Open Source Alliance Cyberjaya

OSCON We went to OSCON, hoping to uncover some fresh details on Sun Microsystems’ “Project Indiana.” We mostly failed in this endeavor.

Sun’s operating system chief and Debian author Ian Murdock was at the event, elaborating on Project Indiana. He covered, for the most part, ground we’ve already been over, which places Indiana as Sun’s quasi copy of Red Hat’s Fedora project. The core of the new project revolves around Sun’s mission to release a fresh, supported version of OpenSolaris every six months.
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Traditionally, Sun has pumped out a full-fledged version of its Solaris OS every three or so years. Customers, however, have received early access to new features via a support service and can use those tools at their own risk. Sun also dishes out periodic updates with bundles of new tools, as you’d expect.

Now, Sun wants to give hardcore Solaris fans and developers quicker access to those tools via something resembling more of a proper, complete OS. Sun is still working out the exact nature of its support ambitions, although it’s likely to provide support for each version of OpenSolaris for 18 months after its release, according to Murdock. Sun hopes to dish out the first OpenSolaris release under the Project Indiana plan in the Spring of 2008.

Many pundits have said that Sun hopes to make Solaris more “Linux-like” with Project Indiana, although we struggle to see how that’s accurate. Sun is really just tweaking the Solaris release cycle in a way it should have done once the company committed to revitalizing Solaris x86 and to upping developer interest in the OS.

“It is not a Linux copy thing,” Murdock said. “It’s a best of both worlds thing.

“We’re adopting a model that moves into a two-tier release cycle where one option will be a fast moving, community version of Solaris for the early adopters. It’s meant to make Solaris appeal to a broader audience.”

Read more: Channel Register

PORTLAND, Oregon — After years of being relegated to server racks and the desktops of ultrageeks, Linux is finally making some headway as a viable alternative to Windows on the consumer desktop.

That’s the optimistic message delivered by a newly energized contingent of Linux proponents. By employing the same consumer-friendly marketing techniques practiced by Microsoft, and by taking advantage of the rising popularity of web-based applications, Linux vendors are getting ready for what they say will be a wave of consumer interest in the free operating system.

“This is the next great battle, and this is where Linux has never really been before — Linux as a consumer product,” says Gerry Carr, marketing manager of Canonical, one of many Linux distribution makers attending the ninth annual O’Reilly Open Source Convention taking place here this week.

Ten years ago, the free and open-source software community fervently hoped that Linux would rise to challenge Microsoft’s position as the de facto consumer desktop software platform. Linux could run on a wide range of hardware, it could be configured for specialized tasks and — best of all — it cost nothing.

But the dream of Linux on every desktop hasn’t come to pass. Most distributions are plagued by compatibility problems, and a fair amount of geek know-how is usually required to install Linux and get it working properly. As a result, Linux found more traction as a server operating system, undergirding the systems that power websites, databases and other back-office applications, where it holds almost 13 percent of the market.

Read more: Wired

Microsoft will submit its Shared Source licenses to the Open Source Initiative for review and approval as open-source licenses.

Bill Hilf, general manager of platform strategy at Microsoft, used his keynote address at the annual O’Reilly Open Source Conference in Portland, Ore. on July 26 to discuss Microsoft’s evolving open-source strategy.

As part of that, he highlighted a new Microsoft Web site designed to provide additional transparency into the company’s position on open source, and announced the company’s intent to submit its Shared Source licenses to the OSI for approval.

“Microsoft and the OSI are currently in active discussion on this and additional details will be made available in the coming weeks,” Hilf said.

A Microsoft spokesperson declined to give any additional specifics and, when asked what had changed to make this the right time for Microsoft to seek open-source approval for its licenses, the spokesperson would only say that “things continue to evolve when it comes to open source at Microsoft.”

“Perhaps Microsoft is trying to mend some burned bridges after it claimed that 235 of its patents were being violated by Linux and open-source software and then said it was not bound by GPLv3 in any way,” one open-source developer told eWEEK.

Read more: eWeek

From all indications, Intel is taking open source seriously. First it was the news that the Threading Building Blocks was going open source. Then on the heels of that announcement, Intel announced thatits Mobile Platform SDK 1.2 would be an open source project too.
The Mobile Platform SDK 1.2 provides a set of libraries and runtime components, along with an API that is common across supported Windows platforms and runtimes. In addition to being hosted on an Intel site, the SDK is also available on SourceForge.

Then there is the recently announced Mobile and Internet Linux Project, an open source project for mobile Linux development on Intel-based mobile devices. It focuses on projects such as Ubuntu’s Mobile and Embedded Edition and Red Flag’s MIDINUX, and serves as an incubator for prototyping new ideas and projects targeting devices such as the Intel-based Mobile Internet Device (MID) and other consumer electronic devices.

Power’s your problem? Intel is covering that in an open source kind of way with PowerTOP, a tool that helps you determine what software that running on mobile systems (like laptops running Linux) is using the most power. By addressing power-hungry hotspots, you can save battery power. The tool lets you see estimated time left for battery power if you are running Linux on an Intel-based laptop running.

