Foreword — For most application developers, changes between the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel families have little direct impact. However, kernel and system changes that affect how applications spawn and manage other processes and threads are a significant exception to this rule. This whitepaper discusses topics related to migrating existing applications to the 2.6 kernel and the Native POSIX Threading… (more…)

This essay by Matt Asay explains why he and others organized the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), set to take place March 16-17 at the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square in San Francisco. Asay, a former student of Lawrence Lessig at Stanford, and a former general manager at Lineo, explains how the OSBC was conceived as a way to “drive the commercial viability of open source software, and consequently… (more…)

Virtual instrumentation specialist National Instruments has developed commercial Linux drivers for its motion controllers, and has added Linux support to its Motion Hardware Driver Development Kit for those wishing to develop their own drivers. (more…)

Froglogic is offering previews of Squish 1.1, expected to ship “in about one month.” Squish is a cross-platform automated GUI testing framework for applications written using Trolltech's Qt GUI toolkit. (more…)

Foreword: This essay by Matt Asay explains why he and others organized the inaugural Open Source Business Conference, set to take place March 16-17 at the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square in San Francisco. Asay and others organized the OSBC in their free time. Asay currently works for Novell, previously worked at Lineo. (more…)

Motorola has licensed Belcarra's USBLAN networking technology for use in its Linux- and Java-based smartphones, Belcarra reports. USBLAN will enable Motorola's “mobile-PDA-MP3-embedded camera phones” to network with desktop computers running a variety of operating systems, according to Belcarra. (more…)

LynuxWorks has released what it claims is the first Linux 2.6 board support package (BSP) for the Apple Macintosh G5 desktop machine. LynuxWorks says embedded Linux developers may wish to use the Apple G5 as a less expensive and more complete alternative to development boards based on IBM's PowerPC 970 processor, the 64-bit processor used in Apple's G5. (more…)

Motorola has announced several new multimedia-enabled mobile phones supporting music and video playback, including one new device based on embedded Linux. The Linux-based Motorola E680 could see US distribution, making it the first of Motorola's Linux-based mobile phones available outside the Far East. (more…)

Opera Software has announced that the “Smartphones and PDAs” edition of its Opera 7 browser, which has now started to appear in commercial products, shares extensive code with the desktop edition, including support for Dynamic HTML (DHTML), in order to better support both standard-compliant and non-compliant Web content. (more…)

The Possio PX30 is a programmable Linux-based wireless router featuring WLAN, Bluetooth, OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative), and Java support. It is an open platform supported by a “Developer Zone” website, and it targets OSGi-enabled network edge devices that integrate diverse kinds of networks. (more…)

Global research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics says Microsoft needs to quickly implement a more competitive licensing scheme if it wants to compete with Linux in the advanced set-top box (STB) market, expected to reach 40 million installed units worldwide by 2008. (more…)

VMEbus and CompactPCI specialist General Micro Systems (GMS) has released a single-board computer (SBC) that supports Linux and measures just 2.8 x 1.9 inches. GMS says its “Spider” SBC is based on an IBM PowerPC chip running either 400 or 800 MHz, and targets distributed control, telecom server blades, handhelds, and… (more…)

Amirix has ported TimeSys's Linux RTOS software development kit (SDK) to its AP100 Virtex-II Pro PCI Platform FPGA development doards. The TimeSys Linux RTOS SDK is the first Linux OS available for the AP100, and targets networking, communications, DSP, image processing, industrial controls, and instrumentation. (more…)

The Possio PX30 is a hackable Linux-based wireless router featuring WLAN, Bluetooth, OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative), and Java support. It is an open platform supported by a “Developer Zone” website, targeting OSGi-enabled network edge devices that integrate diverse kinds of networks. (more…)

Gateworks Corp. has released a single-board computer (SBC) based on Intel's IXP425 network processor. The company is aiming the Avila Network Platform at wired and wireless network routers, bridges, and access point applications, and is providing Linux support. (more…)