Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
OSDL and the Service Availability Forum Jointly Support OpenAIS
Open Source Development Labs, Inc. has announced that it will be working with the Service Availability Forum on OpenAIS, an interface specification for high availability network infrastructure in the telecommunications industry.For the FSFE, the battle continues
The Free Software Foundation Europe has sent out an announcement concerning efforts by commercial software vendors to influence supporters of an EC antitrust case. "Microsoft has steadily been soliciting supporters of the European Commission antitrust case to withdraw their support for the Commission by offering a series of financial settlements. The agreement with Sun Microsystems to withdraw has now been joined by financial settlements with Novell and the CCIA, in which they also agreed to withdraw from the case."
European Patent Process Under Review
Open Source Risk Management has announced a new study that concerns European patents. "Open Source Risk Management, the only vendor-neutral provider of Free and Open Source Software risk mitigation and management solutions, today announced the launching of a study designed to assess whether current European laws regarding technology patents achieve their stated objective of recognizing and protecting true innovation."
Commercial announcements
From Beijing to Pittsburgh: Gelato Champions Itanium
The Gelato Foundation announced the participation of its members in several recent conferences. "Representatives from more than 25 Gelato Federation member institutions and corporations met on October 11-13, 2004, at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China to review and exchange research advances for Linux on the Intel(R) Itanium(R)2 platform. Twenty-one technical presentations by top research and industry users focused on high-performance computing issues and collaborative solutions. Three weeks later, over 20 Gelato member institutions are gathering at SC2004 in Pittsburgh (November 8-11)."
Linux Networx Secures $40 Million Equity Financing
Linux Networx has announced the receipt of $40 Million in Series B funding for expediting new products and expanding the company.Lulu publishes free software editions
Red Hat co-founder Bob Young's latest company, Lulu, has announced that it will be providing tools for publishing and distributing independently developed software projects. "The first five software sets available on Lulu include popular open source projects OpenOffice.org (an alternative to Microsoft Office), Fedora (a version of the Linux operating system), Slash, and Bugzilla. Also available is a preparation program for the Cisco Certified Network Administrator (CCNA) test."
Mandrakesoft revenues increase
Mandrakesoft has announced its financial results for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004. "Mandrakesoft's revenue for fiscal year 2003-2004 has reached 5.18 millions Euros, representing a 33% increase over the previous year. This revenue is the highest in the company's history. The revenue growth strongly accelerated during H2 2003/2004, with a 49% year over year rise in revenues, when compared to a 21% year over year increase in H1."
Microsoft's protocol license agreement
Microsoft has published a protocol license agreement which can be signed to get a license from Microsoft to implement a whole set of interesting protocols. The list is at the end of the agreement; it includes AppleTalk, Bluetooth, the TCP discard protocol, DHCP, echo, FTP, HTTP, Gopher, IPSec, lpd, Firewire, ping, PPP, POP3, rlogin, Telnet, TFTP, TCP/IP (v4 and v6), and many others. Bet you didn't know Microsoft owned those... (as seen on Slashdot).Microsoft's indemnification offer
Microsoft has put out a press release stating that its indemnification guarantees now apply to all users of most of its software offerings. "Microsoft's ability to offer strong protection is bolstered by the company's commitment to managing the intellectual property rights in its software. This commitment includes development process controls, inbound licensing of necessary third-party rights, cross-licensing agreements with other industry leaders, and protection of Microsoft innovations through patent and copyright."
Novell Settles One Antitrust Claim with Microsoft for $536 Million
Novell has announced an agreement with Microsoft to settle potential antitrust litigation related to Novell's NetWare operating system in exchange for $536 million in cash. Novell also announced that by the end of this week it will file an antitrust suit against Microsoft in the United States District Court in Utah seeking unspecified damages in connection with alleged harm to Novell's WordPerfect application software business in the mid-1990s. (Thanks to Stuart Cunningham)OpenIB Alliance gets DOE grant
The U.S. Department of Energy has given a grant (of undisclosed size) to the OpenIB Alliance; its purpose is to fund further development of a free InfiniBand implementation for the Linux kernel.Platform Computing Launches Platform Rocks
Platform Computing Inc. has announced the launch of its Platform Rocks product. "Platform Computing Inc. today announced a powerful new software solution called Platform Rocks, a comprehensive cluster management toolkit that simplifies and speeds the deployment and management of small to large scale Linux clusters."
