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An informed source says the newly created Open Invention Network (OIN) has received $40 million, down precipitously from the $280 million originally envisioned by its founders. The sources also says that erstwhile founding members Nokia and Yahoo also dropped out of the original announcement, and that the company was months late in its founding.

When SuSE Linux founder Hubert Mantel announced his resignation from Novell ast week, he became the third former SuSE executive to leave in the past six months. There was much speculation as to why Mantel left, which was sparked, in part, by the manner of his leaving. He announced his resignation via a Linux e-mail discussion list, claiming that SuSE had changed so much it was no longer the company he had founded 13 years before.

A little while ago, I read on the O’Reilly Network an blog entry about a cool mailing list manager called Mojo Mail. Not being in the market for such a software at the time, I read the interview with great interest, nodded thoughtfully at the mention of a successful, cleanly laid out, “it just works” open source project and went ahead trying to figure out how to speed up iDisk browsing. Little did I know that Dada Mail (the application’s new name) would be essential to my publishing experience a few years later and that usable iDisk browsing would only be possible courtesy of the folks at Panic, within approximately the same time frame.

In a company Weblog posting, Novell Senior Manager of Public Relations Kevin Barney said the report "aims to confuse the market about the value of Linux and downplay the various reliability, security and TCO issues Windows users are facing."

Do you have an existing MySQL database with valuable data in it? Would you like to be able to access it with OpenOffice.org 2.0's new Base database application?

I didn't really plan using a $20,000 laser cutter on my 17" Powerbook to etch a 19th-century engraving of a tarsier, a nocturnal mammal related to the lemur (also the vi book cover image, from O'Reilly), but it seemed like it had to done. The results are stunning - photos and more...

Last week, IBM certified the Ubuntu Linux distro for use with its DB2 enterprise database. These types of vendor certifications are pretty routine; and as a rule, they're nothing to get worked up about. This one, however, is truly interesting: Could an obscure Linux distro with a funny name, hippy-dippy motto, crazy-commie talk about truly free software, and a Debian (ahem!) lineage soon have both Red Hat and Novell on the run?

Controversial copy-protection software used by music publisher Sony BMG on music CDs appears to have tapped an open source project, raising questions about copyrights, software experts say.

Debian has released updated packages to correct a vulnerability identified in Fetchmail. This flaw is due to an error in the "fetchmailconf" program that writes configuration data to the "run control" file, which could be exploited by local attackers to gain knowledge of sensitive information (e.g. passwords). For additional information, see : FrSIRT/ADV-2005-2182

This is a very good article which tells the history of linux in a unique angle. It is peppered with the photos of all the leaders who helped shape Linux to the robust OS it is now. A must read for all linux enthusiasts.

LXer Day Desk: 11-18-2005 Two days ago, Microsoft sent out a press release about a study commissioned by Security Innovations, titled “Security Innovation Finds Microsoft Windows Platform More Reliable Than Linux”. Now, from previous “Get the Facts” studies, we know, what Microsoft states in its press release, and what the report itself states, are often two different things. Lets look into this study to find out if it made big errors, and lets try to find out how Microsoft distorts the facts found in this report in their press release. Diggable

LXer Feature

A small group of ministers spoke out on OpenDocument, challenging Microsoft to support it in their office suite. The reaction we drew was mixed, but largely positive. We simply expressed what many already felt, but words are meaningless unless followed by action.

Diggable

Talking with one of the organizers of FSF-India about the role of free software as both technology and philosophy.

LXer Day Desk: 11-18-2005

The Digital Rights Management (DRM) people think that Open Source Software advocates cause piracy. In my experience, the people pirating their materials use Microsoft Windows. The vast numbers alone should bear that out.

Some astute observers would see that OSS advocates live up to a higher moral standard. If you have ever worked on an OSS project, you would know that pedantic adherence to the rules comes along with self-policing.

Diggable

Tanzania, like the rest of Africa, is attempting to bridge the digital divide to create an information economy. And like many other African states, it is turning to open source to achieve this goal.

The Firebird Project is pleased to announce the release of Firebird 2.0 Beta 1 kits for immediate download and testing. This version of Firebird 2 is an beta version, meant for field testing only and not for use in production.

One of the nice things about open source software is that it gives developers the ability to reuse and re-purpose code. Take, for example, the Flock Web browser, recently released as a pre-beta developer preview based on the Firefox code base. Flock sports a layout similar to Firefox, with a navigation toolbar, bookmark toolbar, a search tabbed interface, and so forth. But it has been dubbed a "social browser" because it integrates with weblogs, photo and bookmark sharing, and other "social" services on the Web.

As more and more IT and ISV executives understand the power and promise of open source, proprietary software companies are starting to adopt the open source model. I quoted this phenomena as 'Opening Up - Who, When, What' in one of my presentations in May 2004. Since then, Ingres, Open Solaris, and many other commercial products have been open sourced. Recent announcements on Google's Free Urchin (free software, not open) and Sun's PostgreSQL support stress the importance of ‘Software Delivered As A Service (SAAS)’. Larry Augustin's editorial describes why open source model is better very well.

Like many from the dot-com generation, Michael Robertson seemed awfully young when he led San Diego's Internet boom as the 30-something founder of MP3.com.

Now at the tender age of 38, the maverick entrepreneur has assumed another age-incongruous role – as the patriarch in a burgeoning revival of Web-based startups.

In a recent interview, Robertson described his role in starting three local ventures, Linspire, Gizmo Project and MP3tunes – and hinted of plans to unveil a fourth Internet-based business next month. Meanwhile, at least seven former employees from MP3.com have launched their own companies here in recent years.

Looking for more ways to secure your system? Try the GrSecurity kernel patch and gain greater control over files, resources and who sees them.