software

Ex-Red Hat lawyer joins open-source group

Mark Webbink, who retired in August as a senior attorney for Linux seller Red Hat, has joined the board of the Software Freedom Law Center, the group said Wednesday.

The SFLC provides free legal help to free and open-source programming projects--for example filing a copyright infringement lawsuit on behalf of BusyBox programmers against Monsoon Multimedia.

Webbink was Red Hat's general counsel from 2000 until 2004, when the company hired Michael Cunningham for the role and Webbink took over matters concerning open-source software and intellectual property until his retirement. In that role, he's had to reckon with subjects including … Read more

Mozilla aims Firefox at mobile devices

Another star is coming into alignment in the mobile Linux galaxy: Firefox.

Mozilla has set up a group to develop the Firefox Web browser for mobile devices, hiring new staff and elevating the priority of the work to the same level as desktop computers. Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, announced the mobile Firefox move on his blog Tuesday evening.

"We are serious about bringing the Firefox experience and technology to mobile devices," he said. "Bringing Firefox add-ons, the Mozilla platform, open source, and a large and passionate community to the closed and fragmented mobile … Read more

Microsoft-Zend pact bears PHP fruit

Update: I added more detail about Microsoft's schedule for SQL Server 2005 support for PHP and about the use of PHP on Windows vs. Linux.

BURLINGAME, Calif.--Microsoft may make a habit of attacking open-source programming, but don't make the mistake of assuming the company has a monolithic loathing for the collaborative programming movement.

On Tuesday, Microsoft revealed some fruits of a partnership that that was announced a year ago with Zend, which develops and commercializes the open-source PHP scripting language for creating dynamic Web pages. Bill Staples, a Microsoft product unit manager, announced four moves at … Read more

NetWare and Linux cheek by jowl, courtesy Xen

For most of the world, Novell's NetWare operating system may have faded to footnote status, but Novell continues to grind away at its plan to modernize the software.

The new NetWare, called Open Enterprise Server, is an attempt to rebuild the operating system's services atop Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). Version 1.0 essentially was a bundle that included both operating systems, but with OES 2.0, which Novell announced on Monday, the two operating systems got a lot closer.

The reason for the proximity: Xen virtualization software, which lets the same physical server run multiple … Read more

SAP plans to acquire Business Objects

SAP announced Sunday afternoon it plans to acquire Business Objects in a cash deal valued at slightly more than $6.8 billion.

The acquisition, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008, is SAP's largest acquisition ever. The deal is especially noteworthy for SAP, which has tended to favor developing its own technology rather than acquiring it.

The acquisition of Business Objects, a leading player in business intelligence software, is designed to dovetail into SAP's previously announced plans to double its addressable market by 2010, said Henning Kagermann, SAP chief executive, during a press conference … Read more

Is Linux right for your mother?

One of the advantages of Apple Macintosh computers is that simply by not being Windows, they are immune to the plague of malware (malicious software) that constantly strikes at Windows based machines. Linux has this advantage too, plus it's cheaper. A computer running Linux can cost around a fifth as much as a Mac (more on this later).

The classic knock on Linux, when compared to Windows and Macs, has always been that it was harder to use, and indeed it was. But release after release it kept getting easier. How easy is it, now, for a Windows user … Read more

Austin-area kid checks software for chipmaker

This one falls directly into the category of "why do I feel like such a wastoid when I read these kinds of stories?"

An 8-year-old boy who lives just outside of Austin, Texas, has been helping out chipmaker Actel with its software evaluation.

This didn't spring up out of nowhere. Carson Page, a third-grader, has been tinkering with technology since he was 2, according to an article in the Austin American-Statesman.

By 4, he was fixing driver problems and installing operating systems by himself. At age 7, he started programming circuits with software from Mountain View, Calif.… Read more

Novell dishes up OpenSuse 10.3

Novell released OpenSuse 10.3 Thursday, its latest free version of the open-source operating system.

For those who need a refresher, OpenSuse is the faster-moving but mostly unsupported version of Linux from Novell and various outside contributors. It competes most directly with Linux versions such as Canonical's Ubuntu and Red Hat's Fedora. Novell has tried for years to pit it against Windows as well, even as it cooperates with Microsoft in a legally thorny partnership. Novell's supported product, Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server, is sold in the form of an annual support subscription.

Like most versions … Read more

Long live the command line: access Google Calendar

It's clear there's a core group of computer enthusiasts who still love the command line, 1984 Apple advertisements notwithstanding.

Ever notice that most screenshots intended to show off Linux user interface bling still sport a terminal window, usually with some green text on a black background? Or that one of the shiny new technologies coming out of Microsoft is the scripting and command environment called Monad? (It's officially called Windows PowerShell, but I like Monad better.)

The latest example of new-meets-old: the gcalcli command-line interface to Google's online calendar application. It's an open-source utility that … Read more