Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
EFF: Bogus IP Claims Quash Debate Over Future of NYC Landmark
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent out a press release concerning Bogus IP Claims. "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is representing Savitri Durkee, an activist concerned with preserving the character of Union Square and Union Square Park. As one part of her education campaign, Durkee created a website parodying the official website of Union Square Partnership (USP), a group backing extensive redevelopment of the area. In response, USP sent Durkee's Internet service provider a notice pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act improperly asserting that her parody site infringed USP's copyright, leading to the shutdown of the site. USP then filed a copyright lawsuit against Durkee and later filed a claim with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) seeking to take control of the parody site's domain name."
GNU PDF is looking for hackers
The GNU PDF project has announced a call for help. "We need hackers with a good background in C for the development of GNU PDF. No previous knowledge in the PDF format is required." The project also needs help writing manuals and doing web design.
Give 1 Get 1 2008 Started in Europe and USA! (OLPC News)
The folks over at One Laptop Per Child News have information on this year's edition of the Give One Get One program. For $399, one can get an XO for some lucky child as well as donate one to a child in the developing world. This year, Amazon is handling the fulfillment which will hopefully alleviate many of the problems seen last year. Interested people should visit Amazon's XO site.OpenLiberty.org releases ArisID
OpenLiberty.org has announced the release of its ArisID, open-source Liberty Identity Governance Framework (IGF) software. "The ArisID API provides enterprise developers and system architects with a library for building enterprise-grade identity-enabled applications using multiple identity protocols, and lays the groundwork for allowing enterprises to manage and audit the identity requirements of business applications based on declarative IGF policy specifications."
Commercial announcements
ActiveState announces ActivePython 2.6.0.0
ActiveState has released ActivePython 2.6.0.0 "ActivePython is ActiveState's binary distribution of Python. Builds for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, HP-UX and AIX are made freely available. ActivePython includes the Python core and the many core extensions: zlib and bzip2 for data compression, the SQLite (sqlite3) database libraries, OpenSSL bindings for HTTPS support, the Tix GUI widgets for Tkinter, ElementTree for XML processing, ctypes (on supported platforms) for low-level library access, and others."
Adobe releases 64-bit Flash player alpha for Linux
Adobe has released an alpha version of a 64-bit Flash player 10 for Linux, ahead of either Windows or OS X versions. Users of 64-bit systems have had to deal with various workarounds for Flash support, so this is welcome news for some. More info can be found in the FAQ. (Thanks to Adam Gundy.)Coverity announces new Coverity Architecture Analyzer tool
Coverity has announced the availability of the Coverity Architecture Analyzer tool. "Coverity, Inc., the leader in improving software quality and security automatically, today announced the availability of Coverity Architecture Analyzer. This new version of Coverity's architecture product incorporates the company's patented Software DNA Map analysis system to provide development teams with the ability to ensure the integrity of application architecture across development teams, analyse the complexity and dependencies of software systems, and identify errors that can create crash causing defects or security vulnerabilities."
Cray CX1 Taps Clustercorp's Rocks+ for Linux
Cray has announced the availability of the Cray CX1 deskside supercomputer preloaded with Rocks+ 5, the commercial version of the Rocks Cluster Distribution for Linux users. "Rocks+ is the commercial version of the Rocks Cluster Distribution -- an end-to-end HPCC software stack, which includes the operating system, cluster management middleware, libraries, and compilers; with enterprise class commercial support from Clustercorp, which was founded by the leaders in the Rocks community. Available Rocks+Rolls include the Intel(R) Roll, PGI(R) Roll, OFED Roll, TotalView(R) Roll and Moab(R) Roll (Rocks+MOAB). Clustercorp also supports open source Rolls including the Torque Roll and SGE (Sun Grid Engine) Roll."
eGenix announces mxODBC Connect 0.9.3 (beta)
eGenix has announced the release of their mxODBC Connect 0.9.3 (beta) Python Database Interface. "The mxODBC Connect Database Interface for Python allows users to easily connect Python applications to all major databases on the market today in a highly portable and convenient way. Unlike our mxODBC Python extension, mxODBC Connect is designed as client-server application, so you no longer need to find production quality ODBC drivers for all the platforms you target with your Python application."
Ingres Database 9.2 launched
Version 9.2 of Ingres Database has been announced. "Ingres Corporation, a leading provider of open source database software and support services, announced today the availability of Ingres Database 9.2, the leading open source database that helps organizations develop and manage business critical applications at an affordable cost. Ingres Database 9.2 is flexible, simple, secure, reliable, and scalable to cope with even the most complex, multi-language requirements including business intelligence, content management, data warehousing, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and logistics management."
Mandriva reports its 3rd Quarter results
Mandriva has reported its financial and operating results for the 3rd quarter 2008. "Turnover for the quarter is 0.83 million Euros, trading revenue is 1.04 million Euros, costs are 1.67 million Euros and the operating loss is 0.64 million Euros. Turnover and operating results, compared with the 3rd quarter 2007, were 29 per cent down, costs fell by 5 per cent."
New Books
Packt Publishes Apache OfBiz Development: The Beginner's Tutorial
Packt Publishing has published the book Apache OFBiz Development: The Beginner's Tutorial by Jonathon Wong and Rupert Howell .
Resources
Linux Foundation Newsletter
The November 2008 edition of the Linux Foundation Newsletter is online. "In this month's Linux Foundation newsletter: * Linux Foundation publishes guide to participating in Linux community * Linux valued at $10b by new Linux Foundation white paper * Linux Foundation holds successful first End User Summit * The flagship LSB portability tool Linux Application Checker is released * The Linux Foundation launches Linux Developer Network beta * CME Group, Nokia, and Canonical among many making membership moves * Linux Fast Boot Developments"
November 2008 Web Server Survey
Netcraft has published the November 2008 Web Server Survey. "The November 2008 survey shows worldwide monthly growth of nearly three million websites, with responses now being received from a total of 185,167,897 sites. Apache once again tops this month's growth, gaining 1.3 million sites to 93 million, but Microsoft-IIS follows closely gaining 1.1 million extra sites to reach 64 million. Google has grown by 509 thousand this month to approach the 11 million mark."
Contests and Awards
ACM selects Motama's software as Open Source competition winner
NMM software has won an ACM Multimedia conference award. "The ACM Multimedia is the premier annual multimedia conference, covering all aspects of multimedia computing. The program committee of ACM Multimedia selected Motama's key software technology - called Network-Integrated Multimedia Middleware (NMM) - to be presented at this year's Open Source competition. An international jury of experts in the field then chose NMM to be the final winner of the competition."
2008 October-November Linux kernel hacking challenge
Digital Armaments has announced a contest to exploit the Linux Kernel. "For the October-November Challenge, Digital Armaments will give a prize of 5000$ for each submission that results in a Exploitable Vulnerability or Working Exploit for Linux Kernel Local. This should include example and documentation. The submission must be sent during the October/November months and be received by midnight EST on November 30, 2008. The 5,000$ prize will be an extra added to the normal vulnerability payment."
TPF announces grant to David Mitchell (use Perl)
use Perl has announced a $5000 grant award for David Mitchell. "It is with considerable pleasure that TPF announces today a Perl development grant to David Mitchell for the release of Perl 5.10.1. David's work through this grant will be: * The vetting and application of 400+ outstanding patches to the Perl 5.10 codebase; * A rework of the "smart match" feature semantics to address known issues; * Packaging of a Perl 5.10.1 release distribution."
