Free Republic

Way back in January, I announced a program to write Linux drivers for companies for free. When I did that, I never expected the response to be as large as it was. It turns out that there were two large groups of people who responded to the announcement, companies wanting drivers, and developers wanting to help out. I never imagined that so many different people would offer to help out. There is a real need for a place where developers can find a "real" project to work on in the Linux kernel. The Kernel Janitors project is a great place...

Novell's Linux business has soared 243 percent since last November when the company signed its controversial deal with Microsoft. "The affect on sales year over year, for Novell's first three quarters of our fiscal year, which ends Oct. 31 -- our Linux business was up 243 percent year over year," said Justin Steinman, director of marketing at Novell, who, along with executives from both companies, spoke at a program hosted by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. And, that growth doesn't seem to be short-lived. "We're continuing to see above market growth year [over] year and that clearly has resulted in...

Fearing the restrictions it places on their work, the majority of open source software developers do not plan to publish code in the next year under a controversial new license authored by the main governing body for open source and free software, according to a survey released Wednesday. In addition, more than 40% of those surveyed said they won't ever publish their work under Version 3 of the General Public License, which was released earlier this year by the Free Software Foundation. "GPLv3 is controversial because it imposes restrictions on what you can do with programs," said John Andrews, CEO...

From the ReactOS website... React Operating System ReactOS® is an advanced free open source operating system providing a ground-up implementation of a Microsoft Windows® XP compatible operating system. ReactOS aims to achieve complete binary compatibility with both applications and device drivers meant for NT and XP operating systems, by using a similar architecture and providing a complete and equivalent public interface. ReactOS is the most complete working model of a Windows® like operating system available. Consequently, working programmers will learn a great deal by studying ReactOS source code and even participating in ReactOS development. In short, ReactOS is aiming to...

Linux users want two things for their hardware: drivers; and easy access to those drivers. The first is finally happening; and now, thanks to a Dell Linux project called DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support), the other is on its way. Spread the word: digg this story Dell and Linux distributors have been working on DKMS for about five years now. Its purpose is to create a framework where kernel-dependent module source can reside, so that it is very easy to rebuild modules. In turn, this enables Linux distributors and driver developers to create driver drops without having to wait for...

Russian OS is to be installed on every school computer in Russia by 2009. Furthermore, every pupil will get the opportunity to operate the applied software produced in Russia, Leonid Reiman, acting Minister of Communication stated at a press conference. Experts and market participants consider the terms within which software is to be developed quite reasonable. According to Mr. Reiman, that might significantly reduce Russian dependence on foreign software.... The Ministry of Communication Press Service explains the Ministry plans to install Russian OS and alternative program package in every Russian school. The dates to carry out tenders for OS development...

Boston - In the print edition of Forbes there's a great (albeit sometimes painful) tradition of doing "follow-through" articles where a reporter either takes a victory lap for making a good call or falls on his sword for making a bad one. Online publications don't typically ask for follow-throughs. But I need to write one. For four years, I've been covering a lawsuit for Forbes.com, and my early predictions on this case have turned out to be so profoundly wrong that I am writing this mea culpa. What can I say? I grew up Roman Catholic. The habit stays with...

The Air Force completed a four-phase transition of the Global Positioning System ground segment to the new Architecture Evolution Plan on Sept. 14. AEP was delivered by the Space and Missile Systems Center's GPS Wing to the 50th Space Wing to replace the legacy 1970s-era mainframe computer at Schriever AFB, Colo. SMC managed the development, integration and test with the Boeing Company, who led a joint Boeing-Lockheed Martin contractor team, to design and build the new system. The transition was executed by the 2nd Space Operations Squadron from the 50th Space Wing and the 19th Space Operations Squadron from the...

This column is written for mainstream, nontechie users of digital technology. These folks aren’t necessarily novices, and they aren’t afraid of computers. They also aren’t stupid. They simply want their digital products to operate as promised, with as little maintenance and hassle as possible. So, I have steered away from recommending Linux, the free computer operating system that is the darling of many techies and IT managers, and a challenger to Microsoft’s dominant Windows and Apple’s resurgent Macintosh operating system, OS X. Linux, which runs on the same hardware as Windows, has always required much more technical expertise and a...

Three and a half years after launching a high-profile legal attack on Linux, The SCO Group has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Lindon, Utah-based company long has maintained that it had enough money to fight its costly lawsuits against IBM, Novell, Red Hat (which sued SCO proactively), AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler. But on Friday, a month after losing on a crucial legal ruling, the company admitted a grimmer picture. "The Board of Directors of The SCO Group have unanimously determined that Chapter 11 reorganization is in the best long-term interest of SCO and its subsidiaries, as well as its...

