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AnnouncementsNon-Commercial announcements Torvalds, Widenius, and Lerdorf against software patentsLinus Torvalds, Michael Widenius and Rasmus Lerdorf have written an appeal to the EU Council against software patents in Europe. "At first sight, a patent appears to protect an inventor but the actual implications may be the opposite, dependent upon the field. Copyright serves software authors while patents potentially deprive them of their own independent creations. Copyright is fair because it is equally available to all. A software patent regime would establish the law of the strong, and ultimately create more injustice than justice."
Freedesktop.org returns to the netThe Freedesktop.org site was recently compromised, it's back online and the admin log explains what happened. "As you may have noticed, freedesktop.org sort of got compromised a few days back. By 'sort of', I do, of course, mean 'totally'. Adam Conrad noticed a few thousand bounces in his inbox courtesy of being on www-data, and that they were all for spams being sent as www-data. Whoops. We started hunting for an insecure formmail.pl, but when we took a look at lsof and discovered an IRC proxy running, we decided it was something more insidious. From there, the machine got killed to all access but ours, and we started tracking down the point of entry. It turned out that it was compromised via a hole in TWiki, but no news was to be found on the TWiki site about this hole, nor was there a new release." (Thanks to Maximilian Attems.)
Eclipse Foundation Welcomes AldonThe Eclipse Foundation has announced the joining of Aldon. "Aldon brings significant enterprise change management and lifecycle process automation experience to the Eclipse Foundation. Aldon Lifecycle Manager and Aldon Lifecycle Manager for iSeries Team Repository plug-ins support complex multi-tier, Web-centric and Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA), as well as application development across Windows, UNIX, Linux, OpenVMS, z/OS, i5OS and OS/400 operating environments."
Scalix Joins Open Source Development LabsThe Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has announced that Scalix Corporation, provider of a Linux email and calendaring platform, has joined OSDL and will participate in the Lab's Data Center Linux and Desktop Linux working groups.
Stratus Joins Open Source Development LabsOpen Source Development Labs has announced its newest member, Stratus Technologies, Inc. ""Stratus relies on a Linux operating system that runs on our fault-tolerant products designed for the continuous uptime requirements of telecommunications central offices," said Ali Kafel, Stratus vice president, Telecommunications Sales. "We're looking forward to joining OSDL's Carrier Grade Linux and Data Center Linux working groups to combine our Linux development expertise with other OSDL members.""
OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claimsOSDL has released a brief statement (click below) in response to Steve Ballmer's claims that Linux violates Microsoft patents.
Commercial announcements Linspire Supports Latest Windows Media VersionsLinspire, Inc. has announced support for versions 8 and 9 of the Windows Media Player. "Previously, Windows Media files would typically work on users' machines only if they found and installed unlicensed codecs online then patched them into their operating system. In contrast, Linspire licensed the codecs directly from Microsoft, then made substantial changes to make the Windows Media code work on Linux>-based systems. The engineering required porting the complete Windows CE Windows Media code to Linux."
The Lawyers are comingA law firm called Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP has announced that it is available to help companies deal with their "open source issues." "For example, businesses that modify Open Source code for internal use may be surprised that seemingly innocuous actions may initiate distribution requirements, which could force them to give away their customized software for free, or at a modest cost, to their competitors." This company also runs OSLawBlog, claimed to be a weblog on open source legal issues; many visitors may be more struck by its obnoxious advertisements than the legal reasoning to be found there, though.There will be more where these folks came from.
MontaVista Linux Powers New NTT DoCoMo 3G PhonesMontaVista has announced that its MontaVista Linux platform is being used for the NTT DoCoMo 3G mobile phones. "These MontaVista Linux-based phones include the N900iL and the N901iC, both developed by NEC Corporation (TSE: 6701), and the P901i from Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (TSE: 6752)."
NEC Launches New Linux-Based Fault Tolerant ServerNEC Solutions America has announced their latest Linux-based fault tolerant server. "The Express5800/320Lb hardware dual-modular architecture ensures continuous system operation in the case of a hardware failure. The NEC Fault Tolerant Linux operating system was built on the 2.4.18 Linux kernel, enabling any Linux application running on that kernel to run in fault tolerant mode with no modification to the software."
Novell Reports Financial ResultsNovell, Inc. has announced the financial results for its fourth fiscal quarter and for 2004 to date. The company seems to be making money from its Linux efforts. "During the fourth fiscal quarter 2004, Novell recognized revenue of $12 million associated with its SUSE(R) LINUX business. Recognized revenue from subscriptions to SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server in the quarter was $7 million, a sequential increase of 68% from the third fiscal quarter 2004. Sales of subscriptions to SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server (SLES) totaled 21,000 units in the quarter."
