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Latest News from Linux 
Sun Apr 24 04:32:26 EDT 2011
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Cloud Computing: Adobe Falls Out of Love with Linux - Adobe quietly stopped supporting the thinly used Linux desktop last June, a development noticed by only a few like a smarting IBM, which reportedly has – or at least had – 16,000 Linux desktops inside. In the next couple of months Adobe is supposed to stop supporting AIR for Linux even though some 35% of developers are supposed to fancy Linux. The Linux desktop may have captured 1%-2% of PCs worldwide. Seems Linux doesn’t fit in with the mobile dislocation.
SCO’s Operating Assets Sold - Poor benighted Unix has been shifted again for the fourth time. The SCO Group sold its operating assets Monday for $600,000 to an operation temporarily called UnXis Inc whose press release memorializing the long-sought transfer was datelined Dubai. Novell ultimately didn’t challenge the sale, but the announcement sent Groklaw straight up the wall because UnXis claimed it got the Unix and UnixWare trademarks that Groklaw says were turned over to X/Open ages ago. SCO, which retains the litigation, could still present a problem if the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver gives it leave to continue prosecuting its suit against IBM for fleshing out Linux with Unix code SCO thought it bought from Novell. UnXis says it’s indemnified against any legal costs.
State Department Photos of My Abducted Daughter Sofia in Syria - Wednesday morning I received new photographs of Sofia from the State Department in Washington, DC. Sofia remains in Syria since being abducted in July 2010. The day after my last tweet regarding the lack of any new information about my abducted daughter Sofia since March 4, I received an updated letter on Thursday, April 7, 2011, from the State Department on Sofia's welfare in Syria. Sofia was abducted by her mother from the United States to Syria last July, following her diagnosis of GDD with possible autism. She had 13 remaining medical appointments left at the time of her abduction, none of which she was able to keep. Last week's welfare report prepared by our Embassy in Damascus, Syria, after their second welfare visit to the home in Syria where Sofia remains with her mother and grandmother, showed a bleaker outcome for my daughter than the previous report dated November 2010.
Uncle Who Kidnapped Sofia to Syria Still a Practicing MD in Chicago - More than a year ago, Sofia was abducted from her home in Lighthouse Point, Florida, by her Syrian National uncle, who is practicing medicine in the Chicago area. Last March, a Florida judge issued an order to pick Sofia up from the uncle's house in Chicago and return her to her home to Florida. Due to a jurisdiction question in court - since Sofia had never lived more than 6 months in one state at the time of her abduction - the judge later gave temporary custody to her mom until the court could determine final jurisdiction between Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois. In July 2010, based on this uncle's instructions, Sofia was abducted by her mom to Syria where she has been missing her life-saving medical treatment. Sofia's Syrian National uncle is still practicing medicine in the Chicago area. As I explained repeatedly in multiple blog posts since her abduction more than six months ago, she needs urgent daily therapy, which was initially scheduled until the age of three. I strongly believe that the MD uncle's "physician license" in the United States should be revoked immediately due to his abduction of Sofia from her home in March, 2010, as he has endangered Sofia's life. The Syrian doctor should also be deported from the United States for his actions against humanity, as he doesn't care about his two-year-old niece Sofia. I will discuss the details of this situation on national morning TV shows, which will air in the United States.
The End of an Era: PJ To Stop Updating Groklaw - "The crisis SCO initiated over Linux is over, and Linux won," wrote Pamela Jones Saturday as she announced that Groklaw will stop publishing new articles at Groklaw.net on its anniversary, May 16.
Resara Server 1.0 Released - On March 29, the Linux software company Resara LLC released its latest open source product, Resara Server. Resara Server is a small business server solution designed to be usable by anyone, regardless of their experience with Linux. It can provide an Active Directory compatible domain through Samba 4, user and computer management, file sharing, remote file access, and much more. "We have been deploying Linux servers since 2004, and we were very frustrated by the lack of easy, practical authentication solutions for Linux", said Resara's CTO, Brendan Powers. "A year ago we decided it was a problem we wanted to solve, and started development on Resara Server". What sets Resara Server apart from other Linux solutions is how it combines powerful functionality with ease of use. "Resara Server is designed so that anyone can set it up and use it", said Warren Luebkeman, Resara's COO. "Our management tools are far beyond anything else available for Linux", he continues, "By simplifying the process we believe more people will use Linux servers on their networks, particularly small businesses".
