Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

The technology landscape is changing, says Novell CEO Rob Hovsepian. On-premise installations are giving way to Software as a Service, Microsoft is distributing Novell's version of Linux for servers and social networking is gaining acceptance for its business value. Novell and other companies must adapt to this new ecosystem, he said.

What can you do to stand out from the hundreds of other Linux distros that already exist? There are a number of angles you can explore for this – choose one, two or all of them if you want!

Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge is best-known for novels like A Fire Upon the Deep and Rainbows End, as well as the concept of The Singularity -- the idea that, in the next couple of decades, humans will become or create a super-human intelligence. What is less well-known is that Vinge has been a free software supporter since the earliest days of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). He has served several times on the jury for the FSF Awards and spoke at an FSF-sponsored event held last month in San Diego to coincide with the LISA conference. As someone who deals regularly with large scale speculations, Vinge places free software in a larger historical context. He even speculates that free software may be one of the factors that will shortly bring about the Singularity.

openSUSE 11.1 is now out (screenshots), featuring KDE 4.1.3 and a string of KDE improvements. The release brings back the much-loved KDE-PIM suite, and includes new games, the KSCD CD player, KSystemLog to keep track of system changes, improvements to Dolphin, Konqueror (including Webkit part), Plasma (including auto-hide panel, folder view), Marble integration with OpenStreetMap, and much more. The release is available as an installable live CD, or on a DVD with KDE 3.5.10, GNOME, Xfce, and many more applications.

IBM delves into what's new in PHP 5.3: Part-1 shows you the changes to the object-orientated capabilities, and Part-2 shows you the exciting new possibilities with real closures and lambda functions. ["Read more" for Kroc's personal commentary] PHP is a language I dislike, but am good at. It is a language that, as long as you stay away from certain parts of it, you'll be safe and it works well. It can even be beautiful in some rare instances.

As I listened to David Mihelcic, CTO with the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency talk about the benefits of open source on Federal News Radio's presentation of "Open Source Solutions - 2 Years In Review," I couldn't help but be impressed with just how far open source has come in the past decade.

SymphonyOne is a distribution designed in a way that's uniquely different from other distributions. Its key focus is ease of use and simplicity. This is perfect for kiosks, new users, or technological neophytes who don't use a computer much, or simply don't like complicated interfaces. This distribution would be good for more senior users to choose when picking a Linux distro to give to family members or friends with limited needs or computer skills. Why? Let's have a look.

An open source project has released a new, more "hackable" Debian-based Linux distribution for the Openmoko NeoFreerunner phone. The Hackable:1 group hopes to build a well-maintained, developer-friendly codebase for use by VARs (value-added resellers) building products on top of Openmoko's open hardware designs.

I love working with the Ubuntu community. I love the opportunities, challenges and people that occupy it. Each day is filled with a diverse tapestry of challenges, be it growing new teams, refining governance, developing strategy, or simply chewing the fat with Ubuntu and upstream contributors from around the world. No day is ever the same. Something has been bothering me though recently. On my team we work on a huge range of different topics and ideas. We work closely with our community to identify areas of focus and scale, and we indulge in a raft of technical and social puzzles. Despite the hundreds of emails and hours of discussion, I have recently felt like something was missing. It was if we have overlooked something; the small detail in the painting that makes it all make sense.

In no less than two days I've read a flurry of articles pooh-poohing the Linux desktop as a veritable delusion and a fairy story -- something to tell young GTK+ coders before you tuck them in at night. It isn't the year of the Linux desktop; it's the year of the Linux catfight.

Long-time developer Manoj Srivastava has resigned as the secretary of the Debian GNU/Linux Project and is thinking of leaving the project altogether. In a message posted to one of the project mailing lists, Srivastava said he had taken the step of quitting the post of secretary due to the dissatisfaction over the options offered in a recent vote about the release of the next version of Debian, Lenny. The voting process ends on December 21.

After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy. The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003. Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. And it created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl.

[Its my guess that the ISP's will be able to determine if the person doing the "illegal downloading" is actually alive or above the age of 12 before suing them. - Scott]

I love books. I read books, write books, and collect books. After years of too-small homes I finally have a house big enough to hold all my books. Yes, the bookworm's dream come true, a whole room dedicated to a book library. It's not a huge room, just a small bedroom, but it holds all of my books and there is room for future acquisitions. It even has stylish pine bookcases that I built myself. Straight and true, though I did skimp on the sanding, which makes splinters a bit of a problem. But it's a small price to pay for the luxury of having all of my books on actual shelves, and organized so I can find what I want.

The latest version of Novell’s Linux distro, openSUSE 11.1, has been released, with 230 new features, improvements to YaST, major updates to GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org, a new license and plenty more.

Webmin is a web-based system for Unix, Linux, OpenSolaris, and recently added Windows based Operating Systems that allow you to take full control of your server through a popular control panel and web-interface. What Webmin does is it allows you to simplify the managing course of action with a Unix and/or Linux system. You can manually edit and configure files as well as run commands to create/delete accounts, set up web servers, or manage email forwarding. You’re able to complete all of these tasks through a trouble-free web interface specifically designed for the user.

Eric Geier show how, with Google's Picasa, you can create online photo albums, touch-up and fix photos, make movies, and create gift CDs or DVDs without having to be an ace graphical artist guru.

The success of open source software is now being driven by its rapid commercialization by the likes of IBM and Microsoft, and not simply its appeal to evangelistic developers, a new report has suggested.

Let me first say that I am a believer in the possibilities that exist for laptops in learning, and I've followed OLPC as much as my free time will allow. OLPC presents itself as a learning company rather than a laptop company. Calls to constructionism, collaboration, and children as "learning by doing" are pervasive in the website. There's this vision of how the laptop can change learning and schooling and give the our children the right tools to thrive:

As a regular browser of the Firefox Add-ons site, I'm troubled by the apparent proliferation of proprietary extensions in the last year. Maybe I've simply exhausted the free-licensed extensions that interest me, but recently every interesting-looking extension seems to be a proprietary one -- especially in the recommended list. Nothing, of course, in the Mozilla privacy or legal notice prohibits proprietary extensions simply because they are proprietary, but I find them not only contrary to the spirit of free and open source software (FOSS), but, often, annoying attempts to entangle me in some impossible startup.

What is it about the holiday season? It throws a spotlight on the best -- and worst -- aspects of human nature. It holds true in the open source world. NextStep, a hardware recycling and refurbishing organization in Eugene, Oregon, was burglarized earlier this week. Hardest hit was the organization's Ubuntu Laptop Program. NextStep provides computers, technology and job skills training to Lane County Oregon's under-served residents, and its Ubuntu Laptop Program is a major source of funding for these endeavors.