Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

For the next interview in the fortnightly People Behind KDE series we travel to France to meet a developer who likes polishing, someone who loves to create images only to filter them out -- tonight's star of People Behind KDE is Cyrille Berger.

South Africa-based Bika Labs have released version 1.2.2 of the open source laboratory information management system, Bika Lims, has been released by Bika Labs.

We need to understand sprints — you do, we do, all of us. For several years now, we've had the intention to explain computing sprints in "Regular Expressions". It's become apparent, though, that we're not currently making the time to compose the definitive ethnography of the subject. Rather than try to keep up in an encyclopedic way with a subject that keeps expanding, therefore, we'll lightly sketch its outline and advise you to be on the lookout for more news.

The company completes its work on the open-source Word add-on, which translates files from the Open Document Format, and is set to start work on translators for Excel and PowerPoint.

Blackboard, one of the major providers of educational content management systems, has pledged not to assert its patents against open source elearning projects and companies. The pledge also covers so-called "home-grown" learning systems -- ones developed in-house by educational institutions. However, the pledge includes open source solutions only so long as they are not bundled with proprietary software, which has received mixed reactions, with many open source projects acknowledging the spirit of the gesture while expressing skepticism about the results.

Mozilla.org, which makes Firefox, the most popular Web browser alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer, is setting up a China office to do battle in the world's second-largest Web market. California-based Mozilla already has a presence in China via a not-for-profit Foundation supporting open-source software projects, but the Beijing office will be its first real corporate presence, Mozilla Chief Operating Officer John Lilly said on Friday.

Google evangelist Chris DiBona and venture capitalist and former Oracle president/COO Ray Lane will be among the headliners at an Open Source Summit Feb. 15 in Pittsburgh, Penna. The summit will discuss "how the open source movement is changing the rules of the game for everyone in the software marketplace," an event spokesperson said.

Although Linux might be making big inroads in some vertical markets, Microsoft Windows keeps enjoying virtually complete domination of the legal software space, with the small exception of some embedded appliances, concurred participants in this week's LegalTech show in New York City. "Microsoft is actually terrified of Linux in most vertical markets. But the legal market isn't one of them," said Whit McIsaac, moderator of a conference session called "Implementing Strategic Plans--Successfully Deploying Change in the Law Firm."

Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!

The RAR and 7-Zip file compression formats originated on Windows, so support for them on Linux is not as automatic as it is for old Unix holdovers like Gzip and TAR. But with the right software, you can handle these compressed files without much trouble.

I spoke with some guys at the AlwaysOn show yesterday who have an interesting business model aimed at tech support professionals. Spiceworks have a radically different take on free software. They allow anybody to download their application which monitors devices on the network. It incorporates a ticketing system and also the ability to share experiences in a forum environment with other Spiceworks users.

TimeSys Corp is sponsoring The Open Source Summit, presented by The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) Pittsburgh.

When MySQL files for IPO, we'll get to view their financials. We'll get to compare their performance metrics against Red Hat (which, until now, has been the only pure-play OSS player with public financials) and traditional vendors. I'm willing to bet that their metrics will be (surprisingly) close to metrics from traditional software vendors.

PyDEV is a plugin that enables developers to use Eclipse for Python and Jython development, making Eclipse a first-class Python IDE. The software offers features such as code completion, syntax highlighting, syntax analysis, automated refactoring, template system, source code quality checking, and a debugging environment.

Embedded Linux specialist TimeSys is among the sponsors of a Pittsburgh conference exploring the strategies and economics of open source software. The "Open Source Summit" will feature discussions of corporate open source initiatives, adoption, licensing, and business models, and will be held the evening of Thurs., Feb. 15.

Frustrating hardware compatibility issues on Linux may become a thing of the past thanks to an offer by the Linux kernel development community to develop drivers for manufacturers free of charge.

How big a role can Open Source play in helping developers build security and identity management solutions? Well, Liberty Alliance, a group of G1000 end users and vendors working on federated identity management and web services, wants to find out. The group has launched openLiberty.org, an online portal to offer tools and community support to devs using Open Source to build identity-based applications.

A preview of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, which won't be released for about a month, is available via the latest Scientific Linux 5 (SL5) alpha live CD/DVD, released this week. Built from source packages for RHEL 5, SL5 sports a 2.6.18 kernel and either the KDE or GNOME desktops.

UKIAH, CALIF. -- East Kern County Integrated Technology Association (EKCITA), a federally funded technology project in Tehachapi, California, has selectedMendocino Informatics to build a rural health information exchange. EKCITA (www.ekcita.org) is a public/private partnership formed by the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District, two Rural Health Clinics, and fourteen private medical practices. The goal of the EKCITA community-wide electronic medical records system is to improve quality of patient care and chronic disease management in the rural region of East Kern County.

Red Hat Magazine--January Features