BitPim isn't a new app, but I've been using it for quite a while, and I thought I'd share. We write a fair amount about the iPhone here at Download Squad, but some of us are stuck with less-than-smart phones that are over a year old, on CDMA networks. Not that I'm bitter, or anything, but how are you supposed to get data like contacts and ringtones onto (and off of) these things? BitPim!

Bitpim is an an open source app that lets you access your phone's data via Bluetooth. I use it to get custom mp3 ringtones onto my junky Samsung dumbphone, and it works phenomenally well. There's a list of compatible phones on the Bitpim site, but chances are that yours will work. Be aware that Bitpim could potentially mess up your phone, although I haven't any issues with it personally.

We've covered many, many Explorer replacements here in the past, so I was a little surprised that MuCommander hadn't been written up yet.

What makes MuCommander stand out is that it is free, open source, and cross-platform. The author's web site provides downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux (.tar.gz) as well as a Debian package, portable version, and a Java Web Start package.

It's actually the first JWS application I've come across since I started reviewing for Download Squad. It loaded fairly quickly on my netbook, and ridiculously fast on my quad-core AMD desktop.

MuCommander presents a skinnable, dual-pane view for file management. There's no tab support, though I don't consider that a major shortcoming - especially considering its other features are numerous, and extremely useful.

For starters, there's built-in support for FTP, SFTP, Samba, HTTP, NFS, and Bonjour. Several types of archives can be explored without extracting: zip, rar, tar, gzip, bzip2, iso, nrg, deb, and lst. MuCommander can create archives (press ctrl+I to pack) and even modify zip files on the fly without having to recompress the entire archive

There's also a command shell window with scrolling output, credential manager, and favorite locations list.

MuCommander is a fantastic file manager, and well worth a test drive for any user - regardless of OS.

Google released an SDK for the Android mobile operating system a few months ago. But with the first Android-powered phone set to go on sale tomorrow, Google went all out and released the source code today.

This isn't a surprise. Google has long stated that it would make the source code for the operating system available, but now that it is, developers can do far more than create applications that will run on Android. They can help improve the operating system overall by submitting potential new features, bug fixes, or other ideas.

The software license also allows developers to port Android to run on additional devices (Perhaps your old Palm TX? Maybe an Eee PC?), or to develop custom versions of the operating system. Don't like the version of Android that ships with the T-Mobile G1? Maybe Verizon or Spring will have a phone that runs a completely different operating system built on the same source code.

You can check out a video introducing the open source project after the break.

[via Techmeme]

I'm always on the lookout for apps that can ease my workload or free up some room in my budget, and open source applications are an excellent way for me to accomplish both.

If you're in the same boat as me, hopefully you're already utilizing some open source options. If not, I've put together this list of two dozen great applications that I can depend on to keep things running smoothly on my office LAN and customer systems as well.

Some of these you'll recognize, but I hope that there are some that are new to you as well.

1. PING - I may be beating a dead horse here with my love of PING, but it's just a great piece of open source. Drive imaging with network and spanning support, password blanking, it's just an excellent app.
   
   
2. NTRegEdit - The Windows Registry editor hasn't seen many changes over the years. NTRegEdit offers some great additional features like recursive export, color coding, improved searching, and quick edit window below the values list.
   
   
3. Safarp - A portable alternative to appwiz.cpl (add/remove programs), it provides a few extra useful features - like silent uninstalls and repairs of Windows Installer-based apps. It also opens in a flash, unlike the clunky appwiz.
   
   
4. WPKG - Maintaining software installs on computers in a small business environment can be a little frustrating sometimes. WPKG gives you push/pull installs and it can run as a service, so silent installs run transparently with no user ineteraction.

Development toward the 2.6 release of GIMP continues, and devoted users can now head over to the FTP server and grab a copy of the new (and unstable) 2.5.4 release.

Several UI annoyances have been fixed. Docks and toolboxes can now be easily recovered from an accidental close via the window menu. You can also lock your tabs to a dock to keep yourself from dragging them out by mistake, and presets can be saved in all GIMP's color tools.

A blank, placeholder window has been added (pictured), which allows files to be dragged-and-dropped for editing.

The help system has been improved, and now supports online browsing. If you don't have the entire set of docs installed, GIMP will simply open the requested page in your web browser.

Full release notes are available here.

As you might have noticed from our Google Chrome coverage, we're pretty excited about the potential -- even if it hasn't lived up to everyone's expectations. Much of that potential is tied-up in the architecture used to create Chome. As Google continued to reiterate during yesterday's webcast, Chrome is open source.

