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After more than two years without a break at One Laptop per Child, I
have decided to take some time to reflect on how I can best contribute going forward to the goal of giving children around the world opportunities for a quality learning experience. The OLPC Association is making headway getting laptops into the hands of children and it is encouraging to see that other non-profit and for-profit organizations are following suit. My personal interest is in helping build a community of developers, educators, and learners dedicated to advancing the quality of free and open source software for learning and the sharing of pedagogical approaches in this community by adopting the spirit and methodology of the open-source movement. While my goal is to create a complementary effort to broaden the reach of the software and pedagogy--a free and open framework in support of "learning learning", I hope to continue working with the great team at OLPC as well as the various groups that have formed around the world in support of one-laptop-per-child deployments. Thank you for all of your support over the past two years and for all the feedback and encouragement you have given me. regards. -walter Original link: http://lwn.net/Articles/278998/ Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Novell (NSDQ: NOVL) are extending their partnership around the Linux operating system to mainland China.
Under a deal disclosed Sunday, the two vendors said they would work jointly to market and sell Novell's SUSE Linux distribution in the People's Republic. Mirroring the companies' partnership in the West, Microsoft will buy certificates for SUSE Linux service and support from Novell and resell them to its Chinese customers. Microsoft and Novell also said they plan to host a series of roundtable discussions with corporate chief information officers in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing to promote the program. Microsoft and Novell, in a joint statement, said they are focused on "converting unsupported Linux users to supported SUSE Linux Enterprise." Microsoft said the partnership has already yielded customers in China. The People's Insurance Company of China Group, the Dairy Farm Company, and Dawning Information Industry have all agreed to purchase certificates for three years of SUSE Linux service and support. Microsoft first announced its partnership with Novell in 2006. The companies say their aim is to make Windows and Linux more interoperable. Critics, however, charge that the alliance's main purpose is to allow Microsoft to collect a toll from users of Linux, which is a free, open source operating system that competes with Windows in some markets. Microsoft claims that Linux violates 42 of its patents. The certificates that the company sells with Novell carry a provision that indemnifies users from legal action as long as they stick with the SUSE Linux distribution. Last year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer implied that his company might seek compensation from users of other Linux distributions, including Red Hat's. "People [who] use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to eventually compensate us," said Ballmer. Original link: http://www.informationweek.com/n... In an interview with the BBC News, founder and sponsor Mark Shuttleworth says the Ubuntu Project's 8.04 release (aka "Hard Heron") this week could be its most significant ever. Cited reasons include the promise of long-term support, and the ability to install it under Windows, without risky re-partitioning procedures.
Ubuntu supports its LTS (long-term support) releases for three years on the desktop, and for five years on servers. In his BBC interview, Shuttleworth said he hoped that longer-term support might appeal to organizations contemplating large-scale roll-outs. The 8.04 build of Ubuntu is scheduled for release on Thursday, Apr. 24. As an LTS (long-term support) edition, it is designed to provide users of the earlier 6.06 LTS release from 2006 with a supported upgrade path -- really quite a trick, considering everything that has changed in the world of desktop Linux over the last three years. Users of the more recent 7.10 release can also upgrade to 8.04. Other new features listed on the Ubuntu website include:
Original link: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news... Vyatta has started shipping a major upgrade to its free Linux distribution for x86-based routers, firewalls, and VPN servers. The big new change in Vyatta Community Edition 4 (VC4) is a move to the open source Quagga routing protocol implementation, for better scalability and a more Linux-like command-line user interface.
Previous versions of Vyatta's community edition used routing software from the open source Xorp project. VC4 began beta testing on Leap Day. Touted new features include:
Lots more details can be found in earlier coverage at LinuxDevices.com, here. Original link: http://www.linux-watch.com/news/... A Microsoft executive sent out a snotty email chastising anyone who has been encouraging people to purchase the Vista upgrade and install it without owning a valid Windows license. People discovered long ago that the Vista upgrade, which costs half of what full license costs, will install on new hardware without verification of a previous install. Microsoft's Eric Ligman points out, to those people who weren't aware, that this is just as much a violation of the license as "borrowing" an install disk from a friend.
