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An interface and language for dynamic kernel analysis

The Free Software Foundation is having a video contest on the subject "Why is free software important to you?" It's a timely topic, with Windows 7 just out and with the free software community's bickering so bitter as of late that common goals sometimes seem in danger of being forgotten. I lack any talent for making videos, but the contest has me thinking: Why is free software important to me? And why isn't it important to most people around me? The two questions are more closely connected than you might at first think.

Canonical has been touting its Ubuntu One cloud-storage solution, which allows you to mirror up to 2 GB of files for free and up to 50 GB for $10/month. The service also allows you to sync Tomboy Notes and Evolution contacts across multiple Ubuntu installations. I gave Ubuntu One a try on my recently upgraded Ubuntu 9.10 system, and it appears that Ubuntu One just doesn't do very much that I need. And whether it's the service's simplicity or lack of decent documentation, it took me awhile to figure out just how you get stuff synced with Ubuntu One.

Opponents of cloud computing cite data loss and vendor lock-in as a primary dangers of relying on such services. They're valid points, but since cloud computing isn't going away anytime soon, it's time to start finding solutions instead of simply sounding alarm bells. Today's guest editor, Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange, shares his thoughts about what it would take to make cloud services more reliable and trustworthy.

Samsung announced an "open" mobile platform called "Bada," which appears to be a programmable UI layer that runs on its proprietary feature phones, although one report defines Bada as Samsung's own Linux OS. Meanwhile, a Korean analyst report claims that Samsung plans to discard Symbian and downshift Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- To find the latest threat to business-software makers like SAP AG and Oracle Corp., go to an unlikely location: a 150-year-old farmhouse in Belgium. That’s where closely held Tiny Sprl, run by 30-year- old Fabien Pinckaers, develops free business applications that are picking up customers during the recession.

In a talk at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe in Grenoble, France, a speaker took a critical look at the design and development model of Google's first step toward Linux.

"We want to make it a lot easier for Windows developers to get their hands dirty on Linux, deploy on Linux and debug their software on Linux," Miguel de Icaza, Mono project founder and vice president of developer platforms at Novell, told InternetNews.com. "We're trying to eliminate the barriers to adoption for Mono and Linux and address the developer concerns that we've heard over time."

Please don't shoot the messenger, but all is not well in Firefox land. According to one new report, Firefox is responsible for some 44% of all the browser vulnerabilities that were reported during the first six months of 2009 and that's far more problematical than Internet Explorer.

The European Commission has launched an in-depth investigation of Oracle's planned takeover of Sun Microsystems. According to a press release, preliminary investigations have indicated that there may be competition problems in the database market. The investigation now has to decide by 19th January 2010 whether the merger will seriously hamper effective competition.

While I like the Linux desktop a lot, I don't pretend that it's that popular. That's why I found it fascinating that, despite everything Microsoft has been able to throw at it, desktop Linux still managed to claim 32% of the netbook market. And Microsoft has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at desktop Linux. For example, the Redmond giant has strong-armed vendors into not selling Linux-powered netbooks; lied about Linux sales; and all but gave XP Home away to keep vendors from including Linux instead . Despite all that, it seems, according to ABI Research, that desktop Linux has actually grown in the last year.

Samsung Electronics, the world’s No. 5 smartphone manufacturer, plans to discard the Microsoft Windows Phone operating system to increase phones on the Android platform and with its own smartphone operating system. Among the 40 kinds of Samsung smartphones that will be released next year, the portion of Windows Phones will be around 50%, down from 90% in 2008, and Android-based smartphones will be around 30%, or over 10 kinds of models, according to a recent report by HMC Investment Securities, a Seoul-based brokerage firm. Samsung expects to discard the Symbian OS from 2011 and reduce the portion of Windows Phones to 20% in 2012.

Oracle claims that the European Commission's public policy against Oracle's takeover of MySQL runs counter to open source freedom and the growing database market.

I've had more than a little trouble with all things GNOMEish in Ubuntu 9.10 since upgrading from 9.04. I've solved all of the issues thus far but discovered another last night. Rhythmbox, which wouldn't even start until I fixed the opencv bug, started but wouldn't play anything. When trying to play an audio file, I kept getting an error message that included this line: "unable to start playback pipeline." That was enough to send me to Google, where I found the bug (#468577) in Launchpad.

Kindle for PC is a free download for Windows XP, Vista, and 7 systems only. A Mac version is "coming soon," according to Amazon.

In the United States, the end of Autumn is nearing and Winter is approaching, but there hasn't yet been any push to get Reiser4 into the mainline Linux kernel. What has happened? Well, we asked Shishkin. Before asking Linus to pull Reiser4 into the mainline Linux kernel, he first wants to publish a plug-in design document in a scholarly magazine in order to facilitate some independent expert review. After missing the deadline for FAST 2010, Shishkin is now hoping to publish this Reiser4 document for USENIX Annual 2010. This would be due in January, but their annual conference does not take place until June. After that, they can focus on finally getting this advanced Linux file-system into the mainline code-base.

This tutorial shows how you can set up an Ubuntu Studio 9.10 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.

Pretending that ownership of software is possible and thus trying to enforce this ownership (as copyright and patent laws do) actually leads us to violations of actual physical property.

Most people who use Linux for desktop use are well aware of the one of the largest issues facing the platform: Lack of commercial software. Now in most cases this is not an issue, no MS Office - use OpenOffice, no Internet Explorer - use FireFox. However one thing which there is currently no replacement for is gaming.

Martin Michlmayr has published several guides about running Debian on the Linksys NSLU2 ("Slug") router/NAS device, including one on migrating a Debian NSLU2 installation to Marvell's SheevaPlug NAS design. With the latest guides on troubleshooting, booting, modifying, and cloning Debian on the NSLU2, the documentation is essentially complete, says Michlmayr.