OStatic

Why Google released Closure tools. The release of Closure Tools by Google under an open source license is about putting muscle behind Javascript.

Microsoft Linux: Why one free software advocate wants it. An ex-Microsoft employee says Windows is doomed, and FOSS will rule.

Vint Cerf plugs Android into the Interplanetary Net. He has added a software stack to the open source Android code.

Q&A: Ubuntu 9.10 security. What are the most notable security features introduced with Ubuntu 9.10, and how can you work with them?

Barnes & Noble, aided by Android, aims to disrupt the Kindle. The Nook has two capabilities that could expand the market for e-book readers beyond Amazon's.

Why Mac open source gets no respect. There are several theories about Why open source hasn't made a huge impact on the Apple faithful.

Top 10 open source apps for Mac OS X. Despite the point made above, here are some excellent applications for the Mac.

Ubuntu's design team: Make it look good, run better. Ivanka Majic, leader of Canonical's design team for Ubuntu Desktop and Netbook Remix, talks about her design team.

Open source database to wean companies off Oracle. EnterpriseDB is touting enterprise level capabilities of its Postgres Plus Standard Server 8.4 database.

We've been reporting this week on excitement surrounding netbooks running the new Moblin version 2 operating system, and how many different directions Moblin may go in. At the Intel Developer Forum conference this week, Intel showed a smartphone running the operating system, with its own chips powering the phone.? While Intel has officially handed over stewardship of Moblin to The Linux Foundation, the company is demonstrating its belief in Moblin for many types of hardware platforms ranging from netbooks, to smartphones, to Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).

Intel has a long history of high-profile partnerships with big technology companies such as Microsoft and Dell, and that's why I'm not surprised to see that the first netbook running Moblin version 2 is Dell's very well-liked Mini 10v (shown). It's set to ship with Canonical's Moblin remix of Ubuntu, and is evidence that Dell--the world's number two computer manufacturer--remains committed to shipping Linux-based netbooks.

Google's Chrome plug-in for IE is half-baked. IT organizations are unlikely to adopt the plug-in without enterprise deployment and management tools.

Big IT projects fail. Open source can help. In traditional software sales cycles, it takes forever for the the customer to really get to experience the software.

Why Africa gets the IBM-Ubuntu bundle and you do not. IBM and Ubuntu are partnering on a Linux bundle for Africa, but only there.

Why open-source DNS is the Internet's dirty little secret.? Do Nominum's new Skye cloud DNS services close a key weakness in the Internet?

CodePlex Foundation will help spread use of Mono. The foundation will ensure that there are incentives for open source software developers who embrace Mono.

Why one writer can never be exclusive to Linux and open source on the desktop. The file compatibility of the current productivity stack and the lack of some applications matter.

Open source does not work well for bad guys. While some researchers express fear of malware writers using open source to improve their work, it actually doesn't help them.

OpenID implementation works on mobile platforms. Swedish company Accumulate has implemented a version of the OpenID standard for mobile phones.

Atlanta Linux Fest: Top 9 Ubuntu highlights. Many of the standing-room-only sessions focused on Canonical and Ubuntu.

How one Melburnian spent Software Freedom Day. He introduced an audience to Python.

As Slashdot, Moblin Zone, and ZDNet UK are reporting, the very first netbook preinstalled with Moblin version 2 for Netbooks is likely to launch next week, very probably at Intel's Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, or at Portland's LinuxCon. ZDNet UK did an interview with Imad Sousou, head of Intel's Open Source Technology Center, in which he implied as much. Sousou has also confirmed that Moblin version 2 will be made widely available after that, with many new features.

While Microsoft's Windows 7, due in October, is going to be aggressively pushed in the netbook space, Moblin will join Ubuntu and Google's upcoming Chrome OS in the effort to keep innovative open source operating systems going in the fast-growing netbook space. Intel has handed stewardship of Moblin over to The Linux Foundation, which could help its chances. Netbooks represent an important frontier for open source adoption and innovation, and I have my own guess at who will be shipping the first Moblin v2 netbook.

OpenID is the biggest government boost yet for open source. U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra has announced a pilot program focused on it.

Red Hat challenges Ubuntu with KVM support. After placing its bets for years on Xen, the company has moved toward official support for KVM, the virtualization hypervisor built into the Linux kernel.

Oracle makes promises to Sun customers, but mum on MySQL. The company has much to say to Sun customers in a front-page ad it placed in the European edition of The Wall Street Journal.

he Linux kernel version 2.6.31 has been released. Desktop improvements and USB 3.0 support are among the new additions. Check out more from Linus Torvalds.

Kings of open source monitoring. OpenNMS and Zenoss Enterprise take different paths to rich, scalable, and extensible network and systems monitoring.

Dell ships Ubuntu 9.04 systems ahead of Windows 7 launch. It's available on Mini 10V and Inspiron 15N laptops.

Flexbooks ? a non-braindead way to produce textbooks. Copyright makes the price of textbooks too high, and Flexbooks could be the solution.

DigiKam is an open source photo application with 16-bit mode editing. Check out a visual tour of what it can do.

Firefox 4.0 to arrive in late 2010. Mozilla recently released a product roadmap with a number of new details.

A cloudy future for open source applications. The cloud promises to shift value to services and away from software.