opensource

Charles Jolley, one of the primary creators of the SproutCore programming tools for building rich Web applications, has left Apple and struck off on his own to start a new company based on the technology.

Jolley announced the new start-up, Strobe Digital Publishing, in a blog post last week, saying the new company will continue to develop SproutCore, offer SproutCore training, and focus on publishing.

"Every so often a few technology trends converge that yield results much greater than their individual parts. I think we have reached one of those moments with mobile devices (like the iPad) and HTML5,&… Read more

Less than two years after its launch, Mozilla has issued the final member of Firefox 3.0 family: version 3.0.19.

Firefox 3.0 was the center of a major effort to adopt the open-source browser. Its release in June 2008 was labeled download day, and since its release, Firefox did steadily gain in usage. Since then, though, it's been supplanted by Firefox 3.5 and now 3.6, and Mozilla decided to end the Firefox 3.0 lineage.

Accompanying the 3.0.19 release is Firefox 3.5.9, which fixes five critical security vulnerabilities. Version 3.… Read more

For about a year, a group of heavyweight automotive and technology companies has been working on a way to hasten development of in-vehicle entertainment systems. Their solution: share basic software development using the open-source Linux operating system.

Among the nearly 50 members of the group, called the Genivi Alliance, are automakers General Motors, BMW AG, Nissan Motor, and, as of February 17, Renault SA. Suppliers include Visteon, Delphi Automotive, and Continental AG.

The Genivi (pronounced jah-NEE-vee) Alliance is focusing on developing "middleware"--the layer of software that allows various kinds of information and entertainment applications to work together … Read more

The Wikimedia Foundation, publisher of Wikipedia and other online sites, has hired open-source veteran Danese Cooper as chief technology officer.

Cooper "will be responsible for developing and executing Wikimedia's technical strategy and leading its technology team. This includes ensuring the Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia, operate smoothly as readership continues to grow, as well as driving the continuing innovation of Wikimedia's software platform to service Wikimedia readers and editors," the foundation said in a statement.

Cooper's open-source work took her to Sun Microsystems from 1999 to 2005, then to Intel until 2009, and most recently to REvolution Computing. … Read more

Mozilla on Sunday released a second release candidate of Firefox 3.6 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's a modest upgrade that embodies Mozilla's effort to increase the frequency the open-source browser is developed.

Mike Beltzner, president of Firefox, announced second Firefox 3.6 release candidate Sunday but didn't share details. The release notes were equally mum, but the update process called the new software a "security and stability update."

The software is available from Mozilla's download site. More than 1 million people are testing Firefox 3.6 at present, and more than 300 … Read more

Mozilla hopes to release the final version of Firefox 3.6 later this month and a stability-improving update code-named Lorentz by March as part of a revised updating strategy.

Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's director of Firefox, said Tuesday that he's pleased so far with his scrutiny of test data from the more than 1 million people using the first release candidate of Firefox 3.6, which came out late last week.

"So far we haven't found showstoppers," he said. If no more major issues are uncovered, "we're looking at releasing somewhere in the last … Read more

Mozilla has released its first release candidate, RC1, for Firefox 3.6 for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The new version includes Personas, which lets people customize the browser's appearance; blocks third-party software from encroaching on its file system turf to increase stability; and perhaps most significantly given the competitive threat from Google Chrome, shortens start-up time and improves responsiveness and JavaScript performance.

Firefox 3.6 RC1 is also available from Mozilla's download site.

People can notice skins and better performance, but there also are changes deeper under the hood that developers should know about. One is support for the File interface, … Read more

Mozilla released Firefox 3.5.7 and 3.0.17 on Tuesday to fix a common crash problem and the lack of a prominent suggestion to upgrade.

Firefox is supposed to prominently tell people when a major upgrade is available, but Mozilla was puzzled by recent data suggesting that fewer-than-expected people actually installed the new version, according to a bug report.

"What's happening is that users who do not leave their browser open for 12 hours...will never see the major update dialog, only a little notification slider," Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's director of Firefox, said in … Read more

Google, the company that made "don't be evil" its corporate motto, is shunning use of an open-source license variation that precludes use of software for evil purposes.

The matter illustrates the tensions between the sometimes free-wheeling ways of open-source programming world and the buttoned-down corporate realms where open-source software is no longer unusual. This particular issue bubbled up at Google Code, a site that hosts open-source projects from Google and others.

Google only permits software governed by a limited list of widely used open-source licenses to be hosted at Google Code; one that's permitted is the … Read more