Voiceroute, a software PBX vendor, originally started as a proprietary software company but went (at least partly) open source earlier this year. In this video, CEO Ming Guang Yong says the company should have moved toward open source "a lot sooner," and explains why. He and CTO Navin Kumar also talk about some of the specific differences between their open source and proprietary versions, including how and where they draw the line between the two, and share their thoughts about dealing with open source developers and building a successful open source development community.

One of the goals of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is to become a center for education in free and open source software (FOSS) legal issues. As part of this effort, the SFLC has already published "A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects." Its latest effort in public education, released last week, is "A Practical Guide to GPL Compliance," a 15-page guide for FOSS projects on how to avoid violations of the GNU General Public License (GPL) and Lesser General Public License (LGPL). The guide is a practical summary of its subject, but its wording is unnecessarily legalistic, and its structure and omissions sometimes fall short of the goal of being a standalone reference.

No one saw this coming. Cisco, the networking giant, announced today it was buying PostPath, maker of the Linux-based Exchange server replacement PostPath Server.

Suppose someone wants to send you a large file. They could try to send it via email, but many email servers impose limits on file size. They could try sending it over during an instant messenger or Internet Relay Chat session, but that's slow, as the file actually gets transferred twice: once to the chat server, then to your machine. File transfer services like RapidShare and MegaUpload are fine, but not for confidential information. Of course, you could set up an FTP server on your box, but you don't want to leave that door open all the time. Luckily, there's now an easy solution: droopy.

For enterprise system administrators looking for interoperability with Microsoft Exchange, but not the high costs associated with it, PostPath email and collaboration server could be a smart business investment. Boasting interoperability with Exchange environments for a third of the cost, thanks to its use of the Postfix mail server and many other open source components, PostPath provides drop-in capability and compatibility with Exchange environments without the need for making changes to Outlook on the client side. Being compatible with Exchange means that it can be managed using Microsoft's Active Directory infrastructure. The latest version, PostPath v3.1.2, adds support for Blackberry Enterprise Server and ActiveSync, allowing you to use mobile devices to access your email.

ReadyTechs provides network support services for companies that don't want the expense of hiring and caring for their own employees. Now CEO Gerry Libertelli says the company is using Linux virtualization to open a new income stream based on cloud computing.

If you follow technology trends, you have probably heard of the semantic desktop -- a data layer for annotating and sharing the information in your computer. But what you may not be aware of is that the semantic desktop is not a distant goal, but scheduled to arrive at the end of 2008. And, when it does, the idea will probably be implemented through the work done by the Nepomuk project, and, most likely, by KDE first.

If you like first-person shooters, you'll love Sauerbraten. This open source game might not have the visual finesse of other FPSes, but what it lacks in the graphics department, Sauerbraten more than makes up for with its various single and multiplayer modes, including an experimental role-playing game mode, and a unique WYSIWYG in-game map editor. Sauerbraten blends the best of FPSes like Quake and Max Payne to give you a unique gaming experience.

If your desktop hardware includes a graphics processing unit (GPU), you can do some cool image processing with the CVL suite of tools, which includes in image viewer, an image tone mapper, and a command-line tool for non-interactive image processing.

SUSE has been around almost since the dawn of consumer-level desktop Linux, and openSUSE 11 upholds the SUSE reputation for having not just a wide range of available applications, but also excellent documentation and a fine user-to-user support community. For this video we chose the KDE 4.x desktop option. KDE 3.5x and GNOME are also available as defaults in openSUSE.

Last week's 8th Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre (Free Software Regional Sessions) at the University of Belgrano in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was an opportunity for around 1,300 FOSS enthusiasts to share experiences, learn more, and have fun together.

SQL injection attacks can allow hackers to execute arbitrary SQL commands on your database through your Web site. To avoid these attacks, every piece of data supplied by a user on a Web form, through HTTP Post or CGI parameters, or other means, must be validated to not contain information that is not expected. GreenSQL is a firewall for SQL -- it sits between your Web site and MySQL database and decides which SQL statements should and should not be executed. At least that's the idea -- in execution, I found some open doors.

