So does that make this a prime time to be suggesting new or expanded uses of Linux and open source software to your CIO or CTO to update and improve your company’s IT systems?
Actually, that’s not a bad idea, according to several industry analysts and experts who talked with Linux.com to offer their hints and tips on how to broach the subject and make an effective business case for wider Linux use even as the economy remains difficult.
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Analyst Donald A. DePalma, president of Common Sense Advisory Inc. in Lowell, MA, said today’s tough economic environment gives you another key point in talking up open source to your executives.
“In this market, its amazing how things are being turned on their heads,” DePalma said. For years, one corporate argument against open source has been about the uncertainty of support. But today, as even proprietary vendors are being pressured, there are no longer built-in guarantees of long-term support for the applications and hardware you are using today, he said.
Thanks to Canonical and its success with popularizing Ubuntu Linux, there has been an astonishing influx of new Linux users. This is one of those good news -- bad news scenarios; the growth is wonderful, but it also brings a growth in user demands, and a carryover of bad habits from the closed, proprietary software world. The core values of Free Software, which is not the same as Open Source software, are Richard Stallman's famous Four Freedoms:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The Gauteng Linux User Group (GLUG) will this week host Sun Microsystem’s open source migration specialist Michael Bohn who will be talking about the risks, benefits and opportunities in migrating to open source software.
Most Linux adepts will agree Linux could have a higher market share than it does today, if it had been marketed more effectively in the past. Therefore, lots of those adepts stress “Linux needs more marketing!” Some efforts have been done, most notably I remember the Indy 500 car which advertised Linux, and more recently the "We're Linux" Video Contest by Linux Foundation. One question hasn't been answered as of yet however: What's the goal of marketing Linux?
MP3 - 1 hour 14 minutes 20 seconds, 34.0 MB, Ogg Vorbis version here — you can also download all our episodes in both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis format from the Outlaw Archives.
In conclusion, Linux.com is a great resource for the Linux community. It connects people, it spreads information about upcoming events, and provides information from all aspects of the Linux world
Did I mention that HyperSpace is based on Linux? Only open source allows hardware companies the freedom to innovate in this way without having to pay huge licensing fees, or having to develop from scratch. Open source is far more flexible than rigid old Windows, which would require major adaptation.
Conventional wisdom says Linux application developers are most cozy with distribution specialists like Red Hat, Novell and Canonical. But the folks at Cisco Systems seem to be getting tighter with the Linux developer community, thanks to the so-called AXP (Application eXtension Platform) developer contest. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.
Educational games are games designed to teach people, typically children, about a certain subject or help them learn a skill as they play. Sometimes this type of software is known as games edutainment because they combine education and entertainment.
As you can see, Ksimus' analog capabilities are fairly complete. Figure 2 shows an analog circuit I built to demonstrate the Slider input as well as the Data Recorder. In this circuit, I have a sine wave and an analog slider that ranges from -1 to 1. I send these two outputs into the two comparison operators and get a digital output that I use to drive a couple LEDs. I've also included a label that displays the actual value being output by the slider. Finally, you can see the various wave forms and logic states in the graph windows. When the simulation is running, I can adjust the slider to change the relative duty cycle of the two LEDs.
The Proxmox VE (Virtualization Environment) system isn’t the main thrust of Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH. The company began in 2004 as a provider of anti-spam and anti-virus mail gateway appliances. They currently offer both a virtual appliance and a CD version of their Proxmox Mail Gateway. The CD version of the software must be installed on its own dedicated hardware to create the appliance.
It is extremely easy to install Secret Maryo Chronicles in Ubuntu , as it is available in the official repositories and could be easily installed by issuing the following command in the terminal window:sudo apt-get install smc
I really like Zenwalk Live on a pendrive. It’s a full-pledged ZW install you can take anywhere :)
From the testing that I could do, Foresight it a quite good distro, and certainly very polished and clean.
Fedora 11 will be out next week, but planning for Fedora 12 is already well underway. Some of the Fedora 12 features have already been laid out like a user-space LVM library, enhanced multi-seat support, and replacing nash/mkinitrd with Dracut. It's also time to start thinking about the codename for this next Red Hat release.
Developer Chris Ball has announced that the upcoming OLPC XO-1.5 laptop software release will be based on Fedora 11. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is a non-profit organisation who's mission is to provide children across the world with low cost laptops for self-education.
Red Hat has announced their latest release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, version 4.8. This is the 8th major update to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 OS, originally introduced in February of 2005. This release includes several new features, bug fixes & security patches.
Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the availability of JBoss Enterprise Business Rules Management System (BRMS), an open source business rules solution that enables easy business policy and rules development, access, and management.
