Announcements
Brief items
Apple not providing LGPL webkit source code
Harald Welte notes that Apple has not been releasing the source code for the company's latest releases of Webkit, which is LGPL licensed software. "I think it is time that Apple gets their act together and becomes more straight-forward with LGPL compliance. It is not acceptable to delay the source code release for 8 weeks after shipping a LGPL licensed software. Especially not, if you have already demonstrated in the past that you are well aware of the obligations and have a process and a website to release the corresponding source code under the license conditions." (Thanks to Paul Wise)
Update: this situation would appear to be resolved for now.
Matt Zimmerman leaving Canonical
Matt Zimmerman, CTO at Canonical, has announced that he will be leaving the company next month. "It has been my privilege to have played a part in creating Ubuntu and Canonical. It has been a pleasure to work with so many talented, dedicated and fun people over the years. I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished together: bringing free software to people, places and organizations which have derived so much benefit from it."
Ixonos Joins Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation has announced that Ixonos is its newest member. "Ixonos creates solutions for mobile devices and services for wireless technology suppliers and telecommunications companies, as well as mobile device and consumer electronics manufacturers. It has been actively involved in mobile Linux development efforts since 2006 and joins The Linux Foundation today to maximize its investment in the operating system. The company will collaborate with other leading vendors, users and developers to help advance Linux-based mobile platforms, including Android and MeeGo."
Articles of interest
Oracle ordered to reduce claims against Google from 132 to 3 (Groklaw)
Groklaw has an order from the court in Oracle v. Google requiring that most of the claims in the case be dropped forever. "Currently, there are 132 claims from seven patents asserted in this action, and there are hundreds of prior art references in play for invalidity defenses. This is too much. The following schedule will ensure that only a triable number of these items - three claims and eight prior art references - are placed before the jury in October, all others to be forsaken. Oracle will surrender all of its present infringement claims against Google based on the 129 asserted claims that will not be tried. Oracle may not renew those infringement claims in a subsequent action except as to new products."
Red Hat CEO hates patent trolls, but says sometimes you just have to pay up (Network World)
Network World interviewed Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst about patents, lawsuits, and settlements as well as Red Hat's corporate culture and future outlook. "Despite some victories -- including one against that same Acacia last year -- Red Hat has elected to settle with what it deems patent trolls in various cases which it cannot disclose, according to Whitehurst. [...] 'When it's so little money, at some point, bluntly, it's better to settle than fight these things out,' Whitehurst said. [...] Red Hat fights when it believes bigger principles are at stake. Red Hat and Novell jointly won a case against an Acacia subsidiary in East Texas last year when a jury ruled that the companies did not infringe on user interface patents. Red Hat also filed an amicus brief on behalf of rival Microsoft in a patent dispute pending before the Supreme Court."
GNU Mediagoblin Project launches (NetworkWorld)
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier covers the launch of GNU Mediagoblin. "So what's GNU Mediagoblin? The project is starting with the goal of creating a federated photo sharing site that could stand alongside popular services like Flickr, DeviantArt, Picasa, and Facebook. Eventually, the project hopes to tackle other types of media, but the first target is photo/artwork sharing. Right now? It's very much a work in progress."
Ubuntu cloud chief beats CTO to exit door (The Register)
The Register reports that Neil Levine has left Canonical. "Levine was with Canonical for just two years but he oversaw the push to turn Ubuntu into the kind of Linux server platform that's capable of letting you easily deploy apps to the cloud. His division handled cloud and server products. That meant he'd work on the integration of Eucalyptus into the Maverick Meerkat release of Ubuntu and was scheduled to worked on improving the ability for cloud frameworks such as Hadoop and Cassandra to interoperate in future versions of Ubuntu server."
New Books
FSF announces publication of two new books by Richard Stallman
The Free Software Foundation has released the second edition of Richard Stallman's selected essays, "Free Software, Free Society", and his semi-autobiography, "Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman and the Free Software Revolution".Printed Python 3.2 Tutorial and Language Reference Manual
New printed editions of "An Introduction to Python" and the "Python Language Reference Manual" are now available for Python version 3.2.Creating a Website: The Missing Manual, Third Edition--New from O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media has announced the release of "Creating a Website: The Missing Manual, Third Edition", by Matthew MacDonald.
Upcoming Events
Upcoming L2Ork tour of Europe
Linux Laptop Orchestra (L2Ork) has announced its maiden tour of Europe. Click below for dates and locations.CHAR(11) replication conference open for bookings
CHAR(11), the conference on PostgreSQL Clustering, High Availability and Replication, will be held in Cambridge, UK on July 11-12, 2011. "The schedule includes talks from major contributors Jan Wieck, Greg Smith, Magnus Hagander, Koichi Suzuki, Dimitri Fontaine and Simon Riggs, talks from Heroku and other experienced users, as well as technical talks from vendors Continuent, MGRID and EMC. Topics include scalability, high availability, transaction processing and data warehousing. Many talks cover the latest research as well as future plans."
LinuxCon 2011 Keynotes Announced
The Linux Foundation has announced the confirmed keynotes for this year's LinuxCon, taking place in Vancouver BC from August 17 to 19, 2011.PostgreSQL Conference West: 2011 Announced
PostgreSQL Conference West will take place September 27-30, 2011 in San Jose, California. "The 27th will be a training day with half and full day trainings available for separate registration, and the 28th-30th will be 45-90 minute sessions."
Events: May 19, 2011 to July 18, 2011
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| May 16 May 19 |
PGCon - PostgreSQL Conference for Users and Developers | Ottawa, Canada |
| May 16 May 19 |
RailsConf 2011 | Baltimore, MD, USA |
| May 20 May 21 |
Linuxwochen Österreich - Eisenstadt | Eisenstadt, Austria |
| May 21 | UKUUG OpenTech 2011 | London, United Kingdom |
| May 23 May 25 |
MeeGo Conference San Francisco 2011 | San Francisco, USA |
| June 1 June 3 |
Workshop Python for High Performance and Scientific Computing | Tsukuba, Japan |
| June 1 | Informal meeting at IRILL on weaknesses of scripting languages | Paris, France |
| June 1 June 3 |
LinuxCon Japan 2011 | Yokohama, Japan |
| June 3 June 5 |
Open Help Conference | Cincinnati, OH, USA |
| June 6 June 10 |
DjangoCon Europe | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| June 10 June 12 |
Southeast LinuxFest | Spartanburg, SC, USA |
| June 13 June 15 |
Linux Symposium'2011 | Ottawa, Canada |
| June 15 June 17 |
2011 USENIX Annual Technical Conference | Portland, OR, USA |
| June 20 June 26 |
EuroPython 2011 | Florence, Italy |
| June 21 June 24 |
Open Source Bridge | Portland, OR, USA |
| June 27 June 29 |
YAPC::NA | Asheville, NC, USA |
| June 29 July 2 |
12º Fórum Internacional Software Livre | Porto Alegre, Brazil |
| June 29 | Scilab conference 2011 | Palaiseau, France |
| July 9 July 14 |
Libre Software Meeting / Rencontres mondiales du logiciel libre | Strasbourg, France |
| July 11 July 16 |
SciPy 2011 | Austin, TX, USA |
| July 11 July 12 |
PostgreSQL Clustering, High Availability and Replication | Cambridge, UK |
| July 11 July 15 |
Ubuntu Developer Week | online event |
| July 15 July 17 |
State of the Map Europe 2011 | Wien, Austria |
| July 17 July 23 |
DebCamp | Banja Luka, Bosnia |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol