OStatic

If Vern Yip is reading this, I still need your help. Though Sweet Home 3D tops Google's SketchUp in a number of areas, it's still not much help for someone with no design sense.

This makes it even more odd that I was so excited when I spotted Elizabeth Krumbach's post on the open source, cross platform 3D interior design modeling application. I've lived in my house for nine years -- we have shades on all the windows, but only one window has actual curtains. It's just that SketchUp is a fun little application, and it's one of the only applications I've tried to run with WINE (and failed miserably in the attempt).

Sweet Home 3D, as Krumbach says, is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. Because it's open source, there's the potential to model a structure (and the stuff that fills it) to a whole new level of precision. Perhaps the only drawback (and it could be a machine quirk, as everything's being difficult today) was its seeming somewhat crashprone on my Ubuntu 9.04 64-bit laptop. That could also be chalked up to my learning curve. But let's take a closer look.

Hadoop and MapReduce are cheap and scalable for clustered queries, but they're slower than relational databases. Yale researchers have an improvement.

The Ubuntu Linux app store: fact or fiction? The emerging app store, which offers Ubuntu Linux and Debian applications, wasn?t built by Canonical.

Linux slips into Microsoft's warm, deadly embrace. How Microsoft will use the GPL to mount a serious backdoor assault on the core of the Linux platform.

Is Microsoft's GPL2 support really a big deal? It's recently released code is only for Linux Virtual Machines on Windows, not physical Linux servers and Linux desktops.

Red Hat is wrong to insist Microsoft disavow litigation. Did IBM, HP, Oracle, or even Red Hat ever declare that they will never, ever sue open source developers over patent infringements?

Palm's Linux secret makes the Pre. Palm Pre is no thriller as a smartphone, but the SDK reveals the most open mobile platform on the market.

Open source Lucene threatens Microsoft, Google enterprise search. Interest in Lucene and Solr is skyrocketing, as measured by job postings.

Why Apache is not the bottom of the open source incline. Why is the GPL still considered the bottom of the open source incline, and not, say, the Apache license?

Firefox 3.5's first vulnerability self-inflicted. The bug could be used to hijack a machine running the company's newest browser.

Embedded Linux achieves one-second boot time. MontaVista Software announced and showed a dashboard application going from cold boot to operational in one second flat.

Boxee will blow you away. In many ways, the Boxee media center platform is much better than the original XBMC 9.04 RC.

Granted, the Roku Netflix player isn't exactly a new device. The little hardware appliance (with open source roots) appeared around this time last year, and the reviews were quite favorable, with the biggest complaint cited being Netflix's relatively meager standard definition instant view selections.

My new family member -- a brand new Roku box -- shows just how much can change in a year. With the appropriate cables (and display), the Roku appliance is able to stream high definition media from Netflix and Amazon Video-On-Demand. Netflix integration still requires one has an account without a monthly limit on DVDs (that's any account that costs $8.99 or more per month). Amazon On-Demand titles can be rented, or purchased outright for unlimited viewing on the Roku device.

One of the best things about Roku's use of open source software is that unless you are genuinely interested in that aspect, you never need to know.

24 open source apps for Asus netbooks. Good tools for Windows and Linux systems.

Apache better than GPL for open source business? What's the optimal license for commercial open source projects?

Linux fast-boot tech targets Windows users. Xandros' Presto utility can power up Windows notebooks and netbooks in seconds.

ReactOS improves its open source Windows clone. The operating system's server version has a very low memory footprint.

Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring is available. It features excellent hardware compatibility and the KDE 4.2 desktop environment.

Microsoft Watch's Joe Wilcox, in solemn observance of Friday the 13th, compiled a list of Microsoft's ten most unlucky breaks. The strokes of misfortune chosen were weighted according to heinousness (with #10 being least signficant, and #1 the most).

Checking in at #7 is the development of the Linux kernel. Putting aside Microsoft's whole Schrodinger's cat sort of approach to Linux over the years (Linux is not a threat. Linux is a threat), it is interesting Wilcox (and the analysts who helped him narrow down the list) focused on the kernel as the bad break.

10 top Linux applications. Banshee (music management), Tomboy (note-taking), and F-Spot (online photos) make this list of top apps, and you'll find 10 more good offbeat Linux apps here.

Bruce Perens: Combining GPL and proprietary software. Thoughts from the creator of the Open Source Definition.

Fedora as a basis for Russia's national OS? Red Hat has spoken with senior government officials.

Monty Widenius talks about why he left Sun Microsystems. The MySQL development organization was not functioning well under it?s capacity.

Mozilla doesn't need an EU bail-out. It has the market share to prove it.

Fennec rising. Here's video of Mozilla's mobile browser handling gestures.