Linux in the news

OLPC 2.0: After Layoffs, One Laptop Foundation Reboots With New Focus and Big Plans (Xconomy)

Xconomy examines OLPC's plans post layoff. Based on an interview with Nicholas Negroponte and OLPC President Chuck Kane, the article looks at the netbook market in comparison to OLPC, how and why the layoffs occurred, along with plans for the future. "Kane and Negroponte stressed, though, that Sugar might be able to work in conjunction with Windows, just as it does with Linux. 'Sugar is terrific software for early childhood learning,' says Kane. 'There's a lot of elements that make it very unique and very powerful.' He says OLPC hopes to keep working closely with Bender and Sugar Labs in the future. 'We believe that the future product that's produced out of there will be very instrumental in what we have to offer.'"

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Linux Defenders organize to fight patent trolls (NetworkWorld)

NetworkWorld takes a look at Linux Defenders and their fight against patent trolls. "If you think that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) desperately needs help to clean the earwax out of its cerebral sulci, there's an excellent example from the world of Linux that would bear watching and emulating in other fields. The Open Invention Network, the Software Freedom Law Center and The Linux Foundation are sponsoring an organization called the Linux Defenders, which has three key projects..."

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OpenChange, KDE bring Exchange compatibility to Linux (Computerworld)

Computerworld reports on a speech by KDE and OpenChange developer Brad Hards at linux.conf.au. "'In my workplace -- a major government department that shall remain nameless -- the main dependency on Outlook and Exchange is not mail, but seeing other people's calendars and making shared appointments. You can't get appointments with some people unless you send them invitations.' [...] OpenChange has client and server-side libraries for Exchange integration and relies heavily on code developed for Samba 4. It is open source software licenced under the GPL version 3. "

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Active Directory for Linux draws closer (iTWire)

iTWire discusses upcoming Active Directory support in Samba. "You may not consider it a "killer app" but one thing restricting Linux deployment in enterprises is an implementation of Microsoft's Active Directory (AD.) However, AD for Linux is on its way in Samba version 4 and is sure to annhilate a barrier to Linux adoption in business. Active Directory is a Microsoft technology that provides a raft of network services. This includes LDAP-like directory services, Kerberos-based authentication and DNS-based machine naming."

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Judge's ruling that WoW bot violates DMCA is troubling (ars technica)

According to this ars technica article, Blizzard has won a court ruling that evading its "warden" software (which digs through users' computers in search of game-playing bots) constitutes a violation of the DMCA. "Blizzard argued, and Judge Campbell agreed, that when users violated the World of Warcraft EULA, they no longer had a license to play the game and were therefore guilty of copyright infringement. As Siy noted in a blog post last year, Blizzard's theory, if taken literally, would mean that violating any of the rules in the EULA and Terms of Service, such as choosing a screen name that didn't meet Blizzard's guidelines, would be an act of copyright infringement." Discouraging, perhaps, but it's worth thinking about how (whether) this differs from the enforcement of the conditions in free software licenses.

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Interview with Developer Dario Freddi (KDEDot)

KDEDot has an interview with Dario Freddi. "So I should ask what brought you to choose Arch and KDE? Dario: Let's start with the simpler answer: the one for Arch. In my opinion Arch is a distribution you can only love or hate: in my case it has been love at first sight! Arch, if used the right way, is the distro that needs the less maintenance; thanks to its simplicity it is extremely performing and fast; and it is a rolling release. That's all I need from a distro. It's a pain that some developers doesn't behave and that I had some discussions with them."

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Recovering from a Hard Drive Failure (Linux Journal)

This Linux Journal article covers some procedures for dealing with a bad hard drive. "So there you have it. When I started, I had a dead machine, a failing hard drive, a corrupt partition table, and a corrupt filesystem. When I had finished, I had at least recovered the important files from the system and had been able to carry on my day-to-day work without too much interruption, thanks to the Live CD. But there are some lessons to be learned here, which is why I chose to write about my experience."

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How To: Build A Read-Only Linux System (Logic Supply)

Logic Supply presents a tutorial on setting up a read-only Linux machine. "There seem to be a lot of people out there looking to run a custom application on a Linux-based platform running on a solid-state storage device. From time to time, we receive questions from customers looking to make their Linux platforms read-only in order to maximize the longevity of their flash devices. I thought I’d take the opportunity to create a blog post describing one way to do this. There are a couple of different approaches to making a Linux system read-only. Unfortunately, it is usually not as simple as using a conventional filesystem mounted with the read-only option. Many programs assume that at least some parts of the system are writable. In some cases, these programs will fail to run correctly if this turns out not to be the case."

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Defense Department sets up its own SourceForge (cnet)

Over at cnet, Matt Asay takes a look at Forge.mil, the new US Defense Department open source project repository. "Despite being based on SourceForge's technology, Forge.mil has one significant difference: security. As David Mihelcic, chief technology officer for the Defense Information Systems Agency, told Federal Computer Week, the Department of Defense's code repository has been 'upgraded to meet DOD security requirements,' with smart cards used to provide log-in credentials." (Thanks to Kanchana Wickremasinghe)

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Healthcheck: OpenOffice (heise online)

Heise online takes a look at the state of the OpenOffice project. The article covers the history of the project as well as the current controversies and criticisms surrounding it. "The greatest obstacle to the uptake of OpenOffice is probably inertia. Nonetheless, OO.o and its derivatives, which include StarOffice, NeoOffice, Lotus Symphony and Red Flag's RedOffice, have made significant inroads into Microsoft's market share, especially in the emergent markets of the Far East, aided and abetted by localisation features and support for a wider range of Microsoft legacy data formats than any of its rivals, including Microsoft Office. Clearly, OO.o is competitive and sufficient to the requirements of most users, and its impact is likely to increase as downturns affect the global economy."

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Did Linus Jump Too Soon? (Linux Journal)

Glyn Moody questions the timing of Linux Torvalds' recent desktop environment switch. "One of the many great things about Linus is that he doesn't bottle it up: he speaks his mind on things that matter to him, without worrying overly about what others might say as a result. And when he mentioned in the course of an interview that he had switched from KDE to GNOME, others soon had plenty to say on the subject. But I don't want to revisit those arguments about which is better today: instead, I want to explore the possibility that Linus decided to jump to GNOME at precisely the time when KDE could soon leapfrog it in important ways."

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NLnet Foundation sponsors Lokalize (KDEDot)

KDE.News reports on the funding of the KDE Lokalize project by the NLnet Foundation. "The Dutch NLnet Foundation, aiming to stimulate open network research and development and more general to promote the exchange of electronic information, has decided to financially support the Lokalize project of KDE. Previously NLnet, alongside sponsoring of a number KDE projects and activities, helped to develop ODF support in KOffice. This sponsorship is to support another open standard, XLIFF, in Lokalize."

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