Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
OSDL, IBM, Intel announce $10 million legal defense fund for Linux users
The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has announced the creation of a Linux legal defense fund. The fund will defray legal expenses of Linux users involved in litigation with The SCO Group on issues that affect the Linux community and industry. OSDL aims to raise $10 million for this fund and will accept donations from individuals, organizations and companies.Netfilter project calls for volunteers
The netfilter/iptables project needs volunteers to help with documentation, scripting, web site maintenance, and mailing list management.Free LindowsOS Download for KDE Developers
Lindows.com is offering a free download of LindowsOS to all KDE developers.The Norwegian DVD Case - Decision by Borgarting Appellate Court
For those who are interested in reading the decision by the Borgarting Appellate Court in the "DVD Jon" trial, Lovdata has made available an English version (as a .doc) and the link to the original Norwegian. (Thanks to Erik I. Bolsø)Debian Perl Group founded
A new Debian Perl Group has been founded. "Most developers often realize that modules available on CPAN are not included in the Debian archive. This hinders the packaging of Perl applications and other modules. After discarding the idea of automatically dumping all CPAN modules into the Debian archive, a collective effort to improve the packaging of Perl modules in Debian was proposed. This consists of creating new packages of needed Modules as well as of bugfixing and updating existing packages."
Red Hat to Contribute Copyrights Held in the eCos Code Base to the FSF
Red Hat has announced that it will assign all of its copyrights in the eCos open source operating system to the Free Software Foundation (FSF). "The contribution will enable the Free Software Foundation to act as the sole copyright steward of the project and work directly with the eCos community and its maintainers on future development."
Open Source e-learning project in New Zealand
New Zealand's Tertiary Education Commission has funded the following project: Open Source e-Learning Environment and Community Platform Adopting and developing open source e-learning application software for adoption throughout NZs tertiary education sector.Mark Finlay passes away (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org has announced the passing of Developer Mark Finlay. "Mark was the driving force behind the creation of the GNOME Users Board, where he helped numerous people learn to use GNOME. He was also a contributor to Rhythmbox, Gossip and numerous other GNOME projects."
Commercial announcements
Ineo Concepts has Preinstalled Linux Systems
Ineo Concepts has workstations, servers, and gaming machines built specifically for Linux. As far as we know, they are the first to offer boxes with Gentoo Linux preinstalled.MailStripper 1.1.3 released
Eridani has released version 1.1.3 of MailStripper, a commercial SMTP Spam Filter.McObject releases in-memory database for Linux
McObject has announced the availability of their eXtremeDB in-memory database for x86 Linux.MySQL AB Adds Enterprise Features in MySQL 5.0
MySQL AB has announced the availability of version 5.0 of the MySQL database. "The new release includes the addition of stored procedures as well as other advances designed to enhance the development of large-scale enterprise database applications. The MySQL 5.0 alpha development release is now available for testing and evaluation by the open source community."
Novell Completes Acquisition of SUSE LINUX
Here's the press release from Novell announcing the completion of its acquisition of SUSE LINUX. The closing of the $210 million cash deal also opens the door for completion of the $50 million investment of IBM in Novell announced November 4.Novell Supports Enterprise Linux Customers with New Linux Indemnification Program
With the acquisition of SUSE LINUX now complete, Novell has also announced it will offer its SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server customers a new indemnification program designed to provide an additional measure of protection against certain intellectual property challenges to Linux.Pigeon Point Systems Announces Linux Distributions for TI Digital Media Processors
Pigeon Point Systems has announced the support of Texas Instruments' digital media processors by their Monterey Linux distribution.Red Hat Linux Training Videos Available
Training videos for the Red Hat Certified Engineer certification are available from CBT Nuggets, Inc. "The training contains a variety of on-screen demonstrations and examples of Red Hat Linux as well as tips and hints to assist you in making the most of the product."
IBM Announces New SUSE LINUX-based Retail Solution for Point of Sale
IBM has announced a new Linux-based IBM point-of-sale (POS) solution, based on SUSE LINUX.
New Books
"RELAX NG" Released by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has published the book Relax NG by Eric van der Vlist."Sendmail Cookbook" Released by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has published the book Sendmail Cookbook, by Craig Hunt.
Resources
Austin Group Minutes of the January 8 Teleconference
Andrew Josey from The Open Group has sent us his coverage of the January 8 Austin Group teleconference minutes.ISO Technical Report on conflicts between POSIX and the LSB progresses
An ISO Technical Report that documents conflicts between the Linux Standard Base Specification and POSIX is available.LDP Weekly News
The Linux Documentation Project Weekly News for January 7, 2004 has been published. Take a look for the latest new documentation.LDP Weekly News
The Linux Documentation Project Weekly News for January 14, 2004 is available with the latest new and changed documentation.LPI-News December 2003
The latest news from the Linux Professional Institute covers a verification system; the use of Linux in Brazil; a German article on the LPI Translation Program; looking for community assistance for Exam Development; Linux World - New York; LPI in South Africa; and Linux Australia Conference in Adelaide.Sodipodi SVG flag collection with new release (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org reports on the fourth release of the Sodipodi flag collection. "This collection of SVG flags made available under the Creative Commons Public Domain dedication has now reached over 300 flags. All independent countries, many major regional flags, historical flags and organisational flags are now part of the package."
Translate.org.za Newsletter December 2003
The December newsletter for Translate.org.za is out. This project seeks to bring Opensource software to all South Africans. A project of the Zuza Software Foundation. Zuza - given freely, get as a gift, obtained freely.
