openbear writes "While doing a code review for a closed source project at work I came across a few files that were stolen from an open source project. The individual that did this was dumb enough to leave the original license in one of the files, however he was smart enough to remove all trace of where the code came from. He since quit the organization, so we (the developers) can't get to him to find out where he got this code from. Now management wants us to ship the product as is (with the stolen code intact) because we can't point to the original source of his questionable code. A few of us scoured sourceforge and several apache projects but couldn't find anything matching. My question is: What is the best way to track down where this code originated from. Is there an organization that would help? A tool? A website?"

Scott Taylor writes "I have a paper manual that I would like to convert to an HTML browsable manual and to a text searchable PDF manual. Most of the pages of the manual use the same table layout (albeit an irregular table). My current thought is to scan in the tables and then somehow using OCR software convert the data in the table to a xml marked up file. From there I can use XSLT and FOP to convert the data to HTML and PDF. The problem is that I don't know how I can make the jump from a scanned in picture of a table to XML. Anyone out there tried this before? Is there any software that lets one mark up OCR text based on the table cell it was found in? I don't mind spending money on commercial software if necessary (as long as it doesn't cost too much). Is there a better to solve the problem?"

timdaly writes "A while back Slashdot had an article decrying the lack of a good open source computer algebra system. That is changing. There is a conference scheduled for the end of May to define the development model and strategy for future work. Students of math, science and engineering will find this valuable. If you're tired of hacking open source editors and want something with a real technical challenge this is the area for you."

Lisa writes: "As part of Microsoft's Shared Source initiative, the company announced Tuesday the public availability of more than 1 million lines of Windows and Microsoft .NET source code--aimed primarily at universities. I guess Microsoft hopes to slow down academic support for the open-source Linux OS. Don't know why they expect this to work, but Brian Jepson has a nice overview of this shared source release."

jpsc was kind enough to send in coverage of the Linux Accessibility Conference at CSUN: "There was a flurry of activity in the Linux accessibility world at CSUN 2002, one of the most widely attended, well known, and longest running conferences on technology for the disabled. Accessibility, for those who do not know, is the practice of making software accessible or usable by the disabled (e.g., blind or low vision); under United States law, software, including Linux, must be accessible for it to be used by the government. Similar laws exist in other countries. " Coverage continues...

juan large moose writes: "Microsoft has released documentation on the CIFS protocol suite, but there may be a catch. The license says that the documentation is available for review, but no one may implement the described technology without signing a 'royalty-free' license agreement. Some reviewers are reporting that the document provides less information than the earlier IETF DRAFT CIFS specification, and may in fact be a cleaned-up version of an outdated Storage Network Industry Association CIFS Document. These other documents do not have the restrictive license."

bsartist writes "I've released the first version of a Cocoa/Perl bridge that I call CamelBones. It's alpha-quality but functional enough for the example application, a POD reader similar to MacPerl's Shuck, to be written entirely in Perl." There are other projects like this that have been started, though this is the first one I've seen (since the Rhapsody days, anyway) that has code available.

bildstorm writes "I've recently been looking into content management systems for my company and have found that there are all kinds of systems out there. I've found that most Americans consider web content management to be the catch all for content management (like Interwoven). In Europe, I've noticed that what's referred to as digital asset management is what is usually meant by content management (like Artesia). Has anyone used any of these systems well? For more than just web content? Has anyone tried any open source systems and used them well? I know there is a conference in Zurich next month for open source content management, but I don't know much about the products."

JEmLAC writes: "Fawcette's running an interesting piece (in conjuction with JavaOne) on a presentation by Gartner analyst Mark Driver concerning the emerging niches for Java/J2EE and .Net in the deployment of Web services. His take is that by 2005, they will be co-standards."

rbeattie writes: "This morning at JavaOne it was announced during the keynote that Sun and Apache have come to an agreement securing the basic right to implement Java specifications in open source. Apache actually went as far as issuing a Press Release about it with information about the agreement. One of the cool things is that Sun actually agreed not only to change various licenses and contracts, release the testing code, but also to let qualifying non-profit open source groups use their 1800 support number while testing." (This is a followup to this earlier story indicating that such an agreement had been reached.)

sthiyaga writes: "JavaWorld presents the winners of its 2002 Editors' Choice Awards. 5 out of 10 categories were won by open source projects! It's great to see JBoss win the 'Best Java Application Server' category, beating both BEA's WebLogic and IBM's WebSphere! Read the article at JavaWorld."

Tony Stanco writes: "Newsforge has an article on what happened at the Security Enhanced Linux panel in Washington about certification under the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation standard."

Eugenia writes: "Yup, Bill Hayden has forked AtheOS by using its app_server and Interface Kit (along with some other of its kits, like the filesystem layer) and ported it on top of the 2.4.x Linux kernel, without the need for X11. He already has the graphical environment working, and he also has some BeOS apps recompiled and working under Linux. Why BeOS applications? Because that was the reason of the fork. Exactly because AtheOS and BeOS have similar technical principles (highly multithreaded, truly preemptive, similar C++ API etc), by modifying AtheOS's API to match BeOS, Bill is trying to resurrect the BeOS. By doing so this way, Bill is already way ahead from the other two efforts to ressurect BeOS, OpenBeOS (dependant on the 'clean' NewOS kernel) and BlueOS (which depends on Linux and X11)."

Cow_With_Gun writes: "A small group named Tierra has taken it upon themself to resurrect the classic Sierra anthologies. So far they have brough King's Quest 1 up into the world of VGA and are working on other titles such as Quest for Glory 2 and King's Quest 2."

quick_dry_3 writes: "IBM's ViaVoice list moderator says that "IBM continues to support the Linux community by integrating Linux into all key products. The Linux desktop dictation product is still available and will continue to be sold. At this time, we have decided to discontinue our SDK for developing desktop Linux voice-enabled applications." Full copy of email is here."

k12boy asks: "The company I work for has just announced that we're going to move our corporate headquarters (locally, but to a new building) and our facilities folks are currently searching for the new space. My intuition tells me that the developers on my team would be a lot more productive if I could give them offices (even shared) instead of the cube space they currently have, but I don't have any data to back it up. Does anyone have a pointer to any studies that prove me right or wrong?" Studies aside, can anyone think of a time that programmers actuallly did work more happily or productively in cubicles? Might there be advantages to more open workspaces compared to closed office doors?

An Anonymous Coward writes: "A guy from IBM's Linux Impact Team in Brazil has written a guest column on Linux and Main describing how applications should integrate with Linux. It's Red Hat-centric, but there is a lot of material about the FHS and LSB that most users probably don't know."

vand writes "Do you have, or know anybody who has, any IBM 1401 "system" software? We're looking for Autocoder, Cobol, Fortran, RPG, ... tapes. Sort 7 would be nice to have, too. We'd much rather have the tapes' or decks' contents than have them physically."

An anonymous submitter writes: "Shanghai Jiao Tong University has won the 2002 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest with six of nine problems solved. Also solving six problems were MIT (2nd), University of Waterloo (3rd), Tsinghua University (4th), and Stanford University (5th). You can view the problems online, as well as the final standings. Congratulations to all!"

$ynergy writes "I have been seeing more and more job listings for SQL programmers so, naturally, my interest as been sparked. I have picked up a few materials but, soon realized that it would be easier to apply if I had experience using database software. Would everyone agree? So I am looking for resources, online or in print, that would give a beginner a real in depth look at using database SW." There are at least two issues here: a) learning standard SQL (pick a standard, any standard :) and b) learning all the idiosyncracies of a particular database system. Probably learning basic SQL is the way to start.