Linux News for Mar 20, 2008

• Maintaining Clarity (Mar 20, 2008, 23:15)
  code culture: "For the last two years, OLPC has been more a second home than workplace. My coworkers were another family, and we all worked harder than we thought possible..."


• From the Tree of Knowledge (Mar 20, 2008, 22:30)
  Hoosier Penguin: "Lately it seems that there are two major directions in open source software development: match proprietary software feature-for-feature, with some additional features thrown in for the extra cool factor..."


• Fedora's Advice on GPL Compliance (Mar 20, 2008, 21:45)
  LWN: "The Fedora Project Board wants our project to remain in compliance with Free and Open Source Software licenses..."


• AMD Releases Production Microcode For All Radeon GPUs (Mar 20, 2008, 21:00)
  Phoronix: "In the next step towards open-source 3D support for the R500 and R600 GPUs (Radeon X1000 and Radeon HD 2000/3000), AMD has just pushed its production microcode into the Mesa/DRM git tree..."


• Linux and the iPhone (Mar 20, 2008, 20:15)
  Roundup: Efforts to get Linux onto the iPhone platform have met serious resistance. So much so, that one Linux developer says the Microsoft mobile platform tools are more open than Apple's.


• Curl Ten Years Today (Mar 20, 2008, 19:30)
  daniel.haxx.se: "On March 20th 1998 curl 4 was released. It was the first curl release ever even if already at version 4 since we kept the version number from the previous projects we did before curl--using other names..."


• Iceland's Strong Stand on Open Source and Open Standards (Mar 20, 2008, 18:45)
  Open Malaysia: "The Prime Minister's Office of the Government of Iceland has released their policy on Free and Open Source Software. Reading it shows that the policy is well though through..."


• Novell Chief: We Helped Microsoft be More Open (Mar 20, 2008, 18:00)
  ZDNet UK: "Unsurprisingly, Novell's chief executive, Ron Hovsepian, does not see his company as desperate or a traitor to the open-source community, which it bought into with its 2003 acquisition of Suse Linux..."


• The Fog of War and a Ray of Light (Mar 20, 2008, 17:15)
  ConsortiumInfo: "Only rarely is something now written or said that cuts through this fog of war. A few days ago in South Africa, someone did just that, and that's what I've written about today..."


• Open-Source Efforts Derailed by 'Loud Minority' (Mar 20, 2008, 16:30)
  ZDNet UK: "Efforts to increase the adoption of open-source software are being derailed by the efforts of a 'loud minority' within the community who have made personal attacks on individuals who have expressed doubts about the software..."


• 15 Years in the Making, Wine 1.0 Is in Sight (Mar 20, 2008, 15:45)
  DesktopLinux: "For far longer than any of its developers would care to recall, Wine, the best program to use in Linux to run Windows applications, has been in development. Now, at long last, Wine 1.0 is scheduled to be released..."


• India Rejects Microsoft's OOXML Format (Mar 20, 2008, 15:00)
  EFYtimes: "The BIS LITD 15 Committee has rejected Microsoft's document format OOXML..."


• Microsoft 'Tax' on Linux in Schools Must End Says Becta (Mar 20, 2008, 14:15)
  Computerworld UK: "Dr Stephen Lucey joined Becta in 2000 and is now their Executive Director (Strategic Technologies). Becta is the Government organisation with oversight of all things ICT in UK schools..."


• Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring RC2 'Aceras' Released (Mar 20, 2008, 13:30)
  PR: "The sixth pre-release of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring is here..."


• Red Hat Open-Sources Security Framework (Mar 20, 2008, 12:45)
  LinuxWorld: "Red Hat has open-sourced its identity-management and security system to promote its assertion that open-source software provides the most secure infrastructure..."


• Novell, SAP Aim to Draw SMBs to SUSE Linux (Mar 20, 2008, 12:00)
  eWeek Mid-Market: "Novell and SAP have announced that they will customize SAP's enterprise applications to work even more efficiently with SUSE Linux Enterprise and its associated virtualization and identity management technologies..."


• Self-Support Tools Work with Java, Linux (Mar 20, 2008, 10:30)
  LinuxDevices: "A small start-up based in Seattle has started selling a 'self-support' tool for developers working with Java and/or Linux..."


• From the Tree of Knowledge (Mar 20, 2008, 10:04)
  Lately it seems that there are two major directions in open source software development: match proprietary software feature-for-feature, with some additional features thrown in for the extra cool factor. Or, someone develops code that simplifies and streamlines product features to make complicated software more accessible.


• Getting Stuff Done on Linux [Part 2] (Mar 20, 2008, 09:00)
  makeuseof: "We all use the internet. I'm sure anyone reading this has also heard of Firefox but do you know about all the others...?"


• Foresight Linux 2.0 [Review] (Mar 20, 2008, 07:30)
  distro-review: "One of my favourite things to do is try releases I've not heard of before... And so we enter Foresight..."


• Eclipse at eBay, Part 1 (Mar 20, 2008, 06:00)
  developerWorks: "We will talk about the eBay Development Environment (EDE), which is based on Eclipse V3.2 and requires JDK V5.0 or later..."


• Kernel Space: How to Use a Terabyte of RAM (Mar 20, 2008, 04:30)
  LinuxWorld: "An experimental new design for Linux's virtual memory system would turn a large amount of system RAM into a fast RAM disk with automatic sync to magnetic media..."


• Subcontractors, Meet Open Source (Mar 20, 2008, 03:00)
  InformationWeek: "Now that the recent lawsuit against Verizon by a couple of open source developers has been settled, it's become clear--as some people suspected--that the real offender here wasn't Verizon per se but a subcontractor, Actiontec..."


• The #1 Problem in OSS Usability and What I'm Going to Do About It (Mar 20, 2008, 01:30)
  obso1337.org: "I was doing some research on a paper I am writing about open source usability practices when it hit me..."


• Sun's Small Business Server Push Includes Ubuntu Linux (Mar 20, 2008, 00:00)
  The VAR Guy: "When Sun announced a major open source initiative targeting small and midsize businesses this week, a lot of people failed to realize that Sun would include servers certified for Ubuntu..."