Linux in the news [LWN.net]

Google's Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web (Wired)

Wired has posted a lengthy feature about Android. "Among the contact management systems and shopping tools, there were applications that truly fulfilled Android's promise, particularly in their use of location awareness, social networking, and cloud computing. One developer offered up Jamdroid, a program that you turn on in your car to feed real-time traffic data to a central server; the info is then compiled and beamed to other Jamdroid users, crowdsourcing road conditions. LifeAware tracks friends or family, plotting them on a map and alerting the user when, say, a kid leaves a preset area. E-ventr mashes up evites and Google Maps to organize parties on the fly. BreadCrumbz lets you share photo-enhanced driving and walking routes with the world. Already, Android has half as many outside applications as RIM's BlackBerry platform and about 10 percent the number offered for Windows Mobile at Handango, a leading application download site and that's still months before it launches."

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I hate Linux Graphics (Linux Hater's Blog)

The Linux Hater's Blog has a rant on the state of 3D graphics in Linux. "Alright, so as soon as I started bitching about graphics, my coworker, lets just call him Linux Graphics Hater (warm applause everyone! ready those tomatoes!), went off on a rant the technical reasons why open source ATI and intel drivers still suck ass. He also corrected me that nvidia might actually be making money from some of these linux drivers. Good for them, but as long as they're still kind of hiding the fact that they're only really doing it for their paying customers, I think it supports my overall point." (Thanks to Bob Miller)

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Companies

Nvidia Reiterates Position on Closed Source Driver (OSnews)

OSnews reports on video card manufacturer Nvidia's plans to keep their drivers closed. "Nvidia, which delivers probably the most prominent closed-source Linux driver, has reiterated its position concerning this matter. ZDNet's Paula Rooney contacted Nvidia for an official response to the statement - and she got one. "NVIDIA supports Linux, as well as the Linux community and has long been praised for the quality of the NVIDIA Linux driver. NVIDIA's fully featured Linux graphics driver is provided as binary-only because it contains intellectual property NVIDIA wishes to protect, both in hardware and in software.""

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Red Hat net profit rises, expects steady growth (Forbes)

Forbes covers the latest Red Hat financial stats. "Red Hat Inc, the world's largest publicly traded provider of Linux software, reported Wednesday a quarterly profit that met Wall Street expectations as its revenue grew 32 percent. Net income rose 7 percent to $17.3 million, or 8 cents per share, in its fiscal first quarter, from $16.2 million, or 8 cents per share, in the same period a year ago."

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Linux Adoption

Microsoft tactics push India toward Linux (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch looks at Linux laptops for school children in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. "In evaluating laptop hardware, ELCOT claims to have two primary tests. One is a "fire walk test" that requires laptops to survive being stood and walked upon by 175-pound people. The other -- hopefully easier to pass -- requires that they fully support Linux."

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Interviews

Coming Battle Over Open Source Phones (Forbes)

Forbes interviews Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation, about the Symbian announcement, the merger with LiPS, and competition with Android. "The traditional point of difference--royalty rates--has dissolved for now, but other points of difference will emerge between the platforms. While both are open-source, LiMo uses the Linux kernel, which is the jewel in the crown of the open-source development world. There's deep familiarity there with our technology. The Symbian kernel has grown up as a proprietary item. The open-source community needs time to get familiar with that technology."

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Cloudsecurity.org Interviews Guido van Rossum

cloudsecurity.org has an interview with Guido van Rossum on the topics of Google App Engine, Python and Security. "cloudsecurity.org: I recently attended a fascinating talk by Justin Ferguson (a Seattle based security consultant) at eusecwest in London. He gave a great talk exploring security vulnerabilities in language interpreters and specifically highlighted some security weaknesses in Python App Engine. What are your thoughts on his research and specifically the Python issues he highlighted? When do you anticipate they will get fixed? GvR: Weve anticipated all of the possibilities raised in Justins talk, and took measures to protect our users. Justin highlighted weaknesses in Python, but not in App Engine. Furthermore, our security model does not rely solely upon protections within the Python interpreter; there are additional protections that these external analyses have missed."

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Resources

About:mobile first issue

The first issue of about:mobile, a newsletter dedicated to mobile Firefox development, has been posted. "The M4 Milestone release of Fennec is available for testing for the N800 and N810. The main feature of this release is that it features really good scrolling and panning, largely written by Stuart Parmenter and Gavin Sharp. Please note that this is still a very early milestone release, and as such this build has many features that are either incomplete or unstable." "Fennec" is Firefox for mobile devices, see the Fennec vision page for details.

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Reviews

Openmoko ships Neo FreeRunner Linux phone (ZDNet)

ZDNet reports on the first Openmoko Neo FreeRunner mobile phone shipments. "The suggested retail price is $399 (£201). The Neo FreeRunner has a VGA (480-by-640 pixel) touchscreen, internal GPS, Bluetooth, a 400MHz processor, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, two 3D accelerometers and SD-card expandability. Unusually for a mobile phone, it also includes a USB host function, meaning it can be used to power USB devices."

Linux Devices has a review of the FreeRunner.

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Miscellaneous

The critics are wrong: KDE 4 doesn't need a fork (ars technica)

Here's an ars technica article telling frustrated KDE 4 users to give the project a bit more time. "The single greatest strength of Plasma is the inherent mutability that it brings to the desktop. It provides a very flexible framework within which the developers can experiment with completely different paradigms for basic components of the user interface. That is why a fork is a profoundly misguided option at this stage."

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