News (25)

Aussie coders not in open source for the money

Despite frequent speculation that corporate financing is dangerous to the ethos of the open source software (OSS) community, most Australian open source developers don't see payment as a primary influence on their contributions, a straw poll of attendees at Linux.conf.au in Melbourne suggests. Read more »

Linux Australia votes in first female president

Linux Australia's new president, Pia Smith, says it's time for Linux Australia to get serious. ZDNet Australia talks to her about the organisation's plans for 2003. Read more »

Malcolm flays Aust patent authorities

An expensive and ineffective patent regime is hampering the work of Australia's software community, a leading IT lawyer claimed yesterday. Read more »

J D Edwards' Ian Hodge: Straight to the source

What sets J D Edwards apart from the likes of Siebel and PeopleSoft? We speak with Ian Hodge, managing director Australia/New Zealand, about the future of business software and services. Read more »

Aussie taxpayers to fund porn filtering

The federal government will spend AU$116.6 million in taxpayer money to provide all Australian families with free Internet pornography blocking software. Read more »

Developers want Ballmer to show money

Australian developers have asked Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer what the company will do to address a Microsoft coding landscape that hasn't offered financial rewards like those available to iPhone and Facebook developers. Read more »

Software Engineering Australia closes doors

Industry authority Software Engineering Australia (SEA) announced today that it will cease operations. The organisation will sell its training and consulting services business to Object Consulting and existing cash assets will go to the Australian Information Industry Association. Read more »

Open source Aussies: Not poor, bearded loners

Typical Australian open source developers are 26 years old and spend their days being bored in Canberra. Despite that, free software enthusiasts have more sex and earn more money than you might expect, a new survey reveals. Read more »

Torvalds wades into Linux trademark row

Linux founder Linus Torvalds has defended his protection of the Linux trademark and claims that sublicensing the trademark is a loss-making operation. Read more »

Code King unveils secrets of success

Wrapped in the Australian flag, John Dethridge from Victoria recently took home the 2002 TopCoder Invitational Championship title. Builder Australia recently caught up with the #1 coder to talk about his achievement. Read more »

Features (19)

Next Linux kernel to get Aussie name

The next release of the Linux kernel will be named after an Australian animal following a frenzied bidding war at Linux.conf.au 2004 in Adelaide. Read more »

James Gosling Q & A

James Gosling was in Australia this week to give two question-and-answer session to local developers. A rare opportunity for local developers, Builder AU was on hand to transcribe the event for those who couldn't make it. Read more »

How to make money from Open source

Ever pondered how companies make money from free and open source development projects? Could you open source your code and still make a profit? Con Zymaris puts forward the case. Read more »

Made in Australia security qualification?

The government wants the IT industry to introduce and manage an Australia-specific IT security skills accreditation and certification scheme. Fran Foo says it's a bad idea. Read more »

The importance of IP in Australia

With an increase in patent activity across the globe, we ask if businesses need to be concerned with their intellectual property. Read more »

The Mobile Future

The next battle for the hearts and minds of internet developers will be fought on the mobile phone. Read more »

Special coverage: Linux.conf.au 2004

Adelaide is set to host Linux.conf.au 2004 --one of the world's largest gatherings of open source developers--Builder AU takes you behind the scenes, in this exclusive coverage. Read more »

What's in store for the new COBOL standard?

It has been eight years since the last change to the COBOL standard. Australian developer Keith Mante details some of the key features you can expect to see with the new standard. Read more »

Value-based approach to Web site design - Part 3

Steve Baty rounds up his guide to helping Web developers answer business owners' demand to show return on investment. Read more »

Aussie coders changing the world

Though they may not be household names like Thorpie or Lleyton, Aussie developers rank among the world's best. Simon Sharwood profiles our top five geeks. Read more »

Blog (7)

Community for desktops?

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- Are community linux distributions likely to become the target of desktop migration instead of their commercial brethren? Read more »

Spellr.us needs a new dictionary

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- One of the only Australian start-ups to present at the recent round of conferences in the US was Sydney-based spellr.us, which has launched a Web-based tool to check and monitor websites for spelling mistakes. Read more »

Aussie software pros code for the Fred Hollows Foundation

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Software professionals in Australia have coded together a blitz Web-based charity campaign to raise money for the Fred Hollows Foundation -- donations are now open. Read more »

Take off your suit pants and jacket -- It's Web 2.0

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- With the shortage of talented IT staff on hand the smell of dot-com culture has made a comeback. Welcome to Web 2.0 work culture , the future of yesterday. Read more »

Web survey confirms the obvious

Nick Gibson [blogs:byteclub] -- Web Design blog A List Apart has published the results of their first annual survey of web professionals, and the results should surprise absolutely nobody. I'll take this opportunity to break down the results (Warning: statistics ahead). Read more »

Microsoft imagines a better world.

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Fresh off the wires from Microsoft comes reassuring news that their international student software design and programming competition, the Imagine Cup, is heating up. Read more »

The Fud is Flying! (Again)

David McAmis [blogs:theneteffect] -- It seems like that the latest marketing technique for software vendors is to sling a little FUD and see if it sticks. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt make for some attention-grabbing headlines and are great for scaring potential customers away from a competitors offering. Read more »

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  • Staff Crying, mooning and leaving

    In this week's roundup we see that continuous whining can get results, Linux users get 64-bit Flash and Moonlight previews, the latest in the Yahoo/Microsoft relationship and Senator Conroy ducks and weave in Senate Question Time. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Brendon Chase Sun eye Web developers with Netbeans 6.5

    Despite the recent employment axe hitting Sun the company has pushed out a new release of its Netbeans open source IDE with an eye to appeal more to Web developers. Read more »

    -- posted by Brendon Chase

  • Renai LeMay BarCamp buzz: Let the hacking continue

    Attending last weekend's BarCamp in Sydney, it was hard to escape the conclusion that a certain "dot-com bust" flavour had seeped into the kool aid previously being drunk by Australia's web 2.0 and early stage start-up sector. Read more »

    -- posted by Renai LeMay

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