GNU/Linux

• Open source in Japan: Q&A with the President of Plat'Home
• Android Developer Challenge: Early Apps Lookin' Sharp
  
  

  Google has just wrapped up the Android Developer Challenge that it announced back in November. Android, of course, is Google's Linux-based mobile platform, slated to show up in a wave of new mobile phones later this year.

  
  
  
• JP Morgan Tech Show: Palm Sees Software Lifting its Fortunes
  
  

  Well, on the way to that Linux software, Palm hopes to return to increasing sales and return to profitability a couple of ways, said Brown: one, the Centro, is available at 10 carriers now and will be spreading to more carriers globally.

  
  
  
• Die-shrunk Cell processor, blade run Linux
  
  

  Big Blue touts the openness of Linux as helping data center managers improve power efficiency. The AS22 ships with a newly upgraded Software Development Kit (SDK) for Multicore Acceleration v3 based on Red Hat's forthcoming Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.2.

  
  
  
• Red Hat Summit Invades Boston
• The Demographics of i Sales and Shipments
  
  

  While Linux is nowhere near as popular at i shops, spending came to $200 million, with 36 percent of midrange shops having Linux somewhere in their data centers and 35 percent of large enterprises having Linux. HP has the biggest piece of the Linux pie within the IBM OS/400-i5/OS-i installed base--a bit embarrassing considering that the iSeries got native support for Linux eight years ago--followed up by IBM's own 19 percent spending share, Dell's 14 percent share, and Sun Microsystems' 5 percent share.

  
  
  
• POS systems run uClinux
• Announcing Exherbo!
• 2.6.26-rc3, "Another Week, Another -rc Release"
• Ubuntu - 8.04 (Review)
• Hands on: The changing face of Fedora
  
  

  Ubuntu may be the most popular desktop distribution, but Fedora support is strong

  
  
  

F/OSS

• How open is your open source vendor?
  
  

  If vendors are not proactive about writing and publishing declarative statements about their open source involvement, they may find that community users start judging them on the community’s terms. From Milking the GNU comes the suggestion that a new independent organization could be formed to judge vendors that claim to be open source on a number of criteria, such as patent policy, business model and development model.

  
  
  
• DimDim Enhances Open Source Version
• Ingres OpenROAD Now Open Source
• Ingres Steps Up Open Source Contributions
• Worry About Integration, Not Installation
• OpenApp fixes sights on Open Community
• MySQL: the Australian connection

Security and Crime

• Mass SQL Injection Attack Targets Chinese Web Sites
  
  

  Mass SQL injection attacks have increasingly become a security threat. In January, tens of thousands of PCs were infected by an automated SQL injection attack. That attack exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft's SQL Server.

  
  
  
• 38 in US, Romania Charged in Phishing Schemes
• US SEC charges eight ex-AOL Time Warner execs
  
  

  The scheme involved fraudulent transactions in which AOL Time Warner effectively funded its own advertising revenue by giving purchasers the money to buy online advertising that they did not want or need, the SEC said.

  
  
  
• McAfee Anti-fraud Researcher Charged With Fraud
  
  

  Brett Oliphant, whose title had been vice president of security services before the Napa, California, company was acquired by McAfee in January, is facing 11 counts of securities fraud in transactions that allegedly brought in more than US$1.215 million.

  
  
  

Microsoft

• Prime minister Brown backs Google
  
  

  In a speech that read like a tacit disapproval of convicted monopolist Microsoft, Brown banged on before an audience of business bigwigs about the stupidity of protectionism.

  
  
  
• Google mulls Microsoft response
  
  

  Speaking at the Google Zeitgeist conference in Hertfordshire, hosted by the internet company's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, chief executive, said: "After this press conference the three of us will meet and decide what our response is."

  
  
  



• Users Report More Trouble With Windows XP SP3
• Microsoft: Don't Misunderstand UAC, Other Vista Features
  
  

  In its continued attempt to convince business customers to adopt Vista, Microsoft has outlined and tried to explain some of what it calls the OS's most "misunderstood" features in a document posted to -- then mysteriously removed from -- its Web site this week.