Android May Have Bigger IP Issues than Java - Another shoe has dropped in Android’s apparently still unfolding IP crisis, an issue over and above Oracle’s controversial Java patent infringement suit, which is now just one of many. Google supposedly put Linux code into Android in a legally questionable way that likely infringes the GPL, the license that governs Linux, according to what IP litigator Edward Naughton said on the Huffington Post Wednesday in a story entitled “Google’s Android Contains Legal Landmines for Developers and Device Manufacturers” that patent watcher Florian Mueller picked up on. Naughton – and Professor Ray Nimmer, a copyright expert, before him – raise doubts about Google’s treatment of the so-called Bionic library that connects Android and its applications to the underlying Linux kernel.
Bankruptcy Court Says SCO Can Sell Its OS Assets - The bankruptcy court in Delaware ruled Monday that SCO can sell its homegrown OpenServer interests and the UnixWare business – that a federal court in Utah decided SCO bought from Novell – to UnXis, the odd venture involving Stephen Norris, one of the two original founders of the famed Carlyle Group. UnXis has been offering to buy SCO since mid-2009 for reasons that aren’t patently obvious to anybody. Novell maintains that SCO needs its consent to do the deal and says it won’t get it until SCO gives it the $3 million it owes Novell from the breach of their cockamamie 1995 Asset Purchase Agreement (APA), which it thinks UnXis should assume in full.
DOJ Could Scotch Novell Patent Sale: NY Post - The New York Post claimed Wednesday to have a disinterested source “close to the situation” telling it that the Justice Department could scotch the $450 million sale of Novell’s patents to the Microsoft-led consortium that includes Apple, Oracle and EMC, a sale that’s integral to Novell’s $2.2 billion acquisition by Attachmate. Of course it’s hard to imagine anybody “close to the situation” who doesn’t have a dog in the race – and the paper is still saying it’s 882 patents when Novell has already corrected that initial number downward to 861 in an SEC filing – but let’s give the devil his due. Anytime the DOJ asks for seconds on information, it can spell trouble.
Fortis Chooses Tuxera NTFS - Tuxera Inc., a provider of Windows and Mac compatible file systems for Linux, Android and other platforms, announced on Tuesday that Fortis Inc. has selected Tuxera NTFS interoperable file system solution for Fortis' Full HD PVRs. Fortis belongs to the leading set-top box manufacturers in Korea, and its products are sold in many countries in Europe under different OEM brands. Tuxera NTFS empowers additional stability on Fortis' PVRs time-shifting, recording and playback functionality and takes interoperability well above the industry standard.
LiMo 4 Mobile Linux Smartphone Platform Arrives - At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the LiMo Foundation unveiled LiMo 4, the latest version of its open source mobile platform . LiMo Foundation is a consortium of companies including ACCESS, Panasonic, NEC, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, SKT Telecom, Telefonica and Vodafone that are involved in the development of handset software platform LiMo based upon mobile Linux . This latest release includes leading-edge capabilities like 3D window effects, extended widget libraries, advanced multimedia, scalable screen resolution, location-based services , sensor frameworks, multitasking support, and multi touch capabilities. The platform will also come with a "flexible and powerful" user interface and social networking proficiency . According to LiMo Foundation , the LiMo 4 code will be available for public download in July of 2011. Thus operators and device manufacturers can customize the open platform to derive value user offerings.
Likewise Program Eases Integration of Macs and Linux into Schools - Likewise has announced a program that enables educational institutions of all sizes to take advantage of reduced pricing and cross-platform expertise to better track, authenticate and secure Linux, Unix and Mac systems. The competitive pricing of Likewise Enterprise for Education, along with volume discounts, helps universities and school districts achieve significant cost savings. Also, Likewise Open, an open source and free product, can integrate small groups of computers using Microsoft Active Directory. No additional hardware is required to set up Likewise, so schools don't need to worry about additional budget for servers. Johns Hopkins University, a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, was among the first to take advantage of the new program. Johns Hopkins chose site license pricing, which allows it to use Likewise Enterprise across the entire university.
