Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
Apple patents automatic software updates
Apple's patent #7,016,944, issued on March 21, seems somehow familiar: "The present invention is a system and method that monitors upgrade availability for computer information on a user's computer and allows the user to determine which of the available upgrades will be downloaded to the user's computer and installed. The upgrade availability for computer information on the user's computer is monitored in the background, without user-intervention when the user connects to a network, such as the Internet. If any such upgrades are available, a flag is set to notify the user of such upgrades. The user is notified of any available upgrades when computer information is accessed for which an upgrade is available, and given a choice of whether or not to download the available upgrade(s)." Filed in 1999. (Seen on Macsimum News by way of FFII).
GPL tested in US courts in Wallace
The Free Software Foundation has announced that the GPL has been upheld by a US court in the Wallace Vs FSF case. "On Monday March 20, 2006 US Federal Judge John Daniel Tinder, dismissed the Sherman Act antitrust claims brought against the Free Software Foundation. The claims made by Plaintiff Daniel Wallace included: that the General Public License (GPL) constituted a contract, combination or conspiracy; that it created an unreasonable restraint of trade; and that the FSF conspired with IBM, Red Hat Inc., Novell and other individuals to pool and cross-license their copyrighted intellectual property in a predatory price fixing scheme."
The OSDL Fellowship Fund
OSDL has announced the creation of the "Fellowship Fund." "The Fund will provide financial support to software developers working on Linux and open source community projects that don't otherwise have access to financial resources or support." Funding decisions will be made by the OSDL board, with input from the newly-formed (kernel-heavy) technical advisory board. There is no information on the size of the fund.
SFLC representing BusyBox and uClibc
The BusyBox project is obtaining license enforcement management from the Software Freedom Law Center. "..we're pleased to announce that the Software Freedom Law Center has agreed to represent BusyBox and uClibc. We join a number of other free and open source software projects (such as X.org, Wine, and Plone in being represented by a fairly cool bunch of lawyers, which is not a phrase you get to use every day."
Commercial announcements
Amanda 2.5 - A major new release of the Open Source Backup Software
Amanda has announced the release of version 2.5 of its open source backup and recovery software.ANTs Software to Exhibit at LinuxWorld Boston
ANTs software inc. has announced its LinuxWorld exhibit. "ANTs software inc., a developer of universally compatible, high-performance SQL database management systems, today announced it will be exhibiting in the IBM Business Partner Pavilion, Booth 612, at this year's LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in Boston. Expo attendees will have the opportunity to talk with representatives from ANTs software and IBM, as well as examine the latest ANTs Data Server running on a variety of Linux 64-bit operating systems on both AMD Opteron and Intel platforms."
BitRock Releases LAMPStack 5
BitRock has announced the release of BitRock LAMPStack 5. "BitRock LAMPStack 5 is an integrated, easy to install LAMP distribution that includes the latest major releases of Apache, PHP, MySQL, Python, and supporting libraries. The stack is now available for download at www.bitrock.com."
CodeSourcery Announces G++ GNU Toolchain for Luminary's Stellaris Microcontrollers
CodeSourcery, Inc. has announced the availability Sourcery G++ GNU Toolchain for Luminary Micro's Stellaris Microcontrollers. "In partnership with ARM, Ltd., CodeSourcery develops improvements to the GNU Toolchain for ARM processors and provides regular, carefully tested, precompiled releases of the GNU Toolchain. CodeSourcery's current release of Sourcery G++ includes full support for the ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller core and Luminary Micro's Stellaris family of microcontrollers."
IBM and EMC Join MySQL Network Certified Partner Program
MySQL AB has announced the joining of its Network Certified Partner Program by IBM and EMC. "Among other co-marketing and promotion activities with MySQL, both companies will be sponsors of next month's MySQL Users Conference in Santa Clara, California. The multi-tiered MySQL Network Certified Partner Program enables ISV partners to certify that their software has been tested and is compatible with the MySQL certified database server and related MySQL tools. The program also offers opportunities to hardware vendors and consulting companies to leverage the growing adoption of MySQL within mainstream IT organizations."
OpenPKG GmbH established to provide Business Services
OpenPKG has announced the establishment of OpenPKG GmbH, a sibling organization with the dedicated goal of providing commercial services to OpenPKG business customers. "The Open Source software project OpenPKG was founded in 2000 by Ralf S. Engelschall and first released to the public in January 2002. Today OpenPKG is a mature technology in production use. It is maintained and improved by its original developers and volunteer contributors. Its end user and developer community is organized in the OpenPKG Foundation e.V. while its business customers are looked after by the OpenPKG GmbH."
RaveHD 2.0 Officially ships
SpectSoft LLC has announced their RaveHD 2.0 video recording software. "SpectSofts newest version not only offers new features that include reverse audio, slave record, deck standby, and 2K HSDL support but the overhaul of the existing code base now takes RaveHD 2.0 to a client/server product and makes this product an extensive VTR replacement solution. The client/server implementation allows studios to control many DDRs from a single interface in addition to making the GUI modular and easily modified."