The bookmark tagging feature introduced in Firefox 3 is not particularly difficult in use: when bookmarking a Web page, enter the tags you like into the Tags field of the bookmarking dialog window and you are pretty much done. Tagging provides a more flexible way of keeping track of bookmarks than traditional folders. The folder-based system provides an "either/or"-solution to filing bookmarks. For example, you could place a bookmark for an article about installing OpenOffice.org on Puppy Linux in either a Linux or OpenOffice.org folder, but not in both. With tags, you don't have this problem: you can assign as many tags as you like, so the bookmark becomes filed under several categories at the same time.

Sun Microsystems is setting out to create an open source, royalty-free video codec. Given the considerable head start of well-known, royalty-free video codecs like Dirac and Theora, you might ask why the world needs another. The answer, according to Sun, is the process the company will use to develop it -- starting with a full-on, careful examination of the patent situation.

Organizations have many ways to connect, collaborate, and keep in touch with co-workers, team members, and colleagues -- which can lead to multiple logins and user accounts, services spread across the Web, or services that are simply not accessible to all team members on various types of devices. Kablink (formerly ICECore) recognizes that centralization and accessibility are major components to successful project collaboration, and its latest offering is worth a project leader's second look.

Ulteo Application System is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Kubuntu and designed to work with the Ulteo Online Desktop service to provide you with an automatic offsite backup and file synchronization between live CD instances. It attempts to require as little user configuration and maintenance as possible, and provides several unique features that set it apart from being "just another distribution."

Piracy notwithstanding, there are some good, valid reasons for making a backup of a DVD. K9Copy, a utility for copying DVDs, receives high marks in many forums, so I took it for a spin -- and found out its reputation is deserved.

Bradley Kuhn is not a lawyer, but he works at the Software Freedom Law Center and heads the Software Freedom Conservancy. He is fun to watch and listen to because he walks the tightrope between creative, carefree developers and cautious, legally-minded lawyers. Linux.com talked with Kuhn a few months ago, but he says lots more in this 30-minute video than in that interview -- including plenty of thoughts on how businesses based on free software can (and often do) turn a profit, plus some comments on how and why open source is helping the next generation of programmers develop and improve their skills.

Whether you're a high school student or just starting out with your college coursework, the free software community has provided a wide range of solutions to make life easier. Browsing the package repository of my Linux distribution led me to applications for everything from gene sequencing to particle physics, but there are a few real gems I think any student could benefit from, including math and chemistry tools such as TiLP, wxMaxima, Kalzium, Gnome Chemistry Utils, and OpenOffice.org Math.

When I first used Mono, shortly after its first appearance in 2004, one of my most important requirements was to get connected to a MySQL back end. This was quickly achieved at the time with the ByteFX data connector. Following the basic Mono tutorial quickly had me up and running, with access to MySQL databases. Last week I needed to reopen and modernize my application and found that there have been several important changes in Mono between 2004 and 2008. First, I found some "then and now" differences with the installation of the data connector. Second, I needed to make some modifications to my programming.

Attention: As of Ubuntu Heron this article is no longer an issue, you DO NOT need to blacklist rt2500usb any longer. Just plugin the rt73usb device, give it a few minutes for networkmanager to find it and go - that is it. But remember, its first use might take a bit for NM to see it. Be patient and stop following the wrong information about needing to compile extra drivers that is NOT needed whatsoever.

In a previous article at Mad Penguin, I shared my opinions and overall vision of the state of Linux wireless today. In this latest installment, I will demonstrate exactly how one can have a simple way to implement Linux wireless connectivity without all of the headaches.

Using A Working PCMCIA Card. Enter the rt61pci module that powers the Edimax EW-7608pg wireless card. It is fairly well known that the existing rt61pci module is considered a little buggy. However, based on my own daily use with it, when using a notebook-cooling pad to keep things from getting too hot, the present module works well enough for most people.

How do you get it to work? Simple, plug it in and turn on your notebook running Ubuntu Gutsy. Having issues connecting? There are two things to consider:

Are you actually having a problem with ipv6? If you think you might be, try blacklisting ipv6 to see if that helps. Simplify your interfaces file — /etc/network/interfaces to only show the following:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

Is the legacy rt61pci module loaded? Assuming you did not heed the advice of the ‘experts’ from the various forums, try this: sudo modprobe rt61pci

Newer Notebooks, Newer Wireless Hassles. “Just use NDISWrapper, it should work just fine.” For every success story with this method, there are ten other failures. Yet those stuck with Expresscard as your expansion option for your notebook are generally left with this as your only solution. While USB is not the most elegant method for wireless, with the right device, it does work. Consider the Edimax EW-7318USg USB dongle, which runs the rt73usb module.

