mandriva

Mandriva, Turbolinux enter Linux alliance

Forgive me if I sound skeptical, but during the nine years I've covered Linux, not once have I seen a favorable outcome to the partnership of the type Mandriva and Turbolinux announced Wednesday.

Tokyo-based Turbolinux and Paris-based Mandriva said they'll unify their products to use a common base system in an endeavor called Manbo-Labs. The first software to employ this base will be Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring, the companies said.

"By pooling together common engineering resources, Mandriva and Turbolinux will be able to invest more in technology and product quality," the companies said in a statement. … Read more

Linux CEO lashes out at Ballmer

After a chorus of peace deals between Linux vendors and Microsoft, it's almost refreshing to hear that some open-source companies still have fire in their bellies.

Fresh off seeing Microsoft move in at the last minute to grab part of a deal with the Nigerian government, Mandriva CEO Francois Bancilhon posted an "open letter to Steve Ballmer" in which he lays into the Microsoft chief for his tactics.

Bancilhon said that Mandriva was close to a deal, when Microsoft turned up the heat.

"I would not say it got dirty, but someone could have said that,&… Read more

Mandriva unlikely to move in with Microsoft anytime soon

That's what this news would lead one to suspect. In sum, Mandriva won a deal with the Nigerian government, only to have Microsoft fight tooth and nail after the fact to win it back. Just good competition, right? Maybe. But Mandriva's CEO points to something a bit more (or less, depending on how you look at it).

In an open letter to Steve Ballmer, Mandriva CEO Fran?ois Bancilhon called out Microsoft's tactics:

Then your people entered the game and the deal got more competitive. I would not say it got dirty, but someone could have said that. They fought and fought the deal, but still the customer was happy to get CMPC and Mandriva.… Read more

Novell lays off AppArmor programmers

Two years after acquiring the company that developed the AppArmor security software for Linux, Novell has laid off team members behind the project, CNET News.com has learned.

AppArmor's founder and leader, Crispin Cowan, joined Novell in 2005 when it acquired his company, Immunix, which developed the software. But he and four others from the project lost their Novell jobs in Portland, Ore., on September 28, Cowan confirmed.

However, he plans to continue AppArmor development. He and two other laid-off AppArmor programmers, Steve Beattie and Dominic Reynolds, launched an AppArmor consulting company on Wednesday called Mercenary Linux.

"I … Read more

Mandriva to Microsoft: Take your patents and...

Mandriva has answered the call, and pre-announced this statement on Microsoft's patent game:

As far as patent protection is concerned, we are not great fans of software patents which we consider as counter productive. We also believe what we see, and until we see hard evidence from, say, SCO or Microsoft, that there are pieces of codes in our software that infringe existing patents, we will assume that any other announcement is just FUD. So we don't believe it is necessary for us to get protection from Microsoft to do our job.

A clear statement, and one that … Read more