Geronimo, the open source Java application server sponsored by the Apache Software Foundation, has been picking up steam lately. Hard core developers are experimenting with it as a potential replacement for proprietary application servers like IBM Websphere.
(Editor’s note: In this article, the term “open source” is used rather than “free software”. In this case, they are intended to be synonymous.)
You can win books in Free Software Magazine's new book give away.
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This week we are giving away a copy of Ending Spam.
All you need to do is read our terms and conditions and answer these three simple questions:
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I have to admit that I am a sucker for nice screen shots, desktop wallpaper, etc. I also subscribe to OSDir.com's RSS feeds, and every week (or sooner) they post screen shots from yet another Linux distro that I've never heard of.
This week, however, they posted a link to a page of thumbnailss of all different types of distros!
I think when a parent tells a child that something is “good” or “cool” their immediate reaction is to disbelieve it. I guess I must have done that to my parents, though I cannot remember any specifics there, certainly my children do it to me. I have had broadband at home with a computer available to be used by them any time for a few years now, but it has been underused. When I tell them what an amazing resource the internet is, do they believe me? No... of course not. I am only a parent after all.
But recently things have been changing! And not all for the better...
Roberto Vacca is a Doctor of Computer Science and an electrical engineer. He is very well known in Italy because of his forecasts, mathematical and provisional models, his books (which he sells through his site www.printandread.com) and articles. Since his forecasts, as well as his points of view, are always very sharp and are so clearly expressed, I decided to talk with him about his activity and free software world.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave for quite a few years, you’ve probably heard of Samba, the free software server that provides Windows networking compatibility. For new users coming from a Windows networking environment who want to avail themselves of all the advantages of free software server platforms, Samba is the ticket, and the ticket to Samba is good documentation.
The Official Samba-3 HOWTO and Reference Guide, 2nd EditionIn 2000, I was a much more naive person when it came to both free software and the legal environment in which it exists. To be fair, I suppose I was far from alone.
At that time, the idea of applying free licensing to artwork was pretty new (the Creative Commons hadn’t really built up much steam, even if they did exist, which they probably did, but I can’t remember). There were a lot of theories about the reasons why it was hard to motivate artists to use free licensing, perhaps because an awful lot of people were still fuzzy about why programmers did it.
Newsforge is running a story that ought to concern everyone here at Free Software Magazine. Every three years, the Library of Congress pulls down the DMCA’s Anti-Circumvention Clause (the one that makes reverse-engineering illegal and paves the way for totalitarian digital copyright policies) and solicits comments regarding possible revisions.
Of course, the construction of a free road does cost money, which the public must somehow pay. However, this does not imply the inevitability of toll booths. We who must in either case pay will get more value for our money by buying a free road.—Richard Stallman
As a college professor committed to the principles of the free software movement, I frequently find myself wondering how I can promote the cause from within the university setting. One obvious way is to have students read works by Richard Stallman and Lawrence Lessig—and have them use free software alternatives whenever possible. However, I still felt there had to a less propagandistic, more subtle (and effective) way.
I woke up on Thursday 6th October on a friend’s sofa in London where I had spent the night after the Lonix evening get-together after the first day of the LinuxWorld Expo the day before. After a half hour journey recovering on a number 28 bus I arrived at 9.30 a.m. sharp(ish) in time to attend the Fedora Users and Developers Conference (FUDCon) at Olympia.
As a specialist in multiple environments, I have spent many years putting together an environment that enables me to do all of the work I need to do.
This makes my network—for a relatively small two person operation—more complicated and substantial than some networks that support 10, possibly even 100 times that many users.
Why so complex?
Several years ago, at the eGovOS summit, Microsoft desperately tried to introduce its form of “Shared Source” as if it were a valid form of “Open Source”. And to claim their new licensing strategy they offered “freedom” to others. This effort met with extreme skepticism from me, and I wasn’t the only one. Since then, they have appeared at many free software related advocacy events, as well as using their own closed and special government conferences, and have been desperately trying to sell this idea: that “Shared Source” is “Open Source”.
I heard that at Gartner Mr. Ballmer said that one of the four areas which Microsoft believes GNU/Linux is particularly successful and where Microsoft wishes to challenge GNU/Linux is in application servers. I have often wondered why a company which makes one kind of product feels it needs to control the entire market. This is not something unique to Microsoft, as there are many corporations who feel they should be able to control the third party marketplace that utilizes their products, rather then let others choose what products and services they wish to receive.
The login prompt is a nice place to be. Poised, fingers on keyboards, ready to send mail, surf the web, or do a little programming. However, from power-on to login prompt there is a long road for our GNU-powered friend to travel.
We’ve come a long way in the promotion of open source software. Gone are the days of trying to convince IT directors that Linux is a viable operating system. Most organizations are running Linux on a server somewhere today, and it’s generally considered mainstream for a host of uses.
For a lot of people, thoughts about spam are limited to a burst of bad language and perhaps a brief marvel at the sheer volume of organisations that want to help fix aspects of other people’s genitalia. However, there is more to spam than expletives. Spam doesn’t just magically appear in your mailbox, it has a history and so does the battle against it. There are some pretty interesting and innovative weapons available to combat the evil that is spam. And some of those weapons are examined in Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language Classification
If you ever worked on a free software project or if you have ever worked as a developer, you probably know that managing source code, patches, and software release cycles is not the easiest task to perform. Things get even worse if lots of people are working on the same project: more code to manage, more people to coordinate, more patches to integrate and mainstream. Even if you don’t write software or have never worked on such projects, I’m sure that as an addicted computer user sometimes you felt like “hey, why didn’t I make a backup of that document”, or “hell...
