Linux in Government: The End Game for Vendor Lock-In
01 August 2005

Open-source and standards compliant Linux quickly is becoming the enabler in today's complex IT infrastructures.

The days of putting up with frozen screens, viruses, worms, unpatched systems and applications and bad system management practices are coming to a swift end. All of the marketing hype in the world cannot make Microsoft a better system. It's time finally to admit that you can search the Internet faster with Google and its Linux technology than with your own desktop. Enterprises might consider that fact when starting to think about consolidating their business processes.

...In the last five years, Linux has proven to have a worthy paradigm for collaboration and it makes effective use of the Internet. Using Web service technologies and open standards allows enterprises to respond to security threats while providing higher levels of customer satisfaction and containing costs. The opportunity to use Linux exists now. Take the decision to the executive suite and see if it makes sense for you.

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IBM ends support for OS/2, suggests move to Linux
12 July 2005

Effective December 23, 2005, OS/2 will cease to be marketed and product CDs will no longer be available. Standard Support will end on December 31, 2006.

"There are no replacement products from IBM. IBM suggests that OS/2 customers consider Linux as an alternative operating system for OS/2 client and server environments."

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Red Hat to Acquire Netscape Enterprise Solutions
26 October 2004

On September 30, 2004, Red Hat announced plans to buy certain assets of Netscape Security Solutions from America Online (AOL). The products to be acquired include Netscape Directory Server and Netscape Certificate Management System. Netscape Directory Server is an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) for centrally managing application settings and access controls. Netscape Certificate Management System is designed for user authentication.

"Red Hat is committed to building a secure computing environment in the enterprise," said Paul Cormier, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Red Hat. "Directory Server and Certificate Management System will enable the integration of the desktop with a network-wide set of computing services that up until now had only been available from a small set of proprietary vendors."

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Configuring Evolution 2.0 with Exchange and GPG Keys Support
19 October 2004

FedoraNEWS.org has an article on setting up an Evolution email client to access an Exchange Server and configure it to use GPG keys; allowing you to sign, decrypt and encrypt incoming and outgoing messages.

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Debian project, others, reject Sender ID
05 September 2004

Martin Michlmayr - Debian Project Leader writes, "...The current Microsoft Royalty-Free Sender ID Patent License Agreement terms are a barrier to any Debian package which wants to implement Sender ID or include Sender ID support. We believe the current license and resulting encumbrances are incompatible with the DFSG, unlike other Internet standards that Debian is able to support. Therefore, we cannot implement or deploy Sender ID under the current license terms. Indeed, we would be forced to remove senderID support from software we ship that does support Sender ID upstream according to the terms of our social contract." Full Message

This mirrors a previous decision by The Apache Software Foundation.

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Novell Moves to Dismiss SCO Lawsuit with Prejudice
10 August 2004

The Motion to Dismiss is short and sweet: SCO's complaint, they say, should be denied for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. That's legalese for: "This case is ridiculous." SCO claims Novell slandered them, but they can't prevail because:

* Novell has a privilege to publicly assert a rival claim to the UNIX copyrights (meaning, it's not slander if it's true or you have a good faith belief that you own the UNIX copyrights, not SCO);
* Novell has a privilege to publish its rival claim to parties with a common interest in the UNIX copyrights (like all Linux users, but especially all those companies being sued by SCO or suing or maybe worried about getting sued someday); and
* SCO can't allege malice, a necessary element, given the Court's earlier Order. Remember, Your Honor, how you said it wasn't a bit clear, but we made some convincing arguments? If *you* are not sure SCO has the copyrights, and you are the judge here, how can Novell be called malicious for saying so too?

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Linux company licenses Windows Media Player code
28 April 2004

Turbolinux, a leading Linux distribution in the Asia-Pacific region, has started shipping with a media player which can stream pure Windows Media format audio and video.

The company licensed code from Microsoft for creating the media player, according to a report at the tech news site, The Inquirer.

According to a media release from the company, the distribution with which the media player would be shipped is called urbolinux 10 F and designed for home users.

"Japanese consumers are moving in large numbers to Linux," Koichi Yano, president and COO of Turbolinux, Inc, was quoted as saying in the release. "Turbolinux Desktop has long had the best Asian language support and with 10F we now have the best multimedia system for consumers."

The Inquirer said Turbolinux would pay royalties to Microsoft for the ability to use the media player code, based on the number of copies of its distribution which were sold.

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New IBM Commercial: Linux. The Future Is Open
14 December 2003

"Linux is like nothing else in the history of computing—the most unique innovation operating systems have ever seen. It's unprecedented integration. It's an open source operating system. Owned by no single company or private enterprise. Constantly improved by thousands of programmers. And it's getting bigger. Last year, according to the IDC, shipments of servers running Linux increased by 22.8%.

If Linux were a person, he would be growing, fast. Taught by the best. Gaining wisdom beyond his years. And sharing. He would be in business, education, government and homes. He would be a nine-year-old boy changing the world."

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Home users leap to Linux
23 November 2003

When the operating system on Matthew P. Frye's home computer crashed and died a year ago, he had two choices: spend hundreds of dollars to rebuild his desktop using Microsoft programs, or try the less expensive alternative of switching to the Linux computer operating system.

Frye chose Linux.

It took the senior systems programmer at Rex Hospital in Raleigh, N.C., three months and $39 to download Linux desktop applications to replace those he used in Windows.

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Linux based PVR's are ready for media-center
19 November 2003

We've heard rumblings in the community for quite some time about individuals creating homebrew PVRs using Linux. Out of these stories and legends, a few projects have actually developed some rather useful PVR applications that also support MAME, photo albums, CD ripping/playback, MP3/Ogg playback, IMDB support, and Internet radio and weather reports.

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Give Your Penguin Wings: FlightGear
11 November 2003

As a fan of physics, I have often been intrigued by flight and fluid dynamics. I actually know very little about either but I can certainly appreciate and admire them at work. So I have long been a fan of flight simulators, and love getting behind the stick of a single propellor plane or a jumbo jet and seeing how many crazy things I can try before I crash into the ground from a horrible stall. That, however, is not the point of this article.

Check out this quick little review on FlightGear!

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GKrellM: Geek eye-candy, monitors, and more
29 October 2003

Bill Wilson's little "single process stack of system monitors" known as GKrellM has become so popular some refer to it (or just use it) as geek eye-candy rather than as the very nice performance monitoring tool that it is. In fact, GKrellM is so popular it may have more plugins than other projects have users.

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MythTV Is Real!
28 October 2003

Everybody has heard of TiVo: pause and rewind live TV, record shows for future viewing, manage all your recordings without having to shuffle VHS cassettes. Its a neat concept to say the least; some have even called it a revolution. And now manufacturers like Microsoft and various satellite and cable companies are throwing their hats in the ring hoping to get a piece of the PVR (Personal Video Recorder) business.

But do you really need to purchase a commercial off-the-shelf product? Do you really need to pay monthly fees to own your own modern day VCR? Well, not really.

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