Monthly Archive:: July 2007

Feds Snub Open Source for ‘Smart’ Radios

Mobile-gadget makers are starting to take advantage of software-defined radio, a new technology allowing a single device to receive signals from multiple sources, including TV stations and cell phone networks. But a new federal rule set to take effect Friday could mean that radios built on 'open-source elements' may encounter a more sluggish path to market - or, in the worst case scenario, be shut out altogether. U.S. regulators, it seems, believe the inherently public nature of open-source code makes it more vulnerable to hackers, leaving 'a high burden to demonstrate that it is sufficiently secure'.

‘Windows Developers Begin Slow Defection to Linux’

"Two years ago, the number of developers writing applications for the Microsoft Windows platform fell, while the opposite was true for Linux - this has now become a trend. Instead of the Web stealing away Windows Users, as people have predicted for years, it's Linux and handheld devices. According to analysts at the Evans Data Corporation research house, 64.8 percent of North American developers are writing software for Windows, down from 74 percent only a year ago. The decline in popularity of the world's most prevalent operating systems appears to coincide with the rise of Linux, as the number of developers targeting the open-source environment has gone up by three percentage points from 8.8 percent to 11.8 percent in the same year."

Interview: Brent Fox, Red Hat

"In Red Hat's case, support plays a central role in the company's business model and in its high ranking with customers. Brent Fox plays a central role in Red Hat's organization, helping to ensure the continued happiness of some of Red Hat's biggest customers. It's one of those jobs that doesn't get the attention it deserves... Until something goes wrong. The Open Road caught up with Brent to discover how support at Red Hat supports its customers, and how its model differs from that of other vendors."

Interview: Steve Wozniak

10ZenMonkeys has interviewed Steve Wozniak. When asked about Bill Gates, he replied: "I've only spoken with him briefly a couple of times. I admire him, he admires me. Good lord, I'd never written a computer language when he had written a BASIC in the early days of hobby computers. And I thought, 'Oh my gosh - a computer with BASIC finally makes a computer that people can use for things'."

Five Questions: Kristian ‘Vanders’ van der Vliet, Syllable

After Axel Dorfler and Robert Szeleney, it is Kristian 'Vanders' van der Vliet's turn to answer the Five Questions. Vanders is one of the primary developers behind Syllable, the fork of (the now dead) AtheOS which saw the light of day July, 2002, because several AtheOS developers were concerned about the project's long-term goals. Syllable is free/open source software under the GPL license.

Microsoft Says It Is Not Bound by GPLv3

Microsoft cleared the air July 5 on its obligations to GNU General Public License Version 3 support, declaring it will not provide support or updates for GPLv3 under the deal it penned in November with Novell to administer certificates for the Linux distribution. Microsoft also said July 5 that its agreement with Novell, as well as those with Linux rivals Xandros and Linspire, were unaffected by the release June 29 of GPLv3 by the Free Software Foundation.

Elive 1.0 ‘Gem’ Released

Elive, the distribution dedicated to E16 and E17, has reached the magical 1.0 barrier. "This version is ready for the end-users and not just hard core testers. It is a more intuitive easy to use and more efficient system. It has better integration of the file-manager and the mime-types, a nice kernel especially for multimedia and big processes loads, a light weight foot print, much better compatibility with your (possible) Windows system/software, more hardware supported, better graphical recognition, and many more things that you can find in the complete changelog."

Flying High with Fedora 7; Interview with Fedora’s Chairman

Fedora 7 is a first class distro that demonstrates solid progress in improving the user experience, easing the move to virtualization and enabling the user to create their own custom spins with open source build tools, says this review. The same site had the opportunity to sit down face-to-face with Max Spevack, chairman of the Fedora project, at the Red Hat Summit in San Diego to talk about all things Fedora - the merger of Fedora Core and Extras, Fedora 7, and the road ahead.

64Bit MenuetOS 0.64 Released

A new release of the 64bit version of MenuetOS has been released, MenuetOS 0.64. "MenuetOS is an operating system in development for the PC written entirely in 32/64 bit assembly language, and released under this license. It supports 32/64 bit x86 assembly programming for smaller, faster and less resource hungry applications."

Mandriva Adds Semantic Layer to KDE 4; aKademy Keynotes

Mandriva has sent out a press release to highlight NEPOMUK, the semantic framework (think metadata) being developed by Mandriva and several partners and will be integrated in the upcoming KDE 4. It includes a link to a video demonstrating NEPOMUK integration into Dolphin, the KDE 4 file manager. In addition, "aKademy 2007 has kicked off! The first weekend hosted our user conference, which brought many talks about various topics, ranging from very technical to more practically oriented, which were spread over two tracks. The tracks were interweaved with keynote talks. Read on for the report of the aKademy 2007 keynotes."