Well, I'd have to say that for January, these past few days have certainly been chock full o' Linux news. And not just any news: a big Linux conference, a significant licensing shift for a big-name Linux library, layoffs in Redmond, and--perhaps most earth-shattering of all--Bdale Garbee got his beard shaved off for charity.
It all ramped up last Wednesday, when Nokia announced the move to license Qt from 4.5 on under the LGPL, away from the GPL.
The big takeaway here is that developers will be able to link directly to Qt libraries and not have all their linked code become GPL'd. They now have the option to pick and choose which code they choose to share.
This may sound counterintuitive, by Nokia is buying on the fact that there's a lot of vendors out there who want to share some of their code, just not all of it.
This week saw the big summer conference, Linux.conf.au (LCA), kick off in Hobart, Tasmania. This one brings out all of the big Linux names, including Linus Torvalds, and education and information is big part of this annual event. Daily roundups of the event can be found on these links:
Meanwhile, back in the Northern Hemisphere, the Linux Foundation announced the call for papers for its own event, the 2009 Collaboration Summit, which happens April 8-10 in San Francisco.
Sponsored by Intel in 2009, the Collaboration Summit is an exclusive, invitation-only gathering of the brightest minds in Linux, including core kernel developers, distribution maintainers, ISVs, end users, system vendors and other community organizations. It's the only conference designed to accelerate collaboration and encourage solutions by bringing together a true cross-section of leaders to meet face-to-face to tackle and solve the most pressing issues facing Linux today.
The US has a new president this week (perhaps you heard), though still faces some serious economic challenges. Those challenges seem to have caught up with a major Linux competitor, as Microsoft announced an immediate layoff of 1,400 employees and up to 5,000 total in the weeks ahead.
In an interview with LinuxDevices, LF Executive Director Jim Zemlin made note of the fact that Microsoft admitted it had underestimated the size of the netbooks market: "It's a combination of Linux, missteps by Microsoft, and not enabling Vista for a low-power, long battery-life device."
Definitely not a slow couple of weeks. Looking forward to next week, that's for sure.
