castarco nos cuenta: «Platano Indexer es un proyecto que se desarrolló internamente en Bananity.com, una startup española basada en una red social. Se trata de un indexador / buscador de palabras y frases, programado en Java sobre la plataforma JBoss y que usa como backend de almacenamiento MongoDB (aunque está preparado para usar otros sistemas). La semana pasada fue liberado bajo licencia MIT, y el repositorio está en Github. Todavía queda mucho por mejorar, pero estamos en ello :) Más información en mi blog: Liberado Platano Indexer»

x_IamSpartacus_x writes "Jolla, the Finnish company that continued Nokia's work on the MeeGo mobile platform, announced details of its first smartphone on Monday. Availability for the Jolla device is expected by year end and can be pre-ordered now; the phone will be priced at no more than €399 (US $512.26). The Jolla hardware looks similar to that of Nokia's Lumia, with a clean, button-less front face that houses the 4.5-inch touchcscreen. The phone will use a dual-core processor and support 4G LTE in some regions. Internal storage tops out at 16 GB, but can be expanded via microSD card. The phone also includes an 8 megapixel rear camera with auto focus. The phone is also 'Android app compliant' which, in a move similar to that of BlackBerry, can help with available apps at launch."

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Freshly Exhumed writes "Forked from Mandriva Linux back in 2010, Mageia Linux has hit a new release milestone. Trish at the Mageia blog announces: 'All grown up and ready to go dancing: Mageia 3's out! We still can't believe how much fun it is to make Mageia together, and we've been doing it for two and a half years. For people who can't wait, get it here; release notes are here. To upgrade from Mageia 2, see here.'" Adds reader hduff: "It offers cutting edge and stable versions of your favorite applications and desktop environments as well as a version of the STEAM gaming software."

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Leo en Slashdot que acaba de publicarse la primera actualización de la rama 6.x de NetBSD, publicada en Octubre del año pasado. Básicamente, NetBSD 6.1 se compone de actualizaciones de seguridad y de rendimiento, así como de mejoras y de algunas nuevas características en diferentes componentes de dicha distribución. Muchos paquetes están ya disponibles a través del Sistema de Gestión de Paquetes NetBsd. Aún a riesgo de caer en la dinámica de la 'versionitis', siempre es obligado reconocer el esfuerzo de la comunidad del software libre en el desarrollo de proyectos como el aquí el comentado.

New submitter Anand Radhakrishnan writes "The release candidate for the much-anticipated Linux Mint 15 'Olivia' is available for user testing. Its many new features include Cinnamon Control center, an improved login manager with HTML 5 support, a driver manager, and a lot of under-the-hood improvements. 'A new tool called MintSources, aka "Software Sources," was developed from scratch with derivative distributions in mind (primarily Linux Mint, but also LMDE, Netrunner and Snow Linux). It replaces software-properties-gtk and is perfectly adapted to managing software sources in Linux Mint. From the main screen you can easily enable or disable optional components and gain access to backports, unstable packages and source code.' This release with Cinnamon looks really tempting."

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Linus Torvalds, Jon 'maddog' Hall, and many other names closely associated with Linux are also closely associated with beer. (Ed. note: I have personally watched them associate with beer, and may have even joined them.) It comes as no surprise, therefore, when Linux advocate and LinuxAutomation.org founder Kurt Forsberg talks about using Linux to control his beer brewing. Kurt is a strong believer in Linux Automation who talks about home thermostats, sprinklers, and many other application, "anything you can automate..." but, he adds, "we spend all our time brewing beer so we haven't explored many of those yet." He says this with a big smile, of course. And if you want to keep up with Linux Automation on Faceboook, go ahead; like everyone + dog they have a Facebook page.

