The Free Software Foundation Europe notes Microsoft's loss of a
European Union antitrust case.
"'Microsoft can consider itself above the law no longer,' says Georg
Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).
'Through tactics that successfully derailed antitrust processes in
other parts of the world, including the United States, Microsoft has
managed to postpone this day for almost a decade. But thanks to the
perseverance and excellent work of the European Commission, these
tactics have now failed in Europe,' Greve continues."
ActiveState has announced version 4.2 of the Komodo IDE
advanced web development toolkit.
"Komodo IDE helps free developers to focus on advanced web development.
This release incorporates more useful features like auto-update,
necessary features like bug fixes, and nice-to-have features like soft
characters, plus improved functionality for dynamic languages.
Key additions to this release are auto updates and soft characters.
Auto updates means users don't need to check for the latest features
or reinstall Komodo to get the latest version. Soft characters is a
new feature for automatic insertion of closing brackets, braces and
parentheses."
Atmel and TimeSys have
announced a collaborative microprocessor board support package.
"Atmel(R)
Corporation and TimeSys(R) announced today a free Linux(R)
Board Support Package (BSP) for Atmel's ARM9-based AT91SAM9
Microcontrollers. Supporting the entire range of SAM9 products, this BSP
includes Atmel's Linux kernel and drivers, BusyBox utilities for basic
commands and features, and a Linux host/cross toolchain capable of
re-building the Linux kernel and the basic packages included in the BSP.
Together with a full documentation set and support services, this offering
provides a ready-to-use package to validate Linux with Atmel
microcontrollers."
Here is IBM's press
release announcing the availability of Lotus Symphony. This
version of Symphony appears to be reworked version of StarOffice
distributed in a binary-only format; it is available for Windows,
SLED 10, RHEL 5, and "RedHat5." Registration is required to
download the software.
Linspire, Inc. has
announced the availability of commercial paid support offerings for
Freespire users.
"Following the launch of Freespire 2.0 last month, these
competitively priced paid support options are now available at
http://support.freespire.org
and offer commercial support services for
Freespire users around the globe."
Mandriva has signed a broad technical
cooperation agreement by the Angolan government.
"Mandriva and CNTI have signed an agreement by which Mandriva will
bring its knowledge and experience to Angola, providing technology
solutions, training and consulting services. Mandriva will be training
the first core team of open source specialists, it will help CNTI do
the first open source deployments and it will provide technology and
products and ensure their maintenance."
According to Mitchell Baker's weblog, the Mozilla Corporation is launching "MailCo" (a real name will be chosen later) as a separate effort to develop Thunderbird. David Ascher will be leading the new organization. "Mozilla will provide an initial $3 million dollars in seed funding to launch MailCo. This is expected to be spent mostly on building a small team of people who are passionate about email and Internet communications. As MailCo develops it and the Mozilla Foundation will evaluate what's the best model for long-term sustainability. Mozilla may well invest additional funds; we also hope that there are other paths for sustainability."
Novell, Inc. has
announced improvements to the performance of SUSE Linux under VMware.
"Novell today
announced significant enhancements in the performance of SUSE(R) Linux
Enterprise Server when the Linux operating system is running as a virtual
machine guest in a VMware environment. To deliver this improved
performance, Novell modified the SUSE Linux Enterprise kernel to support
the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI), a communication mechanism
between the guest operating system and hypervisor that simplifies the task
of virtualization and makes Linux a more efficient guest operating system
when running in VMware environments."
Novell, Inc. has
announced the use of Novell identity and security management
solutions by New York City Transit.
"North America's largest
transportation agency, New York City Transit, has turned to Novell for
improved security and management of its identity infrastructure and network
access. With the world's largest fleet of subway cars and public buses, NYC
Transit transports more than 7 million people each day. NYC Transit is
using Novell(R) identity and security management solutions to centralize
and automate its identity infrastructure for 49,000 staff members across
500 locations, ensuring timely and secure employee access to network
resources."
Seiko Instruments has announced Linux compatible drivers for their
Smart Label Printers.
"Seiko Instruments USA, the pioneer of the
one-label-at-a-time "smart" printer, is now offering a printer driver compatible
with the Linux Operating System for its Smart Label Printers (SLPs). The new
driver works with any Linux OS that uses the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS)
- allowing the Linux community to have an easy-to-use, convenient printer on
their desktop, for jobs where they need single labels."
The One Laptop Per Child project has several open positions, including
support engineer, security software engineer, documentation lead, school
server architect, localization expert, and a few other software engineering
positions. See the OLPC jobs
page for details.
Printed copies of the PostgreSQL Reference Manual are available
for purchase, $1 from each sale will be donated to the PostgreSQL project.
"The manual has been printed in 3 volumes, running to 1300 pages in
total. The volumes cover the SQL language, the PostgreSQL
client/server programming interfaces, and server administration. Each
volume is in a compact paperback format (6"x9")."
The September 13, 2007 edition of the FSFE Newsletter is online
with the latest Free Software Foundation Europe news.
Topics include:
FSFE engages with irregularities in the ISO voting process,
FTF informal legal network now covers sixteen European countries,
Two days of Free Software in Chile,
The Fellowship site now supports multiple languages,
First distributed Fellowship meeting,
FSFE German Team at FrOSCon,
Fellows of the Rhein/Ruhr area holding monthly talks,
Building the Fellowship in Kaiserslautern, Heidelberg, Darmstadt and Karlsruhe,
FSFE supports demonstration "liberty instead of fear", September 22nd,
Speeches about SELF, Open Standards and Free Software in Argentina and
Free Software and Free Documentation licence consultations.
A 30 question
survey is being conducted on Zero Install.
"Zero Install (as I'm sure you know) is a fully open source,
decentralised installation system, currently included in the Debian,
Ubuntu and Fedora distribution repositories (under the package name
"zeroinstall-injector")."
The call for papers deadline for FLOSS+Art has been extended to November 1.
"Thanks to all the persons and groups who have replied to the call so far!
Due to a growing demand for extra time, we have decided to extend the
deadline. Please note that this new deadline will *not* be extended."
A call for papers has gone out for the Network and Distributed Systems Security (NDSS) conference. The event takes place on
February 10-13, 2008 in San Diego, CA, submissions are due by September 21.
The Free Software Foundation has announced an online meeting on
software licenses.
"On September 27, at 20:00 US Eastern Time (September 28 00:00 GMT), the FSF
Compliance Lab will hold a public meeting to discuss development of version
3 of the GNU Affero General Public License[1] (GNU AGPLv3) and answer
general questions about GNU licenses.
Please join FSF licensing compliance engineer Brett Smith to learn more
about new GNU licenses."
A developers-only conference for
Linux "plumbing" has been announced for next September in Portland,
Oregon. The conference is meant to cover low-level Linux issues,
especially those that span different parts of the greater Linux OS; this is
not just a kernel conference. It will be held September 17-19, 2008 at
Portland State University.