Linux & Open Source by Computerworld

A group of chip makers including IBM, Samsung Electronics and Texas Instruments on Thursday unveiled Linaro, a new software-engineering foundation dedicated to improving Linux distributions, including Android, MeeGo and Ubuntu, used in consumer devices.

Oracle is planning to release one of the most significant updates to its BI (business intelligence) platform in years at a July 7 event in London, according to the company's web site.

Engine Yard will extend on Thursday its services for cloud-based services for Ruby on Rails applications, giving users the option to deploy on Terremark infrastructure.

EnterpriseDB, which offers a supported version of the open-source PostGres database, is now offering unlimited subscriptions that will allow organizations to run as many copies of the database server software as they desire. Total cost? US$40,000 per year.

Google plans to release its Chrome operating system late this year, initially targeting laptop users, the head of the project said Wednesday.

Cloud architecture has to be defined in a way that allows applications to move around, or clouds can become the mother of all lock-ins, warned Red Hat's CEO James Whitehurst.

Less than a week after the MeeGo 1.0 netbook operating system was released by Intel and Nokia, six companies have announced support for the platform while a market analyst firm has called for a "major investment" if it is to compete with Apple, Google and Microsoft.

The mobile software collaboration project between Intel and Nokia has yielded the first release of MeeGo for netbooks with version 1.0 now available for download.

Fedora, the Red Hat-backed community Linux distribution, has announced the availability of version 13.

VoltDB, a new open-source database for large-scale transaction processing, emerged from beta on Tuesday.

Despite a new level of openness through the [[artnid:346623|recent adoption of eGovernment and web 2.0 tools|new]], the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) is still cagey when it comes to procurement of open source software.

Microsoft revealed on Monday two open source projects intended to improve interoperability with Microsoft Outlook files and even enable easier migrations from Outlook.

The OpenPandora project has created a Linux-based hand-held intended for hacking, gaming, and for use as an ultra-portable desktop. The ARM-based OpenPandora platform features OpenGL ES --the mobile version of the OpenGL 3D graphics API--and is capable of powering real-time 3D games similar to what might be found on the Nintendo DS or Playstation Portable.

The Australian Taxation Office is pushing the AUSkey public key infrastructure (PKI) for secure data exchange when submitting tax returns, but Linux users say they have again been left out in the cold.