Johns Hopkins University Selects Likewise to Manage Linux and Mac - Likewise, an expert in helping businesses and educational institutions manage cross-platform IT environments, announced today that Johns Hopkins University will use Likewise Enterprise for Education to integrate its Linux and Mac computers using Microsoft Active Directory. Johns Hopkins University is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland that maintains campuses in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Italy, China and Singapore.
Ubuntu to Default to LibreOffice - The Document Foundation’s Oracle-bucking LibreOffice fork of OpenOffice has got its first committed major distribution. Canonical is going to go ahead and have the next rev of Ubuntu default to LibreOffice, not OpenOffice. The community strains of SUSE and Red Hat will also be switching to the fork. The Natty Narwhal release of Ubuntu is due April 28. LibreOffice has just achieved its first stable release. The Document Foundation has been focused on cleaning up the code and making it independent of Oracle so LibreOffice 3.3 isn’t much different from its mother yet. LibreOffice 3.4, due to beta in late March, should be more differentiated.
Ex-Red Hat CEO Claims He Was Taken for a $60 Million Ride - Former Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik, who hates spending a dime, claims he and his family were snookered for $60 million by their trusted personal financial adviser, a longtime friend his children used to call “Uncle Jim.” Szulik filed suit in federal court on behalf of himself, his wife, his 96-year- old father and his three children right before Christmas charging TAG Virgin Islands Inc with fraud, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, legal malpractice, conspiracy, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, malfeasance, breach of implied covenant and violations of the Investment Advisors Act, SEC regulations and the North Carolina Investment Advisers
Putin Goes, "Linux!" People Respond, "Yes, Sir!" - Today Russian Prime Minister Putin ordered all federal workers and all governing structures to start moving to Linux and open source software. Someone has convinced Putin that using Linux and open source software saves money. In the long run it may, but for the next several years it’ll carry a huge price tag. But this is the least of my concerns. I really enjoy the fact that it’s up to the Prime Minister what operating system to use. I guess, if Putin didn’t sign this decree, Russia would continue to suffer from Microsoft slavery and oppression.
Novell Closes Out with Small Flourish - In what is likely to be its last earnings report as a public company Novell said Thursday that it made $322.2 million, or 91 cents a share, in the October quarter by cashing in some deferred tax gains instead of the seven cents a share it would otherwise have realized. This time last year it lost $255.7 million, or 74 cents a share. Sales, however, were down 4% to $206.5 million, which was better than the $203.5 million Wall Street expected. It said its Linux business excluding Microsoft certificates was up over 40% year-over-year in the quarter. It’s working on an 11% margin.
Wireless Industry Steps up Influence over Future of Linux - The Linux Foundation has published a report that says that wireless companies have significantly increased their contributions to the Linux operating system. One of the key factors that has led to the surge in popularity of the free, open source software platform has been the proliferation of Android handsets in the mobile market. Every other day there is a new Android phone that crops up and looks like they are here for the long haul. The trend is catching on in non-smartphone mobile market segments such as netbooks and media tablets. According to ABI Research, Google's Android and Chrome OS, Intel-Nokia's MeeGo and Palm's webOS are among the Linux-based operating systems that will account for 62% of non-smartphones by 2015.
Court to Hear SCO Appeal January 20 - The oral arguments in SCO’s expedited appeal of the jury trial that found Novell owns Unix has been scheduled for the morning of Wednesday January 20. The sale of Novell to Attachmate is supposed to close sometime in Q1 and, of course, nobody knows how the new owners are going to react if the appeals court in Denver overturns the jury’s decision. Although it wasn’t clear from the beginning, we now know that the issue of the Unix copyrights is supposed to stay with Novell.
Start-Up Creates ‘Flight Simulator’ for IT Environments - Kubisys, a New Jersey start-up operating on angel investment, has released a rack-mounted appliance called Thin Capture. It plugs into an existing infrastructure and creates and hosts multiple isolated read-only clones of complex Windows and Linux applications for testing with production data before they’re deployed. Its CEO Vasken Setrakian says, “It’s like having a flight simulator for IT environments. It transforms testing from a necessary evil and a chore to a strategic advantage.”
