Announcements

How to root a Nook Color to transform it into an Android tablet (ars technica)

Here's a detailed article on rooting the Nook Color reader device to expose its full Android capabilities. "There are two different approaches to turning the Nook Color into a tablet: you can root the Nook Color's default software environment and extend it with third-party applications, or you can run a conventional Android environment by booting a custom ROM image from a microSD card. The custom ROM images are an appealing option because they offer the ability to get relatively close to the stock upstream user experience. Unfortunately, the custom ROMs are still highly experimental and aren't quite yet ready for day-to-day use."

Comments (5 posted)

Building the Technology Stack for Internet Freedom (Gigaom)

Gigaom reviews an attempt by the New America Foundation to obtain government funding to create a more freedom-friendly net using a number of existing projects. "[Commotion] is a fairly new project that seeks to make distributed communications easier by turning any device from a phone to a router into a node on a mesh network. This can be used to create a wireless LAN for Serval-enabled handsets to run on top of, or it can be used to create an access network in general. The point here is that it's distributed, as opposed to every connection going back to a central wireless or wireline provider."

Comments (16 posted)

Haldar: The Cognitive Style of Unix

Vivek Haldar examines research that suggests that making software too easy-to-use impedes a user's ability to learn. "One of the most deeply held beliefs in the culture of *nix (and everything that springs from it) is that the steep learning curve pays off. Yes, the tools seem cryptic and "hard-to-use", with hardly any crutches for the beginner. But if you stick with it and keep learning you will be rewarded. When you grok the power of economical command lines, composability and extensibility, you're glad you didn't run back to the arms of the GUI on the first day. It was worth it. There is another belief that goes deeper, and it is the reason that after decades of existence and millions of newbie-suffering-hours, the learning curve has not become any easier, or gone away. That belief is: the learning curve has value, it is essential for learning, and it needs to be preserved, not whittled away in the name of "ease-of-use."" (Thanks to Jay Ashworth)

Comments (121 posted)

Microsoft bans free software from Windows Phone Marketplace (The H)

The H looks at the terms of Microsoft's Windows Phone marketplace and finds that it bans software released under various free software licenses. "The ban, in section 5.e of the terms, forbids any software which is subject to an "Excluded Licence"; it defines that in section 1.l as any licence which requires, as a condition of distribution, that the source code for the application be made available, or allow the creation of derivative works or redistribution at no charge. It specifically names GPLv3 licences and includes the General Public [License] (GPL) version 3, the GNU Affero GPL version 3, and the GNU Lesser GPL version 3 as examples of excluded licences." Microsoft's "open source friendly" stance only goes so far, it seems.

Comments (45 posted)

German Foreign Office drops Linux (The H)

The H provides some background on the German Foreign Office decision to migrate its desktop and notebook computers back to Windows. "How did Linux get into the German Foreign Office in the first place? In 2001, the authority began to set up a secure intranet to connect the more than 200 German embassies with their headquarters in Germany. At the time, the decision to build a VPN using free software was based on financial considerations. In 2004, the government authority began to introduce open source solutions on desktop computers, at first with OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird under Windows. In 2005, Linux was introduced as the only operating system on mobile computers, and in a dual-boot configuration with Windows on desktop PCs. This decision was made for security reasons."

Comments (58 posted)

Best Practices in Open Source Foundation Governance - Part I (The Standards Blog)

Andy Updegrove looks at the importance of foundations for open source projects. "For some time now, I have been meaning to write a series of blog posts setting forth my views on best practices in forming and governing open source foundations. Why? Because despite the increasing reliance of just about every part of our modern world (government, finance, defense, and so on) on open source software (OSS) and Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), there has been very little written on the subject. That means that neither a community nor a corporation has much to refer to in creating the kind of governance structure most likely to ensure that the intentions of the founders are carried out, that the rights of contributors are respected, and that the code upon which end users will rely is properly maintained into the future."

Comments (none posted)

LPI Exam Labs with FOSSFA/ict@innovation in South Africa

Linux Professional Institute (LPI) has announced promotional exam labs for their Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPIC) with the Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA), to take place March 5, 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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Linux Plumbers Conference looking for more track proposals

The Linux Plumbers Conference, which will be held in Santa Rosa, California September 7-9, is looking for more microconference track proposals. So far there are five proposals (init/boot, audio, filesystem/storage, mobile, and development tools) but several more are needed to round out the schedule. For more information on submitting a proposal, see the Participate page and the FAQ.

