Linux in the news [LWN.net]

Gettys: Time to lead on the desktop

Jim Gettys, one of the original X Window System programmers (among many other things) has put up a lengthy call to the community to take the lead in the design of desktop software. "Our fundamental advantage we have is the ability to experiment and modify all areas of the stack; from hardware, to the window system, though toolkits to applications. Just as compositing has allowed a thousand flowers to bloom (most of which stink, but we've picked some that smell pretty sweet) in eye candy, accessibility and in other areas, compositing and other modern free software technologies can be used in new an unexpected ways. We are able to perform experiments, and have a large audience to test the experiments radically faster than commercial software."

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Ibex design: user switching, presence and session termination (Here Be Dragons)

Mark Shuttleworth discusses recent work done on Ubuntu 8.10. "With Intrepid on track to hit the wires today I thought Id blog a little on the process we followed in designing the new user switcher, presence manager and session management experience, and lessons learned along the way. Ted has been blogging about the work he did, and its been mentioned in a couple of different forums (briefly earning the memorable title the new hotness), but since its one of the first pieces of work to go through the user experience design process within Canonical I thought it would be interesting to write it up."

Comments (31 posted)

Linux Adoption

Linux: The Joe Sixpack Strategy (ZDNet)

Jason Perlow suggests some Linux adoption strategies in a ZDNet blog. "To get Joe Sixpack to switch to Linux, hes going to need an easy way to move from his existing XP OS to his end-state, with all of his important data his Office files, his emails, his contacts, MP3 files, digital photos and what have you, so a foolproof migration process is going to have to be designed. According to my fantasy scenario, Ubuntu and Google join forces and Google provides a freely downloadable program that installs on the client Windows PC, sets the user up with an online Google account, and sucks out all the office files, email and other critical data, backing it up to the cloud, which would be automatically restored to the target Linux install."

Comments (9 posted)

Legal

Diebold faces GPL infringement lawsuit over voting machines (ars technica)

Ars technica covers the GPL infringement suit against Diebold for its use of Ghostscript in its voting machines. "Evidence of Diebold's Ghostscript use first emerged last year when electronic voting machine critic Jim March was conducting analysis of Pima County voting irregularities. He brought a technical question to the Ghostscript mailing list relating to his investigation and mentioned in passing that Diebold's use of Ghostscript could potentially fall afoul of the GPL. This view was shared by Ghostscript developer Ralph Giles, who referred the matter to the Artifex business staff so that it could evaluate the legal implications."

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EU patent board to decide whether to allow software patents (ars technica)

Ars technica reports on an upcoming decision affecting the patentability of software in the European Union. "Although EU patent law expressly excludes patenting software as such, it does allow patents to be granted for computer-implemented inventions. There are, however, many unanswered questions about the distinction between software methods and computer-implemented inventions. In practice, the EPO has historically granted patent applications in some cases for software methods that are viewed as legitimate technical innovations rather than business innovations. The EPO illustrates the difference by saying that a patent on a software method for improving signal strength between mobile phones is likely to be valid, but a patent on Internet auction systems is probably not."

Comments (3 posted)

Status of FSFE's legal dept: FTF (Fellowship of FSFE)

Ciarán O'Riordan takes a look inside the legal department of the Free Software Foundation Europe. "Inside FSFE, we talk a lot about our legal department, the FTF. I was in the Zurich office a while ago with the FTF's coordinator, Shane Coughlan, and took the opportunity to gather some info for anyone interested."

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Bilski: What It Means, Part 1 (Groklaw)

Groklaw analyzes the Bilski decision with an eye toward its effects on free software. "As you no doubt recall, Red Hat argued in its amicus brief that abstract ideas are not patentable. That argument won out. But Red Hat also argued that abstract ideas are not patentable *just because there is a computer involved*. The court didn't go that far. In a way, it found the opposite, that a machine has to be involved. But what it said was that as far as software is concerned, future cases will have to decide exactly where the line is."

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Court Greatly Limits Software And Business Method Patents (Techdirt)

Techdirt reports on a new US Federal Appeals Court ruling regarding software patents. "The summary is that the court has said that there's a two-pronged test to determine whether a software of business method process patent is valid: (1) it is tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or (2) it transforms a particular article into a different state or thing. In other words, pure software or business method patents that are neither tied to a specific machine nor change something into a different state are not patentable. That means a significant number of software and business method patents are about to disappear, freeing up many industries to be much more innovative -- at a time when that's desperately needed."

