Announcements
Non-Commercial announcements
FSF pledges $60,000 to the Free Ryzom Campaign
The Free Software Foundation has sent out a press release announcing that has pledged $60,000 to the Free Ryzom Campaign. This campaign is seeking to purchase and free the Ryzom multiplayer game, the owner of which is currently in bankruptcy court (LWN covered this campaign last week). "The Free Ryzom campaign represents a unique opportunity for the free software movement and the emerging free gaming field. A fully free MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game) engine and client/server architecture would allow the development of a myriad of universes, each one evolving its own philosophy and unique content - but sharing in general technical improvements." According to the release, this pledge lets the campaign raise its bid to €200,000.
Ecma International Approves Office Open XML as Worldwide Industry Standard
Ecma International has approved Office Open XML Formats as an Ecma standard and voted to submit the new standards to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for consideration as an ISO standard through the fast-track process.Sirius Teams Up with KDE (KDE.News)
KDE.News reports that Sirius Corporation has become a Supporting Member of the KDE project. "Sirius' commitment to KDE is our second supporting membership and follows Canonical's recent patronage of the project. Sirius and KDE are joint participants in SQO-OSS, an EU-funded project that assesses the quality of Open Source code."
Commercial announcements
Adaptive Planning Express Edition 3.0 released
Adaptive Planning has announced the release of Adaptive Planning Express Edition 3.0. "Adaptive Planning Express Edition delivers a full set of capabilities for collaborative budgeting and forecasting. Featuring improvements in global navigation, formula management, data administration, and performance, Version 3.0 provides business users in Finance and other departments with a no-fee enterprise solution that makes it easier than ever before to move beyond spreadsheets for managing budgeting and ongoing re-forecasting and analysis."
Collax releases Security Gateway With enhanced bandwidth management
Collax has announced a new version of Collax Security Gateway. "Collax today announced expanded bandwidth management of the Collax Security Gateway. The UTM solution in Version 4.0.10 prioritizes and guarantees bandwidths in Virtual Private Networks; giving Voice-over-IP (VoIP), and other critical business applications such as ERP systems, priority in the VPN tunnel."
Covalent Bundles Terracotta's Clustering
Covalent has added Terracotta Clustering capabilities to its Enterprise Ready Server product. "Covalent Technologies, a leading supplier of complete enterprise open source solutions , today announced that it is bundling Terracottas clustering technology with Covalents Enterprise Ready Server, the most widely distributed Web infrastructure framework in Fortune 500 enterprises that combines the Apache Web server, Apache Tomcat Application Server, and related modules into a single, certified build. Enterprises gain scalability, as clustering with Terracotta makes Apache Tomcat scale almost 10X better than Tomcat on its own and surpasses the scalability of the majority of commercial application servers currently available."
Fortify Software and FindBugs launch Java Open Review
Fortify Software Inc. and FindBugs have announced the launch of the Java Open Review (JOR) Project. "The goal of the JOR Project is to boost the security and quality of open source software written in Java, one of the fastest growing programming languages used by open source software developers. Fortify and FindBugs are providing the review to help open source software project owners identify and fix quality and security errors quickly -- before they affect the performance of the software or pose a security risk to users."
Intalio to release BPMS under open-source license
Intalio has announced plans to release their Intalio|BPMS Community Edition under an amended version of the Mozilla Public License. "Intalio|BPMS Community Edition includes an Eclipse-based business process design tool that supports the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). It also generates executable processes using the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), a BPEL execution engine that can be deployed on top of any J2EE application server, and a workflow framework that supports the BPEL4People model developed by IBM and SAP. Users of the Open Source Intalio|BPMS Community Edition can later on upgrade to Intalio|BPMS Enterprise Edition through a yearly subscription plan."
Customers Strongly Endorse New Microsoft-Novell Deal
Novell has a press release showing customer support for the company's deal with Microsoft. "Nearly all respondents agree with improving interoperability, having products that work well together, and having tools that make it easier to manage mixed Windows(R) and Linux environments. The survey, jointly commissioned by Novell and Microsoft, was conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates Inc., a respected independent market research firm."
