28 Apr 2010 // 22:40
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A Microsoft e a HTC anunciaram esta terça-feira que tinham assinado um acordo segundo o qual a fabricante de telemóveis se compromete a pagar à Microsoft para poder vender telefones com sistema operativo… da Google. Em causa está a alegada utilização, no desenvolvimento do Android, de tecnologia patenteada pela gigante de Redmond.

Na sequência do anúncio, um dos responsáveis pela área jurídica da Microsoft veio afirmar publicamente, em declarações à , que a gigante das pesquisas tinha violado diversas patentes registadas pela empresa quando criou o sistema operativo Android - embora se tenha recusado a mencionar, em concreto, quais as tecnologias copiadas.

O responsável deixou de lado a hipótese de processar a Google, afirmando que a empresa prefere resolver as questões relativas aos direito de propriedade intelectual sem recorrer aos tribunais, mas que não pretende deixar que a concorrência "tire partido das nossas inovações sem pagar por isso".

O acordo com a HTC (que fabrica vários dispositivos com o sistema operativo da Google, incluindo o Nexus One) prevê a utilização da tecnologia patenteada presente no Android mediante contrapartidas monetárias para a Microsoft, mas as empresas não avançaram quais os valores envolvidos. O representante garantiu apenas que "a Microsoft vai receber royalties da HTC".

A Microsoft adiantou também que se encontra em conversações com outras fabricantes de telefones que usam a plataforma desenvolvida pela Google.

O consenso com a HTC surge numa altura em que a fabricante de Taiwan está a ser processada pela Apple por violação de patentes, tanto por tecnologia usada nos dispositivos Android como naqueles que vende com sistema operativo Windows Mobile.

 

[TeK]

http://tek.sapo.pt/noticias/negocios/quando_a_htc_vende_androids_a_microsoft_receb_1061457.html

Quando a HTC vende Androids… a Microsoft recebe

Publicado por Casa dos Bits há 4 horas e 36 minutos | 2 comentários   A Microsoft e a HTC anunciaram esta terça-feira que tinham assinado um acordo segundo o qual a fabricante de telemóveis se compromete a pagar à Microsoft para poder vender telefones com sistema operativo… da Google. Em causa está a alegada utilização, no desenvolvimento do Android, de tecnologia patenteada pela gigante de Redmond.

Na sequência do anúncio, um dos responsáveis pela área jurídica da Microsoft veio afirmar publicamente, em declarações à , que a gigante das pesquisas tinha violado diversas patentes registadas pela empresa quando criou o sistema operativo Android - embora se tenha recusado a mencionar, em concreto, quais as tecnologias copiadas.

O responsável deixou de lado a hipótese de processar a Google, afirmando que a empresa prefere resolver as questões relativas aos direito de propriedade intelectual sem recorrer aos tribunais, mas que não pretende deixar que a concorrência "tire partido das nossas inovações sem pagar por isso".

O acordo com a HTC (que fabrica vários dispositivos com o sistema operativo da Google, incluindo o Nexus One) prevê a utilização da tecnologia patenteada presente no Android mediante contrapartidas monetárias para a Microsoft, mas as empresas não avançaram quais os valores envolvidos. O representante garantiu apenas que "a Microsoft vai receber royalties da HTC".

A Microsoft adiantou também que se encontra em conversações com outras fabricantes de telefones que usam a plataforma desenvolvida pela Google.

O consenso com a HTC surge numa altura em que a fabricante de Taiwan está a ser processada pela Apple por violação de patentes, tanto por tecnologia usada nos dispositivos Android como naqueles que vende com sistema operativo Windows Mobile.
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28 Apr 2010 // 18:06
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Google's Android, the increasingly important embedded Linux, had one major problem: it had been moving slowly away from the Linux mainstream. Now, after the recent Linux Foundation Collaboration Conference, Android and Linux are coming back together.

Not only is Google going to be hiring two new Android developers to work more closely with the Linux kernel development team, they're also working on re-merging its driver code with Linux. Indeed, the first series of driver patches that will bring Android and Linux back into alignment have already arrived.

 

The drift between Android and Linux first came to light as Ryan Paul noted last year, when he wrote, "Google engineer Patrick Brady stated unambiguously that Android is not Linux." Indeed, Brady had said that, but that was an overstatement.

 

Android is Linux. To be exact, its latest version, 2.1, Éclair, runs on the 2.6.29 Linux kernel. But instead of its userspace being based on the various desktop Linux software frameworks such as GTK+, commonly used in the GNOME desktop, or Qt, which is the basis of the KDE desktop, it is built atop Dalvik, a Google-designed custom JVM (Java virtual machine). This means that using conventional desktop Linux API (application programming interfaces) or porting ordinary desktop Linux programs to Android is very difficult, but it hardly disqualified Android from being Linux.

 

Far more troubling was that Google's engineers were no longer sharing their device driver code with Linux's development community. This led Linus Torvalds to drop these drivers from the main Linux kernel.

 

Greg Kroah-Hartman, a Novell engineer and head of the Linux Driver Project, explained in his essay, "Android and the Linux kernel community"; "The Android kernel code is more than just the few weird drivers that were in the drivers/staging/androidsubdirectory in the kernel. In order to get a working Android system, you need the new lock type they have created, as well as hooks in the core system for their security model. In order to write a driver for hardware to work on Android, you need to properly integrate into this new lock, as well as sometimes the bizarre security model. Oh, and then there's the totally-different framebuffer driver infrastructure as well.