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En PCWorld se hacen eco de un estudio en el que se concluye que 'Linux sigue siendo la referencia de calidad en el código'. En este artículo se pueden encontrar más detalles al respecto. El informe está disponible para descarga.

ramonramon nos cuenta: «Nuevo informe de PortalProgramas para valorar el empleo del software libre en la Universidad española: el Ranking de Universidades en Software LIBRE (RUSL) 2013. En el Ranking, que acaba de ser publicado, participan 76 universidades españolas, y vuelve a liderarlo la Universidad de Granada, lo que confirma el magnífico trabajo que hacen desde la Oficina de Software Libre de la UGR, liderado por JJ Merelo. Hace poco que se publicó el primer ranking, y en este nuevo, circunstancias como que la Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria desbanque a la Universidad de Zaragoza, muestran la evolución del conocimiento de la cultura libre. Más información.»

Maimonides nos cuenta: «Desde el equipo humano que hacemos Maimónides no nos ha quedado más remedio que tomar esta dolorosa decisión. Para lo que no conozcan Maimónides, se trata de un programa compatible con Séneca, que permite que la información recogida por los profesores sobre la asistencia de los alumnos en los centros escolares dependientes de la Junta de Andalucía, pueda ser enviada a Séneca sin pérdidas de información y tiempo ni infructuosos intentos fallidos».

Wikier nos cuenta: «El pasado 11 de mayo, tras recibir las evaluaciones del comité, se anunciaron los proyectos finalistas del VII Concurso Universitario de Software Libre. Este año la fase final tendrá lugar en Granada los próximos días 23 y 24 de mayo. Tras siete años de duro trabajo por y para el Software Libre en España, ¡gracias!»

hypnosec writes "Linus Torvalds has released the Linux 3.10-rc1 kernel marking the closure of the 3.10 merge window. The Linux 3.10-rc1 is the second biggest rc release in years and the closure of the merge windows means that the features expected out of the Linux 3.9 successor are chalked out. "So this is the biggest -rc1 in the last several years (perhaps ever) at least as far as counting commits go," Linus notes in the release announcement."

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New submitter mha writes "In a response that truly seems to be from a core Microsoft developer, we are told about why Windows kernel development continues to fall further and further behind that of the Linux kernel. He says, 'The cause of the problem is social. There's almost none of the improvement for its own sake, for the sake of glory, that you see in the Linux world. ... There's no formal or informal program of systemic performance improvement. We started caring about security because pre-SP3 Windows XP was an existential threat to the business. Our low performance is not an existential threat to the business. See, component owners are generally openly hostile to outside patches: if you're a dev, accepting an outside patch makes your lead angry (due to the need to maintain this patch and to justify in in shiproom the unplanned design change), makes test angry (because test is on the hook for making sure the change doesn't break anything, and you just made work for them), and PM is angry (due to the schedule implications of code churn). There's just no incentive to accept changes from outside your own team. You can always find a reason to say "no," and you have very little incentive to say "yes."'"

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"CrunchBang Linux is a Debian based distro with the Openbox window manager on top of it. So it is Debian under the hood with Openbox on the surface," says distro supporter Larry Cafiero. A glance through the #! (CrunchBang) forums showed an exceptionally fast response rate to problems posted there, so even if you haven't heard of #! (it's not in the DistroWatch Top 10), it has a strong and dedicated user community -- which is one of the major keys to success for any open source project. In order to learn more about #! Linux (and to share what he learned), Timothy Lord pointed his camcorder at Larry during LinuxFest Northwest and made this video record of their conversation.

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An anonymous reader writes "While complementing Debian APT/DPKG, Canonical is now developing their own package format. The new package format has promised highlights of having no dependencies between applications, each package would install to its own directory, root support wouldn't always be required, and overall a more self-contained and easier approach for developers than it stands now for Debian/Ubuntu packages. The primary users of the new packaging system would be those distributing applications built on the Ubuntu Touch/Phone SDK. The initial proof-of-concept package management system is written in Python and uses JSON representation." This quote from the post by Canonical's Colin Watson bears repeating: "We'll continue to use dpkg and apt for building the Ubuntu operating system, syncing with Debian, and so on."

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Un pobrecito hablador nos cuenta: «Acabo de leer en Zdnet que la NASA migrará todos los sistemas críticos de la ISS a Debian 6. Según los responsables del proceso, 'migramos funciones claves de Windows a Linux porque necesitábamos un sistema operativo que fuese estable y confiable. Uno que nos diera auto-control. Y en caso de necesitar parchearlo, ajustarlo o adaptarlo, lo pudiéramos hacer'.»

