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When it comes to cell phone software, open is the new black. In less than two years, no fewer than three coalitions have formed with the intent of building mobile handset operating systems with input from all comers. Suddenly the business of developing mobile software -- once handled by coders working behind closed doors for a single vendor or group -- has gone open source.

I've been worried for some years that the open source movement might fall prey to the problem that Kim Stanley Robinson so incisively captured in Green Mars: "History is a wave that moves through time slightly faster than we do." Innovators are left behind, as the world they've changed picks up on their ideas, runs with them, and takes them in unexpected directions.

Color me surprised. Dana Blankenhorn, a well-known writer about Linux and open source recently asked for someone—anyone–to send him a loaner Linux laptop to replace his now dead Windows laptop. What, he didn’t already have one?

This article introduces the basic configuration knobs and widgets specific to the PS3 running Linux, shows you how to use them effectively, and suggests the kind of trickery that gets improved performance.

This two-day introduction to Linux broadens attendees horizons with a detailed overview of the operating system. Attendees learn how to effectively use a Linux system as a valuable tool. They get familiar with the architecture and various components of the operating system, learn both graphical and command line tools, and learn to do basic networking. This class is scheduled for August 28th - August 29th, 2008.

This is going to give a hard time to any Vista or Mac. KDE brings to GNU/Linux the cool and bling factor with a complete arsenal of applications and tools with which you can conquer even Mars. ...For KDE 4 series, it is just the beginning of the journey, currently it is for those users who want to use bleeding edge technology or experience, but we hope soon KDE 4 series will take on the world.

I didn't have high hopes for Wolvix on the $15 Laptop — a Compaq Armada 7770dmt built in 1999 — since previous attempts to load the live CD resulted in an X configuration that needed a little work. Since then, I've had quite a bit more experience working in the xorg.conf file, and I was able to get a halfway decent X configuration going so I could test Wolvix Cub (the smaller of the two Wolvix distributions, with fewer packages than the larger Wolvix Hunter).

It's one thing to have a skunkworks operating system project, Midori, that could conceivably replace Windows. It's another to actually have plans on how to switch users from Windows to Midori. Guess what? Microsoft actually does have such plans.

Another week has past and it's time to laugh heartily before it all ends in tears ;) This week, I stumbled upon Two sites that had me working overtime trying not to laugh out loud at my desk. Nonsense humor isn't for everyone, but I find it the most enjoyable kind. It's goofy, it's random and once something gets me going I sound like I'm having a massive asthma attack while I'm trying to force myself to not laugh.

The Senate and House have voted to reauthorize the Higher Education Act and approved controversial new provisions that will require universities to provide students with access to commercial music downloading services and implement traffic filtering technologies in order to deter peer-to-peer filesharing. The bill now goes to President Bush, who is expected to sign it into law.

AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) is a wrapper around a set of technologies that enables developers to build rich Internet applications that deploy on the desktop. Applications are created using a mixture of JavaScript, HTML, and Flash. The resulting application is delivered to end users in a single package and rendered using the WebKit HTML engine.

Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable-television provider, was ordered by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to stop blocking its customers from sharing videos and other files online. The FCC levied no fine in the 3-2 ruling that asserts federal power over how telephone and cable-TV companies manage their customers' access to the Internet. The agency made the decision in response to a complaint filed nine months ago by public-interest groups. They accused Comcast of slowing traffic on its network and stopping users from uploading files.

Plat'Home, Linux pioneers in Japan and creators of the diminutive OpenMicroServer, are running a contest called "Will Linux Work?" They are basically asking people to submit crazy/extreme environments or ideas using their Linux servers and see if they work. Whoever has the best idea will get 5 of their OpenMicroServers shipped to them for free and be able to test their idea -- you can find all the details here.

Sun Microsystems continues to struggle. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based server maker reported that earnings in the quarter ended June 30 fell nearly 74 percent to $88 million, compared with earnings of $329 million during the same period a year ago. Quarterly revenue fell 1.4 percent to $3.78 billion, down from $3.83 billion during the same period in 2007.

Netbook sales will reach 8.02 million units in 2008, and 18.3 million units in 2009, a research report says. Netbooks will also grow physically, gaining 10-inch screens and keyboards approaching full-size, according to the report. "Most" products in the category will use Microsoft's XP operating system, says Market Intelligence Center (MIC).

Stormy Peters recently became the executive director of the GNOME Foundation, where she is already working to raise public awareness of the GNOME desktop environment and user interface, and to attract new corporate sponsors and developers to the GNOME community. She says it was not as much a move away from her old job at OpenLogic and the for-profit business world as it was a move toward the community she's been part of for years.

For a decade, Microsoft was open source's worst enemy, combating it at every turn. But last week Microsoft joined the Apache open source project as a platinum sponsor, promising to put $100,000 per year into a project that beats its own IIS (Internet Information Services) in the market. Microsoft also made some of their patents available for use in GPL software like Linux without a royalty. Has Redmond given up the fight? Or is this just their latest strategy?

This year has already seen the second release of gNewSense, the completely free distribution endorsed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and the announcement that Ubuntu will have a free software option as part of its installation program. Now, if Alexandre Oliva, a Red Hat employee best-known as a board member of the Free Software Foundation Latin America (FSFLA), has his way, building a 100% free distribution will become easier thanks to his linux-libre project. Unfortunately, the path to freedom, he's finding, is often blocked by politics and a preference for convenience over ideals.

Yahoo! Inc. investors re-elected the Internet company's board, with 85 percent of votes supporting Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang after he fended off a proxy battle with billionaire investor Carl Icahn. Chairman Roy Bostock was re-elected with about 80 percent of the votes, Yahoo said today in a statement after its annual meeting in San Jose, California. Icahn was appointed to the board after the meeting.

Some Ubuntu fans out there may remember Automatix, a tool for Ubuntu that allowed easy access to many popular non-free applications and commonly-used audio and video codecs. It debuted a few years ago, and got negative reviews from Ubuntu developers and experienced users due to the risk of breaking dependencies, but it offered an easy solution for beginners who weren't familiar with the way deb packages worked. Automatix was discontinued in March, when its developers moved on to other projects. Now Ultamatix hopes to continue where Automatix left off.