Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
Apache Software Foundation Wraps Up 2007
The Apache Software Foundation has announced the highlights of 2007, it's strongest year to date. "The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) -- stewards, incubators, and developers of leading Open Source projects, including Apache HTTP Server, the world's most popular Web server software for twelve years running -- today announced the 2007 year finished as its strongest ever, reinforcing the broad-reaching success of "The Apache Way." Lauded as one of the most compelling communities in Open Source, the all-volunteer Foundation looked back on milestones achieved during 2007, with ASF activities having grown at a steady rate."
The Creative Commons CC0 project
The Creative Commons has announced CC0, "a Creative Commons project designed to promote and protect the public domain by 1) enabling authors to easily waive their copyrights in particular works and to communicate that waiver to others, and 2) providing a means by which any person can assert that there are no copyrights in a particular work, in a way that allows others to judge the reliability of that assertion." There is a great deal of uncertainty around how the public domain works all over the world, so any additional light on the subject should be a good thing.
Commercial announcements
Engine Yard raises $3.5 Million from Benchmark Capital
Engine Yard has announced the receipt of $3.5 million in funding. "Engine Yard, a leading provider of Ruby on Rails application deployment and support, today announced the closing of a $3.5 million Series A investment from Benchmark Capital. The funds will be used to expand the company's global operations, to strengthen its customer service organization worldwide, and to enhance the core technologies that underlie Ruby on Rails applications."
Ohloh goes Open Source
Ohloh has announced a decision to release its technology as open-source software. "Ohloh, an open source network for people who create and use open source software, today announced that it is open sourcing its technology. The development community can access Ohloh source code and contribute to Ohloh via a new part of the Ohloh web site, Ohloh Labs. This means Ohloh tools and the Ohloh website itself will be freely available and modifiable by the community."
OpenMoko signs deal with Pulster
OpenMoko and Pulster have announced a partnership. "OpenMoko, creator of the first completely integrated open source mobile platform, today announced it has inked a deal with mobile device distributor, Pulster, in Germany. The agreement comes fresh on the heels of Openmoko's announcement that it has become an independent subsidiary of Taiwan powerhouse, FIC. Pulster specializes in online sales of mobile devices, selling into the industrial and education markets with focus on Linux-based solutions."
OpenVZ virtual appliance for Ubuntu
The OpenVZ project has released new virtual appliance software for Ubuntu 7.10. "Users simply download a file and then can use OpenVZ software to create a virtual server running Ubuntu 7.10 in about one minute. "This combination of open source technologies enables someone new to Ubuntu a really easy way to get up and running, while current users have alternative method of running Ubuntu with negligible -- if any -- impact on their system resources," said Malcolm Yates, ISV Alliances Manager at Canonical, the commercial sponsor of the Ubuntu project."
Virgin Mobile Implements MySQL Enterprise
MySQL AB has announced the use of MySQL Enterprise by Virgin Mobile. "Virgin Mobile, a leading Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), has implemented a MySQL Enterprise Platinum subscription to manage its data using the world's most popular open source database. The mobile phone operator has become very popular thanks to a particularly attractive offer: unlimited outgoing SMS text messages towards all operators, for an unlimited time. In terms of mobile applications, SMS remains the most commonly used medium. The considerable storage and processing requirements for SMS require a highly available database management system."
New Books
Advanced Rails--New from O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly has published the book Advanced Rails by Brad Ediger.Apache Cookbook, Second Edition--New from O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly has published the book Apache Cookbook, Second Edition by Ken Coar and Rich Bowen.
Calls for Presentations
EuroSec Workshop cfp
A call for papers has gone out for the EuroSec Workshop. The event takes place on March 31, 2008, submissions are due by February 15. "EuroSec (http://www.cs.vu.nl/eurosec08/) is a new workshop associated with the Annual ACM SIGOPS EuroSys conference. The workshop aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, system administrators, system programmers, and others interested in the latest advances in the security of computer systems and networks. The focus of the workshop is on novel, practical, systems-oriented work. EuroSec will be held on the 31st of March, 2008, in Glasgow, Scotland."
Call for Participation Open for OSCON 2008
O'Reilly has announced the call for participation for the 2008 O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON), which will take place July 21 - 25, 2008 in Portland, Oregon. The deadline for proposals is February 4, 2008. "Program co-chairs Edd Dumbill and Allison Randal are keen to focus on what the next ten years of open source development will bring to the industry. "On the tenth anniversary of OSCON," noted Randal, "we're looking ahead to the next ten years. We want to hear about the disruptive technologies and revolutionary solutions that are changing the game of open source. If the first ten years of OSCON were about opening the minds of big business to the philosophy of open source, is the next ten years about opening the minds of the open source community to the possibilities of its future?""
sambaXP 2008 - call for papers
A call for papers has gone out for sambaXP 2008. "From April 17th to 18th 2008 developers and users will meet again in Goettingen, Germany at the seventh international Samba conference, the "samba eXPerience 2008". The sambaXP is the leading event with focus on the most important free alternative to proprietary SMB/CIFS servers. The call for papers and early bird registration are open until January 28th 2008."
