OStatic

There's news out of Canonical today that the release of Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition -- codenamed Karmic Koala -- is just around the corner. It's the greenest release yet, with a heavy emphasis on power management and cloud computing tools.

Ubuntu 9.10 includes Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC), a system designed to help users build and support private clouds. It's underlying technology relies on Eucalyptus, an open source infrastructure for implementing cloud computing on clusters.

When Mike Gunderloy wrote about Canonical's software and development platform, Launchpad, last year, he said even though it wasn't the only hosting service in town, [Its] features... especially the API and sharing bugs, make it a strong choice moving forward. Canonical's announcement today that it has opened Launchpad's source code puts another checkmark in the column of reasons software projects may want to consider using it for their hosting and collaboration needs.

Though Launchpad isn't the only software forge to share the code running its backend, it's certainly among the most well-known. SourceForge, GitHub and other large hosting services haven't made that leap yet, so this move by Canonical is sure to appeal to FOSS purists who want no association whatsoever with proprietary software or code.

Most people who attend an open source conference typically walk away with t-shirts, stickers and other accessories branded with the logo of their favorite distro or open source project. If you don't go to those events, you can still buy cool stuff to show your support or to give as gifts this holiday season.

Here are some Web sites to check out:

Anxious to go to the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Mountain View, CA this December but lack the funds to get there? Canonical is accepting requests for sponsorship and a lucky few will receive travel, entrance, and accommodations at no cost. It's not a free ride, though. Event organizers will definitely put the winners to work.

For a community distribution, Ubuntu sure knows how to preen itself to look good for the business world. Canonical hasn't exactly kept its plans to get on IT managers' radar a secret, but the number of enterprise-ready applications for Ubuntu 8.04 LTS that are slowly becoming available in the Ubuntu Partner repository is getting hard to ignore.

The Ubuntu community hit the ground running at OSCON this week. Scarcely a couple of days into the event, there's already a new version of the distro to peruse and updates to the code hosting platform Launchpad to talk about. In the meantime, the project's founder, Mark Shuttleworth, still found time to deliver a presentation at the event and meet with a local tech group to talk about his vision for the future of Linux.