Sean Michael Kerner

Most Web browser users typically save their preferences and bookmarks locally. A new effort from Mozilla, called “Weave,” may change that using a browser-integrated set of hosted online services. The general idea is that by utilizing a Mozilla online services backend, users can store data such as bookmarks and history. That data can be synchronized […]

Software licensed under the GPL open source license is considered to be Free Software but that doesn’t mean it’s free as in beer and that developers don’t have rights. As four cases in point in 2007, the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has filed legal suits against four different defendants for alleged copyright infringement of […]

Every so often Microsoft will announce somewhere that one of its technologies is set to be standards compliant. The latest announcement came this week with Microsoft announcing on a blog that its upcoming Internet Explorer 8 browser would meet the ACID2 standards test for W3C compliance on Web page development. Give me a break. I’d […]

Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik has announced that he is stepping down as President and CEO. Szulik, who cited personal reasons for the decision, will remain with Red Hat as Chairman of the Board. Szulik is being replaced by former Delta Airline Chief Operating Officer James Whitehurst. The surprise Red Hat executive shift comes on […]

2007 is a year that will long be remembered in the open source and Linux communities. It was a year in which the twin underpinnings of what makes open source successful and what could serve to destroy it made the headlines. On the pro side, Linux made major technology advances this year and a key […]

NetBSD 4 is finally out, boasting a long list of feature and speed improvements in the open source operating system. The NetBSD 4.0 comes nearly two years after NetBSD 3.0 was released. As with earlier versions, NetBSD 4 continues to competitively position its BSD variant against its BSD, Linux and Unix peers. “It’s hard to […]

In the modern world of software development it’s a rare day when a release actually comes out ahead of schedule. But that’s the case with Mozilla’s Firefox 3 Beta 2 release, which came out this morning some three days ahead of schedule. In the latest version, Mozilla developers have improved security and performance as well […]

Sprint is gearing up for deploying the next generation IPv6  Internet protocol with new IPv6 services. The effort by the national carrier is being driven by a June 2008 US federal government mandate for IPv6. Whether or not the government agencies will actually be running IPv6 by June of 2008 is an issue that is […]

Apple Mac users: It’s time to patch your systems. Yes, again, after a whole lot of patches this year. Security Update 2007-009 from Apple provides updates for both OS 10.4 Tiger as well as the new OS 10.5 Leopard. In total there are 31 fixes for issues ranging in severity from information disclosure to arbitrary […]

Ethernet is on a march to become the dominant interconnect for all types of network traffic. Although Ethernet is the dominant interconnect for LANs , when it comes to storage and SANs , it lags other technologies, notably Fibre Channel . That’s about to change. Thanks to a new open source effort led by Intel, […]

Security vendor Cenzic has issued an advisory warning against alleged vulnerabilities in Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The vulnerabilities involve potential Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF) and Cross Site Scripting attacks that could be used to take users’ information. In the case of Gmail, Cenzic alleges that the CSRF exists for addresses that display attachments. […]

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has settled its second GPL infringement case, this time with networking vendor Xterasys over charges that the company wasn’t complying with terms of the open source license agreement. The suit was filed nearly a month ago and leaves the SFLC with a score 2 settled cases and two still […]