Open Source : Turbolinux joins Interop Vendor Alliance

Open Source : Turbolinux joins Interop Vendor Alliance
Company plans to open development lab foucusing ib developing, testing and provide Linux and Window Server interoperability solutions

Thursday, November 29, 2007

TOKYO, JAPAN: Turbolinux, a leading Linux client and server distributor in Japan and China, has announced it has joined the Interop Vendor Alliance (IVA), a Microsoft sponsored community of software and hardware vendors working together to enhance interoperability with Microsoft systems. The IVA is an industry-wide group sharing the common goal of making technologies work better together with Microsoft systems for customers.

With increasing demands for products that support business objectives and lower total cost of ownership, IT managers need solutions to seamlessly enhance connectivity between Windows and Linux IT environments. As a leading Linux distributor with a strong market position in Asia, Turbolinux is well positioned to join the IVA in providing real interoperability solutions to customers with mixed IT environments. The joint solutions, such as single sign-on, will help customers reduce the cost and complexity of running mixed Windows and Linux systems.

“Microsoft is pleased that Turbolinux has joined the Interop Vendor Alliance,” said Sam Rosenbalm, Interop Vendor Alliance manager, Microsoft Corporation. “We are very excited about collaborating with Turbolinux to build a bridge between open source and commercial technologies that benefits the entire IT ecosystem.”

Microsoft Corporation and Turbolinux signed a business agreement in October that addresses customer issues, furthered Linux-Windows interoperability and R&D collaboration, and provided IP assurances to Turbolinux users. Taking part in the IVA, Turbolinux will provide solutions which greatly enhance Linux-Window Server interoperability by developing some modules that enable Turbolinux products to work more seamlessly with Active Directory and the Windows networking environment.

“Joining the IVA is an important component of our partnership with Microsoft and will allow us to start solution development and testing.” said Yano Koichi, CEO of Turbolinux. “Working collaboratively with Microsoft, we are eager to deliver the solutions as soon as we can to the market.”

Turbolinux will organize a research and development lab with the cooperation of Microsoft and will use the lab to focus on developing, testing and providing Linux and Window Server interoperability solutions for customers and partners.

Turbolinux plans to open development lab foucusing ib developing, testing and provide Linux and Window Server interoperability solutions.

http://www.ciol.com/content/291107101865.aspx

 

Microsoft wants to destroy open-source by opening its code for examination, but not for use.

Microsoft’s Open-Source Trap for Mon

Microsoft’s Open-Source Trap for Mono

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
October 3, 2007

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
October 3, 2007

Microsoft wants to destroy open-source by opening its code for examination, but not for use.

Microsoft is claiming that releasing the .NET Framework reference source code under the Microsoft Reference License will give developers the opportunity to understand more about .NET.

That sounds good for open source, doesn’t it? Wrong! Microsoft’s so-called opening up of .NET Framework is setting a trap for open-source programmers. Open-source developers should avoid this code at all costs.

You see, as Scott Guthrie, general manager of the Microsoft .Net Framework in Microsoft’s Developer Division, himself explains, the Microsoft Reference License allows viewing of source code, but not modification or redistribution. The source code will be downloadable and viewable by anyone who accepts the license agreement. This is another step in Microsoft’s Shared Source Initiative attempt to confuse people on what open source is, and isn’t.

Microsoft had the sheer gall to submit two of its Shared Source Licenses to the OSI (Open Source Initiative) for approval as an open-source license. Fortunately, the OSI shows no signs of agreeing that these are in any way, shape or form open-source licenses. In particular, the Microsoft Permissive License is unlikely to be approved, according to Michael Tiemann, the president of OSI.

In licensing circles, they’re arguing over Microsoft’s language. Though with this .NET Framework move, we can see Microsoft poisoning open source in action.

The key is that Microsoft will let you look at the code but you can’t use it in your own programs or modify it and use in your software. Now, there’s already a set of open-source programs, Mono, that let you develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows and Unix.