Contests and Awards
LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Winners
The polls for the 2003 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice awards are closed and the results are in. Winners include Slackware for Distribution of the year, MySQL for Database of the year, KDE for Desktop Environment of the year and OpenOffice.org for Office Suite of the year. The full results are also available.NordU/USENIX 2004 ChessBrain World Record Attempt
A computer versus human chess contest will be held at NordU/USENIX 2004. "The technical conference NordU/USENIX 2004 will host the ChessBrain project's attempt to establish a world record for the "Largest number of distributed computers used to play a single game of chess". ChessBrain is the world's first distributed network of computers which work together to play chess."
Upcoming Events
GUADEC 2004 Call for Papers
The Fifth European Gnome Users and Developers Conference (GUADEC 2004) has issued a Call for Papers. GUADEC is scheduled for June 28 - 30, 2004 in Kristiansand, Norway.In other GNOME news, GNOME.conf.au will debut at Linux.conf.au. See the GNOME Lovers Guide to linux.conf.au for more info.
CFP Samba eXPerience 2004
A Call for Papers has gone out for the Samba eXPerience 2004 conference. The event will take place in Göttingen, Germany on April 5-7, 2004.2004 - OLS Call for Papers
The website for the 2004 Ottawa Linux Symposium is online, along with a call for papers. The 6th annual OLS will be held July 21 - 24, 2004.NSPW 2004 Call For Papers
A Call for Papers has gone out for the New Security Paradigms Workshop 2004. The event will take place on September 20-23, 2004 in Nova Scotia.2004 GCC and GNU Toolchain Developer's Summit
The 2004 GCC and GNU Toolchain Developer's Summit will be held in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on June 2-4, 2004. A call for papers has gone out for the event.Open Source Business Conference 2004
The Open Source Business Conference will be held in San Francisco, CA on March 16-17, 2004.OSS Chicago Security Presentation
Open Source Software Chicago will be offering a presentation entitled "Effective Security using Open Source Security Tools" by Bob Radvanovsky. The event will take place on January 22, 2004.Linux Installfest, Davis, CA
The Linux Users' Group of Davis and the UC Davis Computer Science Club will be holding a Linux Installfest workshop on January 17, 2004.VistA Community Meeting Houston, Texas (LinuxMedNews)
LinuxMedNews has an announcement for the next VistA open-source health care meeting. The event will take place at Rice University in Houston, TX on March 11-14, 2004.Events: January 15 - March 4, 2004
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| January 15 - 17, 2004 | Linux.conf.au | Adelaide, Australia |
| January 20 - 23, 2004 | LinuxWorld Conference & Expo 2004 | (Jacob K. Javits Convention Center)New York, New York |
| January 20 - 21, 2004 | FSF Free Software Licensing Seminars | (Columbia Law School)New York, NY |
| January 22 - 23, 2004 | Vancouver PHP Conference | (SFU Harbour Centre)Vancouver, BC, Canada |
| January 28 - February 1, 2004 | NordU/USENIX 2004 | Copenhagen, Denmark |
| January 31 - February 1, 2004 | WineConf 2004 | (Court International Building)St. Paul, Minnesota |
| February 2 - 6, 2004 | EclipseCon 2004 | (Disneyland Hotel)Anaheim, CA |
| February 2 - 4, 2004 | Open Standards and Certification Conference | (San Diego Marriott Mission Valley)San Diego, CA |
| February 3 - 5, 2004 | Linux Solutions 2004 | Paris, France |
| February 9 - 12, 2004 | O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference(ETech) | (The Westin Horton Plaza)San Diego, CA |
| February 20 - 22, 2004 | CodeCon 2004 | (Club NV)San Francisco, CA |
| February 20 - 24, 2004 | PaWS PHP and Web Standards UK 2004 | Manchester, UK |
| February 21 - 22, 2004 | Mozilla Developers Meeting in Europe 4.0 | Brussels, Belgium |
| February 21 - 22, 2004 | FOSDEM 2004 | (SOLBOSCH)Brussels, Belgium |
| February 23 - 27, 2004 | PostgreSQL Bootcamp | (Big Nerd Ranch, Inc.)Atlanta, GA |
| February 25 - 26, 2004 | UKUUG LISA/Winter Conference and Tutorial | (Lansdowne Campus, Bournemouth Univ.)Bournemouth, UK |
| March 1 - 5, 2004 | PHP|Cruise | The Caribbean |
Mailing Lists
KDE Dot News: Mailing Lists Relaunched
KDE.News has an announcement for two KDE mailing lists. "I'm pleased to announce that the dot-stories and dot-headlines mailing lists are finally back online. For those of you who don't know, dot-stories is the list to be on if you wish to receive the latest KDE Dot News in your inbox, and dot-headlines is the list you should subscribe to if you wish to receive the headlines only."
Software announcements
This week's software announcements
Here are the software announcements, courtesy of Freshmeat.net. They are available in two formats:
- Sorted alphabetically,
- Sorted by license.
Miscellaneous
Demise of Netscape Voted Most Significant Mozilla Event of 2003 (MozillaZine)
MozillaZine ranks the Mozilla Project's most significant event for 2003, the demise of Netscape. "The top choice was the demise of Netscape, which received 35% of the 1,947 votes cast. The launch of the Mozilla Foundation came second, with 29%, followed by the new end user focus (16%) and the new Roadmap (12%)."
Page editor: Forrest Cook