● 07.11.09

● Links 11/07/2009: Linux Adoption Up, Bits on Gran Canaria Desktop Summit

Posted in News Roundup at 1:52 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• New support for software developers who want to use DeckLink, intensity and Multibridge products on the Linux platform has been released by Blackmagic Design.

• ZHMICRO Releases the New Linux Visual ’09 IDE for the ZHMICRO Software Development Platform — Z++ Visual ’09, the new Linux IDE for the ZHMICRO Software Development Platform has been released to help software developers in rapidly developing Mobile, Desktop, and advanced Enterprise Applications from the Linux Operating System.

• Which do you spend more time interacting with: your operating system, or your software? It’s possible to get too pedantic with the answer as ultimately everything comes back to the operating system, but really, the answer is your software. You edit a file in a text editor or word processor. You read your email in an email client. You browse the Web in a Web browser. So when it comes time to move from Windows to Linux, one of the first things you want to consider is what software you rely on in the Windows world, and what you’re going to use in Linux.

• The Triple Crown of Linux conferences — if there is one — is surely the Linux Symposium, the Linux Kongress, and linux.conf.au. It was just a month ago that we passed on the message to LinuxJournal.com readers that the time to get their name on the Kongress program was nigh, and now it is time to do the same for the southernmost jewel in the crown.

Online Publications

• July 2009 Tracking Your Time with Project Hamster Working With Upstream: An Interview with Laszlo Peter Git for GNOME Translators An Introduction to GNOME Zeitgeist Do-licious Behind the Scenes with Owen Taylor

Desktop

• 1. Lots of free software available

• If your PC doesn’t already have a Linux distro (the geek cool name for a particular distributed version of the operating system) installed on it, and you’re a tech-head then you can generally get the Linux operating system itself for free

• If you want support and instructions on setting it up you can pay a software company for this.

• While hard numbers remain elusive, business adoption of Linux on the desktop appears to be growing, motivated at least in part by the need to stretch IT budgets during the current economic slump.

Server

• Two vendors of Linux distributions have announced major cloud computing initiatives over the last week. First, Canonical launched an Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Services group, and then Red Hat announced its Premier Cloud Provider Certification and Partner Program, say reports in eWEEK and ChannelInsider, respectively.

Kernel Space

• The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced it has appointed Axel Petrak as its new Director of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Mr. Petrak will work with companies and community members in the region to facilitate collaboration on advancing Linux with activities such as exclusive events, training workshops, technical workgroups, and more.

• Kristian Høgsberg, the Red Hat developer largely responsible for DRI2 and various other X.Org innovations, had started the Wayland display server project last year to leverage new technologies like kernel mode-setting and the Graphics Execution Manager. While there is not much to report on with Wayland since our last update, one of the components used by Wayland is Eagle, another Kristian Høgsberg project.

• “What ever happened to chunkfs?” This is a question I hear every few months, and I always answer the same way, “Chunkfs works, the overhead is reasonable, and it is only practical if it is part of the file system design from the beginning, not tacked on after the fact. I just need to write up the paper summarizing all the data.” Thanks to your benevolent LWN editor, you are now reading that paper.

Applications

• VirtualBox 3.0, with its improved 3D support, can ensure that some users won’t need to boot Windows even when gaming.

• With its version 3.0 of VirtualBox, Innotek/Sun/Oracle made a significant step forward. End users will probably like the 3D graphics support the most: you can now run Ubuntu with Compiz. The new version brings enhancements and support for OpenGL 2.0.

Desktop Environments

• GNOME developer Thomas Thurman describes the future of the Metacity 2 window manager in a project blog. Apparently a new GNOME component named Mutter will be taking over its functions.

