Free and Open Source Software

News from around the web about Free and Open Source Software News.

Prototype $200 Tablet Runs Android, Chromium OS, Linux (PC World) 03/11/10

PC World – $200 tablet PCs have been something of a pipe dream. There was the Crunchpad, which was supposed to be $200, but that didn’t last very long, coming out as the $400 Joo Joo. If what Freescale showed off at Mobile World Congress becomes reality, though, the dream may finally come true.

etc: BuilDj is an experimental new build system for GNOME applications that uses a JSON project description format. If it gets adopted, GNOME might finally escape from autohell. 03/11/10

BuilDj is an experimental new build system for GNOME applications that uses a JSON project description format. If it gets adopted, GNOME might finally escape from autohell.

Read More: Alberto Ruiz

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SpringSource launches lightweight tc server for virtual, cloud environments 03/10/10

SpringSource has announced a new lightweight edition of its open source application development and management server optimized for the virtual datacenter, cloud computing — and VMware products, of course.

VMware acquired SpringSource in September. SpringSource’s Apache Tomcat-based server is used by more than half of the Global 2000 companies.

The tc Server Spring Edition, which will be available as part of the 2.0 product line in April, gives customers a small footprint that is “ideally suited” for virtual server environments as well as public and private clouds. VMware said it is heeding the call of customers who maintain that deploying Java applications properly in virtualized environments requires a lean architecture.

The server is also designed to make it easier for customers running Spring applicatiions on Java -based enteprise servers to migrate to the Spring edition and for customers running applications on Tomcat servers to move to the more enterprise ready tc Server Sring edition, the company added.

As part of the rollout, VMware, has also announced a special promotion cutely dubbed “Spring on VMware” that offers two licenses of the Spring edition free and 60 days of evaluation support free for a limited time with the sale of select VMware products through VMware channel partners. The promotion runs between March 8 and May 8th.

The Spring edition SpringSource tc server 2.0 will start at $750 per CPU while the standard edition is priced at $500 per processor and the developers edition will be free.

The 2.0 platform also offers deeper visibility into Spring applications, an enhanced tool suite to speed code development and find performance flaws and a template-driven tool for configuring and deploying multiple application server instance per machine, VMware said.

It is also integrated with VMware Workstation and VMware Lab Manager, which allows for applications to be quickly debugged and deployed in virtualized environments.

VMWare featured in its release today a quote given by a portal webmaster for NPC International who said he was able to deploy dozens of application instances on one server virtualized by VMware and said he could not have deployed his web based applications into the private cloud he built without tc’s small footprint.

CodePlex refresh, FOSS projects more compatible with Windows 03/10/10

The CodePlex Foundation has announced the arrival of several new board members, including Jim Jagielski, the Chief Open Source Officer of SpringSource. Jagielski, who was one of the original cofounders of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), brings a lot of credibility and leadership experience to the CodePlex Foundation.

When the CodePlex Foundation was established by Microsoft last year, an interim board of directors was assembled to help get the organization off the ground while permanent board members were being chosen. A number of the interim board members, including Novell’s Mono project leader Miguel de Icaza, will be turning their seats over to new representatives. Former Microsoft open source evangelist Sam Ramji, currently VP of strategy at Sonoa, will be remaining on the board, along with Microsoft .NET Framework program manager Davies Boesch.

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Open source first, ask questions later 03/10/10

Once again, Google has bought something only to open source it.

This time it’s ReMail, first acquired, then put on Google Code as open source under the Apache 2.0 license. (It previously did the same thing with DocVerse.)

ReMail was more efficient in terms of system resources than Apple’s own mail.app, it offered full text searching, and it had other neat features, like autocomplete.

Founder Gabor Cselle now lists himself as just a software engineer at Google, the rest of the development team has also scattered, and Apple has taken ReMail off its app store.

What’s going on? Well, it’s not a bug it’s a feature.

For Google, open source simplifies vendor relationships. You can join the Google software ecosystem without signing a contract. You can exploit Google projects like Android and ReMail and profit from them, because they’re under an Apache license.

Just as the Internet takes friction out of the distribution and development process, open source for Google removes friction from the business process.

Why did this not happen before? One reason is you leave a lot of “money on the floor” by doing this. The other reason, of course, is that Google can afford it.

As I have written here many times, Google’s advantage lies in its infrastructure. It is the low-cost producer of full Internet infrastructure. This includes more than bandwidth. It includes all the tools and hosting needed to deliver Internet transactions.

This advantage can be exploited against any rival. In this case it is being exploited against Apple.

Until someone is willing to try and match this advantage, and even the phone companies seem for now unwilling to even try, Google will exploit this advantage against all comers.

These advantages lean in favor of anyone with ideas, but they also put a limit on the degree to which you can profit from those ideas. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lone programmer in your pajamas or Steve Jobs — Google’s advantages both enable you to bring your ideas to market and squeeze your potential profits like the view of buildings you see on Google Earth.

It’s easy for Google not to be evil in such an atmosphere. There is no one for it to be evil to.

But it does make open source start to feel a bit like Orwell’s Animal Farm. All pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Fedora 13 Alpha Now Available, What are the features?? 03/10/10

“The Fedora 13 ‘Goddard’ alpha release is Now available. Now it supports automatic Printer Installation, You can Plug and Play your USB Printers in Fedora 13

Nexenta Core Platform 3.0 Beta 1 arrives 03/10/10

The Nexenta Project developers have released the first beta for version 3.0 of their Nexenta Core Platform (NCP) [--] the sixth development release in the NCP cycle

Psi Is A Feature-Rich Jabber Instant Messaging Client For Windows, Linux And Mac OS X 03/10/10

Psi is a free, open source instant messaging application designed for the Jabber IM network (including Google Talk) compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

If you’re tired with the Jabber functionality of Empathy or Pidgin, both lacking lots of important features for this protocol, you should give Psi a try.

Gnome Do to change Rampantly 03/10/10

Gnome Do is to get all kickass. Yesterday evening the jolly folk behind launcher-and-then-some GNOME Do held a meeting to set out some goals for the future of the project.

Five Indispensable MySQL Tools 03/10/10

Thanks to a number of well-designed tools, MySQL simply is a very easy database to “talk to,” a convenience which is particularly important because developers often are tasked not only with constructing very complex schemas and queries, but also with monitoring overall server health and performance.