software

Cisco's Chambers adds collaboration to his name

Cisco System's CEO John Chambers is ready to add more alliteration to his name. Try calling him the collaboration kid.

Chambers, a keynote speaker Monday at Salesforce.com's user conference, "Dreamforce Expo," demonstrated the use of telepresence technology to collaborate on landing a sale.

With the increasing popularity of broadband, Chambers noted it will change the way employees work, how they work and the work itself over the next decade. And he forecast that the next wave of productivity and innovation will be driven by Web 2.0 tools that will enable collaboration.

Chambers has a … Read more

Freeverse Sudoku (iPhone App)

It's only fitting that one of the great game developers for Mac would dabble in the new iPhone gaming market. Freeverse Sudoku sports a smooth and beautiful interface for playing the addictive Japanese numbers game using the touch screen on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You can even "pencil in" numbers to see how they work as you play.

iPhone link: http://freeverse.com/iphone/sudoku/

Web site link: http://freeverse.com/games/game/?id=7014

QNX shares source code, kinda

QNX Software Systems, one of the old guard in the the embedded operating systems industry, made a move Wednesday to fend off rival Linux by opening its Neutrino product source code for all to see.

But don't mistake the move for a true adoption of open-source software. Although QNX's hybrid model lets outsiders see, change and extend the Neutrino software, commercial use of the software requires purchase of runtime licenses, the company said Wednesday. Academics and noncommercial developers get free use of development tools.

The Neutrino development process will be more "transparent," and outsiders will be … Read more

The best way to silence one's critics

I couldn't help but comment on this news out of Australia that 2Clix is suing an online forum because a few forum members think 2Clix's products stink. The open-source world thrives on transparency. Not so with dear little 2Clix, which wants everyone to speak nicely about it, regardless of truth. Even in the proprietary world, this is extreme behavior.

The problem with such vendor-defined truth is that, well, it's often not very truthful. Dialogue is actually helpful for establishing such truth and motivating purchase decisions. Apparently, 2Clix can't see this.

From the article:… Read more

Samba team releases version 4 alpha

The Samba team has released an early look at a new version 4.0 of the open-source file-sharing software that's geared to mesh more tightly with Windows networks.

Samba reproduces Windows protocols used by file and print servers, letting Linux or Unix operating systems handle some tasks a Windows server ordinarily would. The most notable feature of the Samba 4.0 alpha release is support for Windows Active Directory logon technology used since Windows 2000, project leaders said last week.

The feature has been under development for years. The Samba group released a version of Samba with the Active Directory support … Read more

Force, not value, to drive upgrades--the new Microsoft way (?)

Rather than rely on customers actually wanting to buy its products (and for the long term), Microsoft is apparently intent on forcing them to do so. In a move reported by eWeek, Microsoft is forcing customers into buying its "Software Assurance."

What does this mean?… Read more

Firefox passes 400 million downloads

Firefox just passed the 400 million download mark, according to the Spread Firefox site for promoting the open-source, extendable Web browser.

That number shouldn't be confused with actual installations, Mozilla's public relations folks rightly caution. (I'm sure I've downloaded it at least a dozen times this year, and I'm only using copies on three computers at present. On the flip side, there are any number of other ways to get Firefox, including Linux installations.) Nevertheless, 400 million is an achievement worth noting, given that just a few years ago it looked like Microsoft had the … Read more

Mozilla offers open-source Eudora beta

Qualcomm's handoff of its Eudora e-mail software to the Mozilla Foundation has taken an important step: release of the first beta version of the software, 8.0.0b1.

Mozilla already has an open-source e-mail program, Thunderbird, and the new Eudora will be a branded offshoot with some new features, according to the release site. In addition, a related extension called Penelope will provide some extra features to both Eudora and the regular Thunderbird.

Eudora rose to popularity in the dial-up days of the Internet, but it was mostly supplanted by Microsoft Outlook Express and by Web-based e-mail services. Qualcomm … Read more

AMD to help with open-source ATI Linux graphics

Advanced Micro Devices will release open-source driver software to improve Linux support for its ATI graphics chips and is contributing help and funding to outside programmers who are improving the driver, according to a Linux graphics expert.

AMD is sharing specifications, releasing source code of one software component, and funding programmer work on the project, said Michael Larabel of the Phoronix site, which measures Linux performance. AMD is working with Novell's Suse Linux programmers on the project, he said.

An AMD representative told CNET News.com that the company plans to release details later Thursday about its open-source driver … Read more

AMD to update ATI Linux drivers--with open source?

ATI, the graphics chip business Advanced Micro Devices acquired, is planning to release new graphics drivers for Linux, and the move should provide a much-needed performance boost and a new open-source approach, one expert said Wednesday.

"The performance overall for the past sixteen months has been stagnant," said Michael Larabel, who runs the Phoronix site to monitor Linux graphics performance. He tested the driver and said the new 8.41 version will be available within the next week. "The new driver delivers massive performance improvements."

That's handy for the graphics wonks who want fancy 3D-graphics … Read more