Open Source Software

The Apache Roller 4.0 is a major Roller release and it has a host of new features. It includes easier blog customization, a much simpler installation and upgrade process, some improvements in the infrastructure and other small fixtures here and there. Here’s a low down on the major features that have been added to it:

Easy customization: It has become much simpler with the Roller 4.0 for people to customize the look and feel of their blog. There have also been improvements in the theme and templates and user interface has been moved around a bit. The theme- chooser and template editing pages now have their own tabs and there is now a design tab that includes all theme and template functionality.

Easy to install: Roller’s installation process has gained it a fair bit of complaints from users and the company has been working overtime to remove this snag. If you’ve already setup Java and a Servlet container there is not much to do for Roller but to create a settings folder and bring the Roller WAR into use. There is no need to download Hibernate separately as Roller no longer needs Hibernate and there’s no need to setup a JNDI data-source.

There are now Pluggable Comment Validators which make it possible to plugin multiple comment validators and provide a set of default validators for blacklist, excess size, excess links and also for the  Akismet spam prevention system.

There are also a lot of infrastructural improvements in the Roller 4.0 which now requires Java SE 5, Struts2 instead of Struts1 and also includes a JPA based back-end implementation that makes Hibernate entirely redundant.

Basically there are all the above fixes and many more small one which make the Apache Roller 4.0 a damn neat tool and it’s removed a lot of its earlier flaws.

In an attempt to improve its cross platform offerings for mobile phones and desktop applications, cell phone giant Nokia announced its acquisition of Trolltech. The Norwegian company which manufactures software platforms and develops frameworks will now be under Nokia’s control. Nokia paid $ 153 million for this acquisition. This way Nokia has managed to hold its ground in the mobile market against Apple and Google which have been making inroads fast and at the same time possibly slowly down the Motorola juggernaut.

Nokia spokespersons said that the Qtopia software technology developed by Trolltech will help Nokia in the spread of its Ovi Web portal. They also said that the software developed by the company is used in many thousands of extremely popular applications like Skype and Google Earth. It has also been used in more than 10 million devices including mobile handsets, media players, set top boxes and video phones.

Even though Nokia has been long resisting the Linux-based market this move will put it in a strong position as and when it decides to enter it.

“Trolltech’s deep understanding of open source software and its strong technology assets will enable both Nokia and others to innovate on our device platforms while reducing time-to-market,” said Kai Oistamo, Nokia’s executive VP of the firm’s devices unit, in a statement. He said that the move will help Nokia boost the growth of mobile devices and PCs and accelerate the rate of their integration with the internet.  Nokia plans to continue licensing Trolltech technology for commercial as well as open source usage.

This move will probably affect Motorola more than ever because it uses Qtopia software in all of its Linux based phones and as Nokia acquires control over it, Motorola will use yet another key supplier. This move could also prove a major setback to Motorola’s plans of developing Linux software in the coming year.