Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
Ed Felten joins the EFF board
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced that Ed Felten has joined its board of directors. "My research and EFF's work have often intersected over the years, and I'm very pleased to take the next step and join the board as we strive to keep the digital world innovative, free, and secure."
Free Standards Group picks up accessibility interface
The Free Standards Group has announced that it will be maintaining an accessibility interface donated by IBM. "The standardized interfaces, IAccessible2, make it far easier for application developers to provide accessible applications to computer users with disabilities, regardless of their OS platform. IAccessible2 will become a crucial part of the FSG AccessibilityWorkgroup and is available immediately."
GNOME Foundation Elections - Preliminary results
The preliminary results for the GNOME Foundation board election are now available. It looks like the winners are Quim Gil, Dave Neary, Jeff Waugh, Glynn Foster, Vincent Untz, Anne Østergaard, and Behdad Esfahbod.IBM, Top Universities Continue Software Intellectual Property Reform
IBM and seven U.S. universities have announced several new open software research projects under a program designed in conformance with the Open Collaboration Research Principles, a set of guidelines announced previously to help promote an open approach to overcome university-industry intellectual property challenges.Call for Nominations of PSF Directors
A Call for Nominations has gone out for the Python Software Foundation board of directors. "The Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation is issuing this call for nominations of new Directors. Self-nominations are the norm, so don't wait for somebody else to nominate you. If you are interested in serving as a Director, please write to psf@python.org. Directors need not be PSF members."
A heads-up to users of relays.ordb.org
Eridani Star System has sent an announcement to users of the ORDB.org Open Relay Database that the site is shutting down. "We recommend that, if you have an /etc/mailstripper/badips entry that reads DNS:relays.ordb.org. that it be removed. Although not an open relay database, we've found DNS:zen.spamhaus.org. to be pretty good."
SFLC argues against software patents in the Supreme Court
The Software Freedom Law Center has sent out a press release describing a brief it has just filed in the U.S. Supreme Court. The relevant case is Microsoft v. AT&T, which may decide whether U.S. patents can be applied overseas. "In its brief, SFLC argues that software copied and distributed outside the United States cannot infringe U.S. patents. The brief also argues that the Federal Circuit's decisions declaring software to be patentable subject matter conflict with Supreme Court precedent and, as such, should be overruled."
Commercial announcements
db4objects 6.0 released as a production release
db4o version 6.0 has been announced. "db4object, creator of the open source object database, announced the production-ready release of db4o Version6.0 which is up to 10x faster and 90% leaner (less memory consumption) than Version 5. Version 6 also supports a new server side cursor technology for deterministic response times when querying in C/S multi-user environments, which allows even more Java and .NET developers to now take advantage of db4os ultra-easy object storage capabilities."
Mandriva to target the Mexican market
Mandriva has sent out a press release stating its intent to go after the Mexican software market in a partnership with Datacomms-Genesys. "Recent studies show that about 34% of servers in Mexico will be Linux-based in 2009 and annual usage growth is estimated to be over 10% for upcoming years."
Novell Appoints Volker Smid as President, Novell EMEA
Novell, Inc. has announced the appointment of Volker Smid as president of Novell EMEA. "With a long career in the software industry, including serving as general manager for Central Europe for Novell since May 2005, Smid brings to the new role strong experience in enterprise software sales. Smid will oversee the full range of Novell's sales and consulting business across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, a key region for Novell. He succeeds Tom Francese, who was promoted to executive vice president of worldwide sales for Novell in October 2006."
Nuts and Scrap available for Linux now
Devilish Games has released Nuts & Scrap for Linux. "It's a commercial/arcade game aimed at casual gamers."
Sillysoft releases Ancient Empires Lux casual strategy game
Sillysoft Games has announced the release of the cross-platform game Ancient Empires Lux. "The game lets players take control of the greatest early civilizations of mankind, including Egypt, Greece and Rome. Ancient Empires Lux is a strategy game, but also fits into the "casual games" segment of PC games. It's distributed exclusively online, with a small download size, no load times, and a $20 price."
