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Music

Submission + - Viral Music Distribution and Donation Downloads

Submitted by
Unknown_monkey
Unknown_monkey writes: "A folk singer, a music producer, and a hot lip-syncer make a video parody. The video gets shared with a few friends, and then someone uploads it to youtube and BOOM! http://myboxinabox.typepad.com/ has the great parody video and the song and interviews with the artists. The amazing thing is that they are distributing the song and video free with an available donation box. And a limit of $2.00 on the donation. And people are paying it. Could this be a vision of future pop stars making songs and videos at home and then opening their own Pop-tunes store? People are paying $2.00 for a song that on Itunes would be a dollar. Does this provide further incentive for Itunes to raise prices?"
Windows

Submission + - 10 reasons not to get Vista

Submitted by BillGatesInABikini
BillGatesInABikini writes: APC Magazine has an interesting counterpoint [http://www.apcmag.com/5049/10_reasons_not_to_get_ vista] to the hype leading up to Vista's consumer launch — reasons to not get Vista. Most of the points will be familiar to the /. crowd, but it's a good summary of the key issues for those unaware, and includes some being down played by Microsoft. Interestingly, it looks like Aussies are going to pay through the nose for it too.
Linux Business

Submission + - OSDL and the Free Standards Group to Merge

Submitted by
Andy Updegrove
Andy Updegrove writes: "On Sunday afternoon, the Free Standards Group (FSG) signed an agreement to combine forces with Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) to form a new organization — The Linux Foundation. The result of this consolidation will be to dedicate the resources of the combined membership to "accelerate the growth of Linux by providing a comprehensive set of services to compete effectively with closed platforms." Jim Zemlin, currently the head of FSG, will lead the new organization as its Executive Director. The new organization will continue to support Linux in a variety of ways, including by providing economic support to Linus Torvalds and other key kernel developers, managing the Linux trademark, and providing legal protection to developers through such initiatives as the Open Source as Prior Art project, the Patent Commons, and the Linux Legal Defense Fund. It will also continue FSG's standardization efforts by maintaining the Linux Standard Base (LSB) and the Linux Developer Network (all major Linux distributions comply with the LSB today). Finally, it will "respond with authority" to disinformation and other attacks, and foster innovation by hosting collaboration in areas such as desktop interfaces, accessibility, printing, and application packaging, among many others. All in all, a tall order, but eminently possible given its membership: The Linux Foundation's founding members will include every major company in the Linux industry, including Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, Oracle and Red Hat, as well as many community groups, universities and industry end users. http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/articl e.php?story=2007012113540789"
GUI

Submission + - Xfce 4.4.0 Released

Submitted by linux pickle
linux pickle writes: The long awaited 4.4 version of the Xfce desktop environment has been released by the Xfce Team. In this version, Xfce has undergone a major revamp and has been improved in many areas. XFFM, Xfce's original file manager has been removed in favor of Thunar, a modern but lightweight replacement. The window manager now has built-in support for transparency and has undergone some major themability improvements and the panel plugin system has been reworked, making it much more stable overall. A visual tour is available here and the release is available for download here.
Operating Systems

Submission + - UN Univ. Report Confirms Open Source Superior

Submitted by
Edoko
Edoko writes: "Open source software is a viable, and economic alternative to Microsoft, according to a report published by United Nations University."

The report is here: http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/pb/unu_pb_20 06_01.pdf

Among the many recommendations is that "All Member States and other stakeholders should have the right to access public information made available in electronic format by the organizations and no one should be obliged to acquire a particular type of software in order to exercise such a right"

Also: "The Secretary- General should take the necessary measures to establish a data repository of UNESCO Free & Open Source Software Portal"

A summary is reported by the BBC here: http://http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/627065 7.stm"

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