Mono is sponsored by Novell. It’s led by noted open-source developer Miguel de Icaza. The Mono code is covered by three different real open-source licenses. The C# Compiler and tools are released under the terms of the GPLv2 (GNU General Public License); the runtime libraries are under the LGPL 2.0 (GNU Library GPL 2); and the class libraries are released under the terms of the MIT 11 license.

Thanks to Mono, we now have the popular Linux programs such as the Banshee music player, Beagle search tool and F-spot photography program. With Mono, you can also now run Visual Basic programs on Linux. Mono is also working on porting Microsoft’s Silverlight 1.0, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering richer Web user experiences in a project called Moonlight.

All of these programs are now in danger from Microsoft.

I know, I know, if you just look at the headline, the executive summary, “Microsoft opens up .NET,” it sounds great for Mono open-source developers. It’s actually a death trap for Mono.

Is open source the best way to unlock the value of IT? Click here to read more.

Let’s say a year from now, Microsoft does a SCO. They claim that Mono contains code that was stolen from the .NET Framework reference source code. They point at their code, they point at the license, and sure enough, there’s similar code. After all, both projects are implementing .NET; there will almost certainly be lines of code that looks alike.

Better still, from Microsoft’s point of view, all they need to do is find one Mono programmer who has signed the license to look at the .NET Framework reference source code. With that “proof,” they’ll claim they’ve found their smoking gun. SCO failed in its attempts because it never did have any evidence that there was Unix code in Linux.

Microsoft, however, is baiting its trap for Mono programmers with .NET cheese. They’ll claim, come that day, about how open it was in letting people look, but not touch, their code. With the combination of “proof” that some Mono code has been stolen from Microsoft and its attempt to muddy the waters about what open source really means, it can look forward to having a much better chance of killing off an open-source project than SCO ever had with Linux

If you ever, and I mean ever, want to write open-source code, I recommend you not come within a mile of Microsoft’s .NET Framework code or any other similar projects that the boys from Redmond “open” up.

If you do, you’re nibbling on the cheese of a trap that will eventually snap shut on you and kill up your program and quite possibly your job and finances.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2191754,00.asp

True Vision-Ubuntu Linux and ORCA for visually challenged-OSS LINUX

True Vision – Ubuntu Linux and ORCA for visually challenged

Demo of the power of free and open source software in empowering the visually challenged – The case of Ubuntu Linux and Orca software (http://live.gnome.org/Orca).
Mr.Krishnakant Mane, a visually challenged from Mumbai, India showed the power of Orca/Ubuntu linux on 22nd and 23rd Oct.2007 in Chennai.

True Vision – Ubuntu Linux and ORCA for visually challenged
www.youtube. com/mdelcot

The visually challenged can aspire to have dreams, like others. Thanks to orca and Ubuntu.

C.Umashankar IAS., (TamilNadu Cadre)
e-governance expert.
& Managing Director, Electronics Corporation of TamilNadu Limited(ELCOT)
(A Government of TamilNadu Undertaking)Co-Moderator:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/eGovINDIA
Mankind deserves open standards and open source software. Only the chosen ones get its taste. Others just hear the taste.

Chennai:
Ph: 91-44-42054443

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzLIKxpZV0U

Linux System & Kernel Programming Training from Professionals.

Linux System & Kernel Programming Training from Professionals.

Linux System and Device Driver Programming training is one of flagship
training solutions offered by Concepts Systems.
This training has become special one due to Concepts faculties having
experience in File Systems, Storage and Embedded Space.

Course Highlights:

Linux System Programming:
– Operating Systems Basics
– System Calls for I/O
– Multithreading and Synchronization
– Interprocess communication
– Memory Management
– Memory mapped files
– UNIX/ POSIX files and File Systems
– Pipes

Detail syllabus is available at
http://www.concepts sys.com/Syllabus Pdf/LinuxSysPro. pdf

Linux Kernel Programming
– Intel x86 Fundamentals
– Linux Kernel source tree
– Character, Block device drivers
– Memory Management
– System Call hooking
– Kernel Threading and synchronization
– Virtual File System driver

Detail syllabus is available at
http://www.concepts sys.com/Syllabus Pdf/LDD.pdf

Starting Date: Saturday, November 18,2007.
Duration: 1.5 months each module.
Days & Timings: Saturday and Sunday, 3 Hours Per day.

Venue:
Concepts Systems, Pune.

Registration: We encourage you to register at the earliest since there
are limited seats.

If you have any queries feel free to call us on 020-24216888 /
9960638738 Or mail us at training@conceptssy s.com

About Us:
Concepts Systems is Pune based Training Consultancy having expertise
in core systems.
Concepts already has many leading software companies like EMC, HP,
Nvidia, Oracle India, KPIT Cummins etc. as its clients.
Systems Technology Experts having Industry exposure forms backbone of
Concepts Training Division.

Concepts Systems has remarkable history of guiding projects in core
systems.
Concepts sponsored projects have been doing very well at various
software competitions having won the Prizes at IIT Techfest,
MIT, Modern, VIT, PICT-Concepts etc.

For more information please visit our website http://www.conceptssys. com

Thanks & Regards,
Team.
Concepts Systems.

ELCOT’s success story on OSS migration on www.youtube.com/mdelcot

[eGovINDIA] ELCOT’s success story on OSS migration on http://www.youtube.com/mdelcot

 

After a year of experimentation and implementation, ELCOT made a corporate video on how it migrated to linux, notably suse linux which had stolen the hearts of all ELCOT’s officials.
The video can be viewed at www.youtube. com/mdelcot

There is one error in the video about FSF that is being corrected.

IAS officers have been given a two your orientation on suse linux on 5th July 07. Senior officers were very happy that they were exposed to an advanced technology.
 

C.Umashankar IAS., (TamilNadu Cadre)
e-governance expert.
& Managing Director, Electronics Corporation of TamilNadu Limited(ELCOT)
(A Government of TamilNadu Undertaking)  

Co-Moderator:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/eGovINDIA
Mankind deserves open standards and open source software. Only the chosen ones get its taste. Others just hear the taste.

 

Chennai:
Ph: 91-44-42054443

ELCOT develops the first ever LINUX -ATM – Prototype -By Umashankar C

http://hindtoday.com/Blogs/ViewBlogs.aspx?HTAdvtId=267&HTAdvtPlaceCode=IND ELCOT develops the first ever LINUX -ATM – Prototype -By Umashankar C
8th April 07

Forrester reports MySQL as an Open Source leader

Forrester reports MySQL as an Open Source leader

MySQL was the top-ranked product in Forrester’s open source database wave in the market

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

http://www.ciol.com/content/developer/Databases/2006/106072601.asp

Cupertino: MySQL AB announced that Forrester Research has named the company and its database software as an open source leader in two recent independent industry reports. MySQL was the only company, product or software project cited as a leader in both reports. “The Forrester Wave: Open Source Databases, Q2 2006,” Forrester Research, Inc., June 2006; and “The Forrester Wave: Open Source Projects, Q2 2006,” Forrester Research, Inc., June 2006.

“This is a great acknowledgement for MySQL and open source software as a whole,” said Zack Urlocker, MySQL AB’s executive vice president of products. “It is a very powerful statement to have a leading analyst firm like Forrester pay attention to open source in two separate studies.”

According to the Forrester reports, “The role of open source software in application development is growing,” and “Open source databases offer sufficient features for most applications, as they continue to narrow the gap with closed source database technology in features and functionality.”

Out of six databases, MySQL was the top-ranked product in Forrester’s open source database wave in the market presence category. In its report on open source projects, Forrester cited MySQL as a good performer among a dozen major open source products in license strategy, frequent releases, security, governance, training and publications, and market presence (user adoption, vendor adoption and commercial support).

Forget about open source at Apple

Neil McAllister, InfoWorld

04/08/2006 11:58:39

http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;1480540357;fp;4;fpid;4

We all cheered when Apple began experimenting with community-driven, open source development for its flagship operating system, Mac OS X. But if those experiments are now drawing to a close, should anyone really be surprised?

In his column earlier this year, InfoWorld’s resident Mac aficionado Tom Yager noted how Apple seemed to be backpedaling away from open source. Seen through that lens, last week’s news that the OpenDarwin Project would be closing its doors looks like just another sign of the times.

