Showing headlines posted by dcparris

A group of industry heavyweights have come together to develop and promote open-source storage management software.

The new group, named Aperi, from the Latin verb "to open," will include IBM, Cisco Systems, Network Appliance, Computer Associates, Brocade Communications, Fujitsu, McData and Engenio Information Technologies.

OSBC is designed for IT business executives (buyers and vendors), venture capitalists, attorneys, and other decision-makers tasked with developing businesses that leverage open source software. It explores the legal, investment, vendor and customer risks, rewards, and opportunities presented by open source software.

[Hey, Eben Moglen will be there to deliver a keynote address, and Microsoft's own Jason Matusow will surely be an entertaining speaker. Hopefully he'll explain why Microsoft is so unwilling to meet their customers needs by supporting OpenDocument. - Ed]

The OpenDocument Fellowship has launched a web-based petition to encourage Microsoft to support the OpenDocument standard. As of today, just over a week after the initiative was launched, the petition has over 5500 signatures representing well over 168,500 computers.

Jason writes: "I downloaded the drivers for iBurst from Sourceforge -- just think about that for a second. Imagine how enraged Windows users would be if they got their new iBurst modem and were told that iBurst doesn't provide drivers -- they'd have to download them from the Web from some third party that bothered to create them. How, exactly, are you meant to do that with no Internet connection?"
[He's got a point there. He goes on to suggest that hardware vendors ought to be embarrassed by their own unwillingness to be responsible for supporting all their customers. - Ed]

Last week the software company took part in its second multi-vendor roadshow this year to drive the Linux message, as it continues to boost the Linux capabilities of its product line-up.

Novell joined Unisys and Oracle to present sessions in Auckland and Wellington on deploying Linux in data centres.

In July and August it undertook a multi-stop tour with Oracle and HP to raise awareness about the choices available with Linux from the desktop to the data centre.

[With the number of recent reports about Novell winning contracts in Indiana (for Novell Linux Desktops on students' desks) and in China, etc., seems like Novell's Linux message is merely growing stronger. - Ed]

[Mark Spencer likens Free/Open Source Software to self-service air travel. How would you like to be able to re-arrange your own flight? - Ed]

"In a rare display of indignation, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly demanded an explanation Wednesday from Microsoft's lawyers and told them, 'This should not be happening'." [Is monopolism like alcoholism - once a monopolist, always a monopolist? Let's hope the lesson learned is the right lesson. - Ed]

Nishant writes: "Now, if I don’t want to use Windows at all, why should I pay for it? Is there no freedom for a computer buyer if he goes for branded ones?" [He goes on to make the case for a grassroots movement to expose vendors to GNU/Linux. - Ed]

SGI Altix and SGI InfiniteStorage Shared Filesystem CXFS Transparently Manages Multiple Operating Systems in an SGI SAN Environment [Pharmaceutical company, Organon, is using the SGI SAN solution to manage several operating environments, including a Linux cluster and Linux on an Altix 350 system. This solution overcomes the limitations of NFS. -Ed]

A Durban-based music mixer has won the Yfm and Creative Commons "Mad Half Hour Open Source Mixes" competition by adding his own creative mix commons-licensed music. [What Red Hat, Novell, and others do with GNU/Linux distributions, Nathan Redpath does with music. Libre software will flourish in a libre culture. Or is that vice-versa? -Ed]

When faith-based organizations start looking for libre software alternatives, The Freely Project offers a turn-key solution that will serve their needs well. While aimed at Christians, this solution should work well, no matter what your organization's religious beliefs.

"Penguin in the Pew" 2.0 is being offered as a Web-Based Training tutorial by GlobalLiteracy (www.globalliteracy.org) for use in its site and at GospelLearning (www.gospellearning.org). "Penguin in the Pew", a book by Christian Libre Software Advocate, Don Parris, helps Christian ministries discover the advantages of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS). The web-based course enables church staffers and others to understand the license terms, technical challenges and financial hurdles churches may face as they consider their next software upgrade. The course will be delivered using the libre software Learning Management System (LMS), Moodle.

If Fox News offers an opportunity for an opposition viewpoint to James Prendergasts' article, "Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument" this would be one response.