Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
FSF launches free software extension listing for OpenOffice.org
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has announced a project to assemble a replacement extension library for OpenOffice.org, which will list only those extensions which are free software. ""OpenOffice.org is free software, and an important contribution to the free software community. However, the program offers the user a library of extensions, and some of them are proprietary. Distributing OpenOffice.org in the usual way has the effect of offering users the nonfree extensions too," said FSF executive director Peter Brown."
OpenOffice.org's Community Council responds to the FSF
The OpenOffice.org community council has posted a response to the Free Software Foundation's alternative extension listing. "The OpenOffice.org Community Council has been asked by the FSF to give the FSF an effective veto over which extensions should be permitted to appear in this repository. The Community Council has felt unable to do this. We believe passionately that FOSS delivers better software - including extensions, but that users must be free to make the comparison and reach their own conclusion."
GNU Project launches accessibility initiative
The GNU project has announced the launch of a new initiative aimed at improving accessibility in free software; it will be headed up by Chris Hofstader, a co-founder of the League for Programming Freedom. "GNU Accessibility is a free software pan-disability initiative to create features that can be used by people with low vision, deafness, learning and reading disabilities, and for people with mobility and other physical issues who can use an on-screen keyboard. According to the United Nations in 2005, there were 600 million people with disabilities in the world -- an exceptionally large and disenfranchised group."
Commercial announcements
Mandriva looking for a buyer
Here's an article (in French) on the mandrivalinux-online news site stating that the company is having cash-flow problems and is looking for a buyer. Possibly interested companies are said to include LightApp and Linagora. A translation of sorts is available via Google.
Articles of interest
CodePlex Users get Application Analytics Data (Port 25)
Microsoft's Port 25 blog ("Communication from the Open Source Community at Microsoft") reports on an upgrade to the CodePlex open source project hosting site that allows projects to instrument their code to get runtime analytics. For those open source projects that aren't using Visual Studio 2010, it recommends something called "Dotfuscator", which is a proprietary .NET binary obfuscator, to inject the intstrumentation. (VS2010 evidently already includes it). This is a rather different view of open source than we are used to. "The Runtime Intelligence Service lets developers inject usage instrumentation directly into application binaries. When the application is run by an end-user, the instrumentation will collect analytics data from the application, but no personally identifiable information is ever collected, and applications can include opt-out dialogues."
Legal Announcements
U.S. Lets Hollywood Disable Home TV Outputs to Prevent Piracy (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg reports on a recent decision [PDF] by the US Federal Communications Commission allowing broadcasters to disable "unprotected" output on set-top boxes for early-run movies. "The FCC order 'will allow the big firms for the first time to take control of a consumer's TV set or set-top box, blocking viewing of a TV program or motion picture,' Gigi Sohn, president of Washington-based Public Knowledge, said in a statement." Naturally, requirements for this type of antifeature also make it impossible to have truly free set-top boxes.
Contests and Awards
Android application contest for PostgreSQL
There is a contest going on now, to create open source PostgreSQL applications for the Android OS. The winner will get a brand-new developer version (unlocked) Nexus One phone from Google. Entries are due by July 6, 2010.
Education and Certification
Workshop on Essential Abstractions in GCC, 2010.
There will be a 4-day instructional workshop aimed at providing details of the internals of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection), July 5-8, 2010, in Bombay, India. "Who should attend this workshop? Anybody who has done at least a first level undergraduate course in compiler construction and has some experience of either working in compilers or teaching compilers. A sound understanding of the process of compilation is a must. Familiarity with Unix/Linux (particularly, the command line style of working) is absolutely necessary."
Education for an Open Web
The Mozilla Foundation and the Shuttleworth Foundation are jointly offering an Education for the Open Web Fellowship. The call for proposals is open until June 7, 2010. "We invite applications from individuals interested in developing innovative approaches that educate people how to promote the open web. The applicant should demonstrate practical ideas that will allow large numbers of people to learn about, improve and promote the open nature of the Internet. The fellowship should not be considered an academic fellowship aimed at research."
XtreemOS summer school
XtreemOS summer school will take place July 5-9, 2010 in Günzburg, Germany. "The XtreemOS Summer School will include lectures on modern distributed paradigms such as /*Grid computing, Cloud computing, and network-centric operating systems*/. The Summer School will combine lectures from research leaders shaping the future of distributed systems and world leaders in deploying and exploiting distributed infrastructures. Hands-on laboratory exercises and practical sessions using XtreemOS will give participants experience on using modern distributed systems."
Meeting Minutes
GNOME Foundation Meeting Minutes Published - April 29, 2010
Click below for the minutes of the April 29, 2010 meeting of the GNOME Foundation.
Calls for Presentations
Announcing the 3rd Free Culture Research Conference
The 3rd Free Culture Research Conference takes place October 8-9, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. "The Free Culture Research Conference presents a unique opportunity for scholars whose work contributes to the promotion, study or criticism of a Free Culture, to engage with a multidisciplinary group of academic peers and practitioners, identify the most important research opportunities and challenges, and attempt to chart the future of Free Culture." The call for papers is open until June 7, 2010.
