Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
Austin Group Status Report
The Austin Group has published a status report for September 2005. "The Austin Common Standards Revision Group (CSRG) is a joint technical working group established to consider the matter of a common revision of ISO/IEC 9945-1, ISO/IEC 9945-2, IEEE Std 1003.1, IEEE Std 1003.2 and the appropriate parts of the Single UNIX Specification."
EFF: Google's Card Catalog Should Be Left Open
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has issued a press release (click below) applauding Google's effort to create the digital equivalent of a library card catalog. The Authors Guild is less enthused, and has filed a class-action copyright infringement suit.EFF: A broadcast flag update
Danny O'Brien is writing for the EFF these days; his hand can be seen in this update on the ongoing efforts to get the broadcast flag wired into U.S. law. "Listen. Suppose our sympatico politicos carve out a bunch of Digital TV provisions that, in fact, do have something to do with government finance? Suppose they stick those provisions in the Senate Commerce Committee's reconciliations bill (due October 26th), where they're practically untouchable? But some key clauses on which these provisions depend will be omitted. Consequently, it will it be vitally important that Congress passes another Digital TV bill to fill the gaps. That Digital TV bill will contain -- oh, look at that! -- the Broadcast Flag language. Oh, and the RIAA's Digital Radio Broadcast Flag, too, just for the sake of completeness."
Open Letter to Alan Yates of Microsoft (KDE.News)
KDE.News has published an open letter to Microsoft's Alan Yates regarding the OpenDocument format. "..on page 8 you write: "The draft policy identifies four products that support the OpenDocument format: Sun's StarOffice, OpenOffice.org, KOffice, and IBM Workplace. In reality, these products are slight variations of the same StarOffice code base, which Sun acquired from a German company in 1999. The different names are little more than unique brands applied by the vendors to the various flavors of the code base that they have developed. In essence, a commitment to the OpenDocument format is a commitment to a single product or technology. This approach to product selection by policy violates well-accepted public procurement norms." I understand your worries, but fortunately I am able to put your mind to rest: KOffice is in fact not related to StarOffice or OpenOffice."
Xara sponsors Open Source project
Xara has announced its sponsorship of an open-source project for a universal vector graphics translator. "The Uber-converter is a universal vector graphics translator that can convert between numerous different vector formats. It is an Open Source software project produced by Scratch Computing."
Commercial announcements
Codase Launches Source Code Search Service
Codase, Inc. has launched the alpha version of its advanced source code search service. "Codase is a new kind of search service for open source code. Rather than treating code as text, Codase understands programming languages, and treats code as code, the way it's supposed to be. This unique and syntax-aware approach provides the most accurate and detailed search results with fine granularity levels of controls. With Codase, developers can search functions, classes, strings, constants, macros, comments and other programming language constructs."
Monarch Empro and ULB Get Latest Dual-Core AMD Opterons
Monarch Computer Systems has announced updates to its workstation line. "The Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors have the same wattage profile as their single-core processors, about 95 watts. This means that the new Empro and ULB systems with the Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor Model 880 or Model 280 offer greater performance without increasing heat or power requirements."
Mozilla Foundation Relocates to New Offices (MozillaZine)
MozillaZine reports that both the Mozilla Foundation and Corporation have moved. "The primary reason for this move is space: the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation combined now have around forty employees, most of whom are based in Mountain View. This is about four times the number of workers initially employed by the nascent Mozilla Foundation when it moved into the Villa Street offices in 2003."
Open Source Astronomy V10 available
The Random Factory is selling version 10 of the Open Source Astronomy CDROM project. "This release updates all the packages previously included in the Linux for Astronomy V7,8 & 9, and includes many new packages."
Oracle Database 10g Release 2 on Linux Sets World Record
Oracle Corporation has announced a new benchmark record. "Running atop an eight-node HP BladeSystem cluster of ProLiant BL25p server blades, each with one AMD Opteron 2.6 GHz processor and Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.4, Oracle Database 10g Release 2 and Oracle Real Application Clusters achieved record-breaking performance of 13,284.2 QphH@300GB with a price- performance ratio of $34.20/QphH@300GB. This new industry-leading result surpasses IBM DB2's best TPC-H 300 GB benchmark running on IBM hardware using half the number of processors."
