FOSS Skype Alternative "GNU Free Call" In The Works

The GNU Project has announced a new project called GNU Free Call, an open source Skype alternative that will offer anonymous VoIP and will use the GNU SIP Witch server as the back end:

We use the open standard SIP protocol and GNU SIP Witch to create secured peer-to-peer mesh calling networks, and we welcome all participation in our effort.

GNU SIP Witch requires a minimum of system resources so it can be used on cell phones too so it seems the goal is to provide a cross-platform application, the immediate target most probably being Android.


The comments on the announcement reveal that the GUI is going to be a separate application and also, GNU Free Call itself won't deliver video, however this will be done by other applications such as Ekiga, Empaty and so on:

Video is a function of the user agent, not sipwitch. Since we do not transcode media but let the endpoints negotiate it directly, we do not have to implement code to support it or any other form of media. What we do need to do however is add code to the new gui to discover locally installed clients (such as ekiga, twinkle, empathy, etc, whatever can be supported this way) and then automatically configure your client for you to talk to sipwitch locally.

Read the full release announcement @ planet.gnu.org

Thanks to DownloadSquad for the news!

Flattr: Support Your Favourite FLOSS Software!

So what's Flattr? Well, it's a social micropayment system you can use to donate money, but you can only receive as long as you also give which sounds like a very interesting concept. So only members who pay (the minimum subscription fee is 2 euro) can use Flattr.

The guys behind Flattr explain best the purpose of this new social micropayment system:

People would just ignore sending donations if it wasn't for a really important cause. Sending just a small sum has always been a pain in the ass. Who would ever even login to a payment system just to donate €0.01? And €10 was just too high for just one blog entry we liked...

Flattr will currently get 10% (for maintenance) of your subscription and divide the rest evenly between the people you flatter. But they say that once the website grows, they will stop asking for the 10% fee.

Why did we wrote a post on Flattr? Because maybe you would like to give something back to the free open source software you love and use daily. A lot of software is on Flattr already: foobar2000, NoScript, Tor and even the Debian Package Manager and many many other developers, artists and so on who really deserve this. So why not give a few cents (or more) to show your appreciation for the FLOSS software you use daily?

There is even an idea to use Flattr with the Ubuntu Software Center so you can directly donate from within the USC but even though this has been brought up for discussion in the past, there's no official word on it yet (on any type of donation from the Ubuntu Software Center).


If you're a developer or blogger, you'll be glad to know Flattr offers a badge or button you can use on your website or application so people can directly flattr you from there. You can see such a button at the bottom of this post. But of course, you can also get/receive flattr directly from Flattr.com.

Google Open Sources VP8 Video Codec, Packs It Into WebM Project - Already Available On YouTube

As you probably know, a Google I/O conference was held today and a lot of blogs said they will announce big things. And big it was: Google officially announced the release of an open source, royalty-free video format called WebM which will be using the VP8 codec Google aquired from On2 as well as Vorbis audio.

The WebM launch is supported by Mozilla, Opera, Google and more than forty other publishers, software and hardware vendors.

For now, WebM is not part of the HTML5 specifications but support for it will be added by Chrome, Firefox and Opera, as a part of the <video> tag (update: Internet Explorer 9 will also be supporting VP8). Most probably today's snapshots of Chrome(ium), Opera and Firefox already include this. You can already download patched FFmpeg or DirectShow for Windows (Gstreamer support coming soon) from HERE. There is also a patch for MPlayer.

WebM is already part of the YouTube HTML5 experimental feature - all the 720p or higher videos uploaded to YouTube starting today will be encoded using WebM (but also in H.264). However Google claims (according to Mozilla) to transcode all YouTube existing videos into WebM sometime soon.

How will Adobe handle this? Well, Engadget points out that Adobe is rolling VP8 support into Flash Player, but hopefully websites such as YouTube will start using the HTML5 <video> tag instead of Adobe Flash by default.

