Software

Sometimes you can't win for trying. Like when you politely ask the kid sitting next to you on the subway who is playing his music a little loud to please turn it down. Just to be contrary, he responds by cranking it up even more. In my March 15 column, Lowering the Volume in the Software Patent Deba...

Novell has made a slew of Linux announcements at this week's BrainShare gathering, but today all eyes are on its next major upgrade of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server and an acquisition that will expand its Zenworks systems management offering. Dubbed Code 10, the new SuSE distribution is expected to m...

High-tech heavy hitters such as IBM, Novell and Oracle are among those showing support for the Linux Standard Base (LSB), a set of standards designed to improve compatibility between Linux distributions. The Free Standards Group (FSG) yesterday announced a long list of Independent Software Vendors (...

In the face of a European Union threat to levy US$5 million in daily fines for allegedly failing to license selected software code, Microsoft today announced the expansion of its Shared Source Initiative to cover seven additional countries in the European Union. Launched in May 2001 and now encompas...

Google launched a new site this week designed with open-source developers in mind. Dubbed Google Code, the site includes four open-source projects, APIs, and other tools to assist developers working on Google-related projects. In their welcome letter, Chris DiBona, Google's open-source program manag...

Sun said yesterday it would modify its licenses to make Java source code access more open, but analysts said it's still miles away from the open-source status that the developer community is calling for. Sun is introducing two licenses for using the Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE), the software for b...

Novell's chief technology officer, Alan Nugent, has left the company, LinuxInsider has learned. Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry said: "Alan has left Novell to pursue other interests. We appreciate the work he's done for us and wish him well. The folks that were reporting into Alan, a fairly small team...

Motorola and Acer are among more than a dozen commercial software and appliance products vendors that have been accused of misusing software licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Thirteen companies received an open warning letter at the CeBIT conference in Hannover, Germany, last week...

Novell is on the move with its Linux enterprise strategy with a series of announcements that began last week with the release of its Open Enterprise Server (OES) product. The company has since released details about its ZENworks 7 Linux management line, and several other vendors are launching softwa...

The debate over software patents is getting dramatic. For some, more than just lines of code are at stake. Rather, it is nothing less than freedom itself. As in the apocalyptic "Lord of the Rings trilogy," the armies prepare for war. The battle cry from Free Software Foundation Europe sounds: "Join...

With a new and improved Microsoft Internet Explorer looming, the Mozilla Foundation said late last week that it is shifting its focus completely to its popular Web browser and e-mail applications. In a letter posted last week on its Web site, Mozilla announced its intent to pull the development plug...

Five months after a preview version of CherryOS was released to cries that it was merely a copy of the open-source PearPC, software distributor Maui X-Stream has done it again. The Hawaii-based company re-released a final version of CherryOS on Tuesday to a similar reception. PearPC, a PowerPC archi...

Linux, the ubiquitous free operating system that by some estimates currently runs over half of all servers and is swiftly making inroads into operating systems from computers to mobile phones, is now targeting the automotive industry. As the cost of electronic components in automobiles continues to ...

At this stage, very few people question the power of open source to transform the dynamics of a technology market. Just look at Apache's rapid rise to dominance in Web servers. What's less clear, however, is what's next. Which sectors of the IT industry represent the next wave for open source? Whic...

After months of vehement arguments from anti-patent lobbyists, the European Union could finally approve a controversial draft software patent law on Monday. The decision would signify a possible end to a long battle over the use of such patents in the EU. The Computer Implemented Inventions Directiv...