Monthly Archive:: September 2005

Microsoft Claims Success to Secure Coding

Submitted by Danny 2005-09-02 Microsoft 14 Comments

Microsoft's program to ensure that developers build secure code is showing early signs of success, according to a senior executive from the company. The Security Development Lifecycle program is one of the results of Microsoft's announcement outlining concentration on security and secure development.

Submitted by kaiwai 2005-09-02 Java 9 Comments

Sun Microsystems has quietly open-sourced its web user interface building tool: JavaServer Faces 1.2. Sun released the source code last week under the company's CDDL.

EDE 1.0.4 Released

Submitted by anonymous 2005-09-01 Desktop environments 51 Comments

EDE 1.0.4 is a new version of EDE (Equinox Desktop Environment) which brings full FreeBSD support, various bugfixes and new features. The Equinox Desktop Environment is a small desktop environment, built to be simple, to have a familiar look and feel and to be reasonably fast.

Microsoft Holding Its Ground on Office for Linux

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-01 Microsoft 114 Comments

Some prominent figures in the Linux community believe that as enterprises increase their use of Linux on the desktop, Microsoft will be forced to consider offering a version of Office for Linux. "When the market share gets to a certain point, Microsoft will, just as it did with Apple in the past, make Office available on Linux," CEO Stuart Cohen of OSDL said in an interview. My take: Mr. Cohen is forgetting two important things: Excel was first released for the Mac (1985) and Word wasn't popular until MS ported it from DOS to Mac (1985).

Windows Vista Self-Guided Tour

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-01 Windows 26 Comments

Microsoft TechNet has published a high-level introduction to some of the new features and capabilities of the next release of Windows focusing on security, deployment, desktop management, end-user productivity and mobility.

Introduction to the Xen Virtual Machine

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-01 OS News 28 Comments

This article is intended mainly for developers who are new to Xen and who want to know more about it. The Xen VMM (virtual machine monitor) is an open-source project that is being developed in the computer laboratory of the University of Cambridge, UK. It enables us to create many virtual machines, each of which runs an instance of an operating system. These guest operating systems can be a patched Linux kernel, version 2.4 or 2.6, or a patched NetBSD/FreeBSD kernel.

Submitted by Tyr. 2005-09-01 In the News 33 Comments

Two research reports sponsored by IBM argue that Linux is less expensive to buy and operate than Windows or Unix. The first paper claims Linux is 40% less expensive than a comparable x86-based Windows server and 54% less than a comparable Sparc-based Solaris server. The second that using Linux has "Second Stage Benefits" such as attracting IT workers, among whome open source is increasingly popular.

The Final 72 Hours of Blastwave?

Submitted by James 2005-09-01 Solaris 27 Comments

"I need to ask the Blastwave and OpenSolaris communities for your help. Despite my best efforts at gathering corporate sponsorship, Blastwave is once again in a financial crisis. We are due to be evicted from the datacenter in three days, and there is little that I can do personally to stop this." You can help out by donating, and while doing that you can also participate in this survey set up to estimate the size of the Blastwave community.

Freespire Agrees to Name Change, Linspire Gives Out Free Copies

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-01 Linspire 54 Comments

In a short story with a happy ending, the developer of a free version of Linspire called Freespire has agreed to change the name of his project, and Linspire is offering free copies of Linspire Linux for a few days. Freespire, which first popped up on Distrowatch last week, described itself as a free variant of Linspire Linux, with proprietary components and trademarks removed.