More on the subject:

• OsNews
• Engadget
• WebM project website & WebM blog
• The first in-depth analysis of VP8

Update: Download WebM (VP8) capable Chromium, Firefox and Opera builds.

Canonical To Bring Closed Source Apps Like iTunes And Photoshop To Ubuntu?!?!

A recent official post (and I hope this time it really is official) on the Ubuntu Forums asks users to complete a survey with the applications they would like to see in the upcoming versions of Ubuntu:

We are trying to gather preferences for the apps that users would like to see in upcoming version of Ubuntu. While we all believe in the power of open source applications we are also very keen that users should get to choose the software they want to use. There are some great apps that aren't yet available to Ubuntu users and Canonical would like to know the priority that users would like to see them. This list is indicative not definitive and we would love to also read your suggestions in the free text box.

Among these applications one can find: Spotify, Pandora, Hulu, Skype, WoW, Picasa, Adobe Photoshop, Apple iTunes and more.

Yes, you've read it well, those are the applications which Canonical considers bringing to the open source Linux distribution called Ubuntu (we don't know yet what does 'bringing' mean - in the repositories? or through Wine? or Linux versions?).

What? Why? When? What the...? Many questions have arisen after reading about this, but there's yet no answer to any. At least not for now, so we'll have to wait for some more info on this from Canonical.

What do you think about this?

[via reddit]

Message from Testking: Pass your HP0-S25 as well as HP2-E32 exam using up to date 646-985 practice questions prepared by our certified team to help you maximize your success chances in real exam.

Widelands (RTS Game): An Open Source Settlers I & II Remake

Widelands is an open source (works on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX) real-time strategy game, built upon the SDL and other open source libraries. If you knew Settlers I & II (© Bluebyte), then you already have a rough idea what Widelands is all about because Widelands is heavily inspired by those two games.

It has single-player, network, internet multiplayer modes and single player campaign missions. Players may select one of three different tribes. Widelands provides two tutorial missions. Advanced players can create their own maps with the included map editor and it is also possible to import and play original Settlers II maps.

Widelands Gameplay

In Widelands, you must build the economic infrastructure and manage the construction of roads in order for you to expand and go to war.

One of the most important aspects of Widelands is the road system. A well optimized road system keeps goods moving, which means people can train and equip troops faster.

Some resources in Widelands are renewable, but require specific workers(such as rangers or foresters) to ensure that these resources don't disappear. However, some resources are of limited quantity. Once they're used up, they're gone forever.

Expansion of territory is done by the construction of military buildings and filling them with soldiers. The bigger the military building is, the more territory it will control.

Widelands Screenshots and Video

The video is pretty old but it should give you an idea on Widelands:




For Ubuntu, install it using the following command:

sudo apt-get install widelands

Note for Ubuntu Jaunty (or older) users: the version in the Ubuntu repositories might not start for you. If that's the case for you, then you should use the version provided the the Widelands download page - link at the end of the post (also install the packages mentioned there). There is also an Ubuntu PPA available (unofficial) which contains the latest Widelands build.

To add this repository for Ubuntu Jaunty, open a terminal and paste the following:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gabriel-rota/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys CA0C38EA

Then:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install widelands 

Ubuntu Karmic Koala: Widelands build 13 which is available in the repos works just fine (I tested it). However, if you wish to install the latest version from an unofficial PPA (I did not test this version), open a terminal and paste the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gabriel-rota/ppa

And to install it:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install widelands 

Download Widelands for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.

Latest Chromium Build Converts User Scripts Into Extensions

The latest Chromium build adds a new feature that converts user script into extensions, so you no longer need to copy the scripts into a folder.

Simply go to userscripts.org, click on a user.js file and an installation dialog will pop up, asking you if you want to install it:

Since the user scripts are installed as extensions, they are of course available in chrome://extensions/:

This is only available for Chromium, but Google Chrome dev channel should also add it really soon.

