Non-Commercial announcements
FFII a force for the future, says new president
The FFII General Assembly has unanimously elected a new president, Pieter
Hintjens, to lead the organization into 2006. "
Pieter Hintjens is
the 43-year old founder and MD of iMatix Corporation, a Belgian software
firm. He has been active in the debate against software patents,
explaining to the European Patent Office and the European Parliament why
software and business process patents are so deadly for small innovative
firms that are the life-blood of Europe's innovation. He brings to the
FFII his considerable experience both in the business domain and the
technical domain."
Full Story (comments: 2)
FSFE files application for leave to intervene in Microsoft antitrust suit
The FSFE has announced the filing of an
application for leave to intervene.
"
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) today filed an application
for leave to intervene in the antitrust suit against Microsoft. Georg
Greve, President of FSFE said: "The more Microsoft is able to purchase
its opponents' solidarity, the more important FSFE's commitment to
freedom and interoperability is.""
Full Story (comments: none)
A genuine open-standard format
The OpenOffice.org project has sent out a press release that
concerns the adoption of the Open Document Format.
"
OpenOffice.org believes that the demand for a genuine open-standard
format for office documents is overwhelming. Users of office software
are coming to realise that their real investment lies not in the
software itself, but in the spreadsheets, databases, and
wordprocessing documents which they have created: their own
intellectual property. The only way to guarantee access to this
investment long term is for the data to be stored in a vendor-
neutral, open-standard format.
Microsoft's announcement on Monday, 21 Nov., that it recognises the
market pressure for open-standard data formats is a welcome
development. But why opt for a new standard?"
Full Story (comments: none)
Experts dispute effectiveness of open-source patent pools
Nosoftwarepatents.com has put together a round-up of comments
on the effectiveness of open-source patent pools.
"
Analysts, community leaders and campaigners comment skeptically
on the Open Invention Network and the OSDL Patent Commons --
"Those announcements don't put us closer to a real solution, but even
further away""
Full Story (comments: none)
WorldForge Celebrates its 7th Anniversary
The WorldForge game project has announced its seventh anniversary.
"
Seven years down the line the hard working members of the project have
persevered through trolls, skeptics, changes of leadership, slashdotting and
worse to create over one million lines of code and nearly four gigabytes of
media."
A demo of the development game Mason is now available.
Full Story (comments: none)
Commercial announcements
Adaptec Announces Enhanced GuardianOS
Adaptec has announced an enhanced version of its GuardianOS.
"
Adaptec, Inc. a global
leader in storage solutions, today announced version 4.0 of its
award-winning, Linux-based GuardianOST operating system that comes standard
on its Snap Server network attached storage (NAS) solutions. GuardianOS is a
unified software platform that combines cross-platform file sharing with
block-level data access on a single network storage device to provide a
simple and flexible data storage solution ideal for departments, remote
offices, and small/medium distributed enterprises worldwide."
Full Story (comments: none)
Autodesk Open-Sources Web Mapping Software
Autodesk, Inc. has
announced the release of its MapServer Enterprise under the
GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
"
As a
sign of its support for the growing momentum behind open source web mapping
technologies, Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSK) today announced the company is
releasing the code for MapServer Enterprise, the company's new web mapping
platform, as open source."
Comments (none posted)
Bizgres MPP - Public Beta 2
Greenplum has announced a new version of Bizgres MPP Beta, a
parallel DBMS application. Free downloads are available.
"
If you are currently using a database larger than 100GB for
data mining/decision support or business intelligence and are
having performance challenges, Bizgres MPP can help you get your work
done faster with less effort. MPP is not a solution for speeding
OLTP throughput, but excels at processing queries that use large
amounts of data."
Full Story (comments: none)
LaCie and Mandriva Introduce GlobeTrotter 2.0
Mandriva and LaCie have introduced a mobile USB hard drive pre-loaded with
a specially tuned version of the Mandriva Linux operating system: the
GlobeTrotter2.0 in 40GB or 80GB. "
GlobeTrotter is perfect for those
with serious capacity and power needs. Unlike CD-R's and USB keys that only
store data, or laptops that are heavy and expensive, the GlobeTrotter
offers a complete work environment in one cost-effective, lightweight
package. Simply plug the GlobeTrotter into the USB port of a host PC and
turn it on. Hardware on the host computer is automatically detected but is
not modified in any way. When the job is done, GlobeTrotter can be taken to
a different workstation with up to 80GB a user's data including
applications and personal settings."
