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AnnouncementsNon-Commercial announcements OSS Student Lab deployed in Vietnam VietLUG has announced the deployment of a Linux student lab at the Nam Thanh Cong elementary school in Hanoi, Vietnam. "With project fund of $850 and used monitors donated by VietLUGers residing in Vietnam and abroad, and IFI (Institut de la francophonie pour l'informatique), we are able to set up the lab with one server and 5 thin-clients. vnlinuxEDU (based on Mandriva and LiveCD project) utilizes terminal-server package to provide connectivity and applications, such as, kdeedu and gcompris to the thin-client workstations. SchoolTool is also included for teachers who wish to administer their students activities."
Patent Office Orders Re-Examination of Blackboard Patent The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has ordered re-examination of the e-learning patent owned by Blackboard Inc. in response to a request from the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). "SFLC, provider of pro-bono legal services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software, had filed the request in November on behalf of Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor, three open source educational software projects. The Patent Office found that prior art cited in SFLC's request raises "a substantial new question of patentability" regarding all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent."
Patent office grants PUBPAT requests to reexamine EpicRealm Patents The Public Patent Foundation has announced a grant from the US patent office to reexamine the EpicRealm dynamic web site patents. "In its filings, PUBPAT had submitted prior art that the Patent Office was not aware of when reviewing the applications that led to the two patents and described in detail how the prior art invalidates the patents. The Patent Office found that PUBPAT's filings indeed raised "substantial questions" regarding the validity of the EpicRealm patents."
Mobile Leaders Around the World Launch LiMo Foundation The LiMo Foundation has been launched. "To support their goal of creating the world's first globally competitive, Linux-based software platform for mobile devices, Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone announced today the official launch of the LiMo Foundation. A not-for-profit organization, the LiMo Foundation is aimed at blending the community-based development benefits of transparency, innovation and scalability with the best development practices from the mobile community to create an innovative new business model."
FFII on proposed OpenXML adoption The FFII has sent out a release opposing the proposed fast-track adoption of Microsoft's OpenXML format as an ISO standard. "OpenXML relies on undisclosed patents, and undisclosed or incomplete licensing terms that make any independent reimplementation impossible or heavily risky. It obliges implementors to reverse-engineer the behavior of old closed Microsoft applications and formats. It uses non-standard formats for languages and dates, and specifies known bugs, such as treating 1900 as a leap year."
The Vista message: Upgrade to GNU/Linux now! The Free Software Foundation Europe recommends Linux over Microsoft Vista. ""Unfortunately, many of the articles and statements about problems with Microsoft Vista are not truly specific to Vista. Very similar problems exist in any proprietary software," says Georg Greve, FSFE's president. "Ever since the first FSF was founded in 1985, the Free Software Foundations have understood and worked against the threats that proprietary software poses to our society." He continues: "Because these dangers are more widely understood today we have seen an unprecedented move to Free Software by governments, users and companies alike in the past years. The more proprietary software makes use of its absolute control over the user, the more people are starting to look for alternatives.""
Commercial announcements Free utility keeps documents secure on flash drives Runtime Revolution Ltd. has announced the AppSnapper Lite free version. "AppSnapper links documents to applications located on smart drives that include the U3 launcher. When a document is launched, AppSnapper intercepts the launch and automatically directs it to the appropriate application stored on the smart drive – without interacting with applications stored on the host computer – even if the same application is available there. With an AppSnapper "snap," users never launch an application on the host computer."
BitRock InstallBuilder 4.0 released BitRock Incorporated has announced BitRock InstallBuilder 4.0, which adds new support for Linux 64-bit platforms and RPM generation. "The development tool turns the application packaging, distribution and deployment process of multiplatform applications into a fast, easy and cost effective task for independent software vendors and custom application developers. The ability to generate RPMs from installer project files saves hours of development time and eliminates the need to maintain separate RPM and installer-building processes."
