Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
FFII a force for the future, says new president
The FFII General Assembly has unanimously elected a new president, Pieter Hintjens, to lead the organization into 2006. "Pieter Hintjens is the 43-year old founder and MD of iMatix Corporation, a Belgian software firm. He has been active in the debate against software patents, explaining to the European Patent Office and the European Parliament why software and business process patents are so deadly for small innovative firms that are the life-blood of Europe's innovation. He brings to the FFII his considerable experience both in the business domain and the technical domain."
FSFE files application for leave to intervene in Microsoft antitrust suit
The FSFE has announced the filing of an application for leave to intervene. "The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) today filed an application for leave to intervene in the antitrust suit against Microsoft. Georg Greve, President of FSFE said: "The more Microsoft is able to purchase its opponents' solidarity, the more important FSFE's commitment to freedom and interoperability is.""
A genuine open-standard format
The OpenOffice.org project has sent out a press release that concerns the adoption of the Open Document Format. "OpenOffice.org believes that the demand for a genuine open-standard format for office documents is overwhelming. Users of office software are coming to realise that their real investment lies not in the software itself, but in the spreadsheets, databases, and wordprocessing documents which they have created: their own intellectual property. The only way to guarantee access to this investment long term is for the data to be stored in a vendor- neutral, open-standard format. Microsoft's announcement on Monday, 21 Nov., that it recognises the market pressure for open-standard data formats is a welcome development. But why opt for a new standard?"
Experts dispute effectiveness of open-source patent pools
Nosoftwarepatents.com has put together a round-up of comments on the effectiveness of open-source patent pools. "Analysts, community leaders and campaigners comment skeptically on the Open Invention Network and the OSDL Patent Commons -- "Those announcements don't put us closer to a real solution, but even further away""
WorldForge Celebrates its 7th Anniversary
The WorldForge game project has announced its seventh anniversary. "Seven years down the line the hard working members of the project have persevered through trolls, skeptics, changes of leadership, slashdotting and worse to create over one million lines of code and nearly four gigabytes of media." A demo of the development game Mason is now available.
Commercial announcements
Adaptec Announces Enhanced GuardianOS
Adaptec has announced an enhanced version of its GuardianOS. "Adaptec, Inc. a global leader in storage solutions, today announced version 4.0 of its award-winning, Linux-based GuardianOST operating system that comes standard on its Snap Server network attached storage (NAS) solutions. GuardianOS is a unified software platform that combines cross-platform file sharing with block-level data access on a single network storage device to provide a simple and flexible data storage solution ideal for departments, remote offices, and small/medium distributed enterprises worldwide."
Autodesk Open-Sources Web Mapping Software
Autodesk, Inc. has announced the release of its MapServer Enterprise under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). "As a sign of its support for the growing momentum behind open source web mapping technologies, Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSK) today announced the company is releasing the code for MapServer Enterprise, the company's new web mapping platform, as open source."
Bizgres MPP - Public Beta 2
Greenplum has announced a new version of Bizgres MPP Beta, a parallel DBMS application. Free downloads are available. "If you are currently using a database larger than 100GB for data mining/decision support or business intelligence and are having performance challenges, Bizgres MPP can help you get your work done faster with less effort. MPP is not a solution for speeding OLTP throughput, but excels at processing queries that use large amounts of data."
LaCie and Mandriva Introduce GlobeTrotter 2.0
Mandriva and LaCie have introduced a mobile USB hard drive pre-loaded with a specially tuned version of the Mandriva Linux operating system: the GlobeTrotter2.0 in 40GB or 80GB. "GlobeTrotter is perfect for those with serious capacity and power needs. Unlike CD-R's and USB keys that only store data, or laptops that are heavy and expensive, the GlobeTrotter offers a complete work environment in one cost-effective, lightweight package. Simply plug the GlobeTrotter into the USB port of a host PC and turn it on. Hardware on the host computer is automatically detected but is not modified in any way. When the job is done, GlobeTrotter can be taken to a different workstation with up to 80GB a user's data including applications and personal settings."
LinuxForce Wins Aker Philadelphia Shipyard Contract
LinuxForce has announced a new contract with Aker Philadelphia Shipyard. "Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, formerly known as Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard, and LinuxForce, a leading technology services provider specializing in the development, implementation, management and support of Linux-based systems, have signed a long-term services agreement wherein LinuxForce will monitor and maintain a number of GNU/Linux systems for Aker."
LPI appoints new President and CEO
The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) has announced that LPI Board member, Jim Lacey, has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the organization.Sleepycat Software Releases New Version of Berkeley DB
Sleepycat Software, Inc. has announced the release of Berkeley DB version 4.4. "A number of new replication features and efficiency improvements have been added in response to customer demand. Berkeley DB now supports in-memory replication, client-to-client replication, controls for throttling and delaying synchronization and master election speed-ups. Additional feature additions include online Btree compaction and disk reclamation, abandoned lock removal, automated recovery serialization and a hot backup utility."