Digital Media Management: What Developers Should Know
Universal Electronics has announced their SimpleCenter media management system. "Universal Electronics (UEI) is at the forefront helping developers provide the best possible experience for seamlessly accessing, managing and enjoying all digital media assets from anywhere with its recently unveiled SimpleCenter -- the open alternative to proprietary media management applications. SimpleCenter was designed to help developers deliver the future of digital media management for acquiring, organizing, experiencing, distributing, and sharing music, photos, movies, podcasts, and more. SimpleCenter combines complete multimedia management and wireless device connectivity in a single software program to help developers deliver digital media solutions for automotive, home, and mobile electronics markets."
Solera Networks announces open-source license for DataEcho Web Forensics
Solera Networks, Inc. has announced the release of DataEcho, a web session reconstruction application, under the GNU GPL. "DataEcho reconstructs historical web browsing and email traffic from captured network packets, for monitoring insider security threats and policy compliance. It is a useful adjunct to network protocol analyzers such as Sniffer(TM) or WireShark."
The Turbolinux "wizpy"
Turbolinux has announced the upcoming availability (in Japan) of the "wizpy," which appears to be a digital audio player with a USB plug which can be used as a bootable Linux system. "The idea behind this product is that everyone thinks that the operating system has to come with computers. On the other hand, Turbolinux separated the operating system and computers, and created OS portability. By connecting this 60g small device to any computer, wherever you want, you can use 'your own' operating system and 'your own' desktop."
New Books
Essential Computer Security - New from Syngress Publishing
Syngress has published the book Essential Computer Security by Tony Bradley.Java and XML, Third Edition - New from O'Reilly
O'Reilly has published the book Java & XML, Third Edition by Brett D. McLaughlin and Justin Edelson.Linux Kernel in a Nutshell - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book Linux Kernel in a Nutshell by Greg Kroah-Hartman.Sams Publishing Releases Red Hat Fedora Core 6 Unleashed
Sams has published the book Red Hat Fedora Core 6 Unleashed by Andrew Hudson and Paul Hudson.
Resources
"BadVista.org": FSF launches campaign against Microsoft Vista
The Free Software Foundation has launched BadVista.org, a campaign with a twofold mission of exposing the harms inflicted on computer users by the new Microsoft Windows Vista and promoting free software alternatives that respect users' security and privacy rights.Bruce Momjian on how companies can contribute to open source
PostgreSQL hacker Bruce Momjian has posted an article on how companies can better work with the free software community. "Employees usually circulate their proposal inside their companies first before sharing it with the community. Unfortunately, many employees never take the additional step of sharing the proposal with the community. This means the employee is not benefiting from community oversight and suggestions, often leading to a major rewrite when a patch is submitted to the community."
Contests and Awards
VMware Server Named a Top Product of 2006
VMware, Inc. has announced the winning of an eWEEK Labs top products of 2006 award. ""It's tough to find much to dislike about VMware's server virtualization product: VMware Server 1.0 makes it very easy to turn a single physical machine into several virtual ones-each capable of running pretty much any x86-based operating system out there," said Jason Brooks of eWEEK Labs. "VMware Server also is a great example of how a piece of software can run very well on both Linux and Windows hosts. What's more, the product is available with optional support from VMware, and it boasts a graceful path for scaling upward -- to VMware ESX Server -- or downward -- to VMware Player. Oh, and it's free.""
Education and Certification
Python training in Colorado
A Python training class will be held in Colorado. "Python author and trainer Mark Lutz will be teaching another 3-day Python class at a conference center in Longmont, Colorado, on January 23-25, 2007. This is a public training session open to individual enrollments, and covers the same topics as the 3-day onsite sessions that Mark teaches, with hands-on lab work."
Calls for Presentations
FISL 8.0 CFP
A call for papers has gone out for the 8th International Free Software Forum (FISL). The event will take place in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil on April 12-14, 2007, submissions are due by December 31.HITBSecConf2007 - Dubai - Call for Papers now open!
