● 08.05.09

● Links 05/08/2009: Telco Planning Joins Linux Foundation, Landscape Announcement Made

Posted in News Roundup at 7:57 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• The new application, to be developed by Unisys, is expected to be built in the Linux Open Source environment using Java development tools. The Open Source approach is designed to increase the flexibility of the application environment to reduce support costs through easier maintenance of the system.

• With rumours of a cheaper and slimmer Sony PS3 gaming console around the corner, Fixstars corporation have released a bootable version of their popular Yellow Dog Linux distribution for Sony’s platform that comes on a USB Flash drive.

• The installation is straightforward plug-in the USB stick, install the bootloader, boot into YDL and you’re running Linux on your PS3. Although the Playstation 3 comes with a hard disk drive, YDL runs from the USB Drive.

• Each issue of the magazine comes with a DVD packed with new Linux software to try out, along with the magazine’s usual comprehensive coverage of the latest Linux news, reviews and tutorials. Plus, subscribers to the magazine get access to over 1300 PDFs of magazine tutorials from Linux Format back issues through its online subscriber-only area, and even get access to issues before they have been printed.

Desktop

• I have to say that this was about as painless as OS installations ever get. Now when I want to run Ubuntu (which is most of the time) I can either grab my Wind netbook or my MacBook Pro. Either way, the choice of OS is entirely mine. Whatever floats my boat at any particular time. I have Windows XP Home or Ubuntu on the Wind netbook and Mac OS Leopard or Ubuntu on the MacBook. I’ve never enjoyed so much OS freedom. Life certainly is sweet.

• This year, a new dimension is appearing on the Linux desktop. It’s geolocation: the capability to detect and record where you and other people are, and to use the information to enhance the desktop. Potentially affecting everything from the metadata stored with files to the mechanics of social networking, geolocation is already starting to arrive in GNOME and KDE. But the first implementations are only a hint of the features that geolocation might soon provide.

• While pure open source enthusiasts may boo the fact that World of Goo is not open source, I for one am very excited. I think that this is a great example of what Linux needs. The more software that we see becoming available for Linux, the more credibility Linux will have among the skeptical. Increased credibility will lead to more adoption, which is what Linux really needs right now.

Server

• Plenty of technology companies share in the virtualized desktop vision. For instance, IBM is working with Canonical (promoter of Ubuntu Linux) and Virtual Bridges to offer virtualized Ubuntu desktops on Linux servers. The IBM strategy openly attacks Microsoft’s fat client model, and aims to charge customers $50 per seat (per year, I believe, though I need to double check).

Kernel Space

• Early-bird registration has been extended to Aug. 5 for the Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC). Scheduled for Sept. 23-25 in Portland, Oregon, the conference will feature keynotes and presentations from Linus Torvalds, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra, and Intel’s Keith Packard, covering Linux “plumbing” issues such as kernel subsystems and core libraries.

• The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Telco Planning has joined the organization. Telco Planning provides consulting services to network operators that encompass technology evaluation, business plan modeling, network design, integration and installation.

Applications

• OpenOffice.org is a terrific suite of office applications in its own right, but it’s out of this world when paired with extensions that add extra functionality. There are plenty of extensions to choose from, but let’s take a look at a few that will really make your productivity soar.

• The Bordeaux Technology Group released Bordeaux 1.8 for FreeBSD today. Bordeaux 1.8.2 adds support for Apple’s QuickTime 6.5.2 Player, IrfanView 4.25 the extreamly popular image viewer and editor. This release aslo bundles in Cabextract, Wget and Unzip to remove external dependencies. Our winetricks script has been synced to the latest official release, Steam should now install and run once again, There has also been many small bug fixes and tweaks.

K Desktop Environment

• Don’t let my nitpicking scare you though, KDE 4.3 is a great release. At its very least, it’s not worse than KDE 4.2 so you don’t have anything to lose by upgrading.

• To maximize the space given to applications in those tiny screen resolutions now the panel is auto-hide, with the same sliding animation present in the main plasma desktop autohide panels (from KDE 4.4 done by my first Kwin effect, yay :D)

Distributions

• The Debian project is planning a whole series of enhancements for Debian 5.0 “Squeeze.” A few results of the currently running Google Summer of Code are beginning to creep into it.

Red Hat

• Sure, Microsoft has always liked to tout the existence of competition to ward off antitrust issues, but it has to watch Red Hat closely these days, just as all of the major players in servers do. Cisco is very wise to pursue a relationship with Red Hat, and is sponsoring the Red Hat Summit even as the company curtails its own event spending. I also won’t be surprised to see Red Hat’s and Cisco’s cloud computing initiatives increasingly converge over time.

• “Red Hat is strongly committed to community-based collaboration that leads to better, more secured solutions to benefit the Malaysian government and business users as well as across the region,” he said.

• He said Red Hat’s collaboration with independent software vendors (ISVs) was key to its strategy to accelerate the deployment of enterprise-class, open source solutions in Malaysia, and encourage wider adoption.

Ubuntu

• The Canonical Landscape Ubuntu systems management server is now moving in from the cloud with a new dedicated, on-site offering. Previously, the Landscape service was only available as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud-based model. The new Landscape Dedicated Server expands the commercial support offerings available for Ubuntu Linux as Canonical ramps up its efforts to gain market share against rivals.

• Scheduled for release in October, Ubuntu 9.10 is perhaps the most important release to date for the community-driven Linux project.

• Linux Mint 7 KDE is a worthy addition to the Linux Mint family and is much, much better than the previous KDE release. I still prefer the main GNOME version over it, but there’s definitely an ascending path going on. Oh, and with the 4.3.0 version of KDE just released, I can’t wait until Linux Mint 8!