The open source project is called Chromium, after the metal used to make chrome. In typical Google fashion, the project page has documentation, FAQs, and build-instructions. Even though Chrome is only available for Windows XP and Vista systems right now, users on Linux and Intel Macs running Mac OS X Leopard can compile the Chromium source and run some command line tests (in the case of Linux) and TestShell (OS X). The UI layers for Linux and Mac systems have not been developed -- but many of the underlying core modules can be tested.

One of the most frequently asked questions in our liveblog yesterday (and a question asked by the press at the end of the webcast) was about the potential for extensions for Chrome. As of right now, there is not an extension API. While one of the Googler's alluded to its inclusion in a future build (he seemed to stop himself from being too specific), it was also pointed out by the guys at Mountain View that the open source nature of the project can allow savvy developers to create their own extension-friendly browser.

In addition to Chromium, Google has also open souce the new JavaScript engine employed by Chrome, V8. V8 is written in C++ and can be run standalone or embedded in a C++ application. It runs on XP, Vista, Mac OS X Leopard and Linux distros running on IA-32 (x86) or ARM processors.

I haven't had a chance to look at all the documentation, though I'm certainly interested in playing around with V8 and maybe even cracking out Visual Studio 2005, to take a better look at all of this stuff.

So developers -- what do you think of Chrome and Chromium?

Over the past few years, we've seen a number of artists, software developers and others release their work under non-traditional copyright licenses. Historically, copyright laws have been used to prevent others from redistributing your work. But Creative Commons and the GNU General Public License allow content makers to distribute their work for free -- while insisting upon certain conditions.

For example, there are Creative Commons licenses that would let you write a poem and allow anyone to publish that poem on their web site as long as they provide proper attribution. Or you can use the GNU GPL to release a piece of software that others can distribute for free, or even charge a fee for -- as long as they continue to make the source code available for free.

Up until now, the validity of these licenses hasn't really been put to the test. But on Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned a San Francisco court ruling dealing with just these issues. Basically, a software developer who published model train software was using code that had been released for free. But he did not give credit to the developers of the original software, despite the fact that the license required him to do so.

When the guy who developed the open original application filed suit, the San Fransisco court ruled that the terms of the license were too broad to be enforceable. But this week's ruling overturns that decision which means that software developers, musicians, artists, and others who release their work under an "open source" license have a reasonable expectation that the terms of the license will be enforceable -- at least until some schmuck comes along and takes the case to the Supreme Court.

Kids get computers. It seems like they take to them almost immediately, once they are big enough to be able to control a mouse. But what about kids that aren't yet big enough? I know both of my boys wanted to bang away on the keyboard from a very young age.

Rather than opening a Word document and setting the font to a huge size, why not run a program that is specifically created for young children? Well, that's what Scot Hanselman must have thought when he decided to create Baby Smash.

Baby Smash is a simple Windows program that will lock out the special keys on the keyboard so that baby can't accidentally exit the program, and will then show colorful shapes with fun sound effects in response to baby's key presses, or more likely key mashes (and slams, and bangs, and mashes, etc.).

Scott is a well-known Windows development blogger who recently went to work for Microsoft. He's using the development of Baby Smash to teach Windows development concepts on his popular blog, ComputerZen.

Google may have decided to cease development of the Google Browser Sync plugin for Firefox, but that doesn't mean the utility will never see another update. Because rather than simply boxing up the source code and packing it away, Google decided to release the source code publicly under the BSD license.

Google Browser Sync is a utility that lets you synchronize your Firefox bookmarks, preferences, and cookies across multiple computers.

Now anyone can check out the source from the Google Code project page. While nobody's done anything really cool yet like make a version of Google Browser Sync that works with Firefox 3, it may just be a matter of time.

One thing that's particularly interesting is the fact that Ars Technica reports Google posted the source code online on June 13, the same day that Lifehacker confirmed the death of the official project. It's not clear which came first, the chicken or the egg. But either way, we're not complaining. If Google isn't going to continue developing this useful utility, then we're just glad that someone else may be able to pick up the torch.

Nokia has announced that it is buying out the 52 percent of Symbian that it didn't already own and opening up the platform. Nokia and a number of other companies including AT&T, LG, and Samsung have also announced the creation of the Symbian Foundation.

Now, open source software is great for developers because it mean that anyone can easily look at the code, tweak it, and write applications designed to run well on the platform. But ther's also a huge benefit for telecom companies. Nokia will provide access to the Symbian OS royalty-free to members of the Symbian Foundation. And anyone can join the foundation for a nominal $1500 annual fee.