• Development of GNOME 3 is gradually moving into focus. Although there is no intent to reinvent the wheel as with KDE 4, there is some drive toward innovation. Its name is the Mutter window manager, so named because it supports Clutter, and it is to take the place of Metacity 3. Thomas Thurman describes how the future is “fairly clear” in his Metacity blog…

KDE

• Each release of Plasma over the 18 months since its debut release has marked an impressive step forward in its evolution. We are planning on making 4.4, our second anniversary release coming in January 2010, more of the same in that regard.

• I put in the first bits of code needed to make Plasma run properly in a multi-head environment where there’s a different X server on each screen, as opposed to the more usual one-X-server-and-multiple-logical-screens.

• It’s really important that we do more than simply release new KDE 4 packages twice a year: we need to follow through on our plans and take full advantage of the various Pillars of KDE in our applications.

• At the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit much cross-desktop work has been done. The days we have are being used for the Cross Desktop Tracks and during the talks there are KDE and Gnome developers mingling everywhere. Cross desktop sessions included bug triage, metadata sharing, instant messaging and sharing personal data cross-desktop with CouchDB. Read more about the results!

• I’m sure most of (if not all) KDE users are familiar with Gwenview, especially since it became the default image viewer in KDE4. Gwenview is not only a powerful viewer for images, but also a basic image manipulation application, and with version 2.3 it allows even video previews. Although video support was available in 1.4 (which was for KDE3), it was missing in the KDE4 port of Gwenview, but with this new release shipping with the upcoming KDE 4.3, this feature is back.

• One of the great things about Linux is that a single twenty minute install will not only give you a powerful operating system with all your hardware working out of the box, but also a great set of applications. As the quality of free/libre software gets better and better, the desktop as a whole becomes much more attractive.

• However, one major piece of software which has been missing for many years is a powerful video editing program. You know, the type of program that a user wants to use to create home movies from their digital video camera and the like. There are numerous projects out there, such as Kino and Cinelerra, but nothing to really rival the offerings available on other operating systems. It’s not that these Linux programs are not high quality, they are, they just lack the polish and ease of use that Apple’s commercial iMovie program does, for example. So while everyone ponders when the year of Linux desktop will be, others are busy working on another missing piece of the puzzle.

Distributions

Debian

• The schedule for the upcoming DebConf9 is available. Most of it should be set already, but of course there still can be small changes until the conference starts, and honestly, until it ends

• The KnowARC1 project brings Globus2 packages to Debian Linux, paving the way for many Grid projects to be included in the popular distribution.

• In the field of Grid Computing, Globus is a major brand. One of the earliest Grid middleware solutions, the Globus Tookit is not only a popular middleware flavour, but it also offers important building blocks for many other Grid solutions.

Red Hat

• Following is an e-mail interview with Mr. Young about Google’s Chrome announcement.

• What is your reaction to Google’s announcement that it will turn its Chrome platform into a full-fledged operating system?

• About time. Back in 1995 Larry Ellison of Oracle and Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems jointly announced the netbook. They were only a decade ahead of the technology and the applications, but otherwise their vision was exactly right.

• Red Hat, Inc., a provider of open source solutions, announced that JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, 4.3 has achieved Common Criteria certification at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 2+ (augmented for flaw remediation).

• Red Hat is at the top of its game right now, delivering quarter after quarter of impressive performance despite (or, perhaps, because of) a global recession. But it wasn’t always thus. Despite a meteoric initial public offering in 1999, Red Hat spent years fumbling about for a winning game plan, dabbling in technologies that took it far beyond its core competence in operating systems.

• Is there a silver lining in the cloud for Linux vendors? This week, two of the largest Linux vendors each announced new initiatives to provide commercial services for cloud customers.

• Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) is launching a new cloud certification program, while Canonical, the lead commercial vendor behind Ubuntu Linux, is launching paid support services for its cloud offerings.

Ubuntu

• So, what it all adds up to is that, for now, Dell is standing firmly behind desktop Linux. I only wish I could say the same about the other major hardware vendors. But, down the road, it looks like everyone may be offering Google Chrome OS.

