Technology News: Open Source

SCO to Cough Up $2.5M for Novell's Unix Royalties

Friday - July 18, 2008

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that The SCO Group must pay more than $2.5 million in royalties to Novell for licensing the Unix computer operating system software to Sun Microsystems. The decision by U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball in Salt Lake City came in the long-running dispute between Novell of Provo, Utah, and SCO. In 2007, Kimball ruled Novell still owned pre-1995 copyrights to the Unix system that it sold that year to The Santa Cruz Operation. Lindon, Utah-based SCO bought the system in 2001 from Santa Cruz. [More...]

AbiWord: A Scalpel, Not a Chain Saw

Wednesday - July 16, 2008

A master carpenter would neither drive a finishing nail with a sledgehammer nor trim a tabletop with a chain saw. Such a craftsperson needs tools that are small, versatile and cheap. One such tool -- for writers and anybody who needs to kick out anything from a short memo or letter to a full-length report -- is AbiWord. [More...]

Linux Edges One Step Closer to Total World Domination

Tuesday - July 15, 2008

Many LinuxInsider readers are probably familiar with OpenMoko's FreeRunner -- the new Linux-based cell phone. This smartphone uses the Linux kernel along with various other free and open source software packages, including X.org Server with Matchbox window manager. This phone is so open source that you can get scans of the hardware off the Web site, but OpenMoko is just the tip of the iceberg. [More...]

Free Laptop-Tracking System Hits the Streets

Monday - July 14, 2008

Adeona may have been the goddess of safe returns, but if a group of computer science professors and graduate students get their wish, they'll be viewed as the patron saints of secure laptop computer data, thanks to their new open source software service named after the Roman deity. Also, for those who worship at the altar of bargains, Adeona may indeed be a godsend: It's free. [More...]

The Fall of Google, the Rebirth of Microsoft and the Changing Face of Apple and Linux

Monday - July 14, 2008

Sometimes it's the little things that can cause you to rethink how you look at a company. For much of this decade Microsoft has been the "evil empire" with Apple, Linux and Google on the side of the Force. With Microsoft doing some positive things, Apple's decision to raise iPhone prices, Google's attack on single parents and Richard Stallman's attack on Bill Gates' philanthropy, these entities' images may be changing. [More...]

Best Buy's $20 Ubuntu: Good or Bad for Linux?

Monday - July 14, 2008

Well, every once in a while something slips by the notice of even the best journalistic organization, and such appears to have been the case on a broad scale recently regarding the sale of a certain software package on the shelves of Best Buy. Fortunately, the Linux blogosphere is always on duty. [More...]

Internet Angst, Identity Crisis, Relationship Drama: Recapping a Neurotic Week

Friday - July 11, 2008

A vulnerability in the Internet's domain name system left essentially the entire Web open to widespread attack, but the technology community worked to patch the flaw before it could be exploited. Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher, noticed that the DNS was vulnerable to domain cache poisoning, and the discovery amounted to a red alert for the security community. [More...]

Lotus Symphony: Big Blue Got It Right This Time

Thursday - July 10, 2008

It's arguably the prettiest alternative to Microsoft Office, with a clean interface in a soothing IBM blue. Oddly, the once-biggest name in computing christened it "Lotus Symphony," after a spectacular and expensive failure that dates back to the days of DOS. But this new IBM Lotus Symphony seems poised for success. [More...]

Which Is Faster - an Android or a LiMo?

Wednesday - July 9, 2008

Making good software for mobile phones is hard -- even for a technically adept company like Google. Indeed, it's so difficult that the fleet-footed champion of search advertising finds itself in the unaccustomed position of playing catch-up to normally slow-moving industry behemoths. [More...]

Linux Bloggers Wax Skeptical on the Post-Gates World

Monday - July 7, 2008

Well, July 4th may have come and gone, but another independence recently came to pass that could be almost as historic. That's Microsoft's independence from Bill Gates, of course, and it was a hot topic last week as bloggers at ZDNet and elsewhere wondered if the change might bring about a Redmond that's kinder and gentler to the open source world. [More...]

What's Holding OpenOffice Back?

Sunday - July 6, 2008

Why doesn't free trump expensive? Every Microsoft product has a free, open source counterpart created by dedicated programmers who loathe everything the company stands for. The free stuff is darn good. Yet companies and individuals continue to buy billions of dollars worth of Microsoft products. [More...]

How Nokia's Symbian Move Helps Google

Wednesday - July 2, 2008

Nokia rocked the wireless industry June 24 with news it would purchase the portion of Symbian, a maker of mobile-phone software, that it didn't already own -- and then give away the software for nothing. The prospect of free software would surely lure users away from competing cell phone software makers including Google. [More...]

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