Showing all newswire headlines

At a big press conference in Manhattan on Tuesday, IBM made a set of announcements--a new mainframe system, a development "community" for blades, and a new virtualization software platform--that looks likely to carry a range of future ramifications for Linux developers and administrators. Jacqueline Emigh reports.

Asterisk, the open source private branch exchange (PBX) from Digium, has the power to change the telecommunications industry in much the same way that Linux is changing the operating systems market, but it needed work to simplify installation and configuration. The recent release of Asterisk@Home, a Linux distribution dedicated to making Asterisk easy to install and configure, is a big help.

Australian open source consultancy Cybersource has said it will file a formal complaint with the country's competition commission against Microsoft for engaging in unfair practices. Accusing Microsoft of stifling competition in the marketplace, Cybersource will provide the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) with a whitepaper entitled "The cost of software monopoly: how Australian consumers lose", accompanied by a formal complaint. Cybersource claims that Microsoft's practices are costing end users A$200 million (£86.5 million) a year

Debian recently reported - The Debian Project is pleased to announce the official release of Debian GNU/Linux version 3.1 codenamed ``sarge'' after nearly three years of constant development. Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system which supports a total of eleven processor architectures, includes KDE, GNOME and GNUstep desktop environments, features cryptographic software, is compatible with the FHS v2.3, and supports software developed for the LSB. OSDir has screenshots of 'repaired' 3.1r0a release.

With Joerg Schwarz, who recently conducted research on the ethical issues surrounding open source software and licensing. Question: What are the components of ethical use of open source software in the enterprise by IT professionals?

The latest open-source K Desktop Environment offerings improve both its desktop interface and its office suite.

Three proposed specifications clustered around IT management of Web services have jumped from the frying pan of standards adoption into the fire of open source implementation, paving the way for a common set of standards for management inside a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Recent study reveals that Red Hat Enterprise Linux Subscribers were less susceptible to critical Internet security holes.

Are you designing a new program and need to put a process into a flowchart? Do you need an entity relationship diagram for a database? Do you need to document the management structure for a new department? If so, try Dia, a useful and usable open source diagramming application available for both Linux and Windows.

Levanta (www.levanta.com), the leader in Linux management, today announced the general availability of the Intrepid M -- the world's first Linux management appliance. For years, major Linux shops such as Boscov's and Electronic Arts have used Levanta's management and provisioning software on mainframe and x86-based servers. With the release of the Intrepid M, Levanta has taken its enterprise-proven software and bundled it into a plug-and-play Linux management solution -- for enterprises, lines of business, and even SME environments.

A company specializing in custom Linux distributions for device vendors and others has partnered with a vendor of off-the-shelf and custom appliance hardware. Progeny says NCS Technology can provide its customers with high-quality hardware, while Progeny can create and maintain custom Linux distributions for NCS's customers.

Several Linux vendors have confirmed they are participating in a project to turn Debian into a serious force in the enteprise. The appearance of the Debian initiative, called the Debian Core Consortium (DCC) is a blow to the Linux Core Consortium (LCC), announced last summer and backed by Progeny, MandrakeSoft and Turbolinux. However, the LCC says it is forging ahead with its own plans.

What are Service Data Objects (SDOs) and why should you use them in the PHP environment? IBM and Zend announced a strategic partnership to collaborate on the development and support of the PHP environment. One aspect of this collaboration has been the definition and implementation of SDOs for PHP. A simple contact management scenario provides a tour of SDO concepts and capabilities for PHP.

LQ Radio has interviewed Asa Dotzler of the Mozilla Foundation. In the interview, Asa covers how he got turned on to Open Source and Firefox, why the FF 1.1 release morphed in 1.5, where Firefox and the Mozilla Foundation are headed, his thoughts on IE7, and what browser he'd use if he couldn't use Firefox. He also gets into some detail about his recent comments about Linux on the desktop. Total running time is 1:21. A BitTorrent is available. You can also download the show directly (in mp3 and ogg format) or as a Podcast.

Even if you're the most dedicated OpenOffice.org (OOo) user in the world, sooner or later you'll be asked to share files with someone using Microsoft Office. Some free software advocates refuse outright, or suggest outputting to HTML, PDF, or RTF formats, but these aren't always options -- especially if your boss is the one doing the asking. However, with a few preparations and a sense of what works and what doesn't, you can usually share files with Microsoft Office users with a minimum of headaches on both sides. Here's how.

The Open Source Business Conference held recently in San Francisco was chock-full of information on how to make money using open source software. Once a bastion for socialist thinking, the open source community is finally coming of age.

The solid growth of Linux of late serves to dismiss even the most outrageous of anti-Linux campaigns as more of a dud than FUD. But what of the much-ballyhooed Linux desktop, which has yet to catch on in the enterprise like its server-side sibling? For the answer, one needs to look no further than the business practices presently adopted by the top two commercial Linux vendors -- Red Hat and Novell.

What's behind all the Ruby hype? Reuven walks us through a couple of examples to let the code speak for itself.01-September-2005

Fitness equipment supplier LA Gym Equipment is getting its information technology in shape by moving from Windows to Linux.

The Shuttleworth Foundation has rolled out another four Freedom Toasters across South Africa with immediate plans for at least another five. The free software "vending machines" now include DVD support and include all major Linux distros from Ubuntu and Impi through to SuSE 9.3 and a complete set of Debian CDs.