Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
EFF: webcasting dropped from WIPO
The EFF reports that the draft WIPO treaty (covered in the May 4 LWN Weekly Edition) no longer grants 50-year copyright protection to webcasters. "So webcasting is out, but the question is for how long? The U.S., which proposed its inclusion, was not happy about the outcome. It said it was concerned with the 'missed opportunity' to provide protection for new entities, but said that it would reluctantly be prepared to accept the two-track approach -- on the condition that if the WIPO General Assembly did not convene a Diplomatic Conference dealing with 'traditional broadcasting' when it meets in September, any future discussions on a Broadcasting Treaty would include protection for new Internet entities." The DMCA-like DRM provisions are, presumably, still present in the draft.
FSFE welcomes KDE e.V. as new associate organization
KDE e.V., a registered non-profit organization that represents the K Desktop Environment in legal and financial matters, and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) have announced their associate status, working together for the promotion and protection of Free Software on users' desktops in Europe and worldwide.CUPS in the Google Summer of Code
The CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) project has announced its participation in the Google Summer of Code. "Qualifying students will be paid $4500 to work on any of the tasks on the CUPS roadmap page or a cool new idea of their own."
Google Summer of Code and OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org has announced its participation in the Google Summer of Code. "OpenOffice.org is proud to participate in the Summer of Code initiative sponsored by Google, and you are invited to join in the fun.... Last year's SoC was hailed by both students and mentors as a success, and we hope this year's will be even better."
Sun announces approval for Java EE 5 specification
Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced the unanimous approval of the Java EE 5 spec by the Java EE/SE Executive Committee. "With more than 30 licensees, Java EE is the premier platform for Java and Web services deployment. Java EE 5, described by JCP Java Specification Request (JSR) 244, includes innovations provided by more than 30 community experts and completed public review in August 2005. In all, 23 individual JSRs focusing on support for the latest web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA) technologies, a major revamp to the programming model, and simplified web application creation make up the Java EE 5 specification."
Commercial announcements
Novell announces new Open Workgroup Suite
Novell, Inc. has announced the worldwide availability of its Open Workgroup Suite. "Novell Open Workgroup Suite is now available worldwide, giving customers an open, low-cost alternative to the Windows-centric solution many perceive as their only option. The first workgroup suite for the open enterprise that provides organizations with a flexible and cost-effective solution based on proven, standards-based software, the Novell Open Workgroup Suite includes server and desktop components with powerful management tools, collaboration capabilities and the most advanced open source office products in the market."
OpenLogic pays community experts to support open-source software
OpenLogic, Inc. has announced the first program to provide consolidated, commercial-grade support across a wide range of open source products by tapping the open source development community for enterprise support. Through the OpenLogic Expert Community, "OpenLogic will pay qualified experts within the open source development community to provide in-depth support for open source products."
Open Source Vendors and Projects Unite to Form Open Management Consortium
Qlusters and Emu Software have announced the Open Management Consortium (OMC). ""The Consortium will promote the benefits offered by open source and open standard technologies and will provide a forum for product development collaboration among open source IT management projects. The founding members of the OMC include Nagios (sponsored by Ayamon), NetDirector (sponsored by Emu Software), openQRM (sponsored by Qlusters), openSIMS (sponsored by Symbiot), the Webmin project and the Zenoss project (sponsored by Zenoss, Inc.)."
Ranch Networks Develops Redundancy Solution for Asterisk
Ranch Networks has announced a Redundancy Solution for the Asterisk open-source telephony platform. "Ranch Networks, the first IP telephony network appliance provider to integrate security and bandwidth control for IP-based applications, today introduced 1+1 High Availability (HA) to its RN series of appliances. The 1+1 HA feature will provide users with reliable, redundant and uninterrupted VoIP service between any two Asterisk servers, even when the servers are not on the same network."
New Books
PC Publishing Releases "Ableton Live 5 Tips and Tricks"
PC Publishing has published the book Ableton Live 5 Tips and Tricks by Martin Delaney. "Ableton Live is the cross-platform software that's rocked the music world--gathering ardent fans in a way usually associated with performers rather than software."
Pragmatic Bookshelf releases "Enterprise Integration with Ruby"
Pragmatic Bookshelf has published the book "Enterprise Integration with Ruby" by Maik Schmidt.Learning UML 2.0 - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book Learning UML 2.0 by Russ Miles and Kim Hamilton.Linux Troubleshooting for System Administrators and Power Users published
Pearson has published the book Linux Troubleshooting for System Administrators and Power Users by James Kirkland, David Carmichael, Christopher Tinker and Gregory Tinker.Programming PHP, Second Edition - O'Reilly's Latest Release
O'Reilly has published the book Programming PHP, Second Edition by Rasmus Lerdorf, Kevin Tatroe, and Peter MacIntyre.Ubuntu Hacks: Rough Cuts Version - New from O'Reilly
O'Reilly has published the book Ubuntu Hacks: Rough Cuts Version by Kyle Rankin, Jonathan Oxer, and Bill Childers.Prentice Hall Announces "UNIX to Linux Porting: A Comprehensive Reference"
Prentice Hall has published the book UNIX to Linux Porting: A Comprehensive Reference by Alfredo Mendoza, Chakarat Skawratananond and Artis Walker.
Resources
Campware Good Gnewsletter #1
Issue #1 of the Campware newsletter is available. Campware is an open-source platform for independent news media organizations in emerging democracies, "Welcome to the first issue of the Campware newsletter! We hope to bring you this kind of updates on a quarterly basis to let you know what we've been up to."
