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Google Inc. is experimenting with the open-source version of Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Solaris operating system as apossible prelude to running it alongside Linux in its massive global network of servers, according to sources.

In defense of our least favorite buzzword.

Mozilla's new security chief won't say outright whether Firefox is more secure than Internet Explorer.

[Not sure whether to laugh or cry here. Let's just hope she is more effective at Mozilla than she was at Microsoft. - dcparris]

Next generation of NOC Monkey introduces support for Linux Logical Volume Manager (LVM) and licensing through proxy servers

[Appears to be non-libre. - dcparris]

The other day I was browsing WordPress Planet and noticed a link to 31 free WordPress themes from WordPress Diva. Of course, the "free" is as in beer, and the license requires that you display two links embedded in the theme "as long as the theme is in use." I don't mean to pick on Diva in particular, but I would like to illustrate why these sorts of "linkware" licenses, or licenses requiring reciprocal links, can be a bad idea.

The Chair of the openEHR Foundation has taken a few days to recharge and develop a thought or two on international standards in health informatics. This is well worth reading and thinking about.

This year at aKademy 2006 there will be a BoF section to discuss KDE local groups.

[BoF - That's "Birds of a Feather" for those not in the know. - dcparris]

Brussels braces for the next battleIntellectual property lobbyists are warning that new plans to shake up Europe's policy on patents could put patentable software back on the menu, as well as upping legal fees and putting small businesses in jeopardy.

[Call to arms, anyone? - dcparris]

Andrew Morton [interview] posted his patch queue with numerous comments about merge plans into the mainline kernel. Among his comments he noted that he would not yet be merging the Reiser4 filesystem [story], "reiser4. I was planning on merging this, but the batch_write/writev problem might wreck things, and I don't think the patches arising from my recent partial review have come through yet. So it's looking more like 2.6.20."A large discussion followed Andrew's posting that focused on the current kernel development process [story].

HP has issued an update for firefox. This fixes some vulnerabilities, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions, gain knowledge of potentially sensitive information, conduct cross-site scripting, phishing, and HTTP response smuggling attacks, or compromise a user's system.

Following in Firefox's footsteps, the next version of OpenOffice.org will support plug-in extensions to attract developers to the open-source productivity suite.

I've just got to get in on some of this grant stuff. You know, grants for projects like the $1,000,000 payout for a Virtual Reality Spray Paint Simulator System to Pine Technical College or the $2,000,000 for the Virginia Community College System web portal.

Distributed development makes open source tick, but sometimes you just have to get people together in a room -- which is what the Linux Terminal Server Project did last weekend. Members of the project, and developers for several distributions, gathered in Clarkston, Michigan last weekend to plot the future of LTSP -- and it looks good.

The GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3) draft process took a hit today when a number of prominent kernel developers released a position statement deriding the "dangers and problems" with the GPLv3.

[Well, this surely ought to start some, er, discussion. - dcparris]

September 22, 2006 (IDG News Service) -- The next Linux distribution that IBM throws its weight behind is likely to be China's Red Flag Linux, suggesting that for businesses elsewhere in the world the Linux market will remain a two-horse race for the time being.

Embedded CPU/DSP core specialist ARC International is shipping a programmable multimedia subsystem consisting of a configurable 32-bit RISC core with an MPEG-4 decoder and various audio codecs, supported by a Linux stack. The ARC Player Subsystem targets portable audio players, electronic toys, and low-end mobile phones, according to the company.

The wxWidgets toolkit contains powerful, cross-platform tools for graphical user interface (GUI) development. In addition to its native C++, several languages offer wrappers for use with the toolkit. Learn how to use the wxWidgets toolkit to create elegant and highly useful GUIs in your programming language of choice.

NIIBE Yutaka is the chairman of the Free Software Initiative of Japan (FSIJ), a long-time Debian developer, and a hacker to the core. After his talk at the Fourth International Conference on GPLv3 in Bangalore, India, last month, I spent some time with Yutaka to learn about the degree of acceptance of Free Software in Japan and his efforts to nurture its growth.

linux.conf.au 2007 meets demand by extending the official conference period to a full week, and broadening the scope and number of community organised streams, called "miniconfs."

The features Red Hat says will be in RHEL 5 sound great, but the promise was hard to prove in tests because of some system flakiness and omissions.