Free and Open Source Software

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

LibreOffice stats: 400 total contributors, thousands of code commits every month 02/04/12

The Document Foundation (TDF), which launched in 2010 to develop LibreOffice, has published statistics that illustrate the project’s rapid growth. Approximately 400 total developers have contributed code to the project. The number of contributors who are active each month generally ranges from 50 to over 100.

LibreOffice is a community-driven fork of the OpenOffice.org (OOo) office suite. The project started after Oracle’s acquisition of Sun with the aim of offering a better governance model and a more inclusive environment than OOo. LibreOffice quickly attracted the support of the major Linux distributors and a large number of independent developers.

Read the comments on this post

Apple gets kicked in the teeth by German patent lawsuit decisions 02/03/12

I like Apple products. God knows I own and use enough of them. But, I hate their out-sourcing business practices and their world-wide anti-Android lawsuits. So, when I learned this morning that Motorola Mobility had won a permanent injunction against Apple’s iCloud service in Germany because of a patent violation and Motorola had followed that up with another patent victory, which has forced Apple to take all its older phones, 3G and 4 and all iPads off its German online store (German language link), I was pleased.

True, Apple can still sell its current iPhone 4S in Germany, but this is a real kick in the teeth for Apple and its patent attack ways. Apple is putting the best face it can on its defeat. An Apple spokesperson said, “Even if some iPad and iPhone models are currently not available in our online store in Germany, customers should have no problem finding these devices in our stores or from authorized dealers.” Sure. Right. The bottom line is that iCloud’s functionality has been crippled and German Apple customers will have trouble getting their favorite mobile products.

Apple iPads and some iPhones are no longer available for sale online in Germany.

As always, the patents that are being used in these cases seem dubious at best to me. In the case of iCloud, Motorola used an old pager-related patent to prevent Apple from using push technology to send e-mail automatically to iCloud enabled services. Push technology, oh yeah, no one thought of that before the 90s!

The Motorola patent that’s knocked most iPhone models and iPads off German stores covers General packet radio service (GPRS). This is the data transmission standard built on top of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication). GPRS is used for data communication on 2G and 3G GSM networks.

This patent is also stupid. It describes a way to perform a countdown function over a 3G connection. You know, “Ten seconds to complete your download, three, two, one, download complete.” Who could ever have thought of that one!

Apple argued that this countdown mechanism wasn’t essential to data transmission. I agree, but hey, what does anyone with common sense know about software patents? Therefore, Apple tried to defeat this patent lawsuit with a Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory terms (FRAND) defense (PDF Link), The German court didn’t buy this defense.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, should get on the phone to Google and Samsung’s top brass and agree to stop wasting everyone’s time and money with all the “Sue you, sue me” patent lawsuits and start competing in the market place rather than in the court room. That way, the stockholders would save money-international intellectual property lawsuits aren’t cheap!–customers would get cheaper products, and all of us could all get back to comparing products instead of lawsuits.

Apple iPhone Germany store Image via Apple/ZDNet.

Related Stories:

Motorola wins iCloud injunction; iPhone, iPad pulled from online store

Can Apple really beat Android in the courts?

And this is why Apple doesn’t want to settle Android patent lawsuits

Android’s Revenge on Apple’s iPhone & iPad

Apple’s Worldwide War on Samsung and Android

Mozilla developing Web push notification system for Firefox 02/03/12

Mozilla is developing a push notification system for the Firefox Web browser. It will allow users to receive notifications from websites without having to keep those sites open in their browser. The system will also be able to relay push notifications to mobile devices.

The project is part of Mozilla’s broader effort to ensure that the Web is a competitive platform that can match the capabilities of native applications. Introducing support for push notifications will help to close the gap, because the feature is one of the major advantages that native mobile clients have historically offered over the browser for accessing Web services.

