Open Source Archive

Open Source Programmers Flocking to the Mac?

Ivan Krstic' critique of the One Laptop Per Child Project has made its ripples around the pond of the intertubes. Apart from the obvious part where it criticises a major project from an insider's point of view, it also had a few other remarks that caught people's attention - most notably the admission that despite his ability to do Linux kernel hacking, his main development laptop is a Macintosh running Mac OS X.

Coverity: Open Source Code Quality Up by 16 Percent

Coverity has published the 2008 edition of its Open Source Report. The report uses static code analysis on C, C++, and Java source code to determine the quality of the code. These reports are funded by the US Department of Homeland Security and supported by Stanford University, and are part of the US government's Open Source Hardening Project. The report is based on over two years' worth of data from Coverity Scan.

Shuttleworth, Seigo Discuss Synchronised Release Cycles

Back in April 2008, Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth pitched the idea of major open source projects synchronising their release cycles on a 6 month period. Projects like gcc, the Linux kernel, GNOME, KDE, as well as the distributions, would work out an acceptable release schedule. It would allow for easier collaboration between the various projects, and hardware vendors would be better able to support Linux since all major distributions would ship with the same kernel version.

Study: 70 Percent Say Red Hat More Secure Than Windows

Ars reports: "The Standish group recently completed an extensive study that examines factors influencing open-source adoption. Based on five years of research and analysis, the report provides intriguing insights into open-source adoption levels and the way that open source is reshaping the software industry. Individuals who participated in the Standish survey identified several key drivers for open source adoption, including lower costs, better security and reliability, and faster development speed." Sadly, the report itself is not available to the public (you can purchase it for USD 1000), so I can't give you a more detailed analysis than whatever Ars has to say. Which is too bad, since I love diving into the statistical side of such a study.

Open Source Decade: 10 Years After the Free Software Summit

"One of the most significant moments in the history of the modern software industry took place in 1998 when Netscape announced plans to release the source code of its browser under a license that would freely permit modification and redistribution. That pivotal event represents the point at which software freedom extended its reach beyond the enthusiast community and began its ascent into the mainstream. To celebrate the success of the past ten years and reflect on some of the challenges that the open-source software community will face in the future, we spoke to some of the pioneers who were there on day zero when revolution started. We want to share their perspectives on a wide range of issues, including software patents, the emerging challenges and opportunities created by cloud computing, open-source software on the desktop, the importance of interoperability, and the ongoing fight to bring software freedom to the masses."

FOSDEM Interviews

The annual FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Developers' European Meeting) is coming up at the end of February. This year, as in past years, the FOSDEM crew is publishing interviews with the speakers. The first batch includes interviews with Bill Hoffman, author of CMake, Robin Rowe, project manager of CinePaint, who will be talking about Linux in Hollywood, Kohsuke Kawaguchi from the Hudson project, Stéphane Magnenat, the author of Globulation 2 and Patrick Michaud, who'll be talking about Perl 6. The second batch introduces Steven Knight, who wrote the python-based build system SCons, Kurt Pfeifle and Simon Peter from the klik project, Matthias Rechenburg, openQRM author, Andrei Zmievski of the PHP project, who will be enlightening the FOSDEM 2008 audience about PHP6 and its Unicode and internationalization features and Mark Finkle (Mozilla Platform Evangelist).

MS’ Open-Source Strategy: a Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

"Does Microsoft have an open-source strategy - beyond finding new ways to thwart Linux and other non-proprietary wares? Sam Ramji, Microsoft's Director of Platform Technology Strategy and the company's Open Source Software Lab, says it does. I met with Ramji last week when he was passing through New York on his way to Europe, and had a chance to ask him to provide a succinct definition of what Microsoft means when it refers to its own 'open-source strategy'."

HP Develops Tools to Track Down OSS

Large companies typically don't have any idea how much Open Source software they have running on their various systems. This can pose a management and legal problem, so HP has developed software, called FOSSology and FOSSBazaar to help track down errant OSS installs. A Techtarget article notes, "HP gave an example of a recent customer that had three times as many FOSS licenses as originally estimated -- 75 licenses rather than 25. This left customers with a choice: implement governance policies to allow the safe use of FOSS, or replace the software at an estimated cost of $80 million."

Nine Characteristics of Open Source Users

"Operating systems come with cultures as much as codebases. I was forcibly reminded of this fact over the holidays when several family members and neighbors press-ganged me into troubleshooting their Windows computers. Although none of us had any formal computer training, and I know almost nothing about Windows, I was able to solve problems that baffled the others - not because of any technical brilliance, but because the free software culture in which I spend my days made me better able to cope."

Sun Announces Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program

"Sun Microsystems today announced a multi-year program called the Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program, which will foster innovation and recognize some of the most interesting initiatives within Sun-sponsored open source communities worldwide. To participate in the program's first year, Sun has selected six communities: GlassFish, NetBeans, OpenJDK, OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris and OpenSPARC. Prizes are expected to total at least $1 million (USD) a year."

Asus eeePC Violates GPL Say Linux Stalwarts

Members of the Linux community have complained that the hot new sub-notebook from Asus, the eeePC, may have violated the spirit of the Linux General Public License. Some Linux advocates claim the eeePC has not included required source code with the installed Xandros Linux distribution and does not easily enable users to install another distro. However, there are indications that eeePC fans probably don't care.

‘Ten Ways to Make More Humane Open Source Software’

"A lot of bandwidth has been wasted arguing over the lack of usability in open-source software/free software. Some people say that bad usability is endemic to the entire OSS world, while others say that OSS usability is great but that the real problem is the closed-minded users who expect every program to clone Microsoft. Some people contend that UI problems are temporary growing pains, while others say that the OSS development model systematically produces bad UI. In an effort to understand usability in the OSS world, I've researched the stories behind my favorite - and least favorite - OSS programs. I've found a fascinating variety of personalities, design philosophies, and project organizations. Although I've only scratched the surface, there are already themes that come up again and again."

Code Analysis of Linux Wireless Team’s ath5k Driver

SFLC has released a code analysis of the infamous ath5k driver in Linux. SFLC has also - in the aftermath of the OpenBSD-Team vs. Linux-Team 'License Flame War' - released a paper on what 'copyrightable' means, as well as one on proper usage of non-GPL'ed code in GPL'ed projects. All as part of guidance for developers wishing to use permissive licensed code in GPL'ed projects. Groklaw naturally also has a take on this.

OSI Calls for Major Revisions to Microsoft Permissive License

The Microsoft Permissive License, one of two licenses the software maker submitted to the Open Source Initiative for approval as open-source licenses in August, is unlikely to be approved in its current form. There have been two principle objections to the license from the open-source community, Michael Tiemann, the president of OSI, told eWEEK in an interview here at the annual Gartner Open Source Summit on Sept. 20. The first objection is that the use of the word 'permissive' in the license title implies an expectation that the license does not meet. The second complaint is that the MS-PL is incompatible with a large number of other open-source licenses, he said.