Recent statistics released by W3Counter reveal that the market share of Windows 98 fell from 1.44 percent to 1.34 percent in August, reducing it to the same level of popularity as the open source Linux operating system, which saw its market share increase from 1.33 to 1.34 in the same period. If the steady downward trend in Windows 98's market share continues, the popularity of Linux will soon surpass that of Microsoft's outdated, nine-year-old Windows version.

Stallman: The fact that Torvalds says "open source" instead of "free software" shows where he is coming from. I wrote the GNU GPL to defend freedom for all users of all versions of a program. I developed version 3 to do that job better and protect against new threats. Torvalds says he rejects this goal; that's probably why he doesn't appreciate GPL version 3. I respect his right to express his views, even though I think they are foolish. However, if you don't want to lose your freedom, you had better not follow him.

The Honorable Dale Kimball has now ruled: there will be no jury at the trial of SCO v. Novell. He granted Novell's motion on that. He will hear it himself. Here's the ruling [PDF], which comes in response to 8 motions, and here's how the judge ruled on them: * The SCO Group, Inc.'s ("SCO") Motion for Entry of Final Judgment Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) -- No, so there will be no immediate partial appeal. * Novell's Motion to Strike Jury Demand -- Yes. No jury trial. Novell is seeking only equitable relief.

AMD will continue producing a closed-source proprietary driver; however, they are opening the source-code to a critical library with accompanying GPU specifications for X.Org developers. To get the ball rolling, AMD is also funding the development of a new open-source R500/600 driver.

I've been following KDE 4 development very closely for quite a while and have noticed several neat features that have been independently cropping up all over the system in the last year. Perhaps it is the emergence of the new visual themes that make it feel fresh and new, but I get the feeling from this build that I'm finally starting to see the big picture.

Redmond works with Novell to port 'Flash killer' Robert Jaques, vnunet.com 05 Sep 2007 ADVERTISEMENT Microsoft is to make its recently unveiled Silverlight 'Flash killer' plug-in available on Linux. The commercial release of Silverlight 1.0 is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering richer user experiences on the web. Microsoft confirmed that it will work with Novell to deliver Silverlight support for Linux, called Moonlight, based on the project started on mono-project.com. The Redmond giant unveiled Silverlight at the 2007 National Association of Broadcasters conference in April and released the beta version to the public in May. Silverlight claims to significantly...

Sun seeks to apply the lessons of Linux and turn open source Solaris into an operating system to rival Linux and to be as commonly used as Java. Sun Microsystems has ambitious plans for the commercial and open-source versions of its Solaris operating system, hoping to achieve for Solaris the kind of ubiquity already enjoyed by Java. To come close to reaching that goal, Sun needs to reach out more to developers and endeavour to overcome some long-held prejudices against the OS. Sun's Java programming language, which debuted in 1995, is present in most of today's PCs, mobile devices and...

Student, prof build budget supercomputer August 30 , 2007 When Tim Brom 07’ set out to build a budget supercomputer with Calvin computer science professor Joel Adams, he didn’t know the product of his efforts might end up in his checked baggage headed for England. Brom, now a graduate student at the University of Kentucky continuing his studies in computer science, worked with Adams to build Microwulf, a machine that is among the smallest and least expensive supercomputers on the planet. “It’s small enough to check on an airplane or fit next to a desk,” said Brom. This may prove...

In lawsuits, as in baseball, there is no mercy rule. One side can be down by a dozen runs, but the game continues until the bitter end. So it is that SCO filed on Aug. 29 an appeal to the U.S. District Court decision that declared that Novell had never sold Unix's intellectual property to SCO. Spread the word:digg this story On Aug. 12, U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball ruled that Novell, not SCO, owns Unix's IP rights. Without Unix's IP, SCO's other cases against IBM, Red Hat and other Linux-using companies cannot be sustained. In Novell's financial earnings...

This guest whitepaper explains how hypervisors can isolate proprietary software from GPLv2 and GPLv3-licensed software. Authored by a Trango product manager, it uses Trango's hypervisor as an example, showing how the technology could help safeguard copyright-encumbered multimedia content in a video playback device with a user-modifiable Linux OS component.The paper was written by Bruno Zoppis, a former Sun Microsystems software engineer who now manages products for Trango. Alongside Trango's "Virtual Processors" technology, Zoppis appears to consider products from VMWare, IBM, and Sun Microsystems as falling into the "hypervisor" product category. Zoppis begins with an introduction to GPL licensing, including the...