OSDir.com

Linux Kernel Patch Works Around Microsoft's FAT Patents

From the PHAT dept.:
The FAT file system is the file system used by MS-DOS and earlier versions of Windows. It's a relatively simple and straightforward file system, supported by just about any operating system, making it the favoured file system on memory cards and the like. FAT is an ECMA and ISO standard, but these only apply for FAT12 and FAT16 without support for long file names, and therein lies a problem.

...The new patch offers support for long file names without infringing any of Microsoft's patents. This isn't just an empty claim; several patent lawyers with expertise in this area have investigated the patch and concluded that it does not infringe the patents.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 Beta Released

From the Get Virtualized dept.:
Red Hat today officially announced the beta availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (RHEL), which in my view is a lot more than a typical point release. Sure we're all waiting for the big RHEL 6 release, but there are some major changes in RHEL 5.4.

The most obvious change is the shift to the KVM hypervisor (as opposed to Xen). Xen is still in RHEL, but with RHEL 5.4, Red Hat is signaling its intention that KVM (eventually) is to be Red Hat's preferred Hypervisor. It's a preference that Red Hat execs have indicated at multiple points this year and should be no surprise since Red Hat now owns lead KVM vendor Qumranet.

PostgreSQL 8.4

From the Not Oracle dept.:
The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released version 8.4, continuing the rapid development of the world's most advanced open source database. This release contains an abundance of enhancements to make administering, querying, and programming of PostgreSQL databases easier than ever before. With 293 new or improved features in version 8.4, there are even more reasons to choose PostgreSQL for your next project.

The most numerous changes in PostgreSQL 8.4 are new or improved administration and monitoring tools and commands. Each user has their own favorite features which will make day-to-day work with PostgreSQL easier and more productive for them.

Firefox 3.5 Released

From the Expecting Chrome Release Announcement in 3...2...1 dept.:
Things move quickly online, and we’ve beefed up the engine that runs Firefox to make sure you can keep up: Firefox 3.5 is more than twice as fast as Firefox 3, and ten times as fast as Firefox 2.* As a result, Web applications like email, photo sites and your favorite social networks will feel snappier and more responsive.

PHP 5.3.0 Released!

From the dept.:
The PHP development team is proud to announce the immediate release of PHP 5.3.0. This release is a major improvement in the 5.X series, which includes a large number of new features and bug fixes.

Some of the key new features include: namespaces, late static binding, closures, optional garbage collection for cyclic references, new extensions (like ext/phar, ext/intl and ext/fileinfo), over 140 bug fixes and much more.

Ubuntu tech board plays down Mono IP concerns

From the Catching Mono? dept.:
...Summarising the views of a board meeting held in March, the Ubuntu Foundation's technical lead Colin Watson wrote on June 16: "In short, at the moment, Mono is very well-maintained in Ubuntu and there appears to be no significant cause for concern over its IP situation. We will attempt to clarify in suitable places what developers and/or rights holders should do in the event that they have evidence of a problem."

Others present at this meeting were Matt Zimmerman, the CTO of Canonical, Scott James Remnant, senior software engineer at Canonical, and Emmet Hikory, Ubuntu MOTU council member and Java packager.

Python 3.1

From the Hell Yes, We Work Weekends 'Round Here dept.:
Python 3.1 is a continuation of the work started by Python 3.0, the new backwards-incompatible series of Python. Improvements in this release include:

* An ordered dictionary type
* Various optimizations to the int type
* New unittest features including test skipping and new assert methods.
* A much faster io module
* Tile support for Tkinter
* A pure Python reference implementation of the import statement
* New syntax for nested with statements

Red Hat CEO Calls on Oracle to Keep Java Open

From the Recipes dept.:
With Oracle set to acquire Sun and gain stewardship over Java, there are many in the tech world with an opinion on how the database giant should handle its new relationship with the programming language.

One of those opinions is being voiced by Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, who is calling on Oracle to keep Java open. During a conference call yesterday to discuss Red Hat's first-quarter fiscal 2010 results, Whitehurst also took aim at Oracle's operating system business.

Red Hat profit rises, bucks tech industry trend

From the Up on the Down Side dept.:
Software company Red Hat Inc reported a 7 percent rise in quarterly profit onWednesday, bucking an industry trend of declining earnings, as margins widened under the scrutiny of its cost-conscious CEO.

Operating margin rose to 23.4 percent from 21.8 percent a year earlier, after excluding stock compensation and amortization expenses. That was better than the 23 percent the company projected three months ago.

Eclipse IDE Project Now For IPhone, Apple Cocoa

From the The Apple of My IDE dept.:
Apple Macs, iPhones, and other mobile devices are being pulled into the open-source tools universe of Eclipse, a group whose genesis can be traced to enterprise Java and C/C++.

The project today released Eclipse 3.5, codenamed Galileo, which wraps 33 projects in an integrated release. For the first time, the bundle can be downloaded for development of Cocoa Mac applications destined for deployment on 32-bit and 64-bit Apple systems.