Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

It's increasingly common for prominent open-source developers to leave IBM or other open-source-friendly companies to try their luck at Microsoft. It's not common at all for them to blog about it before actually getting a formal offer. Yet that is what Sam Ruby, prominent Apache Software Foundation director and Atom developer, has done on his blog. Ruby was hired by IBM directly from Christopher Newport University in 1981 and has never left.

For an OS to wrestle market share from Microsoft's Windows, it will need two things: the OS-maker's support and low licensing fees. This rings true even on the netbook front--a relatively new PC segment, and even for Microsoft. Recently, the Android OS backed by Google was unofficially ported to an Asus Eee PC netbook, and according to online reports, the Taiwanese manufacturer has set up a team to develop a netbook running on the Linux-based OS.

Watching litigation is often like watching a messy divorce. People will often say things they don't actually believe are true just to get the response they want from the audience. If you want to determine who is right, you have to step back and look at the behavior from the parties outside court to determine who is at fault and what the real issues are. This latest case between Microsoft and TomTom, which has some Linux leaders speaking out, is to point and it may showcase how others are likely to try to manipulate us during these difficult times.

[I posted this purely for it's entertainment value. - Scott]

In a keynote at the Open Source Forum of CeBIT 2009, Graham Smethurst, general manager of infotainment and communication systems at BMW, will present a new Open Source development platform for the auto industry. Under the name GENIVI, founding partners BMW, Delphi, General Motors, Intel, Magneti Marelli, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Visteon and Wind River will jointly develop Linux-based infotainment software

Nokia has released the first major update to the Qt "cross-platform application framework" since it acquired Trolltech a year ago. Qt 4.5 is now available under the open source LGPL and GPL licenses along with two commercial licenses for older versions.

With any article whose premise is ensuring the safety of your programming career, it's tempting to try to hook your attention with fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the state of the economy. I could point at all those layoff statistics. Or I could frighten you by bringing up the spectre of your job going overseas.

GNOME and KDE reign supreme on the Linux desktop, but there are many lesser-known desktop environments that are increasingly popular among users who are looking for lightweight alternatives that deliver more streamlined interfaces and a functional user experience with less overhead. The Xfce project, which produces one of the most polished lightweight desktop environments, recently announced the release of version 4.6.

If you have ever tried to use the apt-get command to install software but received an error because you forgot sudo, the Command-line Fu site has a quick but useful tip for you.

Flock, a social-focused browser startup that has raised nearly $30 million in venture funding, has ceased building on top of the open source Firefox browser, say multiple sources. The next version of the Flock browser will be built on Google’s open source Chrome browser platform. The last version of Flock was released in October 2008. Flock first launched in October 2005 and has had 6 million or so downloads. But it still has less market share than even Netscape, which was discontinued over a year ago.

The most recent such pronouncement came from the British authorities last week with a statement that the use of open source software in the public service would be accelerated. The more significant statement about this policy was that open source software would be adopted "when it delivers best value for money". You can be sure that companies like Microsoft are already doing the sums to make the right offer which offers "best value for money."

[Belated Editor's Note: Warning, reading this article may make you want to punch your monitor.. - Scott]

The number of open source projects targeting mobile platforms increased at a compound annual growth rate of 55 percent between 2005 and the end of 2008 according to a new study released by open-source software management services provider Black Duck Software. After reviewing more than 185,000 projects collected from 4,000 Internet sites, Black Duck reports 2,300 of them target mobile--while 1,850 total project releases were developed expressly for the Palm platform, only 113 were created for Palm in 2008. Instead, iPhone captured the majority of open-source focus last year, with 266 project releases in 2008--Android followed with 191, trailed by Windows Mobile with 174.

It looks like server virtualization really is heading for the mainstream on Power Systems machines. If some figures provided by the top brass at IBM are any indication. While logical partitioning has been available on OS/400-based servers since V4R4 was launched with the Northstar PowerPC servers back in 1999, virtualization on Power-based servers from IBM has been embraced mostly by big shops with big iron even as Linux and AIX partitions were added to the logical partitioning mix.

A good friend of mine, who is very computer savvy, recently bought a new computer and installed Ubuntu on it rather than Windows. Now, despite being a very smart guy when it comes to PCs and Windows, he was still a newbie to the world of Ubuntu, so he and I went through a series of questions and answers before, during, and after his Ubuntu install. I’ve turned those into a FAQ for Ubuntu noobs that should answer a fair amount of questions for the first 24 hours of a first-time Ubuntu installation.*

Booting, or "bootstrapping" for us older folk, is that deeply mysterious sequence of operations performed by your computer between the moment when you switch it on and the moment it's ready for you to log in. During this time, all kinds of incomprehensible messages scroll up the screen, but they're not something you usually take much notice of, and most linux distros cover them up with a pretty splash screen and a nice encouraging progress bar.

Your editor's adventure with the Android Developer Phone (ADP1) began just before the end of the year. This phone, remember, has the nearly unique selling point that it is lacking any sort of lockdown feature. It will happily run any software which is fed to it, from the kernel on up. It thus brings the promise of free software to a market which has traditionally gone out of its way to avoid enabling any sort of freedom. It's actually possible to control the software we run on our phones - but only if we buy the right phone.

I first came across Drupal almost five years ago. I recommended it for a project on politics, since abandoned. My experience was a nightmare. We were a commercial operation that needed professional programming. The launch of Acquia as Drupal’s commercial arm last year changed that. It turned out to change a lot more. Within months, Microsoft was distributing Drupal. Acquia is acquiring a host of new platinum partners. Commercial organizations have begun adopting it. So has the government.

I think the most eagerly anticipated demo at Demo 09 here will be Always Innovating's Touch Book, slated for late Monday afternoon. It's yet another Netbook, granted, but it's got a cool detachable (and optional) keyboard, and a magnetic mount for sticking onto a refrigerator. I got a quick demo video (left) with the company's CEO, Gregoire Gentil, who is French. He couldn't show me the user interface on the prototype hardware he had with him, but says it will be easy to use with big, fat American fingers (he didn't actually say that). The product will run a Linux OS, Gentil said, and it's the first Netbook based on an ARM CPU, not the typical Atom found in most Netbooks. He says users can expect 10 to 15 hours of battery life. The product will be $299 without the keyboard, $399 with. It ships this spring, but you can preorder now.

Hard economic times have resulted in good economic news for makers of open source PBXs. In a study released by the Eastern Management Group based on a survey of 6,000 IT executives, open source-based PBX products and overall solutions now account for 18% of the private branch market

Celtx 2.0, an open source media pre-production and screenwriting application, has been released. Celtx is an XUL application writing tool that includes several built in project templates to help users develop their stories. The application helps users get their ideas from concept to production, using pre-visualisation tools, like storyboards. Version 2.0 includes several new features, changes and bug fixes. Celtx is released under the Celtx Public License Version 1.3 (CePL) which consists of the Mozilla Public License Version 1.2 with additional amendments.

Psion Teklogix has filed a counterclaim against Intel in response to the chip giant's attempt to get its Netbook trademark nixed in the US. The complaint - filed, like Intel's, with the US District Court for Northern California - wants Intel brought to book for allegedly infringing said trademark. "Intel has acted willfully and maliciously, has unlawfully attempted to trade on the tremendous commercial value, reputation and goodwill of the Netbook mark, and has deliberately and intentionally confused and deceived the public as to an affiliation, connection or association of Intel with Psion, and/or as to the origin, sponsorship or approval of Intel’s goods and/or services," the PDA pioneer alleges.