Software

There's been a lot of coming and going at the Open Source Development Labs lately. In the past month two new companies have joined the organization and, more recently, nine staff members have departed. OSDL has cut nearly a sixth of its 57-person staff and contractor positions, the group revealed. S...

Everyone has heard the expression, "You get what you pay for." It suggests that the functionality of something is directly proportional to its price. But that rule of thumb is being turned on its head by open-source software. Open-source software is free, but it differs from "freeware" in some major...

The Firefox juggernaut, which had been slowed recently by a spate of security concerns, has picked up steam again on the strength of a decision by IBM to endorse the alternative to Internet Explorer for its massive employee base. Firefox, now the second most popular browser and by far the biggest th...

Novell yesterday announced it has acquired Immunix and its AppAmror software, a host-based security application designed for Linux. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. AppArmor is used to protect both the Linux operating system and applications from external or internal attacks, viruses,...

Anonymizer, a leading provider of Internet privacy and security products, plans tomorrow to release Anonymizer Total Privacy Suite, the first comprehensive identity protection product that works with Firefox, Mozilla's popular open-source Web browser. The new software, available for online purchase ...

IBM today announced it has acquired privately held Gluecode Software, an open-source software and support services provider whose product compliments Big Blue's WebSphere application integration middleware portfolio. Based on core open-source technology from the Apache Geronimo application server, G...

Security firm Secunia is reporting two "extremely critical" flaws in Mozilla's Firefox. The vulnerabilities can be exploited by malicious people who wish to take control of victims' computers. The Mozilla Foundation is aware of the two flaws. The organization said there are currently no known active...

Anyone who has ever bought a car knows that one of first hard choices they must make is how to service it. Do you stick with the dealer who sold it to you, or do you take it to one of the 495,000 businesses providing after-market service to auto owners? However, as vehicles become more and more depe...

In the mid 1990s, when I first began running into open source in my practice, I noticed that open source had a very strange effect on intellectual property lawyers. It was a Chicken Little situation, but instead of crying "the sky is falling" they were crying "the code is infringing." Nearly ten ye...

For open-source software developers, coding is the easy part. Trying to find the right open-source license is where things get painful. It's like standing in line at Starbucks trying to decide whether to buy latte or mocha. Soy milk or regular? Tall or grande? Don't even get me started on ice c...

Linux creator Linus Torvalds unveiled a new Linux control tool to manage his software project on Wednesday. Dubbed Git, the tool will replace a management system called BitKeeper sold by a company called BitMover. Community objections over the use of BitKeeper -- proprietary software -- didn't stop ...

In a move to help customers run heterogeneous networks, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that Virtual Server 2005 Pack 1 will include support for Linux. The announcement came at the Microsoft Management Summit yesterday. In his keynote address, Ballmer announced increased investments in support ...

Norwegian browser developer Opera Software today released Opera 8.0 for Windows and Linux, which adds anti-phishing measures and voice recognition. The opera.com site has been flooded with attempts to download the new version, causing the company to scramble to find the bandwidth to deal with the re...

A job posting on IBM's Web site seeking programmers to enhance the Firefox Web browser with new features to compliment its On Demand middleware stack is stirring speculation about the open-source browser's chances to grab enterprise market share from rival Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). Analyst...

In the hopes of getting Linux developers interested in supporting their hardware, VIA Technologies and XGI Technology, both Taiwanese chip makers, have released the source code for some of their drivers. XGI Technology released code for X.Org, XFree86.Org, and Kernel.Org for desktop, notebook, and s...