Uber-popular distro Ubuntu’s latest iteration, the first to be billed as “Enterprise Ready,” is publicly released on June 1st - get em while their hot.
In a further display of the increasing closeness between Sun and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth, the distro is being ported to Sun’s hypervisor, courtesy of Canonical, who will be providing support […]
From PC Pro:
France might be about to follow Massachusetts in insisting that all French administration computer files are saved in the open standard Office Document Format (ODF).
The country’s General Repository for Interoperability (RGI) is proposing ODF as the recommended format for semi-structured office documents, such as word processing files presentations and spreadsheets, but wants to […]
The Telegraph’s Money section today has a profile of the Mozilla Foundation, focusing on their finances and Mitchell Baker, their Chief Lizard Wrangler (translation: President of the foundation). It being The Telegraph, they seem a bit little taken by her being an, erm, woman…
Mitchell Baker does not look like a typical technology geek. The first […]
*update* - the post originally linked to the wrong article on The Guardian’s site; it’s since been corrected. Apologies.
The Guardian today reports on the results of a series of case studies conducted by the Open Source Academy on the deployment of open source software in the local government sector . Although grandly claiming that “the […]
A pressure group which lobbies on behalf of proprietary software companies, the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST), has promised to get heavy on schools using unauthorised software:
“The message is clear: if head teachers, schools governors and even LEAs allow the use of illegal software then it may be a fast track to a criminal record,” […]
The European Commission has performed an apparent volte-face on the subject of software patents. In a response to a question put by Polish MEP Adam Gierek, the EC said that…
“The draft Community Patent regulation (Wikipedia article) confirms in its Article 28.1(a) that patents granted for a subject matter (such as computer programs), which is excluded […]
As the Ubuntu community gears up for next month’s release of Dapper Drake, founder Mark Shuttleworth’s for-profit open source company, Canonical Ltd., is preparing up to offer commercial support for the distro. The company already offers certification and Desktop Linux questions whether they have what it takes to position Ubuntu as a serious player in […]
In seeking a more convenient method for installing new hardware drivers, Novell is hoping to remove one of the major barriers to wider Linux uptake.
The new system – called the Partner Linux Driver Process – is available for Suse Linux Enterprise products as an upgrade for Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP3. It will be […]
Open source software is causing Microsoft serious headaches in the server market, according to a new report from Quocirca. It goes on to suggest that the growing importance of embedded software will pose a more serious, long-term threat to proprietary companies:
The third way proves a big challenge to the commercial software vendors in the long […]
Software is a unique development in human history and should be treated as such by the patent system. That’s the argument from Gervase Markham in the latest “Man from Mozilla” column over at The Times.
The uniqueness of software means that software and patents have unique interactions. For example, a drug is usually covered by a […]
CNN.com’s Business site has an interview with Linus Torvalds in which he talks about the early years of Linux and what he actually does these days:
[Interviewer]: Now let’s go back to the beginnings when Linux first started in the early 1990s. What motivated you to give away the source code?
[Linus]: I didn’t start thinking I […]
Boingo have released an open source toolkit for embedded WiFi. The toolkit will be available for developers to port to any operating system free of licensing costs, so long as they publish their changes. Should developers wish to sit on their work and not release it to the community, the company is also making a […]
You might remember a disagreement that occurred between the One Laptop Per Child project and the Puppy Linux community. Offers of their ultra-light operating system from the latter were quietly but firmly rebuffed by the former on the grounds of their closeness with Red Hat, after which the leader of the OLPC project, Nicholas Negroponte, […]
Information Week delves into the coding dynamics of the open source world, looking at where the donkey-work comes from in the development process. InfoWorld suggests why one might wish to join in with said work, whereas elsewhere on Information Week there are reasons one would perhaps avoid it.
Of course, one of the prime motivators for […]
Sun’s annual JavaOne conference kicked off this week with yet more promises from the company to open source Java.
Open-source advocates have urged Sun for years to open-source the Java programming language, but the company has resisted, citing compatibility concerns and fear of losing control. Now the company has promised that Java will become open source.
“At […]
The next release of IBM’s Lotus Notes software, codenamed Hannover, will include support for the open document format, in its word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and data analysis editors, the company announced this morning. The company’s Workplace software already supports the format.
Meanwhile, the analysts at Gartner came out with a double-whammy for Microsoft, predicting not only […]
OpenOffice.org is looking to take advantage of Microsoft’s latest anti-piracy drive by advertising their software as the quickest, and cheapest, way to “get legal.”
ZDNet called on the EC to stop prevaricating over the adoption of ODF following promises from Microsoft over it’s OpenXML “standards”.
The European Commission wants an open standard for documents. ODF has been […]
InfoWorld’s Dutch site reports on a new server stack for mobile email employing an open standard named Lemonade that is going head to head with Blackberry.
The never-ending spate of law-suits between companies like Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) and Visto Corp. could soon be over, thanks to a mobile email standard which might support an […]
A slew of news came out of Novell this week as the company wound up to today’s release of SuSE 10.1.
Parallel to the release new iteration of their OS was the release of a desktop package bundling various pieces of OSS. The suite includes Novell’s Open Enterprise Server, ZenWorks desktop management tools, Novell Linux Desktop […]
Code Breakers, a new BBC series on free and open source software in the developing world, starts tonight on BBC World.
The poorest countries are now beginning to use free or open source software (FOSS), a software that parallels many of Microsoft’s programmes but with the major difference being that they are distributed free of charge […]