Archive

Mozilla's call to developers to participate in its Jetpack project on Wednesday is the latest onslaught in the ongoing war of the Web browsers. Jetpack is an open source application programming interface that will let users create add-ons for Mozilla's Firefox browser using the Web technologies they...

Though it's struggled when it comes to kicking in doors in the consumer market, Linux has clearly found a welcome home in the enterprise, and it appears to be making itself more comfortable with each passing day. "It's the fastest-growing server-side operating system of any of them that are out ther...

Mozilla on Monday announced the first alpha release of its Fennec mobile browser for the Windows Mobile 6 operating system. This alpha is available only on the HTC Touch Pro from Sprint. Versions for other smartphones will be unveiled later. While Microsoft continues to upgrade the sixth version of ...

Google's right to use the word "Android" for its mobile phone operating system is being challenged by Erich Specht, who acquired a trademark for the name "Android Data" in 2002. Google attempted to gain the right to use "Android" for its OS last year, as it happens, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark...

A long time ago -- meaning, of course, three or four years in Internet time -- wikis came to represent the best of the true democratic, user-generated nature of the Web. The collaborative writing/editing of a wiki meant that all voices could be heard, but majority rule would prevail. This segment's ...

With the release of Ubuntu 9.04 last week, it's not too surprising that few other topics got much attention on the Linux blogs in the ensuing days. Yes, there was a rather intriguing discussion of porn and piracy over on DaniWeb and LXer; and yes, a moderately active conversation fired up the Slashd...

Crowdsourcing may be killing a lot of jobs. True, it's still a nascent business strategy that works well only in certain scenarios, and it can't be lumped in with outsourcing as the cause of mass layoffs. As is the case with outsourcing, though, it can be particularly difficult to quantify crowdsour...

Email was born sometime between 1965 and 1970, depending on how you define its genesis, and by 1980 it was considered by many to be the killer app. It drove the proliferation of PCs in the workplace and allowed people all over the world to work together. SMS texting and tweeting can take some credit...

Is software truly open source if you pay for additional features? Your answer may depend on whether you side with the purists or the, ah, not-so-pure. A recent trend entering the debate involves the marketing of so-called open core software. This morphed business model is not what many open source s...

Application creators can get an early look at the software developer kit for Android 1.5, the next version of the mobile operating system, according to Google. Based on the "Cupcake" branch from the Android Open Source Project, the SDK has application programming interfaces for new features, includi...

Before we can delve into making a scalable application, it's worth spending some time to define just what scalability is and isn't. Contrary to what many novice developers think, scalability is not primarily about performance. Performance is virtually unrelated to the aggregate scalability of an app...

Good things come in small packages, as they say, and that's perhaps never been more true than it is today, thanks to the emergence of increasingly diminutive devices equipped with Linux. Perhaps most notable of late is the $99 Marvell SheevaPlug, a wall-wart-sized device that runs Linux on a 1.2-GHz...

The Linux desktop has traditionally been a very fragmented and niche market, and the mobile Linux space is no different. While choice can be a good thing, fragmentation can be a strong detractor against any one platform gaining traction. What fragmentation means to developers is one, that they have...

I wonder if Levi Strauss would have made billions selling his blue jeans if he had said that the zipper was "sold separately." I wonder if cell phones would be as ubiquitous as they are today if everyone had to learn to speak binary in order to communicate using them. I wonder how many people would ...

While potential customers and the technology press await T-Mobile's G2 smartphone later this year, the wireless carrier is reportedly already knee-deep into the development of the next level of devices powered by the open source Android operating system. The company will roll out a home phone and a ...