Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
A call to action on OASIS patent policy
A large group of prominent free software and related personalities (Perens, Stallman, Lessig, O'Reilly, Moglen, Kapor, van Rossum, Raymond, Behlendorf, etc.) has signed a letter calling for resistance to the patent-friendly policy adopted by OASIS, a consortium for electronic business standards. "We ask you to stand with us in opposition to the OASIS patent policy. Do not implement OASIS standards that aren't open. Demand that OASIS revise its policies. If you are an OASIS member, do not participate in any working group that allows encumbered standards that cannot be implemented in open source and free software." Click below for the full text.
German Bundestag supports software patent restart
The NoSoftwarePatents site reports that the German Bundestag has voted unanimously in favor of a restart of the patent directive process in Europe. An English translation of the resolution is available in PDF format.The EFF guide to EULAs
The EFF has put out an advisory on some of the worst terms often found in software end user license agreements. "Many people treat EULAs with the same reverence they do the tags on mattresses that say, 'Do not remove this tag under penalty of law.' They scoff at the idea that anyone could enforce such a bizarre rule. Increasingly, however, we are seeing consumers and software developers threatened with lawsuits for engaging in the digital equivalent of ripping tags off a mattress."
New funding for free software in the UK
The UK Association for Free Software has announced the availability of new grants. "A new grants fund is available to free software projects in the UK from money raised by the UK Free Software Network (UKFSN), the free software Internet Service Provider set up by Jason Clifford in 2003, and donations to UK's Association for Free Software (AFFS), a national membership organisation for supporters of free software. The total amount available in the first round is 1,500 GBP."
Commercial announcements
Arabella Supports Embedded Planets EP885 and EP8248 Boards
Arabella Software has announced that it will offer Linux support and a free Linux reference design for the Embedded Planet EP885 and EP8248 processor boards.Go Daddy to Issue SSL Certificates to Open Source Projects 'Free of Charge'
The Go Daddy Group, Inc. has announced that it will issue its Turbo SSL Certificate to bona-fide open source software projects at no cost. "The Turbo SSL certificates which Go Daddy will issue to open source projects -- a $29.95 value -- are issued within minutes, have 99% browser recognition, and provide 128-bit Web server security -- the highest level of encryption available on the market today."
IBM Unveils New Development Centers
IBM has announced the opening of new development centers. "IBM today announced it will open more than a dozen new development centers in China, Brazil and Russia in an effort to accelerate innovation around the adoption of open standards based solutions in emerging markets."
Mandrakesoft reports first quarter results
Mandrakesoft has announced their first quarter results for the period of October-December, 2004. Here are the numbers: "A consolidated revenue of 1.44MEUR (1.88MUSD), an operating income of 0.31MEUR (0.41MUSD) and a net income of 1.03MEUR (1.35MUSD)."
New Mexico Software partners with NextDay Network
New Mexico Software, Inc. has announced a partnership with NextDay Network. "Dick Govatski, CEO of New Mexico Software, said, "NextDay Network is a major national retailer of software products that makes innovative use of online Internet marketing and distribution tools. We are delighted that they will be selling our products.""
Storage Standard NFS Draws Backing
Software developers at the University of Michigan have received backing from PolyServe, Inc. to help create an industry-standard implementation of Network File System Version 4 (NFSv4) for Linux.Novell's first-quarter results
Novell has announced its first quarter results. "During the first fiscal quarter 2005, Novell recognized revenue of $15 million associated with its SUSE LINUX business, including $7 million of recognized revenue from subscriptions to SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server. Sales of subscriptions to SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server totaled 21,000 units in the quarter."
SCO Group to be delisted
The SCO Group has put out a press release informing the world that it is being kicked out of the NASDAQ market for failure to comply with the reporting requirements. SCO is appealing the decision. "The Company has been unable to file its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2004 because it continues to examine certain matters related to the issuance of shares of the Company's common stock pursuant to its equity compensation plans. The Company is working to resolve these matters as soon as possible and expects to file its Form 10-K upon completion of its analysis."
VA Linux Issues a Manifesto on its Stance with Open Source Community
VA Linux Systems Japan K.K. has Issued a manifesto that clarifies the company's stance on open-source software and the relation to the community. "This manifesto, entitled "VA Linux: Statement of Our Commitments on Open Source Software", states how the company views Open Source and how it is going to take part in it."
LinuxWorld Announcements for February 17
Here are the LinuxWorld announcements for Thursday, February 17, 2005:- ActiveState Komodo 3.1 has won a LinuxWorld Product Excellence Award.
- Akibia has expanded their Portfolio of Linux Services.
- Chadwick Martin Bailey and InfoWorld Media Group have announced an updated version of the Linux Vendor Brand Positioning Survey results.
- DataSynapse has achieved Novell's YES certification for its GridServer software.
- Fujitsu has announced support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 on its PRIMERGY servers.
- Lionbridge has announced that its VeriTest division has been YES Certified by Novell.
- MBX and Emu are partnering to deliver Linux-based servers.
- Novell has won some product excellence awards for its security and management solutions.
- Parasoft has released Insure++ 7.0 for Novell/SUSE Linux ES 9.
- Veritas teams with IBM and Avnet to deliver solution bundles.
- Voltaire is integrating Xen server virtualization software in its InfiniBand interconnect system.
- Win4Lin has announced Win4Lin Pro, which allows Windows applications to run on Linux. Pro
- The Xandros Open Circulation Edition has been announced.
Resources
New Audio Libre article: 'Pluggin' away'
A new article on LADSPA plugins is available on linuxaudio.org. "A new PDF article on the work of Steve Harris is now available, covering in particular LADSPA plugins and Jamin."
The LDP Weekly News
The February 23, 2005 edition of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News is online with lots of new documentation releases.
Contests and Awards
KDE-Look Announces the Winner of T-Shirt Contest (KDE.News)
KDE.News has announced the winner of the KDE-Look T-Shirt Contest. "The community has spoken and the winner of the First Annual KDE-Look T-Shirt Contest with 24 out of 81 votes is Nenad Grujicic with his entry Green."
OpenOffice.org 2.0 splashscreen competition winner announced
LWN readers have, doubtless, been sitting on the edge of their chairs waiting to hear who would be the winner of the OOo splash screen competition. The envelope has been opened, and the victor is Brendan Whelan; his entry can be seen over here, along with an interview.
Upcoming Events
Escape the Java Trap @ Fosdem 2005
The Fosdem organization has offered the developers of various projects around GNU classpath the opportunity to meet face to face in their own developer room. Click below for a schedule.Mozilla at FOSDEM 2005 (MozillaZine)
MozillaZine announces the Mozilla project coverage at FOSDEM 2005. "Talks will cover topics such as Mozilla Europe, Mozilla 2.0, XulRunner, Bugzilla, Camino and localisation. Speakers include Axel Hecht, Gervase Markham, Hisham El-Emam, Robert Kaiser, Ludovic Hirlimann and Tristan Nitot."
GUADEC-es 2005 (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop has the announcement for GUADEC-es 2005. "The second edition of the GUADEC-es (International conference for Spanish speaking GNOME users and developers) will be held this year in A Corunha (Galicia, north-west of Spain), on 19-21 May. The conference, organized by the Gnome Hispano association, was placed strategically close in time to the VI Guadec in Stuttgart, trying to make it easy for Spanish speaking people coming from outside Europe to attend to both events."
The Linux Professionals' Association AGM
The LPA has announced its next AGM gathering. "The Linux Professionals' Association (LPA) will be having its AGM on Friday 4 March 2005. The LPA is a South African organisation which has traditionally championed OSS, specifically in the business sphere. Formed in 1996 by what was then the majority of Linux/OSS based businesses in Johannesburg, the Association has come a long way."
March 10 is Python Meetup Day
March 10 has been declared Python Meetup Day. "7:00pm on the second Thursday of each month is the default time for Python meetup groups all over the world. Thats March 10 for next month. I suppose its supposed to make you feel warm and fuzzy, knowing that there are little groups of true believers congregating at the same time, all over the world."
Events: February 24 - April 21, 2005
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| February 24 - 25, 2005 | UKUUG LISA/Winter Conference | Birmingham, UK |
| February 25, 2005 | Dutch Perl Workshop | Amsterdam, the Netherlands |
| February 26 - 27, 2005 | Free and Open Source Developers' European Meeting(FOSDEM 2005) | Brussels, Belgium |
| February 28 - March 3, 2005 | EclipseCon 2005 | (Hyatt Regency)Burlingame, CA |
| February 28 - March 1, 2005 | Asia Debian Mini-Conf 2005 | Beijing, China |
| March 1 - 2, 2005 | JBoss World 2005 User Conference | (Omni/CNN Center)Atlanta, GA |
| March 2 - 4, 2005 | Security-Enhanced Linux Symposium | Silver Spring, Maryland |
| March 2 - 3, 2005 | Asia CodeFest 2005 | Beijing, China |
| March 2 - 4, 2005 | The 5th Asia Open Source Software Symposium | Beijing, China |
| March 2 - 4, 2005 | The Free and Open Source Software Workshop | (Al Assad National Library)Damascus, Syria |
| March 4, 2005 | LPA AGM | Rivonia Sandton, South Africa |
| March 4 - 5, 2005 | Linuxforum 2005 | Copenhagen, Denmark |
| March 10 - 16, 2005 | CeBIT 2005 | Hannover, Germany |
| March 12, 2005 | Gentoo UK 2005 | (University of Salford)Manchester, UK |
| March 12, 2005 | Third Hungarian PHP Conference | Budapest, Hungary |
| March 14 - 17, 2005 | Emerging Technology Conference(ETech) | (Westin Horton Plaza)San Diego, CA |
| March 20 - 25, 2005 | Novell BrainShare 2005 | Salt Lake City, Utah |
| March 21 - 24, 2005 | Bellua Cyber Security Asia 2005 | (Hotel Borobudur)Jakarta, Indonesia |
| March 21 - 24, 2005 | Open Source Modeling and IDEs Workshop | (Caribe Royale All Suites Resort & Convention Center)Orlando, FL |
| March 23 - 25, 2005 | PyCon DC 2005 | (GWU Cafritz Conference Center)Washington, DC |
| March 26 - 27, 2005 | YAPC::Taipei 2005 | Taipei |
| March 30 - April 1, 2005 | PHP Quebec | (Crowne Plaza Hotel)Montreal, Canada |
| March 31 - April 1, 2005 | Black Hat Briefings Europe 2005 | Amsterdam, the Netherlands |
| April 5 - 6, 2005 | Open Source Business Conference(OSBC) | (Westin St. Francis)San Francisco, CA |
| April 7 - 8, 2005 | Black Hat Briefings Asia 2005 | Singapore |
| April 10 - 15, 2005 | 2005 USENIX Annual Technical Conference | Anaheim, California, USA |
| April 12 - 15, 2005 | Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference 2005 | (Westin Hotel)Seattle, WA |
| April 18 - 23, 2005 | Linux.Conf.Au 2005 | (Australian National University)Canberra, Australia |
| April 18 - 21, 2005 | MySQL Users Conference and Expo 2005 | (Santa Clara Convention Center)Santa Clara, CA |
| April 18 - 20, 2005 | LinuxWorld Conference and Expo 2005 | (Metro Toronto Convention Centre)Toronto, ON |
| April 18 - 19, 2005 | Debian Miniconf 4 | Canberra, Australia |
| April 19 - 20, 2005 | San Francisco techCongress | (Rickey's Hyatt)Palo Alto, CA |
| April 20 - 23, 2005 | ACCU Conference 2005 | (Randolph Hotel)Oxford, England |
| April 21 - 24, 2005 | 3rd International Linux Audio Conference(LAC2005) | (Center for Art and Media (ZKM))Karlsruhe, Germany |
Web sites
TuxScout - Job Site for Linux/Open Source Professionals
TuxScout is a new job site dedicated to the Linux and Open Source community. Besides a fully featured search engine for both job seekers and employers, the site offers a forum section to discuss job hunting issues, a resources section with articles on resume writing, interviewing, and more.
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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