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Monthly Archive:: September 2007

Running the Numbers on Vista

  Submitted by Governa Windows 49 Comments
Sales of boxed copies of Windows Vista continue to significantly trail those of Windows XP during its early days, according to a soon-to-be-released report. Standalone unit sales of Vista at U.S. retail stores were down 59.7 percent compared with Windows XP, during each product's first six months on store shelves, according to NPD Group. In terms of revenue, sales are also down, but the drop has been less steep, at 41.5 percent.
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Interview: Microsoft’s Craig Mundie

  Submitted by Dan Warne Microsoft 11 Comments
APCMag interviews Microsoft's Craig Mundie. "Bill Gates has left the building - almost. In July 2008, the self-made billionaire will make his final exit from Microsoft, and his role will be taken over and shared by two Microsoft veterans: Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie. Ozzie will be Microsoft's Chief Software Architect, looking after technical strategy and product architecture, but Mundie has the role of setting Microsoft's strategy across the board as well as heading up all of Microsoft's research and development."
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VMware Open Sources VMware Tools

  Submitted by SEJeff OS News 17 Comments
Today, VMware announced that it has released a majority of its VMware Tools as open source software (GPLv2), part of the project Open Virtual Machine Tools. "The Open Virtual Machine Tools (open-vm-tools) are the open source implementation of VMware Tools. They are a set of guest operating system virtualization components that enhance performance and user experience of virtual machines."
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JavaFX, JavaFX Script: What Is It?

  Submitted by frozen5555 Java 8 Comments
"I recently gave a presentation at the Portland Java Users Group about Java FX. After talking to some of the fine members of PJUG I realize that there is a lot of confusion about JavaFX and JavaFX script. JavaFX Script is just one part of the larger JavaFX umbrella. In fact, you don't even have to use JavaFX Script to gain many of the benefits of JavaFX! This weblog posting is my attempt to clear up a few things and get you excited about the future of client Java. After reading it I hope you will come away with a better understanding of what JavaFX is and why we created it."
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QNX Opens Neutrino Source Code; Interview: QNX’ CEO

Original OSNews Interviews 70 Comments
QNX has announced that they are going to open up the source code to their QNX microkernel operating system. The press release reads: "Effective immediately, QNX will make source code for its award-winning, microkernel-based OS available for free download. The first source release includes the code to the QNX Neutrino microkernel, the base C library, and a variety of board support packages for popular embedded and computing hardware." Read on for more information, as well as an interview with Dan Dodge, CEO of QNX.
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Richard Stallman: Don’t Follow Linus Torvalds

Open Source 162 Comments
Here is an interview with Richard Stallman about a range of free software topics including GPLv3 and comment on the Microsoft patent issue. Stallman has a go at Linus Torvalds even suggesting that if people want to keep their freedom they better not follow Torvalds. From the interview: "The fact that Torvalds says "open source" instead of "free software" shows where he is coming from. I wrote the GNU GPL to defend freedom for all users of all versions of a program. I developed version 3 to do that job better and protect against new threats. Torvalds says he rejects this goal; that's probably why he doesn't appreciate GPL version 3. I respect his right to express his views, even though I think they are foolish. However, if you don't want to lose your freedom, you had better not follow him."
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Microsoft To Deliver Windows Server 2008 RC1 This Month

Windows 25 Comments
As VMware steps into the virtualization limelight in San Francisco at its VMworld conference Sept. 11, Microsoft is trying to steal some of that thunder by making a number of announcements of its own. Microsoft is announcing that it plans to deliver the first release candidate of Windows Server 2008 later this month. The first Community Technology Preview of Windows Server Virtualization, code-named Viridian, will be released at the same time, Larry Orecklin, Microsoft's general manager of marketing for System Center, said at a media event Sept. 10.
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Compatibility Problems with Vista: Switch to Alternatives?

In the News 177 Comments
It does not happen every day that news related to computer technology - news we report on every day - makes its way to the headline news programs and newspapers here in my home country, The Netherlands. So when it does, I am usually on the edge of my seat, simply because it offers an interesting glimpse into how 'normal' people perceive our little world. The last few days, however, that casual interest has made way for something else - tooth gnashing irritation.
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AMD To Release GPU Specifications Without NDA

  Submitted by hechacker1 AMD 51 Comments
"This morning at the X Developer Summit in the United Kingdom, Matthew Tippett and John Bridgman of AMD have announced that they will be releasing their ATI GPU specifications without any Non-Disclosure Agreements needed by the developers! In other words, their GPU specifications will be given to developers in the open. Therefore you shouldn't need to worry about another R200 incident taking place. The 2D specifications will be released very soon and the 3D ones will follow shortly."
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Inside the Mind of the Man Who Tried to ‘Milk Linux’

  Submitted by dylansmrjones SCO 55 Comments
"Darl McBride has the unenviable reputation as the man who tried to milk Linux. As CEO and president of SCO Group, McBride has spent the last few years trying to collect billions in licensing fees from companies using the Linux operating system, earning the wrath of the world's open-source geeks. For scores of programmers, here was a lawyered-up copyright troll trying to shake down Linux - the free, open-source operating system built by idealistic hackers working for the common good. But McBride insists he's just misunderstood."
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Cross-Platform Development with Free Pascal 2.2.0

General Development 64 Comments
Recently, Free Pascal (FPC) version 2.2.0 was released. This open source Pascal compiler has - since its initial release in 1993 - grown to be one of the most sophisticated open source compilers available today. Daily, more programmers discover FPC and develop their applications in Object Pascal. Specifically, the development of Lazarus has contributed to this phenomenon: Lazarus is a graphical open source IDE for FPC, with an extensive tool kit to design graphical (GUI) applications.
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RISC OS-on-Linux Project Prepares Live CD

RISC OS 3 Comments
An ambitious initiative to eventually run RISC OS desktop software on Linux-powered PCs took a step closer to reality this month. Issues with the user interface code have been addressed, and a bootable CD is being prepared to demonstrate the system's abilities. The aim of the RISC OS Look and Feel project is to enable native RISC OS applications and Linux programs to run within a familiar looking desktop on modern hardware - allowing users' favourite software to run on systems that can also play DVDs, browse the latest web content, play games and use the latest gadgets. Developer Simon Willcocks said he is ready to produce a 'live CD' that includes basic components, including an iconbar, a filer, a terminal emulator, an image viewer, an MP3 player, NetSurf, Inkscape, and so on.
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An IDE for Haiku’s Future: Introducing Genestation

  Submitted by koki Haiku 44 Comments
"As the development of Haiku keeps making noticeable strides, there seems to be no plan to include a direct replacement for the integrated development environment BeIDE that was bundled with BeOS. I have read here and there from a couple of BeOS developers about their intentions to develop such an IDE for Haiku, but nothing has trickled down so far in terms of code or binaries. Well, that's not the case anymore."
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Opera Mini 4 Beta 2 Released

  Submitted by rox Opera 17 Comments
The second beta of the new Opera Mini 4 has been released. This beta includes a few long waited features, such as landscape viewing mode and multiple search providers (as in, not hardcoded to Yahoo only). The complete feature list is here, complete changelog here. Before downloading, you can try this simulator.
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