Among other things, OpenDarwin aimed to create a functional, fully open source alternative to the Mac OS X kernel, starting from the Darwin source code provided by Apple. But four years after its inception it hadn’t made much progress. Why not? According to its maintainers, “availability of sources” and “difficulty building and tracking sources” were among the roadblocks — not to mention “interaction with Apple representatives.”

I can’t say what those interactions might have been, but not wanting to share its toys is classic Apple behavior. There was a brief period in the 1990s when Apple toyed with licensing the Mac OS to third-party hardware vendors, but Steve Jobs put a stop to that when he returned to the company in 1997. The Mac OS was Apple’s ball, and Steve took it and went home, where it remains.

It seems Steve Jobs doesn’t think he needs anyone else’s input to properly serve Apple’s market. And here’s the thing: Maybe he’s right.

Let’s face it; Apple under Steve Jobs has been so successful precisely because it’s so good at what it does. Arguably, each new Macintosh PC and laptop has gotten successively better since the original G3. And Mac OS X still wins accolades, even from die-hard open source advocates, despite the fact that the parts that really make the Mac OS what it is — including the GUI layer, the Carbon and Cocoa APIs, QuickTime, and so on — were never part of Darwin and were never open sourced to begin with.

So who cares if Apple retreats from open source? There are two ways to build software products, just as there are two types of organizations. You can build your software through a loosely knit community process, democratically accepting input from all sides, or you can do it in a more tightly controlled, top-down fashion. One need only look at what kind of company Apple is today to guess which method suits it better. Steve Jobs, for all his anti-authoritarian swagger, has far more in common with his good friend Larry Ellison — or even with Bill Gates — than he does with Richard Stallman or Linus Torvalds.

Of course, there is a certain amount of hubris associated with such a top-down approach. It means that all the risk is placed squarely on Apple’s own shoulders. If the judgment of Steve Jobs and his lieutenants remains sound, Apple will doubtless continue its string of successes. If not, they will have no one but themselves to blame.

Meanwhile, the real open source developers are out there in their countless thousands — experimenting, collaborating, and slowly but surely toiling away to perfect their code. They don’t have Apple’s resources, or its marketing, or its R&D budget. But the entire software industry is rapidly being forced to confront the fact that open source developers are definitely in the race. And, like the tortoise and the hare, they’d better not catch Apple napping.

Spanish region goes entirely open source

By Matthew Broersma, Techworld

01 August 2006
The Spanish region of Extremadura has gone open source, deciding to move its entire administratrion to Linux and open source software within a year.

The region’s government has promoted open source for nearly 10 years but will now make it a requirement that its officals use the ODF and PDF formats for all documents.

Luis Millán de Vázquez de Miguel, councillor for Infrastructures and Technological Development, said the administration was the first public body to take such a radical step.

“This is an important initiative that the Junta de Extremadura has been working on for a long time, accumulating experience and analysing the impact on our organisation so as to guarantee its success,” he said on Friday. The decision was reached in a 25 July meeting.

Extremadura, Spain’s poorest region, made headlines following a 2002 decision to migrate about 70,000 desktops and 400 servers in its schools to a locally tailored version of Debian called gnuLinEx.

“The government has estimated that the total cost for the first year of this project was about 190,000 euros (£130,000), and believes it saved 18 million euros overall compared with a Microsoft-based system.”

The new decision will extend the use of LinEx from schools to all civil servants and finally all of the region’s administrative offices. The government didn’t say how many systems would be migrated. The plan calls for all applications to be open source as well. The standard document format will be ODF (Open Document Format), with PDF used when exact visual appearance must be preserved.

Vázquez de Miguel said the move was expected to make Extremadura’s government less exposed to forced upgrades, and would make public documents easier to preserve and more easily accessible by the public.

Extremadura’s telecoms department is preparing a technical support plan, and organisations such as Intel, El Corte Inglés, Spain’s largest department store chain, and Bull Espana have pledged support. IT-oriented organisations are hoping to gather practical information about large-scale Linux migrations from the project.