Ubuntu has got some excellent FREE applications which can turn your PC into Live Studio! Here I am highlighting top 10 free applications available to make your PC into a Live Studio.
Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #142 for the week May 10th - May 16th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Karmic Koala Alpha 1 Released, Landscape 1.3 released, Server Team: Hungry for Merges, Meta-cycles: Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu Florida: Jaunty Release Parties & Qimo build day, Ubuntu Forums: Tutorial of the Week, Infinote-based Gobby hits Karmic, New Ubuntu Forums LoCo Administrator, Ubuntu podcast #28, WorkWithU Vodcast: Episode #1, Server Team Meeting: May 12th, Hall of Fame: Ante Karamatic, and much, much more!
The popularity of linux has finally captured 1% of world desktops. then comes the need for softwares. Personally, I am a Ubuntu linux user.Now, there are a lot of top Ubuntu software posts available on the internet and all of them narrow down to around 7 applications when combined. Not so cool!
The Palm Pre will go on sale on 6 June in the US and will only be available on the Sprint network.
Evidence is mounting that Palm will launch its Pré smartphone next month.
Minimizing the complexity of software integration with a uniform open source multimedia framework, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced a new GStreamer plug-in for developers designing with OMAP35x processors and digital media processors based on DaVinci(TM) technology. With the new GStreamer plug-in, embedded Linux developers can leverage an open source library to incorporate audio and video playback, audio and video synchronization and recording capabilities into their designs.
Attempting to take on the Apple TV comes Myka, an open-source digital media receiver that trades movie studio approval for a standalone BitTorrent client and more A/V codec support than you could shake a metaphorical stick at. Packing hard-drives up to 500GB in capacity, the compact box also supports remote access from any internet-enabled PC or cellphone.
User communities are a helpful way for developers with common goals to network and collaborate. Software developers are especially adept at forming user communities.
ACCESS CO., LTD. is a global company providing leading technology, software products and platforms for Web browsing, mobile phones, wireless handhelds and other networked devices. ACCESS' product portfolio, including its NetFront(TM) Browser, ACCESS Linux Platform(TM) and Garnet(TM) OS, provides customers with solutions that enable faster time to market, flexibility and customizability.
Nokia's Maemo is Linux-kernel based mobile OS meant for Nokia N810 tablet like devices and smartphones. According to MobileCrunch, the blue section the screenshot's background is the static on which the widgets float on a scrollable page.
This war will not end today, or tomorrow, or likely for decades to come, if ever. But so long as we push back against those who seek to take away our freedoms, and fight the good fight, we will win victories that will give us the freedoms we deserve and desire. We must never become complacent. Software and media freedom is for everyone, and it is a right and a freedom we should never, ever take for granted.
Dell goes after the education market with a child-centric netbook, but will it make the grade?
Dell today announced its Latitude 2100, a netbook designed specifically for school children. It is also the first Dell product in Australia to offer the Ubuntu operating system pre-installed.
The $369 version weighs 2.9 pounds and runs Ubuntu Linux 8.1 on an 8-GB solid-state disk (SSD) drive with a three-cell battery that lasts 3.5 hours, said Lord.
Little things really do mean a lot -- and they add up quickly. Open source software is fascinating in that it's more than the sum of its parts whether you look at the straight code or the community itself.
A lot has been written on the intertubes about Open Source software development. A tiny bit by me, a lot more than others. What typically isn’t written though are about some of the misconceptions — A lot of folks contributors appear overnight out of the woodwork, that users grow on trees, and that it’s possible to direct community members as if they were employees — not so, of course, and folks get disappointed or discouraged when it doesn’t happen. While I do believe OSS is very rewarding and a great way to make technology move quickly, and having that kind of relationship with users is invaluable, it’s worth taking some time to dispell some misconceptions.. or at least make folks aware of some of the stumbling blocks and how to get around them.
Jentla is made up of GPL licensed Joomla! components and a proprietary management layer outside Joomla! which handles interactions between the Jentla Manager and the individual Joomla! sites.
KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice.org and Firefox - all great software, and all powerful proponents of the free software software movement. But there are thousands of other applications out there that are worth trying, so in every issue of Linux Format magazine we highlight some of the best new open source programs that have been released or updated recently.
The University of Georgia has launched its new student portal using the open source uPortal 3 platform in an effort to expand online resources for current students.
Open-source software ideas are also now moving into hardware, said Rodgers, who cited the Arduino, an open-source electronics prototyping platform, as an example of hardware that appeals to software-oriented tinkerers. Projects like Arduino will make it easier, he said, for programmers to break down the wall between software and circuit boards.