Here is where 99 percent of you fail when using this device — there is a common belief that it actually uses rt2500usb. As a matter of fact, the dongle itself appears to have a tough time making the distinction. Thankfully, this is Linux, so we will simply blacklist the problem module…

echo ‘blacklist rt2500usb’ | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

then…

sudo modprobe rt73usb

…and finally…

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Nothing Is Working: Why?

A Few Common Reasons:

• You are still plugged into your wired network — lose the Ethernet cable when you need wireless.
• You “attempted” to compile something related to one of the drivers above. Always a fast track to frustration unless you are quite comfortable with advanced Linux usage. My Advice? Backup /home/ and start off again completely fresh.
• You are using something related to Ralink via NDISWrapper. Use the utility to uninstall the Windows driver or start fresh, your choice.
• Static IP vs. DHCP — want to use a static IP? Go for it. I???ve never tested this, so it may work — may not.
• Use WPA2 Personal (not WEP), make sure your router is on channel autoscan rather than a static channel (if possible), do not use “Super G,” as 802.11g standard is best.

For every ten people that have followed my advice above (via e-mail), at least six of them fail. With one exception, it was due to not wanting to follow a simple pattern of what works. Still, using the PCMCIA card and the legacy version of rt61pci is not all fun and games.

• You will likely get dropped. If you find yourself getting dropped, I???m willing to bet 98 percent of the time there are other networks nearby with fair signal strength. It appears this version of the rt61pci module does not do well keeping you locked on. Still, it is a simple enough fix to simply use Network Manager to reconnect. It is really not a big deal, but it can be avoided using the USB dongle, as I have not had a problem with it like this.
• All of the devices get warm. I have found it seems to be worst with the Ralink chipset products when using Linux modules. This is largely why others have opted to use NDISWrapper for Ralink wireless support. I choose not to opt out of principle. A product either works with Linux or it does not, as far as I???m concerned.

Some of you may be wondering a bit about Pre-N technologies? As I have been in talks with a representative from Edimax and actually reviewed a router and USB dongle using these new technologies, I can tell you that they are not yet there. Yes, you can compile a module into your distro install if you like. Personally, I will stick to what is plug-n???-play for the time being. I find this is much easier to duplicate for the average user.

This article has been republished with the kind permission of our friends at Mad Penguin. For more news about the Open Source community, go give ‘em a look or Subscribe to Mad Penguin’s RSS Feed!

Related Articles @ Mad Penguin:

• Funding Open Source Projects
• Is Dell Ready for the Linux Challenge?
• Open vs. Closed Source: There Really is No Competition
• Distro Selectors: How Accurate Are They?
• GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative: A Viable Option for Carriers?

Gnomie NvidiaX from our live chat room writes:

Hello, Chris!

I’m NvidiaX from the chat room. You may remember me as the one that got the idea of paying you to Rick roll yourself with an iTunes certificate. I know you love Open Source software, so you may be interested in this. As you know most Open Source software is made for UNIX/Linux. I found something really useful. It’s an Open Source project called Open LINA. It lets you run Linux software on Windows and, believe it or not, OS X.

If you’re going to blog about this, or maybe make a video. Please inform Windows users that the Win32 installer may not work correctly the first time. If it crashes, just retry — it should work the second time.

gOS, the Linux OS known for its debut in the $199 Wal-Mart gPC and NetBooks, today announced the details of the newest version of its Linux operating system for consumers, called gOS 3 Gadgets. gOS is demonstrating a beta version of the OS on a variety of NetBooks and NetTops at LinuxWorld and online here.

gOS 3 Gadgets instantly launches Google Gadgets for Linux on startup, giving users access to more than 100,000 iGoogle and Google Gadgets that are small, graphically rich applications that can be added to the desktop in seconds over the Internet. gOS 3 Gadgets will also preload WINE, LXDE, and other Google software for Linux to improve the user experience.

“We are excited that gOS 3 Gadgets can introduce small applications for small laptops by connecting with the Google Gadgets for Linux platform and its vast application database,” said David Liu, founder and CEO of gOS. “With this version of gOS, we are delivering a Linux that is ready for consumers — a Linux for the rest of us!”

