Announcements

OpenDocument Fellowship petitions Microsoft to support ODF

The OpenDocument Fellowship has organized a petition to convince Microsoft to support the OpenDocument format. "Microsoft has said that they will support the OpenDocument format if there is customer demand. The purpose of the petition is to demonstrate that customer demand." (Thanks to David A. Wheeler.)

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Software Freedom Law Center Appoints New Attorneys

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has announced the appointment of two new attorneys. Karen M. Sandler and James Vasile have joined the SFLC and will apply their technology and legal experience to support FOSS projects, developers and vendors.

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AOpen launches miniPC

AOpen Inc. has announced the new AOpen miniPC. "The 6.5-inch, square metallic miniPC has a slot-load CD drive and a power button in the front, along with two USB ports, one 1394 and speaker out/mic in the back. It features the latest Intel Pentium M notebook processor, allowing near silent cooling without sacrificing performance. In addition, the miniPC boasts a DVI Connection, integrated Ethernet card and slot-loaded DVD-Burner. The product is built with mini-PCI 802.11 a/b/g wireless communication module and Bluetooth support. The miniPC also provides DVI, S-Video, component, composite and YPbPr connectors so that it can be connected to HDTV, plasma display monitor, large screen display panels, and high definition audio products."

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CodeSourcery is Newest EEMBC Member

EEMBC has announced its newest member, CodeSourcery. "The Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) today announced that its newest member is CodeSourcery, a provider of development tools, software test solutions, and custom software development services for semiconductor and operating system vendors."

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Forgent to step up JPEG patent suits

Forgent has sent out a press release on its acquisition of a new lawyer to head the team which is shaking down companies for royalties on its image compression patent. "'Forgent's '672 Patent case is the kind of litigation we like and we look forward to bringing significant value to the licensing and litigation process,' replied Steve Susman, partner with Susman Godfrey LLP." If Forgent continues to be successful, this one will hit the free software community for sure, sooner or later.

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Google Supports Open Source Initiatives

Google has a press release touting its recent  $350,000 contribution to a joint open source technology initiative of Oregon State University and Portland State University.

Doc Searls will be interviewing Google's Open Source Project Manager Chris DiBona soon, and is currently soliciting questions on Linux Journal.

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Novell Promotes Ronald W. Hovsepian to President and COO

Novell, Inc. has announced the appointment of Ron Hovsepian as its President and chief operating officer. "Mr. Hovsepian, 44, joined Novell in June 2003 as president of North America, and has led the transformation of global field operations since May of 2005. Previously, Mr. Hovsepian held management and executive positions at IBM Corporation over a 17 year period, including worldwide general manager of IBM's distribution industries, managing global hardware and software development, sales, marketing and services. Mr. Hovsepian also served as a managing director of Internet Capital Group, a venture capital firm."

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Novell announces its layoffs

As has been expected for a while, Novell has announced that it is laying off some 600 people. The purpose of the restructuring is to allow the company to focus on its "growth opportunities," defined as Linux and "identity." Hopefully that bodes well for the Linux developers employed there.

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Pogo Linux: Named As One of the Fastest Growing Private Companies

Pogo Linux has made its way onto the Puget Sound Business Journal's list of fastest growing private companies. "Pogo Linux, a manufacturer of customized computer servers, workstations and storage systems running on the Linux platform, today announced recognition from the Puget Sound Business Journal as one of the fastest growing private companies in the state of Washington. This annual list is an indicator of Washington's most active and successful entrepreneurial companies. The index measures revenue and ranks companies by revenue growth over a three-year period, as expressed in percentages."

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SGI and Novell Attain Elevated Security Certification

Silicon Graphics, Inc. has announced a security certification of Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 on SGI Altix computers. "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 on Altix(R) systems has attained Evaluation Assurance Level 3+ (EAL3+) as determined by the Common Criteria for Information Security Evaluation. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 was evaluated under full compliance with the Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP) on an SGI Altix 3700 Bx2 supercomputer and an SGI Altix 350 mid-range server."