You can download the latest version of Chromium from HERE.

Qmmander: Open Source, Dual Panel Windows Explorer Alternative

Qmmander is an open source file manager with splitscreen filehandling like the widely known "Norton Commander" which was likely the force behind the development of all the filemanagers out there with a "Commander" in their names. Qmmander is written in C++ and uses Qt, a cross-platform application and GUI framework from Nokia.

Unfortunately for some Web Upd8 readers, Qmmander only works (for now) under Windows, however, if you use Windows you will really like Qmmander which is lightweight, really fast and portable.

Besides splitscreen (dual panel), it also supports tabs, the panes can be displayed horizontally or vertically, and an extensive set of hotkeys is built-in for those who prefer mouse-free computing.

However, one feature advanced users might find lacking in Qmmander is the ability to bookmark or favorite folders. It would certainly make for a thoughtful addition.

Download Qmmander (Windows only, free, open source and portable).

[via download squad]

ScramDisk for Linux: Truly Open Source On-The-Fly-Encryption Software

Many people believe TrueCrypt is open-source but actually is not because even though the source code is available, it's development is kept secret and it isn't considered Free Software by the FSF nor Open Source by the OSI. A truly open source application for encrypting your partitions is DiskCryptor, but this app only works on Windows.

So if you want an open source application for Linux which works great, you should try ScramDisk.

ScramDisk for Linux (SD4L) is a great OTFE alternative that also supports TrueCrypt containers. Official description:

SD4L is a suite of Linux tools and a graphical user interface (GUI) which allow the creation of, and access to ScramDisk encrypted container files. In particular, SD4L provides a Linux driver which enables mounting ScramDisk containers. ScramDisk for Linux also encrypts partitions on a hard disk or storage media such as USB sticks or floppy disks entirely as devices. Version 2.0, moreover, opens and creates TrueCrypt containers from TrueCrypt version 4.1 to 6.2.

ScramDisk for Linux features:

1. Access to ScramDisk containers generated on other platforms — either by another SD4L installation, or by the original Windows ScramDisk v3.01r3c version.
2. Creation of compatible ScramDisk containers.
3. Access to TrueCrypt containers generated on other platforms — either by another SD4L installation, or by the TrueCrypt software versions 4.1 to 6.2 on Windows, MacOS or Linux.
4. Creation of compatible TrueCrypt containers which can be opened by the TrueCrypt versions which are equal or higher than the chosen format version.
5. On Linux, SD4L would provide privacy for sensitive data through the use of strong encryption, which are transparently accessible via a mounted container.
6. SD4L includes a repair tool for damaged ScramDisk and TrueCrypt 6 containers. It is accessable by the Change button in the GUI or by sdchange.
7. ScramDisk containers can be reformatted to TrueCrypt containers without creating a new container and copying its contents. The created formats are that of TrueCrypt 4 or 5.
8. Containers can be automatically unmounted after they have been inactive for a period of time given on mounting the container. Here, inactivity means that no read or write operation has taken place on the container within this period of time.
9. Encrypted hard disks or containers which comprise several partitions can be opened and the partitions will be automatically mounted on mount directories created below a chosen directory.
10. A new container can be formatted as swap space and such a container can be used for swapping out areas of the main memory.

Download ScramDisk for Linux (SD4L) (Ubuntu .deb, Fedora .rpm and source files available).

Process Hacker: Best Windows Task Manager Replacement

Process Hacker is a free and open source Windows process viewer with powerful process termination and memory searching/editing capabilities. It can show you information about processes, services, modules, handles, and more.

While Process Hacker is meant to look and work a little more like the built-in Task Manager, being easy to approach for regular users, it actually has many of the same features as the popular and powerful Process Explorer which you might know.

