Showing headlines posted by SamShazaam

Linux is now mainstream -- so mainstream, in fact, that two of the top three Linux distributions are commercially successful operations, and the third aims to be. Every day, more and more old-school IT firms shake off their initial doubts, get in line behind their customers, and try Linux and other free software projects. In the face of such success, will Linux remain true to its free software ideals and to the community which created it? Or will it morph into a corporate byproduct, driven by the bottom line, and complacent with all forms of predatory intellectual property (IP), including software patents and closed, proprietary standards which are standard fare in the IT industry.

Linus Torvalds, head of development for Linux, comments on the operating system, its rival Windows, what motivates software developers and the occasional messiness of free choice.

How different reality often is from flame wars, particularly when the subject is legal. The Software Freedom Law Center has just announced that it "has carefully reviewed the lineage of the open source Atheros wireless driver for Linux and determined which portions can be distributed under the ISC license (also known as the 2-clause BSD license)".

I have read about Asterisk and wanted to test it out as I will be managing/troubleshooting it at work anytime soon, so I thought of getting my hands dirty and getting some basic experience on it.

Linux users want two things for their hardware: drivers; and easy access to those drivers. The first is finally happening; and now, thanks to a Dell Linux project called DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support), the other is on its way.

Gentoo, formerly known as Enoch Linux is one of the pioneers among the Linux distributions. It is well-known and loved for its speed (the Gentoo species is the fastest swimming penguin), and hated for its unfriendliness with Linux newbies. Thus, many flavours of Gentoo have been created including this highly capable one named Sabayon. Every now and then, I’m searching for a perfect Operating System worthy to replace my OpenSuse 10.1. I have chosen to try out Sabayon Linux as I have already used Gentoo before and was quiet impressed with it.

Here's the press release. They still call themselves "a leading provider of UNIX® software technology and mobile services". That isn't what they just told the bankruptcy court, but who's counting? So they say they got a delisting letter saying they'll be delisted as of September 27.

Predicting SCO's demise is a popular hobby in open-source circles. Now, however, with SCO recent filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the experts believe that SCO's end is near.

The OpenOffice.org community today announced that IBM will be joining the community to collaborate on the development of OpenOffice.org software. IBM will be making initial code contributions that it has been developing as part of its Lotus Notes product, including accessibility enhancements, and will be making ongoing contributions to the feature richness and code quality of OpenOffice.org. Besides working with the community on the free productivity suite's software, IBM will also leverage OpenOffice.org technology in its products.

The story has a familiar ring. A vendor offers powerful, reliable new appliances to go with the open-source IP PBX (Private Branch eXchange) software it provides and supports. The new boxes make it easier for users to turn the software into business phone systems that are significantly cheaper than proprietary solutions. Given the enthusiastic reception small companies have been giving similar efforts, it might seem this idea can hardly miss.

Microsoft's Sam Ramji slammed the door on virtualizing Microsoft's newest desktop operating systems (XP and Vista) on Linux yesterday. In a speech at LinuxWorld, the director of Microsoft's open-source software lab claimed that "we haven't seen significant demand for Linux applications on the desktop or for desktop virtualization on top of Linux."

Linus Torvalds, creator and maintainer of the Linux operating system kernel, has reacted angrily to suggestions that the kernel's development process is skewed in a way that prevents improvements on the desktop. Torvalds was responding to criticism by programmer Con Kolivas, who had developed a patch designed to improve the performance of specific Linux desktop features.

Motorola knows that product development needs to move quickly for the company to stay competitive -- and it’s using Linux to hasten the effort. “We do all of our advanced technology development on Linux,” says Mark VandenBrink, a Motorola fellow and chief architect of systems software at the company. Software developers are using Linux to build Web browsers, multimedia players and other mobile applications, VandenBrink says. The Linux community can develop new phones with new features quickly for a variety of global markets.

a.k.a. "You can't even imagine how good it is" "Sabayon is an Italian dessert made with egg yolks, sugar, a sweet liquor (usually Marsala wine), and sometimes cream or whole eggs. It is a very light custard, which has been whipped to incorporate a large amount of air." Source: Wikipedia.

It appears that the Gentoo Foundation may be disappearing in a matter of time. Apparently, no one has time to actually do the work required to run the Foundation. There seems to be some momentum building behind the idea of handing over all of Gentoo's intellectual property to another Foundation, so no one has to deal with running the Gentoo Foundation anymore.

Well-known Linux luminary Jon "maddog" Hall is CTO and "ambassador" of a startup selling Linux-based thin clients and network appliances. Koolu currently has two hardware offerings that run Ubuntu Linux, and work with Google Apps in energy- and pollution-sparing installations for business, government, and education.

The GnuCash development team proudly announces GnuCash 2.2.0, the new stable release of the GnuCash Open Source Accounting Software. With this new release series, GnuCash is available on Microsoft Windows for the first time, and it also runs on GNU/Linux, *BSD, Solaris and Mac OSX.

IBM today announced that it is granting universal and perpetual access to certain intellectual property that might be necessary to implement more than 150 standards designed to make software interoperable. IBM's commitment not only applies to the distributors, developers or manufacturers that are implementing the specifications involved, but also extends to their users or customers. It is valid as long as adopters are not suing any party -- not just IBM -- over necessary patented technology needed to implement the standards.

Now that Microsoft has declared itself untouched by any GPLv3 terms, everyone is trying to figure out if they have a leg to stand on. There is a whole lot of analysis going on, with some wondering if Microsoft is a distributor of software under GPLv3 by means of the voucher distribution and others wondering just what those vouchers included.

The Linux faithful might be staring down the barrel of another round of Microsoft’s legal taunts, but at last week’s Linux Foundation Summit, the reaction was more ho-hum than oh-no.