LXer Weekly Roundup for 23-Jan-2011

LXer Feature: 23-Jan-2011 In this week's Roundup we have Glyn Moody in defense of hackers, LibreOffice keeps making waves, Xfce 4.8 is released, our own Paul Ferris explains how to be a catalyst for FOSS and just what is this 'Steve Jobs' dilemma Linux is supposed to have? Enjoy!

Xfce 4.8 Released: Today, after almost two years of work, we have the special pleasure of announcing the much awaited release of Xfce 4.8, the new stable version that supersedes Xfce 4.6.

In defence of hackers and open source: One of the reasons that I regard the rise of WikiLeaks as such a key event is that it is throwing an interesting light on so many areas – many of them unexpected. That includes the ethics of hackers and the world of open source.

Being a Free/Open Source Software Catalyst : Part I: Having trouble convincing the Boss when it comes to FOSS? This article discusses common pitfalls that arise when advocating Free / Open Source software in your organization. This is part I of a series of articles focused upon being a part of FOSS culture change.

Impressive LibreOffice UI Mockups You Need to See: LibreOffice is already my default office suite in Ubuntu though there is not much of a difference between OpenOffice and LibreOffice for now. But things are moving fast and LibreOffice is going to have its first official release soon. Meanwhile, you might want to remove all traces of OpenOffice and install LibreOffice in Ubuntu for a change. Trust me, it feels good.

First LibreOffice Stable Release Nears: What Now?: LibreOffice 3.3 is almost here. The third release candidate came out on Thursday, January 13 and looks to be very near complete. It’s not a major upgrade over OpenOffice.org 3.2, but should put the project on solid footing going forward. The list of show stoppers for 3.3 is just about cleared out. If 3.3 doesn’t turn up new blockers, it looks like we’ll have a final release that looks very much like the RC3.

Making music in Linux and beyond: You can do a lot with free open-source software, also known as FOSS. Musicians with a yen for Linux are in luck; the array of choices for creating, editing, producing, and publishing music using nothing but FOSS software is staggering.

It Management Fail: Always Blame the Worker Bees: Security fail: When trusted IT people go bad has a great title. Then it's all downhill. I suppose it's appropriate for an audience of managers who want cheerleading for bad management more than good information. It starts off with a tale of ultimate horror: not only is your trusted systems administrator selling you pirated software and incurring the wrath of the BSA (Business Software Alliance), he is running a giant porn server from the company network and stealing customer credit card numbers.

OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice Release Candidates Duke It Out: Oracle-owned OpenOffice.org and independent LibreOffice are both nearing their freely available 3.3.0 versions and show their wares with recent release candidates. Commercial OpenOffice.org 3.3 was released by Oracle last month at a licensing fee starting at $49.95 for the Standard Edition, but has yet to release the freely downloadable version for home and small business use. That version has reached RC9, which is said to probably be the last development release before final. On the other side of town, LibreOffice has been releasing development versions as well with the latest being RC3 on January 13, which is rumored to be its last before final as well. LibreOffice has gained popular support probably primarily due to breaking from Oracle control and ownership while offering largely equal functionality.

Oops: Android contains directly copied Java code, strengthening Oracle's case: Florian Mueller has been killing it these past few months with his analysis of various tech patent suits on his FOSSpatents blog, and today he's unearthed a pretty major bombshell: at least 43 Android source files that appear to have been directly copied from Java.

Does Linux suffer from the 'Steve Jobs' dilemma?: Stephen Spector writes, "With the recent announcement from Apple that Steve Jobs is taking a medical leave and subsequent short-lived stock drop I began to wonder if people really think that the entire company is 100% dependent on Steve Jobs. So, does the Linux community have a similar problem when it comes to Linus Torvalds and the Linux kernel?"

How Not to Get Snookered by Claims of "Proof" of Copyright Infringement: I guess you heard that Florian Mueller is at it again. He made strong claims of a smoking gun regarding alleged copyright infringement of Oracle files by Google. Well, in the cold light of day, some of the media who printed it without fact checking are now awakening to the news that the news wasn't as reliable or unchallengeable as they assumed. You'll find corrections now, notably from Ed Burnette at ZDNet, who is a programmer-journalist, and by Paul Ryan at ars technica. That is what journalists are supposed to do, if they see wrong information. It's part of the ethics of being a good journalist, and the other part is to issue corrections when the mistake is your own. To their credit, many journalists have now corrected what they wrote initially.