Included in Process Hacker's features are things such as a tree view to see where active processes came from, detailed graphs displaying each process's resource usage and statistics, and (my personal favorite) over a dozen different ways to kill a process. Along with the normal features one would expect from a process manager utility, you can add or delete services, read and write process data memory in a hex editor, search through memory with a regex, inject DLLs into running processes, and pretty much every other feature you can imagine. Process Hacker is free and open source, available for Windows only.

System requirements:

• .NET Framework 2.0
• Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or above, 32-bit or 64-bit. Please note that certain functionality including detection of hidden processes, full control over all processes and the ability to protect/unprotect processes is only available on 32-bit systems.

Download Process Hacker

Blood Frontier: New Free First-Person Shooter Game [Open Source, Cross-Platform]

Blood Frontier is a free and open source single and multi-player first-person shooter game built on a complete remake of Cube Engine 2, which lends itself toward a balanced gameplay, completely at the control of map makers, while maintaining a general theme of tactics and low gravity.

The game uses SDL and OpenGL which allows it to be ported to many platforms, therefore it works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

The game is still in it's first Beta, therefore you must not expect any graphical wonders from it. Visuals are sufficient, but not mind-blowing. Our main point of interest is – especially in this phase – gameplay.

Although there’s still a long way ahead, Blood Frontier has great ambition. The experience available today is just a fraction of the total envisioned picture. In the future, Blood Frontier has also planned on deepening out other playing modes, as well as a complete single-player campaign.

Blood Frontier Features:

• Unique, original, and fun gameplay, storyline, theme, artwork, and content. Pushing the boundaries of open source first person gaming.
• More configurable, providing an extensive range of world variables for mappers and game variables for players/admin to control every aspect.
• Play plain ol' deathmatch, instagib, ctf, duel, lms, or use the select range of mutators and myriad of variables to create your own.
• Item domination and dropping, fight for your lives over a great range of weapons, each with its own distinct personality, pros, and cons.
• Strong artificial intelligence (A.I. or "Bots") capable of participating within all modes of its deathmatch environment, even online.
• Improved editing displays and capabilities, with automatic map package creation and online transfers completely transparent to the user.
• Enhanced engine systems, with extra goodies like stereoscopic or anaglyph view modes, and unique mouse settings.

Game plot:

In the distant future, humanity has spread throughout the solar system, to Mars and beyond. A vast communications network bridges from colony to colony, human to machine, and machine to human. This seemingly benign keystone of modern inter-planetary society, however, appears to be the carrier of a mysterious techno-biological plague. Any persons so-connected seem to fall ill and die, only to return as ravenous, sub-human cannibals. You, a machine intelligence, an android, remain unafflicted by this strange phenomenon and have been tasked with destroying the growing hordes of the infected, while, hopefully, locating and stopping the source of the epidemic.

Gameplay

The different game modes are Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Secure the Flag and Edit mode, those can be modified by mutators to enable team play (up to 4 different teams), instant death and even paintball.
Available is also an artificial intelligence (A.I. or "Bots") capable of participating within all modes of its deathmatch environment, even online.

The developers have made game environments extraordinarily flexible – and plan on keeping to do so in future releases. Map-makers have the ability to tweak game-settings (e.g. player vulnerability) to the finest detail, to create a unique experience in every map.

Screenshots and video

Download Blood Frontier:

Windows, Linux/BSD or Mac OSX

[via makeuseof]

Blaze: The Smartest Application Launcher For Windows [ Open Source ]

Blaze is an application launcher, like Launchy or Gnome Do, for Windows only, but unlike thouse 2, Blaze is not a common application launcher. Yes, Blaze has the ability to index all your applications so you can easily launch them and it also allows to browse the web and the files on your computer.

But - and here is where the interesting part comes in - Blaze has the power to automate recurrent tasks. Here is how it works: Blaze watches silently in the background, waiting to observe you performing repetitive tasks. When it spots something, Blaze will alert you and offer to create an action to handle the task next time.

