Showing all newswire headlines

It's sleazier than we thought. In last week's Computerworld, Don Tennant spent his editorial going ballistic about an attempt by Microsoft to intimidate its customers. Tennant recounted how a Microsoft manager named Janet Lawless sent a series of increasingly threatening letters to Dale Frantz, CIO at Auto Warehousing Co., about how Frantz's company appeared to be using unlicensed software and how Microsoft wanted the issue resolved. Frantz figured this was about his Microsoft software licenses, so he kept offering evidence that he was in compliance. Tennant concluded that Lawless was trying to intimidate Frantz to land a software deal. They were both wrong. It's sleazier than they imagined. And just why am I not surprised?

TimeSys says its online support service for embedded Linux developers now supports the latest multi-threaded processors from MIPS Technologies. Initial LinuxLink support for MIPS's 34K core family is based on Linux 2.6.15, with a bump up to 2.6.16 planned this month, TimeSys says.

SAN FRANCISCO, JAVAONE(SM) CONFERENCE, May 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), the creator and leading advocate of Java(TM) technology, today announced that Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) 5 is now available for redistribution by GNU/Linux and OpenSolaris(SM) operating system distributors under the new Operating System Distributor's License for Java (also known as the "Distro License for Java" or DLJ).

[So why am I still skeptical? - dcparris]

Sometimes, you can't get what you want. That's the point Robin "Roblimo" Miller makes in his pained confession at NewsForge, that when it comes to the video production that makes up 10 percent of his work time, it's best done using Camtasia, a proprietary Windows-only program. Argh!

The Linux kernel has long had the ability to turn the average PC into a network bridge, or, taken to an extreme, a multiport switch. This article explains how to configure network bridging support under Linux, and also provides a short guide to the use of the spanning tree protocol in networks with multiple paths.

The existence of legal systems without robust enforcement of copyright law, in countries where software development is a highly robust enterprise, is a serious threat to the free software model.

[Here's an interesting perspective on copyright and FOSS at the international level. - dcparris]

As Cyber Cynic Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols predicted, someone has come up with a way to get Microsoft Office to read and write the open-standard Open Document Format. Would you believe a Microsoft lapdog organization is whining about how unfair this is to Microsoft?

A Dow Jones Newswires reporter took a shot at switching from Windows to Linux on a Sony Vaio machine, and found he could do some things much better than others.

From shared webhosting to an own virtual server in just 75 hours, using just free and open source. See the how and why.

I've been a Linux diehard since my early days with Debian 1.3. I visited various RPM distributions, including Red Hat, Mandrake, and SUSE, flirted with Gentoo, and jumped on the Ubuntu bandwagon, but I could never find a single place to settle -- until I tried Arch Linux.

This mini how-to shows you how to dual boot between AIX and Linux operating systems in a clustering environment, where available hardware resources are limited. The information presented in this document is based on actual experience. It should be used only by those who have some knowledge of system administration and skills in working with the IBM System p5 (formerly pSeries) architecture.

Ansoft Corporation has released Nexxim v3 and Ansoft Designer v3 for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.3 and Sun Solaris 8 and 9 operating systems. Nexxim is the company's circuit simulation software for high-performance IC design and signal-integrity analysis. Ansoft Designer provides an integrated schematic and design management front-end for complex analogue, RF and mixed-signal applications.

A new model for sustainably implementing computer laboratories in underprivileged schools is being piloted by Tuxlabs, a division of the Shuttleworth Foundation. Tuxlabs has partnered with a Sowetan entrepreneur, who will sell services in a school's open source laboratory to the community once the school day ends.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Fortify Software Inc., a leading provider of security products that help companies identify, manage and remediate software vulnerabilities to mitigate enterprise security risk, today announced that Fortify has joined the FindBugs project as a sponsor, and is helping to expand the functionality of the open source tool, which has had over 200,000 downloads.

Those outside the inner circle of "Free Software" digerati seem only ever to focus on the "free" component, mistaking it for software that is provided with no moolah changing hands.

Adds Dozens of New Worldwide Partners in Q2

Midsize Enterprises to Benefit From Automated Application Recovery Capabilities

Every day, it seems, some security company or industry anti-phishing coalition is grinding out a press release either extolling the virtues of its solution, or gloomily predicting the demise of Western civilization... or at least the Internet... due to phishing. But while experts cluck about phishing, users are still more concerned over a spam problem that is either too hot, too cold, or just about right. Depends on how you look at it.

The new program may be more germane to IT professionals at small and mid-size businesses, suggested Adam Braunstein, an analyst at Robert Frances Group. Most large companies are already involved in some open source projects, so the ground-level questions have been answered.

Last December I blogged about some uproar Linux creator Linus Torvalds had caused by posting on the gnome.org Usability list his extreme dislike for the direction the Gnome developers had taken with the UI.