Feed Roundup

From the SAMBA dept.:
Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. are announcing an incremental investment in their relationship to meet accelerating customer demand for their business model solution, which is designed to build a bridge between open source and proprietary software to deliver interoperability and intellectual property (IP) peace of mind for organizations operating mixed-source IT environments.

The investment focuses on enhanced programs from Novell to provide tools, support, training and resources for customers seeking an enterprise-class Linux* platform and specifically, the optimal interoperability solution between Microsoft Windows Server and SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server from Novell(R). It also includes Microsoft's commitment to purchase up to $100 million in certificates that those customers can redeem for expanded support from Novell that includes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server support and support for moving toward an enterprise-class Linux platform. The investments will take effect Nov. 1, 2008, and between now and then Microsoft and Novell will solicit customer input and identify aspects of the support programs that will be most useful to organizations running mixed-source environments.

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From the The New Battleground dept.:
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have given the green light to publish the Microsoft-backed Office Open XML (OOXML) specification after organization leaders rejected appeals from four countries to protest the vote that approved OOXML as a standard.

The ISO and IEC technical boards approved the publication of ISO/IEC DIS 29500, the official name for the OOXML specification, the ISO said Friday. The spec is expected to be published within the next few weeks after the standards bodies complete the final processing of the document, provided there are no further appeals against the decision.

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From the Smells Like a Breach dept.:
The Fedora Infrastructure team is currently investigating an issue in the infrastructure systems. That process may result in service outages, for which we apologize in advance. We're still assessing the end-user impact of the situation, but as a precaution, we recommend you not download or update any additional packages on your Fedora systems.

We'll share updates as we develop more information.

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From the With Teeth dept.:
There are so few judicial opinions dealing with open source licenses that any single one is of great interest, but the pro-open source ruling of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Jacobsen v. Katzer, No. 2008-1001 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 13, 2008) easily goes to the top of the charts of this small category. This is a highly significant opinion that will greatly bolster the efforts of the open source community to control the use of open source software according to the terms set out in open source licenses.

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From the Good Night Sweet Prince dept.:
The PHP development team would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 4.4.9. It continues to improve the security and the stability of the 4.4 branch and all users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to it as soon as possible. This release wraps up all the outstanding patches for the PHP 4.4 series, and is therefore the last PHP 4.4 release.

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From the Standards dept.:

Ask any independent software vendor what he hates most about developing for Linux and he'll tell you that it's having to develop for SUSE and for Red Hat and for Ubuntu and ... you get the idea. The Linux Foundation has just released a beta of a new program, Linux Application Checker (AppChecker), that's going to make ISVs and other programmers start to love developing for Linux.

AppChecker, now in beta 3, is a downloadable open source Linux program. Once installed, the program shows you a Web page, the LSB Database Navigator. Here, you click on the Application Check link. This presents you with a Web form interface to fill out. In this form, you'll enter a name for your report and Name field, and in the Components field you'll enter the file path for your application. Next, enter the application's individual files, directories, installed RPM packages (prepended with pkg:),; RPM and .deb package files, and tar.gz and tar.bz2 archives. To make this manageable, click on the Select Application Components button so you can enter each item in a separate field. Next, select the LSB Version and LSB Profile you want to test against.

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From the On Message dept.:
Mozilla has launched a prototype messaging Firefox extension that it says could eventually enable users to keep track of all of their electronic communications, including email, RSS, social networks and web discussions.

'Snowl' enables users to prioritise messages by importance and have a search-based interface for message retrieval, according to Mozilla developer Myk Melez.

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From the I'm Old & Hate It. dept.:
Mozilla has unveiled a spectacular new concept browser, dubbed Aurora.

The bleeding-edge browser is part of a new Mozilla Labs initiative, in which the open-source foundation is encouraging people to contribute ideas and designs for the browser of the future.

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From the But, will they run RHEL? dept.:
The former Delta Air Lines chief operating officer, who took over the reins of the open-source software company from Matthew Szulik in January, sees cloud computing as a top priority.

The term 'cloud computing' refers to computing services available to anyone online, rather than custom datacentres isolated within corporate confines, but it also dovetails with the general idea of computing services running at massive scale on a more flexible infrastructure.

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From the Choice is Bad? dept.:
The Mozilla Public License (MPL) is the latest casualty of Google's decision to remove open-source licenses from its popular code hosting service.

The search giant has said Google Code is no longer accepting projects licensed under MPL, although existing MPL-licensed code is allowed to stay.

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Address harvesting all too easy

Apple has inadvertently made it easy for spammers to create a database of MobileMe email addresses.…

'I can't believe Amy self-harms...'

A tasteless jibe at the expense of galactically-talented bouffant platform Amy Winehouse has secured the Edinburgh Fringe festival's funniest gag crown for comedienne Zoe Lyons.…

Rub shoulders with online gods

Microsoft’s reMix08 lands on the golden beaches of Brighton next month and The Register can help you get there on the cheap.…

Built like the proverbial brick dunny

Review Asus has clearly decided that if it can't distinguish it's phones from others in the market by way of software or styling, it will do so by forging them out of solid granite.…

Microsoft scoops up funny man in OS ad crusade

Microsoft has called on American comedian Jerry Seinfeld to big up Vista in its next Windows ad campaign.…

'It's Rainham Sheds, allelulah...'

The musically-minded among you will be aware that we at El Reg have a soft spot for corporate anthems - especialy those which provoke the desire to pull your teeth out with pliers.…

Plastic ain't fantastic

Four in five of Brits are worried about possible fraud if they use their cards overseas with many (60 per cent) choosing to carry cash instead.…

Blackberry v iPhone v Windows Mobile

It used to be pretty simple. If you were a large organisation with a hard-core mobile email requirement, the only serious option from a security, robustness, manageability, usability and ease of deployment perspective was Blackberry. If you had a need to develop custom applications, then provided you were happy to construct your own middleware and management stack, then Windows Mobile was the accepted way forward.…

Calls for public input

Shadow health secretary Stephen O'Brien MP has commissioned an independent report from the British Computer Society on what English health service IT should look like in five years' time.…

Carphone Warehouse now taking orders; O2 will sell it 'soon'

Roll up! Roll up! Roll up to the Carphone Warehouse because the retailer’s begun taking pre-orders for the white iPhone 3G.…