Articles by Jay Lyman

Mozilla's open source software developers quickly jumped on a supposedly critical series of Javascript vulnerabilities in the Firefox browser, only to find the hack, presented over the weekend at ToorCon in San Diego, was just a big joke "The main purpose of our talk was to be humorous," said Mischa Spiegelmock, one of the duo who performed a prese...

Yahoo used its recent "Hack Day" to springboard its opening of substantial chunks of code to software developers, highlighted by the application programming interface (API) of Yahoo's widely-used Web e-mail application Yahoo said the Web application code release -- aimed at spurring new interfaces and other features, and ties to third-party applica...

The open source software development process will be going under the microscope as computer science researchers from the University of California Davis use a US$750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to find out how systems such as the Apache Web server, PostgreSQL database and Python scripting language are built Their research will foc...

When Oracle bought Berkeley DB provider Sleepycat Software early this year, some feared the open source database maker's product -- and the entire open source database market -- might be at risk. Now, however, Oracle is winning praise for a hands-off approach that has resulted in its first update to the database, Berkeley DB v4.5, made available this week...

Black Duck Software got its feet wet during the SCO uproar, when the Unix firm's legal onslaught against IBM and others sharpened concern over intellectual property rights connected to the use of software code. New issues have arisen since then, however, coinciding with the increased adoption of open source applications and the growing number of licenses governing their use. Black Duck recently released protexIP 4.0, a new version of its development software analysis system, in response to the broadening range of compliance challenges...

Like many in the technology industry and legal community, IBM is wondering when the US$5 billion lawsuit the SCO Group has filed against it -- for alleged breach of contract and the incorporation of SCO code in Linux -- is going to end SCO, a Utah-based company that was once a major player in the Unix server market, sued IBM in 2003 claiming that t...

In a twist made possible by virtualization, or the running of multiple "virtual" computer servers on one physical server through special software, Novell said this week it would support Linux virtualization, including instances of rival Red Hat's Linux Enterprise 4 operating system, using Xen virtualization optimized for Intel hardware Novell said ...

Linux creator Linus Torvalds' objections to GPLv3, the Free Software Foundation's draft of the next version of the popular GNU General Public License, have been reinforced by the rest of the open source operating system's top developers. They share Torvalds' concerns over digital rights management (DRM), patents, and other restrictions of GPLv3, according to a poll and position paper...

IBM has revealed that it is considering a plan to support an open source software distribution known as Red Flag Linux from Beijing-based Red Flag Software as part of its long-term strategy in China Red Flag would be the third Linux distribution supported by IBM and its approximately 300 software applications. The firm's offerings are currently com...

Hoping to monetize its open source software development,Qlusters this week is making available openQRM Pro, a specialized version of its systems management software, for sale Like its open source openQRM datacenter provisioning and management software -- which works with Solaris, FreeBSD, Windows and Linux operating systems -- openQRM Pro also wor...

Novell aired some dirty laundry this week, announcing it had received notification that it is in danger of being delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange for delayed reporting of financial results for its latest fiscal quarter. The results have been held up by the company's own voluntary, internal investigation into past stock option grants and reporting...

Coders have developed a Firefox variant, Torpark, that allows users to go online without worrying about the government, Internet service providers (ISPs) or others tracking their Internet activity Released by a self-described group of computer security experts and human rights workers that calls itself Hacktivismo, Torpark is an anonymous, portabl...

Much in the way that open source software projects are known to produce forks, or spinoffs, based on different objectives and personalities, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger is creating an offshoot of his popular communal Internet encyclopedia Citizendium is intended for named, expert contributors, Sanger said in an essay on the effort. "The work...

Hewlett-Packard aims to tap into the growing need among small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) for high-capacity, networked storage with its new StorageWorks All-in-One (AiO) Storage Systems unveiled this week The company's two new AiO Storage Systems align with Microsoft's storage products and servers and are aimed at SMBs with little or no stor...

The technology that college students are going back to this year is increasingly connected to the open source Linux operating system, says Red Hat, which is highlighting the growing adoption of its open source software and network solutions at institutions of higher learning Like large enterprises, many colleges and universities have converted muc...

Red Hat this week released its first JBoss product within a new open source stack that folds together Red Hat Linux, JBoss Application Server, JBoss Hibernate and either of two open source databases -- MySQL or PostgreSQL The Red Hat Application Stack, available via subscription, is offered as an alternative to proprietary application platforms and...

Web hosting has always been a good place to find Linux servers -- often coupled with other popular open source software such as Apache Web servers -- butSpin Magazine's recent move toRackspace Managed Hosting illustrates the upsurge in choices for Linux hosting support, which is at the heart of the deal between the music magazine and hosting heavyweight...

A collection of wireless carriers from around the world have joined together to form the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) initiative. The wireless industry group includes China Mobile, Sprint Nextel, Vodafone and others, and hopes to plot a course to the next generation of mobile network technology The companies, which formed the British com...

The release of Microsoft's next-generation Windows operating system, Vista, may have been delayed until next year, but the software giant is already sending to market new Vista-ready peripherals, including new multi-function wireless mice and comfort-designed keyboards unveiled this week Microsoft said its new PC components would be capable of adva...

Sun Microsystems showed off new server technology at a press event in New York this week where the firm took the opportunity to tout growth in its server business over consecutive quarters As a backdrop to talk about its path to a positive future, Sun announced new Sparc-based Sun Fire workgroup servers and Sun Ultra Workstations that further lever...