Most of us are used to proprietary license agreements for software products -- especially those made by Microsoft -- and perhaps to a limited extent, for some types of hardware as well. In requesting a review package for the Microsoft Zune digital audio player, I was recently presented with something I had never seen before: a license agreement for the actual review materials. The document a public relations representative asked me to sign dictated the terms by which I could use and write about the Zune. Consequently, I declined the opportunity to write about the product because I don't want the manufacturer to put restrictions on what I write about their products. Below is an explanation of what this bizarre agreement entails.

The Southern California Linux Exposition's fifth year has been its best yet, with record attendance, vendor participation, and excellent presentations and talks. There were few new things to announce or showcase at the event, but if you wanted to measure the pulse of the open source software community, this was undeniably the place to be this past weekend.

Java has been the computer programming language of choice for a large percentage of high school and college software programming courses for several years. Many of those programmers learned to develop software with techniques that are now outdated due to enhancements to the Java Development Kit in versions 5 and 6. O'Reilly's Java Generics and Collections is an outstanding complement to an experienced Java programmer's now-outdated education. It brings developers up to speed not only on generics, but on autoboxing, the enhanced for loop, and other recent features that, when combined, make it easier for Java programs to evolve.

Today the Southern California Linux Exposition's fifth iteration kicked off with all-day mini-conferences on free and open source software in the health care industry and women in the free/open source software community. Since the sessions on women seemed to be the less popular, least business-friendly, and most interesting of the two subjects, that was the series I decided to sit in on. It was a life-changing experience for all who attended.

The competition among Ajax programming books has gotten all the more fierce with Prentice Hall's excellent Understanding Ajax. While many Ajax texts are good at covering a handful of advanced Ajax-related topics, this one starts at the beginning and covers every necessary aspect of Ajax programming in just the right amount of detail.

Today the company that develops and controls the db4objects object database announced that in addition to the GNU General Public License and a commercial use license, it will also be offering its flagship product under a new, more freely distributable agreement: the db4objects Opensource Compatibility License (dOCL). This allows the software to be redistributed with a wider range of non-commercial open source projects, many of which cannot easily redistribute programs licensed under the GPL. An explanation of this software, the license, and a brief interview with db4objects CEO Christof Wittig are below.

Much hype accompanied Google's takeover of the Urchin Web analytics package and its subsequent free offering of a low-end version of Urchin to anyone who wanted to sign up. There's a lot to dislike about Google Analytics, but its quality and availability have improved somewhat since its initial release, and for those who can't afford a high-end analytics package that can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month, there are few reasonable alternatives. Wiley Publishing's Google Analytics is a good, in-depth guide to this service and all of its various settings.