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GNOME

gDesklets - Gnome2's Karamba 287

Posted by Hemos from the fuel-for-the-fire dept.
Deusy writes "Footnotes is running an update article on gDesklets, Gnome's answer to KDE's Karamba. I've heard a lot of noise with regards to Karamba (and Super Karamba) and a lot of moans from Gnome users about the lack of a Gnome equivalent. Hopefully this should fill that void and more, as one of the developers comments that gDesklets is the product of "months of planning" and describes Karamba as an "ugly hack"."
Games

Do-It-Yourself-Game-Console 237

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-i-just-wanna-play-doa dept.
DrCarbonite writes "Andre' LaMothe is releasing a brand new game console, the XGAMESTATION which may fulfill the fantasies of Slashdot readers everywhere. 16-bit Motorola CPU with a graphics architecture "similar to the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Apple II". Its an electronics kit being marketed as a game system that wants to be hacked/modded/rebuilt. It supports homebrew everything-- joystick adapters, displays, software, roms, the whole nine yards."
GNU is Not Unix

Apple Public Source License Now FSF Approved 378

Posted by timothy from the join-us-now-and-free-the-software dept.
BWJones writes "Apple has now made their public source license 2.0 free. From the release "The Darwin team at Apple is pleased to announce that version 2.0 of the Apple Public Source License has been certified as a 'Free Software License.' APSL 2.0 includes numerous changes and simplifications to make it even easier to use Apple Open Source software as part of your programs. To indicate acceptance of APSL 2.0, you can now use your new or existing "Apple ID", rather than having a separate Darwin account."" proclus adds "This is great news for Darwin-based free software projects like The GNU-Darwin Distribution and Fink. GNU-Darwin has had an ongoing discussion about this development, and annouced and end to our 'Free Darwin Campaign,' so long as Apple avoids DMCA-based legal action."
Wireless Networking

frottle: Defeating the Wireless Hidden Node Problem 121

Posted by Hemos from the wipe-it-out dept.
jasonjordan writes "The West Australian FreeNet Group was the first to go War Flying - and now we've released "frottle" (freenet throttle) - an open source project to control & manage traffic on fixed wireless networks. Such control eliminates the common hidden-node effect even on large scale wireless networks. frottle works by scheduling client traffic by using a master node to co-ordinate - effectively eliminating collisions! Developed and tested on the large community wireless network of WaFreeNet, We've found it has given us a significant improvement in network usability and throughput. "
Games

ScummVM 0.5.0 Out, With Some Official Game Support 153

Posted by timothy from the appropriate-recognition dept.
Ndr_Amigo writes "ScummVM (an interpreter for several different adventure game engines, like Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2, the LucasArts' SCUMM adventures and Beneath a Steel Sky, earlier Slashdot story) just released version 0.5.0. Among the usual bugfixes, new game support, etc, the interesting thing about this version is that the developers of one of our target games (Beneath a Steel Sky, by Revolution Software) actually supported us. To the extent of not only supplying us with the original assembly source code, but later deciding to release the game as Freeware to coincide with our reimplementation of their engine. This is a complete turnaround from our prior experiences, and shows that there are still a few smaller active game developers out there that are willing to help keep the classics alive for their fans... And of course you can download ScummVM and the freeware release of Beneath a Steel Sky from the ScummVM homepage :)"
PC Games (Games)

Scorched3D Takes Classic Series Crossplatform 36

Posted by simoniker from the artillery-elevation-never-gets-old dept.
Dave_B93 writes "Scorched3d (a Scorched Earth clone that features a 3D Environment, plus LAN and Internet play) has just released an update, to Build 35. It's now cross-platform (Win32, Linux, Solaris), and includes Server side bots, batteries, fuel, napalm, sand hogs, diggers and leapfrogs in addition to all the previous weapons. It's also been open-sourced under the GPL. You can find the SourceForge project here (Scorched3d was mentioned previously in this article.)"
Microsoft

Is Wizard-Code a Derived Work? 75

Posted by Cliff from the careful-with-code-generators dept.
worldcitizen asks: "Now, with all the noise from the SCO case regarding copyrights, what constitutes a derivative work and who owns what, a question started creeping up: What would happen if Microsoft starts claiming copyright infringement or other Intellectual Property claims in the wizard-inserted code that Visual C++ generates? Would it be possible that even the simplest 'Hello, world' is tainted? Copyrights don't even require uniform enforcement. Could they selectively enforce it on Free Software projects for Windows that have used VC++ for development? Could they license it in such a way that makes it illegal to use Visual C++ for Free Software? Should this be a wake-up call to never use Visual C++ unless you have a cross-licensing agreement with Microsoft (obviously not for Free Software projects)?"
Mozilla

Galeon Developers Interview 204

Posted by michael from the at-least-it-isn't-named-firebird dept.
Nachtjäger writes "The Galeon website has an interview with the developers, describing overall project health, current problems, and future direction. There's also a place to ask your own questions for future interviews."
Apache

Implementing True WebDAV Homedirs? 47

Posted by Cliff from the my-$HOME-is-on-the-d.a.v dept.
Vito asks: "I'd like to use WebDAV over SSL (with [preferably digest] authentication against Unix accounts) to provide a few hundred Windows users with secure, easy, and free access to their Linux home directories. WebDAV is supported as Web Folders in Windows, meaning there is no need to download and install SFTP, SCP, FTPS, and other clients. It's also supported natively in Mac OS X, and Linux users can install davfs. But this setup doesn't seem to be possible (safely) using Apache. Do I have alternatives?"
Programming

