Shuttleworth urged to rethink Ubuntu names, Jan 21, 2008

Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Or, more importantly, would as many people stop to smell a rose by a different name? In an open letter to Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth, published yesterday, the suggestion was made to rebrand all the forms of Ubuntu as different editions of the distribution.

In the latest Ubuntu weekly newsletter the Ubuntu folks announced the release of the Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Course. The modular course should take two days to complete all 10 of the lessons offered, but it is possible to cover topics and lessons independently of each other, learning whatever is of interest.

The Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum has announced the completion of the LiPS Release 1.0 specifications (download it here), with the intention of enabling mobile industry players to achieve basic interoperability for applications and services deployed on Linux-based phones.

Linspire, the developer of the Linspire and Freespire desktop Linux distributions, yesterday announced the launch of CNR.com (Click-n-Run) beta, a free Web-based Linux package management system for desktop Linux users.

DataDyne punts EpiSurveyor as a free, open source tool that can be used to make hand-held data entry forms, collect data on a mobile device and then transfer the data back to a desktop or laptop for analysis.

A recent crack-down on piracy in Kenya has driven a number of internet cafes to open source.

In his latest blog post the chief executive of Sun, Jonathan Schwartz, offered "heartfelt congratulations" to Google on the announcement of its new Java/Linux phone platform, Android.

South African payment gateway service, MyGate, have developed a service that allows e-commerce merchants running Linux to access credit card security services that were developed for Windows platforms.

Speaking in a keynote address at the Govtech conference in Cape Town this morning, Mark Shuttleworth discussed strategies that government should take on in developing IT locally.

Microsoft's plans of having its OOXML document format accepted as a national standard were thwarted by a conclusive vote against the move in a meeting yesterday.

In a first for South Africa, Linux Holdings have launched a full-time Linux Training Academy.

Tectonic spoke to Dell's local mobile brand manager to find out when these machines are likely to reach South African shores.

Last year we ran a story on Martus (see story), an open source software tool used by human rights workers, attorneys, journalists and others who need to secure their information from eavesdropping, theft or equipment failure.

The wireless project, run by Inkululeko Technologies, allows schools to communicate with one another as well as allowing administrators to perform remote support.

Where can the average South African consumer get their hands on a new PC loaded with Linux instead of Windows? Not a lot of places, as it turns out.