Open Source Pixels

A group of developers has released open-source software that gives administrators a hand in making the Internet’s addressing system less vulnerable to hackers. The software, called OpenDNSSEC, automates many tasks associated with implementing DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions), which is a set a set of protocols that allows DNS (Domain Name System) records to carry a digital signature, said John A. Dickinson, a DNS consultant working on the project.

The rumours around an Apple tablet device, and with tablet device I mean an iPod Touch but larger, have been circling around the internet for a long time now. As usual, Apple’s secretive nature means we know absolutely nothing for sure. In the meantime, Micheal Arrington, who quit his iPhone in favour of an Android headset out of frustration with Apple, and Fusion Garage have been working on their own tablet device. The release date is getting closer, and the specifications are – allegedly – actually here.

I didn’t make it to OSCON this year, so I missed out on more than a few nifty events. One was a panel chaired by Matt Asay of Alfresco, where he cited research to show that companies do switch to open source as a way to save money, but that there are other, much larger goals beyond that.

In this exclusive interview, Rich Sharples, Product Management Director at Red Hat, talks about OpenJDK. the free and open source implementation of the Java SE platform. The IcedTea project, one of Red Hat’s major contributions to the OpenJDK ecosystem, has done a great deal to enable upstream adoption of Java on the Linux platform; however, the question remains whether Java would’ve been more ubiquitous throughout the Linux universe had Sun open sourced Java much sooner than it actually did. Rich discusses some of these issues and talks about some of the new features in OpenJDK 7, as well as the impact that dynamic languages, increased modularity and virtualization will have on the Java platform. He also describes the impact he thinks Oracle’s acquisition will have on licensing options around OpenJDK.

It’s usually not this easy. Ever since I did this test Debian Lenny installation with encrypted LVM, I’ve had trouble with NetworkManager, the package that allows for “easy” management of networking settings.

Michael Arrington didn’t feel like joining my revolution (officially, at least) but he did decide he’d had enough, and claims that he’s paying a termination fee and dropping his iPhone. He’ll be using an Android handset instead from now on. TechCrunch has been the epicenter of griping about Apple’s handling of the App Store, and I don’t imagine that just because Arrington is leaving his iPhone behind that they’ll quit covering the issue over there.

Are you interested in a word processing environment that’s more or less the same across multiple PC desktop and mobile platforms–a Linux notebook and a Windows CE device, let’s say, or a Macintosh PC, a Windows XP netbook, and an Android phone? How about a word processor that comes with abundant tech support, or one that handles complicated documents relatively easily? If any of these capabilities cries out to you, you might be better off with a commercial product–the kind you pay for–instead of one of many free open source packages also aimed at countering the Microsoft Word stranglehold.

Welcome to the premier Unified Computing magazine for Information Technology Professionals. Published on a monthly basis, opensourc3 is available for FREE download in PDF format, or can be read on-line. This first issue contains articles on Hypervisor and Cloud Technologies, Virtualization and KVM, Deploying iSCSI in Linux, Management with Puppet and more.

According to a recent IDC study, the market for open-source software has been accelerated by both the slow economy and increased acceptance from enterprise customers The IDC study, “Worldwide Open Source Software 2009-2013 Forecast,” showed that worldwide revenue from open-source software (OSS) will grow at a 22.4 percent rate to reach $8.1 billion by 2013.