Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
FFII: European Commission says software is not patentable
FFII has sent out a press release on a seemingly obscure (but important) ruling by the European Commission. "In a reply to a question from Polish MEP and inventor Adam Gierek, the European Commission has confirmed that the European Patent Office's (EPO) case law is not binding for member states, nor (under the proposed Community Patent regulation) for the European Court of Justice (ECJ). For the first time, the Commission has also clearly stated that computer programs are not patentable subject matter, without hiding behind the infamous 'as such' cop-out."
FSF launches DefectiveByDesign.org
The Free Software Foundation has launched DefectiveByDesign.org, a direct-action campaign that will target Big Media and corporations peddling Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). "An initiative of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Defective By Design is urging all technologists to get involved at the start of the campaign. "Technologists are very aware of the dangers of DRM," said Peter Brown, Executive Director of the FSF."
Internet Test-Taking Patent Draws Official Suspicion (EFF)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced the winning of a second patent office reexamination of Test.com's online test-taking patent. "The reexamination order is the second granted in just two months after petitions from EFF's Patent Busting Project. EFF filed the reexamination request because the extremely broad patent claims to cover almost all methods of online testing. Test.com has used this patent to demand payments from universities with distance education programs that give tests online. But EFF, in conjunction with Theodore C. McCullough of the Lemaire Patent Law Firm, showed that Test.com was not the first to come up with this testing method -- IntraLearn Software Corporation had been marketing an online test-taking system long before Test.com filed its patent request."
KDE joins ODF Alliance (KDE.News)
KDE.News reports that the KDE Project has joined the ODF Alliance. "The position of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) was today strengthened by the K Desktop Environment (KDE) joining the ODF Alliance. KDE joins other partners such as Oracle, SUN Microsystems, Mandriva, IBM and Junta de Andalucia in promoting the OpenDocument Format as a market leader in document exchange and storage."
Commercial announcements
Mercury Computer Systems Announces LNXexec
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. has announced their LNXexec product. "LNXexec provides the full features of Linux with a rich set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for developing real-time multicomputer applications. Introduced as part of the Mercury MCOE (Multicomputer Operating Environment) Release 6.4.0, LNXexec enables customers to migrate to the open systems environments, such as Open Architecture Computing Environment (OACE) and X-Midas, that are demanded by today's users."
Novell and NCR Offer Linux on NCR POS Platforms
NCR Corporation and Novell have announced a global agreement to offer Novell Linux Point of Service on NCR RealPOS retail point-of-sale (POS) terminals. "The agreement between Novell and NCR - one of the world's largest store automation solution vendors - makes a secure, reliable software platform and hardware combination available for retailers deploying Linux-based POS solutions. NCR's plans call for offering Novell Linux Point of Service on NCR EasyPoint(TM) kiosks and NCR FastLane(TM) self-checkout in the future."
Penguin Computing Offers New Line of Relion Linux Servers
Penguin Computing, Inc. has announced the new Relion 1600 and 2600 servers. "Penguin's 1U Relion 1600 and 2U Relion 2600 servers feature SATA, SCSI and SAS storage options to suit a variety of storage needs, expansion slots for PCI Express serial input/output technology, to accommodate high-performance cluster fabrics and enterprise-class storage adapters, and optional PCI-X slots, for legacy expansion cards. Both Relion product families offer the latest memory technology, up to 32GB of fully buffered dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs), for lower latency and higher throughput and error correction features to ensure reliable operation and data integrity at full bus speeds."
Rackspace Announces Strong First Quarter Results
Rackspace Managed Hosting, LWN's web host, has announced its results for the first quarter of 2006. The company's revenue grew 58 percent over the same period in 2005 to $45.7 million. Net income in the first quarter of 2006 was $4.2 million, a 121 percent increase over the same quarter the previous year. Rackspace has experienced 29 consecutive quarters of revenue growth since the company's inception.rPath wins DOE grant
rPath has won a DOE grant. "rPath is pleased to announce that it is a recipient of a $100,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Department of Energy (DOE). rPath will use the grant to enable its rBuilder platform to create Xen virtual machine images for deployment in grid environments such as the Open Science Grid < http://www.opensciencegrid.org/index.php>."