If Blaze comes up with a suggestion which is not what you were looking for exactly, you can tweak the suggestion to your liking before giving Blaze a go ahead to perform it. You can click on the arrows to cycle through the various suggestions that Blaze has to offer, you can increase or decrease the number of repetitions that should be performed, you can control the speed with which the automation is performed allowing you a chance to jump in if something is not right.

Another great Blaze feature is that is able to understand typos therefore, you don't have to be so careful while typing a command:

Just like with Launchy or Gnome Do, you cannot fully understand exactly what this application does until you actually use it.

Blaze is free, open-source and works on Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, in both 32 and 64 bits versions. It also comes with a portable version but you still need .NET Framework 3.5.

Download BLAZE

[via makeuseof]

OpenDisc: Open Source Software Collection For Windows [ISO]

OpenDisc is an amazing collection of open source software for Windows, which comes with a front-end for easy installing and learning about these application. The software collection comes on a DVD (.iso image - aprox. 825 mb in size) and consists of six different software categories: Design, Games, Multimedia, Internet, Utilities and Productivity.

The two main goals of the project are:

• To provide a free alternative to costly software, with equal or often better quality equivalents to proprietary, shareware or freeware software for Microsoft Windows.
• To educate users of Linux as an operating system for home, business and educational use.

OpenDisc comes with the following open-source applications:

* Design: Blender, Dia, Gimp, Inkscape, Nvu, Scribus, Tux Paint.
* Games: The Battle for Wesnoth, Neverball, Enigma, Sokoban YASC.
* Multimedia: Audacity, Celestia, Really Slick Screensavers, Stellarium, Sumatra PDF, VLC.
* Internet: Azureus, FileZilla, Firefox, HTTrack, Pidgin, RSSOwl, SeaMonkey, Thunderbird, TightVNC, WinSCP.
* Utilities: 7-Zip, Abakt, Clamwin, GTK+, HealthMonitor, TrueCrypt, Workrave.
* Productivity: GnuCash, MoinMoin, Notepad2, OpenOffice.org.

I must say I would have quite quite a few suggestions for this list...

Screenshots:

Looking for an open-source way to burn the OpenDisc CD? Try InfraRecorder.

Download OpenDisc

Edit Images In Linux With Xara Extreme

Xara Xtreme for Linux (formerly known as Xaralx) is an open source image editor based on the Windows Xara LX (which is also an image editor, obviously).

We can use Xara Xtreme to create and edit different types of images, including vector graphics (other Linux vector graphic editors: Inkscape, sK1 - Ubuntu repo). The interface is clean and uncluttered, and in just one window, as opposite to The Gimp (which is still my favourite for complex tasks).

Xara Xtreme for Linux main features:

• Is very fast, very slick to use.
• Offers some of the most powerful graphics tools available.
• Is simple to use and learn.
• Has a clean, un-cluttered user interface. Few floating dialogs, palettes, menus etc.
• Is able to create a huge range of outstanding graphics.
• Has a huge resource of learning material, tutorials, movies, tips and a very active enthusiastic and growing user community.

The program is free and should available in your Linux distribution repositories. For Ubuntu, you can install Xara Xtreme through Synaptic (System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager, then search for "Xara") or by typing the following command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install xaralx

And to also install the extras,

sudo apt-get install xaralx-examples xaralx-svg

If Xara Xtreme is not available in your distro repositories, you can download it from HERE.

Windows users can get a: free Xara Xtreme Special Edition (XS) license in just a few steps.

[via bitelia]

Daphne: Control, Kill and Debug Windows Processes

Daphne is a small (system tray) open source application for killing, controlling and debugging Windows' (2000, XP, 2003 and Vista) processes. It was born to kill a Windows process and became almost a task manager replacement.

The main window displays a list of currently running process with detailed information about: CPU usage, Process ID, Process name, Full path (and arguments), Priority, Class (Process / Service), Current memory usage, Peek memory usage, Current swap usage, Peek swap usage and Number of threads.

