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LXer Feature: 02-Nov-2006

Yesterday we sought to "separate the wheat from the chaff", so to speak. Today, we'll take a look at the heart of the issue - the technical question that has been raised around the GPL's anti-DRM clause. I'm all for fighting DRM. I want the digital content I pay for to be available on my terms, seeing how I already paid for it. The question, though, is whether the GPLv3 will be the most effective tool for combating Big Media's attempt to take away our fair use rights.

The MEPIS distribution has been one of the bigger KDE-centric distributions around for some years now, created to make desktop GNU/Linux easier to use. As part of our KDE and Distributions series founder and main contributor Warren Woodford talks to KDE Dot News about the history and current vision of the distribution.

Sun Microsystems is gradually providing more details on how it plans to open source its core Java technology, delivering on a promise the company made to developers back in May at its JavaOne conference.

Red Hat says 29 ISVs (independent software vendors) have joined its Telecommunications Partner Program during the last six months. Additionally, the company says it is working with leading NEPs (network equipment providers), ISVs, and operators to define requirements and ensure that RHEL can be deployed in carrier-grade settings.

Editor's Note: In all the debate about the GPLv3 and Stallman's personality, sometimes it gets a little overheated. One of LXer's readers, nalf38, took a sort of humorous view of the mudsling. Similar things have been done with politicians, so I hope hackers on both sides of the debate will appreciate the humor in these lines. Note his final comment about the zealots. Now, without further delay...

Blake Ross, one of the more high profile members of the Firefox team1, has been quietly working on a new start up for a while. He has been successful in keep the wraps on his new startup, Parakey, but now it seems is close to revealing plans for his next big idea.

Collaboration battleIBM is drawing on some Web 2.0 weaponry to push developers into dumping Microsoft as a collaboration and messaging platfrom and adopting Java and Lotus.

Firefox 2.0 received a ton of fanfare on its official release recently. A few days before that release, and with much less fanfare, Songbird 0.2 was released to the wild as well and, although not ready for prime-time yet, it could represent a very disruptive stab at the media player market upon its official launch sometime in 2007.

Theo de Raadt has announced the release of OpenBSD 4.0: "We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 4.0. This is our 20th release on CD-ROM (and 21st via FTP). We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of ten years with only a single remote hole in the default install. As in our previous releases, 4.0 provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly all areas of the system. New/extended platforms: armish - various ARM-based appliances, using the Redboot boot loader, currently only supporting the Thecus N2100 and IOData HDL-G; sparc64 - UltraSPARC III based machines are now supported; zaurus - support for the Zaurus SL-C3200."

ACCESS has announced it plans to release an Application Framework to the open source community under Mozilla Public License (MPL) v1.1. Security features that extend the Linux kernel are planned for release under the General Public License (GPL) v2. The Framework will be released before the end of the year and will be the industry’s first open source mobile Linux application framework for commercial use.

While Chairman Gates has traded his megalomaniac persona for that of Uncle Bill the philanthropist, one of the old guard continues to be unapologetic in his Machiavellian manoeuvrings.

The rBuilder platform allows software developers to combine software applications with Linux and related open source components to create virtual appliances that can be instantly provisioned and run on the Xen hypervisor and XenSource’s XenEnterpriseTM virtualization platform.

A nice tutorial on how to remotely manage machines using VNC.

Eclipse Callisto (V3.2) offers new and improved features over Eclipse V3.1.x and many IDEs available today. This article introduces the new features and improved usability, along with links to many resources on Callisto projects.

With Krita's recent 1.6 release enhancing its usability for professional artwork, the Krita team is looking into creating a gallery where Krita users can contribute their art made with it. Any decent gallery needs to be seeded with some initial artwork. So we are asking any Krita user who might want to show his painting skills, to consider making us a pretty painting. With some luck, it'll get selected to be put on the site. Read more on how to participate.

Beginning with an easy-to-use installer and booting into a well-thought-out desktop, Mandriva 2007 provides an environment that is aesthetically consistent and makes new users feel at home. Where Mandriva 2006 failed to provide an appropriate level of support for more advanced users, Mandriva 2007 includes prominently displayed tools for configuration from the desktop. Although these tools are marred by sluggish package management and an unhelpful security rating system, as well as instability on some machines, overall Mandriva 2007 re-establishes the distribution as one of the most advanced desktop experiences in GNU/Linux.

The Jepp project, which lets you use Python to access Java objects, has just packaged its 2.0 release, with added javax.script support, a new import feature, and other improvements.

While the Linux world still ponders the implications of Oracle's footprint on Red Hat, Inc., other projects--which are demonstratively more important to the future of Red Hat Enterprise Linux than whatever plans Larry Ellison might have--are continuing to progress.

Building a community is at the core of any free and open source software (FOSS) project, but few projects have faced challenges equal to Fedora's and openSUSE's efforts to create FOSS communities around formerly commercial projects, or Ubuntu's efforts to manage growth in a widely popular distribution. How to define communities, how to encourage participation from non-programmers, what community values to foster -- these are questions that community leaders from these projects have had to struggle with. Their attempts to answer the questions provide guidance to others trying to build communities within FOSS.

The folks at Slashgear recently posted an interview with Benjami Zores, one of the core developers of the embedded Linux distribution knows as GeeXboX. In summary, GeeXboX, which incidentally has no affiliation or tie in with the Microsoft console, is a fully operational Media Center solution available on what's known as a LiveCD. It works on both x86 and PowerPC based computers and is as easy to use as dropping a CD in a PC since no installation is required.