Showing all newswire headlines

Accessibility is an increasingly important issue for free and open source software (FOSS) developers and advocates. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed standards for ensuring that software is accessible to people with disabilities. Governments around the world often require that software procured for public use must meet or exceed accessibility standards. Disabled users and the FOSS community, however, still have a serious communication problem.

Does a reinvented Novell matter anymore? As the company prepares to trumpet its focus on serving the open enterprise at its annual BrainShare conference this week, industry observers remain mixed on whether the former networking powerhouse has a relevant place in today's corporate software market.

2006-03-13 - Summary of mozilla.org staff meeting

- Various discussions in mozilla.dev.general about openness

*1.0.8 and 1.7.13* ... *Firefox 1.5.0.2* ... *Firefox 1.5.0.3* ... *Firefox 2* ... etc

People doing the hard, many times dull stuff - anyone out there want to help?

This article gives gives you a quick glimpse into ECF and an example that demonstrated one of the many capabilities the framework provides, and its future direction.

jkouyoumjianwrites: "Perhaps "OpenMFG" uses some open source software to run its application, but the application itself is not open source". Relates to:
Openmfg Launches Hybrid Open Source ERP Suite

The parallels between open access – a movement to make research freely available online, rather than hidden in expensive journals - and open source are striking. For both, the ultimate wellspring is the Internet, and the new economics of sharing that it enabled.

The programmer who did the hard work of porting weblogs.com from the Frontier environment to LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) just got a love letter... from his client, Dave Winer's, lawyer.

Daniel writes in a comment to Parallel Worlds: Open Source and Open Access about the FOSS movement. Characteristically, his articulation of the subject demonstrates a deep understanding many of wish we had.

Whoever thought up the myth that more open source software made sense, didn't consider with what editors would have to content. Perhaps open source software lacks goodness. You could make an argument that many people have abused the term.

The system is designed to scale with both UNIX and Linux enterprise applications on demand. Dow Jones Electronic Publishing and an extensive IBM team worked closely to enhance Dow Jones application performance.

[Emphasis added.]

[ED: If you get kicks from finance and implicit Linux recognizition by the fat cats, then this is a must read. What's happening to the WSJ? Falling behind? - HC]

Craigslist chief executive, Jim Buckmaster, aims to offer a public service, not add zeros to his bank balance

Craigslist only charges in three cities - asking for fees from companies placing recruitment adverts on its San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York sites. Is this business model sustainable? Buckmaster thinks so. Costs are kept low by using open source software such as Linux, which means there are no licensing costs to pay. The company doesn't want to employ many more staff.

You've probably heard the talk and seen the articles from Linux enthusiasts on how virtually any Linux distro can run rings around Windows. To help clarify things, Scott M. Morris, the editor of Novell's CoolSolutions website, has complied all the key reasons in one handy, bookmarkable article.

Yes PS3 is delayed, but did you know: "Kutaragi additionally confirmed that the gaming console will ship with an upgradable 60GB hard drive pre-installed with Linux ..."? Moreover, should the PS3 once again out sell the X-box, this will be a visible trashing of Windows by Linux.

[ED: Hey Bomber, shift your troops to defend the silly flank -(I wonder what that means, terrorists or extraneous chatter caught by your N.S.A. at work?) - HC]

Financially strapped Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) is targetting SAP customers planning to migrate off mainframe platforms with Linux-based servers.

[ED: Is there a more troubled vendor than SAP? Oh, it's a SAP site. Now I understand. - HC]

Telephone reps love the new systems that combine computers with telephones. ISPs are hard at work convincing customers to disconnect their Old World telephone lines in favor of sophisticated combinations of voice and data. Phone companies are pushing their phone experience as proof that they're equally capable at protecting your data. And above all, everybody has the perfect bundle for *you.* No matter which pitch you swallow, Email Battles shows you the one line in the sand that you must not cross.

[ED: The skinny: keep the land line for now. My VoIP many times has better sound quality, but it is not uncommon to see daily network failures. Last big one was over 12 hours. - HC]

The article in The Economist, Open, but not as usual, contains misrepresentations that appear to be designed to disparage open source and promote closed source.

[ED: Front page news, straight from my favorite Grouch - HC]

The company has for years marketed its products to the tech elite within big companies. Now Microsoft is making concerted effort to speak the language of top executives.

[All this time I thought they avoided the "tech elite" to get the CEO to buy the latest viral-ware for the trickle-down effect]

This very small piece from the Library Journal cites a story in Linux Journal. Start there, but be sure to click the link in the second paragraph that speaks about a Google add on for searching library collections, or for the impatient go there directly: by Brian Kenney also in the Library Journal.

Why the best model for building out infrastructure may be the Interstate Highway System.

[ED: I really like Doc, he thinks very differently than most keyboard pounders, however, this is a bad analogy for several reasons. Despite the unrequited American love of the automoble the freeways in what we humans view as hard reality must give way to paying more of the true costs. That is, think toll roads and limiting access - features that are neither necessary nor desireable for the internet. Time for many to really to think differently. - HC]

In a landmark decision a Dutch court has ruled in favour of a Creative Commons licence in a case involving pictures published by MTV personality Adam Curry. The pictures were reproduced by a Dutch newspaper without Curry's permission.

[ED: This is just one of the reasons I dislike the proliferation of supposed variations of Open Source and Free licenses for software: it is just too easy to make a good faith error that hurts too many. - HC]