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The International Standards Organization (ISO) is up in arms over the fact that documentation for Microsoft's OOXML data format is now publicly available on the Internet. Meanwhile, ISO members are nervously watching IBM's behavior in the standardization process. Activists in the Boycott Novell forum have exposed the more than 5,500 page document in PDF, HTML, Microsoft spreadsheet, and various other formats on their website.

Few free and open source software projects have attracted such a range of reactions as Mono. On one hand, as an implementation of Microsoft's .Net that's sponsored by Novell, it has been vilified both for the company it keeps and as a possible source of patent claims, should Microsoft choose to get nasty. On the other hand, Mono has been the platform of choice for such major projects as Second Life, which uses it to increase the efficiency of its servers. This week, as the Mono project reached version 2.0, Miguel de Icaza, the project's founder and maintainer, talked with Linux.com about the history of the project, its application and the criticism leveled at it, and where the project goes from here.

Yahoo has unveiled a new dynamic calendar service powered by open source developer Zimbra. Yahoo Calendar offers standard Web 2.0 information-sharing options along with an updated drag-and-drop interface and a handful of unique options. The program is available in beta to Yahoo users as of Wednesday.

Open source software is thought to be one of the driving forces in overcoming the fragmentation in the health IT market. However, barriers like lack of long-term professional support [editor's note: this may be universal for all health IT] or uncertainty of cost saving capability hinders open source software to gain a reasonable market share. The workshop "Open Source in European Health Care" is conceptualized as a forum where existing open source projects or initiatives are invited to present their work or their experiences in the field of open source in health care. Submissions from all over the world including position papers are highly welcome.

Dana Blankenhorn makes some good points in a post from today titled Open Source in a Time of Recession. One of the better points is that, despite the incredible turmoil in global markets and economies, we actually haven't met the official definition of a recession yet here in the U.S., which would be two consecutive quarters without economic growth. Nevertheless, the financial gloom and doom we're seeing will cause constricted business spending on software, and open source stands to benefit from that in several ways. There may also be some unexpected events in the works.

As I walked through the war zone that is Wall Street yesterday on my way to a Red Hat meeting, I assumed the worst. I scanned the rooftops for Paul Cormier, Red Hat's EVP of Products and Technologies, ready to catch him if leaped. I scanned the cardboard boxes along the pavement, expecting to see Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens claiming a cozy spot on the curb. Finally, I dug through dumpsters in search of Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat's CEO and no stranger to market meltdowns as the former COO of Delta Air Lines.

Your occasiodaily dose of FOSS and Linux news as delivered by your host, Marcel Gagné (aka WFTL). Today's news features a case of Mono for Linux, two projects to sync your BlackBerry to Linux, a LinuxWorld RIP, RMS on clouds, and a super fast booting netbook.

If I had had SpeedCrunch or Qalculate! during high school, finishing homework really would've been child's play. From breaking down complex algebraic equations, to solving your calculus problems, to performing geometric computations and providing statistical answers, SpeedCrunch and Qalculate! are tools that offer quick solutions to difficult questions. SpeedCrunch is the lesser of the two beasts. It runs not only on Linux but also on Windows and Mac OS X, and offers over 50 mathematical functions, unlimited variable storage, automatic completion, expression history, and more. It's available in the software repositories for most distributions, or you can grab the tarball from the project's Download page.

In part 1 of our little series, True IT Tales of Horror: Dave's Not Here we were introduced to the Precious Progeny Public School District, and learned that the combined efforts of IT staff, a teacher, and multiple administrative assistants are almost adequate to the task of ordering a laptop battery. Today we return to PPPSD to try to liberate the school district from the tyrannical grip of its crazed wax custodians.

As we continue the classic Networking 101 series, Charlie Schluting gives us a clear, understandable introduction to routing, which is quite possibly the most important part of computer networking.

A reliable network monitoring and management solution must accurately detect network devices such as routers, servers, and client workstations. It must be able to display a map of the whole network, monitor the health and performance of each device, and have a way to notify someone of a problem by email, text message, or other form of communication. It should be able to fix a problem by restarting services or running specific programs. It should generate detailed reports that you can analyze easily to help prevent future incidents. Finally, a decent monitoring system must be easy to use, deploy, and customize according to your monitoring needs. Let's use these standards to see if GroundWork Monitor Community Edition is up to the task.

Linux-Kongress is by far one of the most traditional Linux conferences, with a focus on development and cutting edge topics. If you're not able to join the program in Hamburg, Germany, in person, enjoy the keynotes from James Bottomley and Jason Corbet for free on Linux Magazine Online.

AppDeploy, an online community for both systems management professionals and application and computer administrators has released a free software tool called"AppDeploy Repackager." The tool is the industry's first free application dedicated to the complex task of Windows Installer repackaging, according to the company.

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install images of Xen on an Ubuntu Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04) server system (i386). Linux distributions that can run as Xen guests out of the box, obviating the need to create your own custom filesystems. The filesystems on jailtime.org have already been tweaked to deal with Xen’s idiosyncracies, and are also designed to be lightweight and minimally divergent from the original distribution.

Sidux, a relatively new desktop Linux distribution, is based on Sid, the unstable developmental branch of Debian. The developers strive for an easy-to-install and easy-to-use modern Debian derivative, and pride themselves on remaining true to the principles and values of the Debian project. Despite a few inconveniences, I like Sidux a bit more each time I use it. Sidux comes as a live CD in a few different configurations. I chose the 2GB DVD with a full KDE desktop for both i686 or AMD64 architectures, but you can also choose from a KDE-Lite or XFCE desktop version for either architecture; each uses less than 500MB.

One of the most annoying experiences for any desktop Linux user is installing a Linux on a laptop, switching it on, and... discovering that the Wi-Fi chipset doesn't support Linux. That used to be a commonplace experience, but over the years it's gotten much better. Unless, of course, you were using a laptop with a Broadcom chipset; then, chances were, you were in for some trouble. -

In the old childhood folktales, trolls are big, mean, ugly creatures that live under bridges and exact payments in exchange for allowing travelers to pass. That, according to Jeff Matsuura, is very similar to how patent trolls operate. Matsuura is an intellectual property attorney with the Alliance Law Group, based in Falls Church, Va.

Once we moved to VMWare ESX 3.+ we ran into a very annoying issue. The issue was that if you have multiple NICs from Multiple vendors, VMWare will reorder your NICs and cause havoc to you guys who use PXE boot/Kickstart. So I had to come with a work around that will alleviate this issue. I went ahead and created this script and I injected it in the post section of our kickstart profile and had it run after rebooting 3 times. Since After the third reboot the VMWare is done with its configuration, after the third reboot the script will run and then delete itself. Once all said and done your NICs will be in the proper order.

Sun Microsystems has lost a key individual responsible for getting its aspiring open-source software included in leading Linux distributions. Barton George has quit Sun after 13 years, hard on the heels of having helped secure the inclusion of an open-source friendly version of Sun's Java Development Kit (JDK) - OpenJDK - with major GNU/Linux distros.

"The Green Penguin" is a new blog devoted to ‘green’ IT related to Linux (though at times loosely). This week´s topic is about Google and General Electric´s recently announced plan to promote a ‘smart’ electric power grid and thus encourage greater use of renewable energy.