Monthly Archive:: June 2005

Trolltech Releases Qt4

Submitted by Scott Collins 2005-06-28 Qt 72 Comments

Qt 4.0 release is on the wire. Among other things, that means the long awaited GPL-licensed Windows version is now available for download, and Qt4 is officially dual-licensed across the board. Also of note in Trolltech's announcement: integration with Visual Studio .NET; great strides in graphics, threading, footprint, and performance; and separation into Desktop, Desktop Light, and (non-GUI) Console versions.

Sun Presents Open-Source Enterprise Java

Thom Holwerda 2005-06-28 Java 23 Comments

"Today, we are open-sourcing Sun's server side implementation of Java," Schwartz told an audience of about 10,000 software developers and Sun partners. "This is the first step in open-sourcing all of Sun's Java software assets." It will be released under Sun's CDDL.

U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against P2P

Thom Holwerda 2005-06-28 Legal 75 Comments

In a long-awaited decision that could have stark repercussions for P2P networks, the United States Supreme Court on Monday gave record labels and movie studios a green light to sue file-sharing services such as Grokster and Morpheus, which maintained they were not responsible for the actions of their users.

Ballmer Confident, But Admits Failings

Thom Holwerda 2005-06-28 Microsoft 35 Comments

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has confessed the software giant's .Net strategy has come to a standstill, says he's accepted SQL Server's shortcomings and vowed to keep fighting search giant Google.

Why Linux Needs Rexx

Thom Holwerda 2005-06-28 Linux 39 Comments

Rexx is a scripting language that was invented at IBM years ago. The Linux community has largely ignored Rexx, but I believe it could play an important role in Linux's challenge to the Windows desktop. How can a language many in the Linux community have never even heard of be valuable in Linux's fight for the desktop?

Mesa3D In Haiku Sourcetree

Thom Holwerda 2005-06-28 Haiku 15 Comments

Mesa3D has been imported into the Haiku sourcetree: "A first draft of Haiku's OpenGL kit started his life yesterday when I've imported large portions of Mesa3D's BeOS port into our source tree."

Gates Talks, But Can’t Walk, His Tablet PC Pledge

Thom Holwerda 2005-06-28 Wireless 22 Comments

In a joint press conference with Toshiba today, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has again pledged his support for the Tablet PC. It's a pet project of his and despite lacklustre sales so far - it might break through a million sales in this, its third year - he's keen to see it succeed.

Fedora, Java And GCJ

Submitted by anonymous 2005-06-28 Java 16 Comments

Gary Benson (Red Hat) has made available Jonas in the Fedora Java development list (screenshot). Along with the large number of free and open source Java packages made available in Fedora Core 4 already, more are being added to rawhide compiled with GCJ. These include Lucene, additional Jakarta components, and more. You can read the rawhide reports in Fedora Test to track the rolling development updates.

Filesystem Snapshots With unionfs

Submitted by Flavio Villanustre 2005-06-28 General Development 13 Comments

Many times, you need to know how a certain filesystem looked like at some point in time, and you want to be able to roll back changes that happened to it after that point. While there are multiple solutions to achieve this goal, certainly one of them is to use filesystem snapshots. One of the capabilities of unionfs is to offer the possibility of consistently freezing the status of the filesystem at any given point in time (snapshot). Read more...

AmiZilla Progress Update; Bounty At $9507

Mike Bouma 2005-06-28 Amiga & AROS 7 Comments

The AmiZilla Team has released an update report on the progress which has been made since the project to port Firefox to AmigaOS and its clones started. The Amiga OpenOffice.org team will update the community of their progress at the upcoming AmiGBG fair.

AMD Files Antitrust Complaint Against Intel

Thom Holwerda 2005-06-28 Legal 51 Comments

AMD has filed an antitrust complaint against Intel. On a 48-page complaint AMD explains how the company thinks Intel has maintained its monopoly in the x86 microprocessor market by engaging in worldwide coercion of customers from dealing with AMD. It identifies 38 companies that have been victims of coercion by Intel. AMD claims that Intel's share of this critical market currently counts for about 80 percent of worldwide sales by unit volume and 90 percent by revenue, giving it entrenched monopoly ownership and super-dominant market power.

TSRI Offers Linux Open Design 2.6

Submitted by Kd 2005-06-28 Linux 20 Comments

The Software Revolution, Inc. (TSRI) announced web publication of the most comprehensive and detailed design documentation ever available for the Linux Operating System. Linux Open Design 2.6 is a richly hyper-linked graphic and textual blueprint for the entire Linux Kernel, Security, Memory Management, File System, Cryptography, Initialization, Drivers, and Architecture and Inter-Process Communications (IPC) Subsystems.

What Developers Want

Thom Holwerda 2005-06-28 General Development 13 Comments

Irrespective of the language programmers choose for expressing solutions, their wants and needs are similar. They need to be productive and efficient, with technologies that do not get in the way but rather help them produce high-quality software. In this article, we share our top ten list of programmers' common wants and needs.

Debian and Fedora Stay Sharp

Submitted by Eugenia 2005-06-28 Linux 20 Comments

June saw new releases of two of the world's most significant Linux distributions—Red Hat Inc.'s Fedora Core and Software in the Public Interest Inc.'s Debian—both of which are popular, freely available and capable of serving well in roles from the server room to the desktop.

Switching to Mac/Mad as Hell

Submitted by Shawna McAlearney 2005-06-28 Apple 40 Comments

Disgusted by security issues and poor performance, Winn Schwartau makes the switch from Windows to the Mac and details the bumps in the road along the way in his Mad as Hell series.

Intel’s Celeron takes the 64-bit route

David Adams 2005-06-28 Intel 10 Comments

Intel released a 64-bit processor for mainstream/cheaper PCs on Monday, putting the company a month ahead of rival AMD, which is expected to come out with a chip for the same market in July.

IBM backs Sun’s Solaris, Renews Java Pact

Submitted by Eugenia 2005-06-28 Oracle and SUN 10 Comments

Sun Microsystems and IBM announced partnerships around Sun's Solaris operating system and its Java software on Monday, a sign that Sun is taking a less adversarial approach to relations with its computing industry rivals.

Study Shows Windows Beats Linux on Security

David Adams 2005-06-28 Privacy, Security 64 Comments

Linuxlookup.com is reporting Wipro surveyed 90 companies in the U.S. and Western Europe with 2,500 to 113,000 employees where both the Windows and open source operating systems were simultaneously being run. The outcome: Windows beats Linux in Security. "We already know how to secure a Windows-based solution and keep it running smoothly,” says Stephen Shaffer, the airline’s director of software systems. “With Linux, we had to rely on consultants to tell us if our system was secure. With Windows, we can depend on Microsoft to inform us of and provide any necessary updates."

Linux, Market Share and the Desktop

Guest post by Richard 2005-06-27 Editorial 102 Comments

Many people take as a given that the desktop computer market is ossified and completely dominated by Microsoft. But, taking the global view, the PC market is anything but saturated. Some huge, untapped markets will ultimately decide how the market share pie will ultimately be divided. There will be room for Microsoft, Apple, and Linux, but how will it shake out?

10 Gigabit Ethernet On Its Way

David Adams 2005-06-27 Internet 27 Comments

The availability of 10 Gigabit ethernet will likely spell a major change for networking, as it becomes more widespread and cheaper. As one networking company CEO quoted in an eWeek article notes, "the new 10G fabric should allow for a seamless multiuse network incorporating storage, administrative and HPC communication needs, in comparison to having multiple networks as we do today."