Just in time for the launch of openSUSE 11.1, Novell developers have completed the new Contrib-Repository. The Contrib will act as a bridge between factory (packages officially supported by Novell) and third party packages.
Novell announced that BrainShare 2009 has been canceled. BrainShare has been held for more than 20 years, and the 2009 event was scheduled for March 8 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Chipmaker Intel is currently working on Linux support for its next generation of USB, version 3.0. The new bus specification promises a 5 Gbit per second transfer speed, ten times faster than USB 2.0.
The nonprofit LinuxFund.org is providing financial support for Gnash, the Flash alternative, to accelerate development of the Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP).
Hewlett-Packard has partnered with Novell in developing a new, secure Linux desktop product. At the same time, HP has joined up with Mozilla to promote a desktop virtualization project for small business customers.