Open-Xchange Announces Partnership With MySQL AB
Open-Xchange Inc. has announced a partnership and support agreement with MySQL AB. "Open-Xchange will add MySQL support to its Linux based collaboration solution, Open-Xchange Server. Both companies will work to ensure optimized interaction between MySQL databases and Open-Xchange groupware functionality for joint customers."
rPath chosen by Newbury Networks for Wireless LAN appliance enhancement
rPath has announced its selection by Newbury Networks for work on Newbury's wireless LAN location appliance. "Newbury provides real-time location tracking solutions through its patented location-based technology. Using Newburys 802.11 device tracking capabilities, the Newbury Location Appliance accurately and precisely locates Wi-Fi devices while enabling a host of enterprise applications such as asset tracking, voice, security and network provisioning. Using rBuilder, the development process for Newbury was reduced to a matter of weeks versus months."
Sun Announces Java Platform Standard Edition 6
Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced the availability of Java Platform Standard Edition 6 (Java SE 6). "The Java SE 6 release is the result of over two years of industry-wide development involving open review, weekly builds and extensive collaboration between Sun engineers and over 330 external developers. Developers interested in getting started immediately with the Java SE 6 release can leverage the new NetBeans(TM) Integrated Development Environment (IDE) 5.5, which fully supports all the latest features of the Java SE 6 platform."
Terra Soft takes orders for PLAYSTATION3 running Yellow Dog Linux
Terra Soft will be selling PLAYSTATION3 game boxes installed with Yellow Dog Linux. "Terra Soft is now accepting pre-orders for the PLAYSTATION®3 with Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed, offering both the GameOS and Yellow Dog Linux at boot. More than a gamebox, the PLAYSTATION®3 with the multi-core Cell microprocessor was designed by Sony Computer Entertainment to function as a personal computer. Yellow Dog Linux offers this functionality with greater than 2000 applications, everything needed for a personal computer, Cell workstation, or light-duty cluster node."
TimeSys appoints Joseph J. Raffa as Interim CEO
TimeSys has announced the appointment of Joseph J. Raffa as Interim CEO by the board of directors. "Mr. Raffa replaces former TimeSys president and CEO, Larry Weidman, who recently left the company to pursue personal interests. Mr. Raffa currently serves on the board of directors at TimeSys. In this interim role, Mr. Raffa will direct and oversee company strategy and sales activities as TimeSys continues to support its successful and innovative LinuxLink(TM) web-based resource for embedded Linux developers. He will also lead the company's active search for a permanent CEO."
New Books
No Starch releases "Code Craft: The Practice of Writing Excellent Code"
No Starch Press has published the book Code Craft: The Practice of Writing Excellent Code by Pete Goodliffe.MySQL Cookbook, Second Edition - New from O'Reilly
O'Reilly has published the book MySQL Cookbook, Second Edition by Paul Dubois.
Resources
Report: free software for sustainable human development
The Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme has put together a report entitled "Breaking Barriers: The Potential of Free and Open Source Software for Sustainable Human Development"; it is a set of 14 case studies taken from all over the world. It's downloadable as a 1MB PDF file.FSFE Newsletter
The December 11, 2006 edition of the FSFE Newsletter is out with the latest Free Software Foundation Europe news.
Contests and Awards
Prize Draw for KPhotoAlbum Translators (KDE.News)
KDE.News reports on a prize draw for translation work on KPhotoAlbum. "KPhotoAlbum has entered string freeze for its new release, and author Jesper Pedersen is offering a prize draw for those who complete the translation. Individuals and teams with 100% of the strings translated will be entered into the draw for $100 to take place on hogmanay alongside the new release."
The SAGE Outstanding Achievement Award 2006
The SAGE Outstanding Achievement Award 2006 has been given to Tobias Oetiker and Dave Rand, the authors of MRTG and RRDtool. "The Swiss Open Source Software developer Tobias Oetiker together with Dave Rand receives the 2006 SAGE Outstanding Achievement Award for the creation of the Open Source Software tools MRTG and RRDtool. In their commendation, SAGE points out: "Before the creation of these tools, the only people that could reap the benefits of long-term, historical statistics gathering were people with multimillion dollar budgets. MRTG and RRDtool democratized, and therefore popularized, historical data collection. As a result, network utilization planning has gone from being guesswork to a fine art."