Symbian currently has about 60 percent of the mobile browser market share. The move to make the platform open source should help Nokia and Symbian maintain that lead in the face of challenges from the LiMo Foundation and Google's Linux-based Android platform.

[via OStatic]

The OLPC team yesterday announced plans to load Windows XP on XO Laptops in a handful of countries in June as part of a limited trial. By September, Windows could be available to any developing nation placing orders for XO Laptops. And today, Walter Bender, the former president of software for the OLPC Foundation says the unique software interface that was designed for the XO Laptop will live on. Maybe.

Here's a little background. The XO Laptop was designed to be a cheap laptop that could be distributed in developing nations to help bridge the digital divide. The original plan for the XO was to use Linux as an operating system because it's cheap, works well on low-powered devices, and because it's open source anyone could write software for it easily. A unique desktop environment called Sugar was built to make Linux more user-friendly. But many governments have been reluctant to place orders for the laptops because they don't run Windows, which is the desktop operating system used by most of the rest of the world. So the OLPC Foundation has been working with Microsoft to bring a low cost version of Windows XP to the XO.

But what does that mean for Sugar? Walter Bender says Sugar Labs, a new non-profit will develop new versions of the software. The goal is to continue developing open source software for the XO so that children in developing nations will be exposed to open source applications and ideals as they learn about computing. The question is, if Windows XP is available for just $3 more than Linux, will anybody buy the Linux/Sugar version? Yes, we know that many Download Squad readers would be more interested in the Linux models, but if the goal is to give school-age children in your country computer literacy, wouldn't you want them to use the same software that most students in countries like the US are using?

Adium, the multi-protocol, open source, Instant Message client for Mac OS X has today reached version 1.1. Whilst the team behind the project have been releasing regular updates to the client, this particular update is of note due to its much longer development period (according to the Adium blog, version 1.1 has been a year in the making).

So what's new? Firstly there'sa dose of "tastier tabs". Tabs are something Adium has had for a while, however the new tabs, part of the Google Summer of Code project, are indeed far tastier. There's a plethora of other new features too, however one of note is the new ability to import iChat message logs to Adium - Adium has long held its own over iChat's basic transcript handling. In other news, MSN 'nudges' and Yahoo! Buzzes are fully supported too.

Adium is, of course, a free download and supports MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, Jabber / GTalk and more protocols.

Update: Reader Racco notes in the comments that v1.1 requires Mac OS X 10.4.0 Tiger.

SAP's new download includes a bunch of open-source tools including RadRails, Eclipse, PHP/Ruby/Python code generators, and SAP's scripting tools. This shows the growing trend that large software companies are beginning to realize the huge value of free open-source frameworks and ideas. Eclipse and RadRails are excellent tools to use, even for the wizards at SAP so it only makes sense that they use these tools and bundle them for developers. I have always considered SAP to be somewhat forward thinking, but this proves they see the value in the tools already freely available to developers. They are only making life easier on themselves and keeping developers happy too. Sun, Microsoft, IBM, and others have shown signs of embracing open-source tools, though they haven't quite brought their open-source offerings to their full potential. They haven't quite reached critical mass, but they are on the way.

The revolution that is open-source has extended further than we ever thought it would. Now we even have open-source soft drinks. Oh yeah, that's right open-source cola. Who would have thought you could have an open-source cola? Lame or not, it is at least an original idea. It seems that original ideas have been hiding back in the shadows for the most part, since a lot of the ideas in the Web 2.0 world are over-recycled. This made me wonder what kind of other ideas and markets might benefit from open-source? Food, TV, construction, medicine, college courses, sports, entertainment? It is an interesting thought. Check out Wikipedia's page on open-source cola, and watch out for Coke and Pepsi to start adding DRM to their cola products soon, so no one can copy them easily. There goes the neighborhood.

If you ever have need for an online learning center of any kind, Moodle is most likely one of the best options you have. It is a full-blown pedagogical learning managment system that has everything you could want and more. It is "easy" to configure if you know what you're doing. It is written in PHP and uses MySQL as a backend, but can be used with other database systems if needed. Many universities and K-12 schools have setup online learning centers using Moodle. I have personally used it for corporate projects, including hacking it to give me exactly the data I want for integration with an existing training tracking application. It plays nice with many types of content including SCORM, flash, and many more. Moodle also supports many types of modules that are easy to install through it's clean interface. It is a bit easier to install and use than many other learning systems I have tried, and is more stable. Moodle is free for download. Open-source LMS baby!