SSH Tectia Introduces Seamless OpenSSH Compatibility
SSH Communications Security Corp. has announced improved interoperability between the commercial SSH Tectia and OpenSSH. "Both SSH Tectia and OpenSSH are based on the Secure Shell version 2 (SSH2) protocol specifications, originally developed by SSH Communications Security and standardized by the IETF. However, OpenSSH deviates from the standards in its SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) implementation. SSH Tectia Client and Server now incorporate a compatibility mode for OpenSSH SCP, which still uses the old Secure Shell version 1 (SSH1). In addition, the new SSH Tectia product versions will support the OpenSSH public-key file format, eliminating the need for manual key conversions."
Terra Soft Assists Colsa to Gain 15 of Top500.org
Terra Soft Solutions worked with COLSA to improve the performance of an Apple Xserve G5 cluster. The system reached the 15th highest rating in the Top500.org benchmark. "Terra Soft's David Smith worked on-site with COLSA engineers for three days in order to prepare a multi-tier system first for rapid node replication and secondly to maximize system performance. Significant gains were recognized with their combined efforts: the Top500.org benchmark, Linpack, achieved 16.18 Tflops on the Xserve, vaulting it to the 15th fastest computer in the world."
TimeSys Introduces LinuxLink Subscriptions for new Freescale Processors
TimeSys has announced the availability of LinuxLink Subscriptions for the Freescale's ColdFire(R) MCF547x and MCF548x Processor Families. "LinuxLink Subscriptions Include Hundreds of Cross-Compiled Applications, Latest Linux from Freescale, Continuous Updates, Developer Exchange Community Access and Tools for Customizing Linux".
VMware announces VMware Workstation 5.5
VMware, Inc. has announced the availability of its VMware Workstation 5.5 desktop virtualization software. "With VMware Workstation, enterprises are able to create a library of virtual machines for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 operating systems, including Linux, NetWare, Solaris x86 and Windows, that replicate production environments. These virtual machines can then be rapidly provisioned and used, making it possible for developers and testers to spend more time developing and testing software and less time configuring and managing their required environments."
New Books
C++ Cookbook - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book C++ Cookbook by D. Ryan Stephens, Christopher Diggins, Jonathan Turkanis, and Jeff Cogswell.O'Reilly publishes Digital Asset Management for Photographers
O'Reilly has published The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers by Peter Krogh.Practical Perforce - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book Practical Perforce by Laura Wingerd.Understanding the Linux Kernel, Third Edition - O'Reilly's Newest Release
O'Reilly has published the book Understanding the Linux Kernel, Third Edition by Daniel P. Bovet and Marco Cesati.Virtualization with VMware ESX Server - latest from Syngress
Syngress has published the book Virtualization with VMware ESX Server by Al Muller and Seburn Wilson.
Upcoming Events
Call for Location of aKademy 2006 (KDE.News)
A Call for Location has been posted for the aKademy 2006 conference. "The next annual central meeting of the KDE community, aKademy 2006, is looking for a location. The event consists of the general assembly of the KDE e.V., a KDE developer conference and a multi-day hacking session. The main goal of the event will be to shape the upcoming new major step of the K Desktop Environment, KDE 4. If you are interested in hosting this large and exciting free software event, please consider to submit a proposal to the board of the KDE e.V. which will act as a co-host."
Audio, Video and Arts Miniconf at linux.conf.au
An Audio, Video & Arts Miniconf will be held at the 2006 linux.conf.au event in Dunedin, New Zealand. Abstracts are being accepted until December 19.CFP: IEEE Web Services (ICWS 2006)
A call for papers has gone out for the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Web Services. The event will take place in Chicago, IL on September 18-22, 2006. Submissions are due by January 16.International Free Software Forum call for papers
The submission deadline for the International Free Software Forum (fisl7.0) is approaching. Lecture proposals are due on December 4th. fisl7.0 will take place from April 19th to 22nd, 2006, in Porto Alegre/RS/Brazil.Linux Installfest workshops in Davis
The Linux Users' Group of Davis will hold another free Linux Installfest in Davis, CA on December 3.LinuxWorld On Tour 2006, Canada
LinuxWorld On Tour 2006 will be held in Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, and Vancouver through the month of May, 2006. "LinuxWorld on Tour Conference & Expo 2006 is Canada's first Open source Road Show, providing an excellent mix of technical and business decision makers in four (4) leading technology cities in Canada."
List of PyCon 2006 Talks are online
A list of talks to be presented at PyCon 2006 has been published.Umeet Virtual Meeting - December
The next Umeet Virtual Meeting will be held from December 9-20, 2005 online.Events: December 1, 2005 - January 26, 2006
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| December 1 - 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 9 - 20, 2005 | Umeet Virtual Meeting(UMEET 2005) | Online |
| December 10 - 14, 2005 | ApacheCon 2005 | (Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina)San Diego, CA |
| December 27 - 30, 2005 | 22nd Chaos Communication Congress | Berlin, Germany |
| January 13 - 15, 2006 | ShmooCon 2006 | (Wardman Park Marriott Hotel)Washington, D.C. |
| January 23 - 28, 2006 | linux.conf.au 2006 | Dunedin, New Zealand |
| January 23 - 25, 2006 | Black Hat Federal Briefings and Training 2006 | (Sheraton Crystal City)Washington, D.C. |
| January 24 - 26, 2006 | O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference | (San Francisco Airport Marriott)San Francisco, CA |
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Next page:
Letters to the editor>>