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AnnouncementsNon-Commercial announcements Fedora Summer Coding 2010 is looking for studentsFedora is sponsoring a "summer of code"-style program for students called Fedora Summer Coding, which is looking for student participants. The ideas page is a little thin right now, but mentors have until April 14 to add to that list. "We are rapidly constructing this summer coding program. We know what we are doing, but because of timing, we are building the infrastructure, process, and requirements as we go. It's like moving in to a house while the scaffolding is still outside. The Fedora Project makes it easy to do stuff like this, since the plumbing and stuff are already in place. (Enough of that metaphor ?)". Click below for Karsten Wade's full invitation to students.
Commercial announcements Mandriva Announces Arnaud Laprévot as CEOMandriva has announced that its board of directors has named Arnaud Laprévote to serve as the company's Chief Executive Officer. Laprévote will also hold the position of Chief Technical Officer and of Director of Research and Development.
OIN announces increase in licensing programThe Open Invention Network (OIN) has announced a significant increase in the number of new licensees in its most recent fiscal quarter. "During the first quarter of 2010, OIN signed 40 new licensees. OIN licensees benefit from enhanced leverage that is driven by access to OIN and shared intellectual property resources that may be employed to deter patent aggression against open source users and community members."
Ulteo Joins Open Invention NetworkUlteo has joined the Open Invention Network (OIN). "We view an OIN license as one of the key methods through which open source innovators can deter patent aggression, said Gaël Duval, co-founder. We are committed to freedom of action in Linux, and in taking a license we help to address the threat from companies that support proprietary platforms to the exclusion of open source initiatives, and whose behaviors reflect a disdain for inventiveness and collaboration."
rPath Makes Linux Patching Faster, Safer, More PredictablerPath has announced enhancements to the intelligent patching capabilities of its next-generation system automation platform. "Specifically, rPath now automates inventory discovery, allows users to "cherry pick" updates and errata for incremental updates, and simplifies the user experience for Linux patching and system administration. To encourage Red Hat Network (RHN) Satellite users to try the rPath platform, the company has launched its "Satellite Swap-Out" promotional offer. For existing RHN Satellite customers, rPath will match or beat their current subscription to RHN Satellite with a richer, more complete solution."
Cray Releases Latest Version of Its Linux Operating System Equipped With New Cluster Compatibility ModeCray Inc. has announced the release of the latest version of its Cray Linux Environment. "This third generation of the Cray Linux Environment includes the introduction of Cluster Compatibility Mode, allowing Cray XT supercomputers to run applications from Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) without modifications."
Articles of interest Livnat Peer: Switching from C# to JavaLivnat Peer looks at porting a C# application to Java. "In 2008 RedHat acquired Qumranet, a startup whose focus was Virtualization. Among other products Qumranet developed a management application for Virtualization. The management application was written in C# and one of the first tasks we got was to make the management application cross platform, well this was expected considering the fact that the acquisition was done by RedHat... We started exploring the web looking for ideas how to approach this task. At the beginning things did not look promising most of the references we found for porting projects from one technology to another were about complete failures, the only obvious suggestion that we saw all over was not to change technology and architecture at the same time."
Interesting times for Video on the WebRobin Watts has weblog post about Google funding for the TheorARM project. From the blog: "These ARM based devices represent the single biggest class of devices still needing work for decent Theora playback. Any efficiency savings we can make feed back directly into being able to cope with larger screen sizes or giving longer battery life. This is where Google's grant comes in - by helping fund the development of TheorARM (a free optimised ARM version of Theora), they are helping to hasten the day when video works everywhere on the web, for everyone. That's got to be something to be pleased about." (Thanks to Paul Wise)
Welte: Anatomy of contemporary GSM cellphonesHarald Welte has posted a low-level look at how GSM phones work. "The specifications of the GSM proprietary On-air encryption A5/1 and A5/2 are only made available to GSM baseband chip makers who declare their confidentiality. Implementing the algorithm in software is apparently considered as breach of that confidentiality. Thus, the encryption algorithms are only implemented in hardware - despite them being reverse-engineered and publicly disclosed by cryptographers as early as 1996."
