Developers

Microsoft is extending an olive branch of sorts to rival Mozilla. Sam Ramji, director of Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, has offered to help Mozilla make sure its Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client run smoothly on Windows Vista. Ramji posted the invitation to the Mozilla development...

In an effort to reach out to open source developers, Apple Computer this week said it will release buildable kernel source code for Intel-based Macs, beginning with code for Mac OS X, version 10.4.7. The firm previously released similar code for its PowerPC-based Macs. Apple quietly announced the o...

Virtualization continued to capture attention last week as open source system utilization software from OpenVZ won operating system-level support from Debian Linux. OpenVZ Project Manager Kir Kolyshkin told LinuxInsider the announcement was key for the open source project's larger objective of incor...

The Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center released a second working draft for the next iteration of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 3, which updates digital rights management, patent and other provisions included in the most popular free and open source software lice...

Saying it may have some scratch for the open source software itch, search giant Google chose the O'Reilly Open Source Developers Conference (OSCON) in Portland, Ore., this week to unveil a free service hosting open source software projects. The service, Project Hosting, will give open source softwar...

The Rice University open publishing project Connexions scored an on-demand printing deal with Qoop, a content delivery company, aimed at making the educational site's materials more accessible and printable for educators and students. Inspired by the open source software movement, where software cod...

Novell is set to boost Linux training for universities with a week-long "boot camp" for Linux educators and a series of three Suse Linux Enterprise textbooks -- created with Thomson Course Technology -- that cover Linux use, development and advanced administration. The new Linux courseware, to be in...

The Eclipse Foundation this week unveiled a grouped, open source software release dubbed "Callisto" that it considers a shining example of open source software development for the enterprise. The foundation's biggest feat with respect to the release -- a collection of 7 million lines of code contrib...

VA Software announced last week the availability of a free, full-feature version of its collaborative software development platform, SourceForge Enterprise Edition. The download includes a perpetual, no-cost license for 15 users. Built on the Java 2 Enterprise Edition J2EE platform, SFEE provides de...

Non-profit organization The Free Standards Group announced last week that it plans to strengthen its activities in Asia in an effort to prevent fragmentation of the Linux operating system. FSG said it is developing and promoting open source software standards including the Linux Standard Base, and O...

IBM announced plans this week to contribute what it calls "key intellectual assets" to the open source community, in an effort to help companies and software developers adopt and share best practices for Ajax software development. With its software contributions the firm aims to foster an industry c...

Novell this week unveiled an open source identity management project called "Bandit," aimed at interoperability among disparate identity systems and consistency in securing and managing identities, which can number in the thousands for enterprises. There have been numerous attempts at a uniform iden...

IBM recently announced that it will invest US$2.2 million in 2006 to expand its Linux Technology Center in Brazil. Developers at the LTC will work to make Linux more efficient, specializing in developing Linux systems with cell, power and virtualization technologies, IBM said. The investment will be...

The best software developers in the world know you can't create code without bugs -- it's just not possible. However, new open source software being put to use by open source projects including Evolution, Gaim, theGimp, Gnome, Rhythmbox and others can more quickly find the worst bugs, including thos...

Mobile phone giant Nokia released its S60 mobile browser source code under the open source BSD license this week, claiming the move will promote handset platform consistency and avoid the fragmentation that has held back mobile browsing. Nokia is choosing to open the mobile browser engine code becau...