It's understandable that Microsoft would be testy about their unintentional Vista easter egg. Whether it's good PR to take it out on your customers like this is questionable, however. I seriously doubt that people who are taking advantage of the upgrade loophole aren't aware that they're cheating. But the reason that it's Microsoft's head of the VAR program who's leading the scold-a-thon is that it's probably small Value Added Resellers who are taking advantage of the loophole to install Vista licenses on machines for their clients without having to pay. It's easy to see the temptation. The client gets a fully valid Vista license, the VAR gets paid, but only pays half the license fee, and everyone's happy except Microsoft. Certainly it's easier to morally justify taking an unauthorized discount off the Vista license fee than out and out pirating it. Many people will air their grievances about Vista's quality or Microsoft's past licensing transgressions while they stick it to the man, and feel justified. One big question this issue raises is this: is the accidental half-off program pushing anyone to buy a half-legit Vista license who would otherwise wait it out or pirate it? Or is each of these phony upgrades just a out-and-out revenue loss for Microsoft? Are the cheaters in any way justified? Or is paying half for an "illegal" install just as morally wrong as installing a pirated copy? Original link: http://osnews.com/story/19652/Co... |
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Debian Project News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2008/01/ Debian Project News - April 21st, 2008 ------------------------------------ Welcome to the first issue of the Debian Project News, the newsletter for the Debian community! From now on we'll keep you informed about recent events and interesting developments in and around the Debian Community on a biweekly basis. But we could still use some help, so feel free to take a look at our [1]wiki. 1. http://wiki.debian.org/ProjectNews/ New Debian Project Leader elected --------------------------------- After 12 years of working on Debian as a developer [2]Steve McIntyre was elected as the new Debian project leader. Within short hours of taking the job Steve had his first [3]interview with iTWire where he plans to focus his energy during his term. The interview highlights Steve's hopes to improve communication between the core teams, get Lenny out in the second half of 2008 and encourage greater participation in the project. When asked how Steve will know if he has done a good job this year he replied, "I'll know I've done a good job if Debian is in a better shape: More efficient, more people having fun, more people working on the core tasks that are needed. I want to see Lenny released inside our target window. Beyond that, I'll just have to trust to judgement - my own and those of my peers. I know that's a little wishy-washy, but it's not like I can point to objective numbers like sales figures here... :-)" 2. http://times.debian.net/1232 3. http://www.itwire.com/content/...  A non-profit open source project with high-profile backers has released beta code for an open source Flash media player, with a media server in the wings. Open Media Now's Gnash player runs standalone or as a plugin, and may run better than Flash on constrained devices. Last week the Gnash development project released the first beta (release 0.8.2) of its GPLv3 SWF (Shockwave Flash) movie player and browser plug-in. The free player is designed for "computer, gaming, embedded, and consumer electronic devices," according to the non-profit Open Media Now Foundation (OMNow) funding the effort. Gnash is likely to use less memory and power than Adobe's Flash. Originally created as a user interface for a digital stereo set-top box (STB), and based on work done by the GPLFlash project, the Gnash player runs as a browser plugin for Firefox, Mozilla, Konqueror, and NetFront, and is optimized for Firefox 1.0.4 or higher. Gnash is said to run on embedded GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. There is also a standalone player for GNOME- or KDE-based desktops, and ports to Darwin and Windows are said to be in progress. The player supports embedded architectures including MIPS, PowerPC, ARM, and Sparc. Several Linux distributions actively support Gnash, says OMNow, including Ubuntu, which ships it as an option, and Terrasoft Solutions' Yellow Dog Linux v6.0, which includes Gnash as a feature for the Sony PlayStation 3. It is also available upstream in Debian Lenny and Sid (testing and unstable). Gnash currently supports many features of SWF v7 and offers "growing support" for SWF v8 and v9, says OMNow. It also supports many classes of ActionScript 2, an object-oriented programming language used to build applications with the Adobe Flash Player runtime, and support is in the works for ActionScript 3. Like Flash, Gnash incorporates an XML-based messaging system that enables a movie to communicate over a TCP/IP socket and parse an incoming XML message, thereby providing for remote control applications. OMNow has also pledged to fund the Gnash project's Cygnal media server. Currently in prototype, Cygnal is intended as an open-source, Gnash-based audio and video server designed to run on large GNU/Linux clusters and handle thousands of simultaneous network connections. Cygnal will provide support for multiple streams with differing content, as well as multicast streams with a single data source, says the group. One challenge facing the group, says Gnash, is the question of how to handle proprietary formats like MP3, FLV (Flash Video) and ON2, or how to work around them with