Qtopia 2.1 released
Trolltech has announced the availability of Qtopia 2.1. Qtopia is a development platform for embedded devices; it is available under the GPL or (as with the other Trolltech products) with a commercial license. New features include touchscreen support, handwriting input, and better theme support.There are also press releases stating that Datang Mobile has chosen Qtopia for its phone reference platform and Motorola will use it in its Linux-based E680 and A780 phones.
SCO's new deal with its lawyers
SCO has finally nailed down a new deal with its lawyers; the full text of the agreement has been filed with the SEC. The deal calls for an immediate payment of $12.6 million, and a $2 million payment per quarter going into the future. There is still a contingency component, with the lawyers getting 33% of the first part of any take, dropping to 20% for any amount over $700 million. The same sort of payments apply if SCO is acquired. A separate $5 million escrow account must be set up to pay expert witnesses and other out-of-pocket expenses.SteelEye Technology Joins MySQL Partner Program
SteelEye Technology, Inc, a provider of data and application availability management software, has announced that it has joined the MySQL Partner Program. "Through this agreement, SteelEye and MySQL have chosen to formalize this cooperation and will now work more closely together to bring greater knowledge and awareness of their joint solution to the marketplace."
TimeSys Delivers Eclipse 3.0-based TimeStorm Development and Testing Tools
TimeSys Corporation announced its TimeStorm Linux Development Suite and TimeStorm Linux Verification Suite for the Eclipse 3.0 development platform.VA Linux expands its kernel business
It looks like something from 1998: VA Linux has put out a press release stating that it is hiring more Linux kernel hackers. In this case, however, the company involved is VA Linux Systems Japan K.K. Evidently the company's kernel-related consulting business is going well, and is set to expand; click below for the details.Highlights from Super Computing 2004
Pogo Linux announces PerformanceWare 5864, an eight processor AMD Opteron-based server (press release).Cray Inc. has new Opteron/Linux supercomputers (press release).
Terra Soft Solutions announces Y-HPC, a complete 64-bit OS for PowerPC code development and High Performance cluster Computing (press release).
Absoft will manage, sell, and support a new High Performance Computing (HPC) Software Developers Kit (SDK) for IBM Linux on POWER clusters and servers (press release).
Linux Networx partners with Novell to create a High Performance Computing (HPC) Certification Center (press release).
New Books
Addison-Wesley/Prentice Hall PTR publishes "PHP 5 Power Programming"
Addison-Wesley/Prentice Hall PTR & IBM Press have published the book PHP 5 Power Programming by Gutmans, Bakken and Rethans."Programmer's Ultimate Security DeskRef" Released by Syngress
Syngress Publishing, Inc. has published the book Programmer's Ultimate Security DeskRef by James C. Foster."Windows to Linux Migration Toolkit" Released by Syngress Publishing
Syngress Publishing, Inc. has published the book Windows to Linux Migration Toolkit by David Allen.
Resources
Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!
David A. Wheeler has published a new release of his analysis of the advantages of using open-source software. "This paper provides quantitative data that, in many cases, using open source software / free software is a reasonable or even superior approach to using their proprietary competition according to various measures. This papers goal is to show that you should consider using OSS/FS when acquiring software. This paper examines market share, reliability, performance, scalability, security, and total cost of ownership. It also has sections on non-quantitative issues, unnecessary fears, OSS/FS on the desktop, usage reports, governments and OSS/FS, other sites providing related information, and ends with some conclusions." Here's a blog entry on changes in the paper.