Pointsec Announces Encryption Solution for Linux
Pointsec Mobile Technologies has announced its endpoint encryption solution for Linux. "With Pointsec for Linux(TM), corporations can now employ centrally managed full-disk encryption to protect information stored on Linux laptops and desktops."
VA and ThoughtWorks partner on CruiseControl
VA and ThoughtWorks have announced an alliance to jointly develop agile development solutions for enterprise customers. "The two companies will offer a turn-key solution that integrates VA Softwares SourceForge Enterprise Edition, the leading collaborative development platform; CruiseControl, the popular continuous integration build tool open sourced by ThoughtWorks; and ThoughtWorks best practices for agile and distributed agile development."
New Books
Essential SNMP, Second Edition - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book Essential SNMP, Second Edition by Douglas R. Mauro and Kevin J. Schmidt.Learning SQL - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book Learning SQL by Alan Beaulieu.Secure Coding in C and C++
Secure Coding in C and C++ by Robert Seacord is available from Addison Wesley Professional. Click below for an excerpt from the book.Security and Usability - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book Security and Usability by Lorrie Faith Cranor and Simson Garfinkel.No Starch Press Releases "The TCP/IP Guide"
No Starch Press has published The TCP/IP Guide by Charles M. Kozierok.
Resources
The LDP Weekly News
The September 21, 2005 edition of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News is out with the latest new documentation releases.Tutorial: Setting up a firewall with Debian
Matt LaPlante has put together a detailed, multi-step tutorial on creating a firewall using Debian. Basic setup, firewall rules, and several protocols are covered now, with some advanced sections (PPTP, IPSec, ...) "coming soon."
Contests and Awards
Florian Mueller nominated for Europeans of the Year awards
Florian Mueller has announced his nomination for the European Voice EV50 Europeans of the Year award. "Florian Mueller, the founder of the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign, has been nominated for the most prestigious award in EU politics, the "EV50 Europeans of the Year". The campaigner, who successfully opposed an EU directive on software patents, now has the chance to become "EU Campaigner of the Year" or even the overall "European of the Year"."
Surveys
ONJava 2005 Reader Survey Results, Part 1 (O'ReillyNet)
O'Reilly presents part one of the 2005 ONJava Reader Survey results. Included are some language usage statistics from the Java community: "There's some interesting volatility in the middle tier of responses to this question. C/C++ is used by 18 percent of our readers, down from 27 percent last year. Are there more Java-only developers, is there less need for JNI, or is there some other factor? Other languages are down in this year's survey, including C# (down five points to ten percent), Perl (down seven points to 17 percent), PHP (down four points to 20 percent), and Python (down eight points to 11 percent). VB and Ruby were up slightly. Of the write-ins, only JavaScript (two percent) was mentioned in significant numbers."
Upcoming Events
EFF Hosts 15th Anniversary Bash
The Electronic Frontier Foundation will hold a 15th Anniversary Bash on October 2, 2005 in San Francisco, CA. "Please join us for delicious Mexican food and drinks from Pancho Villa and a 3-D cake. You'll also hear a special address from our founders, John Perry Barlow and John Gilmore. Our musical guests are Gypsy Jazz from the Zegnotronic Rocket Society and DJ Ripley and Kid Kameleon."
