OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Apple Deals Final Blow to Psystar

Submitted by kedwards 2009-12-16 Legal 89 Comments

Well, this pretty much seals the deal. Psystar is now officially burnt down to the ground, nothing left, it's all over. Judge William Alsup has granted Apple's motion for a permanent injunction, and even though the actual legal case only involved Leopard, the injunction specifically covers Snow Leopard and Rebel EFI as well.

Clarifications: GNOME, GNU, Planet GNOME

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-16 Gnome 77 Comments

In the item we ran yesterday about GNOME and the GNU Project, one aspect got snowed under a little bit. It turns out a claim made in the iTWire article about the role a blog post by Miguel De Icaza was false, and even though the claim wasn't ours, I did repeat it, and therefore, should correct it too. I also need to offer apologies for not framing the opening of the article clear enough - had I framed it better, a lot of pointless discussion and name-calling could've been avoided.

BusyBox Author Bruce Perens on the GPL Lawsuit

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-15 Open Source 37 Comments

Yesterday, we reported that the Software Freedom Law Center had started a lawsuit against several companies who they claim violated the GPL. The subject of the violation was BusBox, and the SFLC claims it is operating on behalf of the authors of BusyBox. Original BusyBox author Bruce Perens, however, begs to differ.

One-third Windows 7 Issues Related to Installation

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-15 Windows 44 Comments

Now that Windows 7 has been out and about for a while, the first balance sheets regarding its success start popping up. Consumer helpdesk firm iYogi surveyed 100000 of their customers, and the results of that test paint a relatively positive picture for Microsoft's latest operating system release - but one problem point sticks out like a big eye sore.

Submitted by poundsmack 2009-12-15 Internet 13 Comments

The groups responsible for standardizing the language used to build Web sites have begun tackling technology to provide a direct interface to Webcams. The World Wide Web Consortium has begun work on the HTML Device addition to the Hypertext Markup Language specification. "The device element represents a device selector, to allow the user to give the page access to a device, for example a video camera," according to a December 11 draft of the specification.

Submitted by narramissic 2009-12-15 Wireless 10 Comments

Over the weekend Barnes & Noble's Nook was rooted and the hacking and developer community is hard at work bringing new functionality to adventurous Nook owners.

Submitted by poundsmack 2009-12-15 OS News 8 Comments

"An increasing number of machines are equipped with hardware that can be used to support trustworthy computing. Trustworthy computing enables applications to make strong assurances about their behavior. Existing operating systems do not provide the right execution environment for trustworthy computing, and so are unable to fully exploit this emerging opportunity. The Nexus is a new operating system for trustworthy computing. Its microkernel architecture greatly reduces the size of the trusted computing base (TCB) by moving functionality out of the kernel."

SFLC Launches GPL Lawsuit Against 14 Gadget Makers

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-14 Open Source 18 Comments

"On behalf of the developers behind the open source BusyBox project, the Software Freedom Law Center has launched a major lawsuit against 14 consumer electronics companies. According to a complaint filed by the SFLC, the companies named in the suit failed to comply with the requirements of GNU's General Public License, the free software license under which the BusyBox code is distributed."

Russinovich Details MinWin, Once More

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-14 Windows 72 Comments

Ah, MinWin. The elusive project in the Windows team that has been misunderstood more times than I can count. Once again, Mark Russinovich, more or less the Linus of the Windows world (I win stupidest comparison of the year award), has explained what MinWin is all about, while also touching upon a number of other changes to the core of Windows. Before we start: thanks to BetaNews for once again detailing these technical talks regarding the core of Windows so well.

Kolibrios 0.7.7.0 Released

Submitted by hidnplayr 2009-12-14 OS News 5 Comments

Version 0.7.7.0 of KolibriOS, the OS with its kernel and most applications written in assembler, is out. One of the biggest improvements is the port of the linux ATIKMS driver (meaning, resolutions such as 1920x1080 now work). Other changes include new games and improvements on the network applications.

Submitted by chully 2009-12-14 Gnome 333 Comments

Over the weekend, there has been a bit of a ruffling of the feathers over in the GNOME camp. It started with complaints received about the content on Planet GNOME, and ended with people proposing and organising a vote to split GNOME from the GNU Project.