Dell Folds its Mobile Unit - Dell's mobile device chief Ron Garriques, the guy Dell hired in 2007 after he didn't cut it at Motorola, is leaving the company effective January 28 although he's supposed to consult for the next year. Dell has reorganized his year-old Communications Solutions Group out of existence, spreading its tablets like the poorly received Android-based Streak, phones like its Aero and Venue Pro and laptops like the pricey Adamo around its primary business groups: large enterprises, government, SMBs and consumer. Development of any next-generation widgets will move under Jeff Clarke, who's responsible for PC engineering, design and development as well as manufacturing, procurement and supply chain.
AMD Gives Meego a Go - Hardware giant AMD announced that it will participate in Linux-based open source mobile operating system project, Meego. The project hosted by the Linux Foundation is spearheaded by Intel and Nokia and came about when the two companies merged their respective mobile platforms, Moblin and Maemo. Meego is primarily designed for mobile hardware platforms such as ultra-mobile notebooks, tablets, embedded in-vehicle infotainment systems and smart phones. AMD said that it will provide engineering expertise to "establish the technical foundations for next-generation mobile platforms and embedded devices". It already works on a number of open source projects, such as the Linux kernel, and is a Gold Member of the Linux Foundation.
Canonical to Build User-Attracting UI - Reportedly because of (a) diverging visions (like global menus), (b) performance and (c) approaches (Compiz over Mutter, say, for windows management), Canonical is going to dump Gnome as its default desktop interface. Instead it’s going to go with Unity, its home-grown, modern, Gnome-derived, Canonical-distinct netbook UI, in the 11.04 release of Ubuntu dubbed Natty Narwhal due out next April. At least that’s the “one interface is enough” game plan, presumably a plan that includes an eventual Ubuntu-on-a-tablet.
Latest Ubuntu 10.10 Server Edition Makes Cloud Deployment Easier than Ever - Canonical today announced the upcoming availability of Ubuntu 10.10 Server Edition for download on Sunday, October 10 -- making it easier to configure, update and run both in development and deployment environments of public clouds. "With Ubuntu 10.10 Server Edition we continue to make Ubuntu the default open-source choice for cloud computing," said Neil Levine, VP of Corporate Services at Canonical. "We are adding features and functions that extend our lead in the public cloud and bridge the gap to hybrid and local computing environments. The infrastructure layer is the enabler of cloud computing and Ubuntu 10.10 is leading the way to put open source at the heart of those efforts."
Latest Ubuntu Version Puts Focus on Consumers and Mobile - Canonical today announced the upcoming availability of Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop and Netbook Editions for download on Sunday, October 10. Focused on home and mobile computing users, Ubuntu 10.10 introduces an array of online and offline applications to Ubuntu Desktop Edition with a particular focus on the personal cloud. Ubuntu Netbook Edition users will experience an all-new desktop interface called ‘Unity' -- specifically tuned for smaller screens and computing on the move. Ubuntu One, the personal cloud service for Ubuntu users, includes new services and expanded features, significant performance enhancements and interoperability with other operating systems including Google's Android, Apple's iPhone and Microsoft Windows.
Latest Likewise Open Available with Latest Ubuntu Release - Likewise announced today that the latest version of Ubuntu - shipping this Sunday, October 10 2010 - will include Likewise Open 6 in its repository, enabling easy integration of Ubuntu machines into networks using Microsoft Active Directory. Likewise Open has been included in the Ubuntu repository since the 8.04 LTS (Long Term Support) release in April 2008. Likewise Open joins desktops and servers running Linux or Unix, and Macs, to an organization's existing Active Directory. With more than 70,000 organizations worldwide, Likewise Open is the most widely used Active Directory authentication engine for Mac, Linux and Unix systems. Likewise Enterprise builds on the authentication engine of Likewise Open, making it easy for IT managers to authenticate users, control access to applications and data, centrally manage settings with group policies, and create reports for regulatory audits.
