Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
Certified Open: Welcome to life after ICT lock-in
The Free Software Foundation Europe has announced an open trial period for Certified Open. "Today sees the launch of the trial period for Certified Open, a programme to evaluate the technical and commercial lock-in of ICT solutions. Certified Open promotes fair and effective competition in the delivery of software, hardware and services. Certified Open is a joint venture between OpenForum Europe (OFE) and Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). The programme originated in UK local government and European Commission eTen projects and was further developed with industry, community and user engagement."
Nominations for X.Org Foundation Board of Directors are OPEN
The X.Org Foundation has announced that nominations for its board of directors are open. "All X.Org Foundation members are eligible for election to the board. Nominations for the 2007 election are now open and will remain open until 23.59 GMT on Saturday 1 December 2007. The Board consists of Directors elected from the membership. Each Director is elected to serve a two-year term. Each year, an election is held to bring the total number of Directors to eight."
Commercial announcements
3DLABS introduces Linux 2.6.21 developer kit for DMS-02 applications processor
3DLABS Semiconductor has announced a Linux 2.6.21 Software Development Kit for its DMS-02 applications processor. "The kit brings the latest open source innovations to developers and device makers using 3DLABS' DMS-02 processor to deliver unrivalled application and media processing performance within low power environments. The SDK provides a suite of development tools and production ready applications, CODECs and libraries that take full advantage of the underlying features and performance of the DMS processor".
ACCESS Brings Thousands of Garnet OS Applications to Nokia Internet Tablets
ACCESS CO., LTD. has announced that it will make available a beta version of a Garnet(TM) VM software for Nokia N770, N800 and N810 Internet Tablets. Garnet VM is expected to be available by the end of the year free of charge as a download from the ACCESS website.BitNami announces Trac and Redmine software stacks
BitNami has announced packaged versions of its Trac and Redmine software stacks. "The BitNami Stacks combine each application with all of the other software it requires in fast, easy to use installer. In less than 5 minutes, you can have Trac or Redmine installed and configured with Subversion, Apache, and all other required software. The Trac and Redmine Stacks are currently available for Linux, with Windows, Mac OS X and Solaris coming soon."
The 2007 JCP Executive Committees election results
The Java Community Process Program has announced the final results of the 2007 JCP Executive Committees elections. "After two ballot rounds -- for ratified and elected seats -- the winners are: Apache Software Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Inc., Google Inc., Nortel and Red Hat Middleware LLC for the Java SE/EE EC and Intel Corporation, Orange France SA, Research In Motion, LTD (RIM), Samsung Electronics Corporation and Time Warner Cable Inc. for the Java ME EC. For an overview of the JCP EC elections process including detailed descriptions of the ratified seats and elected seats selection processes you can visit http://jcp.org/en/whatsnew/elections."
Microsoft and Novell Celebrate Year of Interoperability, Expand Collaboration Agreement
Microsoft Corp. has announced the first year of collaboration with Novell. "One year after signing a landmark agreement to build a bridge between open source and proprietary software, Novell Inc. and Microsoft Corp. today unveiled continued strong momentum behind the agreement. Having exceeded their original business targets, the companies continue to see strong demand for interoperability and intellectual property (IP) peace of mind. In addition, Novell and Microsoft announced an expansion of their technical collaboration to create a cross-platform accessibility model that links together the existing Windows and Linux frameworks used to build assistive technology products that enable people with disabilities to interact with computers."
Oracle: "Unbreakable Linux" going great
Oracle has sent out a press release saying that its "Unbreakable Linux" offering has been selling better than expected with over 1500 paying customers. "The Oracle Unbreakable Linux support program has also helped Oracle drive growth and advancements in Linux as bug fixes are provided back to the Linux community, in addition to the company's on-going new features and functionality contributions."
Skype 2.0 Beta for Linux, the Great Revolution
Skype has announced a beta release of the Skype 2.0 teleconferencing application for Linux.Y-Film Delivers Tools for Professional VFX Production Shops
Terra Soft has announced the debut of the Y-Film VFX management and productivity tools at the Supercomputing 07 conference. "Y-Film leverages two decades experience in the Hollywood VFX industry through the integration of a robust Asset Manager, a Workflow Pipeline, an Artist Productivity Tool suite, and an end-to-end Color Management System."
YDL v6.0 for IBM QS21 Cell Blade
Terra Soft Solutions has announced the availability of Yellow Dog Linux v6.0 for the IBM BladeCenter QS21. "This evolutionary addition to the growing family of Terra Soft's operating system for the Power architecture offers QS21 end-users an advanced, robust, fully tested RPM-based Linux OS. Coupled with professional support from Terra Soft, YDL v6.0 with integrated IBM SDK v3.0 enables end-users to rapidly install, deploy, and immediately use QS21 compute nodes."
New Books
Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition--New from No Starch Press
No Starch Press has published the book Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition by Michael W. Lucas.
Contests and Awards
KDE 4.0 Release Event Contest winners announced (KDE.News)
KDE.News has announced the winners of the KDE 4.0 Release Event contest. "On October 4, 2007 we announced a contest regarding the KDE 4.0 Release Event at Mountain View, California on January 17-19, 2008. Participants were asked to answer the question: "Why should you be at the KDE 4.0 Release Event?" with the winner being flown out to the Release Event itself. We received many great submissions from community members with very different backgrounds from around the globe. Everyone captured the spirit of the contest with enthusiastic responses; some humorous and some serious, some brief and some reaching the submission limit on length. In the end, with generous approval from KDE e.V. Vice President and Treasurer Cornelius Schumacher, we have decided to fly out two contestants".
