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Linux in the newsRecommended Reading Open-source board eyes fewer licenses (News.com) A theme that is emerging from the ongoing LinuxWorld conference is the consolidation of open-source licenses. News.com covers the issue. "The Open Source Initiative, an influential open-source organization, is devising ways to cut down on the rising number of open-source licenses attached to software. The issue was on the front burner at this week's LinuxWorld conference here. Open-source software makers are concerned that a proliferation of licenses could hurt the spread of open source by creating compatibility problems and complicating potential sales."
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Linux Journal looks at using Linux, OpenOffice.org, Scribus and The GIMP for getting a book into publication. "In December of 2004, Clinton Nixon published his role-playing game, The Shadow of Yesterday. The content of the book was nothing shocking, nor was the fact that he published the book himself. Independent authors have been writing role-playing games for as long as there have been role-playing games. Likewise, self-publication is not a new phenomenon. The revolutionary thing in Clinton's case is the fact that only open-source tools were used, from authorship to artwork to page layout."
Trade Shows and Conferences 'Software patents are a way of life' (ZDNet) ZDNet covers comments about software patents made by HP's Martin Fink. "Martin Fink, HP's vice president of Linux, said in Boston at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo: "At the end of the day, software patents are a way of life. To ignore them is a little bit naive." It's fine to object to software patents, but it's foolhardy not to try to acquire them, he said."
LinuxWorld Expo, Boston: The hardware side (NewsForge) NewsForge looks at some of the new hardware on display at LinuxWorld. "Cray had the most impressive computer at LWCE: the XD1. It was a 3U behemoth that howled with cooling fans and sucked air in so hard that it snatched a business card right out of our hand. The heart of the Cray XD1 was modularized into six nodes of dual Opterons, providing a decent amount of processing power."
A week of digital freedoms in a Linux pub (NewsForge) NewsForge covers the Week of Digital Freedoms, an event that was held at Rome's Linux Club Italia. "The Week of Digital Freedoms was a four-day parade of seminars, workshop, movies, concerts, and talks. The program was really a good summary of the Italian activities in the fields of Free Software, unrestricted knowledge, and relationships between IT and ethics."
The SCO Problem Judge slams SCO's lack of evidence against IBM (News.com) News.com talks with some lawyers about the ruling on the SCO v. IBM motions. "'Based on the scathing language of the ruling, it appears that SCO just barely dodged a possible knockout punch in this round,' said Carr & Ferrell attorney John Ferrell. 'There's very little that can be more disastrous to your case than an angry federal judge.'"
Implications of Judge Kimball's Ruling for Novell (Groklaw) Groklaw looks again at the SCO v. IBM ruling and concludes that Judge Kimball plans to resolve the copyright ownership issue in that case - not in the Novell case. "In addition to announcing that SCO must prove copyright ownership and infringement in the IBM case, he also said it appears likely SCO will lose both of those issues, discussing at some length -- and with some pointed displeasure -- SCO's failure to come forward with any admissible evidence on either element of the copyright claim, as required by summary judgment procedures. He also specifically rejected SCO's request to delay consideration of IBM's copyright counterclaims, so seems bent on deciding the copyright issues first in the IBM case."
Linux Adoption South America warms to Open Source (Register) The Register covers the increasing use of open-source software across South America. "Brazil, with 170 million or so citizens and by far the largest South American economy (the economy of Sao Paolo on its own is roughly as big as the economy of Mexico), is leading the way. Brazil's President, Luiz Inacio da Silva, is keen to bridge what he perceives to be a huge technology gap between Brazil and more advanced economies, and sees Open Source as an important means of doing so. He appointed Sergio Amadeu, a former economics professor and Open Source enthusiast, to head Brazil's National Information Technology Institute, after taking office last year."
Legal EU Commission Regrets... No SW Patents on the Agenda & R.I.P. MS? (Groklaw) Groklaw reports that software patents have been removed from the EU Commission's agenda, then points to an article in Silicon Insider entitled "R.I.P. Microsoft?" "Why put the two stories together on Groklaw? Because I see a connection. I see widespread distrust of Microsoft and disgust at their business practices. They may have been largely successful in pulling out the teeth of the US antitrust ruling, but they are feeling now the effects of being found guilty of antitrust violations both here and in Europe nonetheless. If there is one thing money can't buy, it's a good reputation. Maybe you really do reap what you sow after all."
EU puts off disputed software patent decision (Reuters) Reuters reports that software patents are off the European Council's agenda again, for now. "EU ministers were expected to endorse the bill without debate next Thursday and send it for a second reading in the European Parliament, but the bloc's current president Luxembourg has taken the issue off the meeting's agenda. 'The Commission regrets very much that the software patent will not be on the agenda. It has been removed,' Commission spokesman Olivier Drewes told a news conference. He said the legislation had run into new problems but declined to give details."
Interviews FOSDEM Interviews With FOSDEM 2005 coming up on February 26-27, 2005 in Brussels, Belgium, it is time once again for interviews with FOSDEM speakers. There are three interviews available now: Alexander Larsson (Nautilus Maintainer), Matthias Ettrich (Creator of KDE, and Lyx), and Oliver Fourdan (Creator of XFCE).
