Announcements

Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has resigned its seat on the Java Community Process (JCP) executive committee (EC) as reported on the ASF blog. This comes after the EC voted to approve Java SE 7 (on a vote of 12-3). The ASF had threatened resignation over the issue back in November. "The Apache Software Foundation concludes that that JCP is not an open specification process - that Java specifications are proprietary technology that must be licensed directly from the spec lead under whatever terms the spec lead chooses; that the commercial concerns of a single entity, Oracle, will continue to seriously interfere with and bias the transparent governance of the ecosystem; that it is impossible to distribute independent implementations of JSRs [Java Specification Requests] under open source licenses such that users are protected from IP litigation by expert group members or the spec lead; and finally, the EC is unwilling or unable to assert the basic power of their role in the JCP governance process."

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Richard Purdie appointed as a new Linux Foundation fellow

Richard Purdie, founder of the Poky build system, has been appointed as a fellow of the Linux Foundation, where he will work full time on the Yocto project, OpenEmbedded, and Poky. "Purdie was most recently a Core Developer at OpenEmbedded, where he was also lead maintainer of bitbake. He has also been an embedded Linux architect in Intel’s Open Source Technology Center. From 2005 to 2008, he was a Software Engineer at OpenedHand, where he worked with a variety of other open source projects such as Clutter, X server, Zaurus and Oprofile. He has also made numerous contributions to the Linux kernel, including as maintainer of the backlight and LED subsystems. Purdie received his MSci in Physics from University of Durham in 2003. [...] Current Linux Foundation Fellows include John Hawley, Till Kamppeter, Janina Sajka and Linus Torvalds. Previous Fellows include Steve Hemminger, Andrew Morton, Andrew Tridgell and Ted Ts'o."

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CELF seeking embedded project proposals for 2011

The CE Linux Forum is looking to fund proposals for embedded Linux projects. "Each year, CELF spends money on contract work to improve Linux for use in embedded systems. Some of the projects we have sponsored in the past include Linux-tiny, DirectFB enhancements, smem, U-boot and kexecboot improvements, and Squashfs and YAFFS mainlining." If you have an idea, now is the time to submit it and, with luck, be paid to implement it.

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Corporate change: Contributing to open source (opensource.com)

Over at opensource.com, Daniel Doubrovkine recounts his experiences in trying to open source some of his company's code. "Armed with a healthy dose of idealism, I went to executive management and proposed we open source the tool. I was hoping for a no-brainer and a quick decision at the division level. To my surprise, it took two years, a vast amount of bureaucracy, and far more effort than I ever anticipated. In this process I learned many valuable lessons that I wanted to share with engineers attempting to open source their first projects."

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Self-Assessment Checklist: First Impressions After Release (Linux.com)

At Linux.com, Philip Koltun reports on the feedback to the release of the Linux Foundation's license compliance self-assessment checklist. "Other downloaders lamented the fact that following the checklist doesn't guarantee freedom from compliance issues. True enough. There are limits to the utility of any checklist. But following a solid compliance process improves your chances of recognizing the FOSS that's present, determining its provenance, and complying with license obligations. Others noted that the checklist doesn't help directly with a key compliance question some companies face: whether a particular software architecture can incorporate GPL'ed software without exposing company-proprietary software to copyleft effect. True again. No community authority exists that can render such decisions; there are just a lot of educated opinions."

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Google's ChromeOS means losing control of data, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman (Guardian)

The Guardian reports on Richard Stallman's warning about cloud computing and ChromeOS in particular. "I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute. The US government may try to encourage people to place their data where the US government can seize it without showing them a search warrant, rather than in their own property. However, as long as enough of us continue keeping our data under our own control, we can still do so. And we had better do so, or the option may disappear."

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Linux Embeds Itself Yet Further (ComputerWorld)

Glyn Moody muses on the importance of Linaro. "This lends Linaro's focus a particular value: it is about spreading open source in one of the fast-growing sectors. Moreover, it's one where free software's low/zero cost, robustness, small size and customisability are crucial advantages over traditional proprietary solutions. Indeed, I think it's pretty clear that the embedded world will be one that Linux is likely to dominate, at least in the medium term, until something completely new and better comes along (assuming that ever happens)."

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Humble Bundle 2 is live: 5 great games, no DRM, pay what you want (ars technica)

Ars technica reports that Wolfire Games has released the second Humble Bundle of DRM-free games. "The first Humble Bundle was a monster success, with over 100,000 people donating over $1 million in total to support the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Child's Play, and of course the developers behind the games themselves. The second bundle is now live, containing five great games: Braid, Cortex Command, Machinarium, Osmos, and Revenge of the Titans. You pay what you want, decide where your money goes, each game is DRM-free, and the games work on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux."

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Canvas Pocket Reference--New from O'Reilly

O'Reilly Media has released "Canvas Pocket Reference - Scripted Graphics for HTML5", by David Flanagan.

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The RSpec Book--New from Pragmatic Bookshelf

Pragmatic Bookshelf has released "The RSpec Book: Behaviour-Driven Development with RSpec, Cucumber, and Friends", by David Chelimsky.

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apache-extras.org launches

There are announcements from both the Apache Software Foundation and Google on the launch of apache-extras.org, which appears to be a hosting site for Apache-related projects with (possibly) proprietary a wider range of licenses. "Among the ASF's strengths are its well-established requirements relating to intellectual property management, license use, and community management. Apache-extras.org provides a home for projects that are unable to, or do not wish to, conform to those rules yet still want to signal their relationship to official Apache projects. As projects on the new Google-hosted service will not be managed by The Apache Software Foundation, participants are allowed to use whatever license and project management process they desire."

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2009 GNOME foundation annual report

Seemingly a bit tardy, the 2009 GNOME foundation annual report [PDF] has been released. The 50+ page report contains articles about various conferences, hackfests, and other GNOME activities in 2009, along with a look at the finances of the foundation. Future foundation reports will be aligned with the foundation's fiscal year (October to September).

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Linux Foundation Monthly Newsletter: December 2010

The Linux Foundation newsletter for December covers the annual 'Who Writes Linux' study, individual membership drive, Linux distributions certified with LSB 4.0, LSB 4.1 beta available, and several other topics.

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LPI Expands Training Partner Program

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) has reports that their training partner program has grown nearly 10% over the past year, with 303 participating organizations currently. "In addition, LPI added partners in 11 additional countries in 2010: LPI now has training partners in 55 countries around the world."

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PyCon 2011 Registration and Financial aid open and available

The PyCon 2011 is open for registration. The conference takes place March 11-13, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia. The deadline for financial aid applications is January 2, 2011.

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PyPy winter sprint in Leysin, Switzerland

There will be a PyPy sprint in Leysin, Switzerland, January 16-22, 2011. "This is a fully public sprint: newcomers and topics other than those proposed below are welcome."

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Events: December 23, 2010 to February 21, 2011

The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.

Date(s)	Event	Location
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
February 7 February 11	Global Ignite Week 2011	several, worldwide
February 11 February 12	Red Hat Developer Conference 2011	Brno, Czech Republic
February 15	2012 Embedded Linux Conference	Redwood Shores, CA, USA

If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.