FOSS.IN 2005
The event formerly known as Linux-Bangalore has reworked itself as FOSS.IN. The conference has been expanded, and will be held from November 29 to December 2 at the Bangalore Palace. For those who wish to present there, the call for participation has gone out, with submissions due by October 8.Proposals for the 2006 MySQL Users Conference Now Being Accepted
A call for proposals has gone out for the 2006 MySQL Users Conference. The even takes place in Santa Clara, CA on April 24-27, 2006, presentations are due by November 7.Events: September 29 - November 24, 2005
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| September 29 - 30, 2005 | OpenOffice.org Conference 2005(OO.oCon) | Koper (Capodistria), Slovenia |
| September 29, 2005 | Hack in the Box Security Conference(HITBSecConf2005) | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia |
| September 29 - 30, 2005 | IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing(Cluster 2005) | Boston, Massachusetts |
| September 30 - October 2, 2005 | Linucon | Austin, Texas |
| October 1, 2005 | Ohio LinuxFest 2005 | Columbus, OH |
| October 2 - 5, 2005 | Gelato October 2005 Meeting for Linux on Itanium | Porto Alegre, Brazil |
| October 5 - 6, 2005 | LinuxWorld London | Olympia, London, UK |
| October 5 - 7, 2005 | Web 2.0 Conference | (Argent Hotel)San Francisco, CA |
| October 6, 2005 | Fedora Users and Developers Conference(FUDCon London) | (LinuxWorld Conference and Expo UK)London, UK |
| October 6, 2005 | Boston PHP User Group Security Meeting | Boston, Mass. |
| October 7 - 9, 2005 | Indie Games Con 2005(IGC) | Eugene, Oregon |
| October 8 - 10, 2005 | GNOME Boston Summit | (Gates Building)Cambridge, MA |
| October 8, 2005 | LinuxForum BOF-dag | Denmark |
| October 12 - 13, 2005 | IT Underground(ITU) | Warsaw, Poland |
| October 13 - 14, 2005 | Open Source Desktop Workshops | San Diego, CA |
| October 13, 2005 | @System Security Conference | Pisa, Italy |
| October 14 - 15, 2005 | HackLu 2005 | (Chambre des Metiers)Kirchberg, Luxembourg |
| October 14 - 16, 2005 | Blender Conference 2005 | (De Waag)Amsterdam, the Netherland |
| October 16 - 23, 2005 | piksel05 | Bergen, Norway |
| October 17 - 20, 2005 | O'Reilly European Open Source Convention(EuroOSCON) | (NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky)Amsterdam, the Netherlands |
| October 18 - 21, 2005 | Zend/PHP Conference and Expo 2005 | (Hyatt Regency SF Airport Hotel)Burlingame, CA |
| October 18, 2005 | Dynamic Languages Symposium 2005(DLS05) | San Diego, CA |
| October 19 - 21, 2005 | Australian Unix Users Group Conference 2005(AUUG) | Sydney, Australia |
| October 24 - 28, 2005 | 12th Annual Tcl/Tk Conference | (Red Lion Hotel)Portland, Oregon |
| October 30, 2005 October 31 - November 11, 2005 | Ubuntu Below Zero | (downtown Holiday Inn)Montreal, Canada |
| November 6 - 9, 2005 | International PHP Conference 2005 | Frankfurt, Germany |
| November 7 - 9, 2005 | Open Source Database Conference 05 | (NH-Hotel Frankfurt-Mörfelden)Frankfurt, Germany |
| November 8 - 9, 2005 | Association Française des Utilisateurs de PHP(AFUP) | Paris, France |
| November 13 - 15, 2005 | Firebird Conference 2005 | (Hotel Olsanka)Prague, Czech Republic |
| November 15 - 18, 2005 | Embedded Technology 2005(ET2005) | Yokohama, Japan |
| November 15 - 17, 2005 | LinuxWorld Germany | Frankfurt, Germany |
| November 18, 2005 | European Gentoo developer meeting | Schloss Kransberg, Germany |
| November 20 - 23, 2005 | 5tas Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre | Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina |
Web sites
remix.linux - a CMS for linux audio users
The remix.linux site has been launched. "remix.linux provides a place for subscribers of the Linux Audio Users list to share/remix/extend/master each others work, with the freedoms offered by Creative Commons licenses. It is inspired by ccMixter and powered by ccHost. While the emphasis is on samples and remixing, anyone who doesn't have access to a webserver to put their original songs may upload complete songs here (though you are encouraged to make the seperate tracks available, too)."
Page editor: Forrest Cook