Jake is a cross-platform collaborative file-sharing client that lets you create a folder and keep it synced for everyone you invite. It's built on open-source tools like Jabber, and seems to have a lot of features going for it. You can't really beat it for ease of use: setup is just adding a folder and inviting people, with no server-side fiddling to do. Even better, you can set Jake up on your intranet if you want to use it for work-related purposes.

The main difference between Jake and similar solutions like Dropbox is that Jake doesn't store files on a central server in the cloud. It just uses Jabber, XMPP and other open-source tools to sync the folder for users when they're online. Although Jake saves a log of the changes users make to the folder, it doesn't back up old versions of the data - again, no central server. This makes it slightly less powerful than some other, similar file-sharing services, but it makes setup a lot easier.

Open-source software is everywhere, and developers use it to speed up their development on a regular basis. This is as it should be, for the most part, assuming the developers follow the licensing for whatever open-source software (OSS) they use. Along with licensing, the open-source community is, probably rightly so, very focused on attributing credit correctly. Considering that most OSS developers do not make any money for their contributions, credit and reputation are really the only compensation they can expect.

Imagine the horror in the OSS community then, when a mini-TEDTalk was released today that had presenter Chris Hughes showing off augmented-reality software that is built on very powerful open-source toolkits, but fails to attribute any credit to them, or even mention their existence.

Ralph Hauwert certainly took issue, and wrote a scathing blog post describing the offense. To TED's credit, they have updated the page for today's video, acknowledging the furor and offering an explanation. According to the update, Chris hadn't been intending on presenting at TED, but after privately showing his project to a number of people, he was invited to do a short 2 minute presentation. Due to the extremely short format, there was apparently no time for attribution of credit for the software frameworks his software was based on.

This is a cautionary tale. Clearly someone made a mistake, and Hughes' reputation may end up bearing the brunt of the error. It's important to remember that in the software business there are always two currencies at play: the typical financial currency that we usually think of (you know, money), and credit for the work that was done. Although there is a lot of open-source software that is licensed to be free to use, that fact amplifies the focus on correctly attributing credit for the work that went into the software.

My guess is this is a lesson Chris Hughes isn't likely to forget again.

When Amazon created an iPhone app based on its popular e-reader device, the Kindle, it became clear that $10 books were as big or bigger than $400 readers in Amazon's business model. By allowing reading on other devices, Amazon has been able to make sales to customers who would never have bought a Kindle, and that's worked so well on the iPhone that other devices and book formats are now on the agenda.

According to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the company looks at the ebook business and the gadget business as separate. Expanding to new devices isn't going to keep gadget-hungry consumers from buying a Kindle if they were planning to do it anyway, and plenty of customers who would never buy a Kindle might still buy a few books for their own devices. As for file formats, the Kindle already reads PDFs, but Bezos said other formats could be supported in the future. This may be one of the results we're seeing from Amazon's acquistion of Stanza, which supported formats that the Kindle doesn't yet.

Updated: At first, I thought that recent release of the Kindle Source Code might have something to do with developing for other platforms, but it was actually only done to comply with the Gnu Public License. Because the Kindle was built on some open-source GPL-licensed components, Amazon had to release the parts of the code that were modifications of those components. It unfortunately has nothing to do with enabling developers on other platforms to build apps that work with Kindle books.

Qt Web, the portable, privacy-focused web browser I first posted about in January, has announced the release of its second major version.

The new version features even more customization options for menus, hotkeys, and buttons, including the ability to hide the main menu. Version 2 also adds a virtual keyboard for mouse-only surfing, a print preview option, a better download manager, and improvements to QTWeb's privacy tools. A number of bugfixes have also been implemented - the full list is available on the QT web site.

Two new features that developers will appreciate have been added. Web Inspector - a Firebug-like tool for examining web pages - makes it easy to analyze and troubleshoot code. The Inspector also includes a resources view (pictured) which tracks load times for individual elements on a page. Command line scripting has also been added, which allows dumping pages (including javascript-heavy ones) to a single file.

The installer, portable executable, and zipped portable version are all available from the QtWeb download page.

