Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
Eclipse Foundation and Actuate Announce Approval of Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project
The Eclipse foundation and Actuate have announced the approval of the Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project. "Now that the BIRT project has been officially approved by Eclipse, Actuate will begin the task of stewarding development of BIRT, which is expected to culminate in the industry's first open Business Intelligence and Reporting platform by early 2005. Industry analysts agree that BIRT will benefit developers and Actuate by expanding the visibility of business intelligence and reporting to a wide audience of developers."
.LRN ('Dot-Learn') consortium formed
Several universities (including MIT, Heidelberg University, and the University of Sydney) have gotten together and announced the formation of the .LRN Consortium, which is dedicated to the development of open source educational software. More information is available at dotlrn.org.
Commercial announcements
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mandrakesoft launch "Open Source" solution for Internet in Africa
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the ADEN cooperation program, and Mandrakesoft are cooperating to put Internet access points in Africa. "ADEN's aim is to foster the development and use of Information and Communication Technologies in Africa through the creation of a network of public Internet access points. ADEN will set up sixty public Internet access points, train instructors, provide a suitable environment for local content and software production. The general aim is to create favorable conditions for the exchange of ideas and skills and encourage inter-cultural dialogue." The ADEN-Mandrakelinux pack is built around a version of Mandrakelinux customized for use in a access point environment.
Linux Training Attains A New Standard
The Linux Professional Institute announced its new LPI Approved Training Partner (LATP) program. "This will be the only training program covering all versions of Linux, and complementing the LPI's existing internationally accepted certification standard. The program will be run in the UK by LPI affiliates Open Forum Europe."
MontaVista's realtime press release
MontaVista Software has sent out a press release hyping its "realtime kernel" patch set. The company has also set up a realtime Linux project to host development of that code, even though (as described in this subscriber-only LWN article) the further development of this code appears to be happening elsewhere.PMC-Sierra Announces Open Source Thin Client Networked Computing Initiative
PMC-Sierra has announced a new open-source Network Computing initiative. "PMC-Sierra's open source NC solution, the PMC Xiao Hu(TM) (pronounced 'Sha hu', meaning "Little Tiger"), is a commercially available single board thin client solution co-developed with China's Tsinghua University, MIPS Technologies, Inc., and ATI Technologies, Inc. The combination of the PMC Xiao Hu board with Linux software and MIPS-Powered(TM) processor achieves significant reduction in power and costs compared to the traditional desktop PC approach".
SGI Introduces first Linux-based high-performance visual computing system
SGI has announced its new Silicon Graphics Prism system. "By combining standards-based Intel® Itanium® 2 processors, the Linux operating environment, and its world renowned advanced graphics technology, SGI has created a system that is uniquely suited to addressing the world's most demanding visual computing problems - all at price points that make it accessible to a wider group of users."
Yoxos Releases Versions 1.1 and 1.1 M2 of its Eclipse Distribution
Innoopract announced two new versions of its Yoxos Eclipse Distribution. "Version 1.1 includes Eclipse Release 3.0.1 and version 1.1 M2 includes Eclipse Stable Milestone Build 3.1 M2. Both include over 75 new or updated open-source plugins."
New Books
O'Reilly Releases "Exploring the JDS Linux Desktop"
O'Reilly has published the book Exploring the JDS Linux Desktop by Tom Adelstein and Sam Hiser."Nessus Network Auditing" Released by Syngress Publishing
Syngress Publishing has published the book Nessus Network Auditing by Jay Beale, HD Moore, Noam Rathaus, Renaud Deraison, Raven Alder, and George A. Theall."Programming Ruby, Second Edition" Released by Pragmatic Bookshelf
Pragmatic Bookshelf has published the book Programming Ruby, Second Edition by Dave Thomas."SQL in a Nutshell, Second Edition" Released by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has published the book SQL in a Nutshell, Second Edition by Kevin E. Kline."XML in a Nutshell, Third Edition" Released by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has published the book XML in a Nutshell, Third Edition by Elliotte Rusty Harold and W. Scott Means.
Resources
Linux Gazette #107
The October issue of Linux Gazette is out. This edition has articles about Knoppix, closedShop, Secure Communication with Stunnel, Understanding Threading in Python, AMD64 Linux kernel and the NX bit, and more.Linux RealPlayer 10 gold in Europe and Asia
Real will be releasing new versions of RealPlayer 10 for Linux and Mac OS X. "Specifically, the nine new versions for RealPlayer 10 for Linux are: Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional). The four new versions of RealPlayer 10 for Mac OS X are: French, German, Spanish and Japanese."
The LDP Weekly News
The October 13, 2004 edition of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News is out with the week's new documentation releases.
Contests and Awards
Interview KPDF Icon Contest (KDE.News)
KDE.News talks with the judges for the KPDF icon contest. "Some time ago KDE-Look.org launched an icon contest where artists could submit an icon to be used for KPDF in the next KDE version. It seems the contest has now been prolonged. Curious about this icon contest I contacted the initiator Albert Astals Cid and some jury members to ask them some questions."
