Linux News for Jun 26, 2008

• Can We Give Every School Child in the UK a Linux Notebook and Still Save Money? (Jun 26, 2008, 22:30)
  Computerworld UK: "The simple answer is 'yes' we could do it now and we will save the taxpayer millions of pounds..."


• The Vocabulary of Open Source Development Models (Jun 26, 2008, 21:00)
  451 CAOS Theory: "James Dixon has given the thumbs-up to my stretching his Bee Keeper analogy to explain open source development models (which is nice) and in doing so has suggested a new term to help quickly explain the difference between vendor- and community- dominated development projects..."


• Google's Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web (Jun 26, 2008, 20:15)
  Wired: "'Is this interesting to Google?' That's what Andy Rubin was asking Larry Page. It was a spring day in 2005, and the two were in a conference room just off the main lobby at Google's headquarters. A simple yes and Rubin would have walked away happy..."


• Dear Microsoft, Thanks For the Help, Linux (Jun 26, 2008, 19:30)
  Cyber Cynic: "Microsoft has decided that it will ho ahead and kill off easy access to XP on June 30th. On behalf of desktop Linux users everywhere, and our first cousins, the Mac fans, thanks. You've given us the best shot we'll ever have of taking the desktop..."


• Mobile Linux Groups Merge (Jun 26, 2008, 18:45)
  LinuxDevices: "The Linux Phone Standards Forum announced that it will fold its standards-development activities and membership into the LiMo Foundation starting in July..."


• Unfairly Indicting Sun for Its SCO Testimony? (Jun 26, 2008, 18:00)
  The Open Road: "Pamela Jones rightly takes umbrage that Sun apparently stood by while SCO attempted to foul the pedigree of Linux, but how much righteous indignation is warranted is debatable..."


• KDE 4.04: Bad, Just Plain Bad (Jun 26, 2008, 17:15)
  Practical Technology: "I wanted to like KDE 4. I really did. I can't. It is the most annoying GUI (graphical user interface) I've used in years. And, yes, I'm including Vista's slow as sludge Aero in my evaluation..."


• Will Bill Gates' Departure Usher in Open Source Friendly Era at Microsoft? (Jun 26, 2008, 16:30)
  ZDNet: "It's a tough call. Observers from both the open and closed source worlds say the exit of Microsoft's longtime leader won't usher in a GPL era at the company but it will likely accelerate what is already a changing attitude in Redmond..."


• Insurance Company Bets Health on Open Source (Jun 26, 2008, 15:45)
  TechWorld: "I've been writing about the use of open source software in business for nearly a decade and during that time I discovered the level of interest in free software to be somewhere between non-existent to various point solutions for routine or mission-critical tasks..."


• McNealy: "We Invented Open Source, Gang" (Jun 26, 2008, 15:00)
  LINUX: "'To say that we need to be pressured,' McNealy continued, interrupting himself to say: 'We invented open source, gang...'"


• Linux Laptop Retailers Fearlessly Face Name-Brand Competition (Jun 26, 2008, 14:15)
  Linux.com: "Linux Certified sells Linux laptops and offers IT training to individuals and organizations. Its product line ranges from small, affordable units to performance laptops that cost well over $2,000..."


• Open Source Phone Goes Mass-Market (Jun 26, 2008, 13:30)
  LinuxDevices: "Openmoko has begun shipping its Linux-based, open source Neo Freerunner phone to five newly announced distributors, in Germany, France, and India, says the company..."


• Red Hat CEO: Oracle/BEA Deal is Helping Us (Jun 26, 2008, 12:45)
  internetnews.com: "Business continues to be good at open source vendor Red Hat despite the economic slowdown in the U.S..."


• The A-Z of Programming Languages: C++ (Jun 26, 2008, 12:00)
  Computerworld Australia: "In this interview, we chat to Bjarne Stroustrup of C++ fame about the design and development of C++, garbage collection and the role of facial hair in successful programming languages..."


• Open Source Tour of Europe: Italy (Jun 26, 2008, 11:15)
  451 CAOS Theory: "The Italian government put its money where its mouth was in December 2006 as Italian budget law committed €30m over three years to projects that stimulate the information society..."


• Linux Laptops: The Ultimate Birthday Present? (Jun 26, 2008, 10:30)
  Works With U: "My brother-in-law wants to buy his daughter a cost-effective laptop for her 13th birthday..."


• 4 Little Known Thunderbird Extensions (Jun 26, 2008, 09:45)
  Yet Another Linux Blog: "I recently searched through the mozilla thunderbird extensions website and found 4 extensions that I didn't know about that actually prove to be quite useful..."


• Monitoring with Munin (Jun 26, 2008, 09:00)
  Linux Magazine: "While it's important to consider performance and scalability in your original design plans, it's easy to focus too much on optimization once you have a running infrastructure in place..."


• Generating Reports and Statistics in PHP (Jun 26, 2008, 07:30)
  DevX: "This article explores PHP's support for the statistical domain. You will see how to generate reports and statistics for simple text phrases, XML documents, and complex databases..."


• Installing mod_geoip for Lighttpd On Fedora 9 (Jun 26, 2008, 06:00)
  HowtoForge: "mod_geoip looks up the IP address of the client end user. This allows you to redirect or block users based on their country..."


• Simple Perl Script To Ease Console Server Use On Linux And Unix (Jun 26, 2008, 04:30)
  The Linux and Unix Menagerie: "Technically, this script could be used for any server which accepts connections over telnet (Which this script is set up to use, even though I'm pretty sure I fought the good fight arguing against it)..."


• Arch Linux 2008.06: Overlord (Jun 26, 2008, 03:00)
  Celettu's Weblog: "It's taken some time, but here it is, the spankin new, fresh from the press Arch release, ambitiously called 'Overlord.' In this review, I'll have a look at it, and discuss a bit of the Arch philosophy in general..."


• Battle of the Titans--Mandriva vs openSUSE: The Rematch (Jun 26, 2008, 02:15)
  tuxmachines: "Last fall when the two mega-distros openSUSE and Mandriva both hit the mirrors, it was difficult to decide which I liked better. In an attempt to narrow it down, I ran some light-hearted tests and found Mandriva won out in a side-by-side comparison..."


• My Newfound Love for Xfce! (Jun 26, 2008, 01:30)
  It's a Binary World 2.0: "For the past week to two weeks I've done something I hadn't done in years--I switched my default desktop environment in my GDM login screen..."


• Managed VoIP Services Shifting to Open Source (Jun 26, 2008, 00:45)
  MSPmentor: "If you're a managed service provider mulling your VoIP options, keep this in mind: A growing number of customers--especially in Europe--are embracing IP phone systems that leverage open source and Asterisk..."


• Reasons for the Linux Plumbers Conference (Jun 26, 2008, 00:00)
  ONLamp: "The first Linux Plumbers Conference has just been announced. It takes place on September 17-19 in Portland, Oregon, back-to-back with this year's Linux Kernel summit..."