Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Firms would love to have you dump your computer every year, and your accesories, and your MP3 player, and your DVD, and your entire movie collection, and replace it with new ones. The software world is getting closer.

3Dconnexion's SpaceNavigator is a compact, programmable USB input device designed for 3-D applications. It's a six-axis controller that senses tilt and rotation as well as x, y, and z linear motion. The product was released in November, and this month 3Dconnexion (a subsidiary of peripheral specialist Logitech) announced initial Linux support, including preliminary application functionality and a software development kit.

I have just completed a preliminary version of a (ClearHealth+CK-ERP) connector. [CK-ERP is a CRM/ERP/MRP/accounting system.] A demo of CK-ERP operating within ClearHealth 1.0RC3-2006-10-24 is available at http://ck-erp.org/clearhealth/ .

Does it pass, or should I? It's funny how you can find yourself transported back, when faced with a set of stimuli. Pick up an old book, listen to a piece of music, or put on a jacket, and sometimes a wealth of memories and feelings can come rushing back. It can be slightly disorienting and it's not always pleasant, but for me at least, it never ceases to marvel.

Scott Shreeve, MDweighs -in on the recent Practice Fusion announcement:'All this"paradigm shifting" and"revolutionary" talk is good - way good - and part of the fulfillment of the vision that so many within healthcare IT have had. However, the means by which they are able to deliver it FREELY raise the inevitable red flags. I have several major issues with the enabling mechanism of this"free"dom (or more appropriately Free Dumb). While I have never been a huge privacy guy, and not being an information conspiracy theorist, I am still pretty concerned about how personal health information can be utilized...'

The first Guademy event finished yesterday at the university of A Coruña, Spain. Organized by the GPUL (Grupo de Programadores y Usuarios de Linux), the Linux User Group of A Coruña, it was an event which brought together people from the GNOME and KDE camp (thus the combination of "GUADEC" and "aKademy" that forms the name of the event).

An upcoming report by the Yankee Group warns that Microsoft Exchange may lose around 23 percent of its customers to open source mail solutions in the next year and a half. To be released in April, the report claims that companies will move to an open source mail solution because decision makers believe that open source is both easier to manage and cost-effective.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has released the third draft of the revised third version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3). Some of the changes in the new draft, such as the increased clarification and legal language, or the housekeeping changes that reflect new aspects of the license are likely to be accepted. However, the license also includes a new approach to the controversial issue of lock-down technologies as well as more explicit language about patents, including language designed to prevent a re-occurrence of agreements such as the one that Novell entered into with Microsoft -- all of which is apt to kindle heated debate as the revision process enters its final stages after fifteen months of intensive work.

Since the earliest days, free software and its representatives on earth have been the subject of attacks that serve to question the originality, authenticity, authorship, identity and parentage of the software - but the loose communities (if such they are) of hackers, users, developers and proponents of GNU, Linux and free software have always been quick to respond, as Stallman observes in his history of the GNU project.

Terra Soft Solutions today announced the release of Yellow Dog Linux 5.0.1, a specialty distribution for older, PowerPC-based Apple G3, G4, and G5 computers. The distribution is said to have added more than 500 package updates to go with its 2.6.17 kernel and Enlightenment E17 desktop

The Italy-based project team for Sabayon Linux -- whose name refers to a light, airy, custard-like dessert -- released its v3.3 miniEdition distribution this week, featuring a 2.6.20 kernel and KDE desktop. Sabayon Linux miniEdition is a CD version of the latest Sabayon Linux x86/x86-64 DVD, a team member said.

Red Hat Enterprise support contracts need to be more flexible. When I learned that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, which is a big release for Red Hat I've been looking forward to for some time, was coming out on March 14, one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind was, "Great—when's CentOS 5 coming out?"

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is changing the final process of writing the third version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3). Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF, says that the reasons for the change are the extensive revisions in the next draft and the need "to get the community back involved in the process" as it reaches a climax. The revisions deal with issues raised by the recent Novell-Microsoft deal, and by the community about language in the license about patents and digital rights management (DRM).

The notion of doneness pervades everything we, as humans, set out to achieve. Want to send a manned rocket to Mars? It’ll be done when it’s done. Composing a new symphony? Can’t wait to hear the finished piece. Want to create a payroll system for an automotive company? Better deliver it on time, otherwise they might grow tired of waiting and pull the plug on the whole project.

Six weeks after it first promised a revamped add-ons site for its Firefox browser, Mozilla Corp. today officially launched a streamlined version that touts a beginner's list of extensions. Mozilla did not, however, cull the more than 2,200 extensions offered by the site to the "couple hundred" as it pledged to do early last month.

On March 27, Oracle and the Open Invention Network (OIN) will announce that Oracle will become an OIN licensee. By doing this, Oracle opens the doors to making some of its patents available royalty-free to any company, institution, or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against Linux.

Former Debian Project Leader Martin Michlmayr is completing his doctoral thesis at the Centre for Technology Management, University of Cambridge. Entitled "Quality Improvement in Volunteer, Free, and Open Source Project: Exploring the Impact of Release Management," his thesis is based on case studies of major free and open source software (FOSS) project, including Debian, GNOME, the Linux kernel, OpenOffice.org, Plone, and X.org. A supporter of the open access movement, which tries to make academic work as widely available as possible, Michlmayr is blogging and discussing his work as often as possible. He also plans to make the final version of his thesis available on the Internet. As part of his efforts, Michlmayr talked to Linux.com about why he concludes that regularly scheduled releases are desirable in large FOSS projects.

Sun Microsystems on Tuesday introduced a Netra rack server that offers broader operating system support and is powered by AMD Opteron processors. The Netra X4200 M2, the latest in a product line targeted at the telecom industry, runs Linux, Windows, or Solaris. It is also Sun's first Network Equipment Building Standard Level 3 certified rack server powered by Advanced Micro Devices. NEBS is a widely used set of safety, spatial, and environmental design guidelines for U.S. telecommunications equipment.

Recent talk over a possible merging of the teams of compositing window managers Compiz and Beryl seems to be reaching fruition. Although details have yet to be worked out and no deals have been finalised, the project already has the suggested title of Coral

If sci-fi author William Gibson’s claim that "the future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet" is correct, then how we will manufacture physical goods tomorrow may be augured by how we make software today. Open-source, object-oriented development, personalization, even hacking, are presaging and inspiring new manufacturing methods that will overhaul today’s plodding techniques born during the Industrial Revolution, according to panelists speaking Monday at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego.