Showing all newswire headlines

You may remember a brief frisson when Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, announced that the company was switching from IBM processors and would put Intel processors in Apple Macs. Some devotees regarded this as akin to a religious betrayal; more detached folk regarded it as inevitable. IBM had refused to develop the PowerPC processor line any further and it would have been nuts for Apple to go into the chip business. That left only Intel. QED.

[Interesting point - dcparris]

I was lucky enough to be Documentum's first employee in Europe in 1993. While there, I worked closely with Geoffrey Moore and got "religion" about understanding not just the so-called "chasm" but the whole marketing model and its implications for strategy, marketing, product, and operational behaviour. I started working with John Newton in the late '80s and we recently discussed marketing models and their relevance to Open Source as well as Geoffrey Moore's new thinking in Darwin and the Demon. This conversation was the root of my thoughts on rules for Open Source marketing - new model, new rules (and some old ones).

This wednesday, the EC will decide if Microsoft eventually will be fined. Prior to that decision, EC Commissioner Kroes of competition says: "I see no other way out for MS"

[ - The full article is available in Dutch only - hkwint ]

Nope, there ain't much new news around. If you are bored, here are some suggestions for you:

• Check which groups already switched to Linux.
• Go read ESR's The Cathedral and the Bazaar". If you are still bored after reading it, read it in Danish.
• Go read some Halloween Docs.
• Go read more about DRM. This is the best article I ever read about it.
• If you need some new inspiration to flame Microsoft, proceed to http://msversus.org/this site.
• Warning: This one is usefull! Help some Linux-noobs.
• Look at the Firefox Counter and wait for it to pass 200M. If it did, submit an article about it at LXer.
• Try a HURD LiveCD.
• Read about Linux and learn a new language both at the same time!
• Stop preaching to the choir, and tell a different audience why they should use Free Software.
• Kick me in the butt until I finish my new article, 'A Gentoo diary' - Part 1

Recently, I have been pondering why is Firefox so darn popular? This is a question that I honestly ask myself sometimes, often while browsing the web from within the browser itself. The real trick is that there are so many different ways to answer this.

The second iCommons summit, held at the end of June in Rio de Janeiro, proved many things about the free culture movement. The most exciting development is that we're growing rapidly, both in terms of the numbers of activists and advocates who identify themselves with the movement, and in terms of the quantity of content being distributed under free licenses. But the summit also highlighted some issues that iCommons needs to address if it is to maintain its vitality and legitimacy. This article is is a friendly prod that I hope will strengthen and unite the community.

Get an introduction to Groff (GNU Troff), the latest open source implementation of Troff, a document-preparation system that generates print and screen documents for various devices from the same input source. Learn how to use it for preparing your documentation, help systems, reports, or any printed output where professional quality, portability, and support for multiple output formats are desired.

Mandriva has announced a set of online, tutored training classes aimed at satisfying the growing demand for Linux skills among both businesses and individuals.

Pentek will ship a more powerful version of its software radio transceiver, it says. The Model 7142 will offer more processing power and RAM than the earlier Model 7140. It will ship in several add-in card formats, and support Linux initially, followed by Windows and VxWorks.

Online media, e-commerce and Open Source software firm, VA Software Corporation, has appointed Mike Rudolph as Vice President of SourceForge.net Marketplace. Mr. Rudolph comes to VA Software's OSTG division with more than 16 years of e-commerce, marketplace, community marketing, and operations experience.

The OpenZaurus Project has released a new version of its Linux-based software stack for Sharp Zaurus PDAs. OpenZaurus 3.5.4.1 is based on a 2.6.16 Linux kernel, and includes some 13,000 "ready-to-install" packages. Nine Zaurus models are fully supported, while others can be updated selectively.

The second-annual Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON), is scheduled for Oct. 12-13 in Portland, Ore. Designed for information technology executives and managers in national, state and local governments, GOSCON features in-depth sessions on open source implementation and best practices, as well as presentations from individuals such as Brian Behlendorf and Larry Augustin.
[...]
"Open source" refers to software whose programming code can be viewed, modified and changed by its users. In that way, users have the ability to improve the software, making it better for everyone and speeding the pace of technological improvements.

[Sounds like free software, but if they feel more comfortable with "open source", so be it. Governments are slow to grasp the idea of freedom. -- grouch]

There is plenty of free software at the local library

Free software is becoming widely available via Web sites dedicated to providing computer users with access to freeware and shareware. Fledgling software developers also use the Web as a medium to make new software available for a trial download so users can test the product, provide feedback and possibly assist with its development.

[Please, be kind to librarians; their specialty is not software development models. -- grouch]

Tripod Data System (TDS) has updated its Recon series of rugged handheld computers. The new Recon-X series PDAs feature twice as much Flash memory (up to 256 MB) as the original, along with optional built-in Bluetooth and 802.11g WiFi. A Linux-based version will begin beta testing next week, and ship in July or early August.

The newly released Xandros Desktop Linux 4.0 is one of the few remaining for-pay Linux distributions on the consumer market. The Home Edition is available for $40, or $80 for a Premium Edition. What do you get for your hard-earned cash? Let's take a look.

Right off the bat, Xandros offers more in the form of bundled applications than either Vista product. For example, Xandros Desktop Version 4 Home Edition Premium includes an office suite, OpenOffice, and comes bundled with an antivirus product. On the Microsoft side of the equation, those would be considered add-on products.

Copying a live file system can be risky, especially if there are open files. You should also be careful to ensure that you don't accidentally overwrite a partition, or existing files, with the files you are trying to copy. With some careful thought, you can effectively migrate files reliably to take advantage of more space, even on a live system.

The Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) has announced the release of a Department of Defense (DoD) report entitled the Open Technology Development Roadmap which focuses on how to make the use of open technology development an integral part of the Department of Defense (DoD) software acquisition and development processes.

From time to time you may need to install the Linux (the kernel) manually, this may be to get some new feature you want, or just to see what it's like. This is a brief guide to compiling your own customized Linux kernel.

Today's Ajax is all about creating interactive web pages that update magically to the back-end server. Pragmatic Ajax by Justin Gehtland, Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer is meant to give asspiring web developers a fast-track start to using Ajax to spice up existing and new web applications.