Open Source News

Groklaw: "Chris Brown was in the courtroom for us today. It was all Darl McBride today, and there also was some sparring over SCO expert, Christine Botosan, he reports.

read more

As modern DRM schemes get more annoying and invasive, the common wisdom is to vote with your wallet and avoid supporting developers and publishers who include such schemes with their games. Or, if you simply must play it, wait a while until outcry and complaints have caused the DRM restrictions to be loosened. But will any of that make game creators rethink their stance? An article at CNet argues that gamers are, in general, an impatient bunch, and that trait combined with the nature of the games industry means that progress fighting DRM will be slow or nonexistent.

read more

ZDNet: "In a Globe and Mail report, the insurance industry wants to use sites such as Facebook to collect and use background information collected to contradict any evidence you have used in your claim for damages."

read more

"Google is working to bring Web software to televisions through a partnership with Intel, Sony and Logitech, according to two people involved in the discussions with the companies. The project, called Google TV, uses Intel chips, with Switzerland's Logitech developing a keyboard that operates as a remote control, said one of the people, who declined to be named because the matter isn't public."

Nieriko writes After three years of arduous litigation, Jesus Guerra Calderon, owner of both a small bar and the P2P link webpage 'elrincondejesus.com' has beaten the SGAE (something like the Spanish version of the RIAA). The historic ruling states not only the legality of link webpages, but also the legality of P2P file-sharing networks.

read more

Infoworld: "MonoDroid, which will enable deployment of .Net-based applications on Google Android phones, is in development at Novell, with a preview release planned for August, the head of the project said."

read more

McBacon writes with this excerpt from Wired.co.uk: "Often dismissed as a failed venture, the Xbox Indie Games programme has earned successful man-and-his-dog developers tens of thousands of pounds from sales of their homebrew games. Wired explores the success stories of this hidden marketplace. ... now, more than a year since its launch, the Xbox Indie Games are seeing something of a revival. Microsoft has made huge strides to improve the service, games are beginning to be taken more seriously and success stories are becoming more and more common.

read more

Howtoforge: "This article shows how you can build your own video community using lighttpd with its mod_flv_streaming module (for streaming .flv videos, the format used by most major video communities such as YouTube) and its mod_secdownload module (for preventing hotlinking of the videos) on Ubuntu 9.10."

read more

From the Updates Available dept.:
Mozilla has announced plans to redraft the open-source licence underpinning projects such as Firefox.

..."The spirit of the licence has served us well by helping to communicate some of the values that underpin our large and growing community. However, some of its wording may be showing its age," said Mozilla on its FAQ page.

read more

From the Vroom VROOM! dept.:
Mozilla's high-performance TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, which was first introduced in 2008, has lost a lot of its luster as competing browser vendors have stepped up their game to deliver superior performance. Firefox now lags behind Safari, Chrome, and Opera in common JavaScript benchmarks. In an effort to bring Firefox back to the front of the pack, Mozilla is building a new JavaScript engine called JägerMonkey.

read more

From the One Ping Only dept.:
Computer scientists say they've discovered a "severe vulnerability" in the world's most widely used software encryption package that allows them to retrieve a machine's secret cryptographic key.

...The scientists, from the University of Michigan's electrical engineering and computer science departments, said the bug is easily fixed by applying cryptographic "salt" to an underlying error-checking algorithm. The additional randomization would make the attack unfeasible.

read more

From the UI dept.:
The new style of Ubuntu is driven by the theme "Light". We've developed a comprehensive set of visual guidelines and treatments that reflect that style, and are updating key assets like the logo accordingly. The new theme takes effect in 10.04 LTS and will define our look and feel for several years.

read more

From the Competition dept.:
Mozilla, faced with new competitive pressures, has begun work on three separate, significant changes to Firefox.

First is a new JavaScript engine that--with a transfusion from the project behind Apple's Safari--should run Web-based programs at least 30 percent faster. Second is a new graphics engine for Windows that will take advantage of hardware acceleration for graphics and text. And third is a programming tool to help bring to fruition a new system for Firefox add-ons.

From the Share Our Pain dept.:
A lawyer for Microsoft confirmed that the software giant told the US Department of Justice and the European Commission how Google’s business practices may be harming publishers, advertisers and competition in search and online advertising.

read more

From the Yeah, More Committees! dept.:
The US government’s policy of leaving the Internet alone is over, according to Obama’s top official at the Department of Commerce.

Instead, an “Internet Policy 3.0” approach will see policy discussions between government agencies, foreign governments, and key Internet constituencies, according to Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling, with those discussions covering issues such as privacy, child protection, cybersecurity, copyright protection, and Internet governance.

From the Enemy of Crap Software dept.:
... the International Intellectual Property Alliance, an umbrella group for organisations including the MPAA and RIAA, has requested with the US Trade Representative to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India for its "Special 301 watchlist" because they use open source software.

read more

From the Copy n Paste dept.:
Xerox Corp has sued Google Inc and Yahoo Inc, accusing them of infringing the document management company's patents related to Internet search.

In a lawsuit filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, Xerox said Google's Web-based services such as Google Maps, YouTube and AdSense advertising software, as well as Web tools including Yahoo Shopping, infringe patents granted as far back as 2001.

read more

From the Fractions dept.:
The Linux kernel would cost more than one billion EUR (about 1.4 billion USD) to develop in European Union. This is the estimate made by researchers from University of Oviedo (Spain), whereby the value annually added to this product was about 100 million EUR between 2005 and 2007 and 225 million EUR in 2008. Estimated 2008 result is comparable to 4% and 12% of Microsoft's and Google's R&D expenses on whole company products.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on have released research detailing how molecules in chips can self-assemble, potentially reducing manufacturing costs.

read more

Linux Magazine: "Some of us are still waiting for the year of the Linux desktop. Some think it’s already here. One thing is certain however, Linux does not have a majority desktop market share.

read more