Full Story (comments: 2)
LinuxForce Wins Aker Philadelphia Shipyard Contract
LinuxForce has announced a new contract with Aker Philadelphia Shipyard.
"
Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, formerly known as Kvaerner Philadelphia
Shipyard, and LinuxForce, a leading technology services provider
specializing in the development, implementation, management and support
of Linux-based systems, have signed a long-term services agreement
wherein LinuxForce will monitor and maintain a number of GNU/Linux
systems for Aker."
Full Story (comments: none)
LPI appoints new President and CEO
The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) has announced that LPI Board member,
Jim Lacey, has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the
organization.
Full Story (comments: 2)
Sleepycat Software Releases New Version of Berkeley DB
Sleepycat Software, Inc. has
announced the release of Berkeley DB version 4.4.
"
A number
of new replication features and efficiency improvements have been added in
response to customer demand.
Berkeley DB now supports in-memory replication, client-to-client
replication, controls for throttling and delaying synchronization and master
election speed-ups. Additional feature additions include online Btree
compaction and disk reclamation, abandoned lock removal, automated recovery
serialization and a hot backup utility."
Comments (none posted)
SSH Tectia Introduces Seamless OpenSSH Compatibility
SSH Communications Security Corp. has
announced improved interoperability between the commercial
SSH Tectia and OpenSSH.
"
Both SSH Tectia and OpenSSH are based on the Secure Shell version 2 (SSH2)
protocol specifications, originally developed by SSH Communications Security
and standardized by the IETF. However, OpenSSH deviates from the standards in
its SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) implementation. SSH Tectia Client and Server
now incorporate a compatibility mode for OpenSSH SCP, which still uses the old
Secure Shell version 1 (SSH1). In addition, the new SSH Tectia product
versions will support the OpenSSH public-key file format, eliminating the need
for manual key conversions."
Comments (2 posted)
Terra Soft Assists Colsa to Gain 15 of Top500.org
Terra Soft Solutions worked with COLSA to improve the performance
of an Apple Xserve G5 cluster. The system reached the 15th highest rating in the Top500.org benchmark.
"
Terra Soft's David Smith worked on-site with COLSA engineers for three days in
order to prepare a multi-tier system first for rapid node replication and
secondly to maximize system performance. Significant gains were recognized
with their combined efforts: the Top500.org benchmark, Linpack, achieved
16.18 Tflops on the Xserve, vaulting it to the 15th fastest computer in the
world."
Full Story (comments: none)
TimeSys Introduces LinuxLink Subscriptions for new Freescale Processors
TimeSys has announced the availability of LinuxLink Subscriptions
for the Freescale's ColdFire(R) MCF547x and MCF548x Processor Families.
"
LinuxLink Subscriptions Include Hundreds of Cross-Compiled
Applications, Latest Linux from Freescale, Continuous Updates,
Developer Exchange Community Access and Tools for
Customizing Linux".
Full Story (comments: none)
VMware announces VMware Workstation 5.5
VMware, Inc. has
announced the availability of its VMware Workstation 5.5
desktop virtualization software.
"
With VMware Workstation, enterprises are able to
create a library of virtual machines for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 operating
systems, including Linux, NetWare, Solaris x86 and Windows, that replicate
production environments. These virtual machines can then be rapidly
provisioned and used, making it possible for developers and testers to spend
more time developing and testing software and less time configuring and
managing their required environments."
Comments (2 posted)
New Books
C++ Cookbook - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book
C++ Cookbook by D. Ryan Stephens, Christopher Diggins, Jonathan Turkanis, and Jeff Cogswell.
Full Story (comments: none)
O'Reilly publishes Digital Asset Management for Photographers
O'Reilly has published
The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for
Photographers by Peter Krogh.