Sun Wah Linux Limited at CELF, TokyoSun Wah Linux Limited has announced its participation in the recent Tokyo Consumer Electronics Linux Forum. "Sun Wah Linux Limited is the first company in China that has participated in the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) Tokyo Technical Jamboree event, which was held by all the CELF member companies all over from Japan and other countries such as Europe and US end of October. Their participation represented their first step toward understanding Linux for use in consumer electronic (CE) products."
TimeSys Offers Free Linux Board Support PackagesTimeSys Corporation has announced: "the availability of free 2.6-based Linux Board Support Packages (BSPs) for PowerPC and x86 architectures. Written under the GNU General Public License, BSPs from TimeSys include a certified Linux kernel, more than 100 root filesystem packages and device drivers in a single downloadable, installable image."
TransGaming Announces Linux Support for Half-Life 2TransGaming Technologies has announced Linux support for the video game Half-Life 2. "On the heels of its commercial debut, TransGaming's Cedega product will run Half-Life 2 on the Linux operating system, right out-of-the-box. Half-Life 2 is the anxiously awaited sequel to Valve's debut title that won more than 50 game-of-the-year awards."
VA Linux Releases VA Balance, a Load BalancerVA Linux has announced the release of their VA Balance Load Balancer product. "VA Balance consists of UltraMonkey, a scalable open source load balancing software, and VA Core, a GNU/Linux system based on Debian; both are developed by VA Linux. VA Balance is a fully integrated solution. The control-configuration-monitoring framework provided by VA Core and the special UltraMonkey load balancing software optimized for VA Core are tightly linked and provide an effective and robust load balancing solution ideal for local area networks."
New Books "Knoppix Hacks" Released by O'ReillyO'Reilly has published the book Knoppix Hacks by Kyle Rankin.
Point and Click Linux!Prentice Hall PTR has published the book Point & Click Linux! by Robin Miller.
Resources On Line Version of Agustin's Linux Manual ReleasedThis press release announces the availability of an online version of Agustin's Linux Manual, by Agustin Velasco. "This is a four volume book with over 200 pages of Linux documentation. This manual is centered on Mandrake Linux, but much of the material is worthwhile for any version of Linux. The manual contains a good amount of screen shots to help the readers as they follow step by step procedures."
Upcoming Events Linux Day 2004 in FlorenceThe Florence Linux User Group has announced the fourth Florentine Linux Day, coincident with the nationwide Italian Linux Day on November 27. Click below for the details (in Italian).
Linux Bangalore 2004 -- Call for Volunteers (KDE.News)KDE.News has a Call for Volunteers for the Linux Bangalore 2004 KDE booth. The event will take place in Bangalore, India on December 1-3, 2004. "Ideally this booth will contain more than Taj, myself and my laptop. This is where you come in."
Open Source Initiatives in California GovernmentLUGOD has announced an upcoming presentation. "On Tuesday, December 7th from 6:30pm to 9:00pm, the Linux Users' Group of Davis, in Davis California, will host a free presentation on the use of Open Source software in California government. Bill Fell and Harry Ng from the California Air Resources Board will be joined by Allen Lung from the Franchise Tax Board as they discuss how the Linux operating system, Apache web server, and other completely free, community-developed tools are being used, and developed, in state government."
Ottawa Linux Symposium 2005 call for papersThe OLS 2005 call for papers has gone out; if you would like to speak in Ottawa, you have until February 1 to get a proposal in.
Speakers Confirmed for the SELinux SymposiumThe SELinux Symposium has announced speakers for the first Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) Symposium. The symposium is scheduled for March 2-4, 2005 in Silver Spring, Maryland.
XTech 2005, Gilbane Conference to Co-locate in AmsterdamIDEAlliance has announced the XTech 2005 conference. "XTech 2005 (formerly XML Europe) will be held in conjunction with the Gilbane Conference on Content Management. Both conferences will take place 24-27 May, 2005, at the Amsterdam RAI Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands."
ILC 2005 Call for ContributionsA Call for Contributions has gone out for the International Lisp Conference 2005. "The conference will take place from June 19 to 22, 2005 at Stanford University."
Events: November 24, 2004 - January 19, 2005
Software announcements This week's software announcementsHere are the software announcements, courtesy of Freshmeat.net. They are available in two formats:
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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