Hacker previews custom 3.21 PS3 firmware with Linux support (The H)PlayStation3 hacker George Hotz has shown a proof-of-concept hack to restore the "Install Other OS" functionality to the device, as reported by The H. "Less than 48 hours after Sony's announcement, Hotz called for PS3 owners not to update their systems and announced that he would find 'a safe way of updating to retain OtherOS support'. Hotz has now published a video of the working custom firmware, which he calls 3.21OO, as proof on YouTube. The hacker says that the custom firmware can be 'installed without having to open up your PS3, just by restoring a custom generated PUP file, but only from 3.15 or previous'." We looked at Sony's move to disallow running Linux on PS3s in last week's edition, and noted that Hotz seemed likely to make good on his threat to develop custom firmware that routed around Sony's intentions.
10th Anniversary of Linux for the Mainframe: Beginning to Today (eWeek)In celebration of ten years of mainframe Linux deployments, eWeek takes a look at the history of Linux on mainframes. The article is annoyingly broken up over six pages, but does cover the milestones in developing and deploying Linux on mainframes. "Over the years, various features available on the mainframe have made their way into the Linux code base for multiple platforms, leading to significant improvements in the Linux operating system. For example, mainframe dynamic resource management capabilities have made their way into Linux for x86 platforms, and features such as the tickless timer have also made their way from the mainframe into the Linux code base."
Father of Java leaves Oracle (The H)The H reports that James Gosling has left Oracle. "Just a few months after Sun's acquisition by Oracle, James Gosling, inventor of the Java programming language and Chief Technology Officer of Sun's Developer Products group, has left the company. In a post on his blog, Gosling confirms that he resigned from Oracle on the 2nd of April."
Mueller: Patents used by IBM also a threat to other FOSS projectsFlorian Mueller has published an initial analysis identifying a dozen of the patents IBM asserted against Hercules that may also read on other major Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects. "In order to look into this in more depth and find additional IBM patents assertable against Free and Open Source Software, Mueller issues a "Call to Research", encouraging members of the FOSS community to provide further analysis and identify additional problems that IBM's patents -- especially the ones already asserted against the French open source startup TurboHercules -- could represent."
Interviews QA with Nokia's Ari Jaaksi: MeeGo Revs Up (Linux.com)Jennifer Cloer talks with Ari Jaaksi, Nokia's Vice President of MeeGo Devices. "How is the "big merge" going and are things on track to deliver MeeGo v1.0 in Q2? Jaaksi: We're moving right along and making great progress. Following the initial announcement at Mobile World Congress, we've released the MeeGo core operating system repositories - anyone can go to meego.com and download this package for free. And just yesterday, a number of leading companies spanning chipset designers, device manufacturers, software vendors and more announced their support for MeeGo. We're well on our way toward the MeeGo 1.0 release."
Meeting Minutes GNOME Foundation Meeting Minutes - April 1, 2010Click below for a look at the minutes from the April 1, 2010 meeting of the GNOME Foundation Board. The discussion included board meetings at GUADEC, the new Code of Conduct was accepted, Hackfest sponsorships were approved, Budget for Brazilian Events, Events in Africa, and several other topics.
Calls for Presentations SciPy 2010 News: Specialized track deadline extendedThe deadline for submitting an abstract for a SciPy 2010 specialized track has been extended until April 25, 2010.
DeepSec 2010 - Call for Papers and ExpertsDeepSec In-Depth Security Conference 2010 has announced a call for papers. The conference will be in Vienna, Austria from November 23-26, 2010. The call for proposals is open until July 31, 2010.
Upcoming Events Register for Akademy 2010The 2010 Akademy summit is open for registration. "Starting July 3rd 2010, hundreds of KDE community members, employees of companies working with us and many other Free Software enthusiasts will gather at Tampere, Finland. There, at the University of Tampere, the annual Akademy summit 2010 will take place. For a full week, Tampere will be the place where stunning new technology is demonstrated, hundreds of prominent Free Software contributors walk the corridors and new plans for the future of the Free Desktop emerge."
Events: April 22, 2010 to June 21, 2010The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol |
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