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Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
BusyBox Developers Agree To End GPL Lawsuit Against Verizon
Busybox developers have agreed to dismiss another GPL enforcement lawsuit, this time against Verizon Communications. Verizon was distributing Actiontec equipment that had Busybox installed and were not providing the code to downstream users. "'Actiontec takes great pride in providing innovative, quality products to its customers, while respecting the intellectual property rights of third parties,' said Dean Chang, Actiontec's President and CEO. 'We appreciate the value of the technological contributions of the open source community, and look forward with renewed commitment to working cooperatively with them.'" Click below for the full press release from the Software Freedom Law Center.
Patent Office Grants EFF's request for reexamination of Online Gaming Patent
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a request for a reexamination of an online gaming patent. "Sheldon F. Goldberg was awarded the illegitimate patent for online gaming systems that use tournament-style play, advertising, and real-time updates of ladder-rankings in multi-player games. Goldberg has used this bogus patent to coerce licensing fees from numerous small businesses. In the reexamination request, EFF along with Paul Grewal and Brad Waugh of Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder show that the technology covered by the Goldberg patent had been widely disseminated in the public domain for years before Goldberg made his claim."
Audacity and Google Summer of Code 2008
The Audacity sound editor project will be involved in the 2008 Google Summer of Code. "We are now seeking student participants. As we wrote in our application: At student selection stage, we look for evidence that the student has a real interest in our project, 'Do they actually use it?' rather than just choosing some project that is part of GSoC."
gEDA GSoC 2008 project ideas
The gEDA electronic design tool project has announced a list of projects that could be used in the 2008 Google Summer of Code. "This page contains various ideas for projects, organized by the tool. You can use these as fodder for creating your application to Google. Also, if you have your own idea, feel free to share it with the gEDA developers – they might like it more than any project on this list!"
WorldForge and the Google Summer of Code
The WorldForge virtual world project has announced its participation in the Google Summer of Code. "WorldForge has been accepted as a mentoring organization for the Google Summer of Code 2008. If you are a student interested in participating, see our project ideas list, visit us in the #lounge channel on irc.worldforge.org or say hello on the general mailing list. We are looking forward to hearing from you."
10-year anniversary of the Linux-HA project
Alan Robertson has announced the ten year anniversary of the Linux-HA project. "The 10-year anniversary of the first working code was this week. I announced it 10 years ago yesterday."
Changes at OLPC
Ivan Krstić, the developer behind the One Laptop Per Child security model (among other things), has posted a message about his departure from that project. "I cannot subscribe to the organization's new aims or structure in good faith, nor can I reconcile them with my personal ethic. Having exhausted other options, three weeks ago I resigned my post at OLPC. It's been an outstanding experience, and I truly wish OLPC the best in its future endeavors. My belief in the mission is in no way compromised, and I will miss my coworkers dearly."
Sequoia v. Ed Felten
Ed Felten, who is starting to make a habit of drawing cease-and-desist notices from manufacturers, has posted a notice from Sequoia Voting Systems telling him not to analyze any voting machines. "Sequoia has also retained counsel to stop any infringement of our intellectual properties, including any non-compliant analysis. We will also take appropriate steps to protect against any publication of Sequoia software, its behavior, reports regarding same or any other infringement of our intellectual property." Certainly a democracy would have no reason to want to know about the "behavior" of its voting machines.
United States PostgreSQL Association is launched!
The United States PostgreSQL Association has been launched. The association will support PostgreSQL in the US through user group development, conferences, education initiatives and fun.
USENIX opens access to conference proceedings
USENIX has announced that it has decided to offer open access to the proceedings from all of its conferences. "This significant decision will allow universal access to some of the most important technical research in advanced computing. In making this move USENIX is setting the standard for open access to information, an essential part of its mission." One might argue that it's a bit late to be "setting standards" in this regard, but it's still a good thing.
Commercial announcements
Alcatel-Lucent to integrate Red Hat Enterprise Linux and realtime
Alcatel-Lucent and Red Hat have announced a partnership. "Alcatel-Lucent and Red Hat, the leading provider of open source solutions, will integrate Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Realtime technologies in Alcatel-Lucent communication products for small and medium enterprises (SME). The collaboration supports Alcatel-Lucent's Dynamic Enterprise commitment to interconnecting people,networks, process and knowledge in a flexible, open environment while helping Red Hat expand its business."
Funambol helps AGPLv3 license gain OSI approval
Funambol is helping the AGPLv3 license to achieve OSI approval. "Funambol, the leading provider of Mobile 2.0 messaging software powered by open source, today announced that the AGPLv3 has received formal approval by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Funambol led the process of the license's approval by the OSI after adopting AGPLv3 in November. It was the first company to adopt the license, which closes the "ASP loophole"."