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.

Since I became irked with the limitations of Allway Sync's free edition, I've been looking for a good replacement. I've been getting by with the MS Synctoy, but thankfully a kick-ass open source app has once again come to the rescue.

Synkron is a powerful, cross-platform synchronization tool that boasts an impressive array of features.

During the install the option is given to add a context menu extension. Oh yes, I'll have that. I work my context menu like a rented mule, and if I can add one-click synchronization to it, you'd better believe I'm going to.

The program sports a tabbed interface, making it easy to set up, run, and manage multiple jobs. The interface is uncluttered and easy to understand. Folder analysis is extremely fast, and files, file types, and folders can be blacklisted to exclude them from synchronizations.

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.

The social bookmarking service Ma.gnolia is announcing a new version at the Gnomedex conference in Seattle today, and the big news is that the whole thing is being rewritten from the ground up. M2, as it's being called, will include all of the features of the current Ma.gnolia, but it's going to be entirely Open Source. A first look at M2 should be available by September.

So, why Open Source, and what does it mean to Ma.gnolia users? Well, you'll be able to download Ma.gnolia and run your own version of it, and that version will be able to interoperate with Ma.gnolia.com and other web services. Standards like OpenID and OAuth will be supported, allowing for maximum portability of your data -- which, in the case of Ma.gnolia, mostly means your bookmarks and tags --- between sites. If you're already thinking of creative uses for an Open Source Ma.gnolia, good! They're looking to make user feedback a big part of building M2, so keep an eye on their blog if you've got input.

Despite its seriously flawed name, Coccinella, the open source IM client, has some interesting features that might make you do a double take. The idea of chatting and having the ability to draw on a whiteboard, as well as play chess during a chat session sounds like fun, so I decided to give it a spin.

I learned from the process that Coccinella is the Latin name for ladybug. It is not, as I had thought originally, a bacteria found in pond scum. I continued my pursuit, preferring to focus on the cute little ladybug in the logo and ignore the unfortunate "ella" associations with the name.

Coccinella is a free download for Windows, Linux and Mac. After downloading the application, the set up assistant leads you to select from a list of servers to open a new account on. Although Coccinella can connect to any Jabber/XMPP instant messaging server including Google Talk, AOL, MSN and ICQ, you have to dig for information to find out how. The set up assistant leads you to select from various servers and so I created an account with Jabber.org. I was happy I did.

Louis Suarez-Potts, the community manager for the open-source Open Office project, says software piracy also hurts the open-source community, and though it can be argued that open-source is bad for innovation, most of us love the open source community. So does the occasional pirated piece of software really hurt our beloved open source projects?

Suarez-Potts thinks it's bad for everyone including the open source community since pirated software theoretically takes "customers" away from open source projects. For example, a college student may never end up downloading Open Office since he copied Microsoft Office from a friend, but that's not to say it hurts the money-makers like Microsoft at all. A little bit of piracy helps to establish big company's products as "the standard", hurting open source projects even more and making it harder for them to get their foot into a user's door.

Now we'd like to pose a question: Like the college student used in the example above, does pirating software generally prevent you from trying Open Source software or would you have put the cash down anyway even if you couldn't get it for free?

Have you ever looked in a real DIYers toolbox? Or maybe even the toolbox of someone who's pretty handy, but who has a messy streak? So all the hammers might be together, or all the screwdrivers will be together, maybe even with some sort of arrangement as to Phillips or Torx heads... but there is almost inevitably, in some corner compartment of the toolbox, or some drawer (and maybe several of them, even) an area set aside for what amounts to a whole lot of miscellaneous "everything" bits. These pieces might logically be found with hammers, or dry wall tools, or about a million other things... But they aren't quite the same, and they aren't always used in the same manner. So they end up in a big pile, that you hope stays manageable enough you can find them again.

This week's Linux switch, the last of the web development stuff for a bit, is like that compartment. These are all nifty little tools, and great when you need them. But they are mostly small, and have a strange distinction of not always being associated with any one particular type of task.

