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I am often dismayed by the misappropriation of the term open source. Companies apply the term to products that are free though not open source. It’s a classic marketing maneuver to leverage a brand that already has broad recognition.

Some days, like it or not, you need a lawyer. For most business purposes, picking the right law firm isn't usually that big of a deal. Chances are you already have at least an idea of how to find a contract lawyer, a tax law specialist or a real-estate attorney. But what if your programmers are using open-source code that's licensed under two different licenses? What if you're concerned with how a patent might affect open-source software your company is already using? Or let's say a company based in Utah decides that you've put its proprietary code into Linux, who do you turn to then? Now, what should you be looking for in a law firm?

LXer Feature: 06-Apr-2008

In this week's Roundup we have all kinds of ISO and Microsoft related articles like Microsoft's Great Besmirching, OpenXML ISO approved and Microsoft's new weapon against open source: stupidity, amongst others. Also we have So why don't I run Linux?, Time is right for Linux PCs to emerge, Linux's Impact: The Return of XP and we have a tutorial written by Thomas King on how set up a letterhead in OpenOffice. With April fools just having passed I decided not to have a FUD section this week, it would have been just a little too much fun.

Computing is fun! Well at least thats until Microsoft drove it out of the equation. I mean with Windows everything is just bland, monotonous, and just ordinary. Even it’s name is such a snooze-fest! The whole idea of window computing by no mean exclusive to Microsoft, it has been around for quite some time, one could argue that it isn’t that “earth shattering” of an invention. So why name your flagship product after a technology that’s not yours and has been around for quite sometime? Beats me!

Each year it seems that there are more and more grumblings about how commercial Open Source conferences are moving further and further away from Free Software and Open Source communities. Incongruously, some of the loudest (or at least most noticed) complaining comes from some of the most consistent participants on the conference circuit. I myself have joined in the guilty pleasure of kvetching about how this year's iteration of a given conference just doesn't have the same soul as some previous year.

Chinese authorities appeared to have lifted a block on the English-language version of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, but politically sensitive topics such as Tibet and Tiananmen Square are still off limits. Internet users in Beijing and Shanghai confirmed today they could access the English-language version of one of the world's most popular websites, but the Chinese language version was still restricted.

QGRUBEditor is a graphical frontend for managing the GRUB bootloader. By using QGRUBEditor, you do not have to mess around with the GRUB configuration in /boot/grub/menu.lst anymore. This article shows how to install and use QGRUBEditor on Ubuntu 7.10.

Thanks to the use of the MadWifi modules by the Linux kernel, it is possible to implement a Wireless Access Point with a Personal Computer or an Embedded Device that has a WiFi network card (PCI or MiniPCI) with an Atheros chipset. This feature is available starting with version 1.0.beta8 of Zeroshell, which introduces WiFi support in either AP (Access Point) or STA mode (in which a Zeroshell router/bridge can be associated as a client in a Wireless LAN).

The home computer user has spent a decade learning the intracasies and idiosyncrasies of Microsoft Windows. When faced with a different environment and many separate subsets of said environments, the user will balk where she once strode with confidence. Let's take a look at some of these reactions from different groups I have assembled over the years and see what we can learn from their reactions.

There are many great FOSS projects that utilise old PC hardware and give it a new lease of life. The best is desktop computing with various Linux distribution flavours like Mint, PCLinux, Ubuntu and countless others. In fact it is my considered belief that the best hardware to run Linux on is infact (almost) any machine that is at least 12 months old. It is possible, of course, to select components based on the degree (and maturity) of the specific support under Linux but this has two major drawbacks.

Linux is great to use at home. It can be handy at work. It's a great server operating system. But there's one other place that Linux is really worth its weight in gold: public, or semi-public, computers. There's nothing quite as nerve-wracking as seeing someone on a computer you're responsible for, and wondering what exactly they're up to. Except for maybe seeing someone you're responsible for on a computer, and wondering the same thing.

Free/Iliad is a French Internet provider with a whooping €1B in revenues. Its founder Xavier Niel boasts being a very profitable business with all salaries representing only a few percents of Free’s revenues: a performance that might be better explained by the amount of open source leveraged by their massive infrastructure.

Linux might benefit from a changing conception of what computers are for. With the rise of Web-based applications that reduce the need for desktop-bound software, more of the action comes through an Internet browser now. The feel of the underlying operating system is less important.

Once upon a time, most standards were set in a largely collegial atmosphere by career professionals who met in face to face meetings over a period of years. As a result, they got to know each other as individuals, and established individual relationships that helped the process move forward and allowed for productive give and take.

Those were the days...

The time has com to present you the new version of the virtualization environment: VMware Workstation 6.5 beta 1. Despite the fact this is only the first public beta of this new product, it offers a list of new innovative solutions. Let’s go over them!

Just days after accusations had been made against IBM and a ban put in place, IBM was cleared of all charges and the ban was lifted. The Register was quick with its report and so was The Inquirer. [...] As you can trivially find in the latest news, the whole accusation turns out to be some kind of a horrible mistake that no-one understand (total bafflement) and it’s worth stressing that the timing was interesting — almost as interesting as those responses from Microsoft apologists who defended Microsoft’s actions by wrongly accusing IBM.

A story of one man's attempt to please his daughter using Linux. I notice a little game one of the girls is playing. A cute little anime style mmorpg The Mana World. Hmm, I bet my daughter would enjoy that.

"I skipped the public announcements for versions 5 and 6, but here is 7 :)," noted Vegard Nossum, announcing the latest release of his kmemcheck patch, currently applying against the 2.6.25-rc8 kernel. Vegard noted he is now hoping to get the patch merged into the mainline kernel during the upcoming 2.6.26 merge window.

Last week Weekly Wire sent Roblimo to San Francisco for the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC). While there, he had a chance to talk briefly with Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth even though Mark was getting full "rock star" treatment from an adoring crowd and was totally mobbed by press and fans whenever he showed his face.

Get a demonstration on how to use Acegi to secure access to JavaBeans in JavaServer Faces (JSF) applications. You can configure secure beans in a variety of ways, including using Acegi-secured inversion-of-control (IOC) beans directly in your JSF tags.