Ingres CAFE Brews up Interest With the Eclipse Open Source Development Community
Ingres Corporation has announced the launch of Ingres CAFE. "Ingres Corporation, a leading provider of open source database management software, announced today the creation of Ingres CAFE(TM) (Consolidated Application Foundation for Eclipse), which brings together in one bundle all the components developers need to create and deploy rich Java applications built using the Eclipse Foundation's open source development framework."
Linspire and Fluendo announce partnership
Linspire, Inc. has announced a partnership with Fluendo S.A. involving the distribution of multimedia software via the CNR.com site. "Immediately available and one-click accessible through CNR.com's easy-to-use software delivery service, Fluendo's multimedia software products are now available to Freespire 2.0, Linspire 6.0, Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10 users and will soon expand to additional popular Linux distributions".
Nokia on its relationship with the open source community
Quim Gil has posted a brief note with pointers to a talk by Ari Jaaksi (in text, audio (MP3) and PDF slides forms) on how Nokia wants to work with the open source community. "We at Nokia are working hard to get it. We have to. We need to get better in communicating our strategies and plans. We need to be more open and get even more involved in various projects and communities. We must be better at articulating our views, providing information and code back, and supporting the community. We must be sure we support freedom and openness and do not try to limit anybody’s work. But at the same time, we must be better at telling what is OK for us and what is not."
Sesame Workshop welcomes Novell to the neighborhood
Novell has announced that it will work with Sesame Workshop. "Novell today announced that Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind the ground-breaking children's television program "Sesame Street," has selected Novell to streamline its hardware and software infrastructure."
Packt Publishing donates over $100,000 to open-source projects
Packt Publishing Ltd has announced that it has donated more than $100K to open-source projects. "Following its first donation to the phpMyAdmin project in April 2004, the company has gone on to provide sustained support for over thirty different open source projects. Packt has introduced initiatives such as the Open Source Project Royalty Scheme and Open Source CMS Award to provide sustained donations to projects over the last four years. The Open Source Project Royalty Scheme allows projects to benefit from the publication of a book, as they are allocated a percentage of every copy sold."
SourceLabs debuts new class of tools for Linux and Java
SourceLabs has announced new Self-Support offering for Linux and Java. "Until now customers have had to choose between using open source software without support or buying traditional support contracts from vendors at a cost and service level that hasn't always made sense. Now they have a third choice," said Byron Sebastian, CEO and Founder of SourceLabs. "Our Self-Support Suites together with our Swik.net social network use unique patent-pending technology that enables open source professionals to quickly access better information and analytical tools than support vendors have traditionally had at their fingertips. Much in the same way OSS commoditized the software industry, marking a huge shift in the way technology is developed and operates, we are extending that value to software support."
Sun Microsystems becomes platinum member of The Open Group
The Open Group has announced that Sun Microsystems, Inc. has become a platinum member of the organization. "In this capacity, Sun will play a leading role in advancing best practices, standards and professional certification programs related to enterprise architects and IT Specialists, including The Open Group's Architecture Framework (TOGAF(TM)), IT Architect Certification (ITAC) and the IT Specialist Certification (ITSC)."
New Books
New O'Reilly Radar Report--The Facebook Application Ecosystem
O'Reilly has published the book The Facebook Application Platform by Shelley D. Farnham.
The Photograph: Composition and Color Design--New from Rocky Nook
Rocky Nook has published the book The Photograph: Composition & Color Design by Harald Mante.
Resources
FSFE Newsletter
The March 17, 2008 edition of the FSFE Newsletter is online with the latest Free Software Foundation Europe news. Topics include: Microsoft's so-called 'interoperability' pledge excludes primary competitors, FSFE calls on Microsoft to release interoperability information without restrictions, FSFE at FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium, SELF conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, FSFE participates in a global day for document liberation, FSFE announces the first European Licensing and Legal Workshop, Jonas ?berg in Sofia, Bulgaria, FSFE Context Briefing on DIS-29500: Deprecated before use?, "Fairware" for the Protestant Church in Germany, Late breakfast for Rhineland Fellows and RMS in Berlin.
Upcoming Events
Linux Installfest workshop in Davis, CA
The Linux Users' Group of Davis will hold its next "Linux Installfest" workshop in Davis, California on April 13, 2008.
Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco announces keynote lineup
TechWeb has announced the keynote lineup for Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008. Registration has been opened for the conference. "TechWeb (formerly CMP) and O'Reilly Media, Inc., co-producers of Web 2.0 Expo, today announced the lineup of keynotes scheduled to appear at the upcoming Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 -- a list that includes Marc Andreessen, Max Levchin and Johnathan Schwartz, and many others. Web 2.0 Expo is the global annual gathering of developers, designers, marketers, and business professionals building the next generation Web, taking place April 22-25, 2008 at Moscone West."
Events: March 27, 2008 to May 26, 2008
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| March 26 March 28 |
CanSecWest 2008 | Vancouver, BC, Canada |
| March 29 March 30 |
PostgreSQL Conference East 2008 | College Park, MD, USA |
| March 31 April 2 |
UKUUG Spring 2008 Conference - Dynamic Languages | Birmingham, England |
| March 31 | 2008 European Workshop on System Security | Glasgow, Scotland |
| March 31 April 2 |
UKUUG Spring 2008 Conference | Birmingham, England |
| March 31 April 2 |
Sharkfest Wireshark Network Analysis Summit | Los Altos Hills, CA, USA |
| April 2 | First meeting UKUUG PostgreSQL SIG | Birmingham, England |
| April 3 April 4 |
E-Mail Systems Conference 2008 (Exim and other mail systems) | Birmingham, England |
| April 4 April 5 |
openSUSE Packaging Days II | IRC, Everywhere |
| April 7 April 9 |
IT360 Conference & Expo | Toronto, Canada |
| April 7 April 11 |
Django Bootcamp with Juan Pablo Claude | Atlanta, Georgia, USA |
| April 8 April 10 |
Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit | Austin, TX, USA |
| April 10 April 13 |
Go-OO Conference 2008 | Prague, Czech Republic |
| April 12 April 13 |
Open Source Developers Conference Taiwan, 2008 | Taipei, Taiwan |
| April 12 April 13 |
LugRadio Live USA 2008 | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| April 12 April 18 |
KDevelop Developer Meeting 2008 | Munich, Germany |
| April 14 April 18 |
Embedded Systems Conference - Silicon Valley | San Jose, CA, USA |
| April 14 April 17 |
MySQL Conference and Expo | Santa Clara, CA, USA |
| April 15 April 17 |
Embedded Linux Conference 2008 | Mountain View, CA, USA |
| April 15 April 17 |
SOA in Health Care | Chicago, IL, USA |
| April 16 April 18 |
X Developers' Conference 2008 | Mountain View, CA, USA |
| April 16 April 18 |
X Developers' Conference for 2008 | Mountain View, USA |
| April 16 April 18 |
Croatian Linux User Conference | Zagreb, Croatia |
| April 17 April 19 |
9th International Free Software Forum | Porto Alegre, Brazil |
| April 17 April 18 |
Samba Experience 2008 | Göttingen, Germany |
| April 18 April 19 |
Third Annual Silicon Valley Ruby Conference | San Jose, CA, USA |
| April 21 April 25 |
Open Source meets Industry: Application Park and International Congress | Hannover, Germany |
| April 22 | The Mobile Future | Santa Clara, CA, USA |
| April 22 April 25 |
Web 2.0 Expo | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| April 22 | OSADL International Congress | Hannover, Germany |
| April 23 April 24 |
Troopers 2008 Security Conference | Munich, Germany |
| April 23 | Linux Foundation Spring Legal Summit | Schaumburg, IL, USA |
| April 25 April 29 |
Open Tech Summit Taiwan 2008 | Taipei, Taiwan |
| April 27 May 2 |
INTEROP Las Vegas 2008 | Las Vegas, NV, USA |
| May 5 May 9 |
Ruby on Rails Bootcamp with Charles B. Quinn | Atlanta, Georgia, USA |
| May 8 | Embedded Masterclass 2008 | London, UK |
| May 9 May 11 |
Pycon Italia Due | Firenze, Italy |
| May 12 May 14 |
Where 2.0 Conference | Burlingame, CA, USA |
| May 13 | Embedded Masterclass 2008 | Bristol, UK |
| May 15 | NLUUG spring conference 2008 | Ede, the Netherlands |
| May 15 May 16 |
YAPC::Asia 2008 | Tokyo, Japan |
| May 16 May 17 |
FOSSCamp 2008 | Prague, Czech Republic |
| May 17 May 18 |
4th Int. Workshop on Software Engineering for Secure Systems (SESS'08) | Leipzig, Germany |
| May 19 May 23 |
AFS and Kerberos Best Practices Workshop 2008 | Newark, NJ, USA |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Page editor: Forrest Cook