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The 451 Group, a market intelligence consultancy that proudly distinguishes itself from its "pay-for-play-propaganda" competitors, predicts that 2009 will be a big year for open-source software merger and acquisition activity.

[So even though a bad economy hurts companies selling both Proprietary and Open Source solutions, merging them will help? - Scott]

This whole "intellectual property" mania is a mental illness that deserves its own entry into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It's like that great movie, "Aguirre: The Wrath of God." Give yourself a treat and watch it; it's a wonderful film that takes place after the fall of the Incan empire. Lope de Aguirre, played by the perfectly mad Klaus Kinski, leads a band of Spanish conquistadors on a quest for El Dorado, the legendary City of Gold. The quest is doomed, of course, as they struggle through hostile terrain and hostile locals, pushed onward by their own greed and ruthlessness.

January is here and it's that time of year for penguin-lovers everywhere to make their annual migration south to Australia to flock together. Linux.conf.au is one of the world's most popular technical Linux conferences, and for it's 10th anniversary is being held at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. The conference runs for a week, with two days of mini-confs followed by the main conference programme and culminating in an Open Day on Saturday.

If you are a Windows user and have not installed the MS08-067 patch from last October, then perhaps you had better pull your finger out. Of course, it could well be too late, and you could well be one of the three million or so users who have already fallen victim to one of the most widespread of worms to hit Windows for a long time. If you are a Linux or Mac user, of course, you can sit back and relax.

The EC has sent Microsoft a so-called "Statement of Objections," or SO, indicating that it believes the company has illegally tied its Internet Explorer browser to its Windows operating system since 1996.

One of the cool things about custom distributions of GNU/Linux is that they usually have better “eye-candy”. However, it’s not really that hard to provide your own. If you are setting up a multiple boot system, the GRUB boot menu will be an important startup step; remarkably enough, it is possible to include some graphics even as early as the boot menu. Terry Hancock gives you an expert guide to sexing up your boot menu. Read the full tutorial at Freesoftware Magazine.

Remember when things weren't so darned complicated? ;)

This time last year, the big news from the-company-formerly-known-as-Trolltech — now Qt Software — was a takeover bid from mobile-phone giant Nokia, which closed successfully in June for an estimated €104 million. Once again January brings Trolltech/Qt news from Nokia, this time announcing that beginning with the upcoming 4.5 release, the Qt framework will be licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License.

Every enterprise user is interested in information and every information starts from the basic building block, data. Data can reside in any data store, and can exist in many formats. Irrespective of that, you need to bring data to your table, do some massaging with your business use cases, and supply them as information. In this article we will see how Java Data Objects (JDO) can be used as an alternative to JDBC. We will also have a look at the Service Data Objects (SDO) in SOA.

There are many ways to boost your productivity. One of them is to take a break every now and then and play a quick game.

With hyper-commoditization of PC platforms, the only way forward may be a change in business model where platforms come with extra hardware features which are enabled on-demand for a fee.

ML: Who have been some of your most interesting guests? (List of past guests)

Dann: We have had so many great guests along the way. In fact, I am often quite surprised that some well known people come on our show and have actually listened to or do listen to us on a regular basis. Probably the biggest guest for me was Patrick Volderding, the creator and maintainer of Slackware; that was an awesome show. Other notable include Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Jeremy Allison, Bruce Perens, Dean Haglund (of Lone Gunman fame), Bil Herd (former Commodore engineer) and more recently Scott Sigler. As you can see, not all our guests are strictly Linux related, but most are. There have been so many wonderful people who have taken the time to share with us and the community.

I suppose this would be a better, or at least a more contextually relevant review, if it were a video on YouTube instead of in text on my blog. Alas, my face and voice wouldn't do either YouTube, this book, or this review justice, so you'll have to read it instead of watching it. Also, since Lastufka and Dean chose to write a book and not produce a short movie, posting a blog is a good way to respond.

Google will close the microblog project Jaiku and publish the source code under an Apache license.

Uploading photos from your digital cameras is file management -- and file management in GNU/Linux is always faster from the command line. Bruce Byfield shows us how to use the powerful, fast ghoto2 for maximum flexibility and control of getting your photos out of your digital camera.

The Conceptual domain-specific language generates programs that measure the performance and test the correctness of networks and their protocol layers. The newest version 1.0 of the product provides a graphical user interface (GUI) to facilitate generating these programs.

Google revealed Wednesday that it will be discontinuing its development of the Jaiku microblogging service and opening the source code. The service will remain in operation on Google App Engine and it will be maintained by a community of volunteer Google developers with the assistance of the broader open source software community. The move is part of a broader set of changes that Google is undertaking to streamline its service offerings and shut down some of its lesser-known web applications.

Possibly Microsoft's most important strategic goal for Windows 7, in addition to redeeming the brand damage done by Windows Vista, is to dominate netbooks, now the fastest selling segment of the PC market. This may not bode well for the Linux operating system. With netbooks, the open-source OS with a highly tech-savvy audience found a market where it could legitimately threaten Windows. But Linux will face an uphill battle in this category now that the sleeping software giant has been awoken to the opportunity that netbooks present, say industry analysts.

If you Google "AJAX Web 2.0" you'll get over eight million hits, but what technologies will you find in that mix that can truly deliver on the promises of Web 2.0 today? While there's no single definition of Web 2.0, at its heart lays the Internet acting as a platform for social networks, where information can be created and shared in a community of interest. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) relate to Web 2.0 concepts only in that they enhance the platform by providing a more effective user interface. AJAX relates to Web 2.0 only in that it provides a lightweight approach for developing RIAs that execute through a single ubiquitous interface, the Web browser.

It used to be that choosing Windows or Linux to host your Web site made a big difference in the kind of functionality or services offered. On Friday, as this informative article on KnockOutHost.com suggests, the choice between Linux and Windows has become somewhat less stark.