novels

It's possible that Thursday's deal between Microsoft and Novell could conflict with a provision in the General Public License (GPL), according to Eben Moglen, the attorney for the Free Software Foundation that created and oversees the Linux license.

"If you make an agreement which requires you to pay a royalty to anybody for the right to distribute GPL software, you may not distribute it under the GPL," Moglen told CNET News.com Thursday. Section 7 of the GPL "requires that you have, and pass along to everybody, the right to distribute software freely and without … Read more

Novell on Wednesday announced the availability of a product that bundles its Suse Linux Enterprise Server with several IBM software packages and is designed to run on IBM x86 servers. The product, called the Integrated Stack for Suse Linux Enterprise, includes Novell's operating system and IBM's WebSphere Community Edition, DB2 Express-C and Centeris Likewise Management Suite.

The software support subscription for the first year costs $349, Novell said.

Hans Reiser, the 42-year-old founder of the ReiserFS file system software used in some versions of Linux, has been arrested as a suspect in the supposed murder of his estranged wife, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.

Reiser's wife, Nina, 31, who filed for divorce in 2004, has been missing since Sept. 3, and police have evidence suggesting she's dead, the Chronicle reported. "All avenues led us to Mr. Reiser being responsible for the death and disappearance of Ms. Nina Reiser," Oakland police Lt. Ersie Joyner was quoted as saying. "We feel very strongly that … Read more

The open-source programming movement prides itself on giving people control over their own computers.

So why is it that even in the latest version of Linux I've been trying, Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, clicking the Close button in the upper-right corner of the GAIM instant-messenger software only minimizes the program?

It's not just GAIM, the default IM client software for GNOME. Kopete, the client for the rival KDE user interface software project, exhibits the same behavior.

This program behavior has always bothered me with Windows-based IM software, such as AIM and Yahoo Messenger. But why … Read more

If you'd like to sample the Xgl user interface eye candy that Novell has built into Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 but you use Ubuntu, Nicholas Petreley has put together some instructions at Linux Journal.

The installation isn't for Linux lightweights who shy away from the command line. Nor is it for free software purists who refuse to use Nvidia's closed-source video driver.

As expected, Novell has renamed its free version of Linux OpenSuse to avoid brand confusion. The former name, Suse Linux, was based on the OpenSuse collaborative development project, but was to too close to the Suse Linux Enterprise product naming.

"The new name...distinguishes our community distribution from our enterprise products, helping us maintain clear brands for our two main Linux constituencies," John Dragoon, chief marketing officer at Novell, said in a statement. OpenSuse is built in cooperation with outside programmers and is intended to showcase and test new features; version 10.2 is due to be released … Read more

On the eve of the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo conference next week, Sun Microsystems will provide more detail about its plan to make Java open-source software. Rich Green, executive vice president of software, is scheduled to offer further details about the plan at a meeting Monday evening.

Sun is in the process of releasing the rest of its software portfolio as open source, but had held out for years with Java for fears that the technology would be hijacked or forked into incompatible versions. In the meantime, Mono, an open-source implementation of Microsoft's .Net rival to Java, has gained … Read more

The first beta version of Mandriva Linux 2007 is now available from the company's Web site, the French Linux seller said Monday.

The new version includes beta 1 of the GNOME 2.16 interface, version 3.5.3 of the KDE interface, version 2.6.17 of the Linux kernel, and a switch to the XDG menu system.

Linux leader Linus Torvalds had some sharp words about the Free Software Foundation its founder, Richard Stallman, and his philosophical motivations.

The foundation is updating the General Public License (GPL) that governs thousands of open-source software projects, including the Linux operating system kernel. Torvalds has explicitly chosen GPL version 2 to govern Linux, and Torvalds' objections to GPL 3 drafts, it appears unlikely he'll change that position.

Torvalds, though, objects not just to the terms of the new license, but to the foundation's motivations, Stallman's philosophy, and the process by which the foundation and its top lawyer, … Read more