Upcoming Events
XMMS2 developers at FOSDEM '08
The XMMS2 audio player developers will attend the 2008 FOSDEM conference. "This years FOSDEM will take place in Brussels, Belgium the 23-24 of February. We have been talking about this event on the mail-list for a while now and it seems like a couple of XMMS2 developers will now show up."
Linux Installfest workshop in Davis, CA
The Linux Users' Group of Davis will hold another free Linux Installfest workshop in Davis, California on January 26.SCALE Finalizes Plans
The Southern California Linux Expo schedule has been finalized. "The commercial booths have all been filled. Several non-profit groups have recently been added to the SCALE expo floor: Enlightenment, which will be showcasing the work going into E17. Enlightenment is rarely seen at conferences, so this is your opportunity to learn about the desktop that first defined the term "eye candy". Also added were OpenMoko and Damn Small Linux. And for the first time all three of the major BSDs, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD will have booths at SCALE."
SCALE adds training classes
The Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) has announced the addition of two half-day training classes. The morning class is "Open-Source Email Systems: One Approach to Spam Fighting" taught by Austin Godber, while the afternoon class is "Introduction to Virtualization on Linux with Xen" taught by Chris St. Pierre. The classes will be held on the first day of SCALE, 8 February 2008 at the Los Angeles airport Westin. Click below for more information.YAPC::Asia 2008 announced
The YAPC::Asia 2008 Perl conference has been announced. "YAPC::Asia 2008 is announced to be held on May 15-16th in Tokyo. More detailed information from the organizers will follow."
Events: January 24, 2008 to March 24, 2008
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| January 24 | Federal DBA Day | Washington DC, USA |
| January 28 February 2 |
Linux.conf.au 2008 | Melbourne, Australia |
| January 28 February 1 |
Ruby on Rails Bootcamp with Charles B. Quinn | Atlanta, Georgia, USA |
| January 29 January 31 |
Solution Linux 2008 | Paris, France |
| February 1 | Open Island | Belfast, United Kingdom |
| February 6 February 10 |
O'Reilly Money:Tech Conference | New York, NY, USA |
| February 7 | Frozen Perl 2009 | Minneapolis, United States |
| February 8 February 10 |
Southern California Linux Expo | Los Angeles, USA |
| February 10 February 13 |
NDSS Symposium 2008 | San Diego, CA, USA |
| February 11 | Florida Linux Show 2008 | Jacksonville, Florida, USA |
| February 11 | Open Source Software (OSS) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) | Alexandria, VA, USA |
| February 13 February 15 |
German Perl-Workshop | Regionales Rechenzentrum Erlangen, Germany |
| February 16 | Frozen Perl 2008 Workshop | Minneapolis, USA |
| February 19 February 20 |
Linux Developer Symposium | Beijing, China |
| February 19 February 20 |
Files and Backup | London, UK |
| February 22 February 24 |
freed.in/2008 | Delhi, India |
| February 23 February 24 |
Free/Open Source Developers' European Meeting 2008 | Brussels, Belgium |
| February 23 February 26 |
Linux World Mexico | Mexico City, Mexico |
| February 25 February 26 |
2008 Linux Storage and Filesystem Workshop | San Jose, CA, USA |
| February 25 February 29 |
NEW PHP 5 and PostgreSQL Bootcamp with Mark Fenoglio | Atlanta, Georgia, USA |
| February 25 February 27 |
German Perl Workshop | Frankfurt, Germany |
| February 28 March 1 |
Linux Audio Conference | Cologne, Germany |
| March 1 March 2 |
Chemnitzer Linux-Tage 2008 | Chemnitz, Germany |
| March 3 March 6 |
O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference | San Diego, CA, USA |
| March 3 March 6 |
Drupalcon Boston 2008 | Boston, MA, USA |
| March 4 March 9 |
CeBIT Germany | Hannover, Germany |
| March 8 March 14 |
Asia OSS Conference & Showcase 2008 | Guangzhou, China |
| March 11 March 12 |
4th AustralAsian Cleantech Forum | Melbourne, Australia |
| March 14 March 16 |
PyCon 2008 | Chicago, IL, USA |
| March 15 | FSF Associate Members Meeting | Cambridge, MA, USA |
| March 16 March 19 |
BossaConference 2008 - International Conference on Open Source Software for Mobile Embedded Platforms | Pernambuco, Brazil |
| March 16 March 21 |
Novell BrainShare 2008 | Salt Lake City, UT, USA |
| March 16 March 20 |
Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa | Dakar, Senegal |
| March 17 March 20 |
Eclipse Community Conference | Santa Clara, CA, USA |
| March 17 March 20 |
Spring VON.x Conference | San Jose, CA, USA |
| March 19 March 20 |
LinuxWorld Expo 2008 Brussels | Brussels, Belgium |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Page editor: Forrest Cook