Speedo Dives Into Supercomputing
SGI has announced that an SGI Altix high-performance computing system is helping to create a better swimsuit.Undo Software announces UndoDB
Undo Software has announced UndoDB, a bidirectional debugger for compiled programs. "A bidirectional debugger allows programmers to run a program backwards in time as well as forwards. The program can be stepped back line-by-line, or rewound to any point in its history. Furthermore, programmers can play the program forwards and backwards in a totally repeatable fashion, allowing them to "home in" on the cause of a bug. Bidirectional debuggers are much more powerful than their traditional counterparts, which only allow programmers to step their programs forwards in time. This is particularly true for bugs whose root cause occurs long before the ill effects manifest themselves, and for bugs that occur only intermittently." A 30 day test version of the software is available for download.
New Books
Pragmatic Bookshelf Releases "Pragmatic Subversion, 2nd Edition"
Pragmatic Bookshelf has published the book Pragmatic Subversion, 2nd Edition by Mike Mason.
Resources
New Jounal: Source Code for Biology and Medicine (LinuxMedNews)
LinuxMedNews has announced the publication of a new Journal. "From the website announcement: 'Source Code for Biology and Medicine is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal soon to be launched by BioMed Central. Source Code for Biology and Medicine will encompass all aspects of workflow for information systems, decision support systems, client user networks, database management, and data mining. Source Code for Biology and Medicine aims to publish source code for distribution and use in the public domain in order to advance biological and medical research..."
Surveys
2006 Plone Conference survey
The Plone Foundation has announced a survey for the 2006 Plone Conference. "The Plone Foundation has invited the Seattle Plone community to put together a bid for hosting the 2006 Plone Conference, and has requested that we do a bit of background research to aid in planning and to assess the level of interest and enthusiasm in the Plone community. We've put together a 10-minute survey to help us gather some of that information."
Calls for Presentations
php|works / db|works Call for Papers
A Call for Papers has gone out for php|works / db|works. The event takes place in Toronto, Canada on September 12-15, 2006, submissions are due by June 5.Europython 2006 CFP
A call for proposals has gone out for Europython 2006. "Registration for Europython (3-5 July) at CERN in Geneva is now open, if you feel submitting a talk proposal there's still time until the 31th of May. If you want to talk about a library you developed, or you know well and want to share your knowledge, or about how you are making the best out of Python through inventive/elegant idioms and patterns (or if you are a language guru willing to disseminate your wisdom), you can submit a proposal for the Python Language and Libraries track".
Forum PHP 2006 call for speakers
AFUP, the Association Française des Utilisateurs de PHP, has posted a Call to speakers for the Paris "Forum PHP 2006". The event takes place on November 9 and 10, 2006.
Upcoming Events
3rd International GPLv3 Conference
The Third International GPLv3 Conference will take place in Barcelona, Spain on June 22 and 23, 2006. "In January, a year-long public consultation process for updating the GNU General Public License was launched. Commonly called "the GPL", this licence is used by the majority of Free Software to detail the distribution terms of the software. This coming conference will approximately mark the half-way point of that process."
KDE Multimedia Meeting in the Netherlands (KDE.News)
KDE.News has an announcement for an upcoming KDE Multimedia Meeting . "Multimedia in KDE has been in the news lately, especially Phonon, the new multimedia framework for KDE 4. Phonon still needs a lot of work, as do the applications which are going to use it. So, in the spirit of the previous KDE PIM meeting, Annahoeve in Achtmaal, The Netherlands, will again be visited by a group of KDE developers. From Friday the 26th to Sunday the 28th of May, more than 15 developers from 4 continents will have a unique chance to talk about and work on Multimedia in KDE."
LugRadio Live in July
The folks at LugRadio will hold the LugRadio Live event on July 22 and 23, 2006 at Wolverhampton University in the UK. A call for papers is currently open. "LUGRadio Live is an annual event driven by, and for the Open Source community. The event includes a range of speakers, exhibitors and other attractions, all housed within a unique event with a unique atmosphere. Last years event in June 2005 was a huge success, and this year LUGRadio Live 2006 will be nothing you have seen before."
New York PHP Conference and Expo
The New York PHP Conference and Expo will be held on June 14-16, 2006 at the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan, NY.2006 Web 2.0 Conference
The Third Annual Web 2.0 Conference will take place in San Francisco, CA on November 7-9, 2006. "This year's theme is "Disruption and Opportunity," focusing on the services, applications, businesses, and models that are reshaping the business landscape and creating opportunities for entrepreneurs who understand the power of the Internet."