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OpenCms Days 2011 - Call for papers

OpenCms Days 2011 will take place in Cologne, Germany, May 9-10, 2011. "Session proposals are welcome. Each session will be 60 minutes long. A typical presentation session should be 45 minutes, followed by a 15 minutes discussion. Other session formats, such as workshops, roundtable discussions and BOF meetings, are also possible." The call for papers closes March 1.

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PyCon Australia 2011 - Call for Participation

The second PyCon AU will be held in Sydney, Australia, August 20-21, 2011. "We are looking for proposals for Talks on all aspects of Python programming from novice to advanced levels; applications and frameworks, or how you have been involved in introducing Python into your organisation. We're especially interested in short presentations that will teach conference-goers something new and useful." The deadline for proposal submission is May 2, 2011.

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Events: March 3, 2011 to May 2, 2011

The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.

Date(s)	Event	Location
March 5	Open Source Days 2011 Community Edition	Copenhagen, Denmark
March 7 March 10	Drupalcon Chicago	Chicago, IL, USA
March 9 March 11	ConFoo Conference	Montreal, Canada
March 9 March 11	conf.kde.in 2011	Bangalore, India
March 11 March 13	PyCon 2011	Atlanta, Georgia, USA
March 19	Open Source Conference Oita 2011	Oita, Japan
March 19 March 20	Chemnitzer Linux-Tage	Chemnitz, Germany
March 19	OpenStreetMap Foundation Japan Mappers Symposium	Tokyo, Japan
March 21 March 22	Embedded Technology Conference 2011	San Jose, Costa Rica
March 22 March 24	OMG Workshop on Real-time, Embedded and Enterprise-Scale Time-Critical Systems	Washington, DC, USA
March 22 March 25	Frühjahrsfachgespräch	Weimar, Germany
March 22 March 24	UKUUG Spring 2011 Conference	Leeds, UK
March 22 March 25	PgEast PostgreSQL Conference	New York City, NY, USA
March 23 March 25	Palmetto Open Source Software Conference	Columbia, SC, USA
March 26	10. Augsburger Linux-Infotag 2011	Augsburg, Germany
March 28 April 1	GNOME 3.0 Bangalore Hackfest | GNOME.ASIA SUMMIT 2011	Bangalore, India
March 28	Perth Linux User Group Quiz Night	Perth, Australia
March 29 March 30	NASA Open Source Summit	Mountain View, CA, USA
April 1 April 3	Flourish Conference 2011!	Chicago, IL, USA
April 2 April 3	Workshop on GCC Research Opportunities	Chamonix, France
April 2	Texas Linux Fest 2011	Austin, Texas, USA
April 4 April 5	Camp KDE 2011	San Francisco, CA, USA
April 4 April 6	SugarCon ’11	San Francisco, CA, USA
April 4 April 6	Selenium Conference	San Francisco, CA, USA
April 6 April 8	5th Annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit	San Francisco, CA, USA
April 8 April 9	Hack'n Rio	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
April 9	Linuxwochen Österreich - Graz	Graz, Austria
April 9	Festival Latinoamericano de Instalación de Software Libre
April 11 April 14	O'Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo	Santa Clara, CA, USA
April 11 April 13	2011 Embedded Linux Conference	San Francisco, CA, USA
April 13 April 14	2011 Android Builders Summit	San Francisco, CA, USA
April 16	Open Source Conference Kansai/Kobe 2011	Kobe, Japan
April 25 April 26	WebKit Contributors Meeting	Cupertino, USA
April 26 April 29	OpenStack Conference and Design Summit	Santa Clara, CA, USA
April 28 April 29	Puppet Camp EU 2011: Amsterdam	Amsterdam, Netherlands
April 29	Ottawa IPv6 Summit 2011	Ottawa, Canada
April 29 April 30	Professional IT Community Conference 2011	New Brunswick, NJ, USA
April 30 May 1	LinuxFest Northwest	Bellingham, Washington, USA

If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.