Calls for Presentations
Linux Audio Conference LAC2007 Call for Papers and Music
A Call for Papers and Music has gone out for the Linux Audio Conference 2007. "This is the second call for papers for the 5th Linux Audio Developers Conference (LAC2007). This is a reminder since some people might not have received the last call or might just have forgotten about the deadlines by now (08 Jan 2007 : Deadline for submission of papers, worshops, tutorials, demos, hands on demos and music)." LAC2007 takes place at the TU-Berlin, in Germany on March 22-25, 2007.
2007 Xorg Developer's Conference call for papers / attendance
A call for papers and attendance has gone out for the 2007 Xorg Developer's Conference. "The next X Developer's Conference is scheduled on February 7-9, 2007. The location is not yet firm, but we are looking at two possible locations. One is in Santa Clara, CA, and the other is in Menlo Park, CA."
Upcoming Events
PyPy Leysin Winter Sports Sprint
The PyPy Leysin Winter Sports Sprint has been announced, it will take place on January 8-14, 2007. "The next PyPy sprint will be in Leysin, Switzerland, for the fourth time. This sprint will be the final public sprint of our EU-funded period, and a kick-off for the final work on the upcoming PyPy 1.0 release (scheduled for mid-February). The sprint is the last chance for students looking for a "summer" job with PyPy this winter! If you have a proposal and would like to work with us in the mountains please send it in before 15th December".
Events: December 21, 2006 to February 19, 2007
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| December 27 December 30 |
23rd Chaos Communication Congress 2006 | Berlin, Germany |
| January 11 January 12 |
Foundations of Open Media Software | Sydney, Australia |
| January 15 January 20 |
linux.conf.au 2007 | Sydney, Australia |
| January 20 January 26 |
Cell Hack-a-thon | Loveland, CO, USA |
| January 23 January 26 |
Open Source Meets Business | Nürnberg, Germany |
| January 24 | European Patent Conference | Brussels, Belgium |
| January 30 February 1 |
Solutions Linux Expo | Paris, France |
| February 1 February 2 |
LinuxDays Luxembourg | Luxembourg, Luxembourg |
| February 2 | FUDCon Boston 2007 | Boston, MA, USA |
| February 7 February 9 |
Free Software World Conference 3.0 | Badajoz, Spain |
| February 7 February 9 |
Xorg Developer's Conference | Santa Clara, CA, USA |
| February 9 | Women In Open Source | Los Angeles, USA |
| February 9 | Open Source Health Care Summit | Los Angeles, USA |
| February 10 February 11 |
2007 Southern California Linux Expo | Los Angeles, USA |
| February 12 February 13 |
Vancouver PHP Conference | Vancouver, BC, Canada |
| February 12 February 13 |
Linux Storage and Filesystem Workshop | San Jose, CA, USA |
| February 12 February 16 |
Ruby on Rails Bootcamp Training | Atlanta, USA |
| February 12 February 15 |
3GSM World Congress 2007 | Barcelona, Spain |
| February 14 February 15 |
LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit | New York, NY, USA |
| February 15 | TiE Open Source Summit | Pittsburgh, PA, USA |
| February 16 | The Ubucon New York | New York, NY, USA |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Audio and Video programs
Eben Moglen's Plone Conference Address (LinuxMedNews)
LinuxMedNews mentions the availability of a video keynote address from Eben Moglen's 2006 Seattle Plone Conference keynote. "Eben Moglen: '...Software can prevent software from being owned. Software itself can lift the software tax. That's where we are at this moment. On that cusp. In this neighborhood, at this moment, the richest and most deeply funded monopoly in the history of the world is beginning to fail...the very engineering limits of trying to make software that you own work as well as software that the community produces are becoming apparent...'"
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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