Industry News

Linux Product Insider: The Linux Foundation’s End-User Collaboration Summit

on August 11, 2008

This "Linux Product Insider" features The Linux Foundation’s End-User Collaboration Summit, KDE 4.1, Sun’s Web Stack, RedPost’s Sign and the book Ad Hoc Networking.

Here is this week's Linux product news:

The Linux Foundation’s End-User Collaboration Summit
In harmony with its mission to foster the growth of Linux, The Linux Foundation has created a new event – The Linux Foundation End User Collaboration Summit - to accelerate collaboration between end users and community developers, an important need in the marketplace. The event will gather leaders from the
Linux development and vendor communities to collaborate with CTOs, architects and senior IT representatives from the largest and most dynamic end users in the world to accelerate problem solving and advance the Linux platform. Committed speakers include Andrew Morton; Anthony Williams, co-author of the book Wikinomics; Chris Mason from Oracle; Bernard Golden, CIO Magazine Columnist; Jon Corbet from LWN; and Vinod Kutty, head of R&D for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The conference will take place October 13-14 at the Desmond Tutu Center in New York City.-114

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/events/enduser/program

KDE 4.1
For those gun-shy of x.0 releases, you’re now free to install the new KDE 4.1. Version 4.1 adds new applications, such as the resurrected KDE-PIM Suite and KSCD, the Dragon Player video player, the Okteta hexeditor, KSystemLog, several new games and Lokalize for translating KDE into new languages. Other improvements include a more mature Plasma desktop shell, improved underlying libraries and scores of improvements to the standard applications included with KDE. The KDE community dedicated this release to Uwe Thiem, a long-time contributor to KDE who passed away recently after a sudden kidney failure.

http://www.kde.org

Sun’s Web Stack
Isn’t it nice to have Sun sitting squarely on the open-source bandwagon? Sun’s latest open-source initiative is the Sun Web Stack, a supported and integrated AMP (Apache/MySQL/Perl or PHP) stack for Linux and Solaris operating systems. The software stack includes the most commonly used open source, standards-based software for Web-tier application development and services. Sun states that it will provide product version control for the Web Stack across multiple operating systems so that applications developed for one operating system can be deployed on another with minimal changes. Enterprise support is planned to be available for Solaris in Fall 2008, for Linux in Winter 2008 and Windows and other OS support to follow.

http://www.sun.com/webstack

RedPost’s Ubuntu-based “Sign”
In October of this year, RedPost Inc. will begin shipping its new product Sign, a 19" all-in-one PC with the capability of a digital photo frame or as a digital sign. The industry-standard Sign runs RedPost’s Wicker OS, an Ubuntu-based distribution, and contains Firefox and a Ruby-based Web-based software application. RedPost also offers RedPost/Kit, a do-it-yourself digital photo frame kit. The device includes a 19" LCD, a VIA motherboard with 1.5 GHz C7 microprocessor, 1 GB of memory, built-in Wi-Fi and a 1 year warranty. RedPost claims that many customers are choosing its product since it is “not locking everything down like Sony.” The Sign will be manufactured by Taiwan’s Hurco Automation.

http://wwwwww.theredpost.com

Charles E. Perkins’ Ad Hoc Networking (Addison-Wesley)
The Pentagon will probably want to hire you if you read Charles E. Perkins’ new book Ad Hoc Networking, published by Addison-Wesley. Ad hoc networks are wireless, mobile networks that can be set up anywhere and anytime and outside the Internet or another preexisting network infrastructure. They might be used, for instance in battlefield communications, mobile-conferencing outside of the office or embedded sensor devices that automate everyday functions. The book not only covers algorithms, protocols, and innovative ideas from the leading practitioners and researchers, but it also discusses potential applications, reviews relevant networking concepts, and examines the various approaches that define emerging ad hoc networking technologies.

http://www.informit.com/store