open-source alternatives such as the many formats supported by the ffmpeg plugin for Gstreamer. OMNow: a mission to free media OMNow is dedicated to the "development, the support, and the empowerment of an open media infrastructure," says the Foundation, which is seeking corporate members to help support the Gnash and Cygnal free software projects. The group is also said to collaborate closely with other nonprofits like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and OLPC (One Laptop Per Child). OLPC, which is seeding low-cost Linux laptops in developing nations, offers a pre-installed version of Gnash. The Board of Directors includes open-source veterans like Red Hat founder Bob Young, former CEO of Red Hat; John Gilmore, co-founder of the EFF; David "Lefty" Schlesinger, open source community liason at Access; and Rob Savoye, Gnash's primary developer, and an alumnus of Red Hat via Cygnus. Stated Savoye, OMNow's Founder and CTO, "We are promoting an infrastructure that enables the creation, the streaming, and the viewing of digital content, using free software in a legally conforming way. By creating a members-based 501c6 non-profit, we can coordinate the development of this technology, splitting the cost amongst multiple industry donors." Stated OMNow Executive Director Lauren Riggin, "Our aim is to engage in a variety of projects that improve upon both the functionality of, and access to, open media solutions." Availability The Gnash beta is available for download at the Gnash project. More information on Gnash can be found there, as well as on this GNU Gnash page, and at the Open Media Now site. Original link: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news... Personal data safety is big business lately. There are a variety of ways to protect your identity or keep your personal information from the prying eyes of dishonest people, but Eric Wolbrom has what he believes is a unique service. Keep You Safe makes it possible for subscribers to store all their personal data securely in a virtual online "safe deposit box," and share the key with someone they trust. When Wolbrom, a self-described "security geek," finally had the chance to launch Keep You Safe, he knew that building it on Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (LAMP) was the best way to keep his customers' data secure. Keep You Safe was born of Wolbrom's interest in business disaster recovery and his own personal data security. Wolbrom learned his lessons from his grandfather, who escaped from Poland early in World War 2, Wolbrom says. "He drilled it into my head that you always had to be prepared to run." Wolbrom's background is in business continuity and disaster recovery planning. "We do this for businesses, but why don't we do it for our personal data?" he asks. Wolbrom calls it "personal disaster recovery." "Being a security geek, I had always created these text files that would keep the family numbers together, and then use one of the encryption tools of the day to encrypt it, and put it out on the Net." Wolbrom said he could never resist discussing the topic with his business continuity clients. "Have you ever thought of doing for your personal data what you're doing with your business information?" he would ask them. "I wrote this little how-to article for a client." From there, it was only a matter of time before Keep You Safe was born. Keep You Safe gives clients the ability to either store records in text format on its servers, or to scan and upload copies of documents. Wolbrom says almost every technology that Keep You Safe is built on is open source, including the numerous custom applications he and his partner built to encrypt and store clients' data. Everything sits on top of a classic LAMP architecture: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. That's because open source is more secure than proprietary code, Wolbrom says. "I look at this like this: there's an old adage that security through obscurity is not security at all. If I am building something and I make it completely obscured, someone will find the holes in it and will be able to hack that thing. Windows is completely closed and people are constantly reverse-engineering it. With open source you have thousands upon thousands of people looking at the code. If we have lots of people looking, we're always going to find the bugs before they become an issue." In keeping with that belief in transparency, the company provides a PDF white paper that explains the security process for passwords and logins, data encryption, data transport, network firewalls, patches, and backups. Wolbrom appreciates the range of choices in existing applications that open source provides, so that when it comes to custom development his team doesn't always have to start from scratch. "It gives us a lot more flexibility in there for the things we want to add on or create, as opposed to building every single aspect of the application. I've believed in open source since 1996, when I first started looking at it." Wolbrom highly recommends using open source to launch any kind of online business. "It's going to give you the lowest expense-to-deliverable ratio that you're ever going to find. And that's the key thing about open source -- it's just so much less expensive to build anything. It's one of the biggest benefits."
Tina Gasperson writes about business and technology for some of the most respected publications in the industry. She has been freelancing since 1998.
Original link: http://www.linux.com/feature/132... Everyone agreed that the U.S. patent system needs to be updated. But if it hadn't been for one sticking point, that update might have come this year.