Upcoming Events
Akademy 2010 Conference Program Available (KDE.News)
KDE.News has announced the conference program for Akademy 2010 is available. Akademy 2010 takes place in Tampere, Finland, July 3-11, 2010. "Akademy is the annual conference of the KDE community and open to all who share an interest in what we do and have accomplished. This conference brings together artists, designers, programmers, translators, users, writers and other contributors to celebrate the achievements of the past year. Moreover, at Akademy visions for the next year are defined in mutual discussions between the participants. Of course we will also work on our technology, enjoy good company and entertainment and check out Tampere. The conference provides a great opportunity to meet likeminded people, to discuss and share ideas, learn about the latest desktop technology and be excited about what is coming."
Libre Graphics Meeting community fundraiser
The Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM), which will be held May 27-30 in Brussels, Belgium, is trying to raise $10,000 from the community to help defray the costs of the free conference as well as for travel assistance to attendees. Donations can be made here and so far LGM has gotten over $5,000 from the community. It is part of the "10by10by10" campaign to raise $10K each from grants, corporations, and the community. "Developers from GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, Krita, Scribus, Hugin, the Open Clipart Library, the Open Font Library, and other open source projects are scheduled to appear. Technical talks will showcase new work in digital asset management, natural-media simulation, and internationalized font design. The program will also emphasize real-world usage of open source graphics software in professional publishing houses, multimedia production, and both the secondary education and art school classroom." Click below for more information about LGM and the fundraising drive.
LinuxCon Keynotes Announced
The Linux Foundation has announced the keynotes for this year's LinuxCon, taking place in Boston, MA, August 10-12, 2010.Events: May 20, 2010 to July 19, 2010
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| May 17 May 21 |
Fourth African Conference on FOSS and the Digital Commons | Accra, Ghana |
| May 18 May 21 |
PostgreSQL Conference for Users and Developers | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
| May 24 May 25 |
Netbook Summit | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| May 24 May 30 |
Plone Symposium East 2010 | State College, PA, USA |
| May 24 May 26 |
DjangoCon Europe | Berlin, Germany |
| May 27 May 30 |
Libre Graphics Meeting | Brussels, Belgium |
| June 1 June 4 |
Open Source Bridge | Portland, Oregon, USA |
| June 3 June 4 |
Athens IT Security Conference | Athens, Greece |
| June 7 June 10 |
RailsConf 2010 | Baltimore, MD, USA |
| June 7 June 9 |
German Perl Workshop 2010 | Schorndorf, Germany |
| June 9 June 12 |
LinuxTag | Berlin, Germany |
| June 9 June 11 |
PyCon Asia Pacific 2010 | Singapore, Singapore |
| June 10 June 11 |
Mini-DebConf at LinuxTag 2010 | Berlin, Germany |
| June 12 June 13 |
SouthEast Linux Fest | Spartanburg, SC, USA |
| June 15 June 16 |
Middle East and Africa Open Source Software Technology Forum | Cairo, Egypt |
| June 19 | FOSSCon | Rochester, New York, USA |
| June 21 June 25 |
Semantic Technology Conference 2010 | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| June 22 June 25 |
Red Hat Summit | Boston, USA |
| June 23 June 24 |
Open Source Data Center Conference 2010 | Nuremberg, Germany |
| June 26 June 27 |
PyCon Australia | Sydney, Australia |
| June 28 July 3 |
SciPy 2010 | Austin, TX, USA |
| July 1 July 4 |
Linux Vacation / Eastern Europe | Grodno, Belarus |
| July 3 July 10 |
Akademy | Tampere, Finland |
| July 6 July 9 |
Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems | Brussels, Belgium |
| July 6 July 11 |
11th Libre Software Meeting / Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre | Bordeaux, France |
| July 9 July 11 |
State Of The Map 2010 | Girona, Spain |
| July 12 July 16 |
Ottawa Linux Symposium | Ottawa, Canada |
| July 15 July 17 |
FUDCon | Santiago, Chile |
| July 17 July 24 |
EuroPython 2010: The European Python Conference | Birmingham, United Kingdom |
| July 17 July 18 |
Community Leadership Summit 2010 | Portland, OR, USA |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Web sites
LinuxExchange.org
LinuxExchange.org is a new web forum for Linux and Open Source. It is built on the StackExchange platform, which allows for collaborative editing of questions and and answers.TodaysLinux launches
Rob Kennedy has returned to the Linux community with a new forum site called TodaysLinux. "Today's Linux is different than yesterday's.. the users span from those same power users to parents and kids. Most people could use Linux without any questions or issues. The auto dealership I work for has 6 Ubuntu desktop installations set up and there's all different types of people on them throughout the day not even aware that they're using Linux. That didn't happen though without people helping out - TodaysLinux.com is a place where you can help those that need it - and ask questions about things you don't know about yet."
Audio and Video programs
Video recordings from the 2010 Linux Audio Conference
One day after the completion of the 2010 Linux Audio Conference, a set of videos from the talks has been released. Included are talks from Fons Adriaensen, Lennart Poettering, John Kacur, and more - all in Theora format, naturally.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol