06.17.08

Links 17/06/2008: Korea Markets GNU/Linux, ArtistX 0.5 Released, Bright Future for Mobile Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 12:30 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Korea’s HaanSoft to promote Asianux in RP

Asianux, a version of the Linux operating system, was developed by China’s Red Flag Software and has since been locally deployed and distributed by Japan’s Miracle Linux and HaanSoft, forming a regional open-source consortium.
ArtistX 0.5 – A Complete Multimedia Studio on a Live DVD – Create music and edit videos right from the Live DVD

ArtistX 0.5, a Debian-based Live DVD Linux distribution, was announced a few days ago by Marco Ghirlanda. This distro is full of applications for audio, video and graphics creation & editing. It uses the Linux kernel 2.6.25, KDE 3.5 as desktop manager and, as a bonus, you get Compiz 0.7.7 (from Debian unstable) for more eye-candy.
VectorLinux 5.9 SOHO Deluxe Edition

The VectorLinux team is pleased to announce the availability of the latest SOHO Edition to our CD store. This is a wonderful chance to support Vector and get a rock solid, full featured productive Linux Desktop.
Is Linux about to displace Windows Mobile?

Each one is different in the types of services it provides “out of the box” and in the types of interfaces these services have. Android, as an example, has a Java based UI, while MontaVista comes with nothing that is handset-specific. MobileCrunch posted a good comparison between LiMo and Android – I suggest reading it.
Linux Mint 5 Elyssa

The arguments that it may be too simple, not complicated enough, dumbed down Linux, Ubuntu copy, not-a-real-distribution, Windows lookalike etc, really belong in the past when developers were Hackers and Users were Geeks. The age of a real, usable Linux system for normal people has been born, thanks in part to Microsoft, and the desire of people like Clement Lefebvre to bring Linux to the masses means that there will have to be a special distribution arrive to prize Mint off my main Desktop PC any time soon. The bar has been raised, the gauntlet has been thrown down.
Compiz Fusion, Mandriva 2008.1 on AMD Phenom Quad-core PC with Demo
Running With Forks
Interview with Clint Savage, Fedora Ambassador

KDE

[KDE:] ok, then how about a video (more folderviewing)
FolderView Gets Nepomuk Search Integration

Probably the most often misunderstood element of KDE4 is Plasma, the extensive widget engine that replaces the normal desktop and the Kicker panel from KDE 3.x. The entire KDE4 desktop is built up out of Plasmoids (yet another term for desk accessory), including the panel and the desktop itself – and it is the latter that has been causing quite some confusion. Where are my desktop icons?
KDE 4.0.82 + Kubuntu Tutorials Day

F/OSS

Leftovers

Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic
Malware not man blamed in child abuse download case

But subsequent forensic investigation discovered that malware was responsible for silently downloading images of pre-pubescent kids onto the machine. Computer experts hired by both the defence and prosecution agreed with this analysis.
China Quake Site Hacker Caught

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IRC Avatars

Posted in Site News at 10:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

To those who are IRC regulars: if you wish to add your favourite avatar — to be displayed adjacent to your messages in the logs — please mail it to me ( roy at schestowitz dot com ) or post below as a comment the URL containing the image. sed makes it all this simple to achieve. To those who are not in IRC, come and join us any time at #boycottnovell (FreeNode). █

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If Acer Does GNU/Linux, Why Can’t OLPC?

Posted in GNU/Linux, OLPC at 8:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Universality contradicts objectiveness

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project — which aimed to give underprivileged children around the world a better chance at modern education — may have been stifled though a combination of disinformation and other coordinated efforts by hardware and software monopolies that wanted to stop it.

Read on

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Links 17/06/2008: GNU/Linux Minibooks in the UK, Android Saves Money

Posted in News Roundup at 4:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

RM delivers Linux-fuelled Eee

Tim let slip that he could be breaking an NDA over the following information – there’s a £25 price difference between the Linux version and the Windows XP. This came across that there’s an additional cost to customers from choosing the vole version over the penguin, but their product manager cleared this up later. The CEO was just referring to an internal cost for Asus and that’s all. RM will continue to offer the original Minibook models with Linux applied, just in case you were worried.
2D-Only Open-Source GTX 260/280 Support

This morning NVIDIA had unveiled the GeForce GTX 200 series and already NVIDIA’s Aaron Plattner has committed support for these cards to the open-source xf86-video-nv driver.
Amarok 2 Alpha – An Early Look at What’s Going On

Currently, it’s very obvious Amarok 2 is in the alpha phase. The major thing that changed is the interface, which looks nicer and more modern now, with the collection browser located in the left and the playlist itself located to the right side of Amarok’s window.
Linux-based telecom platform boasts in-service upgrades
Debian Release Goals

Devices and Mobiles

Hybrids

F/OSS

Are You Ready for Open Voting?
IBM may open source DB2 [IBM later denied it]
Open source tour of Europe: Greece
Vancouver Joomla!Day provides case study in community-building techniques
Rakarrack: Guitar FX For Linux

Linux-based guitar effects processors haven’t exactly been flourishing recently. Until recently, the guitar FX processors page at linux-sound.org listed twelve projects, of which the most recent maintenance date is 2006. Clearly, not a flourishing domain for Linux audio developers.
First look: Songbird 0.6 open source media player
Jonathan Schwartz’s free software foundation
What do Free and Open Source Software Leaders Think of Microsoft?
Open Source and Sustainability
Judging open source innovation with Red Hat
AMD teraflop processor is all about open-source

The Stream SDK’s Brook+ front-end is available as open source code.

Programming

Microsoft

Leftovers

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IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: June 16th, 2008

Posted in IRC Logs at 12:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Read the rest of this entry »

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The Novell Danger (to Free Software) Becomes More Widely Recognised

Posted in GNU/Linux, GPL, Linspire, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents, SCO, Xandros at 12:01 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Occasionally it seems useful to show that we are not along when it comes to criticising Novell. There is this tendency — wishful thinking for some — to say that this Web site is biased against Novell as a matter of principle and blind goals, as opposed to a well-calculated rationale. But this is totally untrue. While Novell does contribute to many projects and is rightly credited for it, the company operates upon selfish interests at the end. Novell is far from a Free software company [1, 2, 3 5]. It’s a lot more like Microsoft.

Have a look at this new press release.

Novell(R) announced today it is the first Linux* vendor to appear on the U.S. Department of Defense Unified Capabilities Approved Products List (APL), as SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 2 (SP2) has received the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Special Interoperability Certification from the department’s Defense Information System Agency. With this certification, Novell customers, including government agencies, can rely on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to support present and future networking standards, offering peace of mind for long-term use.

The APL list is expected to become a Department of Defense and U.S. federal government equipment purchase requirement.

Referring to this portion of the text, Groklaw opines: “This little nugget clariifies for me the sudden Microsoft interest in interoperability and the whole Microsoft-Novell deal.” Earning of a place inside the US government, which traditionally moves some of its operations to Red Hat, is what Microsoft might wish to influence here. It wishes to tax for the use of GNU/Linux and potentially run it under (or alongside) Windows. It’s all about control.

“In many ways, Novell became Microsoft’s ‘GPL factory’, which produces whatever ‘poison’ (legal obligations) or ‘features’ (Windows/Office/.NET hooks) Microsoft wants its competition to contain and bring upstream.”The criticism above is a tad subtle. Novell played an important role in squashing the action brought against Linux by SCO, so it would be hard for Groklaw to be overly critical of Novell, especially amid those final stages of the trial.

Nevertheless, it seems clear that Novell’s role in damaging Free software (using software patents) is precisely what the company might do. Mono, Moonlight, OOXML and some other hostile technologies appear to be among the key outputs of Novell.

The export of such unnecessary software seems to only promote Microsoft’s agenda. In many ways, Novell became Microsoft’s 'GPL factory', which produces whatever ‘poison’ (legal obligations) or ‘features’ (Windows/Office/.NET hooks) Microsoft wants its competition to contain and bring upstream.

Even Matt Hartley, who obviously likes Linspire and Xandros, it finally taking this small shot at Novell: [emphasis is ours]

What About Red Hat, Novell and Canonical? On the distribution development side of things, all three of these companies (excluding Novell’s selling out to Redmond), are on the right path with their own visions for desktop Linux.

BoycottNovell is not the only critic of Novell. It just happens to be a site whose name reflects on these convictions and biases. █

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