Some, like FTP programs and plugins, are associated with other programs. But what if you love your editor and hate the uploading functions it has? Image maps can be a nuisance to set up, and we think that's probably part of the reason why you don't see a lot of them. But sometimes, they just fit the project at hand.

And you know how we said we'd go easy on the editors? Seriously, we meant it. However, there's one more editing tool we want to mention that's probably beyond most casual users, but will make Linux users who want to develop SWF9 applications pretty happy. We are not covering it in any great depth, because we are not any sort of whizzes with Flash development -- but we have to point it out. It's been a long time coming!

So welcome to our odds and ends compartment of web tools!

Since it was revealed that Apple's recently-announced .mac replacement, MobileMe, was partially built on something called SproutCore, the buzz around this hot new JavaScript framework has been growing. Although this is the first that many people will have heard about it, SproutCore has actually been around for a while, powering services like .mac's Mobile Galleries. Now it's getting so much attention that SproutCore.com has been unreachable all day, a week after the WWDC announcement.

So, why SproutCore? Daniel Eran Dilger, over at RoughlyDrafted, has a great rundown of things to love about this open source JavaScript framework: it will allow developers to build web apps that look more like desktop apps, function offline, and take advantage of modern browser features. Apple's using SproutCore to build a front end for WebDav and its own WebObjects, but other developments could easily add PHP, JSON or XML data to the mix, to name a few.

[via RoughlyDrafted]

It's official - SourceForge.net has joined the OpenID bandwagon. SourceForge, the world's largest open source software development website, is a little late to the party but nonetheless, it's nice to see a leader of the open source community adopting OpenID and walking the walk.

OpenID is an open source, decentralized, digital identity user system which allows users to have one identity across the internet and alleviates the hassle of having multiple user names and passwords to log-in to different sites.

OpenID is gaining traction with big companies such as AOL, Sun, Microsoft, and Novell who are accepting and providing OpenIDs. Today it is estimated that there are over 160-million OpenID enabled URIs with nearly ten-thousand sites supporting OpenID logins.

Thanks FF!

Do you remember our youth? The good times we had, the games we played, and that great discussion we had about what makes a window manager different from a desktop environment? Then our relationship sort of got stuck on desktop environments.

It's understandable, of course. Most new Linux users feel more comfortable with something a little heavier than a window manager like Fluxbox or WindowMaker. The interesting thing, of course, is that many new users are either consciously or unconsciously playing the field of not only distributions, but desktops.

Rest assured, KDE will not text you a hundred times a day to beg, plead or curse if you switch desktops. GNOME will not mail you a dead fish from the opposite side of the country, book rate. In this relationship, it is always okay to have a wandering eye, not only for what is out there, but for what's on the horizon.

We like Enlightenment as it stands now. It's one of our favorite window managers. It doesn't feel too foreign to the new user, but it is still extremely lightweight. If there was a spectrum with the heaviest desktop environments on the right, and the lightest window managers on the left, just right of the middle would be the venerable Xfce, and just to the left of the middle would be Enlightenment.

But as for what's on the horizon for Enlightenment? We have seen e17. Right now it's an alpha release, and we're waiting not too patiently for the coming out party. We are smitten.

Google is gearing up for their 4th year Summer of Code 2008, where students developers get paid $4,500 to write code for various open source projects over the summer, starting about May 26 and ending around August 11.

Students are paired with mentors, (a group running open source projects), such as Mozilla Foundation, Drupal, OpenOffice.org, Wikimedia Foundation, One Laptop Per Child and Google, to name a few from the 2007 program.

To qualify as a student, you have to be enrolled at a college or university as of April 14, 2008 and no, you don't have to be a computer engineer major to apply, but it is helpful to know how to code. Sorry to those who hail from Iran, Syria, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea and Mynamar (Burma), who are ineligible to participate due to U.S. law.

Google is expecting over 130 organizations to be paired with over 900 students for 2008. The goal of the program is to inspire students to work on open source projects, and to help open source projects recruit more developers.

Applications for mentor organizations are being accepted March 3-12, 2008 and student applications will be accepted March 24-31, 2008.