 

"This means that any drivers written for Android hardware platforms can not get merged into the main kernel tree because they have dependencies on code that only lives in Google's kernel tree, causing it to fail to build in the kernel.org tree.

"Because of this, Google has now prevented a large chunk of hardware drivers and platform code from ever getting merged into the main kernel tree. Effectively creating a kernel branch that a number of different vendors are now relying on."

 

Why did Google do this? Basically because they were so busy working on Android specifics that they were ignoring the big picture. Google open source engineering manager Chris DiBona said at the Linux Collaboration Summit that Google had to do a "better job" of contributing Android patches back to the Linux kernel. DiBona also said that Google would be hiring two new Android developers to work on better collaboration with the Linux kernel developers.

 

Google hasn't waited for the new hires to start. James Bottomley, Chair of the Linux Foundation's Technical Advisory Board, explained to me in an e-mail that, while he couldn't speak directly at what had been decided between Google and the kernel developers at the Linux Foundation's meeting, he could draw my attention to a series of nine patches entitled "Suspend Blocker API (version 4)" from [Google developer] Arve Hjønnevåg. It certainly wouldn't be illogical to infer they were a result of the Android meeting. So far, it seems they've met with some easily addressable technical suggestions, but no major push back"

 

Bottomley added, "I can certainly say that if this patch set is accepted, it will allow us to merge at least 75% of the android drivers that are currently out of tree because of API differences between the Android kernel and the vanilla one." On the LKML (Linux Kernel Mailing List), Kroah-Hartman signaled his approval, writing, "Yeah! Thanks for re-spinning this and pushing it out. This should help lots of drivers get merged."

 

From where I sit, the bigger news is that this will help get Linux and Android back to where they belong with Android being as full a member of Linux as say Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Ubuntu.

 

[Computerworld]

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27 Apr 2010 // 11:17
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The Canonical-backed Ubuntu Linux project has released its single sign-on authentication software as an open source project.

Ubuntu uses the Launchpad project management application to manage its software releases, which was itself released as open source in mid-2009, but the authentication application, Canonical Identity Provider, remained proprietary.

The release comes a week before Ubuntu’s next major version, 10.04 “Lucid Lynx”.

Canonical Identity Provider is used by both the Launchpad and Ubuntu single sign-on services.

In announcing the release, Ubuntu community manager, Jono Bacon, said since Launchpad went open source it has seen a “wonderful and thriving Launchpad development community flourish”.

“I am pleased to announce that we are now able to provide this code under an AGPL3 license,” Bacon wrote on his blog.

“Thanks to Stuart Metcalfe who has been coordinating the technical and licensing work to be able to contribute this change.”

The Canonical SSO provider project is part of Canonical Identity Systems, which is a series of projects to support Canonical's OpenID-based SSO platform.

It includes a number of add-on modules to integrate with OpenID that are released under an open source license.

The Canonical Identity Systems project is online at: https://launchpad.net/canonical-identity.

Earlier this month Canonical announced it would switch Ubuntu’s default Internet search back to Google after a brief testing period with Yahoo!

 

[Computerworld]

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22 Apr 2010 // 10:05
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Owning Unix and an uncertain future for Novell could mean uncertainty for Linux customers

 

While Novell's ownership of Unix was confirmed by a jury earlier this week, Novell's future as an independent company, at least in its current form, is far from secure. With the recent jury ruling, a Novell acquisition could impact Linux vendors and customers.

 

Novell recently secured a jury decision against SCO pertaining to the ownership of Unix. Here are two relevant questions and answers from Ian Bruce, Novell's director of PR:


Q: Given that SCO barely exists any more, what is the real relevance of all this?
A: The jury has confirmed Novell's ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on Linux. An adverse decision would have had profound implications for the Linux community.


Q: If Novell owns the copyrights to Unix, what does that mean for Linux?
A: We own the copyrights and we will continue to protect the open source community, including Linux.


Consider that Novell's board rejected an unsolicited takeover offer from investment fund Elliott Associates just two weeks ago. Novell's board said the offer "undervalues the company's franchise and growth prospects." However, the board did commit to a review of its alternatives, including an outright sale.

 

Many IT vendors could be considered as viable candidates for acquiring Novell or part of its assets. For instance, rumors, jokes, and suggestions that Microsoft should or could acquire Novell go back to 2007 and at least one April Fool's article. Until now, as Gartner analyst Brian Prentice noted at OSBC, Microsoft's open source strategy remains muddled as an enabler of other open source firms versus being an open source vendor in its own right. Acquiring Novell and distributing SUSE Linux would dramatically change that position.

 

It would also allow Microsoft to differentiate against Red Hat in a way that Red Hat could not match: choice. Most customers I speak to have heterogeneous systems, so finding a customer that uses Windows servers and Linux servers is the norm, not the exception. While Microsoft and Novell can, and aim to, jointly address these heterogeneous customers today, a streamlined development, marketing, and sales process could benefit customers and Microsoft.


[InfoWorld]

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