FSF, SGI Cooperated to Resolve Licensing Issue in X.org, Mesa

Open Source 81 Comments
Thanks to SGI, a potential disaster for Free software purists has been averted. Back in January 2008, it was discovered by the OpenBSD guys that some of the contributions to X.org and the Mesa 3D Graphics Library made by SGI were covered under permissive open source licenses that didn't fall within FSF's definition of Free software. The FSF Compliance Lab worked with SGI to resolve the issue, and they succeeded.
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OLPC Downsizes Half of Its Staff, Cuts Sugar Development

Hardware 7 Comments
The One Laptop Per Child project announced Wednesday that it plans to downsize half of its staff and reduce the salary of the remaining employees. OLPC will also halt its development of the open source Sugar environment and focus on building its next-generation hardware device. These plans are part of a major restructuring effort that has been necessitated by the financial downturn and the organization's dwindling resources.
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Apple To Vie With Google Docs

Apple 4 Comments
At MacWorld, Apple announced its new iWork.com beta, a Google-Docs-esque online collaboration application to work closely with the original iWork program to share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with others. When beta testing is over, it will be a paid service (though the monthly price as of yet hasn't been released), much unlike Google Docs, which is free.
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DTV Transition: Facts and Fallacies

Editorial 31 Comments
If you live in the United States, then it's almost certain you've heard about this big digital switch that public television is making due to a new US law. If you live outside of the US, I bet you've heard of it anyway since we like to let people know what we're up to. The big day that's coming up -- February 17th, 2009 -- that magical date when all television stations will historically abandon the infamous analog broadcasting for greener, digital pastures -- didn't strike fear into the hearts at my household. We rarely utilize the antenna, and then only two to four times a year for a special program. Nonetheless, we got our hands on one of those nifty coupons anyway and went out to purchase a digital converter for the sake of those few intrinsic public broadcats. Read on for the whole story.
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Whitix 0.2 Released

  Submitted by Matthew Whitworth OS News 30 Comments
Despite what the project name's suffix might imply, Whitix is in fact not a Linux distribution. Whitix is a new operating system, written from scratch, and aims to combine the stability of UNIX with the user friendliness of other platforms. "It will offer a consistent, clear interface and a new way to navigate the desktop while basing the fundamentals on proven system technology updated for the twenty-first century." The project released version 0.2 today.
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Microsoft Moves Macs Closer to PC Parity

Microsoft 5 Comments
Microsoft has announced two products designed to provide users of Office 2008 for Mac with improved access to existing server-based Microsoft services. The first of the two, Microsoft Entourage for Exchange Web Services, will be a free upgrade to Entourage 2008 for Mac that will enable that email, contacts, and calendaring client to more fully benefit from the Exchange Web Services built into Exchange Server 2007. The second, Microsoft Document Collaboration Companion for Mac, will be a free Cocoa-based companion app to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac that's designed to improve document-management control for Mac users of Microsoft's SharePoint Server document-sharing technology. The app will work whether document sharing is provided by enterprise SharePoint Servers, third-party leased or subscription-based SharePoint services, or Microsoft's free (for now, at least) consumer and small-business oriented Office Live Workspace.
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Debian 5 Release Approaches… Binary Blobs Included

Debian 16 Comments
"The developers behind the Debian Linux distribution are preparing for the upcoming release of Debian 5, which is codenamed Lenny. The decision to move forward with the release follows a contentious vote over whether to permit the inclusion of binary blobs in the new version of the distribution. Consensus coalesced around a controversial proposal to "assume blobs comply with the GPL unless proven otherwise."
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A Look at newLISP

General Development 27 Comments
In the age of dynamic languages and closures, most of you have probably heard of a mighty dragon called Lisp (which stands for LISt Processing), whose fans look almost with despise at other languages rediscovering it. Invented half a century ago, Lisp went on to become a de facto standard in the world of AI research, and has stood behind a handful of very neat inventions in the 1980s. Nevertheless, the long AI winter and the drift of technology towards other paradigms have almost lead to forgetting Lisp alltogether; IT has only recently started to rediscover parts of what made Lisp so cool back then.
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Jobs Dispels Health Rumours

  Submitted by drcoldfoot Apple 11 Comments
Last week, Gizmodo rumoured that that Apple CEO Steve Jobs' health was in a very bad condition, so bad in fact that the "inevitable news" would arrive coming Spring. Then, Apple characteristically declined to comment on the rumour, meaning Gizmodo's story couldn't be verified. As it turns out, Gizmodo's story does have a hint of truth, but luckily, Jobs' health isn't even remotely in as bad a condition as they made it out to be.
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Review: EFI-X

  Submitted by alcibiades macOS 6 Comments
MacInTouch reviews the EFI-X kit, a pre-assembled computer equipped with the EFI-X module which allows you to boot Mac OS X on a non-Apple machine without having to resort to hacks. They conclude: "The EFI-X kit offers the ability to run Mac OS X Leopard without hacks, to run Windows without special Boot Camp drivers, and to run nearly any other personal computer operating system from Linux to Solaris to OpenVMS! It's not quite the seamless experience of Apple's Mac computers, but it comes darn close. Its quad-core 3.82-GHz Core 2 Quad, combined with a fast Nvidia 8800 GT video card and 10,000-RPM Western Digital Velociraptor hard drive, leaves even today's quad-core Mac Pro in the dust. For anyone but scientific and engineering users, the EFI-X kit offers even more real-world performance than Apple's high-end, eight-core Mac Pro costing over twice as much."
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Keryx: Updating GNU/Linux Without Broadband

  Submitted by pepa65 Linux 1 Comment
Keryx provides a way to download software and updates for Ubuntu systems that have little or no connectivity to the internet. Simply put Keryx on your pen drive, use it to create a new project file which retains a copy of your software sources and other system details, then take the pen drive to a computer with a better connection. Via its Synaptic-like interface, users can then select all updates for download, plus select any other software they may want to install, complete with dependency resolution.
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