Archive

Microsoft's Get the Facts site, which I discussed in my LinuxInsider column last week, "Getting the Facts About Windows and Linux," makes the case that Windows is cheaper than Linux. The site includes a contribution from Meta Group dedicated to the proposition that the combination of Linux plus a da...

Based on arguments that The SCO Group is spoiling its own legal efforts, Linux backer Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has indicated most companies are ignoring the entire matter. Referring to a position paper written by Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen and published by the Linux con...

Open-source developer the Mozilla Foundation has released a new version of its next-generation browser, dubbed Firefox after a name change and the addition of new features that bring the browser, according to the group, to "the bleeding edge of Internet technology." The browser was formerly known as...

The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has released a set of guidelines aimed at helping users deploy Linux in corporate data centers. Following a process that mirrors the open, ongoing development of Linux software itself, OSDL is inviting feedback on the Data Center Linux Technical Capabilities 1...

If you read a report sponsored by the Flat Earth Society in which an independent research organization found the world to be flat, would you believe it? I'd guess not, but any reputable research organization hired to survey the society's membership on the question would have to come to that conclusi...

Looking to head off bugs and to allay fears that its software is not as robust as its competition, MandrakeSoft announced a new development process this week that the company hopes will broaden the appeal of its software. According to the company, which is known for its Linux distributions targeted ...

Waiting for a PC to boot up can be quite boring. Who wants to sit there and watch the Microsoft Windows hourglass graphic for a seemingly interminable amount of time? This problem has plagued the PC industry for years. But a solution could be at hand, at least for entertainment PCs -- those PCs buil...

If you were to make up your own list of the top 10 issues likely to affect computing over the next five to 10 years, would you include liability reform in the American legal system? I think you should, even if you live, as I do, in Canada or some other country where American law doesn't apply direct...

IBM and SuSE Linux -- now owned by Novell -- announced they have reached new heights in Linux security with a standards certification that the companies claim will boost Linux adoption in government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense. The newly earned Common Criteria for Information ...

In a somewhat uncharacteristic announcement about Linux, Hewlett-Packard said its revenue from the open-source operating system and connected products and services hit record levels in 2003, earning the Palo Alto, California-based company $2.5 billion, an increase of about a half-billion dollars fro...

The publication in the Harvard Business Review of an article by Nicholas Carr titled "IT Doesn't Matter" raised much controversy. Carr's fundamental argument is that every widely used business technology conferred significant strategic advantage on early adopters but lost that potency as it matured....

Novell has announced it will indemnify users of its newly acquired SuSE Linux software systems. Following the lead of Hewlett-Packard, which was praised for its savvy in being the first Linux vendor to indemnify customers in the face of SCO's source-code claims last September, Novell said enterprise...

Mixing two of the hottest tech trends -- notebook computers and the Linux operating system -- Taiwanese computer maker EliteGroup and San Diego, California-based Lindows have announced the deployment of more than 300,000 Linux-based laptops to the U.S. market. The $700 machines -- preloaded with Lin...

A few years ago, the only IT system I wasn't responsible for at a multimillion-dollar company consisted of a SCO server with an ancient accounting application maintained by the remaining representative of the company that had originally sold it. At the time, I thought old Vitki (not his real name) w...

The people who run Toronto's municipal IT infrastructure have managed to ground themselves so securely between rocks and hard places that they're about to charge the taxpayer another hundred million or so to bail them out. It really is too bad, but Toronto's not exactly beloved by the rest of the co...