Showing all newswire headlines

Sun Microsystems may be on a roll regarding sales in the Far East. Following the December news that it will supply up to 200 million Java/Linux desktop systems over a period of years to the Republic of China, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based corporation today announced a 10,000-seat sale of its StarOffice 7 software to the United India Insurance Co.

The KDevelop Team has achieved a major new release of KDevelop, a GPL-licensed, customizable, language-independent integrated development environment (IDE) with team development support. KDevelop 3.0 is a "complete re-write" of KDevelop, according to the KDevelop Team.

"A project to port Linux to several smartphones manufactured by HTC of Taiwan and sold under various brand names was announced January 30 on the XDA-Developers project Website. The new 'Xanadux' project aims to support GPRS and phone functions alongside Linux on the devices, and is seeking help from interested developers."

"A read buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the resolver code in versions of glibc up to and including 2.2.5. The vulnerability is triggered by DNS packets larger than 1024 bytes, which can cause an application to crash."

There were two articles in the news yesterday that are not related in any detail except one. The first has to do with a notorious spammer and the second has to do with SCO.

Groklaw reader Lloyd Hanson sent me a parody he actually wrote a couple of years ago but has buffed up. As you will see, it seems to have a modern-day relevance, bottled water being all the rage, I hear. Enjoy.

pgAdmin III is a comprehensive administration interface for the PostgreSQL database. The application is running under GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and MS Windows.

"TimeSys has updated its Eclipse-based TimeStorm Linux Tool Suite, adding support for any 2.6 Linux kernel and lowering the price to $795 per seat. The company claims that TimeStorm is the first development tool based on Eclipse to support 2.6-series kernels."

Another issue of the Fedora News Updates has been released

In this issue: Tab scroller, customizing file types handling, translation languages, sundry news reports, project updates, visitor poll and more.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- How's this for a backhanded yet powerful endorsement of a company's products? Pixar Animation Studios, creator of such movie hits as "Finding Nemo," "Toy Story," and "Monsters Inc.", uses Trolltech's software throughout its operation but won't talk about it publicly because it thinks it would be giving away a competitive advantage.

This is to announce the Trustix Secure Linux 2.1 Technology Preview 2.

News from the certification industry.

"The last two months of 2003 may be looked at as the time open-source databases made their initial charge at the enterprise-level database market. In November, both MySQL AB and PostgreSQL Global Development Group released new versions of their open-source databases, which include added features and tools that are specifically targeted at larger enterprises."

"Enterprise Linux is priced so that the cost really is significant for some users. With all the other inexpensive Linux systems around, an individual hacker shouldn't be spending several hundred dollars on a Linux system. For a large corporation with a complex network, however, the cost of the operating system is minor compared to the expense of managing, monitoring, and troubleshooting. In this sort of environment, Enterprise Linux 3 is certainly worthy of consideration."

SCO recently sent a letter to every Member of the U.S. Congress. SCO told America's elected representatives that Linux contains code stolen from its own version of Unix. Company officials claimed that open source software is a threat to the United States information technology industry. They told men and women elected to serve all Americans that open source is a threat to the United States' competitive position in world markets. The open source community cannot let these allegations go unanswered in Congress. OSAIA asks you write to your two Senators and your Member of Congress to refute SCO's claims.

"Zultys Technologies today announced the availability of its new Linux soft phone. The freely downloadable product supports many of the features available in Zultys’ award-winning ZIP 4x4 IP business telephone. The software allows Linux users to make and receive phone calls from their computer, without the need for a telephone handset."

LDAP is not your father's naming and directory service. Application vendors large and small, commercial and open source alike, have embraced LDAP as a centralized service for authentication and 'white pages' type information. These days, if you're not wearing a 'got root?' t-shirt and yelling at the suits to get LDAP, you're probably the suits wondering if LDAP is right for your environment. With features for security and integration far beyond that of other services, LDAP is probably something you should spend at least a bit of time discovering. Let's get started!

I believe that patent laws need to be looked at more closely, and not just for drugs. There is sometimes need to provide incentives to some innovators, through the rewards of a temporary statutory monopoly, to offset risky and costly research. There is sometimes a need to encourage innovators to disclose their inventions so they become available at the end of the term of the monopoly. Sometimes this monopoly is not only not needed to stimulate innovation or disclosure, but can also get in the way of innovation.

"The momentum behind Linux in Japan has attracted some important companies to OSDL, says CEO Stuart Cohen. Indeed, there has been a spate of recent announcements coming from Asia, suggesting that Linux is becoming a viable alternative for companies there, a trend that already has taken shape in the Western Hemisphere.