EasyLinuxCDs.Com Launches New Free Services
EasyLinuxCDs.Com provides a wide range of Linux Distributions and Training materials to the Linux community. Now, in the true spirit of sharing, EasyLinuxCDs.com has widened the spectrum of free services to include games, wallpapers, how-to articles and more.FSF Europe Newsletter
The May 10, 2006 edition of the Free Software Foundation Europe newsletter has been published.
Contests and Awards
PyWeek Python Game Challenge winners announced
The winners of the second PyWeek game programming challenge have been announced. Winners include Nelly's Rooftop Garden and Trip on the Funny Boat.
Education and Certification
LPI Offers Certification Testing at LinuxWorld Johannesburg
The Linux Professional Institute will be holding certification testing at LinuxWorld in Johannesburg, South Africa on May 18, 2006.TimeSys to Offer Technical Webinars for Embedded Linux
TimeSys will hold new Technical Webinars for Embedded Linux on May 11, 16 and 23, 2006. "TimeSys offers its services through LinuxLink subscriptions, which include a number of cross-development tools that simplify embedded development. Each session will explore cross-compilation and build challenges, highlight TimeSys tools for addressing these challenges, and enable live interaction with technical experts from TimeSys."
Upcoming Events
Sun Microsystems Invites Developers to NetBeans Day
Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced the Third Annual NetBeans Day. The event will take place at the 2006 JavaOne Conference on May 15, 2006 in San Francisco, CA. "The "Enterprise and Beyond" track will focus on development the upcoming Java EE 5 platform, while the "Client Application Development" track will highlight visual development of rich clients using the Project Matisse visual development tool and the Java SE platform. Featured guests will include Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's newly named Chief Executive Officer, and James Gosling, the father of Java."
Events: May 11 - July 6, 2006
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| May 11 - 18, 2006 | LinuxWorld on Tour Conference and Expo 2006(LOT2006) | Montreal Ottawa Calgary Vancouver |
| May 12 - 13, 2006 | BSDCan 2006 | (University of Ottawa)Ottawa Canada |
| May 13, 2006 | DebianDay | Oaxtepec, Mexico |
| May 14 - 22, 2006 | DebConf 6 | Oaxtepec, Mexico |
| May 16 - 19, 2006 | 2006 JavaOne Conference | (Moscone Center)San Francisco, CA |
| May 26 - 27, 2006 | FreedomHEC | Seattle, WA |
| May 30 - June 3, 2006 | 2006 USENIX Annual Technical Conference | (Boston Marriott Copley Place)Boston, MA |
| June 13 - 14, 2006 | Where 2.0 Conference | (Fairmont Hotel San Jose)San Jose, CA |
| June 13 - 14, 2006 | Gartner Open Source Summit 2006 | (Palau de Congressos de Catalunya)Barcelona, Spain |
| June 14 - 16, 2006 | New York PHP Conference and Expo 2006 | (New Yorker Hotel)New York, NY |
| June 16 - 18, 2006 | Recon 2006 | (Plaza Hotel Centre-Ville)Montreal, Canada |
| June 18 - 23, 2006 | Ubuntu Developer Summit | Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France |
| June 24 - 25, 2006 | Free and Open Source Conference(FrOSCon) | (St. Augustin)Bonn, Germany |
| June 24 - 30, 2006 | 2006 GNOME Users and Developers European Conference(GUADEC) | Catalonia, Spain |
| June 24 - 25, 2006 | PHP Vikinger | Skien, Norway |
| June 27 - 29, 2006 | Corporate Channel and Computing Expo(C3) | (Jacob K. Javits Convention Center)New York, NY |
| June 28 - 30, 2006 | GCC and GNU Toolchain Developers' Summit | (Ottawa Congress Centre)Ottawa, Canada |
| June 30 - July 1, 2006 | WebTech 2006 | (Kempinski Hotel Zografski)Sofia, Bulgaria |
| July 3 - 4, 2006 | 3rd European Lisp Workshop | Nantes, France |
Event Reports
Transcript: Richard Stallman at Porto Alegre
Ciaran O'Riordan has posted a transcript of Richard Stallman's GPLv3 talk at Porto Alegre last month. "So IBM has patent licences for loads of things that they don't know. So the result is that they could have a patent license that makes them safe and they don't know it. So, we said that it's not fair to put them in a worse position than you would be in just because they have a blanket cross-licence and somebody else is explicitly negotiating a licence, so we said, alright, it will only apply if you knowingly rely on a patent licence. So if IBM has a patent licence as part of a blanket cross-licence and doesn't know, then this doesn't apply to them, but if they find out that this problem is happening and they have a patent licence, then they have to do something. IBM doesn't seem to like this very much."
Slides from the Desktop Architects Meeting
Few of us will be able to attend the second Desktop Architects Meeting, happening May 8 and 9 in Mainz, Germany. We all can, however, check out the slides from the presentations which will be made there. As of this writing, slides from a number of presenters, representing distributors, applications, desktop projects, and others, have been posted.
Web sites
The New and Improved KDE-Artists.org is Live! (KDE.News)
KDE.News reports on the latest changes to KDE-Artists.org. "KDE-Artists.org is back up sporting a brand new look and feel. We have created a much more community centric site where those interested can submit news, tutorials, links and more. There is also a new feature we call Studios. This is a new twist on blogging that is completely focused on the creation of art and showcasing the process of creation. Artists who are interested will be able to share their artwork with others and talk about how they created it, and what influences them in their creative process."
Page editor: Forrest Cook