By preloading WINE 1.0, gOS 3 Gadgets enables thousands of Windows applications to run well on the Linux platform. “The Wine team is proud that gOS 3 Gadgets now uses Wine to run Windows applications,” says Dan Kegel, WINE 1.0 Release Manager. “Visit winehq.org to find out more about what you can do with Wine!”

gOS 3 Gadgets includes LXDE (Lightweight X Desktop Environment) applications in the renewed effort to develop a more lightweight desktop. “We are pleased that gOS is working with the LXDE community to achieve faster boot time and response,” said Fred Chien, one of the lead developers of LXDE. “We think gOS will be even better for consumer NetBooks and NetTops with some of LXDE’s enhancements.”

In addition to Google Gadgets for Linux, gOS 3 Gadgets is being shown running Google Desktop as an alternative to Tracker, Google Picasa as an alternative to F-Spot, and Google Earth to complement the existing link to Google Maps. Google Documents, Calendar, and Mail launch in Mozilla Prism windows to closer resemble desktop applications.

NetBook manufacturers that have chosen gOS 3 Gadgets will be showing demo units at the gOS booth in the LinuxWorld exhibit. “Linux has carved a well-deserved place in the ultra-mobile category,” states Paul Kim, marketing director at Everex. “gOS 3 Gadgets could just be the next great Linux OS for consumers.”

“We are excited to ship our NetBooks with gOS 3 Gadgets, a Linux OS we believe everyone can use and enjoy,” said Frank Hsieh, Sales Manager at AMtek for the Intel Atom Elego NetBook.

gOS 3 Gadgets Beta is being demonstrated at the gOS booth 1627 LinuxWorld Expo, and is available for download. Linux users are encouraged to download gOS 3 Gadgets Beta and join the Google Group to discuss the beta and provide feedback that will help improve the user experience for the final release in September 2008.

An online version of this press release and more screenshots of gOS 3 Gadgets are available here.

Not too long back, I had a reader ask me whether or not it was worth it to try one of the Linux distributions released for 64bit architecture vs that of 32bit. I thought the question was rather timely, as I had recent purchased a new notebook from System76.com that happens to run Ubuntu 8.04 64bit by default.

As you will see from this video below, not only does Java and Adobe Flash work, they work great.

To recap however, there are a few things to be aware of:

• The easiest way to get Flash working is to browse to a website that requires it. When prompted, install Adobe Flash. As far as getting PulseAudio working with Flash, do yourself a favor and install padevchooser. Then set it to autostart from Sessions. You might also want to make sure you have pavucontrol installed as well.
• Java IceTea was provided on my system, but I wanted needed Java JRE for my WeatherBug Linux application. So I made sure that my Multiverse repository was enabled from software sources BEFORE trying to install the WeatherBug application. This ensured that I would have the app working without any issues at all. This way there was no need to do any manual installation of Java whatsoever.

About the WeatherBug application:

Tested a while back here as the then beta app, Tempest, WeatherBug for Linux has proven to be a stellar weather application for those looking for more control over their weather application on this platform. Most significant difference with WB vs other Linux apps:

• You pick from a number of local weather stations instead of having one thrust upon you based on your zip code.
• Friendly to use with your proxy server, manually setup the data update frequency and even change layout the UI to best meet your needs.
• Only auto-starts when you choose to make it do so.

Independent game developer KarjaSoft announces the Linux version of Spandex Force, a tongue-in-cheek puzzle game with RPG elements.

Spandex Force is a superhero-themed puzzle game that lets the player create his or her own hero to clean up the crime-infested town of Vigilance Valley. The game features many different kinds of minigames including, but not limited to, match-3 battles in which common criminals and wacky supervillains must be defeated. The battles are similar to those of last year’s hit game Puzzle Quest, but feature superpowers rather than magical spells.

Previously available for Windows and Mac, KarjaSoft now brings superhero puzzle gaming to Linux as well, officially supporting Ubuntu Linux 7. More information, screenshots, and downloads can be found at the official Web page.

The Kingston 8GB Class 4 Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) Memory Card offers larger-volume data storage and optimized recording performance with support for FAT 32 file formats. In addition, this card complies with Kingston’s Class 4 speed rating, which means that the card provides a minimum data transfer rate of 4MB/sec. for optimum performance in professional cameras and other high performance devices.

Special price: $29.50 (After $15 Mail in rebate) + shipping

Gnomie Cassiel Angelus writes:

Here are a few links I thought might interest you or your show’s Linux-savvy viewers!

