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LXer Feature: 25-Apr-2007

Chaucer fans will immediately understand when I say that Vector Linux is a modern retelling of the Wife of Bath's Tale - with a few twists.

You are invited to Akademy Edu & School Day on Tuesday 3rd July. This day will focus on installing and running free educational software in schools, presenting software as well as getting feedback from teachers and community people.

IBM has released beta software to let applications written for Linux on servers with x86 processors run in Big Blue's System p machines built with its own Power processors.

A review of Geany - a relatively new editor which is lightweight, simple and has nice features at the same time. It's open source (GPL) and has binaries available for Linux and Windows. A great choice for casual programmers.

Berry Linux 0.80, a Fedora-based live CD for the desktop with support for the Japanese and English languages, was released this week by its Japan-based project team. The distribution incorporates a 2.6.20.7 kernel and includes a default KDE desktop and support for 3D desktop effects with AIGLX and Beryl 0.2.0, the team said.

Novell is once again trying to finish off The SCO Group's court cases by proving that Novell is the company that actually owns Unix's intellectual property rights. What makes this latest attempt different, is we finally see an explanation of how SCO ended up owning Unix without owning its copyrights.

Leave it to Bill Gates. There’s a reason he’s the richest man in the world. The software isn’t great, but it’s good enough to do the job. Unfortunately, the “job” isn’t just personal productivity, it’s technology lock-in. It’s all about creating a new generation of computer users who are hooked on Windows and programs that run under the proprietary operating system.

Hugh MacLeod is at it again. He asks the question, if open source is so great, where are all the open source billionaires (as if that is the right way to gauge the success of the software)? Never mind that we could ask the same question of proprietary software: "Where are all the proprietary billionaires?" There just aren't that many.

California remains the fertile crescent of the US technology industry, employing more tech workers and paying higher wages than any other state.

Red Hat has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the business of MetaMatrix, a provider of data management and integration software. Once the transaction is completed, in approximately 60 days, MetaMatrix will be integrated into Red Hat's JBoss division

Oracle's venture into the Linux market was called "a bit disingenuous" by a Red Hat executive speaking at the MySQL Conference & Expo in Santa Clara, Calif. on Tuesday. The executive, Michael Evans, Red Hat vice president of corporate development, speculated that Oracle wants to contain open source.

As Red Hat's modifications to the Linux kernel to improve real-time scheduling near completion, their director of emerging technologies, Tim Burke, has been pushing for its use in the business world. This is a prime example of the beauty of open source and the GPL, and the growing fallacy of closed-source.

Speaking to consumer PC mag PC Pro, security guru Eugene Kaspersky said that the lukewarm reception of Vista will result in defections to Mac OS and Linux, thus making them more attractive targets for malware writers.

[FUD of the week candidate? They've been saying this for years and it hasn't happened yet. — Sander]

"My trip to Hamburg was the occasion to visit the Sun's OpenOffice.org team, that is, the original team behind OpenOffice.org and StarOffice. I had a great time there, and the Hamburg team was a very pleasant company. I found out that OpenOffice.org and Sun in general are in a much better shape than they were just 8 months ago."

Xandros today announced that Xandros Server 2.0 is the first product to be certified by the Linux Foundation through use of the LSB Distribution Testkit (LSB DTK). Xandros engineers worked closely with their Linux Foundation counterparts in perfecting the new, automated testing procedures that will facilitate broad application developer support to Xandros Server 2.0 and all other standards-based Linux operating systems.

OpenBusiness took the opportunity at MiniBar to interview Mark Shuttleworth and he took us on a space ride through the Ubuntu galaxy Open Source land. Mark told us about Ubuntu’s unique business model - being absolutely free to use - but making a revenue in the surrounding ecology. Listen to our first TechTalk.

RedHat has rejigged its JBoss offerings in a move it reckons will make it the default choice for businesses that have had enough of the proprietary world. It has also signed a deal to acquire MetaMatrix, which it will integrate into its new JBoss product set.

Rawstudio is an open source, GTK+-based RAW photo converter. It takes a straightforward approach -- no outside-the-box interface designs, no fancy frills. The result is an easy-to-use application that is stable enough for everyday usage, even though it is still undergoing constant development.

Linux is pretty good at harnessing processor speed, and Chastain Motorsports is hoping to snare some of that effect to propel their Panoz/Honda to victory. The distinctive Penguin logo, "Tux," has been affixed to the nose of the 200+ MPH car in anticipation of meeting a donation goal.

The opening keynote talk at the 2007 Embedded Linux Conference was given by Thomas Gleixner. Thomas has been a significant contributor to the kernel for some time; most recently, he is the force behind much of the high-resolution timer work which has been merged for 2.6.21. His experience with the embedded Linux industry has prompted him to put together a talk on how that industry works (or doesn't) with the development community. When things go badly, he says, the result is a true nightmare.