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Defense Department sets up its own Sourceforge

February 1, 2009 / Klint Finley

The dam holding back U.S. federal adoption of open source just burst with the introduction of the Defense Department’s Forge.mil.

Forge.mil is an open-source project repository built in the image of Sourceforge.net, Federal Computer Week reported Friday.

Despite being based on Sourceforge’s technology, Forge.mil has one significant difference: security. As David Mihelcic, chief technology officer for the Defense Information Systems Agency, told Federal Computer Week, the Department of Defense’s code repository has been “upgraded to meet DOD security requirements,” with smart cards used to provide log-in credentials.

Full Story: CNET

(via Steven Walling)

OLPC Cuts Staff by Half, Drops Sugar Development

January 8, 2009 / Klint Finley

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, has announced that his organization will be cutting half its staff and ending in-house development of Sugar, the Linux-based operating system that ships on its tiny XO Children’s Machine laptops.

Even though the OLPC project has been praised by the mainstream media, the free software elite and humanitarian organizations for its goal to supply low-cost, educational computers to developing countries with little or no technology infrastructure, the project has been beset by a host of problems and delays. The worldwide economic downturn has slowed hardware orders, but the project was largely sidelined by the revolution it helped create — a wave of low-cost, low-powered laptops built to run Windows, like Intel’s similar Classmate PC. Now, even the OLPC project is transitioning to Windows after realizing it’s what customers want. […]

Sugar will continue to grow, thanks to Sugar Labs, an open community founded by OLPC-er Walter Bender dedicated to building up the OS.

Full Story: Wired

Netvibes Founder Building Linux-based Operating System For Netbooks

January 7, 2009 / Klint Finley

His solution is an elegant new software stack called Jolicloud – users will download Jolicloud to their Netbooks and then install it. Whatever operating system and software is on the computer will be wiped off, and replaced with a stripped down Linux operating system and custom browser. […]

For competition, check out Good OS, which is another stripped down operating system that’s perfect for low end PCs. Good OS is different, though, in that the company is targeting device manufacturers to add it as a dual boot option. Jolicloud is going straight to the consumer to encourage them to try it out.

Full Story: TechCrunch

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Defense Department sets up its own Sourceforge

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