Software

OpenOffice.org 2.0, the first release of the open-source productivity suite in two years, made its debut today, complete with major renovations. The OpenOffice.org Project, an international community of volunteers and sponsors banded together to support and promote OpenOffice.org, is behind the soft...

The Open Source Development Labs yesterday said it has formed a new working group focused on accelerating the adoption of Linux in the rapidly-growing mobile market. The OSDL said it is creating the Mobile Linux Initiative in response to input from its membership and the growing global demand for Li...

Linux lovers can rejoice this week as two new distributions of the open-source platform make their way to the market. Mandriva released the latest version of its Linux product, Mandriva 2006, yesterday, and Canonical launched its latest Linux version, Ubuntu 5.0, today. Analysts said both companies ...

Oracle announced Friday what seems to be a squeeze play on MySQL -- the purchase of Innobase, a Finnish developer of open-source database technology. Terms of the agreement were not released. Innobase's most prominent product is InnoDB, a transaction engine that ships as an add-on to MySQL, the most...

Much the same as any other open-source debate, opinions about the future of Linux on the desktop are about as varied as they come. On one side you've got the Desktop Linux Consortium with its mission to advance the open-source operating system on desktops everywhere. On the other side you've got sof...

Hewlett-Packard today swooped in to pick up what's left of blade pioneer RLX Technologies, which had been reduced to a licenser of its blade management software, the RLX Control Tower for Linux. Terms of the deal were not announced. RLX had been first in the market with blades, or thin servers meant...

Microsoft and JBoss today bridged part of the gap between open-source and commercial software with plans to explore how their respective technologies can work together better. The two companies will explore enhanced interoperability between the JBoss Enterprise Middleware System and Microsoft Window...

In a bid to grab market share from Microsoft, Sun today launched the latest version of its desktop productivity suite, StarOffice 8. The offering represents the first upgrade for Sun's office software in about two years -- one that is designed with improved compatibility with Microsoft Office. StarO...

A day after Symantec's newest Internet Security Threat Report claimed that Firefox has twice the number of vulnerabilities as Internet Explorer, Mozilla released a security update of its popular open-source Web browser. Released today, Firefox 1.0.7., is billed as a security and stability update in ...

Linspire said yesterday that it would give away free copies of its Linux desktop operating system until Sept. 6. Linspire Five-O was launched in March and retails for US$49.95. The company said it decided to give away the software because a package called Freespire has caused confusion in the market...

Just about a week after Microsoft threw down the gauntlet in the Open Source Development Labs' (OSDL) courtyard, IBM yesterday threw it back at Microsoft. Two IBM-sponsored research reports arguing that Linux is less expensive both to buy and to operate than Windows and Unix come on the heels of Mic...

Mercury Computer Systems and Terra Soft Solutions announced today they have joined forces to deliver an advanced dual-PowerPC 970FX-based High Performance Computing cluster node. The duo announced an alliance to provide the XR9 with its 64-bit Linux OS 'Y-HPC' and cluster management suite Y-Imager, ...

In what appears to be a clever strategic move to level the playing field, Microsoft is negotiating with the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) to undergo a joint study to determine which operating system best suits the needs of today's enterprises. OSDL representatives did not return calls seeking ...

Japanese, Chinese and South Korean firms have jointly developed an Asian version of the Linux operating system, and are preparing to unveil the Chinese and Korean versions in Beijing on Thursday. A Japanese version will follow in October.

WSO2, a company started by key leaders of the Apache Web Services Project, today announced the creation of a new project tasked with creating a Web service mediation framework. The project proposal has been submitted to the Apache Software Foundation incubator under the Web Services project. Dubbed ...