• Linux Mint is an operating system that is used on PCs for production of elegant, up to date and comfortable GNU/Linux desktop distribution. It is quite easy to use compared to other operating systems.

Devices/Embedded

• After being hampered by slow adoption, laptops with quick-boot capabilities may soon be upgraded with new features that could make them attractive to users.

• Quick-boot capabilities had been on the horizon for years but finally made a splash earlier this year, appearing in many PCs like netbooks sold by Lenovo and Sony. Without loading Windows, users can instantly surf the Web, view digital images or check e-mail just a few seconds after switching on a laptop.

Phones

• Fortunately, there are options that work quite well on most mainstream Linux distributions. Rhythmbox is the default music player for Ubuntu, and it recognizes the Palm Pre as a music device.

Sub-notebooks

• According to a report from the United Kingdom, Asus may still be advertising Linux on its netbooks, but in the United Kingdom, a company representative told the publication that there’s “been a gradual migration over the last three months” from Linux to XP. And, according to this one sales official, Linux is no longer available at all from Asus on its netbooks.

• Intel is working hard on Moblin 2.0, its own Linux distribution and it wants to push it to netbook manufacturers.

• Google’s announcement Wednesday that it will challenge Windows with a new personal computer operating system could prove to be good news for another Microsoft rival, Raleigh’s Red Hat.

• Although not mentioned yesterday, “privy to the project for some time”

• Yesterday, we reported that nine companies had partnered with Google to help develop Google Chrome OS. This article may be a little short on names by comparison, but it seems important to note that Intel, the chipmaker with a market cap of about $90 billion, is also on the team.

• Never mind Chrome OS for now; there are already a host of alternative operating systems out there. One such already going for the hosted apps end is Linux-based Jolicloud – it’s just got $4.2 million in first-round venture funding to take it out of private alpha and to target netbook makers.

Free Software/Open Source

• Developer Snapshot build OOo-Dev OOO310_m15 which installs as OOo-DEV 3.1.1 has been uploaded to the mirror network.

• When the Open Source Channel Alliance — launched by Red Hat and Synnex — hosts its first conference for VARs and channel partners in late July, a surprise guest will be on hand: Hewlett-Packard. Here’s the scoop and the implications for channel partners.

• First, a little about the Open Source Channel Alliance. Launched in April 2009, the group is striving to promote open source applications to more than 15,000 Synnex resellers. Potentially, the alliance represents a tipping point for open source in the IT channel.

• The London Paper worked with integration specialists Assanka to build the platform, based on open source content management system (CMS) Drupal, over a five and a half week period.

Mozilla

• Mozilla is at it again. Not content to slug it out on the desktop, the Moz folks are taking a run at the mobile market with Fennec. The betas released last week suggest that they’re on the right track.

• As I type this, Firefox 3.5 is blazing past 5.6 million downloads, having been released just a day and a half ago. While such uptake for Mozilla’s upgraded browser is impressive, the bigger story is how Firefox 3.5 is upgrading the Web with its extensive support for HTML 5. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) 8 has brought the company’s browser back into the 21st century, but its sluggish (and perhaps perverse) response to emerging Web standards threatens to leave it in Web 1.0 Blunderland.

• Mozilla Labs has set up the Open Web Tools Directory, a bid to build a comprehensive list of the open-source developer tools available.

• On Monday, the open source browser project issued a call to the programmer community to help with the construction of the new central database.

• “As we’ve explored different tools we could create here as part of the Developer Tools Lab, we’ve come to the opinion that in addition to creating new tools, one of the best things we could do is help developers understand the broad universe of tools that already exist and expose some of the fantastic and amazing work that’s being done,” wrote Ben Galbraith, a member of Mozilla Labs Developer Tools team, in a blog post.

