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When Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) launches in April, Zmanda — the open source backup company — will stand next to Canonical in full support of the Linux distribution. I got early details from Zmanda CEO Chander Kant earlier today during an extensive conversation in New York City. Here's the scoop.

When the GNU/Linux revolution started reaching the masses, around 2000, I predicted that by 2010 there would be full vendor support for the free operating system. Well, it’s 2009, and I have to admit it — I am feeling nervous. This article will outline my odyssey, the causes that triggered it, and — for a change - a number of possible solutions. Read the full article at Freesoftware Magazine.

Well that didn't take long. No sooner had Microsoft officially launched Internet Explorer 8 to the waiting masses and talked up how new security features will ensure hackers will find it more difficult to exploit the new browser that guess what? Yep, a hacker exploits the new browser.

Despite the UK governments continued insistence that it is in favour of open source, in practice the opposite seems to be true. Many officials and departments are still highly resistant and display a remarkably hostile and dismissive attitude to open source. The H asked Richard Hillesley to examine the evidence.

GPS device maker TomTom has shot back at Microsoft with a claim of patent infringement, after the software giant raised concerns in the Linux community with a recent lawsuit against TomTom.

Libre Graphics Meeting is opening up its call for presentations for the May 2009 conference and workshop.

In this edition of the Nouveau Companion, covered is the status of this open-source NVIDIA display driver and what went on at FOSDEM with the Nouveau project status and combining LLVM with Gallium3D. Recently the Nouveau developers have been successful in using EXA acceleration on newer GeForce 9 graphics cards, backlight controls working on more NVIDIA graphics cards, and a port of the Nouveau driver to FreeBSD. Work on kernel mode-setting and proper kernel memory management is also underway.

In this in-depth interview with Jono, we cover a variety of topics including Open Source governance models, metrics for evaluating Community Managers, the current relationships between Canonical/Ubuntu and Ubuntu/Debian, Ubuntu's participation upstream, Ubuntu's role in the overall Linux ecosystem and Jono's new book Art of Community.

One would be hard pressed to find a Linux user who hasn't at one point or another become acquainted with Tux, the fine-flippered fellow who serves as mascot for all things Linux. Everybody needs a break now and again, though, and so Tux has gone on sabbatical — reportedly to work as a barber — leaving the face of a very worthy cause to hold down the fort.

Beleaguered Sun Microsystems, whose share price has been languishing at one of its lowest points ever for the past year, has just been given a shot in the arm with yesterday's talk of an IBM buyout. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how Sun's share price gave the company a market capitalisation only slightly larger than that of Red Hat, despite revenues 20-fold more than those of Red Hat. At the close of the NYSE on March 17 Sun's share was trading at $4.92. With the overnight news of a potential IBM buyout that price rocketed to open at $8.31 yesterday, eventually closing at $8.94. Which gives Sun a market capitalization of more than $6.6 billion.

Version 00.11.001 of the open-source anonymization software JonDo focuses on an easier usability. Furthermore, and besides other security relevant enhancements, the German Privacy Foundation e.V. has been included as independent certification authority.

[The article is in German - Scott]

This summer KDE will once again be participating in Google Summer of Code! This will give KDE another opportunity to achieve the massive forward momentum and influx of new developers that has been the hallmark of each Summer of Code.

Why are there so many Linuxes? Because one size does not fit all. Paul Ferrill introduces us to Tiny Linux, a complete distribution in ten (count 'em, 10!) megabytes that lets you add just the pieces you need to get your job done.

A microcredit co-op bank has sprung up in Northern California, using money pooled from hardware hackers to fund other open source hardware hacking projects.

After years of development, version 1.0 of the Parrot virtual machine has arrived for Perl, Python and other dynamic languages. Whether the Parrot will take a firm foothold in software development is still up in the air.

According to a Novel-sponsored IDC survey, Linux seems to be gaining popularity among businesses implementing servers, and it has a bright outlook for both server and desktop installations in the coming future. On the other hand, netbooks have seen less and less default OEM installations of Linux. Windows now has over 90 percent of netbook sales, quashing any hopes of an open source revolution in the form of netbooks. Android, however, may be able to change things.

Do you look at the amazing dual mode XO screen and think to yourself "that's too small to show a classroom the joys of learning learning"? Might you want a VGA port to attach external viewing hardware? If so, you would not be alone.

A simple question, "Why do you use Linux?" got the attention of more than a few people on the Linux-related blogs this week. Even PC Magazine's John Dvorak, a noted detractor of Linux, weighed in with his reasons why "everyone should try Ubuntu." Now that's high praise.

Amavisd-new acts as a connecting point between Spamassassin, Clamav and Postfix. This is important to remember because much of the configuration that would seem to be done on Spamassasin directly, actually occurs in the amavisd-new configuration file.

If you wanted yet another way to install Linux/Ubuntu natively onto a Windows computer, while running Windows (and not wubi), here's a very volatile way to do it. As mentioned in the story, could be a great way to do it if you can't boot from USB and have no functioning CD/DVD drive. Probably risky, but who doesn't like a little risk?