Comments (9 posted)

Interviews

How Linux Supports More Devices Than Any Other OS, Ever (O'Reilly)

O'Reilly has an interview with kernel hacker Greg Kroah-Hartman. In it, they cover topics like Linux device support, the kernel development process, and the ever (un)popular binary-only device drivers. "The ease of writing drivers; Linux drivers are at normally one-third smaller than Windows drivers or other operating system drivers. We have all the examples there, so it's trivial to write a new one if you have new hardware, usually because you can copy the code and go. We maintain them for forever, so the old ones don't disappear and we run on every single processor out there. I mean Linux is 80% of the world's top 500 super computers right now and we're also the number one embedded operating system today."

Comments (42 posted)

Resources

AlgoScore - Music By The Numbers (Linux Journal)

Dave Phillips discovers AlgoScore, a Csound-based program for sound and music composition. "AlgoScore is not a "graphical composition" environment, i.e., the sound is not created by the graphics per se. AlgoScore supplies graphic objects, but their ultimate content and shapes result from Csound and/or Nasal code (a Nasal interpreter is included with the package). Thus, unlike other programs that simplify Csound, AlgoScore requires some knowledge of computer programming. Fortunately Csound and Nasal are relatively simple languages to learn, and even a little familiarity will take you a long way into the possibilities of AlgoScore."

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Reduce your PC's power consumption through smart activity monitors (IBM developerWorks)

Nathan Harrington discusses power saving with smart activity monitors on IBM developerWorks. "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) and the power configuration systems built into modern computers provide a wide range of options for reducing overall power consumption. Linux and its associated user space programs have many of the tools necessary to master your PC power consumption in a variety of contexts. Much of the current documentation focuses on modifying your kernel parameters and hdparm settings to reduce unnecessary disk activity. In addition, extensive documentation is available for changing your processor settings to maximize the benefits of dynamic frequency scaling based on your current power source. This article provides tools and code to build on these power-saving measures by monitoring your application-usage patterns. Use the techniques presented here to change your power settings based on the application in focus, user activity, and general system performance."

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Miscellaneous

Intel, Taiwan teaming up on mobile Linux development lab (Ars Technica)

Ryan Paul covers Taiwan's participation in Moblin. "Intel's open source Linux-based mobile platform initiative got a big boost this month from Linux distributors and new contributors that are joining to participate in the effort. The project, which is called Moblin, aims to assemble a Linux stack that is optimized for mobile Internet devices, subnotebooks, and integrated car computing systems that are designed to use Intel's Atom processor. The latest organization to join the ranks of Moblin supporters is Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), which will be working with Intel to establish a Moblin development facility. Intel is also investing in VMAX, a mobile carrier in Taiwan that plans to roll out a WiMAX network."

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Hostile takeover of Open Source Project TWiki

In a blog posting, Michale Daum covers a hostile takeover of the TWiki project. "Yesterday, 2008-10-27: 21:00 GMT, just a minute before the regular TWiki release meeting, the company TWIKI.NET announced unilaterally that the best for the TWiki.org project would be for them to take over governance. With it comes a complete lock down of the community site. From that minute on, all long-time contributors have lost access to their code. Counter-reaction: the community has left the building, leaving TWIKI.NET without a contributing community. Question: is it a sensible move for a venture capital firm that depends on a healthy Open Source community to lock it out?" (Thanks to Francesco Lovergine and Rahul Sundaram).

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What's up with the GNOME Linux Desktop? (InternetNews.com)

InternetNews.com reports on the development and funding of GNOME 3, which should come out in 2009 or 2010. "It takes money and it takes new ideas to build a better desktop, both of which are being raised by the open source GNOME Foundation. GNOME is one of the most popular Linux desktop GUIs and is included in nearly every Linux distribution. The GNOME Foundation is now getting the official support of both Motorola and Google as sponsors and members of the GNOME Board of Advisors. The new advisors come as GNOME continues to expand the mobile Linux footprint as well as gear up for the next big thing GNOME 3.0."

Comments (none posted)

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