LWN Weekly Edition
Front pageSecurity
Kernel development
Distributions
Development
Linux in the news
Announcements
->One big page
This page
Previous weekFollowing week
| |||||||||||||
Linux in the newsRecommended Reading Growing the open-source community (LinuxWorld)LinuxWorld has an extended report from OSCON. "One lesson learned? [Jono] Bacon said they learned (the hard way) not to try to convert a user community into a developer community. It's tempting, when you a have a million users of your open-source software, to imagine the effect of getting 'just 1 percent' of them to write code. But it doesn't work. 'You're trying to convince a cat to bark,' he said. Instead, community leaders need to put their energy into converting users to advocates."
Trade Shows and Conferences Full Report: LTSP Hackfest Portland 2008 (LiVE JOURNAL)Warren Togami presents a report from the LTSP Hackfest Portland 2008. "The Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) has for ~9 years enabled Linux to act as a terminal server to diskless thin clients. LTSP has saved schools and businesses countless million, enabled or expanded access to technology to tens of thousands of schools globally, and enabled millions of otherwise useless obsolete computers to be recycled as thin clients. Today LTSP through various distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and CentOS is very likely the largest by far exposure of Linux desktops to the general public. Long before OLPC, LTSP has and continues to be a major Linux Desktops for education success story. Now LTSP is becoming a shining star of cross-distribution coordination."
Information from the Ottawa Linux Symposium (OLS) 2008 presentations (Heise)Heise has posted a look at several OLS presentations - without actually having been to OLS. "A look at the companies employing the various presenters and the respective topics presented can provide valuable insights into the companies' open source activities and fields of interest. The largest number of presentations were given by IBM employees who delivered or contributed to 11 out of a total 54 OLS presentations. Topics include performance and regression testing, file systems, real-time Linux and, of course, the current buzz phrase Cloud Computing. In second place were the employees of Red Hat who contributed to 8 of the presentations. While one of these deals with clusters and real-time Linux, others discuss the general Wifi support in Linux or the budding Augeas 'Configuration API'."
Companies Intuit joins the Linux revolution (C|net)C|net reports that Intuit, producer of the popular QuickBooks financial software, is making some Linux-friendly moves. "Intuit has been sniffing around open source for at least a year now, but predominately as a platform (Linux) upon which its applications could run. It opened the door a bit more in April when it opened up QuickBase to developers, but now seems to be paving the way for a more complete launch into open source with its Linux Business Resource Center. Yes, that Intuit. Promoting Linux and open source."
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management)Bruce Perens looks at Microsoft's sponsorship of Apache. "For a decade, Microsoft was open source's worst enemy, combating it at every turn. But last week Microsoft joined the Apache open source project as a platinum sponsor, promising to put $100,000 per year into a project that beats its own IIS (Internet Information Services) in the market. Microsoft also made some of their patents available for use in GPL software like Linux without a royalty. Has Redmond given up the fight? Or is this just their latest strategy? "
Linux at Work Teaching tech to tots: The use of Linux and open source in pre-schools (iTWire)iTWire has a look at using Linux for pre-school education. The author installed Edubuntu on some older machines for his child's pre-school with excellent results. "There are a rich suite of components making up Edubuntu. For me the standout was GCompris which consists of many fun activities involving mathematics, science, geography, reading and spelling, memory development and more."
Interviews Will LSB 4 Standardize Linux? (InternetNews)InternetNews talks to the Linux Foundation's Jim Zemlin about LSB 4.0. "Not all Linux distributions are made with the same components, which can make it difficult for software developers to write applications for multiple Linux distributions. That's where the Linux Standards Base (LSB) comes into play. For years the LSB has not quite lived up to its full potential. That could all change with the upcoming LSB 4.0 release. LSB 4.0, set for release by the end of this year, could be the catalyst that enables independent software vendors, or ISVs TERM (define), to develop applications that will run on any LSB-compliant Linux distribution. If it gets adopted, LSB 4 could bring a new wave of multidistribution Linux application development."
Miguel de Icaza: "We could refresh the look and feel of the entire desktop with Moonlight" (derStandard.at)derStandard.at sits down with Miguel de Icaza to discuss Mono and Moonlight at the GUADEC conference in Istanbul. de Icaza has lots to say about both projects, but also seems rather unhappy with the Mozilla folks: "And even the Mozilla guys - the keynote we had here was done on a mac, every single Mozilla developer uses a Mac. And it's funny, they constantly attack Silverlight, they constantly attack Flash and then all of them use proprietary operating systems, they don't seem to have a problem doing it. And then they had the Guiness record thing for Firefox 3 and you went to the website and it had a flash map to show where people are downloading - so there definitely is a double standard here. And that's after all their claiming that you can do everything in AJAX - so they definitely don't 'walk the walk'."
The A-Z of Programming Languages: Python (TechWorld)TechWorld has a lengthy interview with Guido van Rossum. "For a few years there were definitely way too many web frameworks. While new web frameworks still occasionally crop up, the bar has been set much higher now, and many of the lesser-known frameworks are disappearing. There's also the merger between TurboGears and Pylons. No matter what people say, Django is still my favorite -- not only is it a pretty darn good web framework that matches my style of developing, it is also an exemplary example of a good open source project, run by people who really understand community involvement."
Resources Why Free Software has poor usability, and how to improve itFree software usability is the focus of an article on Matthew Paul Thomas's blog. He identifies 15 problems and proposes solutions to each. "With volunteer projects, though, any incentive is much weaker. The number of users rarely makes any financial difference to developers, and with freely redistributable software, it's near-impossible to count users anyway. There are other incentives — impressing future employers, or getting your software included in a popular OS — but theyre rather oblique."
Reviews PlatHome OpenBlockS: Made in Japan (ZDNet)Over at ZDNet, Jason Perlow checks out the Plat'Home OpenBlockS micro-server. The micro-server is a very small, fanless, low-power embedded Linux box that comes with a Debian-derived distribution. "So what is this thing good for? Well, just about anything. If you want to build a specialized solid state mission critical appliance that runs a custom PHP/MySQL application, or want to develop VPN gateways and Asterisk VOIP routers, or just like to hack around with a low-power Linux machine under your desk at work, this is the geek's equivalent of a Linux Heathkit."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
|||||||||||||