Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
Symbian Foundation web sites shutting down
The short-lived Symbian open-source project is truly at an end, and its web sites will be shutting down soon. "As a result, we expect our websites will be shutting down on 17th December. We are working hard to make sure that most of the content accessible through web services (such as the source code, kits, wiki, bug database, reference documentation & Symbian Ideas) is available in some form, most likely on a DVD or USB hard drive upon request to the Symbian Foundation."
Commercial announcements
A brief message from Novell
Novell has put out a brief message for those worried about its copyrights: "Novell will continue to own Novells UNIX copyrights following completion of the merger as a subsidiary of Attachmate."
Articles of interest
Garrett-Glaser: Patent skullduggery: Tandberg rips off x264 algorithm
Jason Garrett-Glaser (aka Dark Shikari) writes about yet another misuse of the patent system on his blog. "There's been a lot of very obnoxious misuse of software patents in recent years. This ranges from patent trolls wielding submarine patents to overly-generic patents being used to scare everyone else out of a business. But at least in most of the cases, the patents were an original idea of some sort, even if that idea was far too general to be patented. [...] The situation just got worse. We now have a company scraping open source commit logs and patenting them." (Thanks to Martin [Jeppesen?])
It's Not Easy Being Green: Life for SUSE with Attachmate (Linux Magazine)
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier speculates on Attachmate's plans for Novell. "Now we know. But does Attachmate plan to hold on to SUSE very long? Magic 8-ball says no. Here's why: Attachmate isn't a company sitting around with $2.2 billion in cash. It's a private company with a lot of legacy tech. The Novell sale was, remember, triggered by an offer from Elliott Management Corporation (itself a big Novell shareholder). Guess where Attachmate is getting the money to buy Novell? Elliott Management Corporation, which will become an equity shareholder in Attachmate."
Google search goes under EU antitrust microscope (ars technica)
Ars technica reports that the European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation on Google search results. "The investigation was sparked by complaints from other search service providers that Google ranks their results much lower in both unpaid and paid results rankings, and uses its overarching dominance in online search to plug its own services instead."
Legal Announcements
EFF: Supreme Court to decide standard for proving invalidity of a patent
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent out a release celebrating the US Supreme Court's decision to take up a case - on request from Microsoft - which may make it easier to invalidate patents. "EFF argued in its brief that the Federal Circuit's requirement that an accused infringer prove patent invalidity by 'clear and convincing' evidence unfairly burdens patent defendants, especially in the free and open source software context. The standard undermines the traditional patent bargain between private patent owners and the public and threatens to impede innovation and the dissemination of knowledge."
New Books
Cassandra: The Definitive Guide--New from O'Reilly
O'Reilly Media has released "Cassandra: The Definitive Guide", by Eben Hewitt.The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 Inventor's Guide--New from No Starch Press
No Starch Press has released "The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 Inventor's Guide", by David J. Perdue.
Calls for Presentations
RailsConf Asks Ruby on Rails Community for Proposals
The call for proposals has opened for RailsConf 2011 which will be held in Baltimore, MD, May 16-19, 2011. Proposals are due by February 17, 2011
Upcoming Events
DebConf11 in July 2011
The annual Debian Conference, DebConf11, will take place in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, July 24-30, 2011. DebCamp will be held July 17-23, 2011. The call for papers and registration will open in early 2011.Events: December 9, 2010 to February 7, 2011
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| December 11 | Open Source Conference Fukuoka 2010 | Fukuoka, Japan |
| December 13 December 18 |
SciPy.in 2010 | Hyderabad, India |
| December 15 December 17 |
FOSS.IN/2010 | Bangalore, India |
| January 16 January 22 |
PyPy Leysin Winter Sprint | Leysin, Switzerland |
| January 22 | OrgCamp 2011 | Paris, France |
| January 24 January 29 |
linux.conf.au 2011 | Brisbane, Australia |
| January 27 January 28 |
Southwest Drupal Summit 2011 | Houston, Texas, USA |
| January 27 | Ubuntu Developer Day | Bangalore, India |
| January 29 January 31 |
FUDCon Tempe 2011 | Tempe, Arizona, USA |
| February 2 February 3 |
Cloud Expo Europe | London, UK |
| February 5 February 6 |
FOSDEM 2011 | Brussels, Belgium |
| February 5 | Open Source Conference Kagawa 2011 | Takamatsu, Japan |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol