Linux in the news

Ctrl-Z: a return to the Supreme Court's software patent ban? (ars technica)

Ars technica has published a lengthy history of U.S. case law around software patents which reaches the conclusion that the Supreme Court would be likely to be hostile to the concept. "The majority may not have intended to authorize patents on software. But Justice Stevens, the only Diehr justice still sitting on the Supreme Court today, wrote a lengthy dissent warning that the decision would have that effect. Stevens's prophecy was fulfilled by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which Congress created in 1983 and gave jurisdiction over patent appeals. Although the Supreme Court was still the ultimate authority on patent appeals, it rarely reviewed the Federal Circuit's decisions during its first two decades. As a consequence, the Federal Circuit became the de facto 'Supreme Court of patents.'"

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Location-aware software comes to the Linux platform (ars technica)

Here's a brief survey of location-oriented tools for Linux. "The GTK+ widgets provided by libchamplain have already been adopted by several GNOME applications. A new plugin for the GNOME image viewer, for example, will display a map with markers to show the location of images with geolocation metadata. The library is also going to be used in Empathy, the GNOME instant messaging client. Empathy's new location-aware functionality uses an XMPP extension that describes a wide range of location metadata. It is built on top of GeoClue and uses libchamplain to display a graphical user interface."

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Sun Begins Carrying Out Planned Layoffs (eWeek)

eWeek reports on the layoffs at Sun Microsystems. "Sun Microsystems, which revealed on Nov. 14, 2008, that it planned to reduce its global work force by 5,000 to 6,000 employees—15 to 18 percent—began carrying out that dreadful duty Jan. 22. Sun confirmed that layoff notifications were sent to about 1,300 employees as part of that action. Reductions were made across all levels, including vice presidents and directors, the company said."

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Sun to be eclipsed by Red Hat? (Channel Register)

Chris Mellor compares Red Hat and Sun in market capitalization terms. "In revenue terms the two companies are markedly different. Sun revenues were $13.8bn in 2008 while Red Hat's were less than four per cent of this at $0.52bn. The stock market seems to be thinking that Red Hat's shares will be more valuable than Sun's, that Sun's earnings per share will trend down and that Red Hat's will increase." (Thanks to Rahul Sundaram)

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Open source question for schools (BBC)

The BBC takes a look at open source software in education, specifically as a cost-saving measure. "Steve Beswick, director of education for Microsoft UK, told the BBC that while open source software may, on face value, offer savings, there could be hidden costs, both financial and otherwise. [...] 'A lot of people are trained in Microsoft-based technologies, so there may be increased costs in re-training to learn how to use open source solutions,' he said."

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Cloning Linux Systems With CloneZilla Server Edition (HowtoForge)

HowtoForge presents a tutorial on CloneZilla SE. "This tutorial shows how you can clone Linux systems with CloneZilla SE. This is useful for copying one Linux installation to multiple computers without losing much time, e.g. in a classroom, or also for creating an image-based backup of a system. I will install CloneZilla SE on a Debian Etch server in this tutorial. The systems that you want to clone can use whatever Linux distribution you prefer."

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Essential Java resources (developerWorks)

IBM developerWorks presents a list of Java resources. "Since its introduction to the programming community as a whole in 1995, the Java platform has evolved far beyond the "applets everywhere" vision that early Java pundits and evangelists imagined a Java world to be like. Instead, the Java world rose up to Swing, coalesced around servlets, rode that into J2EE, stumbled on EJB, sidestepped over to Spring and Hibernate, added generics and became more dynamic, then functionalized, and continues to grow in all sorts of interesting directions even as I write this."

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Mozilla Looking to Tag Along (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal takes a look at Mozilla Test Pilot. "The plan, which is entirely opt-in and requires installing a plugin to participate, has been dubbed Test Pilot by Mozilla Labs, and hopes to provide volumes of useful information for Mozilla developers and outside researchers. Volunteers will initially be asked provide a limited amount of information for demographic purposes, then will install Test Pilot and browse as usual. Additional "experiments and tests" will follow, and the participants will have the opportunity to choose whether or not to take part in a given exercise."

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Suse Studio: Linux customization for the masses (CNET)

Matt Asay takes a look at SUSE Studio. "Nat Friedman, Novell's chief technology and strategy officer for open source, has been working on Suse Studio for some time, but it was at VMworld in September that Novell first publicly demonstrated the product. Since then, Novell has not said much publicly about the alpha-stage product. That's too bad, as this may well be one of the industry's most exciting and transformational software releases in years."

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An odd choice to help government with open source strategy (ars technica)

ars technica looks into the Obama administration's choice of former Sun CEO Scott McNealy as an advisor for its government open-source strategy. "Although Obama's interest in open source looks like a promising sign that the incoming government is serious about reforming federal IT procurement policies, the decision to call on Sun's eccentric cofounder is an incomprehensible twist. McNealy's long history of bizarre and contradictory positions on open source software make him a less than ideal candidate for helping to shape national policy on the subject. Asking Scott McNealy to write a paper about open source software is a bit like asking Dick Cheney to write a paper about government transparency."

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