OStatic

Earlier this week, the Qt Labs at Nokia announced a new project, QtMobility. QtMobility's primary goal is to offer a new set of Qt API development tools for mobile device applications.

While this will certainly make life easier for developers working with the Qt framework on specific Nokia devices, one of the best (and intentional) fringe benefits is that the new API tools are cross-platform. A single application, then, can be built and maintained for any supported Qt platform -- regardless of the mobile device model or manufacturer.

Microsoft's IE is losing 10 percent market share every two years. Meanwhile, Mozilla's open source Firefox browser gains 10 percentage points every two years.

VLC Media Player 1.0.0 RC1 emerges. The first release candidate has emerged for Linux and Windows, featuring frame-by-frame playback, on-the-fly recording, and many new codecs.

Open source shrugs at EU liability plans. What should we make of the European Commission's (EC) proposal to make software sellers liable for problems in their code?

An under-$200 netbook. The Gecko EduBook runs Linux, has an 8.9-inch display, and can run on either 8 AA batteries, or can be recharged.

Qt opens source code repositories. Developers can now help contribute code and more to Qt, which underlies many popular mobile applications.

Top open source web commerce apps. From Zen Cart to PrestaShop, survey respondents picked the free winners here.

Nokia updates Qt open-source developer platform. It's the first major update to the cross-platform application framework since the Trolltech acquisition.

The real reason for Microsoft's TomTom lawsuit. Was there intent to force Tom Tom to violate the GPL?

Red Hat's JBoss draws patent suit. A small software company filed a lawsuit on Wednesday.

GENIVI no threat to Microsoft in near term. The alliance's open source in-vehicle infotainment platform isn't at odds with Microsoft's plans.

I have a confession to make. Sometimes, even when you've been trained in the intricacies of searching every database known to man, you can still outright miss really obvious things in a simple Google search. When I was fresh out of library school, I resurrected one of the library's catalog terminals, an old Bondi Blue iMac, with Yellow Dog Linux and KDE. I spent days locking down the KDE desktop, so that if the browser displaying the catalog was somehow shut down (or crashed) it would automatically restart. I spent a few more days making sure that most patrons couldn't access anything but the browser (never underestimate the general public, or the havoc that stray keystrokes, however innocent, can bring).

It wasn't that the KDE Kiosk tool didn't exist at the time. I simply missed it. Yes, I was a bad systems librarian for missing it, and then spending days (happily, but still...) locking down the desktop and reinventing the wheel.

With the release of KDE 4, Kiosk sadly fell into a state of limbo. Now, however, KDE developer Ian Geiser wants to bring it back to life on KDE 4.

Via OSNews comes word that the developers bringing Chrome to Linux have opted to use GTK over Qt as the browser's framework.

The development team's decision wasn't an easy one. The questions they addressed about Chrome's appearance and behavior, what end-users need and expect, and how to make it work smoothly on the Linux desktop are highly subjective, and in some cases, emotionally charged. The FAQ on the Chromium developer's site states that while both toolkits are capable of doing the job (WebKit handles most rendering with the exception of some form controls and dialogs), the team opted for GTK due to their level of familiarity with it.