FOSDEM 2005: Scribus in the Commercial DTP World (KDE.News) KDE.News continues its FOSDEM speaker interview series with part two. "In the second in our series of interviews with speakers in the FOSDEM KDE developers room Scribus developers Craig Bradney and Peter Linnell talk about the state of desktop publishing on Unix and its acceptance in the commercial DTP World."
FOSDEM 2005: Developer Tools Interviews (KDE.News) KDE.News covers a third set of FOSDEM interviews, featuring some speakers from the developer tools track. "Alexander Dymo and Harald Fernengel talk about KDevelop including Umbrello integration and what might be in store for KDevelop 4. Benoit Minisini answers questions on Gambas discussing how it compares to other IDEs and how programming is like a music composer writing a symphony."
Stewart Butterfield on Flickr (O'Reilly) O'Reilly interviews Stewart Butterfield from Flickr. "At the O'Reilly Emerging Tech Conference in 2004, a startup called Flickr introduced a funny little social networking app that let you upload digital photos into chatroom and IM conversations. While the original launch met with rave reviews from attendees, the Flickr team kept adding features and evolving the service. By July 2004, they had achieved a critical mass of features, and Flickr was becoming the hottest thing on the net."
Novell's Linux makeover (ZDNet) ZDNet interviews Novell CEO Jack Messman. "The Novell CEO began an ambitious Linux overhaul of his company in 2003, acquiring SuSE Linux to provide an alternative to the fading NetWare operating system. Since then, the company has released a major new Linux edition, revamped sales, dropped its No. 2 executive and prepared a new version of NetWare: Open Enterprise Server, which comes with Linux built in."
Resources The CIS Linux benchmark: Security best practices for Red Hat and Fedora Core (NewsForge) NewsForge covers a security benchmark package from the Center for Internet Security (CIS). "Because the CIS has limited resources, its current Linux Benchmark is designed for only Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 and 3.0 and Fedora Core 1, 2, and 3. Although CIS suggests that derivatives of these distributions may also be able to run the Benchmark, for now its usefulness is limited. However, even if the Benchmark itself won't run with a particular distribution, the information in the accompanying PDF file can be adapted to most distributions with a minimum of effort and expertise."
Migrating from x86 to PowerPC, Part 2 (developerWorks) developerWorks looks at the anatomy of the Linux boot process. "This installment of "Migrating from x86 to PowerPC" discusses detailed similarities and differences between booting Linux on an x86-based platform (typically a PC-compatible SBC) and a custom embedded platform based around PowerPC, ARM, and others. It discusses suggested hardware and software designs and highlights the tradeoffs of each. It also describes important design pitfalls and best practices."
Reviews GNOME Photo Printer: A nifty little app (NewsForge) NewsForge has a review of GNOME Photo Printer. "For the past couple of years, I've used the GIMP whenever I've needed to print photos. It's not really designed for that purpose, but I could size and place the photos where I needed them on the page. One drawback was that multiple passes were required to put multiple photos on a page. Now I've found something much more efficient: the GNOME Photo Printer, written by Sebastian "fogman" Vorkõper. It's just the thing for my printing chores."
Hardening Linux by John Terpstra, Paul Love, Ronald P. Reck and Tim Scanlon (Linux Journal) Linux Journal reviews Hardening Linux, by John Terpstra, Paul Love, Ronald P. Reck and Tim Scanlon. "Hardening Linux sets out to show average users how to secure a Linux server or desktop in a step-by-step manner. From the outset the book assumes you have installed a Red Hat or SuSE Linux server product. Users of other flavors of Linux need not fret, though; they still can implement the security suggestions in the book."
Application of the Month: KBear (KDE.News) KDE.News has a review of KBear. "This month in our series "Application of the Month" we show you the alternative FTP client, KBear. As usual we have an interview with the author and a description of this powerful but easy to use program."
StreetFire Sound Labs open-sources CD music (NewsForge) NewsForge takes a look at an open source RBX1600 personal music server from StreetFire Sound Labs. " "The open source community is the ultimate marketing focus group," says entrepreneur Stephen Street, whose latest venture, StreetFire Sound Labs, is taking on traditional stereo equipment manufacturers in the "living room war" over home media equipment. StreetFire's first product, the fully open source RBX1600 personal music server, debuted in the fourth quarter of 2004. The big difference between StreetFire's $750 server and proprietary systems: "We want people to hack our box," says Street. "You know the people hacking their Tivos and running Linux on their Xboxes? We love those guys!""
XAMPP, an Apache Distribution (Linux Journal) Daniel McCarthy reviews XAMPP on LinuxJournal. "XAMPP is a collection of free software for installing and using the Apache Web server. Basically, it is an Apache distribution that includes the Apache Web server, MySQL, PHP, Perl an FTP server and phpMyAdmin. XAMPP is available for Linux, Solaris and Windows. According to the Apache Friends Web site, "The philosophy behind XAMPP is to build an easy-to-install distribution for developers to get into the world of Apache.""
Miscellaneous Mozilla Firefox Downloaded 25,000,000 Times (MozillaZine) Mozilla Firefox has been downloaded over 25 million times, according to this article on MozillaZine. "By the end of yesterday, 99 days after the release of Firefox 1.0, the browser had been downloaded 25,105,560 times. In the Mozilla Foundation press release about the 25 million milestone, Mitchell Baker says, "Firefox is being rapidly adopted by the mainstream, with this audience embracing Firefox as a more user-friendly web browsing solution.""
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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