• Thank goodness Linux came along to keep Unix going. Otherwise we might all be running commercial operating systems today.

• But technical merit is not the sole criterion. Were that the case we would all be runing Linux. We need to unite and not keep shooting ourselves in the foot. This, for example, is why I cringe every time I hear the phrase “GNU/Linux” …

Devices/Embedded

• Sadly, the Kindle is a closed device, so there is little point in trying to build and boot this code. That integrity checker device seems likely to get in the way. The unhackable nature of the device does not come as a surprise; that is how things tend to be done these days. But one can still wish that things were different. A user-modifiable Kindle would not just be more resistant to Orwellian monitoring and control; it could also be extended in ways that Amazon never dreamed of. Maybe it could even get a PDF reader. What a fun device that could be.

• As of now, Google’s Linux-based operating system has its presence only on a couple of handsets, including T-Mobile G1 and myTouch 3G, and has been intended for casual customers. But, according to Rubin, the OS will be upgraded with host of enterprise-oriented features by the end of this year.

Free Software/Open Source

• It also turns open-source telephony inside out, setting up FreePBX as the focal point for future innovation in open-source telephony. I suspect that FreePBX’s new modular architecture and standards-based frameworks may inspire application developers to target new telephony applications to FreePBX to be able to run with any “engine”.

• Today, Click2Try has announced its Virtual Launch program, which takes some of the application launching functionality from click2try and allows any web site or blog owner to incorporate it on his or her site. If you want site visitors to try one of the open source applications that click2try includes, this is one of the fastest ways to let them do so.

• Chromium developer Tim Steele has revealed that Google is working on a new cloud synchronisation function for its Chrome web browser. Chromium is the open source base on which Google’s WebKit-based Chrome web browser is built. In his post on the Chromium development message board, Steele says that the feature for syncing user data will be linked to a users Google account and that work is being started in the Chromium project this week.

Openness

• Aptara, a pioneer in digital publishing solutions, and Open Science Co., LLC, an Open Access medical publisher committed to the free and broad dissemination of medical knowledge, are pleased to announce the dramatic success of the first phase of development for the medical portal ePlasty.com. The site houses the Open Access Plastic Surgery journal, ePlasty (www.eplasty.com), a PUBMED/NLM indexed medical journal, along with interactive forums, a virtual exhibit hall and other resources for plastic surgery, burn and wound care professionals. Aptara designed and built the site for Open Science Co., LLC.

• Sony Pictures can give all this software away without any fear that they’ll lose competitive advantage, because although it uses this software to make its films better, it’s not a substitute for knowing how to make good films in the first place.

• The champion of “free” is author Chris Anderson who has published a book predicting that hardware is the next natural extension of the open source movement.

Leftovers

• In his newest book, novelist Mark Helprin sets out to single-handedly defend copyright from the barbarian freetard hordes. He advocates long-term copyright extensions and happily insults anyone who disagrees with him by comparing them to Idi Amin and Adolf Eichmann. The result is almost… uncivilized.

• On Friday, we posted a guest post from singer Amanda Palmer, all about her thoughts on connecting with fans. If you didn’t get a chance to read the whole thing, at the end she included a music video that she did. However, the story behind that music video is so good that it deserves a separate post of its own. We already know that Amanda has been a big fan of using Twitter to reach out to fans, and she did exactly that in this case — but not to film a video. Just to hold an impromptu “flash gig” on the beach with two days’ notice. Cool idea. Other bands should try that as well.

• This makes a lot of sense. Certainly record labels have a lot of experience and connections when it comes to marketing music and musicians. So leveraging those relationships makes a lot of sense. Giving up all control and rights just for that marketing expertise, on the other hand… makes less and less sense. So, no, I don’t think record labels are going away. I still think there’s plenty of room for them in the wider music ecosystem. But their role is changing, and the power shift is moving much more to artists and away from the labels. Some of the smart ones get it. But a few of the major labels certainly don’t like this, which is why they fight so hard against the technology that’s making this happe

• The Recording Industry Association of America has continued its random financial assassination of hapless American file-sharers in their campaign to “protect intellectual property rights worldwide.” Forget Pirate Bay, it’s the least prolific file-sharers who are getting bitten.

• In the past decade, have you downloaded music from a peer-to-peer service like LimeWire? Or shared files on the original Napster? Once? Twice? Lots? If so, you might want to hire a good lawyer, or consider moving to another country. Lately, major record labels—specifically, the “Big Four” (EMI, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and their many subsidiaries)—have been looking for folks like you.

• The Associated Press recently created quite a stir by announcing that the company is implementing a digital rights management (DRM) system to protect their content from both misuse and unauthorized use.

• Apparently the controversy was more than the estate of Edvard Eriksen anticipated after asking the city of Greenville $3,800 for having a replica of Copenhagen’s “Little Mermaid” statue in their Tower Riverside Park.

• “I received a letter this week from the Artists Right Society (ARS) saying that ‘the estate of the sculptor Edvard Eriksen has decided to withdraw all of its claims thereto,’” said Greenville City Manager George Bosanic.

• Harvard University’s moves to seek U.S. trademarks for everyday phrases such as “Ask what you can do” are defensive measures, a school official says.

• The university has poured a lot of money into basing its promotional and advertising campaigns on such phrases as “Ask what you can do,” which was famously uttered by President John F. Kennedy in his 1960 inaugural speech, as well as “Lessons learned” and “Managing yourself,” The Boston Globe reported Saturday.

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the DayLuis Casas Luengo, Director of Extremadura’s Fundecyt foundation 17 (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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