OStatic

Most people think software when they hear open source - but there are plenty of other things using open source principles to distribute their intellectual property. We've covered some of these: the OpenMoko phone, the Open Graphics Project, VIA's OpenNote, and even the RepRap self-duplicating machine. But they're just the tip of the iceberg. Here are five more projects that show how healthy open source is beyond the software arena.

While it's still only a rumor, VentureBeat is reporting that Microsoft has agreed to buy Silicon Valley semantic search engine Powerset for over $100 million--apparently to be announced next month. Powerset's search technology uses the open source cluster-based technology Hadoop, which provides fast answers to queries by using the resources of many computers. We wrote about both Hadoop and Powerset here, and got to hear from Powerset's Chad Walters. Based on what I saw Chad demonstrate, and Microsoft's need to catch up in search, I won't be surprised if this rumor is true.

I was very interested in this piece from Computerworld U.K., titled Can we give every school child in the U.K. a Linux notebook and still save money? It provides a cost breakdown of what it would take to give every student a Linux notebook, compared to the costs schools in the U.K. currently face for software licenses, other technology fees, and printing and photocopying. According to the author of this story, the fees for printing and photocopying alone at schools are staggering--to the point where if electronic materials replaced much of the printed materials, there would be enough money to give each student a low-cost Linux notebook--and lots left over. Would this work in the U.S.?

Webware has a good story on two quick fixes for Firefox 3.? While I've found the new version of the browser to be an excellent upgrade, I did have both of the problems described in the Webware post, and both of the fixes worked well for me. The first problem involves glitches in playing Flash files. A simple upgrade to the Flash 10 beta is indeed a fix. The second problem, which I suspect many people are having, regards incompatibilities with some Firefox extensions and the new version 3 browser. As Webware prescribes, MR Tech Toolkit and Nightly Tester Tools are workarounds. Check out Webware's complete discussion.

I've seen a certain amount of gloating recently in the open source press about a memo from Bill Gates that the Seattle PI recently dug up. You know the one, probably: Bill tries to install some software from the net, and ends up flaming his people for a couple of pages with choice bits like The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. But so what?

SpringSource, a provider of Java infrastructure software and the overseer of infrastructure technologies from the Apache Software Foundation, has just received $15 million in Series B funding. The round of venture capital financing was led by Accel Partners, and Benchmark Capital, the lead investor in SpringSource?s first financing round, also chipped in. In January, SpringSource acquired enterprise open source player Covalent Technologies, which put Apache Tomcat application server and other open source applications under SpringSource's wing.

There's no stopping the virtualization race. Microsoft has just released to manufacturing WIndows Server 2008 Hyper-V. The Release Candidate of its? virtualization application is found here.? Hyper-V is hypervisor-based virtualization software that allows you to run multiple operating systems concurrently, including Linux, on one installation of Windows Server.

In what it calls a move to support and to unify the growing momentum of Linux platforms in the global mobile market, the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum has announced that it is foliding itself into the LiMo Foundation starting in July. After nearly three years of existence, and having delivered version 1.0 of its specification for Linux-based mobile phones the LiPS Forum has not gained a great deal of traction, but LiMo does have momentum, and will gain resources from the deal. Here's what the LiPS Forum can provide LiMo.