Developers embrace the cloud

Forty percent of developers working on open source projects intend to provide their applications as Web services offerings using cloud providers, according to the latest Evans Data Open Source Development survey, CIOL reports.

Of those who plan to use the cloud, the largest plurality, 28%, plan to use Google's App Engine, while 15% plan to use Amazon's services. Cloud services by other vendors, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Salesforce, are not nearly as popular.

"As costs increase for power, staff and data centre resources, more businesses are being attracted to the latest promise: moving more of the company's infrastructure and applications into a third-party provided cloud," states John Andrews, president and CEO of Evans Data Corp.

C overwhelmingly proved the most popular programming language for thousands of new open source projects in 2008, according to license tracker Black Duck Software, The Register reports.

The company, which monitors 180 000 projects on nearly 4 000 sites, says almost half (47%) of new projects last year used C.

Black Duck said 17 000 new open source projects were created in total and next in popularity after C came Java, with 28%.

Red Hat has released the Linux 5.3, featuring the latest open source technology innovations, reports CRN Australia.

In the third update to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, customers will receive enhancements, including increased virtualisation scalability, expanded hardware platform support and incorporation of OpenJDK Java technologies.

Customers with a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription will receive the Linux 5.3 update, which is available for immediate download from Red Hat Network.