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In their ongoing, worldwide tit-for-tat battle over a name, Windows maker Microsoft and Linux desktop player Lindows have been in courtrooms in a handful of nations, with a U.S. case set to begin later this month. In the latest chapter of the ongoing saga -- which Microsoft depicts as an abuse of it...

Online music store Napster announced this week a new cache-management technology that uses Linux, open standards and IBM services to provide its music service for universities, ISPs and businesses without impacting bandwidth or introducing security threats. The application, dubbed "Super Peer," will...

What really are the most fundamental differences between Windows variants like 2003/XP and Unix variants like Linux? From a practical perspective, cost is an obvious differentiator, as are access to source and the ability to run outside the Intel processor environment. But it's possible to argue tha...

Silicon Graphics on Wednesday touted as a breakthrough and industry first its achievement of support for as many as 256 Intel Itanium 2 processors with a single instance of the Linux operating system. In addition to immediate availability of its Advanced Linux Environment with ProPack 2.4 for Altix ...

Software giant Computer Associates is refuting reports that it is among a handful of companies that have agreed to buy a license to run Linux from SCO Group, which has sued companies that have refused the license on the basis of its claims to owning certain source code used in Linux. SCO backpedaled...

Last week, LinuxInsider published a story looking at the role of Groklaw.net, an informational Web site dealing with The SCO Group's lawsuits against Linux users and supporters. The story contained both expressions of support for, and criticism of, Groklaw and its founder-publisher Pamela Jones, inc...

Want to know why most business analysts and venture capitalists simply don't get it with respect to Unix? Take a look at the computer books they study while working toward their MBA, financial analysis certificate or accounting designation, and you'll understand that their ignorance isn't entirely t...

A buzz of activity in the SCO-Linux legal saga probably is not distracting Linux developers from their work, according to a survey by Evans Data Corporation that indicates more than 90 percent of those developers believe SCO's claim to own source code used in Linux has no merit. SCO Group, a Utah so...

There's nothing like a good legal battle to whip up passions, and the SCO Group-versus-the-open-source-world dogfight is no exception. Rhetoric runs high. From the open-source advocates, it's "you're stifling free thought in the name of greed." SCO allies counter with "you're attacking the core valu...

The diversity of operating systems and hardware in the datacenter is greater than ever before, while data software specifically designed to manage the different types of systems is becoming more widespread and popular. With a firsthand view of the evolution of Linux and its increasing role in today'...

I've been puzzled by Sun's Linux strategy for a long time. On the software side, things make sense: Linux is Unix, so supporting Linux in the short term brings new value to Solaris in the long term. On the hardware side, however, I couldn't see any logical reason for Sun to sell x86 boxes until just...

In stark contrast to the long waits typical for Windows users wanting to patch software vulnerabilities, recently discovered security weaknesses in the core of the Linux operating system were addressed by major vendors in a matter of just a few days this week. Two security vulnerabilities in the Lin...

One of the unfortunate realities of the Wintel monoculture is that expectations are set mainly by ads, the Sunday supplements and stereotypes like TV character Marshall, the supertech on the show Alias. But delivery is constrained by reality. As a result, the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MC...

Didn't Netscape lose the browser war? Mozilla, the technology that lies underneath Netscape products and a slew of its own products, just gets better and better. Netscape is effectively dead, but Mozilla keeps on keeping on. In 2010 we'll look back and say 2003 was the year that Mozilla really began...

IBM reportedly is working with Microsoft to port the Redmond, Washington-based company's popular Office desktop software to the Linux platform, a platform that IBM has wholeheartedly endorsed and leveraged to win market share in the enterprise-computing space. Although open-source alternatives such ...