Full Story (comments: none)
Practical Perforce - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book
Practical Perforce by Laura Wingerd.
Full Story (comments: 1)
Understanding the Linux Kernel, Third Edition - O'Reilly's Newest Release
O'Reilly has published the book
Understanding the Linux Kernel, Third Edition by Daniel P. Bovet and Marco Cesati.
Full Story (comments: none)
Virtualization with VMware ESX Server - latest from Syngress
Syngress has published the book
Virtualization with VMware ESX Server
by Al Muller and Seburn Wilson.
Full Story (comments: none)
Upcoming Events
Call for Location of aKademy 2006 (KDE.News)
A
Call for Location
has been posted for the aKademy 2006 conference.
"
The next annual central meeting of the KDE community, aKademy 2006, is looking for a location. The event consists of the general assembly of the KDE e.V., a KDE developer conference and a multi-day hacking session. The main goal of the event will be to shape the upcoming new major step of the K Desktop Environment, KDE 4. If you are interested in hosting this large and exciting free software event, please consider to submit a proposal to the board of the KDE e.V. which will act as a co-host."
Comments (none posted)
Audio, Video and Arts Miniconf at linux.conf.au
An Audio, Video & Arts Miniconf will be held at the
2006 linux.conf.au event in Dunedin, New Zealand.
Abstracts are being accepted until December 19.
Full Story (comments: none)
CFP: IEEE Web Services (ICWS 2006)
A call for papers has gone out for the 2006 IEEE International Conference
on Web Services. The event will take place in Chicago, IL on
September 18-22, 2006. Submissions are due by January 16.
Full Story (comments: none)
International Free Software Forum call for papers
The submission deadline for the
International
Free Software Forum (fisl7.0) is approaching. Lecture proposals are
due on December 4th. fisl7.0 will take place from April 19th to 22nd,
2006, in Porto Alegre/RS/Brazil.
Comments (1 posted)
Linux Installfest workshops in Davis
The Linux Users' Group of Davis will hold another free
Linux Installfest in Davis, CA on December 3.
Full Story (comments: none)
LinuxWorld On Tour 2006, Canada
LinuxWorld On Tour 2006 will be held in Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary,
and Vancouver through the month of May, 2006.
"
LinuxWorld on Tour Conference & Expo 2006 is Canada's first
Open source Road Show, providing an excellent mix of technical and
business decision makers in four (4) leading technology cities in
Canada."
Full Story (comments: none)
List of PyCon 2006 Talks are online
A list of
talks
to be presented at PyCon 2006 has been published.
Comments (none posted)
Umeet Virtual Meeting - December
The next Umeet Virtual Meeting will be held from December 9-20, 2005
online.
Full Story (comments: none)
Events: December 1, 2005 - January 26, 2006
| Date | Event | Location |
| December 1 - 2, 2005 | FOSS.IN/2005 | (Bangalore Palace)Bangalore, India |
| December 4 - 9, 2005 | Large Installation
System Administration Conf.(LISA) | San Diego, CA |
| December 5 - 7, 2005 | Open Source Developers'
Conference(OSDC) | (Monash University's Caulfield campus)Melbourne, Australia |
| December 9 - 20, 2005 | Umeet Virtual
Meeting(UMEET 2005) | Online |
| December 10 - 14, 2005 | ApacheCon 2005 | (Sheraton San
Diego Hotel and Marina)San Diego, CA |
| December 27 - 30, 2005 | 22nd Chaos
Communication Congress | Berlin, Germany |
| January 13 - 15, 2006 | ShmooCon
2006 | (Wardman Park Marriott Hotel)Washington, D.C. |
| January 23 - 28, 2006 | linux.conf.au
2006 | Dunedin, New Zealand |
| January 23 - 25, 2006 | Black Hat Federal
Briefings and Training 2006 | (Sheraton Crystal City)Washington, D.C. |
| January 24 - 26, 2006 | O'Reilly
Emerging Telephony Conference | (San Francisco Airport Marriott)San Francisco,
CA |
Comments (none posted)
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