NoMachine NX Ranks High on List of Best Linux Remote Desktop Clients - NoMachine's NX Client receives an 8/10 rating and according to Nick Veitch's review, appearing in Linux Format and on Techradar, is one of the best Linux remote desktop clients available in today's market. appearing in Linux Format and on Techradar, is one of the best Linux remote desktop clients available in today's market. The review speaks of NoMachine's simple philosophy where every aspect of remote display fits into a server-client software relationship, creating an approach completely different from the standard VNC setup. Using SSH encryption, the NX protocol delivers a high level of security. Bandwidth usage is reduced through NX's smart data compression methods and clever caching.
TechCrunch Founder Speaks Out About AOL Acquisition - So TechCrunch, founded on June 11, 2005 by Michael Arrington, was acquired yesterday - September 28, 2010 - by AOL. In announcing the acquisition - on TechCrunch itself, naturally! - AOL's CEO Tim Armstrong wrote, in addition to saying that the TC acquisition was "a great complement to our continued investment in world class content, that "I’m sure founder Michael Arrington will have a few words to say as well." Well, true to form, Arrington did. |||is a network of technology-oriented blogs and other web properties
SCO’s Unix Assets Up for Sale - The bankruptcy trustee in charge of the SCO Group is trying to sell off “substantially all” of the company’s Unix assets – litigation and never-say-die legal ambitions not included. Non-contingent bids for “certain Unix system V software products and related services” have to be in by 5 p.m. Eastern time October 5. What’s left of SCO’s shrinking Unix business – presumably OpenServer and UnixWare – is supposed to get knocked down free and clear of liens and encumbrances. The announcement said the purchase price “will be determined in connection with the auction sale.”
Novell Sale May Fall Through: Reuters - It’s unlikely that anybody in the industry needs three anonymous Reuters sources to tell them that NetWare has been the donkey on the bridge holding up the sale of Novell for lo the six months the company’s been in play. Everybody has known for years and years that that thing has been an albatross around Novell’s neck. Heck, if Novell had been able to solve its NetWare problem it wouldn’t have bought SUSE Linux.
Oracle Wants Its Apps to Run on Its Linux - Oracle Enterprise Linux is now simply Oracle Linux and it’s got an Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, derived from the stable 2.6.32 mainline Linux kernel, that’s supposed to be optimized for Oracle software and hardware as well as being 75% more performant than Red Hat’s RHEL 5-compatible kernel. It’s optimized for large NUMA servers, stops corrupt data from being written to storage, improves application uptime, and improves power management and energy efficiency. It’s the only Linux kernel that Oracle recommends for use with its software. It says customers can run the Red Hat kernel if they prefer strict Red Hat compatibility over a system optimized to run Oracle and other enterprise software. Third-party applications that run on RHEL 5 should run unchanged on the thing.
Oracle Debuts Oracle's Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux - Oracle on Monday announced the availability of Oracle's Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, a fast, modern, reliable Linux kernel that is optimized for Oracle software and hardware. The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel is part of Oracle Linux, which was previously named Oracle Enterprise Linux. The latest edition of the Oracle Exadata Database Machine and the new Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud rely on the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for extreme Linux performance.
The Americanization of Linus Torvalds - This definitely was the week for Finland sucking it up. Nokia, its troubled 145-year-old national treasure – yup, it started in pulp and paper – betcha didn’t know that – is facing North Americanization under its first non-Finnish CEO, Canadian Stephen Elop poached from Microsoft Office, and the most famous Finn of all Linus Torvalds has just become an American citizen like two of his kids who were born in the states. Apparently he wanted to be able to vote.
VMware After SUSE: WSJ - Novell, which was put in play in March when Elliott Associates, a hedge fund, offered to buy it for $2 billion, has struck an agreement-in-principle to break in two and spin off SUSE Linux to a strategic buyer with most of the rest of the company going to a private equity house, the New York Post said Wednesday. The Post said it got it from “people close to the process” but the paper couldn’t shake the names of either potential buyer out of them only that the deal was at a “sensitive stage,” still three or four weeks away from being signed, and could fall apart at any minute. Both sides of the deal are supposed to close simultaneously.
Announcing GoAnywhere Gateway - Linoma Software, developers of the GoAnywhere suite of secure managed file transfer solutions, is now offering a new reverse proxy server product GoAnywhere Gateway. In addition, Linoma is announcing a major release of its GoAnywhere Services file transfer server. The combination of GoAnywhere Gateway and GoAnywhere Services provide an enterprise-strength solution for secure file sharing and data automation, while allowing customers to comply with regulations such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX and GLBA. All components of the GoAnywhere secure file and managed file transfer suite are VMware Ready.