Read the comments on this post

Parabola GNU/Linux: Freedom Packaged 02/03/12

There are different reasons people use Unix-like operating systems, including configurable, availability free of charge, powerful command line interface an many more. Some people are motivated by the moral issue: they reject non-free software.

read more

GNU Generation 02/03/12

GNU Generation is an ongoing community and competition to involve pre-university and high school students (approximately age 13-18) in Free Software. Once registered, students work on a project. Each year, participants will be evaluated based on their contribution to Free Software. All active contributors will receive a complementary membership to the FSF, and the top contributors will win a GNU/Linux netbook! The community has currently 98 participants.

read more

Spark, free-software Linux tablet, to ship in May 02/02/12

Spark, the first free software, Linux tablet is due to arrive in May 2012.

Aaron Seigo, one of the KDE’s lead developers, and a leader of the Spark free-software Linux tablet development effort, has reveled more about the Spark, including, alas, that the Spark won’t be available until May 2012.

Seigo explains, “We have a lot of pieces to coordinate, and not just technical issues like the OS image and the content add-on store, but things like packaging design, manufacturing, shipping, import, retail channel coordination. So far we’re on track, but I don’t want to offer a more precise date than ‘May’ until we pull the trigger on production.”

When it does roll down the production line, Seigo says, “the Spark will be available for order online worldwide. We will be focusing primarily on Europe first, but we will be able ship worldwide from day one. We are looking for retail partners elsewhere in the world: USA and Canada, South America, Australia, etc. to make it easier to procure.” Pricing will be around $260 or 200 Euros.

As had been speculated, the Spark will be built around the Zenithink C71. This is an inexpensive tablet with a 1GHz AMLogic ARM processor, Mali-400 GPU, 512 MB RAM, 4GB internal storage plus SD card slot, a 7? capacitive (16×9) multi-touch screen with 800 x 480 resolution, For connectivity it uses 802.11b/g Wi-Fi connectivity. It also has a 1.3 MPixels front camera, built-in microphone and stereo speakers. In addition, the tablet will come with 2 USB ports, a microSD slot, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

It will not, have in the first production run, 3G or GPS. Both will be supported by the system’s Linux operating system.

The Spark will run Mer, the community continuation of MeeGo, an embedded Linux. On top of Mer, the Spark will use KDE Plasma Active for its user interface (UI). Plasma Active runs on the traditional Linux desktop stack, including the Linux kernel, Qt, and KDE’s Plasma Framework. The UI uses Plasma Quick, a declarative markup language. This, in turn, is based on Qt Quick, an easy to use interface software development kit and framework.

If you’re a developer and you want to write for Spark, Seigo recommends QtQuick for applications targeting the Spark. There are also KDE libraries, including the Plasma framework, on the device. However, Spark is happy to support non-Qt apps. I play Battle for Wesnoth [a popular fantasy strategy game] on mine. Developers will have access to the add-ons store as well, so getting your apps to Spark users will be dead simple.”

You will not be able to run Android applications on Spark though. Seigo notes though that “It is theoretically possible to package a Dalvik [Android's Java virtual machine] runtime for Plasma Active and make it available on the Spark. No one has attempted this yet, but it would make for a killer project.”

Programs for the Spark will be available, said Seigo on “the standard Mer repositories as well as the Open Build Service. However, that’s not overly person friendly (unless that person happens to be technically adept and familiar with Linux), so we are providing an add-on store from which people can easily download and install books, applications, desktop widgets and services … with more to be added with time.” Developers will be able to sell their programs to end-users on the Spark application store.

If you want to run the Spark operating system on other platforms, you can do that as well, but that’s not the Spark’s team goal. Seigo explains, “There are images for Intel based tablets as well as nVidia Tegra 2 and other ARM tablets available, and you can help by getting involved with the amazing Mer project. It is our hope that Spark will ignite interest in other vendors as well who will pick up the opportunity to increase the diversity of options. Yes, we’re looking to grow what would traditionally called competitors. We see them as co-conspirators. Welcome to the world of Open.”

I’m a little disappointed that we won’t see the Spark until May, but I’m still hopeful for the project. Seigo hopes that his next blog posting on Spark will be to announce the pre-order Web site. I hope so too.

Related Stories:

Spark: The first free-software, Linux tablet is on its way

KDE takes on Android, Apple’s iOS on smartphones and tablets

Can Ubuntu Linux win on smartphones and tablets?

