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Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
FSFE Launching Freedom Task Force, Co-operating with gpl-violations.org
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has announced the launch of the Freedom Task Force. The Task Force is working closely with Harald Welte of gpl-violations.org and seeks to help programmers properly set up and organize projects legally, as well as educate companies to understand how the GPL works. As needed, the purpose of the group will also include enforcement in the case of license violations.
Microsoft seeks input on promise not to sue individuals
Microsoft's Jason Matusow has posted a request for input from the community on how to improve its promise not to sue individual developers. He acknowledges that it "missed the mark," but don't expect things to change too much. "Our design goal is to get language in place that allows individual developers to keep developing. We are not interested in providing carte blanche clearance on patents to any commercial activity - that is a separate discussion to be had on a per-instance basis. As you comment, please keep in mind that we are talking about individuals, not .orgs, not .com, not non-profits, not...well, not anyone other than individual non-commercial coders."
The first OLPC test system arrives in Cambridge
The OLPC team has posted a set of pictures of the first "B1 test" version of the laptop on its arrival at their office. The holiday season, it seems, has arrived early in Cambridge.
Samba Team Asks Novell to Reconsider
The Samba Team has sent out a release asking Novell to reconsider its deal with Microsoft. "The patent agreement struck between Novell and Microsoft is a divisive agreement. It deals with users and creators of free software differently depending on their 'commercial' versus 'non-commercial' status, and deals with them differently depending on whether they obtained their free software directly from Novell or from someone else. The goals of the Free Software community and the GNU GPL allow for no such distinctions."
Commercial announcements
Announcing beta 3 of CrossOver 6.0
The beta 3 release of CrossOver 6.0 is available for the Linux and Mac platforms. "This new version fixes a lot of bugs and begins to bring us to a close on the beta process. This includes support for Office 2003 service packs, improved support for Outlook 2003, many Quicken bug fixes, and many other improvements as well."
MySQL to get a new storage engine from NitroSecurity
MySQL and NitroSecurity have announced a deal to work the "NitroEDB" database engine into MySQL. "NitroSecurity originally developed its database technology to address the growing demand for real-time analysis within the network security event management market. Utilizing unique indexing techniques, data management methods and query processing algorithms, the technology enables 'multiple order of magnitude' increases in relational data management and query performance with multi-billion record volumes – running on commodity hardware."
Novell Releases Mono 1.2 With Enhanced Support for .NET on Linux
Novell, Inc. has announced the release of Mono 1.2.. "Mono 1.2 adds support for the Microsoft* Windows* Forms API to more easily port .NET client-side applications to Linux*. Other enhancements in this release include virtual machine upgrades and enhanced Java* support, significant performance, memory consumption and stability improvements, and support for many .NET 2.0 features."
OpenVZ adds live migration capability
The OpenVZ project adds a live migration capability to its latest version of the OpenVZ open-source virtualization software. "The OpenVZ project today announced availability of its operating system-level server virtualization software in the form of a kernel based on Linux 2.6.9, including for the first-time in a stable branch, fully-tested and performance-tuned live migration and Virtual Ethernet device features. Previously, those features were only available in the development branch of OpenVZ software."
SWsoft announces Virtuozzo Linux update
SWsoft has announced the availability of an update for its Virtuozzo operating system-level virtualization software. "The Virtuozzo 3.0 for Linux Service Pack 1 delivers advanced networking features including: Ethernet layer network adapter support - enables a virtual environment (VE) to run any Ethernet dependent application or service; VLAN support - allows set up of a virtual networking infrastructure that meets strict security requirements with complete network traffic isolation via support for virtual environment network adapters; Improved CPU management - enables system administrators to assign any number of virtual CPUs, up to the number of physical CPUs available."
Zenoss Launches Core 1.0 Product
Zenoss has announced the launch of their Zenoss Core 1.0 product. "Zenoss Core is an integrated IT monitoring product that allows IT administrators to manage the status and health of their entire infrastructures through a single web-based console. As a free, open source software product, Zenoss provides organizations world-wide with a new alternative for enterprise-grade IT monitoring that is substantially less expensive and easier to deploy than traditional solutions."