• Yesterday, the Mozilla Foundation released Firefox 3.5 with many new features (mostly under the hood) and speed boosts. People have noticed this new competition and are no longer happy with an old and broken browser like MSIE 6.0, which used to be the default for many. When we look at our website stats at work, about 35% of our users use Firefox, another 35% use Safari and only 25% use Internet Explorer (either 6, 7 or 8). This is excellent news because it is living proof of competition.

Business

• Those “advocates” are funding the payrolls of a range of open-source companies. Here are just a few examples of those benefiting from this enterprise shift to open source:

• * The VAR Guy (@thevarguy) reports that both xTuple and Sopera are profitable. While he doesn’t comment on how much they’re doing in sales, profitability is, in itself, a significant achievement…

• It has been an absolutely enjoyable activity to work in the context of the FLOSSMETRICS project with the overall idea of helping SMEs to adopt, and migrate to, open source and free software. My proposed approach was to create an accessible and replicable guide, designed to help both those interested in exploring what open source is, and in helping companies in the process of offering services and products based on OSS; now, two years later, I found references to the previous editions of the guide in websites across the world, and was delighted in discovering that some OSS companies are using it as marketing material to help prospective customers.

• You can download the full NeXt Up report on Linden Lab from the SharesPost site after creating a free account. For a company analysis, it actually makes for interesting reading. (Even the Tea Crate Rebellion and the War of the Jessie Wall rate a mention in the company history section.) More salient to Internet business watchers, however, is the analyst’s estimate of Linden’s revenue and profit, with the former forecast to hit $150 million in 2011, and profit (i.e. “Net Income”) to reach $35 million that same year. (See chart above.) NeXtUp uses these numbers and related virtual world business sales (such as Disney’s purchase of Club Penguin for $350 million) to arrive at that half billion-plus valuation figure.

FSFE

• Smári McCarthy is a thoughtful anarchist and practical chaos technician – with a deep interest in Free Software and democracy. Currently serving as project manager for the Icelandic Innovation Center, Smári works on digital fabrication and peer-to-peer education, while spending his spare time breaking the fundamental assumptions of how we organise society. I sat down for an interesting interview with Smári, in which he explained his projects and how they can contribute towards a more sustainable world.

Government

• Has Open Source lost its mojo? Has it become so common place that there are no real innovations to talk about? Or is it simply the summer lull? Before you fire up the flame throwers, I will assure you that I do not think Open Source has lost a step. It is still exciting, vibrant and diverse. Just looking at some of the tips on the left shows me that there is always something to learn. The topics across the top are always changing to reflect everything and anything you can do with Open Source software.

• That’s the abstract: the rest of the post provides some practical suggestions as to how government data can be put online to best effect. Worth reading for a sense of what might happen – and to see just how far Sir Tim succeeds in overcoming the Whitehall inertia.

Openness

• The education community has been at the forefront in envisioning and conceptualizing infrastructures intended for utilizing and sharing digital content or resources. However, this community has faced challenges in making these visions a reality. We begin by describing a relatively early attempt at creating an economy for sharing educational resources, referred to as learning objects. We then discuss two approaches to opening up educational contents to the world under the auspices of the more recent Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. One of these approaches has focused on creating open resources from scratch, utilizing Wiki content development and management technologies in the wake of the phenomenal success of Wikipedia. A second approach is represented by developments in Open Courseware. Following the example of MIT’s Open Courseware (OCW), this approach has more recently been adopted by many other educational institutions under the OCW Consortium. We conclude by making the case that this second approach may represent the most promising of recent developments in the adaptation of open source and open content to educational practices and technologies.

• The Ford Foundation has just granted $300,000 to the Wikimedia Foundation to support Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia’s repository for free, sharable multimedia files.

• In June 2009 a study was completed that had been commissioned by Knowledge Exchange and written by Professor John Houghton, Victoria University, Australia. This report on the study was titled: “Open Access – What are the economic benefits?