Over the past decade, the Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) phenomenon has had a global impact on the way organisations and individuals create, distribute, acquire and use software and software-based services. F/OSS has challenged the conventional wisdom of the software engineering and software business communities, has become a useful instrument for educators and researchers as well as an important
The Linux Professional Association of Kenya and ICT Consumers Association of Kenya will be hosting Kenya's first Open Source Awards. The ceremony will be held at the Panafric Hotel, Nairobi, on 27 May 2009.
The global nonprofit will host an evening ceremony at the conference celebrating its recently launched IntraHealth OPEN Initiative benefiting Africa's health workers.
The Free/Open Source licensing in medicine crowd has been discussing these issues and showing demonstrable results for years but has received little attention and practically no funding. We have the legal, practical, and licensing means for achieving the transparency and rights guarantees that nearly everyone says that they want, solving many practical as well as moral issues.
Note: this is a concept icon rendering for Firefox 3.5. New and updated designs in the ongoing sequence of iterations will be posted every 24 hours or so.
Statistically, Flock is probably not for you. This Web browser, the 2.5 version of which is coming out today for Windows and Mac, is "designed to be the essential browser for the most active 25 percent of users," Flock CEO Shawn Hardin tells me.
The 3.0 release of OpenOffice left some issues in the productivity suite. This new version makes a good job of fixing them
It's been less than a year since Sun Microsystems’ OpenOffice.org hit its major 3.0 release, but the next version of the open-source, cross-platform productivity suite is already available, complete with a slate of feature enhancements and performance tweaks.
I'm going to be going over the 3.1 features in the next few blogs. Here are a few that are just nice -- not groundbreaking but very nice, convenient changes that making interacting and collaborating easier. The third just makes slight annoyances go away a little more easily.
In the coming weeks and months, I hope to share with you a number of these success stories. I hope these stories, in part, will let everyone in academia know that they are not alone when it comes to their commitment and desire to utilize OpenOffice.org to better the lives of their students through education. I hope it inspires other educators to share their untold stories, as well as open source project volunteers to keep up the good work they often thanklessly perform each and every day.
The low cost of deploying open source software (OSS) and its level of maturity make it a viable option today for small and midsize businesses (SMBs).
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ng acquisition, licensing, code use and reuse, and distribution. The task of managing it is complex and daunting, but avoiding these issues could be detrimental to the business, said Hensley.
"OSS governance should be top of mind for SMBs in order to ensure its long-term viability...throughout the organization."
Open source vendor trading system vendor Marketcetera is out today with its 1.5 release, increasing the functionality of its platform. The 1.5 release comes five months after the 1.0 release and as the economy continues to struggle through a slowdown.
While news of Marketcetera's 1.5 release of its open source trading platform will certainly appeal to those working with financial-services specific software deployments, there's a neat little gem in this story that will make any open source software enthusiast smile. Marketcetera, the open source pioneer in the automated stock trading platform arena, has always had the advantage of fast deployments, infinite extensibility thanks to its built-in scripting engine and open nature, and impressive scalability -- and its 1.5 release builds on that foundation.
The SA State IT Agency’s Free and Open Source Programme Office (FPO) is to host a workshop this coming Friday in which free and open source software (FOSS) vendors will have a chance to demonstrate their products to government officials. The day-long workshop will include representatives from companies that were selected, in a 2005 tender process, as government-approved open source vendors.
The Brazilian National Support Project for Telecentros (public computer labs with free, public Internet access) intends to support the deployment of 2 - 3,000 new Telecentros and towards achieving the goal of 10,000 active Telecentros by the year 2010. Almost all of the Telecentros are built using entirely free and open source software. Adding to the social benefit of the project, the rapid timetable will be met by training Brazilian youths on how to install Linux, configure the workstations and servers, and get the Telecentros online, up and running.
Because it’s my bag, in two earlier posts, I suggested that the future of software development is already here — that is, Development 2.0, which strives to produce software faster by leveraging open-source technologies and borrowing other people’s infrastructures, addresses the frustration that businesses have with IT: speed (or the lack thereof). What’s more, by addressing the speed issue, Development 2.0 also cuts the overall cost of IT.
We are currently living in a historical moment which will define and shape digital rights and information freedom on the internet for generations to come. It’s one of those rare moments where the issue is black and white and where the two opposing camps can be identified without over-simplifying the issue. On one side, there are those fighting for the information revolution’s culture of sharing, co-operation and the public commons. On the other side is a powerful, industry cartel who would stomp out the commons to salvage proprietary information that they can buy and own.
One point that often comes up (from all sides) in discussions about draconian copyright laws is the fact that, rather than worrying about copyright, new musicians can just ignore the legalities with no one being harmed. If only that were true.