Textbook of the Future: The hardware

The double-edged sword facing competitors of the iPad

Spark: The first free-software, Linux tablet is on its way 02/01/12

Say hi to Spark, the first free software, Linux tablet.

Open-source software and Linux, thanks to Android, is well represented on tablets. But, if you didn’t want to deal with proprietary firmware and software, you were out of luck… until now. Aaron Seigo, one of the KDE’s lead developers, and his team are just about ready to roll-out the first tablet based entirely on Linux and free software: The Spark.

For those of you who are a little puzzled right now–”But, isn’t Android based on Linux??” let me start by explaining that yes, Android is Linux and open-source software. But, its implementations on various smartphones and tablets always uses some proprietary software, firmware, and/or shims to combine the code into a working device. Spark is different.

As Seigo explains, “We decided to go with Mer, the community continuation of MeeGo, as our base OSS [open-source software]. With the amazing help of the Mer community, we have been able to bring up a non-Android, built-from-source kernel on the device and even boot into Plasma Active. There is still work left, and we still do have some binary drivers, but this progress is already one massive crowbar that’s prying open the doors that have been shut on the world of ARM based devices.”

Seigo continues, “Right now we’re still stuck with a few binary drivers which is not a perfect situation. With time I’m confident we’ll get the binary drivers out of the picture, one by one, even if it takes time, effort and some pain. We’ve already managed to get source for some drivers that were not previously available so the trajectory is right. If we wait for perfection, however, we’ll never get anywhere because we need to release and push the status quo level of openness further inch my inch by making releases. It’ll be incremental, but we’re already further than others have gotten.”

Getting back to the tablet, the hardware is powered by 1GHz AMLogic ARM processor, Mali-400 GPU, 512 MB RAM, 4GB internal storage plus SD card slot, a 7″ capacitive multi-touch screen and 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity. The list price will be 200 Euros or about $260. There’s no word yet though on where it will be available or even if it will be available in the U.S.

If the tablet is, as Kjetil Kilhavn, a SAP consultant and KDE user, speculates, is built around the A9 Zenithink ZT-280 C71 tablet, it has a 7″ (16:9) screen size with 800 x 480 resolution. It also would have a 1.3 MPixels front camera, built-in microphone and stereo speakers.

As for the software, on top of Mer, the Spark will use KDE Plasma Active for its user interface (UI). Plasma Active runs on the traditional Linux desktop stack, including the Linux kernel, Qt, and KDE’s Plasma Framework. The UI uses Plasma Quick, a declarative markup language. This, in turn, is based on Qt Quick, an easy to use interface software development kit and framework. Above that, as Seigo emphasizes, “All the code above the kernel and most of the kernel itself is already open and available for download right now.”

In addition, unlike some phone vendors and hardware manufacturers who are still fighting to keep you from booting your own operating system on their devices, in the Spark, according to Seigo, “openness and freedom goes a lot deeper in Spark than just using GPL and BSD licensed code. For instance, the boot loader isn’t locked so you can boot your own OS if you wish. You can install your own apps, you can even provide your own app delivery system. You can use the Open Build Service to deliver software on top of the Mer core. That is not a property of the open licensing, but of our desire to deliver devices that you not only purchase but wish you own.”

Seigo went on, “The content store is also going to be interesting. On release, the client will be free software and the APIs [application programming interface] openly documented so others can write front-ends. Most interestingly, however, is the server side. It has been designed in such a way that other people with other devices or concepts can use that same back end to make their own stores. It supports the idea of a single, large set of content which can then be curated into any number of different stores with different focuses and delivery targets.

But what if the project doesn’t take off, will you be left with an orphaned system ala HP and WebOS? Nope.

Seigo states, “On release, we will be providing a guarantee that if the project dies or we all fall over, the back-end code for the store will be made immediately available for download under a free software license. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, of course. Once we are happy with the implementation and scalability of it, we will be making the back-end open as well. We have chosen to delay that release as we don’t want others setting up their own hosted stores before we are confident in the internal design ourselves.”