And don’t forget drivers for Intel graphics controllers. Intel has open sourced drivers for its 965GM Express Chipset-based mobile graphics controller. These Linux drivers include support for 2D and 3D graphics features for the mobile version of Intel graphics architecture.

To be truthful, there’s a lot more open source that Intel has been working on. This is just the most recent stuff. If you want to keep up with it, a good place to start is the Open Source Technology Center.

Source: DDJ’s Portal

Middle East Pay in Asia?

Too good to be true?

Not according to Scanit!

Scanit, the leading IT security company in the Middle East has announced that it is now heavily recruiting for its new operations in Malaysia. When asked what the key driving factors were for making this move, CEO David Michaux said that he was ‘chasing the talent where ever he could find it, and as we found a good technical pool in Asia, so this is our next step’.

Scanit who are also the Gold sponsors of HITB in September, launched a recruitment site earlier this year focused at attempting to bring fresh technical talent to the Middle East market, ‘we have over 50 IT security jobs currently posted from clients all over the Gulf region’ said David ‘our clients need hands on people who can help to really secure their infrastructures’ he continued.

Not looking for qualifications or certifications, the Scanit team will be bringing a number of their recruitment customers, including some of the major banks and telecom operators from the Middle East, to perform direct interviews with interested candidates at the upcoming HITB event. ‘We will performing live interviews, both technical and personal, and hope to be able to help our customers fill some of their vacancies directly at the event’.

When asked if Scanit and their customers were looking at Asia simply to find cheaper labour, David quickly replied that ‘Scanit has a uniform payment structure irrespective of nationality or geographic location, and I believe that if you are among the best, you should be paid the same as your counterparts’. Salaries in the Middle East range from approximately 3,500USD per month to over 8,000USD, depending on your skill level and experience. ‘Scanit has the reputation of being the best in the security consultancy market in the Middle East, and I will make sure we keep that reputation when we move into Malaysia’.

Candidates who are interested in signing up for the upcoming recruitment drive can register their interest by subscribing to the recruitment portal at http://hr.scanit.net, the Scanit team have promised to give everyone a fair chance.

*****
*** HITBSecConf 2007
*** 3rd – 6th September
*** The Hilton KL Sentral

NCL Solutions Sdn. Bhd. is an exclusive Novell Academic Partner and will be talking on the topic “Linux and You: How Significant Will Linux Knowledge Be For Your Future?” on Thursday, 26th July 2007 at 5:00pm at FIT CR 1003.

Date: 26th July 2007 (Thursday)
Time: 5:00 pm – 6:45 pm
Venue: FIT CR 1003, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya

Agenda:
5:00 pm – 5:45 pm: Talk and demonstration by NCL Solutions.
6:00 pm – 6:45 pm: openSUSE Installation for staffs/students.

Staffs and students are welcomed to bring their own laptop to the small openSUSE installation session. Images are being uploaded and will be available to burn at ftp://oss.cyber.mmu.edu.my/linux/opensuse (intranet).

About NCL Solutions Sdn. Bhd.:
NCL Solutions is a learning solutions company and has been appointed by Novell as their sole and exclusive Novell Technical Institute for Malaysia. Their role is to recruit educational institutes to become Novell Academic Training Partner (NATP). They provide train the trainer program to groom lecturers as Novell Certified Linux Professional (NCLP) for them to provide training for students to be certified as NCLP.

For MESCORP ICT Conference & Exhibition attendees:
Approach MESCORP committee to get your certificate.

Anyone wants to go to Mescorp Conference? Send your details to me or aphesz[a]activates.org. 25 free seats available to you and eligible for lucky draw.

Upcoming Event:
IT Society AGM – 1st Aug (Wed) @ 8pm, Venue TBA

Thank you.

Best regards,

Mohd Syazli Mahmud
Open Source Alliance Cyberjaya, IT Society,
Multimedia University, Cyberjaya
+60 (17) 328 1840
ym: syazli7

Analysis — Xandros CEO Andy Typaldos told DesktopLinux.com that his Ottawa-based Linux desktop and server company has acquired privately owned open-source e-mail and calendaring provider Scalix under terms that were undisclosed.

Xandros took over the San Mateo, Calif., company starting the week of July 9, Typaldos said. Scalix President and CEO Glenn Winokur will stay through the transition only and become a member of the Xandros advisory board. Vice president of finance Walter Lim will also leave the company; the sales support staff and the staff of engineers—a total of about 13 people—will all stay on with Xandros, Typaldos said.

Xandros, a well-regarded, full-featured Linux distribution, was founded in 2001 by the late Dr. Frederick (Rick) Berenstein, and also has offices in New York, Frankfurt and Sao Paulo. With the acquisition, the privately owned company will have nearly 100 employees, Typaldos said.

Scalix, founded by Julie Hanna Farris in 2002, has more than 1 million mailboxes deployed worldwide, and over 675 corporate customers deployed in 55 countries, the spokesperson said.

“The deal with Xandros went fairly quickly, as far as these things go,” Winokur told DesktopLinux.com. “We had already been partners, with Scalix integrated into Xandros … Xandros’ engineering power is going to continue to benefit the work we have done.”