Coverity Names David Maxwell as Open Source Strategist Coverity, Inc. has announced the naming of David Maxwell as the company's open-source strategist. "Maxwell will manage the continuation and expansion of Coverity's Department of Homeland Security-sponsored open source scans, as well as other new partnerships with the open source community. As part of a three-year contract awarded by the US Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate under its "Vulnerability Discovery and Remediation Open Source Hardening Project," Coverity currently analyzes over 50 popular open source projects in an effort to better secure the software that powers critical national infrastructure."
Interact-TV announces MyTellyHD Media Server Interact-TV Inc. has announced the availability of its Linux-based MyTellyHD Media Center. "Starting from $899, MyTellyHD delivers all the features and functionality consumers have come to expect from a media server including a subscription-free PVR, Video Library with save DVD capabilities as well as Music and Photo Libraries. MyTellyHD incorporates many new features that are critical to the expanding home theater market including 720p Component video output, Gigabit Ethernet, a high performance processor, and all new MPEG2 video encoding."
Mainsoft releases Grasshopper 2.0 technology preview Mainsoft Corporation has announced the release of Grasshopper 2.0 Technology Preview 2. "Mainsoft Corporation, the leading cross-platform company, today announced the release of the Grasshopper 2.0 Technology Preview 2, a plug-in to the Microsoft(R) Visual Studio(R) development environment that enables C# developers to write ASP.NET 2.0 Web applications using C# 2.0 and generics and deploy them on Linux and other Java-enabled platforms. Community forums and technical articles that demonstrate how to port existing .NET 2.0 applications to Java are available free to developers who register at http://dev.mainsoft.com."
Novell announces open-source identity services Novell, Inc. has announced new services that integrate with Microsoft CardSpace and Liberty Alliance-Enabled products. "The Bandit(TM) and Eclipse Higgins Projects today announced the achievement of a key milestone in the development of open source identity services. Based on working code from the two projects and the larger community of open source developers, the teams have created a reference application that showcases open source identity services that are interoperable with Microsoft's Windows* CardSpace* identity management system and enable Liberty Alliance-based identity federation via Novell(R) Access Manager."
PSA Peugeot Citroen Chooses SUSE Novell, Inc. has announced a contract with PSA Peugeot Citroen for the deployment of up to 20,000 desktop and 2,500 server systems. ""We found SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Desktop to be well supported and extremely user friendly," said an IT representative for PSA Peugeot Citroen. "Novell's commitment to open source and close collaboration with leading hardware and application vendors to ensure the support of our IT requirements were key factors in our choice. In addition, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop integrates seamlessly in our Windows-based infrastructure.""
PIKA launches Asterisk enhancements Pika Technologies Inc. has announced a new version of PIKA Connect. "PIKA Technologies Inc., a designer and manufacturer of plug-in media processing hardware and software building blocks that provide network connectivity and superior echo cancellation, announced today the release of a new version of its PIKA Connect for Asterisk software package. Among the improvements and new features it contains, this release allows Asterisk users to take advantage of the DSP-quality software-based echo cancellation offered by PIKA's PrimeNet T1/E1 Gateway board and PIKA Connect for Asterisk software."
rPath gets $9.1M in Funding rPath has announced the receipt of (another) $9.1 million in venture funding. "The company plans to use this new capital to expand its market leading position as the provider of technology for creating and maintaining software appliances."
SugarCRM Available to Ubuntu Users SugarCRM Inc has announced the the availability of SugarCRM customer relationship management software for the Ubuntu distribution. "Canonical Ltd, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, today announced the availability of Sugar Open Source for users of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS edition (Long Term Support). The simplified deployment process and ease-of-use of Ubuntu, combined with SugarCRM's feature-rich business processes, will enable companies to build better customer relationships at a lower cost."
