Linux in the news [LWN.net]

Strip mining of open source (ITPro)

ITPro has posted a lengthy article looking at the differences in corporate behavior brought about by different free software licenses. "IBM has taken a three-year old version of OpenOffice, 1.1.4, which was the last release to be dual-licensed by Sun, and has heavily modified the code, which it has no obligation to release back to the community, and has clearly chosen this version precisely because this is the case. The perceived advantage for IBM is that the part-proprietary code can be marketed uniquely as an IBM product, and the extensions don't have to be released back to the community. As a result, IBM has effectively forked the code and cannot take advantage of later enhancements to OpenOffice."

Comments (4 posted)

CSI Stick grabs data from cell phones (CNet)

Here's a CNet article about the "CSI Stick," a new data-grabbing gadget evidently favored by law enforcement agencies. "This device connects to the data/charging port and will seamlessly grab e-mails, instant messages, dialed numbers, phone books and anything else that is stored in memory. It will even retrieve deleted files that have not been overwritten. And there is no trace whatsoever that the information has been compromised, nor any risk of corruption." Another good reason to want a phone with free (and replaceable) operating software - this sort of vulnerability can be fixed. (Via Schneier).

Comments (8 posted)

Companies

Intel acquires Linux mobile developers for Atom (ZDNet UK)

ZDNet UK covers the Intel acquisition of Opened Hand, a London-based company which specializes in mobile Linux development and services. "Opened Hand will focus on participating in the Moblin Software Platform community, which is developing a Linux software stack for Intel's Atom processors. The software will be optimised for low-power netbooks and 'mobile internet devices'."

Comments (8 posted)

Interviews

Interview with Krita developers (KDE.News)

KDE.News mentions the posting of a new interview with Krita developers Boudewijn Rempt and Cyrille Berger. "Alexandre Prokoudine has an interview with Krita developers on his blog. Taken at the Libre Graphics Meeting he talks to Boud and Cyrille about KDE's painting application. When asked what are Krita's primary goals the answer is "Krita is a very flexible foundation for all kinds of image processing. Weve got an unparalleled architecture to build raster graphics on and a really flexible system of plug-ins", which covers pretty much everything."

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Microsoft's Man in Open Source: Sam Ramji on Redmond's Linux Strategy (Datamation)

A fairly short interview with Microsoft's Sam Ramji over at Datamation has one of the better non-answers seen lately: "Q: At a recent Microsoft Worldwide Partner conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer seemed to be saying that Microsoft will work with open source, but will never actually produce open source software. Is that a correct reading of the company's attitude? Im glad you asked this, because its incredibly important that we accurately articulate Microsofts open source strategy. Microsoft believes that the next ten years of software will be a time of growth and change where both open source and Microsoft communities will grow together. We believe that in an increasingly interconnected world, more people have more opportunity; to use more technology; to do more things than ever before. We support those choices and are expanding interoperability between open source technologies and Microsoft technologies."

Comments (9 posted)

Reviews

One Tale of Two Scientific Distros (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal takes a look at Fermi Linux. "Fermilab supports its own users and directs others toward Scientific Linux, which was codeveloped by Fermilab, CERN and other laboratories and universities. Troy Dawson is the primary contact for both Fermi Linux and Scientific Linux. On his own site, he explains, "Fermilab uses what is called Fermi Linux. It is now based on Scientific Linux. It is actually a site modification, so technically it is Scientific Linux Fermi. But we call all of the releases we have made Fermi Linux.""

Comments (2 posted)

iRex iLiad e-Reader: Linux's Answer to the Kindle? (informIT)

David Chisnall takes a look at the Linux-based iRex iLiad, a type of E-book device. "As a development platform, the iLiad is quite interesting. It has a fairly standard Linux kernel and X11 display, with slight modifications to the X protocol to allow for efficient partial updates of the screen. The included software uses GTK. If you register as a developer (it's free), your iLiad is unlocked, allowing you to run shell scripts as root. From here you can install third-party software easily."

Comments (13 posted)

An Overview of Twitter Clients for Linux (Linux Journal)

Daniel Bartholomew reviews a number of Linux twitter clients on Linux Journal. "Micro-blogging sites are everywhere these days. There's Jaiku, FriendFeed, Pownce, Tumblr, and Identi.ca, to name a few. For many, though, the original micro-blogging site is the best: Twitter. It certainly has the biggest userbase, if nothing else. If you don't know what micro-blogging is and how it is different from regular blogging, check out one of the many online Twitter introductions. One thing that has helped Twitter become as popular as it has is the Twitter API. For users of Twitter, this ability for nearly any developer to create applications that work with the service means that in addition to posting via a browser or my cell phone, I can post from a score of different Desktop applications."

Comments (5 posted)

Miscellaneous

Bitten by the Red Hat Perl bug (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld's Neil McAllister investigates a bug with Perl's object instantiation on Red Hat Linux. "To make a long story short, he got rid of the Perl executable that came with his CentOS installation, compiled a new one from stock source code, and the bug disappeared. Clearly, the Perl hackers are blameless in this case. The fault lies squarely with Red Hat for distributing a buggy version of the interpreter. What's more disturbing, however, is that it turns out that this Red Hat Perl performance issue is a known bug. It was documented and verified long before Prakash ever raised a stink about it. How long? Try 2006, according to Red Hat's own Bugzilla database."

Comments (61 posted)

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