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Debian

Debian Elevates KFreeBSD Port to First-Class Status 376

Posted by timothy from the you-want-options-here-are-options dept.
Reader tail.man points out this press release from Debian which says that the port of the Debian system to the FreeBSD kernel will be given equal footing alongside Debian's several other release ports, starting with the release of Squeeze. Excerpting from this release: "The kFreeBSD architectures for the AMD64/Intel EM64T and i386 processor architectures are now release architectures. Severe bugs on these architectures will be considered release critical the same way as bugs on other architectures like armel or i386 are. If a particular package does not build or work properly on such an architecture this problem is considered release-critical. Debian's main motivation for the inclusion of the FreeBSD kernel into the official release process is the opportunity to offer to its users a broader choice of kernels and also include a kernel that provides features such as jails, the OpenBSD Packet Filter and support for NDIS drivers in the mainline kernel with full support."
Medicine

Virtual Autopsy On a Multi-Touch Table Surface 72

Posted by Soulskill from the over-my-dead-body dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Engadget points out one of the more interesting ways to use a multitouch table surface so far. Researchers at Norrkoping Visualization Centre and the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization in Sweden have fitted such a device with stunning, volume-rendered visualizations of high-resolution MRI data. If you've ever wondered what the inside of a human being really looks like, but lacked the grit or credentials to watch an autopsy in the flesh, check it out."

Comment ARM Netbooks already exist (Score 2, Interesting) 59

by mikevdg (#29372483) Attached to: Foxconn and Hon Hai Both Planning ARM Smartbooks
If you want an ARM netbook, get yourself a Touchbook. Its based on the BeagleBoard, runs Linux, and has a 10-hour battery life.

Alternatively, there are these devices: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skytone_Alpha-400. These are MIPS-based (still a nice ISA), can run Linux and are the cheapest netbooks you can get. The best bet for getting one is to try an online auction site such as eBay and try searching for "MIPS", or the names that these cheapo devices go under.
GNU is Not Unix

Leaving the GPL Behind 543

Posted by kdawson from the one-license-to-rule-them-all dept.
olddotter points out a story up at Yahoo Tech on companies' decisions to distance themselves from the GPL. "Before deciding to pull away from GPL, Haynie says Appcelerator surveyed some two dozen software vendors working within the same general market space. To his surprise, Haynie saw that only one was using a GPL variant. 'Everybody else, hands down, was MIT, Apache, or New BSD,' he says. 'The proponents of GPL like to tell people that the world only needs one open source license, and I think that's actually, frankly, just a flat-out dumb position,' says Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, one of the many organizations now offering an open source license with more generous commercial terms than GPL."
GNU is Not Unix

GPLv2 Libraries — Is There a Point? 585

Posted by kdawson from the spirit-of-the-license dept.
PiSkyHi writes "I understand that if I build an application that links with a library that is licensed under GPLv2, I must also make my application GPL2. I can see that value in this for an application. But for a library, what's to stop me separating my program into a GPLv2-compliant client app that talks to the rest of my (choose my own license) application?"
Windows

Windows 7 Hits Build 7600 (Possible RTM) 671

Posted by timothy from the all-aflutter dept.
An anonymous reader writes "One Microsoft Way is reporting that Microsoft has significantly incremented the build number of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: 'Reports across the Web are pointing to a build 7600 for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This is significant because the bump in the build number would suggest that Microsoft has christened this build as the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. The RTM is expected to be given out to Microsoft partners sometime later this month and launched on October 22, 2009, the day of General Availability (GA). The build string is "7600.16384.090710-1945," which indicates that it was compiled just a few days ago: July 10, 2009, at 7:45pm. Microsoft only increments the build number when it reaches a significant goal, and the only one left is the RTM milestone. The last builds that were leaking were all 72xx builds, so such a large bump is suspicious but at the same time it is something Microsoft would do to signify that this is the final build.'"
PC Games (Games)

Is Cataclysm the Next World of Warcraft Expansion? 259

Posted by Soulskill from the either-that-or-it's-not dept.
ajs writes "There has been no official announcement yet, but a number of moves by Blizzard Entertainment seem to indicate that the next expansion for World of Warcraft could be titled Cataclysm. Speculation began when Blizzard trademarked Cataclysm recently, and then later when a test server briefly popped up with the word 'Maelstrom' in its name. If true, the name would fall neatly into the WoW lore and expected expansion list. The Cataclysm is another name for the Great Sundering, an event that created a swirling vortex of water and mystical energies (the 'Maelstrom') that has appeared on the world map in-game since release. There are also indications that early design work included some of the islands in this area, which has long fueled anticipation of a Maelstrom-based expansion involving the former Night Elf noble, Azshara, queen of the Naga and the Goblins whose main city is in the south seas."
Television

US Switch To DTV Countdown Begins 293

Posted by timothy from the we're-from-the-gov't-and-we're-here-to-help-you dept.
s31523 writes "In February lawmakers postponed the switch from analog to digital TV. Now, the new June 12th deadline is upon us with no sign of another delay. CNET is reporting that the President himself has stated, '... I want to be clear: there will not be another delay.' So it looks like it is going to happen, for real this time. Even with the delay, there are still estimated to be millions of unprepared viewers. Local stations may participate in the voluntary 'Analog nightlight' services in which TV stations agree to keep an analog signal turned on in addition to their digital signals to provide information about the DTV transition and to notify unprepared TV viewers of emergencies, such as hurricanes."
Announcements

Submission + - "Fermilab is in deep, deep, deep trouble." (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Hot on the heels of Congress's slashing of science funding increases, Science is reporting that "The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, will be forced to stop work on all accelerator-based projects, a move that threatens the viability of the 40-year-old Department of Energy (DOE) lab." So much for particle physics — and hundreds of jobs.

Comment Re:English Please (Score 2, Informative) 84

by mikevdg (#15753293) Attached to: OpenOffice Gets a Toe-Hold in The Netherlands
Sure. The Telegraaf article:

Groningen migrates to OpenOffice

The Groningen city council is the first large city council to start making use of OpenOffice. In this way, a savings of 330,000 Euro are expected that would otherwise be used to pay license costs. The councillers decided yesterday evening that the contract with Microsoft for the Microsoft Office software suite that has expired in the last month would not be extended.

The contract with Microsoft for the operating system Windows will however be extended. The city Groningen has around 181,000 citizens, and the city council runs around 3650 PCs. A few years ago, [the city council] began a study to determine the feasibility of using Open Standards and Open Source Software. The reason for this study was to break through the monopoly of the large software providers, and that [people wanted programs to become less dependant on that] (?).

Still no migration to Linux

OpenOffice will be installed on Windows in Groningen. The results of the study showed that a complete migration to another open platform such as Linux is not yet possible. The council has recommended that work-places in Groningen should make as much use of software that will run on both Windows and Linux. This would make the migration to Linux easier at a later stage.

Money bags

A large part of the money saved from using OpenOffice will be held in reserve for possible purchases of Microsoft licenses. This is to avoid the risk that the general accounts of the city council will be needed to be used for purchasing licenses for those to refuse to budge from Microsoft Office. The amount of money held in reserve is likely to be around the 170,000 mark.

Another 78,450 Euro will be used to finance a migration team that will prepare for the migration to an operating-system independant workplace.

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