Arrington Files CrunchPad Lawsuit, Brings in the Poo

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-11 Legal 24 Comments

The CrunchPad/Joo Joo soap opera continues. Michael Arrington remained silent during the introduction of the Joo Joo, but today he filed the lawsuit against Fusion Garage, and posted the actual document of it on the internet (naturally). The case presents, in great detail, Arrington's side of the story.

Nouveau Driver Going in Linux 2.6.33 Kernel

Submitted by Michael 2009-12-11 Linux 39 Comments

After Linus began criticizing Red Hat over not upstreaming the Nouveau driver and Red Hat then attributing this on microcode issues less than a day ago, David Airlie has prepared a patch to introduce the Nouveau DRM in the Linux 2.6.33 kernel. This free software NVIDIA driver will finally be entering the mainline Linux kernel.

It’s Official: Sun Debuts Java EE 6

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-11 Java 22 Comments

"On the heels of last week's vote to ratify the new Java specification, Sun Microsystems, the leader of the Java community, formally announced the release of Java EE 6. Along with the news, Sun today also released Glassfish version 3--the first Java EE 6-compliant Java server--as well as NetBeans 6.8 IDE, which also includes full Java EE 6 support. With the releases, Sun is providing the first major update to the Java EE platform in over three years. This month also marks another significant milestone with the tenth anniversary of the first J2EE release (the former name of Java EE) in 1999."

GNUstep Live CD 2.0 Released

Submitted by GÃ¼rkan SengÃ¼n 2009-12-11 OpenStep, GNUstep 11 Comments

The GNUstep project has released a new version of its Live CD, including many GNUstep software and developer tools. As a bonus you get some classic games like nethack, and quite a few network and system recovery and administrator tools. There are also a few 3D and audio programs on it. It's based on the 2.6.31 Linux kernel and Debian Linux distribution, and is created using the live-helper package. It is available for i386, powerpc, ultrasparc, and amd64. It comes with some added multimedia software packages like mplayer, lame, lives, vamps, mypaint, milkytracker, schismtracker, goattracker, opencubicplayer, and a nice selection of free fonts (like M+) and fontmatrix. Google Chrome is installed too.

Submitted by google_ninja 2009-12-11 Mozilla, Gecko 73 Comments

The ripples caused by Google's Eric Schmidt's words are spreading further and further throughout the internet. Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's director of community development, wrote on his blog, urging people to switch away from Google to Bing, which he claims has a better privacy policy. Dotzler points users to the Firefox Bing add-on.

Apple Countersues Nokia

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-11 Legal 23 Comments

Back in October, Nokia sued Apple for patent infringement. In a response back then, Apple already stated it would defend itself vigorously. We now know just how vigorously: Apple has countersued Nokia, claiming the Finnish electronics company is infringing 13 of Apple's patents. It's on.

You Have Zero Privacy Anyway — Get Over It

David Adams 2009-12-11 Privacy, Security 79 Comments

I was reminded of Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy's infamous sound byte (used as the title of this article) when I read about Google CEO Eric Schmidt's foot-in-mouth moment during a recent CNBC interview (YouTube Link). Here's what Schmidt said: "I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."

Airlock Locks, Unlocks Your Mac by iPhone

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-10 macOS 24 Comments

A clever little Mac utility : "Airlock allows your Mac to lock itself, plain and simple. Using your iPhone or iPod Touch, Bluetooth, and a smidgen of pixie dust, Airlock determines whether you're near your computer. When you leave the room - poof! - your Mac locks itself. "And when I come back?" You guessed it: your Mac unlocks. You can also customize Airlock to perform specific actions as you come and go - have your computer talk to you, log-in or out of iChat, walk the dog, and such."

Windows’ Scrolling Behaviour: Really, Really Annoying

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-10 Graphics 108 Comments

For as long as I can remember, I've been having issues with scrolling in Windows and its applications. When scrolling via dragging the scroll blob, it seemed as if Windows had the annoying habit of randomly resetting your scroll blob to its starting position, which irritated me to no end. It took me a while to figure out, but I finally know when this behaviour occurs - now I just need to know: why?!