Las buenas noticias sobre Debian no han terminado. Aprovechando la publicación de Wheezy estable, Aptosid, interesante y curiosa distro 'live' basada en Debian Sid, acaba de anunciar la publicación de Aptosid 2013-01 basada en Debian Sid 05-05-2013. Esta distro viene lista para instalarse en el disco duro y en varios 'sabores', con una característica fundamental a diferencia de su referencia Sid, la estabilidad y fiabilidad acompañada de las últimas actualizaciones tanto de paquetes como de soporte para hardware. Y todo ello cumpliendo con el Contrato Social de Debian. Kernel 3.9, compatibilidad con varios sistemas UEFI, arquitectura Ivy-Bridge, soporte básico para Haswell, y mucho más. Las descargas y el manual de instalación por cortesía de Slashdot.

Maties Alzina Soler nos cuenta: «Muy buenas, estoy haciendo un proyecto de gestión empresarial para la universidad, y la idea que tengo (tenemos) en mente es, primero, crear un sitio web y posteriormente una 'app' para smartphone (Android e iOS) que según los resultados que genere, los envíe directamente al sitio web. Para concretar el tipo de sitio web que nos interesa, deciros que tendría que tener un sistema de registro de usuarios, en el qual cada usuario disponga de un perfil con diferentes variables numéricas (pasos, kcal, ...). La propia web compararía los datos de cada usuario entre si, y estableciendo un ranking. Respecto a la 'app' para smartphone, decir que simularía la función de un acelerómetro, registrando el cambio de acceleraciones del usuario y convirtiendo esta unidad en Pasos, Kcal, etcétera (las variables de cada perfil de usuario del sitio web). En resumen, la idea es que los datos generados por la aplicación del móvil, se envíen a la base de datos del sitio web. Por lo tanto, mismo perfil en web y 'app'. La pregunta es, ¿cuál sería el coste económico aproximado (o el esfuerzo necesario en tiempo) de programar el sitio web y la 'app'? Necesito una orientación sobre el coste, porque no soy consciente de la dificultat y complejidad que representa para el programador tal trabajo. ¡Gracias de antemano!»

An anonymous reader writes "Right on the heels of Debian's 7.0 ('Wheezy') release, the Aptosid team is proud to announce the immediate availability of the 2013-01 release. Aptosid is a rolling release built on top of Debian's most modern branch Sid, providing the most up-to-date kernel available with patches and stabilization not yet seen in mainline, along with many patched Debian packages, all while maintaining 100% compatibility with upstream Debian (unlike other distros based on Debian). If you think Debian Stable is too old to be useful, give Atposid a spin!"

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alancronin writes "Valve have released Portal for Linux through the Steam platform. If you have a copy of the Windows version you will automatically have a copy of it for Linux in your account. There are also rumors of Portal 2 coming soon."

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First time accepted submitter anarcat writes "After two years since the last Debian release (6.0, nicknamed "squeeze"), the Debian release team has finally published Debian 7.0 (nicknamed "Wheezy"). A newly created blog has details on the release, which features multi-arch support (e.g. you can now install packages for both i386 and amd64 on the same install), improvements to multimedia support (no need for third party repositories!) and improved security through hardening flags. Debian 7.0 also ships with the controversial Gnome 3 release, and the release notes explicitly mention how to revert to the more familiar 'Gnome classic' interface. Finally, we can also mention the improved support for virtualization infrastructure with pre-built images available for Amazon EC2, Windows Azure and Google Compute Engine. Debian 7.0 also ships with the OpenStack suite and the Xen Cloud Platform. More details on the improvements can be found in the release notes and the Debian wiki." An anonymous reader points out (from the announcement) that "[t]he installation process has been greatly improved: Debian can now be installed using software speech, above all by visually impaired people who do not use a Braille device. Thanks to the combined efforts of a huge number of translators, the installation system is available in 73 languages, and more than a dozen of them are available for speech synthesis too. In addition, for the first time, Debian supports installation and booting using UEFI for new 64-bit PCs (amd64), although there is no support for Secure Boot yet."

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