New Books
Learning MySQL - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book Learning MySQL by Seyed M.M. "Saied" Tahaghoghi and Hugh E. Williams.
New O'Reilly Book - Network Monitoring with Nagios
O'Reilly has published the book Network Monitoring with Nagios by Taylor Dondich.
Resources
Best Practices in Embedded Linux
James Chapman has announced a new white paper entitled Best Practices in Embedded Linux [PDF] that is available from katalix systems for download. A discussion forum is also available for discussion of the paper.
FSFE Newsletter
The November 13, 2006 edition of the Free Software Foundation Europe newsletter is online. Topics include: DRM.info platform launched, Introducing Shane M. Coughlan and Maria Luisa Carli, FSFE helped liberating Italian ZIP code database, FSFE at LWE fairs in Utrecht (Netherlands) and London (UK) and FSFE Swedish Team at the Internet Days in Stockholm (Sweden).
Contests and Awards
IMIA OSWG Award - winner Ignacio Valdes (LinuxMedNews)
Ignacio Valdes has won the inaugural annual award of the IMIA Open Source Working Group. "The award is made in recognition of long-standing significant achievment in the promotion of free/libre and open source software in health informatics. The award was presented at the annual business meeting of the AMIA OSWG in Washington DC on 13 November, 2006 by Peter Murray, IMIA Vice President for Working Groups and Special Interest Groups."
The 2006 LMN Freedom Award winners (LinuxMedNews)
LinuxMedNews reports on the winners of the 2006 LMN Freedom Award. "It was a split decision this year. Both Nancy Anthracite and Will Ross are recipients of the 2006 Linux Medical News Freeodm award, co-sponsored with the International Medical Informatics Association. Ross and Anthracite have worked tirelessly to advance the cause of software freedoms in medicine".
Qt Jambi Developer Contest Announced (KDE.News)
KDE.News covers the Qt Jambi Developer Contest. "Trolltech has announced the Qt Jambi Developer Contest, which is now open to all developers following the release of the third Technology Preview (TP) of Qt Jambi. The contest is aimed at encouraging both Java and Qt programmers to try out the new features available in the Qt Jambi TP3. This third and final technology preview is built on the newly-released Qt 4.2, giving Java programmers access to powerful new Qt features like the powerful 2D graphics canvas (Qt Graphics View) and simplified application styling through Widget Stylesheets." The winner will receive a 2.0GHz Apple MacBook.
Education and Certification
Big Nerd Ranch Announces Fast-track LPI Linux Admin Bootcamp
The Big Nerd Ranch will hold the next Fast-track LPI Linux Admin Bootcamp on February 19-23, 2007 outside of Atlanta, GA.
Calls for Presentations
GNOME Journal submission deadline: December 1
The submission deadline for the next edition of the GNOME Journal is December 1, the Journal will be published on December 15.
Upcoming Events
FAVE 2006 final line-up announced
The final line-up for FAVE 2006 has been announced. "FAVE is an event for people who are interested in free and open source creative software on Linux and other computer platforms. It features workshops, talks and performances from free software developers and artists. The 2006 event is taking place at Limehouse Town Hall in London, England on Saturday the 25th of November."
IEEE International Workshop on Open Source Test Technology Tools
The 2007 IEEE International Workshop on Open Source Test Technology Tools (IOST3) will take place in Berkeley, CA on May 10-11, 2007. "The IOST3 workshop establishes and supports a community of practice focused on open source tools, and tools with open interfaces, for the test, quality assurance, and reliability estimation of electronic devices, assemblies, and systems."
Third International Conference on Open Source Systems (LinuxMedNews)
LinuxMedNews has announced the Third International Conference on Open Source Systems. "The Third International Conference on Open Source Systems will be held in Limerick, Ireland 11-14 June 2007. The goal of the conference is intended to "provide an international forum where a diverse community of professionals from academia, industry and public administration can come together to share research findings and practical experiences. The conference is also meant to provide information and education to practitioners, identify directions for further research, and to be an ongoing platform for technology transfer.""