Ext2 Installable File System: This Web site contains a download that will allow NT4.0 / 2k / XP / 2003 / Vista users to be able to write and read Ext2 formatted partitions. It could be very handy for people who dual boot Linux and Windows but want to be able to share files between either OS (if thier partitions use Ext2 or its newer brother Ext3, which is also supported by this driver). I’ve tested it myself and I can confirm it installs quite fast and is very easy to use — in fact, I’m using Ext2 filesystem for my XP Pagefile partition!

andLinux: This is something I come across today and it looks very interesting. From what I’ve been able to tell, it is a project that will eventually allow all Linux applications to be able to run inside Windows. It seems you will need some knowledge of Linux at least — even if it’s just from messing about in Kubuntu. According to the site:

“andLinux uses CoLinux as its core which is confusing for many people. CoLinux is a port of the Linux kernel to Windows. Although this technology is a bit like running Linux in a virtual machine, CoLinux differs itself by being more of a merger of Windows and the Linux kernel and not an emulated PC, making it more efficient. Xming is used as X server and PulseAudio as sound server.”

coreboot (formerly known as LinuxBIOS): This is another interesting project I’ve come across a couple of times. It’s a free software project that aims to replace the proprietary BIOS found on nearly every PC motherboard.

This is someone’s YouTube video on how they installed coreboot on thier motherboard. Apprantly LANL, AMD, coresystems, Linux Networx, MSI, Gigabyte, and Tyan have all contributed to coreboot according to one comment. From what I can tell, this is going to be one for the Linux power users and probably ones who don’t use Windows (although it does support booting into Windows).

Anyway, hope you enjoy the links!

Gnomie Bryan Tidwell writes:

1. Use Ubuntu. Debian is too hard, especially for a beginner (take it from me)! If you’re not afraid to install codecs, you are golden.
2. Use forums — they are there for your benefit! Don’t be afraid to post multiple threads — if anything, this just puts more documentation out there for other people.
3. Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. If you have a kernel prior to 2.6 and an old version of ALSA, your day will be terrible.
4. Keep an open mind. Don’t be afraid to install (or uninstall) various packages. there are many failsafe commands, and if you go bleeding edge, keep your files on a different partition
5. Keep trying. I just finished trying for about a month to get a sound card working. I tried the front port, and it turns out ALSA recognizes an out port in the back of my HP Pavilion — silly me!

“Just in time for the holidays, NVIDIA has released a new Linux display driver, which is a stable version of their previous 169.04 beta last month. In addition, the new NVIDIA 169.07 Linux driver has a few changes, while most of the release highlights were already found in the 169.04 release. We are preparing additional Linux tests with this new driver, but for right now we have the details on this proprietary display driver.

The NVIDIA 169.04 beta driver had introduced GeForce 8800GT support a month ago, while in this 169.07 driver the support is officially there as well as for the GeForce 8800GTS 512MB and GeForce 8800M. Another feature originally introduced in 169.04 was improved mode-setting support on Quadro and GeForce 8 graphics cards and addressing some stability concerns (including for SMP users). This driver also has some performance improvements for the GeForce 8 series.”

Read the rest of the article here

Linux.com is running this story explaining why the KOffice stance against OOXML isn’t political, it’s practical:

“In the recent accusations that the GNOME Foundation has been supporting Microsoft’s OOXML format at the expense of ODF, KDE has been presented as a counter-example. Based on a KDE News article, Richard Stallman suggested that “major KDE developers” had announced “their rejection of OOXML” and urged GNOME to do the same. More recently, a widely linked story on ITWire used the same article to declare that KDE has taken a “principled stand” against OOXML. However, if you go the source, the story is more nuanced than these claims suggest.

Read the rest of the article here

DesktopLinux.com is reporting that Dell will now be offering DVD Playback with their Ubuntu 7.10 PCs:

“Dell has told DesktopLinux.com that it will be announcing later today, Dec. 19, that it will be releasing PCs with Ubuntu 7.10 (aka Gutsy Gibbon) as part of its Dell Consumer Linux lineup along with the ability to legally play DVDs.

Ms. Camden continued, “Possibly in the ‘more importantly’ category, we are now pre-installing DVD movie playback all Ubuntu 7.10 systems — a feature we feel will resonate with ??? Linux enthusiasts as well as the mainstream consumer market. In fact, one of the key requests from customers interested in Linux is the ability to watch their favorite DVD movies.”"

