Linux in the news

Reflections on the hardware industry

Harald Welte reflects on the issue of insufficient FOSS support from the hardware industry. "They all have some people inside their own organization, most often actual engineers or even engineering managers up to the very senior R&D managers who understand the FOSS model and the benefits that this would or at least could bring to their products and their organizations. They want to release the source, they want to push mainline, and they might even want to release the user manuals. But inside the industry, nobody listens to what their own R&D department or event some external entity - even the very representatives of the operating system they use (Linux). The chip makers will only listen to one thing: Demand from their tier-1 customers. Whatever is in the spec of those who buy their components in millions of units will get implemented. Only those maybe biggest five board-makers are considered 'customer'. Everybody else is not." (Thanks to Paul Wise).

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Camp KDE Talks part two (KDEDot)

KDE.News presents part two of its coverage of the Camp KDE Talks "Sunday again had talks about a large range of topics. The day started a bit late, but Guillermo Amaral really made up for it by providing us with a funny and interesting talk about the opportunities for the Business use of KDE in Mexico. He pointed out how important it is to handle cultural differences well, continuing the theme set by Pradeepto Adriaan and Till."

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Camp KDE Continues And Finishes (KDEDot)

KDEDot covers Camp KDE. "Camp KDE, the KDE community event of North and South America, has finished. Similar to the European KDE meeting, Akademy, the first two days were based around a series of talks on various topics. After that we moved towards BOF sessions, local discussions and programming. We had a trip to the Appleton Estate, visited Rick's café and had a lot of fun. The following article details some of the things that kept us busy."

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Behind the scenes in Microsoft's war against Linux (cnet)

Over at cnet, Matt Asay examines the patent deal between Brother and Microsoft. Given that Microsoft doesn't make printers or even printer drivers, the Brother deal is puzzling. "Slowly, behind the scenes, Microsoft continues to try to portray Linux as risky and Microsoft's patent coverage as insurance. Given that the company selling the insurance is also the one threatening a lawsuit, however, Microsoft needs to step very carefully to avoid the 'extortionist' label. I personally believe that it has already crossed the line and needs to get back to competition between products, not lawyers."

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MySQL founder leaves Sun (heise online)

Heise online is reporting that MySQL founder Michael "Monty" Widenius is leaving Sun. It was rumored to be happening last September, but Widenius and Sun worked out an agreement for him to stay for three months at that time—which stretched to a few extra months. "Now, by agreement, and apparently on good terms, Sun and Widenius have parted. 'I still think that Sun was the best possible buyer for MySQL and I feel sad that things didn't work out together', he said, 'I will be available for Sun in helping them with their goals in the open source space'."

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State of the Union at Red Hat (Red Hat Magazine)

Jim Whitehurst, President and CEO of Red Hat, provides a brief "State of the Union" for Red Hat. "I've been on the job at Red Hat since December 2007, and have had the opportunity to meet hundreds of Red Hat customers, partners, associates and industry leaders. In keeping with the U.S. presidential State of the Union address, I'd like to touch on plans for the upcoming year while also reflecting back to share a few observations from the past 13+ months." (Thanks to Rahul Sundaram)

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Red Hat Expands Real Time Linux Cloud (internetnews.com)

internetnews.com reports on Red Hat's new MRG 1.1 platform. "Linux vendor Red Hat is out today with its newest Real Time Linux platform, MRG 1.1 boasting new performance, messaging and grid computing (cloud) capabilities. The new MRG 1.1 platform marks the debut of Red Hat's commercially-supported grid technology, which helps users create their own enterprise clouds as well as leverage the power of Amazon's EC2 service. Red Hat is also claiming significant performance gains with a new Real Time Linux kernel and improved messaging speeds in a bid to appeal to unique sectors such as government, military and financial services."

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Vodafone signs Linux deal with U.S. firm Azingo (Reuters)

Reuters covers a partnership between Vodaphone and Azingo. "Vodafone has picked U.S. software firm Azingo to develop Linux-based applications, the latest sign the world's largest wireless operator by sales is keeping Linux operating system LiMo as one of its key choices. Privately held Azingo unveiled the deal on Thursday. Vodafone, one of the founding members of mobile Linux foundation LiMo, has stressed the importance of cutting the number of different operating systems, raising some media speculation it could dump LiMo support."