Upcoming Events
Australian Open Source Developers' Conference
Australia's first Open Source Developers' Conference (OSDC) will be held at Monash University in Melbourne on December 1-3, 2004.CodeCon 2005 Call for Papers
A call for papers has gone out for CodeCon 2005. The event will take place in San Francisco, CA on February 11 - 13, 2005, papers and proposals are due on December 15, 2004.KDE Presence at Berlinux 2004 (KDE.News)
KDE.News announces the KDE presence at Berlinux 2004. "KDE will be present at Berlinux 2004 which takes place on 22nd and 23rd October in Berlin's technical university. Among the talks will be also one about KDE as enterprise desktop (in German). At the booth we will demonstrate KDE 3.3.1 and thanks to SUSE the upcoming SUSE 9.2 KDE desktop which includes among other things OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 with KDE file dialog integration."
International Linux Audio Conference 2005 (LAC05): Call for Papers and more
The 3rd International Linux Audio Conference will take place in Karlsruhe, Germany on April 21-24, 2005.Pike Users Worldwide Converge on Essen This Week
The Pike Conference 2004 will be held in Essen, Germany on October 13-19, 2004. "Pike is a dynamic programming language with a syntax similar to Java and C. It is simple to learn, does not require long compilation passes and has powerful built-in data types allowing simple and really fast data manipulation."
YAPC::AU / OSDC Registrations Open (use Perl)
Registration for YAPC::AU::2004 has been announced. The event will take place at Monash Caulfield in Melbourne from December 1-3, 2004.Nottingham LUG Linux Awareness Day
The Nottingham Linux Users Group will be holding a public demonstration of Linux at Green's Mill in Sneinton, UK on November 5, 2004.Events: October 14 - December 9, 2004
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| October 14 - 17, 2004 | MySQL Swell | Across the Mediterranean |
| October 14 - 15, 2004 | 11th Annual Tcl/Tk Conference | (Bourbon Orleans Hotel)New Orleans, LA |
| October 14 - 19, 2004 | Pike Conference 2004 | Essen, Germany |
| October 21 - 22, 2004 | Web.It 2004 | Bari, Italy |
| October 21 - 22, 2004 | 5. Encuentro Linux | Valparaiso, Chile |
| October 22 - 23, 2004 | Berlinux 2004 | (Berlin's technical university)Berlin, Germany |
| October 23 - 24, 2004 | OpenFest 2004 | (Inter Expo Center)Sofia, Bulgaria |
| October 26 - 28, 2004 | LinuxWorld Conference and Expo | Frankfurt, Germany |
| October 26 - 29, 2004 | IBM eServer, pSeries, AIX and Linux Technical Conference | Munich, Germany |
| October 27 - 29, 2004 | Sixth International Conference on Information and Communications Security(ICICS'04) | Malaga, Spain |
| October 27, 2004 | Open Source Enterprise Solutions Conference | University of Maryland Shady Grove Campus |
| October 27, 2004 | Open Source Enterprise Solutions Conference | (University of Maryland Shady Grove)Rockville, MD |
| November 1 - 6, 2004 | International Computer Music Conference(ICMC) | Miami, FL |
| November 4 - 5, 2004 | HiverCon 2004 | (The Davenport Hotel)Dublin, Ireland |
| November 5 - 6, 2004 | Nottingham LUG - Linux at Green's Mill Science Centre | Nottingham, UK |
| November 6 - 12, 2004 | High Performance Computing, Networking, and Storage Conf(SCnn) | Pittsburgh, PA |
| November 7 - 10, 2004 | International PHP Conference 2004 | Frankfurt, Germany |
| November 8 - 10, 2004 | MySQL ComCon Europe | (NH Hotel Frankfurt-Mörfelden)Frankfurt, Germany |
| November 13 - 17, 2004 | ApacheCon US 2004 | (Alexis Park Resort)Las Vegas, NV |
| November 14 - 18, 2004 | COMDEX Conference and Exposition | (Las Vegas Convention Center)Las Vegas, Nevada |
| November 14 - 19, 2004 | Large Installation System Administration Conference(LISA '04) | (Atlanta Marriott Marquis)Atlanta, GA |
| November 25 - 26, 2004 | Le forum PHP 2004 | (FIAP Jean Monnet)Paris, France |
| November 29 - 30, 2004 | LinuxPro 2004 | (Hotel Gromada Airport Conference Center)Warsaw, Poland |
| December 1 - 3, 2004 | Australian Open Source Developers' Conference | (Monash University)Melbourne, Australia |
Web sites
New Linux Community Site
Tuxme.com is a newly announced Linux community site. "If you have ever been a windows user, there are a lot of windows sites that post daily news and provide forums for "power users". I envision Tuxme to become something similar but the Linux users. The site will focus not on the underlying technologies (compiling kernels, etc) but rather on the operation of the GUI, productivity software, and being able to use Linux as a full-time OS without any need for windows."
Software announcements
This week's software announcements
Here are the software announcements, courtesy of Freshmeat.net. They are available in two formats:
- Sorted alphabetically,
- Sorted by license.
Miscellaneous
Linux Kernel 2.6: It's Worth More!
David A. Wheeler computes an estimate of what it would cost to develop the Linux kernel from scratch, and comes up with a figure of $612 million. "It's worth noting that these approaches only estimate development cost, not value. All proprietary developers invest in development with the presumption that the value of the resulting product (as captured from license fees, support fees, etc.) will exceed the development cost -- if not, they're out of business. Thus, since the Linux kernel is being actively sustained, it's only reasonable to presume that its value far exceeds this development estimate. In fact, the kernel's value probably well exceeds this estimate of simply redevelopment cost."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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