Linux/Open Source News

Earlier this week, Google launched browser extensions for Chrome for Windows and Linux users, but not for the newly released Mac version of Chrome. That may all change very soon, however, according to TechCrunch, as the search giant hopes to bring extensions to the Chrome for Mac developer channel by the end of the week. Beta users can reportedly expect to see extension capability by early 2010. Full Story »

PARIS/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A new email client unveiled by Mozilla this week contains code from an unusual source -- the French military, which decided the open source product was more secure than Microsoft's rival Outlook. Full Story »

Red Hat has open sourced a virtual desktop protocol it acquired last year, called the Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environment</a> (SPICE), in the hope of fostering its wider adoption. Full Story »

Mozilla on Tuesday launched Thunderbird 3, a revamped version its e-mail application, hoping it will do for Mozilla Messaging what Firefox 3 did for Mozilla's browser. With the same web-page rendering and graphics infrastructure as Firefox, Thunderbird is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Full Story »

After a long wait, Google's Chrome browser is now available for Apple Macintosh and Linux computers. In a blog post Tuesday, Brian Rakowski, product manager for Chrome, announced that beta versions of Chrome are now available for Mac OS X 10.5 and later (Intel only) and several flavors of Linux, including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE. In addition, Rakowski announced the availability of extensions for the Windows and Linux versions of the browser. Full Story »

San Francisco - JetBrains is shipping version 9 of its IntelliJ Idea IDE for Java, this time offering both commercial and open source versions. Full Story »

The day has finally arrived. Let the trumpets blare and confetti rain from the sky. With three weeks to spare, Google has met its self-imposed deadline and the beta version of its Chrome Web browser is now available for the Mac OS X and Linux operating systems. Full Story »

Five technologies, including the trendy cloud computing and old workhorse open-source software, will see huge adoption increases in the U.S. government over the next five years, largely driven by efforts to contain costs, according to an analyst firm. Full Story »

Mozilla on Tuesday removed the beta tags from its Thunderbird 3 e-mail client and made the final version available for download. Full Story »

Google on Tuesday released beta versions of its Chrome browser for Mac and Linux, plus some extensions. Full Story »

Intel's decision to indefinitely delay its Larrabee graphics processor is a setback for the Linux community, delaying improved performance for users of open source operating systems. Competitors Nvidia and AMD, however, saw their share prices rise following the news. Full Story »

EtherPad, the real-time hosted word processor Google acquired on Friday, will live on as open-source software instead of being discontinued in the coming months. Full Story »

Usage of the open-source MySQL database is set to decline if Oracle succeeds in buying the software's owner, Sun Microsystems, according to new data released by analyst firm The 451 Group on Friday. Full Story »

Free software is all about the unexpected. Carriers hate the unexpected. Full Story »

Want to give Chromium OS a try, but don't have a spare 4GB USB stick lying around? Fear not as a new 'diet' build of Chromium OS (the open-source project upon which Google Chrome OS is based), which only requires a 1GB drive, is now available for download, courtesy of a UK-based student. Full Story »

Google will end Gears, an open-source plug-in project it launched two years ago to allow Web applications to function even when a computer isn't connected to the Internet, according to a statement from the company. Full Story »

Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told investors Tuesday that the world's number-one handset maker remains committed to the open-source Symbian and Maemo operating systems as the main platforms for smartphones, advanced handsets, and web tablets. Among other things, Kallasvuo said Nokia intends to drive user-experience improvements in 2010 by taking the Symbian user interface to a new level. Full Story »

When Google first announced its Chrome OS project, many commentators assumed that the Internet giant was challenging the dominance of Microsoft Windows. The truth is, Chrome is not a threat to Windows, OS X, or any distribution of Linux--nor is it meant to be. Full Story »