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Xfce creator talks Linux, Moblin, netbooks and open-source (SlashGear)

SlashGear has an interview with Olivier Fourdan, creator of Xfce. "As Intel's investment into the Moblin OS gets increasing attention, and more non-technical users are introduced to Linux-based platforms in the shape of low-cost netbooks, 2009 will see open-source become more mainstream than ever before. Under the hood there's much that makes Linux safer, more efficient and secure than rival systems, but for most new users it's what they can see on-screen that counts. SlashGear caught up with Xfce creator Olivier Fourdan, whose desktop environment has not only been selected by Intel for Moblin but can be found on many existing Linux netbooks, and talked Intel, Moblin, the future for netbooks and what challenges he sees for open-source newcomer Android."

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Fellowship interview with Colin Turner (FSFE)

The Free Software Foundation Europe has an interview with Colin Turner. "Colin Turner is a dedicated Free Software activist and Fellowship member, working as a scientist and teacher at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. He has been advocating Free Software in schools and universities for many years and generously shared some of his experiences with us in this fourth instal[l]ment of our Fellowship interview series."

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Two articles on containers

The developerWorks site has posted two detailed articles on Linux container technology. this overview by Matt Helsey looks at the LXC toolkit, while this article by Serge Hallyn focuses on security issues. "A common response when someone first hears about containers is 'How do I create a secure container?' This article answers that question by showing you how to use Linux Security Modules (LSM) to improve the security of containers. In particular, it shows you how to specify a security goal and meet it with both the Smack and SELinux security modules."

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FOSS Linux CRM Roundup (Linux Journal)

Doc Searls presents an updated list of Linux-compatible CRM systems on Linux Journal. "Back at the 2003 OSCON, r0ml Lefkowitz gave a talk called "Six Missing Open Source Projects".The next year he gave a talk titled "More Missing Open Source Projects". At the top of his first list was CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, systems."

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Bruce Perens: Combining GPL and Proprietary Software (Datamation)

In an article at Datamation, Bruce Perens gives some advice on using both GPL and proprietary software, particularly in mobile phones. He looks at the reasons for keeping some parts closed (DRM or regulatory compliance for example), then offers suggestions on how to handle that safely. "Also, don't look for, and use loopholes in the Open Source licenses. Nothing makes your company look worse than taking unfair advantage of people who provided their work to you without charge, expecting in good faith that you'd honor their license. It also tends to make Open Source folks reluctant to cooperate with your company, the next time you need help with their software."

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HP releases custom Netbook version of Ubuntu Linux (ZDNet)

ZDNet covers HP's release of the Mini 1000 Mi netbook, which features a customized version of Ubuntu. "The operating system is based on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, and can run pretty much any application that normally runs on Ubuntu, including OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin and so forth — with which the OS conveniently comes preloaded. (You’ll have to install GIMP, though.) On the other hand, the GUI hardly resembles Ubuntu, according to DownloadSquad’s Brad Linder."

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Krita 2.0: a Host of New Features (KDE.News)

KDE.News takes a look at new features in Krita 2.0, the KDE painting and image editing application. "In KOffice 2.0, KParts have been replaced by Flake Shapes, as an end result Krita 2.0 has vector layers where you can add any combination of KOffice shapes. Examples of KOffice shapes are vector drawings, text objects or even musical notation objects. These shapes are then rendered at the image resolution and blended with your pixel layers. The same technique is used for vector selections."

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Miro 2.0 gets serious about Web video, leaves us wanting (ars technica)

Ars technica reviews the Miro 2.0 release. "A major new version of the open source Internet TV and video podcast player brings support for a variety of Web services like Hulu, YouTube, and Legaltorrents.com, a separate video playing window, and a more polished UI. Most of Miro's key drawbacks, however, still remain."

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Compiz Comes Together (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal takes a look at the new Compiz Council. "Compiz — the compositing window manager responsible for more than a few dropped-jaws — has a long history of ins and outs, not the least of which includes more forks than at a garden club lunch. It seems, however, that things always come back together, and such was the case on Tuesday, as the Compiz community announced the imminent re-merger of several well known forks."

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If You Want to Change the World, You've Got to Buy Big (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal covers the demise of the One Laptop Per Child "Change the World" program. "The "Change the World" program, variously known as "Give a School" and "Give 100, Give 1000," offered individuals and groups the opportunity to donate one hundred or more laptops to children in the developing world, and designate where they should be deployed. Through the program, those with ties to particular areas — a sister organization in a developing nation, for example — were given the opportunity to have their donation directly affect children in that area. Morgan Collett, a developer at OLPC, was among the first to report the news, and wrote that several hundred XOs have already been deployed in South Africa through the program, with more in the works."

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