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The Novell-sponsored project porting the Silverlight cross-browser plug to Linux is getting patent protection from Microsoft, indemnifying users from aggressive patent holders and litigators such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Cryptmount allows you to encrypt both your filesystems and swap space. An encrypted filesystem can be stored on a block device like a normal filesystem -- for example, using /dev/sda2 -- or inside a normal file in another filesystem. This later method is especially handy when you would like to work with an encrypted filesystem without changing your partition tables or working with the Logical Volume Manager (LVM). Cryptmount can also encrypt your swap space so that information from an encrypted filesystem is not inadvertently made less secure by the Linux kernel swapping a process out to disk.

In this article I will describe how you can monitor multiple systems with munin. munin produces nifty little graphics about nearly every aspect of your server (load average, memory usage, CPU usage, MySQL throughput, eth0 traffic, etc.) without much configuration. I will install the munin client on all systems that are to be monitored (including the munin server itself); the munin clients will then report to the munin server.

Venture capitalists (VC) first discovered open source during the dot-com bubble at the turn of the millennium. When the bubble burst, open source was connected closely enough with its general failure that all but a handful of VCs lost interest. In the last few years, however, investor interest has started to return, due to growing acceptance of open source software and the success of existing open source companies. What now attracts investors to open source companies, VCs say, is the higher probability of innovative ideas and quicker time to market, as well as the ability to develop niche markets that were previously too small to develop profitably.

Or should I say, "How Canonical wants to be more like Red Hat," because the profit-seeking company behind Ubuntu, which wants to compete not just on the desktop but in the server room as well, has a new product called Landscape, which for $150 per node (unsupported), will allow for the full administration of any number of remote Ubuntu-equipped boxes.

Hosted by Sun Microsystems, the Sun Tech Days developer conference in India has grown over manifolds over the last eight years, say company executives. Over 9,000 developers attended last week's Sun Tech Days in Hyderabad, which was beamed simultaneously to Chennai and Bangalore, compared to some 170 who participated in 2000.

Thanks to all of you that have pointed me to first hand-hand delegate accounts, press releases by advocacy groups, interested parties and National Bodies, and more. As you can see, I've been adding a running index of additions below, and will continue to do so.

Last week we learned how to configure soundcards for playback with ALSA. It's easy, it works on all Linuxes, it doesn't create conflicts or introduce latency, and it doesn't require the X Window System. Today we're going to use ALSA for recording, and learn how to test our sound system.

Linux is sometimes belittled for having inferior applications, but that's simply not the case. Take DVD rippers, for example -- a plethora of them work on Linux machines. With so many to choose from, which is the best?

It seems that the £200 ultraportable Asus Eee PC can do no wrong. The size of a paperback, weighing less than a kilogram, with built-in Wi-Fi and using Flash memory instead of a hard drive for storage, the Eee PC has been winning positive comments not just from hyperventilating hardware reviewers, but also from ordinary people who have actually bought it. The combination of good functionality and out-of-the box ease of use with a price so low that it's almost at the impulse-buy level could prove problematic for Microsoft. Until now, there has been no obvious advantage for the average user in choosing GNU/Linux over Windows on the desktop, and plenty of disadvantages.

Dear Windows Professional Service Pack 2: I didn't want to tell you this in person, because I thought it might be too complicated, and might take too long. After all, we've been together for a long time, almost five years and running now. I know, i know. I know you so well; your control panel, your installation procedures, even when you get mad and go all blue screen on me; what can I say, you kinda grew on me. But to be honest, things have been going downhill for a long time now.

Increasing number of software applications are going the free/open-source way these days. Looks like more and more software companies and developers have seen the barriers of closed-source programs and have now fully realized the significance of freedom. Here are some of the most notable software packages which were published under a proprietary software license but later released as free and open source software.

Software developer Unison has launched what it claimed is the world's first fully-unified communications suite based on Linux. Advertisement Announced at CeBIT, the suite (also simply called Unison) combines IP telephony, email and instant messaging with diary, address book and presence capabilities, all in a single Linux server. It is available free as a public beta.

I cannot tell the details of the meeting, but I can tell a conversation we’ve had (myself and another Brazilian delegate) with a person, at the beginning of the lunch break on Friday. I will disclose this conversation because the person has identified himself as a member of the ECMA, a member of a national delegation present at the BRM but didn’t said that he was speaking on behalf of anyone (the protocol used there), so I understand that this was a conversation that is not covered by the scandalous “Law of Silence” imposed on us all.

IDC is reporting that Windows server growth hit 6.9 percent in Q4 2007, bringing it to 36.6 percent market share. Linux trounced Windows' growth at 11.6 percent to hit 12.7 percent market share. Microsoft owns the market, but Linux owns the future. Therein lies the rub of the tale behind much of Microsoft's fear and loathing of open source.

In a 2005 report the Government quango Becta showed that schools could effect considerable savings by making use of Free Open Source software such as Open Office. In their study they simply looked at “like for like” software replacement using existing networks and computers. Since this study we have seen the emergence of the new breed of ultra-portable Linux-based computers aimed squarely at the education sector and the inexorable build of Web 2 services such as Google Apps.

Joining the array of low cost Linux offerings such as the Asus Eee PC, the Everex Cloudbook , Elonux announced the Elonux One a sub 200 dollar Linux laptop targeted to go on sale in the UK starting in June. We saw similar announcements in the last couple weeks from Acer, who stated that “”Between the second and third quarters, we will have products that address ultra mobility and low-cost segments.” In addition Dell stated that it will “introduce more low-cost notebooks in Asia.” which will augment its Vostro 1000 notebook for sale in China which runs Red Flag Linux. This is a key direction for the industry as it fills out a market segment not previously addressed, particularly at this price point in the notebook computing world.

Caroline is a 2006 Volkswagen Passat, converted by a team from the Braunschweig University of Technology to be an autonomous vehicle. The car was a finalist in the legendary Darpa Grand Challenge, a US Defence Department-sponsored competition held every year or two in which driverless vehicles battle it out to see which can complete a set course in the fastest time.

Want to see what a non-Windows-based operating system developed by Microsoft looks like? If you are willing and able to sign a non-commercial, academic Shared Source license, look no further. Microsoft on March 4 made the few hundred thousand lines of source code for Singularity Version 1 available for download from its CodePlex site. Microsoft made the announcement at its Microsoft Research TechFest 2008 event in Redmond, Wash.

The Cobra programming language has been made available via open source, according to its author, Charles "Chuck" Esterbrook. Heavily influenced by Python, Cobra runs on .Net, Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Solaris, and is said to combine productivity enhancements from a variety of languages.