Extremadura will make a presentation on the project to the United Nations in August, and in September at the Ciudad del Saber (“City of Knowledge”) project in Panama, Vázquez de Miguel said. The region has a population of just over 1 million, and an employment rate of 50 percent.

A number of national and regional governments are investigating open source software and open file formats as a way of reducing their long-term costs and stimulating local economies. One of the highest-profile is Munich’s migration of 14,000 desktops from Windows to Linux.

Massachusetts made headlines worldwide last September when then-state CIO Peter Quinn finalised a plan to begin migrating to OpenDocument formats for reading and saving reports, spreadsheets and presentations by the start of 2006.

In the UK, Birmingham City Council, Europe’s largest local authority, is moving 1,500 desktops as well as back-end servers in its library service to open source software in a year-long trial.

Bristol City Council believes it will save 60 percent on software costs over five years by switching its 5,500 users to Sun’s StarOffice and the ODF (Open Document Format) standard, and ditching Microsoft Office.

The UK government is backing a programme called the Open Source Academy, an umbrella for a number of projects hoping to encourage the use of open source software in local authorities.

Linux Leader Takes Aim At Free Software Movement

There seems to be another rift among the Linux faithful.

By K.C. Jones
TechWeb

Jul 31, 2006 04:05 PM
Linus Torvalds, who helped create the open source operating system Linux, is blasting the Free Software Foundation (FSF) again as the group releases its latest draft of a revised General Public License (GPL).

“I think that “freedom” is fine, but we’re not exactly talking about slavery here,” Torvalds wrote on Groklaw. “Trying to make it look like we’re the Abraham Lincoln of our generation just makes us look stupid and stuck up. I’d much rather talk about “fairness” and about issues like just being a much better process for generating better code, and having fun while doing so.”

The FSF and the Software Freedom Law Center released the second discussion draft of the GNU GPL version 3 last week. The draft marks the halfway point of a yearlong public review process for proposing changes and finalizing the GPLv3.

The GPL is a widely used software license that covers free software and the Linux kernel. According to the FSF, nearly 75 percent of all free software programs in the world are distributed under the GPL, which was last revised more than 15 years ago.

Since January, members of the free software community submitted nearly 1,000 suggestions for improving the license. Many of those suggestions have been discussed at international conferences held in the United States, Brazil and Spain. The FSF said the draft of GPLv3 released last week incorporates changes based on many of the suggestions.

“By listening to people from around the world, we are working toward a license that acts consistently in many different legal systems and in a variety of situations,” Eben Moglen, Software Freedom Law Center founder and chairman said through a prepared statement.

Torvalds ” who insists on calling his software “open” to make a distinction from, and avoid association with, “free software” advocates ” said the discussions of GPLv3 have not allowed for real opposition. He also criticized an earlier version of the GPLv3, calling it a “crusade.”

Under the new draft, the GPLv3 would directly restrict Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology only when it is used to prevent people from sharing or modifying GPLv3-covered software.

“The clarified DRM section preserves the spirit of the original GPL, which forbids adding additional unfree restrictions to free software,” the FSF said through a prepared statement.

The statement added that the license does not prohibit the implementation of DRM ” which the FSF refers to as “Digital Restrictions Management” – but prevents DRM features that cannot be removed.

“The primary purpose of the GNU GPL is to preserve users’ freedom to use, share and modify free software,” said Richard Stallman, FSF founder and original GPL author. “We depend on public review to make the GPL do this job reliably.”

Torvalds said the license is evolving in a way that pushes a moral agenda instead of encouraging cooperation to create the best products in a way that most participants will perceive as fair.

“The GPLv3 is designed to take the FSF back to its original “good old days,” when “Free Software” was a war, and [Stallman] was its proselytizing general,” he wrote. “But the fact is, it’s not a war, and peaceful and happy co-existence is actually much preferable to moral jihads. And that’s why I think the GPLv2 is much better. It allows us all to agree to just work together, without making it a religion.”

The new draft contains compatibility provisions that allow GPL covered programs to be distributed on file sharing networks like Bit Torrent. The group also released the first draft of a GNU Lesser General Public License version 3, which covers many free software system libraries. Moglen said the GPLv3 is on schedule for a release of the final draft early in 2007.