Read the rest of the article here

LifeHacker is carrying a story on how you can slim down and speed up your link installation:

“While Linux is pretty efficient with a computer’s resources out of the box, there are still ways you can make it run leaner and meaner on your desktop. Using a little bit of know-how, a willingness to run a few terminal commands and a mind for efficiency, you can get every last bit of power from your Linux box, or get more life from an older system. Read on for a roundup of ways to slim down and speed up Linux that any level of user can implement.

More importantly, if you’re unsure of anything, don’t do it.”

Read the rest of the article here

Look, SVN is a step up from CVS, but it’s still a pain in the ass to manage large projects through SVN. In steps GNOME Developer Kit, which is supposedly better than SVN:

“The difficulty and frustration of building GNOME from source is a major impediment for many new contributors. Installing the dependencies, getting the tools working, and compiling major components of the desktop environment is a burden that detracts from time that could be spent making patches. In order to resolve this problem, the developers from rPath have created the GNOME Developer Kit, a complete environment for testing and developing GNOME.”

Read the rest of the article here

Just a few days after exposing that Iran has built an AMD-based supercomputer, they’re now trying to cover up this little fact:

“The Iranian computing research center that says it built a supercomputer with Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s Opteron processors has removed from its Web site photographs showing a possible link to the United Arab Emirates as a source of the chips. But something that can’t be removed so easily are longstanding U.S. concerns about the UAE being a conduit for sending technology to Iran and other banned countries.

U.S. antiterrorism trade restrictions bar the sale of technology developed here to Iran. But as Computerworld reported last week, the Iranian High Performance Computing Research Center (IHPCRC) claims on its Web site that it has assembled a clustered system with 216 Opteron processing cores for use in weather forecasting and meteorological research. On another part of its site, the Tehran-based IHPCRC had posted a photo gallery that included snapshots of what appeared to be staff members working on the servers and racks of the supercomputer.”

Read the rest of the article here

Andrea Cimitan implimented transparent widgets in the GTK theme engine. Finally. OK, well, maybe not finally, but it’s about time GTK caught up with 2004:

“GNOME theme engine designer Andrea Cimitan has implemented support for transparent widgets in the Murrine GTK theme engine, bringing Vista-like translucent glass effects to the GNOME desktop. Cimitan used RGBA colormaps to implement the feature and says that, with only 10 or 20 extra lines of code, translucency can easily be added to other theme engines that support RGBA.”

Read the rest of the article here

Open Source Society has put up an extensive interview with Ken Breback, author of two books and multiple articles covering Linux. In this interview Ken discusses what the future holds for Linux:

“Recently I had the unique pleasure of communicating with Kim Brebach. You may recognize him as the author of “13 Reasons Why Linux Won???t Make It to the Desktop”, and “13 Reasons Linux Should be on Your Desktop”, as well as a series of insightful articles on the state of Linux as a desktop operating system for DesktopLinux.com. He is a technology consultant with Technoledge, a technology marketing group based in Sydney, Australia. I contacted him to see if he would participate in a short email interview for OSS, and he very graciously agreed. Here are his thoughts on some of my questions.”

Read the rest of the article here

CarloTheMan at the Ubuntu Forums on how you can get Veoh Player working in Ubuntu. The trick is setting Wine up properly (and that’s always the trick, isn’t it?).

“As we know, Veoh Networks is a great place to trade productivity for entertainment, but usually, we as Linux users, feel a bit left out after five minutes at the most.

* Ubuntu Feisty Fawn & Wine [Please install this via Synaptic, apt-get, …]
* Mozilla Firefox for Windows, Version 2.0.6 (Yes, for Windows) [Download]
* Veoh Player for Windows, Version 3.2.1.1073 [Download]
* A Veoh.com account [Create]
* Approximately 50MB disk space (plus several GB for videos)”

Read the rest of the article here.

ArsTechnica is reporting that Verizon has been hit with a copyright lawsuit for violating portions of the GNU General Public License, for using an open source package in a wireless router:

“Open-source software is very attractive for companies looking to expand their services or quickly get new offerings to market, in part because it’s free. Unfortunately, some companies tend to overlook the software license commonly attached to open-source software, the GPL. Verizon is the latest company to do so, and its use of an OSS package in a wireless router has led to a copyright infringement lawsuit from the Software Freedom Law Center.”

