Developers

Google's new Code Search, a developer tool that scours the Internet for software code, is stirring up buzz over what some see as its potential for misuse by computer attackers. Code Search is meant to optimize searches for specific software codes, scripts, licenses and related information. However, ...

Business integration and process management software company Tibco Software has released a beta version of Tibco General Interface 3.2, an Ajax Rich Internet Application toolkit. Tibco General Interface includes an open source licensing option with support for Firefox 1.5. The open source license al...

Yahoo used its recent "Hack Day" to springboard its opening of substantial chunks of code to software developers, highlighted by the application programming interface of Yahoo's widely-used Web e-mail application. Yahoo said the Web application code release -- aimed at spurring new interfaces and ot...

Sun Microsystems on Monday announced the creation of an independent OpenSPARC Community Advisory Board. The board is chartered with setting the direction for the OpenSPARC community, which fosters the creation of tools and derivative chip designs based on Sun's UltraSPARC T1 processor. OpenSPARC now...

The open source software development process will be going under the microscope as computer science researchers from the University of California Davis use a US$750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to find out how systems such as the Apache Web server, PostgreSQL database and Python sc...

Black Duck Software got its feet wet during the SCO uproar, when the Unix firm's legal onslaught against IBM and others sharpened concern over intellectual property rights connected to the use of software code. New issues have arisen since then, however, coinciding with the increased adoption of ope...

Linux creator Linus Torvalds' objections to GPLv3, the Free Software Foundation's draft of the next version of the popular GNU General Public License, have been reinforced by the rest of the open source operating system's top developers. They share Torvalds' concerns over digital rights management, ...

Much in the way that open source software projects are known to produce forks, or spinoffs, based on different objectives and personalities, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger is creating an offshoot of his popular communal Internet encyclopedia. Citizendium is intended for named, expert contributor...

New research by a pair of Harvard University academics suggests that Linux will never be able to displace Windows based on the simple economics of Microsoft's head start and its continuing ecosystem advantages. In a paper titled, "Dynamic Mixed Duopoly: A Model Motivated by Linux vs. Windows," Harv...

The Eclipse Foundation, an open source community committed to the implementation of a universal development platform, has approved the creation of the Aperi Storage Management Framework Project. The Aperi Project, which was proposed in June, will give customers more choices for deploying open-storag...

Reinforcing the company's strategy around open source business models, IBM announced new resources designed to help software development teams build Eclipse-based, vendor neutral development environments. Additionally, IBM is unveiling a new customer support program -- IBM Rational Elite Support for...

Sun Microsystems last week open sourced another chunk of Java development code, but some are criticizing the company for not declaring all of Java open source at once and under the same open source license. Sun released source code for Java Mobile Edition development tools under the Common Developme...

One week after it issued a faulty update to its popular Linux distribution, the Ubuntu project is still the subject of scorn among users of its open source software. The Ubuntu update inadvertently broke users' interface functionality, forcing them into command line mode. Many downplayed the error, ...

Sun Microsystems announced this week the availability of source code for its NetBeans Mobility Pack and NetBeans Mobility Pack for CDC, which will be released under the OSI-compliant Common Development and Distribution License. The tools are intended to simplify and speed the creation of applicatio...

With multiple delays and dropped components for its next-generation Vista operating system, Microsoft has stirred up plenty of confusion and criticism among software developers. Now other software makers, such as Qt cross-platform development framework provider Trolltech, are trying to take advantag...