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Now, this could be a very good opportunity for all of the other open source database servers particularly the most popular ones like Firebird and PostgreSQL. I’m particularly fond of Firebird (the InterBase offspring) and use it in many projects and did a lot of consulting to Delphi developers using it. Can this be the rise of Firebird? MySQL with its huge popularity has certainly obscured it, so it could be a good time to act.

During the fOSSa 2010 conference in Grenoble, several speakers talked about how much (FOSS) is important in two fields that are strictly related for the future of our society: education and environmental sustainability. This is a synthesis of the most important points that emerged in those talks

Starting yesterday, the Compiz based Unity is available in a PPA (ppa:unity/ppa) for Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal. Unity can be enabled on the Desktop version (you don't have to login to the Ubuntu Netbook Edition) from the CompizConfig Settings Manager.

We have featured a number of wallpaper collections here before which includes the likes of beautiful Ubuntu Maverick wallpapers, awesome Android desktop wallpapers etc. Now, here is a bunch of Linux/Ubuntu wallpaper packs among others you might like.

A rich internet application is a web application that resembles a desktop application in many ways, but is delivered by a browser, virtual machine or from a browser plug-in. The most popular platforms for rich internet applications are Adobe Flash, and Java.

A month ago there was the 1.0 beta release of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries, which are the software libraries created to help in the development of the E17 desktop. EFL 1.0 also marks a point of API/ABI stability and is being used by projects outside of E17 proper, such as with Samsung's Enlightenment usage. Today the second beta of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries is now available.

This build is a livedvd showcasing the new beta E-17 window manager. It was built on the 10.04 Ubuntu core and follows PinguyOS, in being a working out of the box operating system.

Regular expressions provide a robust set of features in the Bash Shell. This article lists 13 features you need to know about regex.

Openrespect.org is founded by Ubuntu Linux community manager Jono Bacon, as a way to encourage mutual respect across Linux distributions. Apparently though that mutual respect didn't fully extend to Red Hat's community Fedora Linux distribution. And now Bacon is admitting that he 'screwed-up'.

I’ve written a lot of reviews of distros based on Debian, but never a review of Debian itself. So this time around I decided to look at Debian 5 (Lenny). Debian, if you aren’t familiar with it, is the rock upon which popular distributions like Ubuntu and MEPIS are built on. Sometimes folks who use a Debian-based distribution aren’t even aware of what it is based on, and that’s a shame because Debian itself has so much to offer.

I know, I know, you've always wanted to know, but have been too shy to ask. In this article, I review the situations where a new consortium should and — as importantly — should not, be formed. I also provide a decision tree for determining what activities a new consortium should undertake to increase the likelihood of its success, a description of the infrastructural elements needed to support these activities, and an indication of the stage of an organization's maturity at which the addition of each activity becomes advisable.

It seems Blender open movies have inspired quite a number of people. Chamba Swathanthra Cinema is an open movie project by a bunch of free software enthusiasts from Kerala, India. Chamba Swathanthra Cinema is probably first of its kind open movie project ever initiated by anyone other than Blender foundation.

Included in the Linux Mint 10 release are some significant improvements to the Linux Mint main menu. Mint users can now install applications, add GTK bookmarks, apply GTK themes and more. I've taken a video and some screenshots highlighting the new menu features in action.

Red Hat has released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, the first major update for RHEL in over three years. RHEL 5 debuted in March 2007 and used the Linux 2.6.18 kernel. Although incremental updates have added a number of kernel updates and new features, RHEL5 is starting to look aged. Of course much of the appeal of an enterprise distro is precisely that it ages well - ten years in RHEL's case.

The litigation battle between Google and Oracle continues to heat up. The search giant fired the latest volley with a filing that outlines twenty separate defenses against Oracle's claim that Google's Android mobile platform infringes intellectual property that Oracle obtained from Sun. Google argues that no infringement has transpired, and that it isn't responsible even if evidence of actual infringement is found.

Jono Bacon's announcement of the OpenRespect.org project was met with the usual mix of reactions, from approval to charges it is really "The Quit Picking on Ubuntu" project....I think a reasonable baseline is to expect everyone to try, even a little, to get along with their fellow humans.

Burster is an initiative by iTechnologie and Blender Project to bring 3D gaming to the web browser. Burster web browser 3D plugin uses the Blender Game Engine to integrate the fascinating world of 3D into a web page.

Snort is a very powerful IDS that in later versions can act like an IPS. Snort is free to download and use in the personal enviornment as was as in the business environment. In fact Snort is used by many Enterprises as a very effective option for their business because not only is it free but it is one of the most powerful IDS’s out there is you know what you are doing when you configure it. Snort can be created as a program that you run when you want on a personal computer or it can be setup to run when your OS starts and protect all computers on your network from attacks.

Google has accused Oracle of doctoring the code samples that allegedly prove Mountain View pilfered Oracle's copyrighted Java code in building its Android mobile operating system. Late last month, as part of its ongoing lawsuit over the use of Java in Android, Oracle waved six pages of Android code at a federal court (see below), claiming they were "directly copied" from copyrighted Oracle code. But, on Wednesday, Google responded with a court filing of its own, and among so many other things, Mountain View said that in submitting the code, Oracle "redacted or deleted...both expressive material and copyright headers." Google called these omissions "significant elements and features."

VirtualBox is a proprietary virtualization software package currently being developed by Oracle Corporation. Using VirtualBox, you will be able to install additional guest operating systems, each known as a Guest OS, each with its own virtual environment.