You can read the rest of the article here

Howto Forge has a great article up on how you can make your own custom Ubuntu LiveCD with Remastersys:

“This guide shows how you can create a Live-CD from your Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon or Linux Mint 4.0 system with a tool called remastersys. Remastersys is available in the Linux Mint romeo repository. You can customize your Ubuntu/Linux Mint system and then let remastersys create an iso image of it which you can then burn onto a CD/DVD.”

Check out the tutorial here

TechWorld is reporting that red Hat has launched a real-time version of Linux, aimed at mission-critical applications that require a near real-time, predictable responses called Red Hat enterprise MRG (Messaging, Realtime, Grid).

“Red Hat Enterprise MRG (Messaging, Realtime, Grid) includes features such as high-speed inter-application messaging based on the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP), whose performance RH reckoned it had improved 100-fold. At the UK launch, RH VP Scott Crenshaw could not confirm how this was achieved, representatives said that details will be available on the company’s blog.”

read the rest of the article here

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Debian has updated libxml2 (denial of service).

Mandriva has updated libxml2 (denial of service).

Red Hat has updated the kernel (for Enterprise MRG: multiple vulnerabilities), tomcat (multiple vulnerabilities), openoffice.org ("numeric truncation error"), and ipsec-tools (denial of service).

Ubuntu has updated the kernel (several vulnerabilities).

CentOS has updated openssh (intruder-signed package and inappropriate cookie use), libxml2 (denial of service).

Debian has updated libxml2 (denial of service).

SUSE has updated java (multiple vulnerabilities).

The July issue of the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter has been released. In this month's issue: 2008.0 release, Gentoo at Peel Fresco Music Lounge and more!

Discuss This!

For those unfortunate souls who couldn't boot or burn the LiveCD, we've provided the 2008.0-r1 revision bump. It fixes these specific problems:

• Bug #230998: 2008.0 LiveCD for x86/amd64 messes up when copying kernel/initramfs into tmpfs
• Bug #231024: LiveCD AMD64 image does not fit on ordinary 700MB CD

We apologize if you encountered one of these problems. We fixed them as quickly as we could after hearing about them. Get the new 2008.0-r1 revision from our "Get Gentoo!" page.

Discuss this!

The 2008.0 final release is out! Code-named "It's got what plants crave," this release contains numerous new features including an updated installer, improved hardware support, a complete rework of profiles, and a move to Xfce instead of GNOME on the LiveCD. LiveDVDs are not available for x86 or amd64, although they may become available in the future. The 2008.0 release also includes updated versions of many packages already available in your ebuild tree.

• Updated installer: The installer now only performs networkless installations using the packages and ebuild tree on the LiveCD. It also contains numerous fixes for extended and logical partitions.
• Improved hardware support: Moving to the 2.6.24 kernel added many new drivers for hardware released since the 2007.0 release.
• Complete rework of profiles: Restructuring profiles allowed significant cleanup of redundancies, reducing developer maintenance and confusion. The difference for you is that profiles now appear in /usr/portage/profiles/ under default/linux/ instead of default-linux/. See the upgrading guide for more details.
• Xfce instead of GNOME on the LiveCD: To save space, the LiveCDs switched to the smaller Xfce environment. This means that a binary installation using the LiveCD will install Xfce, but you're still free to build GNOME or KDE from source.
• No LiveDVDs on x86 or amd64: In the interest of getting the release out, the release engineering team decided to postpone LiveDVDs because of problems in their generation. They may show up later?if so, we'll let you know.
• Updated packages: Highlights of the 2008.0 release include Portage 2.1.4.4, a 2.6.24 kernel, Xfce 4.4.2, gcc 4.1.2 and glibc 2.6.1.

A big thanks goes out to our release engineering team members for their hard work over many months to turn 2008.0 into reality.

Get the new release from our "Get Gentoo!" page.

