Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

A report in the Sunday Times that Microsoft Inc is in talks with Yahoo Inc to buy the U.S. internet company's online search business for $20 billion is "total fiction," according to a key executive cited by an influential U.S. blog. The Sunday Times, which did not cite its sources, said the proposal under discussion involves a complex transaction that would see the U.S. software giant support a new management team to take control of Yahoo.

"What is open source hardware? Briefly, these are projects that creators have decided to completely publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and "board" files to recreate the hardware - they also allow any use, including commercial. Similar to open source hardware like Linux, but hardware centric.

James Whitehurst was considered an unlikely pick when he was chosen in January to be the next CEO of Red Hat. Since taking the helm, he has introduced a project that has Red Hat and IBM developing Microsoft-free PCs.

Did anyone really believe Ballmer when he said that he wasn't still interested in buying Yahoo? Well, truth be told, Ballmer always said he'd be interested in doing a deal for Yahoo's search business. Looks like the money dancer is firing his latest shot!

Even though there are a lot of happy people using Apple's iPhone very happily, there's also a group of people who are not so happy, most likely because of Apple's rather strict policies regarding applications and developers. While most of these people would just jailbreak the thing, some take it a step further - by installing another operating system. Yes, Linux now runs on the iPhone (1st gen/2nd gen, and the 1st gen iPod Touch).

For many, migrating to Linux is a rite of passage that equates to a thing of joy. For others, it’s a nightmare waiting to happen. It’s wonderful when it’s the former; it’s a real show stopper when it’s the latter. But that nightmare doesn’t have to happen, especially when you know, first hand, the most common mistakes new Linux administrators make. This article will help you avoid those mistakes by laying out the most typical Linux missteps.

In a continuing series of articles highlighting that GNU/Linux is a viable replacement operating system, today we're exploring how to encrypt emails using the popular Ubuntu distribution.

Here you have it. Linux running on the iPhone. Yes, it's only the first port, but it's the iPhone running the Linux OS, controlled with a USB keyboard running off the iPhone multi-purpose port thanks to the reverser engineering of Apple's hardware drivers by iPhone Dev Team member planetbeing. And while it is still limited and doen't have support for many things, this work opens the door to a much more interesting thing than just a character-based terminal: Google's Android running on the iPhone hardware.

Btrfs has received much of the limelight on Linux when talking about file-systems since it promises to compete with Sun's ZFS file-system and introduce several features not found in the commonly-used EXT3 and EXT4 file-systems. However, work on other Linux file-systems hasn't halted. EXT4 should be stable with the Linux 2.6.28 kernel and work on the Tux3 file-system continues.

n a letter written to the SEC obtained by BusinessWeek, lawyers from Facebook counsel Fenwick & West wrote that the company "anticipates that it could in the future have more than 500 holders" of restricted stock. In the 10-page letter, Facebook argued that there's no need to meet the SEC disclosure requirements, since only insiders are getting the equity, and they're not paying for it.

The main factor working against the growth of open source software in Asia has been the ready availability of pirated versions of Microsoft's software. However, open source advocates are gaining traction in places such as Nepal, where Linux is growing in popularity.

As someone who has been following Microsoft for over 25 years, I remain staggered by the completeness of the Vista fiasco. Microsoft's constant backtracking on the phasing out of Windows XP is perhaps the most evident proof of the fact that people do not want to be forced to “upgrade” to something that has been memorably described as DRM masquerading as an operating system.

I started an open source software project a couple of weeks ago, sort of. It's about as minor as something like this gets -- at least for now. But even at that scale, it's become a learning experience. The project is a page template for the Movable Type blogging platform, one which lets you crosspost recent entries to a LiveJournal account as well. I came up with it because the crossposting plugins I'd seen for Movable Type all seemed rather top-heavy, and I wanted to come up with something on my own that would let me learn about how to create such things -- and learn a little about the mechanisms involved. (Figuring out LiveJournal's posting protocol alone cost me more time than putting together the guts of the template itself.)

Knowing when a GNU/Linux distribution is free used to be simple. If all its software had licenses approved by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) or the Open Source Initiative, then a distribution was free. Otherwise, it wasn't. However, the release of the GNewSense distribution a few years ago has complicated the situation, pitting idealists against pragmatists and sending some distributions scrambling for a compromise that is unlikely to satisfy anyone. The GNewSense team was the first to point out that the Linux kernel contained proprietary firmware blobs, and that many kernel drivers depended on external proprietary blobs, and has dedicated itself to producing an operating system with all this material removed.

UNIX is being attacked by Linux from the top and bottom ends of the market. The signs are that it is losing the battle on both fronts. A couple of weeks back I wrote that Linux is becoming increasingly capable of doing the less-demanding tasks that UNIX has historically been asked to do, so there is less and less need for UNIX. That explains its falling share of the server market.

Running an open source company is not like running a proprietary company. But how different should it be? Does the difference include publicly beating your breast about mistakes both real and imagined? Sridhar Vembu is not afraid to find out. The CEO of AdventNet, creators of the Zoho online suite, has quickly become one of the industry’s biggest advocates of total transparency.

I have a confession to make. There's no software on earth I can't make dance and sing... except for photography programs. Whether it's Adobe Photoshop CS4 on a Mac or GIMP 2.6.3 on Linux, I'm a klutz. So, when I need to make my holiday photos look halfway decent, I try my best with easy to use photo programs like Photoshop Elements 7 or Google Picasa. While I'd like to see more Adobe programs, on Linux with Google's new release of Picasa 3 for Linux now here, I'm in no hurry to see Photoshop Elements on Linux.

Linux fans who have been waiting for Linux to come the iPhone and iPod Touch need wait no longer – the breakthrough has finally been made, years after Linux found its way onto earlier iPod models. There’s a way to go before the project is mature, with plenty of things, including touchscreen support, yet to come. Still - Linux on the iPhone is here, at last!

After Wayan previously compiled the extensive G1G1 2008 Buyer's Guide I thought it would make sense to follow up with a list of recommended accessories for your XO, just in time for Black Friday.

Bright and golden California summers have given way to a vivid fall landscape also bright and golden - but with a chance of rain. It's Thanksgiving in the state, and tots are already awaiting the arrival of Saint Nick, who's annual roll-out could mean a shiny iPhone if they've been good, or maybe a Zune duct-taped to a RAZR phone if they've been extremely naughty. With the holiday spirit in mind, we return to the Computer History Museum in Googleton Mountain View for a very special edition of This Old Box.

[I had never seen that one before..how far we have come.. - Scott]