Events: May 25 - July 20, 2006
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| May 26 - 27, 2006 | FreedomHEC | Seattle, WA |
| May 26 - 28, 2006 | KDE Multimedia Meeting | (Annahoeve)Achtmaal, The Netherlands |
| May 30 - June 3, 2006 | 2006 USENIX Annual Technical Conference | (Boston Marriott Copley Place)Boston, MA |
| June 13 - 14, 2006 | Where 2.0 Conference | (Fairmont Hotel San Jose)San Jose, CA |
| June 13 - 14, 2006 | Gartner Open Source Summit 2006 | (Palau de Congressos de Catalunya)Barcelona, Spain |
| June 14 - 16, 2006 | New York PHP Conference and Expo 2006 | (New Yorker Hotel)New York, NY |
| June 16 - 18, 2006 | Recon 2006 | (Plaza Hotel Centre-Ville)Montreal, Canada |
| June 18 - 23, 2006 | Ubuntu Developer Summit | Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France |
| June 22 - 23, 2006 | 3rd International GPLv3 Conference | Barcelona, Spain |
| June 24 - 25, 2006 | Free and Open Source Conference(FrOSCon) | (St. Augustin)Bonn, Germany |
| June 24 - 30, 2006 | 2006 GNOME Users and Developers European Conference(GUADEC) | Catalonia, Spain |
| June 24 - 25, 2006 | PHP Vikinger | Skien, Norway |
| June 27 - 29, 2006 | Corporate Channel and Computing Expo(C3) | (Jacob K. Javits Convention Center)New York, NY |
| June 28 - 30, 2006 | GCC and GNU Toolchain Developers' Summit | (Ottawa Congress Centre)Ottawa, Canada |
| June 29 - July 2, 2006 | UKUUG Linux Technical Conference | (University of Sussex)Brighton, UK |
| June 30 - July 1, 2006 | WebTech 2006 | (Kempinski Hotel Zografski)Sofia, Bulgaria |
| July 3 - 4, 2006 | 3rd European Lisp Workshop | Nantes, France |
| July 3 - 5, 2006 | EuroPython 2006 | (CERN)Geneva, Switzerland |
| July 4 - 8, 2006 | 7th Libre Software Meeting(LSM) | (Nancy 1 University)Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy, France |
| July 5 - 8, 2006 | V Jornades de Programari Lliure | Barcelona, Spain |
| July 8 - 9, 2006 | PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit | Toronto, Canada |
| July 10 - 11, 2006 | Global db4o User Conference(dUC) | (Imperial College, South Kensington)London, UK |
| July 13 - 14, 2006 | Detection of Intrusions and Malware, and Vulnerability Assessment(DIMVA) | Berlin, Germany |
| July 15 - 16, 2006 | Crystal Space Conference | (University of Aachen)Aachen, Germany |
| July 16 - 19, 2006 | 2nd International Symposium on Free/Open Source Software, Technologies and Content(FOSSTEC 2006) | Orlando, Florida, USA |
| July 19 - 22, 2006 | Ottawa Linux Symposium 2006(OLS 2006) | Ottawa, Canada |
Event Reports
Itanium Conference Coverage
The Gelato Federation presents coverage of the 2006 Itanium Conference. "Over 200 scientists, developers, and engineers convened from all around the globe for the April 2006 Gelato ICE: Itanium Conference & Expo. The event was organized by the Gelato Federation, an international user community dedicated to advancing Linux on the IntelItanium architecture. It was the largest gathering of Linux and Itanium professionals that the world has seen to date with delegates from more than 80 companies and institutions attending. Conference sponsors included HP, Intel, and the Itanium Solutions Alliance, and media sponsors included HPCwire and Linux HPC.org."
Proceedings of the 4th International Linux Audio Conference
The proceedings from the 4th International Linux Audio Conference, held at the end of April in Karlsruhe, Germany, are now available as a 3MB PDF file. Papers and slides from individual talks can also be found on the LAC 2006 web site. There is a wealth of information there, with something likely to be of interest to almost any Linux audio user.
Audio and Video programs
Blender Foundation 'Open Movie Project' releases 'Elephants Dream'
The Blender Foundation has announced the online availability of the movie Elephants Dream. "All 3D related files are under the Creative Commons Attribute license, so artists can create their own interpretation of the movie (or use them for entirely unrelated work etc), learn from the files, etc."
Why Choose Plone over J2EE, Ruby on Rails, TurboGears, JBoss,or django? (LinuxMedNews)
LinuxMedNews takes note of a new webcast on choosing a web content management platform. "Here is a 40 minute Quicktime webcast that is an entertaining, practical side by side comparison of 5 popular development environments with the conclusion that ZOPE-based Plone is the best for web development. Some of the metrics are: 225 minutes for a J2EE web application versus about 10 minutes for a web application in Plone that is more functional than the J2EE one. They also like Rails and Django some but the winner is Plone."
Page editor: Forrest Cook