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Elections just ended for the Gentoo council for the next year. Turnout was 57% with 145 developers voting, which is quite excellent. The council, created by GLEP 39 to replace Gentoo's previous hierarchy, decides on global issues and policies that affect multiple projects. To select council members, Gentoo uses the Condorcet voting method, which involves ranking them in order rather than just picking a single candidate. Here are your new council members, listed by ranking in the election results:

• Donnie Berkholz
• Mark Loeser
• Diego Pettenò
• Petteri Räty
• Luca Barbato
• Markus Ullmann
• Tobias Scherbaum

All of the previous council members who ran again were re-elected, and the two new members are Mark Loeser and Tobias Scherbaum. A full list of ranked candidates is also available. These graphs illustrate the results more clearly. They are histograms, where higher columns on the left side indicate high rankings, and higher columns on the right side indicate low rankings.

The new council members will get right to work?the new council's first meeting, scheduled for July 10, is approaching fast.

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What: Gentoo contributors get together to help each other fix bugs

Where: irc.freenode.net, #gentoo-bugs

When: Saturday, July 5, in a timezone near you

What do you need to bring?

• A Gentoo system, an Internet connection and an IRC client
• Your bug. If you don't have one, we will find you one to suit your area of interest and your skills
• Your favorite editor
• A way to test that your bug is fixed (asking people counts!)
• You don't need to know C, C++, or bash

What's a bug? Gentoo's way of tracking change requests. A change request can be anything from "I've found a typo in foo" to "I've built this really useful program called bar but there's no ebuild for it." Bugs have various levels of helpfulness, from identifying the existence of a problem to localizing the problem to providing the patch to fix it.

There are bugs in documentation such as man pages as well as ebuilds and the source code that Gentoo distributes. These bugs are problem reports. Bugs for things Gentoo doesn't do yet but you think should be done are feature requests. Bugday is more about fixing problems than adding features, but you won't be turned away if you want help with a new feature.

Want to know more about Bugday? It's held on the first Saturday of every month. It's an opportunity for everyone to contribute to making Gentoo better, and eventually you might even become a Gentoo developer. See the Bugday project page for more details.

Bugday is about community spirit. Gentoo is a community?there is no "me" and "them", there is only "we," so instead of lobbying for "them" to fix your particular bug, work together to fix it! Bugday is an opportunity to get help to help yourself.

If you've been wanting to get involved but weren't sure how, Bugday is a great way for you to see what goes on in making a distribution and get involved in Gentoo.

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Roy Bamford contributed the draft for this announcement.

The June issue of the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter has been released. In this month's issue: LinuxTag and FliSoL, GSOC interview, Gentoo in space, and more!

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Developer Donnie Berkholz, who is a council member, the X maintainer and PR team lead, spoke with David Abbott of LinuxCrazy. Download the podcast.

He described how he became a developer as well as his work on X, the council, the public relations team and the Summer of Code project he's mentoring for. Donnie also recommended the best video cards if you support open source. He saw the Linux desktop's future as increasing integration and security. Here's how Donnie described how Gentoo makes progress and where to go from here:

"The more time I spend in Gentoo, the more I realize that it's the individual developers who really drive most of our innovations. They don't happen because the council makes a decision. They happen because the developer, or a few of them, think that it sounds like a cool idea, and make it happen. ..."

"Making Gentoo great is my biggest goal right now, and greatness is a process. It's not a place. So you can't get somewhere and say you're great. You always have to keep striving for it. For a while we've been content to stick with the status quo instead of striving for greatness, but we have to change that and to always improve Gentoo."

If you would rather read it, forums user dch24 created a transcript of the interview.

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The May issue of the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter has been released. In this month's issue: Gentoo Foundation status, Summer of Code interview, network monitoring, and more!

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If you're interested in the legal standing of Gentoo, you can relax because in the past week, the State of New Mexico declared that the Gentoo Foundation Inc has returned to good standing and is free to do business. This accomplishment allows other aspects of the foundation's work to proceed again. The foundation takes care of Gentoo's intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks) and money. It ensures that nobody violates our copyrights and trademarks, serves as a place to hold money, and decides where to devote that money.

Thanks to everyone involved with returning Gentoo to good legal standing, and thanks to our community for your patience!

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Joshua Jackson and Josh Nichols contributed the draft for this announcement.

2008.0_beta2 is here. Thanks to you, our community, for testing beta1 and filing many bugs. You can help make 2008.0 amazing! Test out this beta and report any functionality issues you encounter. Since this is still a beta, we're looking only for bugs in functionality, not bugs in appearance such as desktop backgrounds or other artwork.

This should be the last beta and will be followed by the final 2008.0 release after further bug fixing.

Get 2008.0_beta2 from the usual places.

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