One of the leading developers of the Samba system, Jeremy Allison, has resigned from his job at Novell in protest of the agreement the company has with Microsoft.

Allison, who worked on the Suse Linux distribution at Novell confirmed that his beef is with the patent agreement that allows the two companies to collaborate on technologies that will allow interoperability between the operating systems.

He believes that until the patent provision is revoked, Novell will be seen by the industry as “pariahs”.

In his letter to management and the industry he said: “My main issue with this deal is I believe that even if it does not violate the letter of the licence it violates the intent of the GPL licence the Samba code is released under, which is to treat all recipients of the code equally.

“Whilst the Microsoft patent agreement is in place there is *nothing* we can do to fix community relations. And I really mean nothing.” Allison said that he hung around at Novell waiting for the agreement to be changed, but as it has not been altered he has opted to say goodbye in protest.

Sun Microsystems has released version 6 of its Java Standard Edition programming language for desktop applications.

The technology implements the new Java Specification Request 270 ratified last month by the Java Community Process. The new request adds enhancements designed to allow developers to create applications more easily.

In an attempt to settle a long-standing debate alleging that Java discriminates against scripting languages, Java SE 6 comes bundled with the Rhino JavaScript engine developed by the Mozilla Foundation.

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Rhino is an open source JavaScript implementation written in Java designed to be used in applications rather than web browsers.

“Developers want business flexibility and the ability to use whatever environment is available to deliver their application.”

Java SE 6 also makes it easier for developers to attach performance monitoring tools to software, allowing them to spot bugs and bottlenecks before real problems arise.

The desktop Java implementation will also support Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system, extending support for the software’s features to Java applications.

Developers will be able take advantage of cryptographic, authentication and graphic services offered in Vista.

The implementation will also add a set of graphics tools that speeds up the development of user interfaces. “In the past you had to be a rocket scientist to create a user interface,” said Elliot.

The graphics will support the Windows Presentation Foundation in Vista that allows for 3D applications.

Although Sun released its Java SE 5 implementation last month under the open source General Public Licence (GPL), the company has reiterated that it will not release the new version 6 code until January year.

The company said that it chose to hold off the GPL release of version 6 to ensure that the open source process would not delay the launch of the new software, or vice versa.

Sun will further study the code for the new application in the coming weeks, tracking down portions that cannot be released under the GPL.

Sun developers also have to put in place a structure that allows for outside input and bug fixes to be filed and assessed. “We have to make sure that we’re not throwing code over the wall,” said Elliot

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According to News.com the Sun Microsystems is expected to release the source code to its Java platforms after years of speculation and urging by the open source community.

Unlike Solaris and J2EE, which were released under the Common Development and Distribution License, Sun has opted to release the source code for Java Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) and Mobile Edition (J2ME) under the venerable GPL.

It will be taking the “classpath exception” to the license, however, which will allow companies and developers who make Java programs to release their software under different licensing, including closed-source ones. Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz and Rich Green will be making a webcast at 9:20 a.m. PST, which can be seen at sun.com/opensource/java, which is also where you’ll be able to find the source code and other resources.

Novell has unveiled the release version of its Mono application designed to bridge the gap between *nix and Microsoft’s .Net development framework.

Mono 1.2 represents an important milestone towards compatibility with version 2.0 of the .Net framework, according to Novell.

Key enhancements include the addition of support for the Microsoft Windows Forms API to more easily port .Net client-side applications to Linux.

Other improvements include virtual machine upgrades and enhanced Java support, together with performance, memory consumption and stability enhancements.

Novell claimed that the application enables Microsoft developers to use existing skills to “effortlessly” make .Net desktop and server applications run on Linux.

“With full Mono support for the Windows Forms API developers can now bring their existing Microsoft-based client applications to Linux while significantly minimising the time and effort required to migrate these applications,” Novell stated.

The firm added that the inclusion of Windows Forms capabilities in Mono 1.2 offers developers operating system alternatives for hosting existing .Net applications, in addition to opening up the possibility of new desktop applications on Linux.

“With this release, we have solved an important issue by making it easier to translate the Microsoft user interfaces to Linux, an important contribution in increasing the number of client-side Linux applications,” said Miguel de Icaza, vice president of developer platforms at Novell and maintainer of the Mono project.

“Mono has matured to the point where we believe the migration from ASP .Net and Windows Forms to Linux is easier than ever before and gives developers access to all the added benefits of Linux.”

The patent cross licensing deal unveiled by Microsoft and Novell on 2 November will be incompatible with the GPL3 licence and is likely to be incompatible with the current GPL2 licence, according to law professor and open source activist Eben Moglen.

Section seven of the current General Public Licence (GPL2) prohibits people or corporations from distributing the GPL code if they have entered into any agreements that contradict the conditions of the licence.

“If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this licence and any other pertinent obligations, you may not distribute the program at all,” the GPL licence states. 

The provision would prevent Novell from making it mandatory for users to pay a licence fee for its Linux distribution if Microsoft had required this as part of the patent agreement.

Microsoft and Novell unveiled a broad-ranging partnership around Novell’s SuSE Linux distribution on 2 November.

The two companies have signed a patent cross licensing deal that will protect users and developers of SuSE against patent claims from Microsoft.

Both companies also vowed to work on interoperability between the two operating systems, and Microsoft will distribute up to 70,000 copies of SuSE to its customers through a coupon programme.

Microsoft and Zend have forged a partnership that aims to improve the execution of PHP on Windows Server 2003 as well as the forthcoming Windows Server code-named Longhorn.

PHP is an open source scripting language that is used to build online applications. Zend offers services and products that help developers create PHP applications.Zend claims that the language runs on more than 22m websites worldwide.

It is considered a basic building block of common open source enterprise software stacks, together with the Linux operating system, Apache web server and MySQL database.

Microsoft has a similar technology to PHP in its Active Server Pages product. The two companies will propose improvement to the PHP platform that will be submitted to the community under the open source PHP license and Zend plans to set up a Windows testing lab to ensure performance of PHP code on the Windows platform.

Microsoft furthermore promised to develop an add-on component to its Internet Information Services (IIS) application that will interface between PHP and the IIS Web Server. The component will be made available free of charge for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server “Longhorn”.

Microsoft said that the partnership is about providing interoperability for open source applications on Windows.

“This announcement today continues our commitment to making it easier for partners and developers, regardless of the development model they employ, to take advantage of increased reliability of the Microsoft Windows Server platform,” said Bill Hilf, general manager of Technical Platform Strategy at Microsoft.

The European Commission is to create a portal for European public sector bodies to store and share open source application code and exchange open source knowledge.

The Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR) will be developed and managed by a consortium led by Unisys.

It is intended to help public bodies improve returns on IT investment and make their applications more interoperable. The OSOR should be operational by the end of 2007.

The Commission wants OSOR to encourage European administrations to use each other’s software and develop common projects, for example in public e-procurement, interoperability between government applications and mutual recognition of the various electronic ID card formats.

“Public administrations’ interest in open source is not so much about open source replacing proprietary products,” said Karel de Vriendt, head of the European eGovernment Services Unit.

“It is about developing custom applications based on open source software, collaboration during development and using open source licences to share the results of such developments.

“The new OSOR should become the preferred cooperation tool to speed up software pooling among member states.”

Unisys will provide advice to all stakeholders and promote the OSOR service. It will also look for interesting open source applications to add to OSOR and support collaboration between different European open source projects.