Novell To Be Sold: NY Post - Novell, which was put in play in March when Elliott Associates, a hedge fund, offered to buy it for $2 billion, has struck an agreement-in-principle to spin off SUSE Linux to an unidentified strategic buyer with the most of the rest of the company going to an equally unidentified private equity house according to the New York Post.
Likewise Unveils Enterprise 6 Software - Likewise adds performance improvements, smart card support, and a Microsoft Active Directory (AD) command-line interface (CLI) administration tool. Likewise takes the wraps off of its Enterprise 6 software with quite a few performance improvements and two features, in particular, to call out - Smart Card support and a command line (CLI) administration tool. Likewise joins desktops and servers running Linux, Unix, and Mac OS to an organization's existing network using Microsoft Active Directory (AD). This provides a single, secure framework for authentication and access control in mixed networks.
Multi-Touch Support Coming to Ubuntu 10.10 - Canonical recently announced the release of uTouch 1.0, Ubuntu’s multi-touch and gesture stack. With Ubuntu 10.10 (the Maverick Meerkat), users and developers will have an end-to-end touch-screen framework — from the kernel all the way through to applications. The multi-touch development team has worked closely with the Linux kernel and X.org communities to improve drivers, add support for missing features, and participate in the touch advances being made in open source world. To complete the stack, an open source gesture recognition engine was created and a gesture API was defined to provide a means for applications to obtain and use gesture events from the uTouch gesture engine.
Making Linux and Windows Play Nice Together - Making Linux and Windows play nice together isn't easy, but it's essential to the continued growth of Linux in the enterprise, according to Likewise engineer Michael Szymczak. He will discuss that topic at this year's Ohio LinuxFest 2010 September 10-12, 2010 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. It might sound odd if you're not from the area, but Columbus is indeed one of the hotbeds of the Linux community in the U.S. and home to one of the powerhouse annual Linux get-togethers, Ohio LinuxFest.
Eucalyptus Cloud Project Revved - Eucalyptus Systems was expected to update the eponymous open source private cloud project Wednesday improving the free GPL-based widgetry's scaling. Eucalyptus 2.0, described as a major rev, is supposed to be able to support massive private and hybrid clouds. Its performance has also been enhanced and it should deploy without modification on existing IT infrastructure. The company can't quantify exactly how scalable the thing is but its notion of scalability includes both front-end transactional scalability and back-end resource scalability. Eucalyptus 2.0 provides increased back-end cluster as well as node controller scale improvements.
Cisco To Buy Skype? - As Dell and HP slug it out to capture 3PAR, Cisco may be adopting a quieter acquisition style and attempting - according to TechCrunch anyway - to acquire Skype. Citing someone it refers to only as "one of our more reliable sources," the Silicon Valley-based site claims Cisco has already made an offer before Skype has time to complete its recently announced IPO. It is five years now since eBay famously acquired Skype for $1.9 billion.
IT Innovation: From Cost Centers To Sales Enhancers - IT must innovate - it's the new clarion call in this looming recession. Given the cost pressures required just to keep the lights on, how would IT be able to convince business to let IT innovate beyond a datacenter clean-up focus? The answer lies in the basic principle for any IT investment: Intelligence is king, only now IT needs to be that king in real time. Here are some scenarios to illustrate the power of real-time information correlation that makes IT a sales enabler: A standard insurance company function is to have a service center accept calls about changes to addresses, it is likely that call center is off-shore. The real question is whether anything is done besides registering the address for billing purposes. A new move might mean a new zip code. There are statistics available about the demographics of zip codes, could the people moving be going to a wealthier zip code, a retirement zip code, moving from the city to the suburbs, or empty nesters moving from the suburbs to the city. There is a likely chance that the move is the result of a life event change. It would pay for the insurance company to have an idea about that and reach out to that consumer. It would be an opportunity to upgrade service, cross-sell, etc.
Application Virtualization and Software Licensing: Best Practices - SafeNet examines virtualization, its advantages, and why it is such a hot topic in the world of software licensing, digging deeper into the options available to ISVs and presents best practices for handling software licensing in virtual environments.