Now that high-level talks in the Senate Judiciary Committee have broken down, the opportunity for the patent system's first major overhaul in 50 years may have been lost -- at least for the current legislative session. "We never want to say it's impossible, but it certainly looks like a window has closed," said a staffer for Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), one of the bill's chief supporters. That seems even more likely with the election on the horizon, almost certainly ensuring that the Patent Reform Act will not make it to the floor this year, according to legislative aides. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had set aside this week for debate and a floor vote on the Patent Reform Act, but committee members were unable to reach agreement on the final language of the bill. The dispute centered around the provision regarding damages -- how patent holders should be compensated when they successfully demonstrate infringement on their work. At the same time, lobbying efforts in opposition to the bill escalated as a largely closed-room debate began to emerge from the shadows in recent months, with powerful and diverse interests such as the pharmaceutical industry and organized labor urging lawmakers to scuttle the bill. Meanwhile, many large technology companies, such as Hewlett-Packard and Cisco, had lobbied in favor of the bill under the auspices of the Coalition for Patent Fairness trade association. The House passed a version of the bill in the fall. Irreconcilable differences? While the bill promised the first revamping of the patent system in decades, legislators evidently remained intractable on the issue of damages. "We thought we had reached an agreement on this matter, but the language continued to shift, so we do not yet have a deal on the package," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement last week when the talks broke down. "I am hopeful that we can reach an agreement, but more work has to be done to get it right," Specter said. Supporters of the bill, most prominently Leahy and former Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), favored codifying the parameters through which patent holders could obtain damages awards in court. Opponents charged that the restrictions were too tight, and that limiting the ability to obtain monetary compensation from infringers left intellectual property underprotected. Other contentious issues, such as the legal jurisdiction of infringement suits and the ability to challenge existing patents, had generally been resolved. But there was no compromise to be found on damages. "We are disappointed that critics of the bill refuse to budge an inch when the bill's sponsors and supporters have made a tremendous number of compromises to address their concerns," said Mark Isakowitz, coordinator for the Coalition for Patent Fairness, in a statement responding to the breakdown of talks. Earlier this month, Isakowitz and attorneys for several of the tech companies involved talked up signs that momentum for the bill was gathering and that introduction to the Senate floor was a relatively simple matter of ironing out a few remaining details with the language. But opponents of the bill assured InternetNews.com that the still-unresolved issues were quite significant and that its introduction was anything but inevitable. Now, it turns out, they were right. Looking forward, working with a legislative calendar shortened by the election, the senators will have to reach an agreement very soon for the bill to have a chance to make it to the floor this year. Given the intransigence on both sides regarding the damages issue, such a turnaround would be a major surprise. A Reid staffer said she was not certain if the majority leader would be able to find time to schedule a patent debate even if the bill were to emerge from committee. "This is a major reform to the patent system; it's not the kind of thing that you can debate in an afternoon," a Leahy staffer told InternetNews.com. "Obviously, we're very disappointed." Original link: http://www.internetnews.com/gove... Is there a light at the end of AMD's long dark tunnel? Or is that just the headlight of an oncoming train with a big blue "I" on it?
The chipmaker reported its sixth consecutive loss in a row on Thursday. The one bright spot was the loss wasn't that bad, only $358 million, or a $0.59 loss per share. This wasn't a surprise, as the company had warned of greater than average seasonal weakness. However, there may be some relief in store. AMD (NYSE: AMD) has a lot of new products out that put it back in competition with arch-rival Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and the company is engaging in always-unpleasant cost cutting. So there may be hope. One of AMD's problems was an aging product line. As Technology Business Research (TBR) analyst John Spooner noted, the company had too many older chips with newer ones in the pipeline. The result was a higher-than-normal sequential revenue decline of 15 percent. A typical decline would have been between five and 10 percent. "We believe that the lack of availability of quad-core Opteron servers from brand name servers, in particularly, dealt the chipmaker a blow in the first," Spooner wrote in a research report. "However, due to seasonality and slowing consumer demand in the U.S., AMD was unable to offset slowing server shipments with higher sales of notebook chips as was the case in the fourth quarter of 2007." But now AMD is finally shipping Quad Core Opteron in volume. Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA) are already offering product and in the case of Dell, broadening their Opteron offerings. The desktop Phenom processors are available in triple and quad-core designs and AMD has more on the way. Dean McCarron, president of Mercury Research, said AMD now has a competitive product lineup. "Do they have a top to bottom stack that can compete with Intel at the top end? Probably not," he said. But McCarron thinks the segment with the greatest volume is in the midrange of performance, an area he said AMD can compete very well with Intel. Both Spooner and McCarron think that it will take some time before profits from these new chips show up on the bottom line. Both said it won't be until at least the third quarter before AMD can return to profitability. "We expect the products to have the greater impact on its third quarter results as businesses will take time to evaluate new servers from HP and Dell," Spooner wrote. In addition to the already announced 10 percent reduction in workforce, Spooner believes AMD will have to trim costs by exiting non-essential businesses and restructuring its manufacturing operations. He also said AMD might enter into additional manufacturing partnerships to help offset its own fabrication expenses. Given that the company said on the conference call that it won't be profitable in Q2 of this year, McCarron said don't expect it, but Q3 and beyond could turn around. "The second half of the year is the most likely time to have revenue growth take place," he said. "Their seasonality is very consumer-oriented, so that would drive some volume there. McCarron said there are positive signs that the major OEMs are still in AMD's corner. "If they were losing patience, AMD wouldn't be getting design wins for the server products," he said. "OEMs think the competition has helped them. It's given them the best technology to choose from and kept prices competitive. There's a reason for the largest OEMs to be supportive of AMD." Original link: http://www.internetnews.com/hard... |
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