Sun Releases UltraSPARC T1 Processor Design specs under GPL
Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced the release of its UltraSPARC T1 Processor Design specifications under the GNU GPL license. "Sun Microsystems Inc. today announced a significant milestone in its OpenSPARC Initiative aimed at the creation of the world's first multi-core, multi-threaded eco-system: publication of the hardware design point and the Solaris(TM) 10 Operating System (OS) porting specifications for the breakthrough UltraSPARC T1 processor. For the first time in history, developers gain access to the chip multi-threading (CMT) technology unique to the UltraSPARC T1 processor, which will be released under the OSI-compliant GNU General Public License (GPL)."
Third Brigade's Intrusion Prevention System protects against Sendmail vulnerability
Third Brigade has announced protection from a recent Sendmail vulnerability by its Intrusion Prevention System. "Third Brigade, Inc. today announced that customers that have deployed Deep Security, its advanced Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), are protected from attacks that could exploit a vulnerability recently disclosed in Sendmail."
New Books
Visibooks publishes four OO.o textbooks
Visibooks, LLC has announced the publication of four new OpenOffice.org textbooks. "An increasing number of schools in the U.S. and worldwide are using and teaching OpenOffice.org, a free, open-source suite of word processing, presentation, spreadsheet, and database programs. To serve these schools, Visibooks has published the first series of textbooks that help students learn OpenOffice.org programs. Visibooks has published four new textbooks on the programs that make up the OpenOffice.org 2.0 office suite: Base, Calc, Impress, and Writer. The titles are The Visibooks Guide to Base 2.0, The Visibooks Guide to Calc 2.0, The Visibooks Guide to Impress 2.0, and The Visibooks Guide to Writer 2.0."
The Art of SQL - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book The Art of SQL by Stephane Faroult and Peter Robson.Google: The Missing Manual, 2nd Ed--O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book Google: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition by Sarah Milstein, J. D. Biersdorfer, and Matthew MacDonald.
Resources
Tutorial: Setting Up A High-Availability NFS Server
Falko Timme has announced a new HowtoForge tutorial on setting up NFS servers. "in this tutorial I will describe how to set up a high-availability NFS server that can be used as storage solution for other high-availability services like, for example, a cluster of web servers that are being loadbalanced. In fact, I will create two NFS servers that mirror their data to each other in realtime using DRBD and that monitor each other using heartbeat, and if one NFS server fails, the other takes over silently."
Contests and Awards
rPath announces new customer and cash awards
rPath has announced a set of awards for the use of its rBuilder software. "rPath is offering additional cash awards to winners of the VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge who use its rBuilder Online technology to build a winning virtual appliance entry. In addition to VMware's prize offerings, rPath will pay out up to $25,000 to the top three entries and five best of category prizes. "This is a unique opportunity for developers to showcase their skills, while experiencing the flexibility and control that rBuilder provides," said Erik Troan, rPath founder and CTO."
Education and Certification
LPI Offers Certification Exams at LinuxWorld Boston
The Linux Professional Institute will hold certification exams at the LinuxWorld Boston conference on April 4-6, 2006. Pre-registration is required.Tuxaco extends training portfolio
Tuxaco will hold new Linux training courses in the UK. "OSC members, Tuxaco have recently announced that they will be providing public Linux courses in London and Birmingham, so the company can now offer classroom teaching in addition to its existing portfolio of onsite Linux courses."
Calls for Presentations
GUADEC CFP / WarmUp weekend and the After Hours workshops (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop has announced the final Call for Papers (March 31) for the GUADEC 2006 conference. The event will be held in Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain on June 24-30, 2006. "As you probably know, March 31st (next Friday) is the deadline of the GUADEC 2006 Call for Participation. If you have a session in mind please submit it before then, even if it's only a draft or a collection of ideas. You will have more time to explain yourself once your session is submitted and scheduled. This year we have two new GUADEC phases apart from the 3 GUADEC Core days. They are also at your disposal and you are invited to submit sessions for these phases as well. Think of GUADEC as a funnel, where the WarmUp weekend is the wide entry, GUADEC Core is the neck and the After Hours workshops are in the exit, where the results of the discussions are distilled in hands-on work."
Upcoming Events
FreedomHEC: May 26-27, 2006
FreedomHEC, the High-intensity learning, networking and taking-back-the-PC-industry unconference will take place on May 26-27, 2006 in Seattle, Washington.The Gelato ICE Conference and Expo
The Gelato Itanium Conference & Expo will take place during the week of April 24, 2006 in San Jose, CA. "Join other end users, developers, researchers, ISVs, and system vendors for an outstanding technical program comprised of 50+ Linux Itanium-centric talks."