Read more: DesktopLinux

Release of OpenSolaris binaries next year a move to mimic Linux’s distribution model and community

Looking to steal thunder from the Linux juggernaut or at least catch the same wave, Sun plans to release binaries in Spring 2008 for its OpenSolaris Unix platform, similar to how Linux is offered, as part of the company’s Project Indiana.

Sun officials discussed the effort at a meeting in San Francisco on Thursday. The company wants to mimic the Linux distribution model as a way to grow the market for Solaris.

“Over the last five or 10 years, orders of magnitude more people in the world know Linux environment than know Solaris. This is a problem,” said Ian Murdock, Sun’s chief OS strategist and a former CTO of the Linux Foundation.

Having already offered up Solaris to open source via the OpenSolaris project, Sun will expand its proselytizing of the platform by releasing binaries. Project Indiana seeks to combine what Sun described as the best of Solaris — its enterprise-class capabilities, innovation, and backward compatibility — with the best of Linux — its distribution model, community, and its being free and open source.

“Even with open source, the binary platform is the key thing of value,” said Murdock.

Pre-releases of Project Indiana are expected to start this fall. Also featured as part of the project will be short release cycles that will offer something downloadable offered every six months. Developers will get the latest Solaris innovations without having to build the Solaris code.

“The main goal of Indiana is to reorient Solaris around the distribution model,” said Murdock.

With the project, Sun is moving to a two-tier development environment in which enterprise customers can get the commercial version of Solaris and developers can access the Indiana binary version.

Read more: InfoWorld

The company will use Project Indiana to target the Linux developer community and its enterprise customers with frequent community-oriented releases of the operating system.

Sun Microsystems on Thursday said it is establishing a two-tier distribution model for its Solaris operating system in an attempt to capture market share from its Linux competitors.

Tentatively dubbed “Project Indiana,” the distribution methodology is based on a network-based package management system that runs on a 6-month release cycle of the latest improvements. The packages could be contributed by Sun, the open source community, or individuals. Currently under development in the Sun-founded OpenSolaris community, the first release is due out in Spring of 2008. Sun said test releases would be made available beginning in Fall 2007. The enterprise-version of Solaris is expected to maintain its current, predictable, and long release cycle schedule.

“From a product standpoint, think of this as one Solaris with two distributions: One for enterprise and one for development,” said Marc Hamilton, Sun VP of Solaris Marketing. While Solaris Express has been considered a successful distribution model, Hamilton noted its disadvantage is that it is only available to Sun’s customers.

The project first came to light during the JavaOne conference in May 2007 just as Ian Murdock, founder of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution and the commercial Linux distributor Progeny, was making his debut as Sun’s Chief Operating Platforms Officer.

Coming from the Linux community, Murdock noted the difficulty developers had in moving applications between Linux and Solaris, despite their common ancestry. His stated goal now is to “bridge the familiarity” between the two operating systems to a point where Sun can make a compelling reason for developers and their bosses to structure applications based around Solaris even if they are currently running code over Linux operating systems like Red Hat or SuSE.

“Your average application these days is probably made with Ruby on Rails to run on Linux,” Murdock said during a press briefing Thursday. “We at Sun would take a look at that and say to our customers, ‘You should move that to Solaris.’ When they say, ‘Why?’… We can show them how things like DTrace [a code-testing tool in the operating system], which has special software designed for Ruby — but not on Linux. We have to give them a unique compelling reason to make the shift.”

Read more: InformationWeek

If Novell includes the latest version of Samba in its SUSE Linux distributions, Microsoft said it’s unwilling to have its Linux subscription coupons be used in connection with any GPLv3 code. 

Microsoft is attempting to sidestep entanglement in the barbs of GPLv3’s provisions, as a change to open source software Samba may strain Microsoft’s relationship with Novell.

Linux itself continues to be distributed under GPLv2. But a key part of the Novell SUSE Linux bundle, the Samba file translation server, will be placed under GPLv3 in its next release, Jeremy Allison, lead developer on the Samba project, said Monday. The next release is expected in a month or two, he added.

Novell may continue to distribute Samba under GPLv2, but at some point, Linux users will demand the latest improvements in Samba code, which will be protected by GPLv3.

If Novell includes the latest version of Samba in its SUSE Linux distributions, Microsoft said it’s unwilling to have its Linux subscription coupons be used in connection with any GPLv3 code.

Microsoft already appears to be backing off part of its pact with Novell — its SUSE Linux coupon offensive worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Microsoft is currently distributing coupons to Novell customers saying it “will not entitle the recipient to receive from Novell … a subscription for support and updates relating to any code licensed under GPLv3,” Microsoft said in a statement posted to its Web site July 5.

Microsoft took its stance versus GPLv3 a week after version 3.0 of the open source license was released by the Free Software Foundation June 29. Prior to the Microsoft statement, there had been speculation by open source legal authorities that Microsoft’s issuance of coupons could entangle it in the provisions of the GPLv3. Among other things, GPLv3 forbids any issuer of GPLv3 code from suing a GPLv3 code user for patent infringements.

Read more: InformationWeek