Patrick Michaud awarded Perl 6 Development Grant (use Perl)
use Perl reports that Patrick Michaud has been awarded a Perl 6 Development Grant. "It is with great pleasure that The Perl Foundation and Mozilla Foundation announce a major new Perl 6 Development Grant. The recipient of the grant is Patrick Michaud, the Perl 6 compiler pumpking and lead programmer of a Perl 6 implementation based on Parrot and on his own work on the Perl 6 compiler and grammar. The grant will provide Patrick with four months of support for this work beginning November 1, 2007. Patrick will receive US$15,000 over this time, with $10,000 of the funding coming from Mozilla Foundation and $5,000 from The Perl Foundation."
Education and Certification
LPI joins with IT Leaders to form Industry Council
The Linux Professional Institute has announced the formation of the Information Technology Certification Council (ITCC). "The ITCC is a collaborative effort between such leading IT corporations as HP, IBM, Microsoft, Novell and Sun; test development and delivery vendors Pearson Vue and Prometric; certification organizations the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) and the Linux Professional Institute (LPI); and education provider Kaplan. "LPI applauds this initiative and recognizes the importance of participating in a constructive effort to continually enhance the value of IT certification."
Calls for Presentations
CanSecWest 2008 CFP
A call for papers has gone out for CanSecWest 2008. The conference takes place on March 26-28, 2008 in Vancouver, Canada. The submission deadline is November 30.The Python Papers Monograph Series: Call for Proposals
A call for proposals has gone out for The Python Papers Monograph Series. "The Python Papers Monograph Series (ISSN under application) is a sub-publication of The Python Papers (ISSN 1834-3147). This monograph series provides a refereed format for publication of monograph-length reports including dissertations, conference proceedings, case studies, advanced-level lectures, and similar material of theoretical or empirical importance."
Upcoming Events
Akademy-es 2007 in Zaragoza, Spain (KDE.News)
KDE.News has an announcement for the Akademy-es conference. "Our conference in Spain, Akademy-es, will be held in Zaragoza this year on the 17th and 18th November. We have a very interesting schedule with talks about CMake, KOffice, KDE programming, KDE 4 among other interesting topics. Of course, entry to the talks is free, only limited by physical space. We are planning to have a dinner on saturday night, if you are interested in attending mail sent us a mail to cena-akademy2007-at-ereslibre.es."
The second Django worldwide sprint
The second Django worldwide sprint has been announced. "We'll hold the sprint Saturday, December 1st here in Lawrence, KS, and virtually around the world. We'll run things much the same as we did last time around. We plan to devote at least 24 hours of focused work to get some of this done in an organized fashion, and also to encourage new people to contribute. If all goes well on Saturday, we'll probably continue to Sunday. Anybody can participate and contribute, and there's no obligation or expectation. If you've never contributed to Django before, this is the perfect chance for you to chip in."
Announcing the sponsors of FOSS.IN/2007
The sponsors of FOSS.IN/2007 have been announced. "We all know that an international event like FOSS.IN simply cannot happen without the generous support from sponsors. And this is even more so this year, where the event is bigger than ever! As always, our sponsors have been extremely supportive, and it gives me great pleasure to introduce them to you..."
Events: November 22, 2007 to January 21, 2008
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| November 20 November 23 |
DeepSec ISDC 2007 | Vienna, Austria |
| November 22 November 23 |
Conferencia Rails Hispana | Madrid, Spain |
| November 24 | LinuxDay in Vorarlberg (Deutschland, Schweiz, Liechtenstein und Österreich) | Dornbirn, Austria |
| November 26 November 29 |
Open Source Developers' Conference | Brisbane, Australia |
| November 28 November 30 |
Mono Summit 2007 | Madrid, Spain |
| November 29 November 30 |
PacSec 2007 | Tokyo, Japan |
| December 1 | Django Worldwide Sprint | Online, World |
| December 1 | London Perl Workshop 2007 | London, UK |
| December 4 December 8 |
FOSS.IN 2007 | Bangalore, India |
| December 7 December 8 |
Free Software Conference Scandinavia | Gotherburg, Sweden |
| December 7 December 8 |
PGCon Brazil | Sao Paulo, Brazil |
| December 10 | Paris on Rails (2nd Edition) | Paris, France |
| December 11 December 12 |
3rd DoD Open Conference: Deployment of Open Technologies and Architectures within Military Systems | Vienna, VA, USA |
| December 15 December 22 |
Unix Meeting 2007 | IRC, Worldwide |
| December 27 December 30 |
24th Chaos Communication Congress | Berlin, Germany |
| December 31 | Israeli Perl Workshop | Ramat Efal, Israel |
| January 11 January 13 |
FUDCon Raleigh 2008 | Raleigh, NC, USA |
| January 16 January 17 |
QualiPSo Conference 2008 | Rome, Italy |
| January 17 January 19 |
KDE 4 release event | Mountain View, CA, USA |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Mailing Lists
New GNOME mailing list: academia-list
A new GNOME academia-list mailing list has been announced. "The purpose of this list is to establish a bond between the GNOME community and academia."
Page editor: Forrest Cook