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The open source software development model clearly represents a profound and fundamental change from traditional, proprietary development models.

Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux kernel, has fleshed out his unhappiness with GPLv3 in three recent posts on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML).

Here is a suggestion for any CEO interested in improving the performance of his IT department. Consider adding the new position of IT Contrarian. Although some consulting organizations have a similar position (a quality assurance manager), this is likely to be a new concept in many organizations, so let's review of the responsibilities, duties, and qualifications, as well as the rationale associated with proposing the position.

Though few would dispute the fact that Bill Gates' role as a philanthropist has done a lot to save lives in developing countries, in his role as Chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, according to the New York Times, he is doing little to enrich these same people's lives.

Some of the biggest names in computing – including Google, IBM, Mozilla, Oracle, Redhat and Novell – have teamed up to form Open Ajax, which plans to give Ajax (asynchronous Javascript and XML) tools to the open source community. The alliance intends to “promote Ajax's promise of universal compatibility with any computer device, application, desktop or operating system, and easy incorporation into new and existing software programs”.

Linux vendor Red Hat is stepping up its efforts in the potentially huge India market by buying out its joint-venture partner, earmarking an investment of $20 million in the next two to three years, doubling its Pune-based research staff, and signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with an official body to work jointly at modernizing the Indian educational system.

Most Linux-based distributions for the masses have either GNOME, KDE, or both desktops, yet the startup times and resources required by both GNOME and KDE make them unsuitable for old or lower-end hardware. My quest for a standards-compliant, fast, lightweight, and extensible window manager led me to Openbox.

The 1.5.0.1 release is part of Mozilla's announced plans to roll out security and "minor polish" updates to Firefox every two months.

The founder of the new Linux operating flavor called Ubuntu is urging governments to advocate open source technology, not just in a corporate setting but more on the average consumer level.

In the Philippine leg of his Asia-wide tour, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth said government should spearhead the use of open source platforms among ordinary consumers as an alternative method of home computing.

Shuttleworth emphasized consumer reaction to government use of technology as role model to its citizens. He also stressed that open source applications can be made immediately available to consumers who may need more cost-effective alternatives to costlier proprietary applications.

Most people set up some type of filter to weed out the bad email from the good. That approach, has its limitations. One company is trying a new, open source-based approach that creates a user-enforced "Do Not Spam" list.

How to get DHCP and DNS working together on Debian Stable.

Industry Luminaries Line Agenda for Only Event Dedicated to Desktop Linux

In this tutorial, learn how to install and configure Samba as a primary domain controller with a secure LDAP-based authentication mechanism. The completed system boasts a secure file- and print-sharing setup, in addition to a robust LDAP server that could be used for purposes beyond those required by Samba. Additionally, Windows clients can log on to your Samba server and have shared drives automatically mounted for them based on their group membership.

[Ed: Requires registration/login. - dcparris]

FREMONT, Calif., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Panasas, Inc. today announced the company has extended its support for industry-leading, high-performance computing (HPC) platforms by certifying the Panasas ActiveScale Storage Cluster(TM) for use with the SGI(R) Altix(R) family of servers.

After testing VMware's new Player on Windows a few weeks ago, I wanted to see how it performs on Linux. While the Player is a great tools for Windows users who want to see what its like to run Linux, the inverse of that equation doesn't play out the same way. Curiously, Microsoft wasn't interested in loaning me a Windows XP image, but that was OK. I tried another operating system instead -- a Linux distribution that looks like it could be a lot of fun.

Google Inc. on Tuesday confirmed that it is using Ubuntu desktop Linux technology internally, but remained tightlipped about its purpose.

The Register, a U.K.-based technology news site, reported Tuesday that the Mountain View, Calif., search engine was developing its own Linux distribution for the desktop using the Ubuntu open-source operating system.

A Google spokeswoman confirmed that the company uses Ubuntu technology, but declined to say what for.

"We utilize the Ubuntu technology for internal use, but have no plans to distribute it outside of the company," the spokeswoman said. She also denied the company was using the name "Goobunto" internally for the software, saying, "It's just an internal system."

The SeaMonkey Council is proud to announce SeaMonkey 1.0, the first end-user release of their internet suite. SeaMonkey is available as a free download from its mozilla.org-hosted website, features a state-of-the-art web browser, a powerful email client, a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client. For web developers, mozilla.org's DOM inspector and JavaScript debugger tools are included as well."

Take a well resourced, 10-year-old open source project with a global user community. Add support for World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Semantic Web standards and some hard-core computer science research, and what do you get? In the case of Protégé OWL the answer is the best application I've seen for modeling, capturing, and sharing knowledge about the real world -- the kind of fuzzy, variable and unpredictable "stuff about stuff" that's hard to squeeze into the nice neat rectangular tables of a conventional database.

But today, I'd like to talk about an extension I added the other day that's particularly cool: Viamatic foXpose. This extension lets you view all of your open tabs as thumbnails within your browser window with the click of a mouse. After installing the extension, just click on the little window pane in your status bar to view all of your tabs at once like this:

Foreword: This whitepaper from FSMLabs describes the use of the company's RTLinux real-time Linux operating system in three research and development projects involving ad hoc wireless networking technology for military and civil service applications. The projects involve software-defined radio, saving power with directional antennas, cellular/IPv6 network interoperation.