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AnnouncementsBrief items HP dropping webOS devicesHP has sent out an unhappy press release stating that it is exploring "strategic alternatives" for its Personal Systems Group. "In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward."
FSF: Android GPLv2 termination worries: one more reason to upgrade to GPLv3In a release seen by many as FUD, the Free Software Foundation is urging projects to use version 3 of the General Public License (GPLv3). They note that Android's commercial success has lead to an increase in GPL violations from Android distributors. "[P]eople still seek out our opinions about the relevant parts of the GPL, and that discussion has recently turned to GPLv2's termination provisions. Section 4 of the license says, "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License." When we enforce the license of FSF-copyrighted software, we give violators back the rights they had after they come into compliance. In our experience, developers of Linux are happy to do the same. Unfortunately, even if we assume they all would restore these rights, it would be extremely difficult to have them all formally do so; there are simply too many copyright holders involved, some of whom haven't worked on the project in years or even decades."
Articles of interest Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica)Ars technica speculates on how Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility will change the Android market. "For the time being, at least, Google claims that Motorola will be operated as a "separate business unit"-it will be owned by Google, but operationally will function like any other Android licensee. However, a claim made in a Wall Street Journal profile of Andy Rubin, the founder of Android Inc. and Google's senior vice president of Mobile, suggests that Google may not be telling the whole story. Specifically, the article says that "People close to the deal said one of Google's motivations was its desire to design devices, not just the software that powers them, thus giving it the sort of influence that rival Apple enjoys with its iPhone and iPad." Such a move would change the nature of the Google-Motorola relationship radically, and it's difficult to see how this wouldn't give Motorola a substantial advantage over other Android OEMs."
Articles from LinuxConJoe 'Zonker' Brockmeier has several articles covering this week's LinuxCon. Jim Zemlin gave the opening keynote posing the question "What would the world be like without Linux?"In The Next 20 Years? Who Knows? Joe covers a keynote speech by Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat. Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman took the stage for a question and answer session, with Greg asking the questions. Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger was formerly responsible for IBM's response to emerging technologies. In his keynote he talked about the disruptive force of Linux then and now, and IBM's relationship with Linux through the years.
Wirzenius: Linux at 20, some personal memoriesLars Wirzenius reminisces about the early days of Linux. "Linus's multitasking program grew, and grew, and gained features such as a hard disk driver, and memory management, and a filesystem. He had enough of a kernel to run some userspace programs, and he made it so that he could compiler programs on Minix, and run them on his own kernel. By this time, summer of 1991, we had both started posting to Usenet. In August, Linus mentioned his kernel project on comp.os.minix for the first time. Later on, he decided to make the code available, and got one of the admins of ftp.funet.fi to put it there. For this, the project needed a name. Linus wanted to call it Freax, but Ari Lemmke, the ftp.funet.fi admin, decided to call it Linux instead. You can find the Freax name in the Makefile of the earliest Linux releases."
Upcoming Events The openSUSE Conference Program and Keynote SpeakersThe conference program and keynote speakers for the openSUSE conference (September 11-14, 2011 in Nuremberg, Germany) have been announced. "We have scheduled more than 100 contributions in the four days of the conference. More than 50% of those are interactive like birds of a feather sessions (BoFs) and workshops, that is along with our motto RWX³ which basically means that people should not only just listen, but also do things." Some social events have also been announced.
Events: September 1, 2011 to October 31, 2011The 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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