Networking

Submission + - Got (buffer) Bloat? (bufferbloat.net)

Submitted by
mtaht
mtaht writes: "After a very intense month of development, the Bufferbloat project has announced the debloat-testing git kernel tree, featuring (via suggestion of Van Jacobson) a wireless network latency smashing algorithm, (called eBDP), the SFB and CHOKe packet schedulers, and a slew of driver level fixes that reduce network latency across the Linux kernel by over 2 orders of magnitude.

Got Bloat?"
GNOME

Canonical To Divert Money From GNOME 374

Posted by Soulskill from the and-now-nobody's-happy dept.
Julie188 writes "Canonical has reacted to backlash over its insane deal with Banshee by establishing a marginally better new deal. Banshee is a media/music player for Linux (and Windows and Mac) that supports music purchases via Amazon MP3. It will ship with Ubuntu 11.04. Amazon pays 10% to its affiliates — websites and software that send it business. Banshee had been donating its Amazon affiliate proceeds to GNOME. But Amazon's MP3 store competes with Canonical's MP3 store, Ubuntu One. So Canonical thought that it should help itself to 75% of the affiliate money from Banshee/Amazon sales and leave 25% for GNOME. The Banshee group said no thanks, we'll disable Amazon for Ubuntu users. Canonical is refusing to let Banshee disable Amazon. It has instead said it will contribute some money from Ubuntu One to GNOME but it still intends on keeping the lion's share for itself."
Cellphones

Nokia and Open Source — a Trial By Fire 205

Posted by Soulskill from the roadmap-to-desperation dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The H has a damning piece on Nokia's open source smart phone projects, Maemo and MeeGo, and why they failed. 'They did dumb stuff like re-writing the whole networking stack, duplicating as they went. So instead of re-using NetworkManager and improving it, and getting to market fast – they re-wrote, got something that still doesn't work well, failed to push Linux forward, and failed. Repeat that for every technology pick and you get the idea,' said Andrew Wafaa. 'The N900 was a great product. Immediately [after] it was launched it was announced that it was a dead product, ISV-wise. They announced a Qt re-write/project re-set. Then they merged Maemo into MeeGo, giving another project re-set. Then, when they were coming up to release in September 2010, there was another project reset to switch to a different Qt technology (even the Qt groups in-fight in Nokia). In consequence they have no shipping product.' At the same time, 'both Nokia and Intel were working on separate handset UIs using Qt, the former proprietary, the latter open-source. A better worked example of squandering your leadership role and wrestling yourself to the ground is hard to see. Nokia deserve their trial by fire – and I hope the people who truly screwed up the amazing Linux opportunity that was the N900 get shut down in the process.'"
DRM

Sony's War On Makers, Hackers, and Innovators 317

Posted by timothy from the can-we-play-it-in-the-form-of-a-video-game? dept.
ptorrone writes "MAKE Magazine takes a look at Sony's history of suing makers, hackers and innovators. Over the last decade Sony has been targeting legitimate innovation, hobbyists, and competition. From picking on people who want to program their robot dogs to dance to suing people who want to run their own software on something they bought. Sony has made so many mistakes with technology choices (Memory Stick, Magic Gate, UMD!), perhaps they'll end themselves soon enough, but until then MAKE is keeping score for Sony's all-out war on tinkerers."
Linux

Ubuntu: Where Did the Love Go? 778

Posted by CmdrTaco from the why-can't-we-all-get-along dept.
inkscapee writes "Used to be Ubuntu was the big Linux hero, the shining knight that would drive Linux onto every desktop and kick bad old Windows to the curb. But now Ubuntu is the Bad Linux. What's going on, is it typical fanboy fickleness, or is Canonical more into serving their own interests than creating a great Linux distro?"
Operating Systems

German Foreign Office Going Back To Windows 901

Posted by Soulskill from the it'll-be-different-this-time-baby-i-promise dept.
A user writes "The German government has confirmed that the German Foreign Office is to switch back to Windows desktop systems. The Foreign Office started migrating its servers to Linux in 2001 and since 2005 has also used open source software such as Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice on its desktop systems. The government's response to the SPD's question states that, although open source has demonstrated its worth, particularly on servers, the cost of adapting and extending it, for example in writing printer and scanner drivers, and of training, have proved greater than anticipated. The extent to which the potential savings trumpeted in 2007 have proved realizable has, according to the government, been limited – though it declines to give any actual figures. Users have, it claims, also complained of missing functionality, a lack of usability and poor interoperability."
Businesses

London Stock Exchange Price Errors 'Emerged At Linux Launch' 168

Posted by timothy from the hiccough-hiccough-hiccough dept.
DMandPenfold writes "Within the first 20 seconds of the London Stock Exchange's new matching engine going live on Monday, price data vendors began displaying incorrect prices, blank prices and wrong trading volumes, according to Computerworld UK sources. Thomson Reuters, Interactive Data and Netbuilder are among the largest data vendors, providing share prices to traders, that have been displaying pricing problems on some stocks throughout the week. Even the LSE's own data vendor, ProQuote, experienced problems. Concerns are being raised that there could be mistakenly setup connections or incorrect software interfaces at some of the large data vendors. Alternatively, there may be a data caching issue at the LSE that means data going out is not properly synchronised between different systems."
Novell

Submission + - LSE price errors ‘emerged at Linux launch' (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by DMandPenfold
DMandPenfold writes: Within the first 20 seconds of the London Stock Exchange’s new matching engine going live on Monday, price data vendors began displaying incorrect prices, blank prices and wrong trading volumes, according to Computerworld UK sources.

