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When it comes to designing Linux apps, one program's look and feel often is too much like others' in a particular category. So app developers often rely on feature sets and ease-of-use tricks to distinguish their programs from others in the field. The GnomeBaker CD/DVD Writer is a good example. Gnom...

It's difficult to talk about the Gxine multimedia player as a separate app from Xine. Both do pretty much the same tasks -- let you watch videos and listen to audio files. Both of these apps hale from the same Linux library of codecs and other gutsy stuff, Xine-lib. The key difference between these ...

Google on Thursday announced WebM, a royalty-free media file format for online video. With WebM, Google has thrown the gauntlet to H.264, the codec backed by rivals Apple and Microsoft, among others. Buried within the new format's FAQ was news about another Google project: Android. The next iteratio...

Linux fans tend to be a loyal bunch, showering their favorite operating system with rightfully deserved praise at every opportunity. When they do complain about Linux, however, the topic is often gaming. Lack of games on Linux, that is -- a factor many consider crucial to Linux's ultimate mainstream...

Linux aficionados gained a new option Monday, thanks to the release of Peppermint OS. Checking in at under 512 MB, Peppermint is a Linux-based operating system that's designed to be cloud/Web-centric, ready to use and "insanely fast," its makers said. As a fork of Lubuntu, the system is based on --...

Taking its relationship with Drupal to the next level, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday that it has released to the public some of the custom code it's developed for the Whitehouse.gov website. "This code is available for anyone to review, use, or modify," wrote Dave Cole, senior advi...

The question "Why open source?" really encompasses two questions for the enterprise to consider: "Why use open source software?" and "Why should I develop my software in a community-based, open source way?" Who should care about the answers to these questions? Well, virtually everyone. As of 2008,...

Like ERP and CRM before, collaboration is the next big space in software. By the numbers: SharePoint is a billion-dollar business. IBM Lotus is a $700 million business. Forrester Research claims Enterprise 2.0 will grow to a $4.6 billion industry by 2013. Collaboration software is evolving to mean m...

A new industry group hopes to improve the design and construction of data centers through the application of open source principles. Dubbed the "Open Source Data Center Initiative," the group was formed last week by GreenM3 along with the University of Missouri and ARG Investments. The University is...

Positioned somewhere between the smartphone and the laptop, Apple's new tablet is billed as "the best way to experience the Web, email, photos and videos." While the Macintosh, Windows and Linux platforms all compete to varying degrees on PCs, netbooks and smartphones, the iPad currently stands more...

What is Red Hat up to with its launch this week of the opensource.com Web page? This replaces the "Truth Happens" page which ran articles and videos on open source, intellectual property, transparency and other issues. "Opensource.com is now the place to go to find out about how open source principl...

Mark Shuttleworth, founder and CEO of Ubuntu commercial sponsor Canonical, announced on Thursday that he is stepping aside to develop cloud products and begin new partnerships. He named Chief Operating Officer Jane Silber to take his place as CEO of Canonical. The change in management will begin imm...

Everyone makes mistakes now and then; the hard part is admitting it. Yet that seems to be just what Google did on Saturday following its acquisition of AppJet, maker of the EtherPad collaborative word processor. The news first broke last Friday, when it was announced on the EtherPad blog that Google...

After more than 20 years of evangelization by vendors and consultants, many companies are now fully aware of the benefits of business process management and the value of business process management solutions. These benefits include cost reduction through targeting inefficiencies, improvement of proc...

With more than 200 Linux distributions currently listed at Linux Online, it's perhaps an understatement to say that newcomers to the field face a broad array of choices. In addition to considering their own goals for Linux, however, potential users may also need to take other factors into account. H...