Stories about: Macromedia

Jeremy White, co-founder and CEO of CodeWeavers, talked about how Wine might make IT professionals a lot merrier. For those wanting to save money on desktops by using Linux, but feel trapped into Windows because of the need to run Windows apps, Wine can help. Ten days ago, the folks at CodeWeavers released the almost official version of this open source project that allows Windows programs to run on Linux and Mac desktops. Wine is on course for official release, its 1.0 version, in the next 60 days.

At 36 years old, William Hurley has been involved in IT for more than half his life, starting after a car accident that left him badly injured. While recovering, he began hacking X-objects for MacroMind and later Macromedia Director in the open-source multimedia community, then went to work at Apple and IBM, where he was a master inventor and senior manager of targeted Internet applications. Later, he joined a string of start-ups, including Qlusters, where he was chief technology officer; Symbiot, where he was a co-founder and CTO; and HireStorm, where he was the founder and CTO. He has combined his love for open source with his longtime work in IT systems management, which he has pursued at BMC since joining the company in February. Hurley has a unique MO that makes him as comfortable in the boardroom as he is on the legendary long green skateboard he often uses to commute to work -- and to get around at open-source conferences.

There was CGI, Java and even C. But for building Web sites during the dot-com boom, nothing was hotter than ColdFusion.

The wealth of open source software development goodies is heaven for the developer community, but it's hell on an awards committee. Considering IDEs, debuggers, defect trackers, code coverage tools, unit testers, load testers, and so on, we could have come up with more awards here than the rest of the Bossies combined. Then there were paths that could only lead to trouble. Could we really choose a best language? Or a best development platform? Could we pick Python over Perl, or Rails over Mono?

Those in search of eternal life need look no further than the computer industry. Here, last gasps are rarely taken, as aging systems crank away in back rooms across the U.S., not unlike 1970s reruns on Nickelodeon's TV Land. So while it may not be exactly easy for Novell NetWare engineers and OS/2 administrators to find employers who require their services, it's very difficult to declare these skills -- or any computer skill, really -- dead.

A couple months back, I was at home, working on some changes to my personal Web site. I wanted to see how my work in progress looked in Internet Explorer. On a Windows machine that's as easy as pie, of course, but on my Linux desktop it's not so simple. I usually grab my laptop and boot it into Windows if I need to check something in IE (or interact with a wrongheaded site that requires that browser), but this wasn't an option that day--so I apparently had no choice but to reboot my desktop (which dual boots), select Windows, fire up Internet Explorer, take a look, and boot back into Linux to continue my work.

Adobe Systems later this month plans to launch the beta of a new runtime that will allow rich Web-based applications to run offline, technology that could threaten the popularity of programming platforms such as Java and Microsoft's .NET.

The Web's business and technology elite convened for O'Reilly and Associates' third annual Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco's Palace Hotel last week. Started in 2004, the meeting lends its name to what some call a movement and others an ignorable wave of marketing hype.

A day after Adobe Systems donated proprietary code for an open-source project, its Chief Executive Officer Bruce Chizen said the company is involved with other similar initiatives.

A U.S. judge has sentenced the owner of a Web site selling pirated software to six years in prison and ordered him to pay more than US$4.1 million in restitution, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said Friday.

BuysUSA.com's owner pleaded guilty to selling nearly US$20 million worth of pirated software through the mail, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said Friday.