FFII announces the European Patent Conference
The FFII has sent out an announcement for a series of conferences on patents in Europe; the first two events are in Munich (November 25) and Brussels (January 24). "[P]roblems in the patent system affect all industries and all consumers. The European Patent Conference is the ideal opportunity for those who want to fix these problems."
foss.in partial speaker list available
A partial list of speakers for the upcoming foss.in event has been published. The event will take place on November 24-26, 2006 in Bangalore, India. "This year, we have tried to stay away from overpowering people with glitz. We therefore decided that despite my better judgement, we wouldn't be inviting Pamela Anderson, but we do hope that Christoph Hellwig's unique hairstyle will make up for that."
London Perl Workshop 2006
The 2006 London Perl Workshop has been announced, the event will take place on Saturday December 9, 2006 at Westminster University. "The LPW is (like all of the other local Perl workshops) a grass-roots, one day, free Perl conference. The talks are of a very high standard and it’s a great way to meet people from the Perl community (who come from all over the world to be at the workshop)."
Registrations are open for tutorials at OSDC 2006
Registration is open for the Open Source Developers' Conference 2006 tutorial program. "The tutorials run on the 5th December, followed by the technical program on the 6th - 8th December. Most tutorials include printed reference material." The event takes place in Melbourne, Australia.
Last chance to join the Summer of PyPy
A European PyPy sprint event has been announced. "Hopefully by now you have heard of the "Summer of PyPy", our program for funding the expenses of attending a sprint for students. If not, you've just read the essence of the idea :-) However, the PyPy EU funding period is drawing to an end and there is now only one sprint left where we can sponsor the travel costs of interested students within our program. This sprint will probably take place in Leysin, Switzerland from 8th-14th of January 2007."
Events: November 23, 2006 to January 22, 2007
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| November 21 November 24 |
15th International Conference on Computing | Mexico City, Mexico, |
| November 24 November 26 |
FOSS.IN 2006 | Bangalore, India |
| November 25 | FAVE 2006 - free software multimedia event in London | London, UK |
| November 27 November 30 |
PacSec Applied Security Conference 2006 | Tokyo, Japan |
| December 1 December 2 |
PHP Conference Brasil | Sao Paolo, Brazil |
| December 2 December 3 |
Technical Dutch Open Source Event | Eindhoven, the Netherlands |
| December 3 December 8 |
Large Installation System Administration Conference | Washington, D.C., |
| December 5 December 8 |
Open Source Developers' Conference 2006 | Melbourne, Australia, |
| December 7 December 8 |
Desktop Architects Meeting | Portland, OR, USA |
| December 9 | London Perl Workshop | London, England |
| December 12 December 19 |
Virtual Congress UnInet Meeting UMeet'2006 | irc.uninet.edu, #linux |
| December 27 December 30 |
23rd Chaos Communication Congress 2006 | Berlin, Germany, |
| January 11 January 12 |
Foundations of Open Media Software | Sydney, Australia |
| January 15 January 20 |
linux.conf.au 2007 | Sydney, Australia, |
| January 20 January 26 |
Cell Hack-a-thon | Loveland, CO, USA |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Web sites
FSF Compliance Lab announces new web site
The Free Software Foundation has announced a new Free Software Licensing web site. "The site aims to help people find the information they need about licenses published by the FSF, such as the GNU General Public License (GPL), and to provide more information about the Lab's work."
Audio and Video programs
Web 2.0 Podcast - a look ahead (O'ReillyNet)
O'Reilly presents podcast coverage of the Web 2.0 Summit 2006. "Two and one half days jam packed with sessions. You'll get to hear and see most of them in this Web 2.0 podcast stream. Next week Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle kick our podcast off with their look at Web 2.0."
Page editor: Forrest Cook