http://blog.springsource.com/2009/08/10/springsource-chapter-two/
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/springsource.html
http://blogs.vmware.com/console/2009/08/vmware-acquires-springsource.html
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/vmware-to-acquire-springsource,921934.shtml

Looks like a good deal for both companies.

VMware recently hired Mark Lucovsky from Google and now has SpringSource. I guess VMware is really doing well.

Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) Desktop

Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) is now released. It’s time to upgrade!

The version number of Ubuntu indicates the year and month in which it is release. So ’9.04′ means it is released in April (04), 2009.  I’ve just downloaded it and will use the LiveCD first to see if it works well on my PC.  If so, I can use the ‘Update Manager’ to upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04. So handy!

Whenever I say I’m using Linux, I can hear from others that “you will regret using it if you need to update the kernel or a new version is released thus you want to install the new one because it is so difficult to do that”.  Well well, I’m sorry but your experience with Linux is outdated.  Nowadays, it is extremely easy to use Linux especially Ubuntu Linux and I can say with quite certainty that Ubuntu Linux Desktop Edition is easier to use than MS Windows.  Updating kernel or to a new version is as easy as clicking the update button on the Update Manager.  Regarding application installation, it can be done with the ‘Add / Remove Applications’ feature which provides a function to search all the available applications on the Ubuntu software repository.  If you can’t find what you are looking for, there is ‘Synaptic Package Manager’ which is a kind of an advanced software package manager, and it gives you more application list.  Anyway, a thousand hearings are not worth one seeing so better try it!

Atlassian, one of the most famous software companies producing useful Java web applications such as JIRA, Confluence, FishEye, Bamboo, Clover and so on, now offers Confluence (Wiki) and JIRA (Issue Tracking System) with five dollar license for small teams. Compare with the original prices of Confluence and JIRA, it is a very exceptional deal, and I think this is just good for small development teams with five or fewer members.  However, it is available only for five days (20th ~ 24th, April) so if anyone needs it, had better hurry up.

Atlassian, according to the blog linked above, will donate all the proceeds from this event to Room to Read in order to help them build libraries for children in developing countries. What a nice company! I would like to work for a company like this.  Atlassian also gives free licenses for their software products to non-profit organisations and open source projects which is, I believe, another way to make the world better.