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Miklos Szeredi posted a patch to allow files to be accessed as directories, offering the example of accessing the contents of a compressed tarball as you would any other directory. He noted that this is not the only application of the patch, "others might suggest accessing streams, resource forks or extended attributes through such an interface. However this patch only deals with the non-directory case, so directories would be excluded from that interface. But otherwise this patch doesn't limit the uses of the 'file as directory' concept in any way. It just adds the infrastructure to support these whacky beasts." Al Viro took an interest in the patch noting, "I'll look through the patch tonight; it sounds interesting, assuming that we don't run into serious crap with locking and revalidation logics." This was followed by an interesting discussion between Miklos and Al regarding the implementation of the patch.

IBM is kicking off an experiment to open up its software development process in a way that mirrors the creation of open source applications. "The reward of getting our information out there is going to be amazing and critical to the future of IBM's software," Jerry Cuomo, chief technology officer of IBM's WebSphere middleware suite, told vnunet.com in an interview at the IBM Impact 2007 conference in Orlando.

Sichuan based computer maker Sinomanic launched production of a series of low-end computers for the less developed regions in China. Priced as low as 998RMB ($130), these computers will include a Linux operating system, MIPS processor, multimedia and network supports. Internet browsing and document processing software will also be packaged into these systems.

As popular as they have been in the past, I still have some mixed feelings when it comes to the PR health of really low cost Linux PCs. On one hand, they are fantastic as they allow people access to modern computing that may have otherwise been prevented from switching from an older system or finding access to one, for that matter.

PCLinuxOS is a live CD distribution that enables users to test Linux without actually having to install it. The highly anticipated new version, PCLinuxOS 2007, was released on Monday. Its intuitive selection of software, high level of stability and functionality, and the quality of the graphics make this the distribution's best release ever.

One of the things I both love and hate about my job is getting assigned new projects. They can be about anything and everything. Late last week I was told that I needed to create some chroot jails for sftp use of some customers. The idea is that the customers need to upload content to our content server, but we want to do it in a secure and private way. Customer One should not be able to see Customer Two, for example. And neither customer should be able to do anything that might damage the server in any way.

This article explains how to find out the fastest Debian mirror. At last count there are well over 200 mirrors and the popular idea of selecting the mirror closest to ones geographical location cannot always give the best data transfer speeds. By using netselect-apt, you can find the right mirror which gives you the fastest speeds.

Open source has generated revenue and brought positive changes in the way H&R Block services its customers.

Free Software Foundation (FSF) lawyer Eben Moglen claims that the absence of an expiration date on SUSE vouchers distributed by Microsoft will make Microsoft subject to terms of the GPL3, thus undermining Microsoft's patent threats against Linux by forcing the company to provide nearly unlimited upstream patent licenses.

The Free Software Foundation Europe responded to Microsoft's patent claims against Linux and open source late last week by stating that the company's actions don't suggest patent claims in Microsoft's favor.

In an effort to rally support for the underdog media format, the Free Software Foundation has launched PlayOgg.org, a website promoting awareness of the Ogg format. It's an educational primer for playing Ogg Vorbis audio files and Ogg Theora video files on Mac and Windows desktops.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has launched a campaign to convert the world to OGG, a non-proprietary alternative to MP3 audio files. It’s called the PlayOGG Campaign. Here’s the pitch:

A study (PDF) funded by Microsoft and carried out by Harvard Business School professor Alan MacCormack aims to determine what kind of features and protections developers want in version 3 of the widely-used General Public License (GPL 3). The study, which uses extremely questionable methodology, concludes that open-source software developers don't want the GPL 3 to impose extensive patent licensing requirements or prevent agreements like the controversial cross-licensing deal between Novell and Microsoft.

Red Hat chief executive Matthew Szulik today told startups to forget the "romance" of open source and build businesses that compete with proprietary vendors on services and value.

FreeMED version 0.8.4 andREMITT version 0.3.3 have been formally released on Tuesday, May 22, 2007. They include support for CMS's mandatedNPI standard, as well as many other improvements and community contributed bugfixes and features. FreeMED is an GPL-licensed opensource EMR/PM suite which is browser-based, and is developed by theFreeMED Software Foundation, Inc, a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation.

Bucharest, May 21, 2007 – AXIGEN (http://www.axigen.com), the professional messaging solution vendor, announced today the release of AXIGEN Mail Sever 4.0 Beta. Having time management and mobility needs in mind, version 4.0 comes with a Personal Organizer module available from both AXIGEN’s WebMail interface and the email client Outlook.

A U.S. government- and industry-led coalition aiming to equip every car and roadside in America with wirelessly connected computers has tapped Linux for a prototype design.

Looking for a way to limit users' functionality on a publicly available machine, such as a kiosk machine for conference attendees? No one wants people trying to alter their systems for fun or malice. If you're running the GNOME environment, you can turn to a tool called Pessulus -- a lockdown manager for the GNOME desktop.

May has been a busy month in the Ruby world, and while I’ve been busy with work, Erlang, and other commitments I’ve tried hard not to lose track of things. Here are some of the things that have caught my eye.

The KDE project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.5.7, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. This release brings a renewed focus to KDE-PIM applications. KAddressBook, KOrganizer and KAlarm received attention with bugfixes, while KMail additionally witnessed the addition of new features and improvements with both interface work and IMAP handling: it can manage IMAP quotas, and copy and move all folders.