Linux/Open Source News

Mozilla Labs on Tuesday unveiled a Firefox add-in called Geode, which will give the browser location awareness.

IBM is getting in the cloud. After a string of announcements over the past few weeks from Citrix, Red Hat, VMware, Cisco and Hewlett-Packard, Big Blue is launching an initiative to extend its traditional software delivery model toward a mix of on-premise and cloud-computing applications with new software, services and technical resources for clients and independent software vendors (ISVs).

San Francisco - Mono 2.0, an open-source runtime enabling .Net-based applications to run on Linux, Mac OS X, and Unix, is being released Monday, featuring capabilities for a number of .Net technologies.

Motorola is reportedly looking to beef up its Android development team, increasing its size from 50 to 350 people in hopes of getting in on the latest Google buzz. Motorola couldn't immediately be reached for comment, but reports of insider leaks say the handset maker is working with a recruiter to find developers for Google's open-source mobile operating system.

The open-source PBX platform Asterisk is to gain Skype functionality, Asterisk's primary developer, Digium, announced on Thursday.

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia (NOK1V.HE) is quietly extending its knowledge base in the free Linux operating system to give it extra options in the battle for mobile software supremacy with Google and Apple .

San Francisco - It was nearly two years ago at the 2006 Oracle OpenWorld conference that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison unveiled a plan to have Oracle provide support to Red Hat's own Linux customers.

San Francisco - Linux is enjoying growth, with a contingent of devotees too large to be called a cult following at this point. Solaris, meanwhile, has thrived as a longstanding, primary Unix platform geared to enterprises. But with Linux the object of all the buzz in the industry, can Sun's rival Solaris Unix OS hang on, or is it destined to be displaced by Linux altogether?

San Francisco - When Google announced the Open Handset Alliance (a group of wireless industry players looking to get their names associated with Google's Android open mobile platform project), true open-source smartphones were a great idea that seemed far from commercial realization.

They're back. Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox lost some users with the debut of Google's Chrome browser, but they are returning. Just three weeks after its launch, Chrome is seen as not so polished and is losing some users, according to Net Applications, an Internet tracking company.

Turn off the rumor mills, pull down the mocked-up artwork, and say goodbye to the blogger speculation. Google and T-Mobile's G1, the first mobile phone built around Google's open-source, Linux-based Android platform, is officially a product.

T-Mobile is expected to be the first carrier with a Google Android-based cell phone, with an announcement Sept. 23. And HTC says it will be the first handset maker to use the open-source mobile-phone operating system.

Correction at 10:20 a.m. PDT: Mitchell Baker's title has been corrected. She is the former CEO of Mozilla Corp. She is currently chair of both the Mozilla Corp. and the Mozilla Foundation.

San Francisco - Microsoft continued to make its case on Tuesday that it is a friend to open source, listing a number of efforts it has undertaken in spaces ranging from Linux to virtualization and rich Internet application technology.

With the release of Mac OS X 10.5.5 on Monday, the Cupertino, Calif., computer company provided patches for almost three dozen software flaws. Some of the fixes are specific to Apple features, such as image processing and Finder. Other fixes are updates to various open-source projects including Bind, ClamAV, OpenSSH, and Ruby.

Keeping in step with rival Web browsers from Microsoft and Google, Mozilla has announced a "privacy mode" for Firefox 3.1. The update is scheduled to be released in beta form in October.

Dropbox, one of the many file-synchronization and online-backup combo tools to debut this year is finally ready for the masses to sign up; no more invite required.

Though it has only been available since the start of September, the new beta version of Google Chrome is already attracting a following. As of Wednesday evening, about one percent of Internet surfers were using Google's open-source browser, according to Net Applications. By comparison, the longtime Opera browser had a 0.74 percent share of the global browser market in August.

The Ubuntu project has detailed plans for the April 2009 version of its Linux distribution, continuing its habit of naming its software after animals by dubbing Ubuntu 9.04 as "Jaunty Jackalope."

q&a Jimmy Wales is best known for evangelizing Wikipedia, the open-source, nonprofit encyclopedia he co-founded in 2001. On Tuesday his for-profit venture, Wikia, in its fourth year, unveiled a community for all things "green."

Intel Corp. has acquired Opened Hand, a London-based company which specializes in mobile Linux development and services.

SEATTLE--Imagine your laptop is stolen.

On this week's EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I talk about the big story of this month--the Olympics.

Microsoft, one of the biggest rivals to open-source programming, has begun funding the Apache Software Foundation, one of open-source software's biggest supporters.