Calls for Presentations
Black Hat November News - calls for papers
The Black Hat November News report has been published. Topics include a Black Hat webcast on November 20 about Clickjacking, a call for papers for the February, 2009 Black Hat DC conference, a call for papers for the April, 2009 Black Hat Europe, and more.Embedded Linux Conference 2009 - Call for sessions
The CE Linux Forum is sponsoring the Embedded Linux Conference to be held in San Francisco, April 6-8, 2009. The conference will be held in conjunction with the Linux Foundation Spring Collaboration Summit and is looking for interested folks to submit a presentation proposal. The deadline for submissions is January 16, 2009. More information including topic areas of interest can be found by clicking below.O'Reilly Velocity 2009 Conference opens Call for Participation
A Call for Participation has gone out for the O'Reilly Velocity 2009 Conference. "Want to make your websites fast, scalable, efficient, and reliable? O'Reilly's Velocity, the Web Performance and Operations Conference on June 22-24, 2009, at the Fairmont in San Jose, CA, shows how to develop those traits. Dedicated to helping people build better infrastructures, Velocity offers developers and engineers the key for crossing over from cool Web 2.0 features to sustainable websites. Program chairs Jesse Robbins and Steve Souders have opened the call for participation and invite proposals for conference sessions, panels, and a newly added full day of tutorials at Velocity 2009." The submission deadline is January 5.
Upcoming Events
Events: November 27, 2008 to January 26, 2009
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| November 25 November 29 |
FOSS.IN 2008 | Bangalore, India |
| November 25 November 30 |
make art 2008 | Poitiers, France |
| November 28 | Informazione geografica aperta e libera | Pontedera (PI), Italy |
| November 28 November 29 |
WhyFLOSS La Plata - Argentina | La Plata, Argentina |
| November 29 | LinuxDay in Vorarlberg (Deutschland, Schweiz, Liechtenstein und Österreich) | Dornbirn, Austria |
| December 1 | First Nuxeo Developer Day | Paris, France |
| December 1 December 2 |
Open World Forum | Paris, France |
| December 2 December 5 |
Open Source Developers' Conference 2008 | Sydney, NSW, Australia |
| December 4 December 7 |
PIKSEL08 - code dreams | Bergen, Norway |
| December 5 December 6 |
FOSSCamp | Mountain View, CA, USA |
| December 5 December 13 |
International Joint Conferences on Computer, Information, and Systems Sciences, and Engineering | Online |
| December 7 December 12 |
Computer Measurement Group Conference 2008 | Las Vegas, NV, USA |
| December 8 December 12 |
Ubuntu Developer Summit | Mountain View, CA, USA |
| December 8 | Forum PHP Paris 2008 | Paris, France |
| December 10 December 11 |
First Workshop on I/O Virtualization | San Diego, CA, USA |
| December 13 | NLLGG meeting/BSD Community Day | Utrecht, The Netherlands |
| December 27 December 30 |
Chaos Communication Congress | Berlin, Germany |
| January 8 January 11 |
Consumer Electronics Show | Las Vegas, NV, USA |
| January 9 January 11 |
Fedora User and Developer Conference | Boston, USA |
| January 15 January 16 |
Foundations of Open Media Software 2009 | Hobart, Tasmania, Australia |
| January 17 January 23 |
Camp KDE 2009 | Negril, Jamaica |
| January 19 January 24 |
linux.conf.au - penguins march south | Hobart, Australia |
| January 25 January 29 |
Ruby on Rails Bootcamp with Charles B. Quinn | Atlanta, GA, USA |
| January 25 January 28 |
GCC Research Opportunities | Paphos, Cyprus |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Web sites
openDesktop.org Launches Job Board (KDE.News)
KDE.News reports on the launch of a new openDesktop.org Job Board. "Last week we launched a free job board on KDE-Look.org, KDE-Apps.org and the other websites of the openDesktop.org network. I know quite a few people who found a nice full time or freelance job by showing their work on our websites. I also know a few free software projects and companies who are looking for new projects, members or employees. So I had the idea to build a job board where companies, projects, developers and artist can get in contact. Specialised for open source and IT jobs."
Page editor: Forrest Cook