Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

If you've followed Google for any length of time, you already know that the company has donated many open source projects and leverages a lot of open source code internally. But did you know that Google has a dedicated video channel for information on open source topics? If you haven't explored it, it's worth visiting, found here. Here is more on what's available there, and other good open source resources from Google.

Ubuntu publicly announced its plan for the future of its Unity graphical shell on March 4, a plan that includes a new compositing window manager designed to run on the distribution's device platforms as well as on desktop systems. The plan will reimplement the Unity shell in Qt and replace Compiz with a new display stack called Mir that will incorporate a compositor, input manager, and several other pieces. Mir is not designed to use the Wayland display protocol (although the Ubuntu specification suggests it could be added later), a decision that raised the ire of developers in several other projects.

Following the GNOME developers' decision to focus on porting their desktop environment to the Wayland display server, the KDE project has also indicated that it will go ahead with a Wayland port of its own project. Currently, the developers are debating which display manager will be used in the port. KDM, the display manager the project is using currently, has apparently already been discounted in favour of LightDM or possibly the QML-based SDDM.

Hashicorp has announced Vagrant 1.1 and, as the result of adding functionality that allows it to control virtual machines other than VirtualBox, a commercial "provider" for VMware Fusion. Vagrant is a command line system for configuring and provisioning virtual machines from the command line, with created VMs being prepared with key-based SSH authentication, Ruby, RubyGems, Chef, and Puppet. The latter two packages then make it easy to deploy applications to the provisioned VM. The entire configuration is encapsulated in a single Vagrantfile making it easy for developers to replicate setups. Initially, Vagrant was designed for VirtualBox only, but the developers set out in August 2012 to allow it to work with other platforms.

The automotive industry is undergoing a major technological shift and Jaguar Land Rover is at the forefront. The UK-based JLR has embraced Linux as the operating system underlying its next generation In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) systems. The company has also taken a leadership role in advocating for open source development within the automotive industry.

Etherpad Lite was recently security audited by Mozilla. The developers say the result of that audit was an urgent effort from them to fix "gaping loopholes" in the collaborative editor's security and, in turn, release version 1.2.9 of Etherpad Lite. Issues addressed include a major security problem where an attacker could submit content as another user and a problem with unescaped user input.

If you need evidence of the spread of interest in open source, look to the history of SXSW Interactive schedules. Just between this year and last, the number of talks tagged with "open source" grew from 17 to 26, and that doesn't include the growth in relevant book readings, meetups, sponsors, and parties. Even one of this year's keynotes was delivered by Julie Uhrman, founder and CEO of OUYA.

Compiler benchmarks at Phoronix commonly look at the performance of resulting binaries while less of a focus is the compilation time and binary sizes. However, a developer has carried out GCC benchmarks of the compilation times and binary sizes in different scenarios for GCC releases going from GCC 4.2 to the upcoming GCC 4.8.

Next month’s Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) to be held April 22-25 in San Jose, Calif. will offer embedded developers a sumptuous menu of embedded Linux, Android, and open source session topics. ESC, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, is now part of UBM’s big Design West show.

Welcome to The H Roundup, your rapid review of the week with the most read news on The H, the security alerts and open source releases, and the essential feature articles – all in one quick-to-scan news item. This week, Kali Linux is the new BackTrack, a backdoor in TP-Link routers, VP8 could become an MPEG standard, two new official Ubuntu derivatives, open source at CeBIT, and openSUSE 12.3 reviewed.

The true potential of collaborative initiatives around the world is yet to be known. However, a sneak preview will take place on March 20, when hundreds of communities, networks, and institutions from widely diverse backgrounds and hailing from over 20 countries get together and take part in a global Wikisprint. The goal of this one-day sprint, sponsored by the P2P Foundation, is to gather as many people as possible from different backgrounds and geographic areas, to map open projects and initiatives that are related to the commons and new paradigms of organization happening all over the world. 

In this guest column, Daniel Mandell, a research associate at market analyst firm VDC Research, examines Canonical’s recent efforts to morph Ubuntu into a smartphone operating system. Given the wild success of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS, and the mixed success of Limo, Meego, OpenMoko, WebOS, and other earlier attempts, how likely is it that a Ubuntu smartphone OS can successfully gain a foothold in the smartphone market?

A kickstarter project aimed at creating a “truly open source” Linux-based video game handheld recently achieved nearly double its funding goal. Game Console Worldwide (GCW), the enterprise formed to build and market the GCW Zero game console, says its preparing to mass-produce the device.

If you're interested in getting started with GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), an open source alternative to Photoshop, then check out the latest issue of GIMP Magazine. The visuals are stunning. You can take a deep dive into motion photography and learn about filter options.

The openSUSE project is back on track. This week version 12.3 of the Linux operating system distribution was unleashed, right on time, as a free download. This will be seen as good news after the organisational restructuring and delays that plagued the release of openSUSE 12.2 last year. While 12.2 was delayed, it was worth the wait, delivering a snappy, attractive and, perhaps most importantly, stable KDE desktop alternative to a world drowning in desktop "innovation".

We're seeing an entire genre of Twitter clients proliferating within the Android ecosystem -- each app with its own idea about the best way to interact with the monolithic, 500 million-strong social network. OneLouder's Slices Pro for Twitter is the latest client to grab my attention -- not least because it provides a way to browse Twitter directories by category to find the best Follows.

Developer Break – catch up on the smaller but important notes for developers, from libraries to APIs and from people to postings. In this edition: Apache Ant, Play support in NetBeans, an LLVM IR plugin for Eclipse, App Engine, GWT, asynchronous tasks in Xamarin, and a new version of Git.

Who doesn’t want a talking computer? Linux is great for accessibility. Whether you need a text-to-speech (TTS) system to help you with daily computer tasks or you’re an experimental musician looking to incorporate robot voices into your songs, Linux has got your back. While there are a number of TTS programs for Linux, the one we’re going to discuss now is called Festival.

There are big moves going on at Google, with possible implications for the company's operating systems Chrome OS and Android. Longtime Android chief Andy Rubin is stepping aside, although he is staying at Google. Meanwhile, Sundar Pichai, VP of Chrome and Apps, is a star on the rise. Pichai has been overseeing the delivery of Google's well-recieved Chromebooks, and many of its very slick apps, in addition to steering Chrome OS forward. The moves at Google are causing some to speculate, once again, that Google will merge Android with Chrome OS. Here is why it won't happen.

After having its way with the smartphone market, Android is now poised for a repeat performance in the tablet market, according to market anlyst firm IDC. IDC says it’s just tweaked its multi-year worldwide tablet market forecast to account for an average 11 percent increase in overall unit shipments from 2013 through 2016, based on a recent “surge in smaller, lower-priced devices.” The firm now projects annual tablet shipments to exceed 350 million units (globally) by the end of 2017.