OpenSolaris Board Quits En Masse - The OpenSolaris governing board fell on its collective sword Monday and resigned en masse after Oracle continued to ignore its ultimatum to appoint a liaison guy to work with it on the future of the open source project. The move was anticlimactic to say the least. Oracle last week leaked an internal e-mail into the wild effectively saying OpenSolaris is dead.
Interest in Novell Reportedly Dwindles - Remember that score of alternate sales leads Novell was supposed to have after it blew off Elliott Associates’ $2 billion bid to buy the company back in March and repair it privately? Well, according to the 451 Group, Novell’s alternatives have dwindled down to three which it describes as “a private equity-backed company, a UK-based PE firm and a joint bid between a publicly traded tech company and a buyout shop.” And it warns that “it’s not clear that any of the three will actually close a deal for Novell. (The process has already run past two deadlines, we gather.) Without a deal, shares of Novell would be left to trade on the company’s own merits, which probably wouldn’t do much for shareholder value.”
EC2 to Resell SUSE Linux By the Hour - Novell has squeezed into Cinderella’s glass slipper. Amazon EC2 is going to offer by-the-hour pricing and support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 and 11. Novell says the OS will be available in all instance sizes and in every AWS region worldwide. Customized instances are also possible complements of widgetry like SUSE Studio. Novell is supposed to provide a maintenance service on Amazon so customers can keep their SLES instances current with its security patches, bug fixes and new features. Users will be able to buy maintenance subscriptions for their Linux instances on EC2 without signing a separate license agreement with Novell.
ARM Finds Smooth-Stone To Hurl at Intel - In the spirit of David and the bone-crushing giant Goliath, ARM has gotten itself a Smooth-Stone to hurl at Intel, hoping to at least put out its eye. Smooth-Stone is a little Austin, Texas start-up that got organized in January of 2008, apparently on a nickel from ARM and a couple of other angels like the former head of Intel’s Communications Infrastructure Group Howard Bubb. It means to turn the ARM chip, loved by cell phone makers, into the kind of low-cost, ultra-low-power, high-performance server chip capable of the density that hyper-scale cloud players and huge web server farm would fancy.
Texas Memory Systems Joins Linux Foundation - The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Texas Memory Systems has become its newest member. Texas Memory Systems designs and builds solid state storage systems for accelerating enterprise applications. It uses the industry's leading storage technology, PCI-e Solid State Drives (SSDs), to provide solutions to the IT industry that allow for scalable, low latency messaging with high throughput. These requirements are found today in financial services, social networking and other High Performance Computing (HPC) environments. Instead of a rotating mechanical disk, SSD uses memory chips (typically DDR RAM or Flash Memory) to read and write data. These drives eliminate the mechanical limitations and latency of hard disk drives and allow storage speeds to catch up with the speed of today's processors, thereby improving performance and productivity. With SSD, applications can accommodate more concurrent users and simultaneous transactions and can be more economical than adding monolithic RAID, servers, RAM, or constant application tuning.
CA Technologies VP Jay Fry to Present at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley - Cloud computing is changing the expectations on IT and the opportunities for IT to create value. End users feel they can circumvent IT to get what they want and so are asking IT to deliver more cost transparency and agility. At the same time, the cloud provides unique opportunities for IT to roll out services more quickly and better manage costs, while delivering services that truly differentiate the business. In his session at the 7th International Cloud Expo, Jay Fry is Vice President, Strategy & Business Development for CA Technologies’ Cloud Customer Solutions Unit, will talk about how the cloud will evolve the roles of across IT operations and application development teams, as well as how the relationship with business users is changing.
Rackspace Hosting Named “Gold Sponsor” of Cloud Expo Silicon Valley - SYS-CON Events announced today that Rackspace Hosting, the world’s leader in hosting and cloud computing, has been named “Gold Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 7th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 1–4, 2010, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Rackspace Hosting is the world’s leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry. The San Antonio-based company delivers enterprise-level hosting services to businesses of all sizes and kinds around the world. Rackspace integrates the industry’s best technologies for each customer’s specific need and delivers it as a service via the company’s commitment to Fanatical Support.