Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

The localisation of OpenOffice.org into the Georgian language is to be completed this summer. It marks part of an important process taking place in Georgia, a former Soviet republic. A year ago the ministry of education decided to rely on open source software in its multimillion-dollar school computerisation project Deer Leap because delivering software in Georgian was only possible if open source was chosen; Microsoft's local partner had just announced another delay in releasing Georgian Windows.

Instead of being a separate license, the LGPL will be the GPL with additional privileges, a kind of template of what additions should be. First Stallman:

Building an open source–based infrastructure has helped mid-market Bonhams compete with the auction industry superpowers.

Linux graphics stack vendor Trolltech recently supplied LinuxDevices.com with a Motorola Rokr E2 music phone for (p)review. The phone appears to be the same E2 that shipped in China last week through carrier China Mobile, but semi-localized to the U.S., to demonstrate the phone's capabilities

Matt Zimmerman has responded to a recent NewsForge article that suggests that the maintainers of derivative distributions are unintentionally violating the requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Ubuntu's technical leader says the project may be able to help.

A Japanese tech group taps low-cost components to help spur development of humanoid robots.

[A Nerd I may be, but I liked the Transformers and Macross Saga and Star Wars and... - Scott]

Doc Searls wrote a magnificant column for an upcoming issue of LJ. He uses the movie"Matrix" to raise issues similar to the one I'm about to raise. His upcoming column should be considered a must-read for anyone who cares about free software and free speech.

The world depicted in a different movie,"Brazil", is similar to that of Matrix in that it is governed bycontrolling self-interest. Freedom, as in free speech, is a partial cure for controlling self-interest, which is what makes the concept of free software superior to any other type of software. But there's more to free software than concept. There's implementation. And that's where free software sometimes gets into trouble with self-interest.

[I have to admit, I completely agree with him. I can't believe it. - Scott]

OpenOffice.org extensions are a quick way to add functionality. Writable in a variety of languages, including Java, JavaScript, OpenOffice.org Basic, Python, and C++, they allow developers to contribute features without having to master much of OpenOffice.org's notoriously cryptic source code. For users, they provide quick fixes for commonly requested features.

LXer Feature: 13-Jul-2006

Microsoft appear to be up their old tricks again. This time it's the "let's work with odt to show how much we care" farce. If you work in an office you probably need to pay attention to this.

Linux and open source software lag behind the proprietary market in the number and quality of available video games, especially in the realm of first-person shooters (FPS), a genre dominated by the likes of Doom, Quake, Unreal, Half-Life, and Halo. Here, Linux is an afterthought, if not ignored completely. Tremulous, a mixture of FPS and RTS (real-time strategy) written by Tim Angus, is an exception to that rule.

If you are planning to port your Unix apps to Linux, be sure to consider the technical, business and project management perspectives, says Alfredo Mendoza, one of the co-authors of Unix to Linux Porting. A thorough assessment of your porting plan from those three perspectives could cut down on unforeseen events in the actual porting and testing.

In this interview with SearchOpenSource.com, Mendoza gives IT managers tips on where to begin when planning to porting apps and what issues IT managers can expect to encounter when porting older Unix apps.

One of Morocco's first government departments to start the move to free software has chosen to switch its servers to Mandriva Linux and is looking at switching desktops to Linux in the near future in a move that could save them as much as 80% of their acquisition and support costs.

In my work I'm expected to be on a Unix system 80% of the time, yet I also need to use office applications, a Windows-only VPN client, and some Windows-based asset management tools. That leaves me with little choice but to use a tool to connect a Windows client to a remote Unix desktop. I could use a terminal emulator or connect via a VNC server, but I've found that Cygwin, a Windows port of many GNU/Linux tools, is the best way for me to bridge the gap.

Freedom Partners is a network of car dealerships in Vermont. Freedom IT director Chip Kaupp doesn't know one Linux distribution from another, but he doesn't need to. Freedom Partners' Web sites and its company intranet run on the Nitix server appliance.

Nitix is a custom variation of Linux that includes Web, email, printing, security, and backup utilities, which is administered through a browser-based GUI. It comes in an easy-to-install package, or preinstalled on its own server hardware.

I asked before about success stories of schools using Open Source Software. Here's a few examples with dollars attached.

[I am studying to become a Teacher, its nice to see at least a few success stories. - Scott]

It is a case of a David and Goliath face-off, with Melbourne and Hobart competing for the right to stage for one of Australia's leading open source software technical conferences in 2008. Linux Australia President Jon Oxer, today announced the two teams bidding for the opportunity to host Free and Open Source Software conference linux.conf.au in 2008.

An(sic) faulty update has caused Symantec to incorrectly detect the Zlob trojan in the open source Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS)... Last week's error marks that fourth time that Symantec mislabels NSIS as spyware, according to an overview on the project's web page. NSIS gets mislabelled as spyware on a regular basis. Microsoft tops the list. It's anti-spyware software has goofed up on five occasions.

[Five times..can't imagine why - Scott]

PUTRAJAYA: There appears to be a gap in the university curriculum for information and communications technology. ICT degree holders make up a large segment of unemployed graduates, but after they complete professional ICT courses under the Human Resources Ministry’s Graduates Retraining Scheme, they are snapped up by employers.

Nominations are officially open for the 6th annual Linux Medical News Freedom Award to be presented at the November 11th-15th AMIA Fall conference in Washington, D.C. Deadline for entries is July 30th, 2006. This is NOT a officially sponsored event of AMIA. Free and open source software isn't 'magic pixie dust' and there are people making significant personal sacrifices as well as doing difficult work to make medicine's free software future a reality.

Tor is a system designed to anonymise Internet connections for users concerned about their privacy. It's free, it's simple, it's effective -- and it facilitates troublemaking.