Sun and Intel Announce partnership Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced a partnership with Intel. "Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Intel Corporation today announced a broad strategic alliance centered on Intel's endorsement of the Solaris(TM) Operating System (OS) and Sun's commitment to deliver a comprehensive family of enterprise and telecommunications servers and workstations based on Intel(R) Xeon(R) processors. The scope of the agreement spans Solaris, Java(TM) and NetBeans(TM) software and Intel Xeon microprocessors, as well as other Intel and Sun enterprise-class technologies. The alliance also includes joint engineering, design and marketing efforts."
Zenoss releases new version of Zenoss Core Zenoss, Inc. has announced a new release of Zenoss Core. "Zenoss, Inc. today announced a new version of its open source Zenoss Core enterprise network and systems monitoring software that adds automatic configuration change tracking, automated remediation of IT infrastructure problems, and other features that are critical for effective IT management."
New Books Everyday Scripting with Ruby - New from the Pragmatic Programmers Pragmatic Programmers has published the book Everyday Scripting with Ruby by Brian Marick.
Software Testing Foundations, 2nd Edition - New from Rocky Nook Rocky Nook has published the book Software Testing Foundations, 2nd Edition by Andreas Spillner, Tilo Linz, and Hans Schaefer.
Education and Certification LPIC-1 Linux certification training available online (Linux Watch) Linux Watch notes the online availability of LPIC-1 certification exams. "Want a job working in Linux? Then one of your first steps should be to get an LPIC-1 (Linux Professional Institute first level) certification. In the past, getting this entry-level certification could be easier said than done, since classes aren't available everywhere. Now, however, the SUNY (State University of New York) Linux Learning Collaborative, a partnership between Millard Fillmore College at the University at Buffalo and Just-in-Time Resources, is offering online Linux training leading to the LPIC-1."
LPI announces training partner in the Netherlands The Linux Professional Institute is partnering with AT Computing in the Netherlands for training and certification. ""We are proud to welcome AT Computing to our global network of LPI Approved Training Partners. Given AT Computing's stature and long history, their decision to promote LPI certification demonstrates the growing importance of our program to Linux professionalism in the Netherlands," said Jim Lacey, President and CEO of LPI."
Event Reports KDE PIM annual meeting coverage (KDE.News) KDE.News covers the KDE PIM annual meeting. "On Friday 14 January 2007, members of the KDE PIM developer group came together for the fifth year in a row in Osnabrück, Germany to review the state of the project. Important topics including Akonadi, KDE PIM maintenance and enterprise usage. A record number of attendees were welcomed into the Intevation office and made at home by Bernhard Reiter, Jan-Oliver Wagner and the rest of the team."
Calls for Presentations 2007 GCC Developers Summit CFP A call for papers has gone out for the 2007 GCC Developers Summit. The event takes place in Ottawa, Canada on July 18-20, 2007, submissions are due by February 5.
International PHP Conference CFP A call for papers has gone out for the International PHP Conference. "The International PHP Conference Spring Edition 2007 will take place in Stuttgart from 21 – 23 May 2007, in parallel to the brand new S&S Media conference webinale07 on Web technologies and Web 2.0." Submissions are due by February 2.
Rapid Application Development with Dynamically Typed Languages CFP A call for papers has gone out for the publication IEEE Software Special Issue on Rapid Application Development with Dynamically Typed Languages, submissions are due by February 15. "Dynamically typed programming languages were once seen as slow, unreliable, and suitable only for small throw-away tasks. However, their ability to aid rapid systems development and to facilitate the pervasive, mobile, and frequently updated systems that are increasingly in demand in the modern world has led to their stock rising considerably."
Upcoming Events TimeSys Sponsors Open Source Summit TimeSys has announced their sponsorship of the TiE Open Source Summit. "The event will bring together entrepreneurial leaders to discuss the strategic importance of the open source movement on the entire software marketplace. Co-sponsoring the event with TimeSys are IBM, Information Week and thoughtform design. The Open Source Summit will be held Thursday February 15, 2007 from 6-9pm at the Lexus Club at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. The event will include a Keynote address and panel discussion from open source industry experts."
Events: February 8, 2007 to April 9, 2007 The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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