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Adam Jackson has just announced the release of the much anticipated X Server 1.5.0. This is the key component that will make up X.Org 7.4, which we expect to see released (hopefully) this week during the X Developer Summit. The X Server 1.5.0 release announcement can be read on the mailing list, while we'll have a full run-down on X.Org 7.4 as soon as it's released.

Last week, SugarCRM made version 5.1 generally available. With its beta release earlier this year, the open source CRM provider broke new ground, providing innovations in business intelligence and an intriguing mobile app for the BlackBerry and the iPhone. Developers are particularly excited about the release's module builder enhancer and customization capabilities.

Viking is an open source application that allows you to import and edit your Global Positioning System (GPS) points of interest and tracks. It can overlay the points and tracks on your choice of Google Maps, Terraserver, OpenStreetMap, or NASA's BlueMarble map tiles so you can see what you are doing.

Back in May it was announced that the Give 1 Get 1 program would be making a comeback and in June there were indications that it would happen after September 1. Now IDG News Service broke the news earlier today that Amazon will be running this year's Give 1 Get 1 program from late November until possibly the end of December. This information is based on an interview with OLPC's Matt Keller who works as OLPC's director of Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The advantage of using OpenVZ to virtualize a squid proxy is that it provides better use of your hardware as you can set up other servers on the box. It also provides a very easy way to backup and create redundancy.

There was a time when IBM took a lot of pride in supporting the IT needs of big sporting events like the Olympic Games and the U.S. Open, and it also used to try to showcase all of its key information systems as part of the overall solutions. IBM walked away from the Olympics IT sponsorship after the Barcelona games, but it still hosts the infrastructure for the U.S. Open tennis competition. The one big change at this year's tennis tournament is that IBM is not only consolidating servers, but has ported all the applications, which do scoring and provide Web applications, to Linux.

Last year, curious over the hype that was flooding the internet in the wake of the release of Windows Vista, I decided to turn masochist and inflict a 14-day Vista trial on myself. I found the operating system much worse than even its worst critic. I earned some flak for the review I wrote but many people also agreed with my experience. Those were early days as far as Vista was concerned - since then there has been tons of criticism, some of it pure vitriol.

On Aug. 13, 2008, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in the much-watched case Jacobsen v. Katzer, No. 2008-1001, which turned on whether violating an open source licensing agreement should be considered copyright infringement. It is important for companies to be aware of the implications of this decision.

There are several fully functional and stable Open Source operating systems including Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, NetBSD, OpenBSD and so on. Each of these operating systems is competent and production ready, each has it strengths and weaknesses, each has its unique technologies and goals. So the question is why has Linux won the popularity context. Using a tool like Google Trends it is clear that searches and news stories for Linux are more than 20 times higher than that of FreeBSD or OpenSolaris. The question is why? The answer can be summed up in two words: license and hero. In this case the license is the GPL and the hero is Linus Torvalds.

While Google's new Chrome web browser has been met with a lot of praise and positive responses (well, mostly, at least), there has been one nagging issue that arose quite quickly after people got their hands on Chrome: the End User License Agreement accompanying the browser. It more or less granted Google the rights to everything seen or transmitted through the browser. Google now changed the EULA, saying it was a big case of woopsiedoopsie.

Move over, Digium. You’re not the only poster child for Asterisk and open source PBXes. Rival Fonality has scored another $12 million in financing from Intel Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson — and some of the money could be earmarked for acquisitions. Impressive, but what does it mean for VARs and solutions providers? Here are the details.

Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer lost nearly a full percentage point in market share during August, the browser's biggest drop in three months, a Web metrics firm said today. IE's rivals -- Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox, Apple Inc.'s Safari and Opera Software ASA's Opera -- all extended their shares at IE's expense last month. But all those browsers, Microsoft's included, now face competition from Google Inc., which yesterday launched a new browser, dubbed Chrome, that immediately grabbed 1% of the market, Net Applications Inc. said today.

My copy of Oxford defines open as: unconcealed circumstances or condition. Way back in the day when the GNU operating system was getting going, they coined the mantra: Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer. Last month, I talked about transparency and how important it was in software and systems. Just as important are standards, and, more important following those standards. Today, in Computerworld, a different issue has been raised. The value of standards.

Novell is losing money in the desktop Linux market, but those desktop deals are driving big wins in the server arena. A case in point: Novell's desktop Linux relationship with Lenovo -- the big PC maker -- will extend to servers this September, The VAR Guy has confirmed. Here's the scoop.

This may be the first time I've run a series of posts where the topic was different every step of the way. That's a good thing, because I get just as bored as anyone else reading about the same thing over and over ;) So, following in the footsteps of our posts on Number Pools And Guaranteed Combinations Within Fixed Lists and Perl List Permutations, we'll move straight ahead to the next logical step, which is almost an entirely different subject altogether.

Adopting an open source library automation system allowed a small group of libraries on Maryland's eastern shore to save money and create a more intuitive, user-friendly catalog system for both librarians and patrons. Library automation systems allow librarians to keep track of which materials patrons have checked out and when those materials are due back in. They also allow patrons to access the library's catalog system online to search for books and put them on hold, as well as renew books they've already checked out.

This past winter, Red Hat announced the release of a product called MRG–a computing platform that features high-speed messaging and allows high-throughput computing, realtime transactions, and workload management. Not sure what all that means? We weren’t either. So we contacted Brian Che, the project manager for MRG, to see if we couldn’t get a few questions answered. He obliged, and so we bring you the MRG QandA. Still have questions of your own you want answered? Comment and let us know…

Learn how to extend your Python command-line tools by writing plug-ins. Plug-ins offer a convenient way to extend the functionality of existing code.

Captcha images are commonplace on Web site applications and forms. With its latest framework, Zend is introducing a new Captcha Form Element that can provide multiple types of Captcha mechanisms. Among them is Captcha integration for something called FIGlets, group of large characters built out of ASCII characters that outline a letter or word. "We've finally found a use for them other than just drawing pictures," Sinclair explained. "You can use them for Captcha now and it's hard for machines to figure out the characters."

If you do your Debian package management from the command line, you are probably aware of utilities that search the cache of available programs, such as apt-cache, apt-file, and dpkg. Possibly, too, you have cursed the limited search information available in graphical interfaces like Synaptic, which does not extend much beyond searching for the description, name, versions, and dependencies. Now, the GNOME Debian Package Finder (gpfind) is in the process of bring much of the command-line search capacity to the desktop -- although, at version 0.1.6, it is still too rough to replace its command-line equivalents for most users.