Linux Audio Conference 2006 registration open
Registration is open for the Linux Audio Conference 2006. The event takes place on April 27-30, 2006 in Karlsruhe, Germany.Optaros Launches Open Source Webinar Series
Optaros will be holding an Open Source Webinar Series. "Planned sessions throughout the year will include: * April 25 - Open Source and Customer Relationship Management, * June 27 - Service Oriented Architecture and Open Source Solutions, * August 24 - Overcoming Barriers to Open Source Adoption, * September 26 - Content Management Challenges and Open Source Solutions and * December 12 - Open Source Year in Review".
PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit registration now open
Registration is open for the PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit. The event will take place on July 8-9, 2006 in Toronto, Canada. "This 2-day event will feature numerous presentations and community sessions to let community members share their knowledge. Many major contributors to PostgreSQL will be there, and most of them will be speaking or leading coding sessions: Tom Lane, Bruce Momjian, Tatsuo Ishii, Gavin Sherry, Neil Conway and more. At the event we will also discuss and coordinate community advocacy and fundraising efforts."
rPath founder to present at LinuxWorld
rPath CTO and co-founder Erik Troan will be demonstrating rBuilder at the LinuxWorld Expo on April 4. "rBuilder is the engine for creating and maintaining software appliances. With rBuilder, a software developer combines an application with a tailored version of rPath Linux and as a result delivers a software appliance to the customer. Customers get the benefit of the application without the hassle of coordinating multiple maintenance streams, release schedules, and service contracts."
Samba eXPerience 2006
Samba eXPerience 2006 will take place in Göttingen, Germany on April 24-26, 2006. "The fifth "sambaXP" is again the leading conference event focussing on the most important free software alternative to non free file servers. 25 talks from developers, users and vendors will show the particular importance of this Free Software alternative for Windows clients. This year's highlights are the user reports."
Events: March 30 - May 25, 2006
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| March 30 - 31, 2006 | PHP Quebec 2006 | (Plaza Montreal Hotel)Montreal, Canada |
| April 3 - 6, 2006 | Embedded Systems Conference(ESC) | (McEnery Convention Center)San Jose, CA |
| April 3 - 7, 2006 | CanSecWest/core06 | (Marriott Renaissance Harbourside hotel)Vancouver, Canada |
| April 3 - 4, 2006 | Freedom To Connect 2006(FTC) | (AFI Silver Theater)Washington, DC |
| April 3 - 6, 2006 | LinuxWorld Conference and Expo | (Boston Convention and Exposition Center)Boston, MA |
| April 7 - 9, 2006 | Notacon 3 | (Holiday Inn Select Cleveland)Cleveland, OH |
| April 7, 2006 | FUDCon Boston 2006 | Boston, Mass. USA |
| April 11 - 12, 2006 | CELF Embedded Linux Conference | San Jose, California |
| April 15 - 16, 2006 | LayerOne 2006 | (Pasadena Hilton)Pasadena, California |
| April 19 - 22, 2006 | Forum Internacional Software Livre 7.0(FISL) | Porto Alegre, Brazil |
| April 19 - 20, 2006 | UK Python Conference | (Randolph Hotel)Oxford, England |
| April 20 - 22, 2006 | International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security(AReS 2006) | Vienna, Austria |
| April 21 - 23, 2006 | Penguicon 4.0 | Livonia, Michigan |
| April 23 - 26, 2006 | ItaniumR Conference and Expo 2006(Gelato ICE) | San Jose, CA |
| April 24 - 26, 2006 | LinuxWorld & NetworkWorld Canada 2006 Conference & Expo | (Metro Toronto Convention Centre, North Bldg.)Toronto, Canada |
| April 24 - 27, 2006 | MySQL Users Conference | Santa Clara, CA |
| April 24 - 25, 2006 | 2006 Desktop Linux Summit | (Manchester Grand Hyatt)San Diego, CA |
| April 24 - 26, 2006 | SambaXP 2006 | (Clarion Parkhotel)Göttingen, Germany |
| April 26 - 28, 2006 | php|tek 2006 | (Orlando Airport Marriott Hotel)Orlando, FL |
| April 27 - 30, 2006 | Linux Audio Conference(LAC2006) | (ZKM)Karlsruhe, Germany |
| April 29, 2006 | Linuxfest Northwest 2006 | Bellingham, WA |
| April 29 - 30, 2006 | European Common Lisp Meeting 2006 | Hamburg, Germany |
| May 1 - 6, 2006 | DallasCon 2006 | (Richardson Hotel)Dallas, TX |
| May 3 - 6, 2006 | LinuxTag 2006 | (Rhein-Main-Hallen)Wiesbaden, Germany |
| May 6 - 7, 2006 | WebTech 2006 | Sofia, Bulgaria |
| May 8 - 18, 2006 | LinuxWorld on Tour Conference and Expo 2006(LOT2006) | Montreal Ottawa Calgary Vancouver |
| May 12 - 13, 2006 | BSDCan 2006 | (University of Ottawa)Ottawa Canada |
| May 13, 2006 | DebianDay | Oaxtepec, Mexico |
| May 14 - 22, 2006 | DebConf 6 | Oaxtepec, Mexico |
Page editor: Forrest Cook