Thomson Reuters, Interactive Data and Netbuilder are among the largest data vendors, providing share prices to traders, that have been displaying pricing problems on some stocks throughout the week. Even the LSE’s own data vendor, ProQuote, experienced problems.

Concerns are being raised that there could be mistakenly setup connections or incorrect software interfaces at some of the large data vendors. Alternatively, there may be a data caching issue at the LSE that means data going out is not properly synchronised between different systems.
Novell

London Stock Exchange Tackles System Problem 237

Posted by samzenpus from the fix-the-glitch dept.
DMandPenfold writes "The London Stock Exchange has taken steps to resolve a system problem that occurred at 4.30pm Tuesday, which saw a delay to the start of the closing auction and knocked out automatic trades during a 42 second period. The problem occurred a day after the high profile launch of its new matching engine on the main equities market, based on the SUSE Linux system from Novell."
Games

Postal III, Source Engine Still Coming To Linux 90

Posted by Soulskill from the better-late-than-never dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It appears that the Source Engine Postal III game is coming to Linux as was originally planned and is slated for release in May, according to the Running With Scissors CEO. 'Yes we are still planning a Linux release. We, that is RWS, are waiting for a final beta from our production team in Moscow. Like you and yours, we are anxious and frustrated. ... It looks like May if all goes well. We are hopeful to reach a distribution deal at GDC and [worst] case we go [direct download] and will find another team [for] Linux.'"
Novell

London Stock Exchange Finishes Switch To Linux 106

Posted by Soulskill from the takes-a-while-to-put-on-a-good-tux dept.
DMandPenfold writes "The London Stock Exchange has successfully set into live trading a new matching engine based on Novell SUSE Linux technology, following successful last-step setup procedures on Saturday. The move has been billed as one of the LSE's most significant technological developments since the increasing prevalence of electronic trading led to the closure of the traditional exchange floor in 1986. LSE chief executive Xavier Rolet has insisted that the exchange, once a monopoly, will deliver record speed and stable trading in order to fight back against the fast erosion of its dominant marketshare by specialist electronic rivals."
Intel

Intel Committed To MeeGo Despite Nokia Defection 228

Posted by Soulskill from the keep-the-kid dept.
CWmike writes "Intel put on a brave face Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, insisting that there is continued strong support from it and many companies for MeeGo, the open source software platform that Nokia last week said it would abandon in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7. 'Intel is disappointed at Nokia but life goes on,' said Intel's Renee James. 'Our decision and resolve on MeeGo is only stronger.' She pointed to a long list of companies participating in MeeGo development, including competitors AMD, TI and ST Ericsson; operators including Orange, Telefonica and Sprint; and software companies including Novell and Wind River. Intel expects to see MeeGo tablets shipping this year based on its Atom chip. Handsets will follow, James said. Despite its enthusiasm, however, Intel is sure to be negatively impacted by Nokia's decision."
Novell

Submission + - London Stock Exchange in historic Linux go-live (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by DMandPenfold
DMandPenfold writes: The London Stock Exchange has successfully set into live trading a new matching engine based on Novell SUSE Linux technology, following successful last-step setup procedures on Saturday.

The move has been billed as one of the LSE's most significant technological developments since the increasing prevalence of electronic trading led to the closure of the traditional exchange floor in 1986.

LSE chief executive Xavier Rolet has insisted that the exchange, once a monopoly, will deliver record speed and stable trading in order to fight back against the fast erosion of its dominant marketshare by specialist electronic rivals.
Hardware Hacking

Why the Arduino Won and Why It's Here To Stay 224

Posted by Soulskill from the gotta-be-the-shoes dept.
ptorrone writes "For years, students, journalists, makers and old-school engineers have asked why the Arduino open source microcontroller platform has taken off, with over 100k units 'in the wild' — it's the platform of choice for many. MAKE's new column discusses why the Arduino has become so popular and why it's here to stay. And for anyone wanting to build an 'Arduino killer' (there are many) — MAKE outlines what they'll need to do."
Debian

Why Debian Matters More Than Ever 345

Posted by timothy from the secretly-replaced-these-folgers-crystals-with-debian dept.
Julie188 writes "If you look at the feature list for Debian 6, released on February 6, it's easy to be underwhelmed. This is especially true when measuring Debian against its offspring, like Ubuntu. Debian doesn't get much credit, and its become trendy for industry pundits to claim it's become irrelevant. But it's more relevant than ever. If you're using Ubuntu (or Linux Mint, or Mepis...), you're really using Debian with some enhancements. According to a presentation given recently by Debian Project Leader (DPL) Stefano Zacchiroli, only 7% of Ubuntu is directly derived from upstream projects, Canonical's projects, or other non-Debian sources. Of the rest, 74% of Ubuntu is rebuilt Debian packages, and 18% are patched and rebuilt Debian packages."

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