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The BLAG project released an updated version of BLAG Linux, build 50002, last weekend. The single-CD, install-only distribution is based on Fedora Core 5, and sports a 2.6.17 kernel and a GNOME desktop.

It’s no secret that I love free software; you don’t decide to start a magazine about it and stick with it for years unpaid if you don’t. While making Free Software Magazine, I learned a lot about free software and its ecology. What I discovered was sometimes exciting, sometimes disheartening.

Rich Green, Sun Microsystems' new software chief, thinks his rivals are "hung up" on service oriented architectures (SOA), and are failing to grasp the bigger picture.

The OECD has issued the latest edition of its biannual Information Technology outlook, saying it expects the industry to grow by six percent in 2006 and identifying the main growth drivers as being Internet-related investments, Linux servers, digital storage, personal digital assistants and new portable consumer products.

Qt (pronounced Cute) is perhaps best known as the application development framework behind the open source KDE (define) Linux desktop. It's now ready to build applications for the competing GNOME (define) Linux desktop and is ready for Windows Vista as well.

IBM Client Application Tool for JMS is a standalone J2EE client application that does not require any installation and allows testing of messaging infrastructures without writing any JMS client code.

The Linux-based A1200 mobile phone (a.k.a the "MOTOMING") from Motorola is a clamshell unit solidly constructed around a minimalist design. The phone is compact but feels just heavy enough to be taken serious. The black (actually “Licorice”) rubberized body sports chrome-finish detailing along the sides and front panel.

ReviewLinux.Com takes a look at the new Mandriva Powerpack 2007. This Linux distro is impressive but will it handle itself when up against the likes of the upcoming Ubuntu 6.10 or even Red Hat's development playmate Fedora Core 6? We guess at ReviewLinux.Com that time will tell. Come and visit our screentour and commentary

I don't know if the folks at Xiph.org can live day-in and day-out using only the free Vorbis, FLAC, Speex, and Theora codecs, but the rest of us routinely run into consumer devices that don't recognize and support them. But with a little help from Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) and MP3FS, you cross one incompatibility off that list. MP3FS lets you mount a directory hierarchy of FLAC audio files and transparently present them as MP3s to software and hardware devices alike.

People often talk about a software project's bus factor -- the number of people on your project that need to get hit by a bus to leave you with no one familiar with your codebase. In the open source world, the disappearance of even one developer can herald the death of your project -- if you don't prepare in advance.

Last weekend marked the Ohio LinuxFest in Columbus, Ohio, where 1,000 attendees gathered once again to share knowledge and fellowship about their favorite operating system. Buckeye reporter Ian Hodge attended the conference and filed this review.

A week ahead of the European Parliament's vote on the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA), the three major groups of MEPs that had been opposing the EPLA have unexpectedly reached a compromise agreement that means they will instead vote for the proposal.

Keeping track of your to-do items and tasks should be simple, but often the software that people use for those purposes is anything but. Many such applications are also calendars, reminders, appointment managers, and more -- in other words, overkill. By contrast, todo.txt and Tux ToDo try to keep it simple. They take different approaches -- one's a command-line tool and the other is graphical -- but do the same thing: make managing your many tasks simpler.

The GNU telephony project reports that GPL-licensed implementations of two key security protocols are available for use in Linux-based VoIP (voice-over-IP) devices and softphones. Additionally, a GPL-licensed softphone based on the new implementations is already available for download, testing, and use.

Finnish phone maker is behind the open source movement, but it is still giving Symbian its vote for cellphones.

Selling a new license to the kernel developers was always going to be an uphill battle. They are a large and strong-minded crowd, occasionally suspicious of the Free Software Foundation and its attitude toward Linux, and happy with the licensing that they have now. Given the immense practical difficulties involved in changing licenses, there would have to be a strong incentive to get the developers to even try.
[I goofed and linked to suscriber content, I linked to an article that has been released. I'll get the kinks worked out on this though, Sorry. - Scott]

Want to see a dinosaur? Press the Chart button in OpenOffice.org Calc, and you will be presented with a real software relic. While other parts of OpenOffice.org have been thoroughly redesigned and updated, the features and the overall look of the chart module remain virtually untouched since version 1.0. The situation is changing, though, as a group of OpenOffice.org developers has started to work on a new chart module.

Install .rpm Files in Debian and Ubuntu

The acronym "LAMP" was coined by writer Michael Kunze in an article in the December 1998 issue of German computing magazine Computertechnik. Kunze was trying to show that a bundle of free software could be a feasible alternative to expensive commercial packages.

The Epiware has announced that their flagship Project and Document Management Suite — which is something like a very light version of SharePoint for LAMP environments — will be released as Open Source under the GNU General Public License.