REALbasic To Add Linux support 71

Posted by timothy from the awoogah-awooooogah dept.
__past__ writes "REAL software just announced that the next version of their REALbasic IDE will add support for building native Linux applications, in addition to the Windows, Mac OS classic and OS X targets. Given that it will include a converter for existing Visual Basic projects, this could be a usefull tool for migrating existing apps written in everybody's favourite language to free platforms, something that other projects like Gambas or KBasic don't address."
Java

Eclipse in Action 247

Posted by timothy from the bring-welder's-goggles dept.
Simon P. Chappell writes "The Eclipse IDE has thundered into the collective consciousness of Java developers since its release by IBM as Open Source Software. Up until this time, the majority of available documentation at the Eclipse website has been for plug-in developers, with scant attention given to the rest of us that actually want to use the tool for anything else. This book restores the balance and brings much needed help to those interested in this IDE." Read on for the rest of Simon's review, about which he says "Full Disclosure: I received a free, review copy of this book, so feel free to assume that I've been bought off and have traded my technical integrity to put about an inch of dead tree on my shelf."
Wireless Networking

Reverse Engineered 802.11b+ Drivers 272

Posted by Hemos from the if-you-build-it-they-will-use-it dept.
orv writes "When Andreas Mohr found that his new wireless networking card wasn't supported under Linux rather than returning the card and getting himself a supported one, he decided to set up a project to write his own drivers instead - http://acx100.sourceforge.net. Companies such as D-Link had initially promised to release linux drivers for these cards but later backed down from that promise and announced that Linux would not be supported and that customers should not hold on to the cards in the hope of getting them working, as shown on their current FAQ. Texas Instruments, the makers of the chipsets upon which these 802.11b+ cards are based refused to release code or specifications for the cards, no doubt for similar reasons that were recently discussed here. The fact that the current alpha release is certainly as good, and in some areas better, than the binary drivers that escaped from one of the card manufactureres speaks volumes for the quality and determination of the team to create their own drivers."
Operating Systems

Installing Everywhere? 62

Posted by Cliff from the putting-the-code-in-all-the-right-places dept.
PlainBlack queries: "Our company has been developing an open source project for a couple years now that has gotten pretty popular. The one thing we haven't yet figured out how to do well is packaging. It seems like every operating system has it's own standards for packaging, and installers, and for each OS we support, we end up adding a lot of time to our packaging process. So my question is, what do all of you do to package your apps? Do you just release source tarballs? Do you manually package your RPMs, EXEs, DEBs, DMGs, BINs, PKGs, [and MSIs] by hand? Do you have an automated build process that creates all the packages? If so, how does it work? Is it available for other developers to use?" There are tons of installers listed on SourceForge, but which one allows the creation of OS packages without too much hassle? Duplicating work, especially software installation procedures, across all supported OSes, is time consuming. Is there an easier way?
Hardware

Linux-Controlled Segway Robot 123

Posted by timothy from the idle-rich-adjust-the-throttle dept.
ptorrone writes "It was just a matter of time until the Segway technology would be used as a robotics platform. University of Southern California Robotics Lab's Segway RMP (Robotic Mobility Platform) has a lot of great information if you're looking to convert a Segway to a robot. On the site there are videos as well as instruction on how to build your own." Update: 07/13 21:30 GMT by T : Dr. Andrew Howard writes with an important clarification about the project: "This is *not* a standard Segway HT that we have converted to robotics applications. Rather, this is a customized, limited production unit that has been specially modified by the manufacturer. The web-site does *not* show how to convert an existing Segway HT into a robotic platform."
XBox (Games)

Xbox Hackers, Linux, the DMCA, And Modchips 343

Posted by timothy from the oh-my dept.
HardcoreGamer writes "The New York Times has a long article on Xbox hacking, why Microsoft hates it, and who does it (Google). 'Xbox hackers are exploiting Microsoft's business model, which is to sell Xbox hardware at a loss...' but Microsoft doesn't make the money back on software -- as it planned to -- if you decide to load up Xbox Linux. Where else can you get a PIII-733 with graphics and audio for $180? The reporter talked to the IDSA; Andrew Huang, author of 'Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering'; a Manhattan exec who hacked his Xbox and said 'The reality is that if you could bypass Microsoft's operating system you would end up with a fairly powerful computer for less than $200;' and others. The article discusses the DMCA, modchips, the Xbox Linux Project and lots more. A good -- if long -- read. A shorter version of the story is at the International Herald Tribune. Best quote? 'Microsoft is a company passionate about innovation and creativity. We are also very committed to respect for others' intellectual property and we request the same respect applied to our innovations.'"
Software

GPL-Licensed QCAD Ported to Mac OS X 52

Posted by timothy from the slickness-and-light dept.
AlwaysTimeForCoffee writes "QCad, a free open-source 2D CAD system for Linux, various Unices and Windows, from RibbonSoft, has been ported to a native OS X version by Gilbert Duivesteijn. A screenshot of the OS X version can be found here. Qcad is a light, GPL'd version of the commercial available CAM Expert. It truely is an outstanding program and has earned 5 out of 5 Penguins on Tucow's Linuxberg and IceWalker review. With this native OS X release, a commercial quality CAD system has been made available to the Apple community."
Software

Freenet Creator Debates RIAA 806

Posted by simoniker from the free-always-controversial dept.
smd4985 writes "Over at CNET News.com, there's a good coverage of a debate between Ian Clarke of Freenet and Matt Oppenheim of the RIAA." In discussing whether it's "legal and moral to create and use Freenet", which is "a radically decentralized network of file-sharing nodes tied together with strong encryption", the RIAA's Oppenheim suggests: "Other than the fact that most infringers do not like to use Freenet because it is too clunky for them to get their quick hit of free music, it is no more of a threat than any of the popular P2P services."

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