've become quite adept at sharing information over the intertubes. But perhaps that's different when it comes to sharing that information personally and verbally. Ever been annoyed when someone at a computer asks you a question as though you're some sort of walking encyclopedia rather than looking it up on the Web? Jake Coyle has just the site for you.

San Diego, Calif., February 19, 2009 – Building on its reputation as the data protection leader of the open systems market, Arkeia Software is proud to announce support of its 100th Linux platform. With Oracle Enterprise Linux, Arkeia Software reiterates its leadership as the broadest supporter for open source operating systems and applications. In addition to Linux, Arkeia supports other open source operating systems including OpenSolaris and the BSD family.

OSCON is months away. LinuxWorld — excuse me, Open Source World — might as well be an eon or two away. What’s a person to do in the meantime? If you have the misfortune of living outside the Golden State, hop a plane and make your way to Los Angeles this weekend for the Southern California Linux Expo. If you’re within walking or driving distance, by all means you should be able to get your fix before the summer at the Westin Los Angeles Airport from Friday through Sunday.

In the Boston Globe article "Cheaper Cheap Laptop Promised" we have Nicholas Negroponte giving an interesting spin to what amounts to a price increase he kept out of the news till now..

Are you disappointed because you couldn't make it out to one of the parties held in honor of 1234567890 Day last week? Not to worry -- we have video so you don't feel left out. As an added bonus, we've got an opportunity to help Linux fight off patent trolls.

For IT teams, it's not a case of having no budget. It is simply that they must get better value for money. They must invest to grow the business or save significant dollars. To help us out, US-led IT vendors have raised their prices by 20 to 30 percent. They might keep their profits high, but where does that leave us? As a result, many IT managers are struggling to deliver on their goals and their promises while making their dollars go much, much further.

This time it's Zarafa, developer of collaboration software, that has announced it's adding native support for the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) to its Linux-based e-mail and calendaring server. Zarafa's server already contains support for several other Microsoft and open source products, including Outlook, SugarCRM, OpenERP, and Alfresco.

You can count on two things for every Debian release: It will be later than expected, and it will be suitable for every possible level of expertise. Debian 5.0 is no exception. Arriving almost five months later than originally scheduled, Debian 5.0 is not the most cutting-edge GNU/Linux distribution, but, like earlier releases, it is unparalleled for flexibility.

Money can't buy you love; nor can it buy you happiness. But it just might bring you peace of mind. The Big 3 commercial Linux vendors; Canonical, Novell and Red Hat are ready to serve you through support subscription services for your Linux infrastructure. There are some big advantages to using commercial vendor support for your systems: 24x7 priority support, fixed support costs and experts who know your operating system inside and out.

Companies and communities is a topic I'll speaking on at SCALE. I welcome any feedback or points to consider! First off, there is no ideal company/community relationship. There are lots of different types of relationships between companies and the communities they work with (or don't work with) - and no one way is perfect for everyone. The goal should be for companies and individuals who use and support open source software to work effectively together. And part of working effectively together means making sure that the open source model is sustainable. Which means interacting for the good of the project, not just taking or using open source software.

"What about Linux, which many users found hard to use and not compatible with all the programs they want to run? “There has not been a substantial incentive for a user to choose Linux before,” Mr. Burchers answered. “If you say a netbook is almost half the thinness, the battery life is four times, and it costs 100 bucks less, but I have to use Linux, that is an incentive.” Linux, he added, is improving. “This has been the first generation that is for non-geeks.”