Features:

• Enhanced (experimental) multidesktop feature: use up to four windows desktops using WindowsKey + F5 to F8.
• Installed software list for inspecting installed software available in tray icon menu. Installed software
• Check process hierarchy tree using the "Show process tree" at tray icon menu. Process tree
• Parent process name an PID at process' properties.
• Now you can make configuration portable using INI file instead of registry base configuration.
• Support for DRK's process data base information search and contribution.
• Hide application tool: drop the target over the application's window you want to hide. Later, you can restore the application from Daphne menu.
• Hide application, makes an application disappear but keeps it running to get more desktop space.
• Find process window tool: identify the process which owns the targeted window.
• Traps: you can set up traps to be applied to any process being created.
• Detailed process list, including full path and arguments.
• Per process detail including: Windows tree, thread list, modules, enviroment variables.
• Using the windows tree you can: Show, hide, set always on top on or off, set focus, et cetera to any give window.
• Kill all by name: Kill all process using a given name.
• Kill menu: Customizable menu, each menu item has a process list to kill upon activation.
• Process list highlighting with colors for custom, system and high CPU-consumption processes.
• Control inspector window for revealing hidden passwords.
• Drag and drop tool for killing, setting alpha, enabling controls and putting windows always on top.
• "Hide Java VM from command line" option in advanced tab makes Daphne strip the path to the default Java VM in full path mode.
• Internationalization: Spanish, Italian, German, French, Chinese, Valencian, Polish, Russian, Portuguese and Japanese support.

Download Daphne | Once again, thanks to Tinhed for suggesting this great app.

Powerful Open-Source Windows Process Monitor With Advanced Options

Yet Another (remote) Process Monitor (YAPM) is a powerful Windows application that allows to view and manage your running tasks, processes, threads, modules, windows, handles, network connections and your services on a local or on a remote machine. YAPM offers lots of features to manipulate them, such as privilege management, memory management, a complete history of statistics, a dependency viewer... etc. Service startup types can be managed, processor affinities specified, and there's a grayed-out option for limiting CPU usage that will likely be active in a future version.

Don't recognize a specific process (say, for example igfxpers.exe)? Highlight it and click the internet search button to be taken directly to Google's results for clarification. You can also put YAPM's Kung Fu to use monitoring remote machines on your network.

In all honesty, there's so much built in to YAPM that you really need to download it and give it a try - assuming you want a better system monitor.

Features:

* Local and remote monitoring
* Module and thread management
* Handle management (keys, files...)
* View of TCP/UDP connections opened by the processes
* Windows management (opacity, position, show, hide...)
* Window' find' process feature : allows to find the process associated to a window via a drag & drop over the screen
* Emergency Hotkeys feature : allows to associate a custom shortcut to a custom action (for example : Ctrl+Shift+Suppr to close the window which is on foreground)
* State Based Actions feature : allows to launch a custom action depending of the state of the processes (for example : reduce priority of a process if CPU usage > 50%)
* Privilege management : allows to view and modify the privileges of processes
* Build-in hex editor to view memory of processes
* "Log mode" to monitor all actions made by a specific process
* Hidden Processes feature to detect basic rootkits
* Local and remote shutdown
* Dependency viewer
* ... And lots & lots of other features !

Requirements

• .NET Framework 2.0 .
• Administrator rights, if you want to access to system processes and some other informations. For now, it is really better to have administrator rights, but in the future, more informations and actions will be available even if you do not have these rights.
• For remote monitoring, WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) must be installed and available on both machines if you use WMI method, or the YAPM Server application must be started on the remote machine if you use the client-server method.

Yet Another Process Monitor is almost portable (it requires .NET Framework 2.0 as you have seen above), freeware, open-source and works on Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows Seven (32 bits only).

DOWNLOAD YAPM:

• Binaries
• Source code