Yahoo! News: Linux/Open Source

Linux/Open Source

• A Guide to Today's Top 10 Linux Distributions (PC World)

  PC World - One of the most confusing things for the newcomer to Linux is how many distributions, or versions, of the operating system there are. Ubuntu is the one most people have heard of, but there are hundreds of others as well, each offering some variant on the basic Linux theme.

• Oracle's Suit Against Android Could Split Open Source (NewsFactor)

  NewsFactor - Oracle's suit against Google for the use of Java in its Android portable operating system continues to reverberate through the open-source movement. In the newest development, Google has declined to participate in the upcoming JavaOne conference, an event formerly hosted by Java creator Sun Microsystems and now run by Sun's new owner, Oracle.

• Red Hat Board Gets Military Leadership (PC World)

  PC World - The managing board of enterprise open-source software company Red Hat has elected a retired U.S. Army officer, General Henry Hugh Shelton, to serve as chairman, the company announced Monday. Shelton takes the place of Matthew Szulik, who was the former CEO of Red Hat.

• Open-Source Facebook Competitor Diaspora to Launch Sept. 15 (PC Magazine)

  PC Magazine - Open-source social network Diaspora is set to launch on Sept. 15, the service's creators announced in Thursday blog post. But can it do battle with Facebook?

• The Anti-Facebook Arrives September 15: Will You Switch? (PC World)

  PC World - Diaspora, the open source social network and potential Facebook challenger, will be ready to launch on September 15, according to the project's developers.

• Mozilla Releases Fennec, Firefox Mobile Alpha for Android (PC Magazine)

  PC Magazine - Two years after its first announcement, the browser is still far from a final release.

• Rumored SAP-Red Hat Merger Seen as a Long Shot (PC World)

  PC World - Rumors swirled once again this week regarding a possible takeover of Red Hat, this time by SAP, but a number of industry observers said Thursday that the prospect is unlikely at best.

• What Will Ubuntu 10.10 Look Like? (PC World)

  PC World - When Canonical broke the news recently that Ubuntu 10.10 will include uTouch 1.0, a multitouch and gesture stack, it caused a flurry of excitement about the Linux release's potential for use in tablets.

• Dell Answers Critics Demanding Streak's Source Code (PC Magazine)

  PC Magazine - A Dell representative said via Twitter on Thursday that the computer manufacturer is "reviewing concerns" that the company has not satisfied the terms of the GPL license in releasing the source code underlying the Dell Streak.

• Red Hat Offers Its Cloud APIs as Industry Standard (PC World)

  PC World - As the industry call for cloud interoperability grows more fervent, open-source enterprise software company Red Hat has submitted its cloud platform, Deltacloud, to the DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force) as a potential standard for cloud interoperability, the company said Wednesday.

• Firefox 4 Browser Inches Ahead with Ease of Use (PC World)

  PC World - Mozilla on Tuesday released the fourth beta version of Firefox 4, complete with several new features that have the potential to propel the browser ahead of its competitors.

• Eucalyptus Strengthens Its Back End (PC World)

  PC World - Two months after releasing version 2 of the enterprise edition of its open-source cloud software, Eucalyptus Systems has posted a new version of the software's base platform, the company announced on Wednesday.

• Firefox 4 Beta 4 Introduces Sync and Panorama (Mashable)

  Mashable - Mozilla has released Firefox 4 Beta 4, bringing two very interesting features to the table: Panorama (previously called Tab Candy) and Sync.

• Developers backing new phone OS (Investor's Business Daily)

  Investor's Business Daily - Mobile phone giant Nokia and chipmaker Intel (NMS:INTC) said developers are embracing their plans to create a new cell phone operating system called MeeGo. Nokia hopes MeeGo will help it in its battle vs. Apple's (NMS:AAPL) iPhone and Google's (NMS:GOOG) Android. Nokia's MeeGo is a merger of Nokia's Linux Maemo software platform with Intel's Moblin, which is also based on Linux open-source software. Nokia fell 1.7% to 8.76. Intel slid 1.6% to 18.41.

• Microsoft 'Loves' Open Source, and Pigs Can Fly (PC World)

  PC World - It may feel like an April Fools' Day joke, but for those of us who have been watching Microsoft's attitude toward open source over the years, it's just more of the same-old, same-old.

• Vyatta Routing Software Certified for IPv6 (PC World)

  PC World - The Vyatta open-source network operating system has been certified for IPv6, which is likely to become a key capability as the number of Internet addresses available under the current version of IP diminishes.

• Chrome Patches Show the Power of Open Source--and Google (PC World)

  PC World - Google's patching of vulnerabilities in its open source Chrome Web browser last week wasn't so much notable in itself; Microsoft, to be sure, is forever issuing patches for the many bugs that afflict its products.

• Crudbox Turns Any Gadget Into an Electronic Sequencer (PC World)

  PC World - It’s not everyday that you see seven electronic devices connected to a sequencer, but Steven Litt of Crudlabs has discovered a cheap way to create a less traditional electronic sounds. Litt created Crudbox using a 16-step, 8-channel step sequencer. It is an open-source project based around an Arduino microcontroller--an electronics prototyping platform popular with music artists and those making multimedia projects like the Crudbox.

• Requiem for an OS: OpenSolaris Board Closes Shop (PC World)

  PC World - Seemingly abandoned by its new owner, the open-source version of the Solaris operating system, called OpenSolaris, has now lost its governing board as well.

• Don't Count on Oracle to Keep OpenOffice.org Alive (PC World)

  PC World - Back in January, the Amsterdam-based consultancy Software Improvement Group warned government entities not to deploy OpenOffice.org until Oracle proved its commitment to treating the software as well--and with as much investment--as Sun Microsystems had.