OStatic

Last October, Sam introduced us to Cloudera, a company founded by highly-decorated industry veterans hoping to bring Hadoop's data processing power to a variety of businesses. Though Cloudera came into existence just last summer, it has already closed a $5 million round of Series A funding led by Accel Partners.

Cloudera has started offering commercial support for its Hadoop distribution along with a free, community-supported edition.

While certainly the names and resumes of Cloudera's founders -- Oracle and Sleepycat's Mike Olson, Google's Christophe Bisciglia, Yahoo!'s Amr Awadallah, and Facebook's Jeff Hammerbacher -- helped the fledging company secure attention and funding, don't discount that Cloudera also fills a market need.

As the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) kicks into high gear, the hopes, dreams and plans for the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 release are taking shape. Over at Ars Technica, Ryan Paul reports on Canonical developer Michael Casadevall's presentation highlighting some of the technical nuances of making Android applications run on Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

Ubuntu's popularity aside, it is still esoteric -- Google has the upperhand in non-open source enthusiast name recognition. This no doubt plays into netbook manufacturer's opting for Android on netbooks, even though (as Paul states) Android is still very much a smartphone platform. Android can be modified, of course, but Ubuntu (or any Linux distribution) are already lightweight desktops potentially requiring fewer modifications to work well on netbooks.

Will adding Android compatibility make Remix a more attractive platform option? Can it really hurt?

Over at ComputerWorld, Seth Weintraub waxes poetic about Microsoft's decision to offer a Windows 7 Starter edition to keep its presence strong in the netbook arena, and why this is a huge advantage for Google's Linux-based Android.

Windows 7 Starter edition is designed to run no more than three applications simultaneously -- purchasing an upgrade allows users to run, presumably, as many apps as their netbooks can handle at one time. Now, three concurrent applications at a shot might be sufficient for a number of users; it might be all that some netbooks can handle, depending on the applications and system resources running in the background. Microsoft isn't hiding the fact it is experimenting with a limited Starter, and hopefully netbook manufacturers will also make buyers aware of this. But awareness and being almost sufficient in even most cases is irrelevant. It's the concept that there is a limit, and purchasing an upgrade for functionality that most won't need every day (but when it's needed, it's really needed) that will make netbooks running alternative operating systems increasingly attractive. It's an advantage not only for Android, but any Linux distribution netbook builders optimize for their hardware.

Late last week, Sam took a close look at the rapidly changing browser landscape. In one of the posts linked therein, Keir Thomas speculates that Firefox may well have just given up the ghost, what with an alpha version of Chrome now being available for Linux (or, at the very least, Ubuntu).

I don't think it is, nor is it going to be, quite that easy. Firefox isn't without issue -- or momentum. And Chrome for Linux? In all reality, it doesn't exist, yet. Chrome may have a number of advantages over other browsers, including Firefox, on other platforms. But if it's still too early to call this fight on Windows, declaring the superior browser on Linux is pretty much a coin toss.

In the past ten months, I've become hopelessly addicted to micro-blogging. It's not solely because I like the sound of my own keyboard clacking -- it's a quick, easy way to stay connected and informed. Like countless others, I started with the ubiquitous Twitter service, but have recently found myself using Identi.ca, based on the open source platform Laconi.ca, more often.

The world of micro-blogging isn't confined to two or three services, of course. Remember Jaiku? Jaiku, after it was purchased by Google in 2007, fell relatively silent. Late last summer, the service was again offered to the general public through an unlimited number of invitations. In January, Google announced it was shutting down Jaiku (and a few other services) without much explanation.

ReadWriteWeb directs our attention to an announcement posted on Jaiku's Jaikido blog stating that Jaiku is now running on Google's App Engine, and that its code base, now known as JaikuEngine, has been open sourced under the Apache license 2.0.

What does this mean for Jaiku, open micro-blogging platforms, and Twitter?

Last week, Moodlerooms announced that it had teamed with Google to integrate the Google Apps for Education service into Moodle.

This allows students and faculty using the open source Moodle learning platform to access all of Google's educational tools and applications, as well as the Moodle system, with a single sign on. Even more significantly, it simplifies managing and maintaining network collaboration tools, and allows students to access the system and get working on any computer that has a browser.

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.

Google's Summer of Code (SoC) Program has united students interested in open source with projects and mentors for several years now. The intiative's goal is to foster interest in open source software while exposing students to real-world software development processes. It's easy to see, based on how enthusiastically some projects embrace the annual event, that the students aren't the only ones who benefit from the program.

This week, both KDE and GNOME announced that development teams under their respective umbrellas wishing to submit project ideas and mentor students this summer were able to do so.

This also means interested students can get a sneak peek at potential projects and mentors. The list of projects (and mentors) won't be finalized until mid-March, but seeing as students only have two weeks to submit their applications, an advance project screening might prove helpful.

When Google's Marissa Mayer told TechCrunch's Michael Arrington that Chrome would drop the beta designation less than two days ago, the implication was that it would happen pretty quickly. When you consider the length of some beta stages (and drawn out, fanfare driven gold releases), Chrome's 1.0 release yesterday was fast and relatively quiet.

InformationWeek shares a little of my aforementioned concern that taking an application out of the testing stage prematurely can have some serious consequences, and it does offer some insight into Google's thought processes.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington is reporting that Google's vice president Marissa Mayer told him in an interview that Chrome will be coming out of beta.

Mayer didn't give a definite time frame, but one would assume that this would mean sooner rather than later. This announcement is a little surprising for a few reasons.