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Trusted Computer Solutions announces NetTop(R)2

Trusted Computer Solutions, Inc. has announced a new Linux-based thin client application. "Trusted Computer Solutions, Inc. (TCS), a leading supplier of secure information sharing products to the Department of Defense, the intelligence community and commercial industry, today announced the addition of SecureOffice(R) NetTop(R)2 - Thin Client to its SecureOffice family of software products."

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VA Linux partners with Clara Online

VA Linux Systems and Clara Online, Inc. have announced a partnership. "VA Linux Systems Japan K.K. (VA Linux), Japan's leading Linux and Open Source solutions provider, and Clara Online, Inc. today announced that the latter would adopt VA Balance, the former's load balancer and high-availability service solution, for Clara Online's dedicated server service for Linux. Both companies agreed that Clara Online would sell VA Balance to its housing customers at Clara's data centers and also work closely in marketing VA Balance."

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JBoss at Work: A Practical Guide - O'Reilly's Latest Release

O'Reilly has published the book JBoss at Work: A Practical Guide by Tom Marrs and Scott Davis.

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Linux Desktop Pocket Guide - O'Reilly's Latest Release

O'Reilly has published the book Linux Desktop Pocket Guide by David Brickner.

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Two new Audio Libre articles on FireWire audio for Linux

Linuxaudio.org is running a pair of articles about FireWire audio for Linux. The article titles include One cable to rule them all - mLAN audio networking and Hot on the wire - the FreeBoB project.

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The Linux Documentation Project Weekly News

The November 2, 2005 edition of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News is out with the latest new documentation releases.

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Public domain Lisp logo

A new Public domain Lisp logo is available for Lisp projects. "Conrad Barski has created a logo "for anyone who needs an attractive graphic to indicate their use of, and support for, Lisp"."

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BitDefender Challenges Linux Community

BitDefender has announced a product testing contest. "BitDefender, an award-winning provider of antivirus software and data security solutions, is inviting Linux enthusiasts and professionals to crash test BitDefender Mail Protection for Enterprise Beta, the upcoming BitDefender antivirus and antispam solution for Linux e-mail servers. The most thorough beta tester will receive 1,000 German beers and a trip to BitDefender's corporate headquarters in Romania, where they will attend meetings with Count Dracula, the BitDefender development team and other local luminaries."

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Realm Systems announces Project BlackDog Contest

Realm Systems, Inc. has announced a contest for porting the best application to the BlackDog mobile computing platform. "Realm Systems announces the start of Project BlackDog, a skills contest offering prizes in five categories, including a $50,000 grand prize for the best application created or ported to run on BlackDog(TM). The contest started October 15 and ends January 15, 2006. Prizes will also be awarded for the most bugs reported that are determined to be critical to BlackDog functionality."

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Linux Audio Conference 2006 CFP

A call for papers and music has gone out for the Linux Audio Conference 2006. Papers are due by January 8. "LAC2006 will take place 27-30 April 2006, again at the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics in Karlsruhe, Germany."

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OSDC open for registrations

Registration is open for the second Australian Open Source Developers’ Conference. The event takes place in Melbourne, Australia on December 5-7, 2005.

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Events: November 3 - December 29, 2005

Date	Event	Location
November 3 - 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 9 - 10, 2005	Forum PHP Paris 2005	Paris, France
November 12 - 18, 2005	SC|05	(Washington State Convention and Trade Center)Seattle, WA
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
November 29 - December 2, 2005	FOSS.IN/2005	(Bangalore Palace)Bangalore, India
December 4 - 9, 2005	Large Installation System Administration Conf.(LISA)	San Diego, CA
December 5 - 7, 2005	Open Source Developers' Conference(OSDC)	(Monash University's Caulfield campus)Melbourne, Australia
December 27 - 30, 2005	22nd Chaos Communication Congress	Berlin, Germany

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Nokia open source site launches

Nokia has announced the launch of opensource.nokia.com, a gathering point for the company's free software work. There's not a huge amount there yet; look for the new S60 browser to show up early next year, though.

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