LXer Weekly Roundup for 21-Mar-2010

LXer Feature: 23-Mar-2010 Sorry for the late posting of the LXWR. This past week we had several different Ubuntu related items including Mark Shuttleworth stating "This is not a democracy", a list of Linux applications you might not know of and our Hans Kwint shows us that there are real alternatives to the iPad. Enjoy!

How to correctly create ODF documents using zip: One of the great advantages of the OpenDocument format is that it is simply a zip file. You can unzip it with any archiver and take a look at the contents (which is a set of XML documents and associated data), change it, re-zip it and you have a new document. But, the OpenDocument Format specification, section has one little extra restriction when it comes to zip containers. The file called “mimetype” must be at the beginning of the zip file, it must be uncompressed and it must be stored without any additional file attributes. If you don't do this then many applications (such as Officeshots.org) may refuse to open your documents. In this article I will show you how to correctly create ODF documents using zip.

Microsoft licensing Linux - what is going on?: Proprietary giant is licensing open source to its partners. What is going on? Over the past few weeks Microsoft has been licensing Linux to a number of its partners, most notably Amazon. Although the idea of Microsoft, a company steeped in proprietary software, licensing open source software is ludicrous it's not completely unexpected. It's also not the first time Microsoft has played the Linux patent game and we can expect to see more deals in the future. So what's going on?

And The Reason Why The Metacity Window Buttons Are On The Left In Ubuntu 10.04 Is...: From Mark Shuttleworth himself: "The default position of the window controls will remain the left, throughout beta1. We're interested in data which could influence the ultimate decision. There are good reasons both for the change, and against them, and ultimately the position will be decided based on what we want to achieve over time."

10 Great Linux Apps You Might Not Have Discovered Yet: The world of Linux applications continues to expand and improve, so check out Eric Geier's roundup of ten great Linux applications you might not have discovered yet: media players, Web page designer, video creation, run Linux on Windows, Windows apps on Linux, and more.

Linux desktop innovations to look forward to: These are testing times: if you want to experience the latest advances on the Linux desktop, you have to be prepared to test things and accept that stability is a secondary feature. The continued development of KDE 4 is the perfect example. Many of its users have felt like guinea pigs over the last couple of years, while its developers have filled in the missing blanks on the path to a fully operational desktop.

Deconstructing Nautilus and rebuilding it better: There may well be some of you out there who are currently thinking, “It’s not that bad…” to which my response is: in terms of user interface, there are much better file managers available for GNOME than GNOME’s default file manager (two, off the top of my head: Thunar, default for the Xfce Desktop Environment and PCMan File Manager, or PCManFM). Plus, if you’ve ever used a Mac with OS X, then what you’ll be looking at there is the King Of The File Managers. But we can make it better…

Is Microsoft About to Declare Patent War on Linux?: Microsoft's “Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel” has written a piece entitled “Apple v. HTC: A Step Along the Path of Addressing IP Rights in Smartphones” that is basically a warning that the company is about to join in suing companies producing software for smartphones. Is this a veiled attack on Linux?

Mark Shuttleworth: "This is not a democracy": After Mark Shuttleworh's recent comment regarding the decision to put the Metacity window buttons on the left, the debate is more intense then ever. In a recent comment (posted a few seconds ago), Mark Shuttleworth states that:

All Done With Ubuntu: Ubuntu, love it or hate it, is quite possibly the most popular Linux distribution around. With an emphasis on community and making the operating system accessible to as many people as possible, it’s easy to see why it’s number one. In fact, I’ve been a strong supporter of Ubuntu since its beginning, beta testing just about every release and I submitted a ton of bug reports to help make it as awesome as it could be. Though my relationship with Ubuntu has often been strained due to Canonical not always putting the interests of the users in direct focus, I’ve always stood behind it. Unfortunately, Ubuntu and I must part ways, as well as any community involvement I once had with it. What strained this relationship? Read on for a first hand account.

Linux alternatives for the iPad - and the future of netbooks, tablets and smartbooks: Apart from Apple, some other companies are bringing some interesting tablets. In contrary to the iTab, those other tablets do run Linux. Some are already available, such as the TouchBook from Always Innovating (AI), and some have supposedly better screens, like the Notion Ink Adam tablet. From the info available from Sola's blog on the Notion Ink tablet, from the Wikipedia-info on the iPad and AI Touchbook and from the website of the AI touchbook I made a feature table so you can compare features. Apart from that, let's take a look at the future: What technologies are coming to this market?