Linux Gazette Issue #108
The November issue of Linux Gazette is out. Topics in this edition include GRUB boot diskette for Knoppix, Using a Non-Default GUI (in RHEL and kin), Preparing For My Interviews Part 1: MySQL and Perl, Advanced Features of netfilter/iptables, and more.FSF Europe Newsletter
The November 6, 2004 edition of the FSF Europe Newsletter is online with the latest coverage of FSFE happenings.Audio Libre column announced
Daniel James has announced a new column on Audio Libre. "I've recently started writing a column on music software for LinuxUser & Developer magazine. Unfortunately, it's not generally available on the web at the moment. The first Audio Libre column is on AGNULA/DeMuDi". The column is available for download as a pdf document.
Upcoming Events
Third-Annual Desktop Linux Summit announced
The third annual Desktop Linux Summit has been announced. "Now in its third year, the annual Desktop Linux Summit has added an extra day, expanding its focus to include discussions of open source leaders Mozilla and OpenOffice.org. A two-day event in prior years, the Summit is now three days and will be held February 9-11, 2005 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego."
Help Support GNOME in South America (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org mentions the first Forum GNOME event in Brazil. It will be held on November 11 and 12, 2004.EclipseCon 2005 Announces Conference Keynotes
the Eclipse Foundation has announced the conference keynotes for EclipseCon 2005. Tim O'Reilly, Urs Hoelzle, and Lee Nackman will be featured. "The second annual EclipseCon conference will be held Feb. 28 through March 3, 2005, at the Hyatt Regency, Burlingame, Calif."
The JBoss World 2005 User Conference
JBoss, Inc. has announced the JBoss World 2005 User Conference. "JBoss(R), Inc., the Professional Open Source company, today announced that registration is now open for JBoss World 2005, its first annual users conference and exhibition, at the Omni/CNN Center in Atlanta, Ga., March 1-2, 2005. The conference will be a landmark gathering field and networking opportunity for the rapidly growing number of users and partners deploying open source middleware from JBoss into production."
GlobusWORLD Grid Event, Boston
GlobusWORLD will be held in Boston, Mass on February 7-11, 2005. "GlobusWORLD 2005 will feature a full roster of technical Grid content including: tutorials (from beginner- to advanced-level); enterprise Grid panels moderated by Network World, CIO Magazine, and Computerworld; essential Grid standards updates; and keynotes by leading Grid pioneers, vendors and end users."
January 17-21 PostgreSQL Bootcamp at the Big Nerd Ranch
A PostgreSQL Bootcamp will be held at the Big Nerd Ranch, near Atlanta, Georgia, on January 17-21, 2005.Python Bootcamp at the Big Nerd Ranch Feb 21-25, 2005
A Python Bootcamp will be held at the Big Nerd Ranch, near Atlanta, Georgia, on February 21-25, 2005.Events: November 11, 2004 - January 6, 2005
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| November 11 - 12, 2004 | High Performance Computing, Networking, and Storage Conf(SCnn) | Pittsburgh, PA |
| November 13 - 17, 2004 | ApacheCon US 2004 | (Alexis Park Resort)Las Vegas, NV |
| November 14 - 19, 2004 | Large Installation System Administration Conference(LISA '04) | (Atlanta Marriott Marquis)Atlanta, GA |
| November 18 - 19, 2004 | Forum PHP, Paris | Paris, France |
| 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 |
| December 1 - 3, 2004 | Linux Bangalore 2004 | (Indian Institute of Science)Bangalore, India |
| December 4, 2004 | Lightweight Languages 2004(LL4) | (MIT Stata Center)Boston, MA |
| December 5 - 18, 2004 | Ubuntu Conference | Mataró, Spain |
| December 27 - 29, 2004 | Chaos Communication Congress(21C3) | (Berliner Congress Center)Berlin, Germany |
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.
Page editor: Forrest Cook