Want to know more? We’ll have to wait. Seigo promises he’ll answer more questions on February 2nd.

I think this is a very promising project. While the people who will immediately find it the most interesting will be open-source and free-software developers and gadget hounds, I can also see the Spark playing a role in the e-textbook of the future. As Seigo points out, the store back-end code itself could be very useful for schools “to set up a ’store’ with learning materials and content with access granted to their students.”

While no iPad killer, the Spark may be just what’s needed to ignite a fire under innovative free and open-source software tablets. I’ll be very interested in seeing where this project goes and what comes from others in response to it.

Related Stories:

Can Ubuntu Linux win on smartphones and tablets?

Textbook of the Future: The hardware

The double-edged sword facing competitors of the iPad

Windows 8 vs. Android tablets: Which one has the edge? Try neither

Hey, Motorola! Where’s that unlocked bootloader you promised?

Microsoft vows to fix "broken" Hyper-V code submitted to OpenStack project 02/01/12

In October 2010, Microsoft started working toward making the OpenStack open source project compatible with Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization software. The project now seems to be hitting a snag—much as Microsoft’s submission of Hyper-V drivers to the Linux kernel once did—but Microsoft says it is committed to making good on its OpenStack promises just as it did with Hyper-V and Linux.

OpenStack, a framework for creating infrastructure-as-a-service cloud networks from pools of virtual servers, is backed by Rackspace, NASA, Citrix, Dell, AMD, Intel, and others. The project attempts to support multiple hypervisors, including VMware and Xen, but one developer handling release management for OpenStack recently suggested removing Hyper-V code, calling it “broken and unmaintained.”

Microsoft, however, said it is “committed to working with the community to resolve the current issues with Hyper-V and OpenStack,” according to an IDG News Service article published yesterday. The situation is reminiscent of Microsoft’s long project to get Hyper-V drivers into the Linux kernel itself. Microsoft submitted the drivers in 2009 after it was revealed that its use of open source components in a Hyper-V driver violated the GPL free software license. While that project stalled a couple of times, we were just told by Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman this week that the Hyper-V/Linux integration is in good shape.

The same thing could very well happen with OpenStack, although it’s not clear Microsoft has as much incentive to shape up its code this time around. OpenStack can give service providers the tools to build services that compete against Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, or it can give enterprise customers alternatives to VMware’s management tools or even Microsoft’s own virtualization and private cloud management tools. But even if the Hyper-V/OpenStack integration was perfect, it might not gain a huge audience. CEO Joshua McKenty of Piston Cloud Computing, an OpenStack vendor, told the IDG News Service that he’s not aware of any production deployments of Hyper-V with OpenStack.

When it comes to making money, it’s probably far more important for Microsoft to provide a credible alternative to VMware while also supporting data centers that use both VMware and Hyper-V. And Microsoft is already doing that with its System Center Virtual Machine Manager product, which manages Hyper-V and VMware deployments from the same piece of software.

Read the comments on this post

SMPlayer 0.7.0 Brings YouTube And Mplayer2 Support 02/01/12

SMPlayer may have been dead for a while, but it seems very active now, with two releases in just one month. The latest SMPlayer 0.7.0 brings basic support for YouTube and MPlayer2 as well as other new features.

Linux kernel chief exits SUSE, takes vendor-neutral oversight role 02/01/12

Greg Kroah-Hartman, maintainer of the Linux kernel’s stable branch and the Linux driver project, is leaving his position with SUSE to join the Linux Foundation in a full-time fellowship role. Kroah-Hartman will now have more time to oversee kernel development and work with the Linux community, while leaving aside the responsibility of working for a vendor. (The SUSE Linux project was owned by Novell, and now Attachmate.)

“There were no direct conflicts working for SUSE, as the people there understand how important the individual developer, and their voice, is in the Linux community,” Kroah-Hartman told Ars this week in an e-mail interview. “But, working in a vendor-neutral environment like the Linux Foundation allows me to spend a larger amount of time interacting with other companies and vendors, as well as helping Linux out in environments that were not necessarily the focus of my previous employer.”

Read the comments on this post