• On the one hand, it would be ironic if the very field that acted as a midwife to open access journals should also be the one that begins to undermine it through a move to repository-based open publishing of preprints. On the other, it doesn’t really matter; what’s important is open access to the papers. If these are in preprint form, or appear as fully-fledged articles in peer-reviewed open access journals is a detail, for the users at least; it’s more of a challenge for publishers, of course…

• Community colleges and high schools would receive federal funds to create free, online courses in a program that is in the final stages of being drafted by the Obama administration.

• Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom GCMG KCVO is her Majesty’s most senior civil servant concerned with information and communications technologies (or ‘ICTs’). Here he speaks about about the benefits of how government uses ICTs to provide Intercept Modernisation, Personalised Services, and Safeguard your Identity.

Leftovers

Censorship/Web Abuse

• The IPS has chosen Proximity after also hearing pitches from EHS Brann, Tequila and TMW. The firm will deal with “below the line” marketing – typically PR and promotions rather than billboard or media advertising.

• Another nail in the coffin for copy locks – Orange is switching off DRM across the two million tracks in its Orange Music Store.

Copyrights

• News organizations depend upon fair dealing every day for their own coverage and should not be so quick to demand takedowns of newsworthy clips that should qualify for similar protection.

• As Michael Gesit points out, it’s difficult to see what the copyright claim is, as the clip itself can be considered newsworthy and “fair dealing” (Canada uses “fair dealing” rules rather than “fair use”) for others to show it.

• In a victory for the reclusive writer J. D. Salinger, a federal judge on Wednesday indefinitely banned publication in the United States of a new book by a Swedish author that contains a 76-year-old version of Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of “The Catcher in the Rye.”

• The judge, Deborah A. Batts, of United States District Court in Manhattan, had granted a 10-day temporary restraining order last month against the author, Fredrik Colting, who wrote the new novel under the pen name J. D. California.

• This is just another way of saying that “obscurity is a bigger fear than piracy.” And while such things are usually applied to new, up-and-coming artists, it’s nice to see that more well known artists recognize the same formula applies to them, as well.

• Great stuff, as usual, and certainly reinforces the point: it’s certainly hard work, but it is doable. If you’re unknown, use this process to get known. Once you’re known, you can start to implement all different elements of the business model, using the music to make scarce goods much more valuable and start earning that way.

• The inaugural Music Hack Day, an event for the international tech and digital music community, is to take place in London this weekend (July 11 to 12).

• Bringing together 200 delegates, the two-day event is believed to be the first ‘hack’ type event dedicated exclusively to the music industry. In this context, hackers are defined as those who use their expertise to explore the possibilities of open-source software rather than those infiltrating and damaging secure systems.

• France’s government is gearing up for a new version of the controversial HADOPI legislation that would force ISPs to disconnect file sharers after three offenses. HADOPI’s original version was struck down by France’s Constritutional Council earlier this month because it enabled rights holders to police P2P networks without a judge’s oversight. The council ruled that this procedure, also known as Three Strikes, was unconstitutional because it didn’t guarantee suspected offenders a fair trial.

• Yesterday we reported that a provision in the revamped French “3 strikes” bill will allow for the punishment of ISP account holders for the copyright infringing actions of others. Now a group of hackers has set out to compromise WiFi routers en masse, in order to create an environment of plausible deniability.

• Leading European newspaper and magazine publishers on Thursday called on the European Commission to strengthen copyright protection as a way to lay the groundwork for new ways to generate revenue online.

• Rubbish. Either you have a fundamental right to use the Internet, in which case you can upload and downloaf information from it (which is basically all the Internet does). Or you don’t have such a right, im which case the state, at the behest of the content corporations, can cut off your Internet access if you shasre files. You can’t have it both ways.

• It’s official: Jammie Thomas-Rasset intends to appeal her case, one of her lawyers told CNET News on Wednesday.

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the DayAlexandro Colorado, international open source evangelist 14 (2004)Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating. Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

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