The call for papers for the upcoming Hack in The Box Security Conference 2007 - Dubai is now open. HITBSecConf2007 - Dubai will take place at The Sheraton Creek hotel and will run from the 2nd till the 5th of April 2007. The call for papers is open until February 1, 2007.sambaXP - call for papers
A call for papers has gone out for the sixth international SAMBA conference, sambaXP 2007. The event will take place in Goettingen, Germany on April 23-25, 2007, submissions are due by February 5.Where 2.0 Conference call for participation is open
A call for participation has gone out for the O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference. The event will be held at the Fairmont in San Jose, California on May 29-30, 2007. Proposals are due by January 5. "The O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference brings together the people, projects, and issues building the new technological foundations and creating value in the location industry. The Where 2.0 call for participation is now open and the program committee is seeking speakers to debate and discuss what's viable in the location space now, and what's lurking just below the radar."
Upcoming Events
Events: December 28, 2006 to February 26, 2007
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| December 27 December 30 |
23rd Chaos Communication Congress 2006 | Berlin, Germany |
| January 11 January 12 |
Foundations of Open Media Software | Sydney, Australia |
| January 15 January 20 |
linux.conf.au 2007 | Sydney, Australia |
| January 20 January 26 |
Cell Hack-a-thon | Loveland, CO, USA |
| January 23 January 26 |
Open Source Meets Business | Nürnberg, Germany |
| January 24 | European Patent Conference | Brussels, Belgium |
| January 30 February 1 |
Solutions Linux Expo | Paris, France |
| February 1 February 2 |
LinuxDays Luxembourg | Luxembourg, Luxembourg |
| February 2 | FUDCon Boston 2007 | Boston, MA, USA |
| February 7 February 9 |
Free Software World Conference 3.0 | Badajoz, Spain |
| February 7 February 9 |
Xorg Developer's Conference | Santa Clara, CA, USA |
| February 9 | Women In Open Source | Los Angeles, USA |
| February 9 | Open Source Health Care Summit | Los Angeles, USA |
| February 10 February 11 |
2007 Southern California Linux Expo | Los Angeles, USA |
| February 12 February 13 |
Vancouver PHP Conference | Vancouver, BC, Canada |
| February 12 February 13 |
Linux Storage and Filesystem Workshop | San Jose, CA, USA |
| February 12 February 16 |
Ruby on Rails Bootcamp Training | Atlanta, USA |
| February 12 February 15 |
3GSM World Congress 2007 | Barcelona, Spain |
| February 14 February 15 |
LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit | New York, NY, USA |
| February 15 | TiE Open Source Summit | Pittsburgh, PA, USA |
| February 16 | The Ubucon New York | New York, NY, USA |
| February 19 February 23 |
DebianEDU DevCamp | Soissons, France |
| February 22 | PyCon Tutorial Day | Addison, Texas |
| February 22 | CELF Japan Linux Technical Jamboree #13 | Tokyo, Japan |
| February 22 February 24 |
OpenMind 2007 | San Giorgio a Cremano, Naples, Italy |
| February 23 February 25 |
PyCon 2007 | Addison, Texas |
| February 23 | PHP Conference UK 2007 | London, England |
| February 24 February 25 |
Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting | Brussels, Belgium |
| February 24 February 25 |
Java/DevJam/2007/Fosdem | Brussels, Belgium |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Audio and Video programs
Video: Lars Knoll and George Staikos on KHTML and WebKit (KDE.News)
KDE.News mentions the availability of a video interview with Lars Knoll and George Staikos. "Yahoo! user interface blog hosts an interview video with Lars Knoll and George Staikos on KHTML and WebKit. The video features the history of Konqueror (first 10 minutes) as well as the current development situation (next 10 minutes), an outlook about the possible future and of course a short demo presenting Qt4-WebKit accessing the Yahoo! page and rendering it nicely (last 10 minutes). You need Flash to view the page".
Page editor: Forrest Cook