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Minimalism does not suit all

Sun Microsystems' new GNU/Linux-friendly Java license does not go far enough for Red Hat. It says Sun should have open-sourced Java instead.…

Need a way to resize NTFS partitions, mirror disk images, or otherwise muck about with disk partitions -- and don't want to use a proprietary package like Partition Magic? If so, the GNOME Partition Editor (GParted) is an excellent open source tool for the task. The GParted team released the GParted live CD version 0.2.4-2 this month, so I decided it was a good time to take GParted for a spin.

GamePark Holdings has announced the release of the GP2X - a Linux based handheld console. The device packs a 240MHz dual core processor, 64MB of RAM and 64MB of on-board NAND flash memory, and can be used not just to play games, but to playback music and movies, and to read e-books and store and view photos.

Buffer overflow problems are well-known. Fewer people know how exploits can help attackers execute their malware through buffer overflows and other holes. Peter Mikhalenko walks through the construction and refinement of a shellcode to show how they work so that you can protect your machines.

At the JavaOne conference yesterday in San Francisco, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth joined Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz on stage during the Sun CEO's opening keynote speech to discuss the benefits of running Ubuntu on Sun's server hardware. In a move sure to antagonize Sun rivals Novell and Red Hat, Schwartz argued that Ubuntu is one of the most important Linux distributions available [. . .]

Thanks to our terrific colleague John Windhausen of Telepoly Consulting for this analysis of the Sensenbrener-Conyers net neutrality bill (H.R. 5417) that was introduced today

I've always followed SymphonyOS with great enthusiam. I admire folks who march to a different, or even moreso, their own beat. Symphony has always done that. They have few rivals for the title of Most Unique Desktop. Each release builds more and more excitement as things begin to shape up and improve. Symphony OS 2006-05 BETA is upon us and just like its predecessors, it's still different and ever improving....

Pete Macomber, a Venice-based aspiring director of commercial spots and music videos, has won the grand prize in the Firefox Flicks video contest sponsored by Mozilla Corp., the developer and distributor of the Firefox Internet browser.

The success of Mozilla's Firefox and Openoffice.org's productivity suite has breathed life into people's aspirations about Desktop Linux. As a result, the vast majority of articles published today focus there and ignore the strides made on the Linux server. Unlike the Linux server of the past, today's version supports rocket science and its gains far exceed those of the Desktop.

China is counting on senior members of the open-source community to help formulate policy ideas to promote open-source software, according to a local software executive. The China Open-Source Software Promotion Union (COPU), a government-backed industry group, has established a think tank comprised of 19 prominent open-source executives from overseas to develop a framework for better international cooperation. The group will hold its first meeting in Beijing during July and will meet annually, said Song Kewei, the assistant to COPU's chairman. Its primary focus is to advise COPU on how local companies and the government can promote the adoption and development of open-source software in China, he said. Among those that have agreed to participate in the group are Brian Behlendorf, co-founder of the Apache Web Server Project; David Axmark, co-founder and vice president of MySQL AB; Marc Fleury, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of JBoss, and Andrew Morton, the maintainer of Linux kernel version 2.6.

Iomega has switched its wireless network attached storage (NAS) system from Windows Storage Server 2003 to Linux, and dropped the price from $1,300 to $900. It has also reduced RAM from 256MB to 64MB, and added wireless access point capabilities and automated USB camera downloads, reports ExtremeTech in an in-depth review of the "StorCenter 1TB."

Why is free and open source software (FOSS) languishing in IT schools all over India? Because there are not enough teachers and trainers there who are familiar with FOSS. In a first initiative of its kind, the Computer Society of India (CSI) is organizing a FOSS training program for the faculty of various IT schools.

This coalition has formed to stop the "Network Neutrality" legislation. Is the legislation good or bad? Should it be stopped, or encouraged?

I was told recently that Air Force bases in the San Antonio, Texas, area are blocking one or more of our sister OSTG sites, like SourceForge.net, Slashdot.org, or Freshmeat.net. After finding reports via Google of commercial mail services and liberal news sites being blocked by various components of the Department of Defense, I decided to go straight to the horse's mouth for the story. Here's what I learned.

Red Hat and its many clones and offspring, like Fedora, CentOS, White Box Linux, and so forth have long had a simple built-in mechanism for cloning installations on diverse hardware: Kickstart. With Kickstart you can easily create a customized configuration, set up an installation server, plug a new PC into the network, and perform an unattended network installation. SUSE has AutoYaST. Debian users have not been so fortunate. FAI, the Fully-Automated Installer, works beautifully when it's set up correctly. But learning to use FAI is not so easy.

Apple has closed up its kernel for Intel-based Macs in response to so-called "piracy" -- that is, users running Mac OS X on hardware unauthorized by Apple. Poor Apple -- how can it possibly survive off of the $129 license fee for Mac OS X alone?

[Well, there you have it. Everyone is free to choose non-free. But if you choose non-free, you won't be free anymore. - dcparris]

She is a criminal now and I made her so. 86 years of lawful living, survived without so much as a speeding ticket. Her unblemished essence is now the foulest of stain on my duplicitous hands.

The amaroK team have announced the official release of amaroK 1.4, and the launch of the Fast Forward series, the cheeky successor to the well-received Airborne series. Fast Forward comes with improved media device support, featuring enhanced iPod support that handles the latest iPod devices, support for IFP/IRiver devices, a new plugin for generic media devices, and the ability to handle as many of these devices as you'd like.

Sun Microsystems has announced the release of a series of Java technologies to the open source community.

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Cash'n'CarrionDive Into Python is a hands-on guide to the Python language. Each chapter starts with a real complete code sample, proceeds to pick it apart and explain the pieces, and then puts it all back together again in a summary at the end.…