December
Sub-archives
Dec 13, 2006
Behind the upsurge in Chinese open source communities
When Novell and Red Hat set up open source communities in China last year, most Chinese companies merely watched. Recently, however, China-based software companies have begun to show a greater interest in creating communities of their own. TurboLinux and Red Flag have created Whitefin and Linux-Ren, respectively. Red Flag also plans to create two additional open source communities -- UMPC (with Intel) and OpenAsianux -- before the end of this year. Why have Chinese companies suddenly changed their tunes? read more...
Microsoft and Novell partner up
Microsoft and Novell announced the culmination of six months of secret negotiations today in a joint Webcast from San Francisco, led by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian. The firms will collaborate in work in three technical areas while continuing to compete against each other for market share. read more...
SlashGear : FIC Linux & Open Source Cellphone
Ewdison Then writes "We’ve seen many gadgets utilising open source applications, but we haven’t seen them truly embrace open source as a platform for their product. Now that’s all going to change with FIC entering the smartphone market with their new FIC-GTA001. FIC is focusing on common usability at this moment such as MP3 support, GPS systems and GSM, however all those basic features and functionalities can be added to and extended with the involvement of the open source community. FIC will provide the SDK for developers to hack new features into the phone." read more...
Mozilla Starts Work On Firefox 3.0: Open Source
With Firefox 2.0 out the door last week, Mozilla is turning its attention to version 3.0, with a goal to deliver the new browser about this time next year. Among the features Mozilla wants for Firefox 3.0 is Places, the revamped bookmark tool that was dropped from 2.0 development in April. "We definitely didn't want to add [Places] until it was ready for prime time," says Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's director of engineering. read more...
Pakistan looks to free software
Pakistan, a country often criticised for software piracy, is looking at free and open source software as a way to transform its image and build local skills. Fouad Riaz Bajwa, general secretary of the Free and Open Source Software of Pakistan (FOSS-FP) network, told Tectonic in an interview that "FOSS-FP was established in 2005 with the intention of "helping people identify open alternatives to pirated software". read more...
OSS call centres the next big thing
Public sector call centres may be among the most significant beneficiaries of the government's drive to implement open source software solutions. This is according to BizCall MD Steve Briggs who was addressing a conference on performance and retention in government call centres. Briggs said many decision makers were unaware that it was possible to run a sophisticated IP telephony-based call centre using open source technology. read more...
Microsoft's Amazing Shift on Linux
Microsoft has long warned that some Linux features may violate Microsoft patents. However, Microsoft and Novell have reached a royalty agreement that lets each of them use technologies patented by the other. As a result, users of Suse Linux will be in no danger of patent litigation from Microsoft. read more...
Nuts and Bolts of Open Source Business Models
"There's a tendency to think of the community as being entirely volunteers somehow working for free in their basements, but invariably they're in government or research," said Red Hat's Rick Carr. "For the commercial products, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, where the customer base is Wall Street or wherever, the large majority of development is done by commercial IT companies." read more...
Open Arms for Open-Source News
A small California newspaper has undertaken a first-of-its-kind experiment in participatory journalism in which nearly all the content published in a regularly updated online edition and a weekly print edition is submitted by community members. It's all free. read more...
Open source booming in Asia
Open source code is now used by over 70 per cent of software developers in Asia, according to a new report. The number of developers using open source in the region has surged more than 40 per cent in just three years, Evans Data Corporation revealed in a recent survey of software engineers. "Developers who faced difficult coding assignments had a harder time before open source software became common," said the research firm. read more...
