Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

TheFamily Guide to Digital Freedom is a website and an accompanying book created by Marco Fioretti, a part-time journalist who writes about free and open source software (FOSS). The site is interesting for its attempt to do things at once: to provide a guide for non-technically inclined computers users to the advantages of open standards and free software, and a critique of the FOSS communities.

Gaël Duval, the founder of the popular MandrakeLinux (later MandrivaLinux) project, was fired from Mandriva last spring in an effort to cut costs. Almost immediately afterward, Duval began work on a new GNU/Linux distribution, Ulteo. As of this writing, Ulteo has not yet released its first beta edition, but it should be available soon. While we're all waiting, I figured I'd ask Mr. Duval some questions about Ulteo, Mandriva, and starting GNU/Linux projects in general. Answers are below.

Omni Technology Solutions and its partner in the UK, Blueloop, have partnered to deliver LinuxWorld London's Internet cafe. The Internet cafe will consist of 12 independent Linux workstations running on two Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz desktops with 2 GB of RAM.

While it has gained the attention of many governments and organisations through its philosophy and OpenDocument file format, OpenOffice.org has not to date enjoyed the same enthusiastic take up that Firefox has. This could be set to change, however, as the next version of the open source office suite will, like its web browsing brother, include plug-in extension support.

Novell recently launched version 10 of SUSE Linux Desktop. eWorld caught up with Revathi Kasturi, managing director, West Asia SUSE Linux, to check out the level of activity amongst users of open source software. Excerpts from the conversation:

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: The KDE World Conference, Akademy 2006, kicks off in Dublin. A rewritten version of KTurtle, an educational programming tool, is imported into KDE SVN. ThreadWeaver is moved into kdelibs. Hebrew sounds are added to KLettres to add learning support for the language. Improvements in the OpenDocument format and XML Paper Specification format support in okular...

AMD has taken a leaf out of the open source community’s book and has released the hardware specifications for its Opteron server processor, prompting big changes from players such as IBM.

Python developers had reason to celebrate this week, with the release of IronPython 1.0, a full implementation of the Python language for Microsoft’s CLR (Common Language Runtime). With IronPython, Python programs can run as first-class managed code on the .Net platform.

KDE's annual world summit aKademy has been kicked off at the Trinity College Dublin to work on the next-generation desktop, KDE 4, and desktop standards. The aKademy conference will run through Saturday, September 23, through Saturday, September 30.

The Geek Freedom League is making good on its promise to refund Linux Professional Institute (LPI) exam fees to 50 geeks who have successfully completed a Level 1 certification.

Linux is known for running well (or at least running) on older hardware and exotic platforms. I attempted to install Kubuntu Dapper Drake (6.10) on a Compaq TC1000 Tablet PC. I discovered that while Linux may install on nearly every platform, and run faster than its proprietary competition, it may not always be the best-fitting choice for every environment.

IBM is reaching out to venture capitalists by offering technology and go-to-market help for software start-ups they back. According to IBM, use of its software, servers and consulting from staff in 30 Innovation Centers worldwide will help young companies get to market quickly and reduce development costs of advanced and emerging technologies in Web 2.0, software as a service (SaaS), security, virtualization and wireless. All services will be provided free of charge.

JSR222 specifies the Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) 2.0. JAXB 2.0 specification is implemented in Java Web Services Developer Pack (JWSDP) 2.0. JAXB 2.0 has some new features that facilitate the marshalling and unmarshalling of an XML document. I have used both JAXB 1.0 and JAXB 2.0 and have found that JAXB 2.0 generates less code and has some additional features.

There are hundreds of Linux distributions. DesktopLinux.com has published a list of the ones we think are especially interesting for desktop Linux users -- from Arch Linux to Zenwalk -- and we plan to update the list on an ongoing basis.

The GNOME development will host its sixth Boston Summit Oct. 7-9 at the MIT Media Lab. The Boston Summit is a three-day "hackfest" for GNOME developers and contributors, the team said on its website.

A group of leading developers calling themselves Dunc-Tank is preparing to pay selected Debian developers to complete specific projects. But although Dunc-Tank's first goal is the practical one of ensuring that the next version of Debian is ready for its scheduled release, its announcement has also publicized a previously private debate about what happens when free software developers suddenly receive pay for what they are already doing for personal reasons.

Building your own wireless access point, or router, or firewall using Linux and a single-board computer is fun, with the usual bonus of having complete control over your stuff. There are kazillions of tiny Linuxes- which one should you try?

As women become more involved with open source communities, it's important that their voices be heard. The dot is beginning a new series of interviews with women who contribute to F/OSS. Our first interviewee is Elizabeth Krumbach, who is the coordinator for the Philadelphia area LinuxChix chapter.

Novell plans an October launch for its Suse Linux Enterprise Real-Time product, an operating system geared for Wall Street traders and others who watch every microsecond of the clock.

Popular open source content management system Mambo today released version 4.6. This is the first major release in almost two years.