A crowd-funded car: Wikispeed raising funds for 100 MPG open-source vehicle

Roadsters

We’ve been tracking lots of creative projects using crowdsourced funding models, but this one puts a new spin on things. Wikispeed, an open-source project developing a 100 mile-per-gallon vehicle, announced this morning that it’s aiming to raise $52,500 over the next two months to take its modular vehicles from prototype to production. The initiative, led… Read More…

After Kickstarter success game studios turn to Zipline for help

doublefine

Kickstarter is revolutionizing the way that game companies raise cash as evidenced by the recent success of Harebrained Schemes (Shadowrun Returns just raised $1.8 million) and Double Fine Productions (Double Fine Adventure pulled in $3.3 million). But once the cash is raised, the developers need to get to work, delivering on the big promises made… Read More…

Surprise: Microsoft makes list of top 20 Linux kernel contributors — first time ever

linuxtux

Has Microsoft figured out a cure for cancer? The company, whose CEO Steve Ballmer once famously compared Linux to that disease, is now one of the top 20 contributors of code to the open-source operating system’s kernel, according to a new report out this morning from the nonprofit Linux Foundation. It’s the first time Microsoft has… Read More…

Ignition Partners leads $40 million round for Cloudera

cloudera

Ignition Partners, Greylock, Accel, In-Q-Tel, Meritech Capital Partners and others are pumping $40 million into Cloudera, a Palo Alto, California-based maker of software and services tied to the Apache Hadoop open source project. Founded in 2008, Cloudera raised a $5 million round in 2009 and $25 million last fall. Total funding now stands at about $80… Read More…

Open source developer objects to news hackathon’s 11-page contract

reifman

Seattle developer Jeff Reifman was looking forward to participating in this weekend’s Hacking Seattle News contest, a three-day hackathon sponsored by Seattle TV station KING 5 in which geeks, news junkies and designers look to transform the way people consume and distribute local news. But Reifman, a former Microsoft employee who operates the open source… Read More…

Microsoft extends SUSE deal, agrees to buy another $100M in Linux support

suselogo

Linux vendor Novell Inc. is no longer a standalone company, but Microsoft today announced an agreement with its successor, Attachmate’s SUSE unit, to extend by four years the technology collaboration agreement and controversial patent protection deal that the companies announced nearly five years ago. As part of the extended agreement, Microsoft agreed to spend an… Read More…

Likewise sells key product lines, switches focus to storage software

likewise

Likewise Software, a Bellevue-based open source software company backed by Ignition, Intel and Trinity Ventures, has sold off its Likewise Enterprise and Likewise Open products to BeyondTrust in a deal of undisclosed size. As a result of the deal, Likewise plans to switch its focus to storage software. “For Likewise, the benefits are clear: we… Read More…