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Davidson reports: The project was a result of SCO's executive management refusing to believe that it was possible for Linux and much of the GNU software to have come into existance without *someone* *somewhere* having copied pieces of proprietary UNIX source code to which SCO owned the copyright. The hope was that we would find a "smoking gun" somwhere in code that was being used by Red Hat and/or the other Linux companies that would give us some leverage. (There was, at one stage, the idea that we would sell licenses to corporate customers who were using Linux as a...

Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Ltd, founders of the popular Ubuntu Linux-based operating system, have today announced the creation of The Ubuntu Foundation with an initial funding commitment of US$10m. The Ubuntu Foundation will employ core Ubuntu community members to ensure that Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com) will remain fully supported for an extended period of time, and continue to produce new releases of the distribution. As a first step, the Foundation announces that Ubuntu version 6.04, due for release in April 2006, will be supported for three years on the desktop and five years on the server. The Foundation was established on July...

I thought I would make jump into the open source world today. Linux is supposed to be more stable, robust, and powerful than Windows, and the relatively easy system requirements made it a good choice to load on my older Athlon 1000 PC. The installation process was simple enough too. I threw in the SUSE disc and waited as the computer did the rest. The new OS is up and running without a hitch. But for some strange reason, I cannot get the darned thing to make my Sound Blaster Live soundcard to work. In an attempt to Google a...

SCO Group Inc's attempt to change its legal case against IBM Corp for the third time has been denied by the judge, who has also set the two companies a deadline to present their respective evidence "with specifity".Both companies have been set an interim deadline of October 28 to submit their evidence, with a final deadline of December 22, a date that will loom large for the open source community, which has consistently denied SCO's claims that Linux contains its copyrighted code. The Lindon, Utah-based Unix vendor first sued IBM in March 2003 claiming IBM breached a contract by contributing...

Open source has won another convert in the local government sector, with soft migrations to Linux imminent across Vienna's municipal authority The Austrian capital city of Vienna's local government is due to start migrating its desktop PCs to open source software in the second quarter of this year. Erwin Gillich, the head of IT at Vienna's municipal authority, said this will be a 'soft migration' where users have the option of switching from Microsoft Office 2000 to the open source productivity application OpenOffice.org, and from Microsoft Windows 2000 to Linux. As OpenOffice.org runs on Windows as well as Linux, users...

Software security is quite often a subjective measure, mainly because there is the risk of a security vulnerability being created with every line of programming code. Each vulnerability has a degree of severity which may or may not be important to the end user. The result is an infinite number of interpretations of security, especially in a complex application such as an operating system like Windows or Linux.A more objective method of rating security is to track the number of bug fixes issued for a particular software suite. When compared to Linux, Windows appears to be more prone to flaws...

Utah man sues Groklaw, Slashdot, and 200 others Groklaw and Slashdot "right wing websites" and socialists, natch By Adamson Rust: Friday 01 July 2005, 19:09 A MAN IN A place called Utah which is in a country called America, has taken legal action against Slashdot, Groklaw, Pamela Jones, and a number of other individuals and organisations amounting to around 230 or so. The case was filed in a district court in "Utah", on the 21st of June last. The nature of the case is a federal civil rights action with a geezer called Jeffrey Vernon Merkey seeking punitive damages and...

Recently, during FISL (Fórum Internacional de Software Livre) in Brazil, Eric Raymond gave a keynote speech about the open source model of development in which he said, "We don't need the GPL anymore. It's based on the belief that open source software is weak and needs to be protected. Open source would be succeeding faster if the GPL didn't make lots of people nervous about adopting it." Federico Biancuzzi decided to interview Eric Raymond to learn more about that. Why did you say we don't need the GPL anymore? It's 2005, not 1985. We've learned a lot in the last...

We've all had this nightmare. You turn on your functioning Windows/Linux PC, and all you get is a blank screen, or a message telling you that certain files are missing, or the kernel has panicked for some obscure reason. Nothing works, and you need the data on your machine. Yes, now's the time to whip out that trusty backup disk, and heave a sigh of relief that all the important stuff is backed up, right? Well, think again. Most people do not back up on a daily, or even a weekly basis. Some people do not back up at all....

People write a lot about utility computing these days. The interest seems high. VMware gave a seminar in Dallas this past week and had 850 attendees. That followed a well-attended seminar by IBM's business development group on "On-Demand Business". Yet even with the high visibility in the media over the past year, many IT managers seem lost when I discuss utility computing with them. I realize buzzwords come and go. People find it so easy to dismiss "utility computing" as another fad. Even after noting its undeniable benefits, people's eyes glaze over when one attempts to discuss this topic. I...

In an effort to meet the demand for more functionality from virtualization , IBM recently acquired Meiosys, a privately held software company based in Palo Alto, Calif., and Toulouse, France. Meiosys's software allows users to transfer a running application from one server to another (or to a virtual machine), without interruption. The technology is called stateful application transfer. Industry experts say that adding a tool to move applications around on the network will add significant value to Big Blue's virtualization portfolio, specifically its Tivoli line of management tools. "The premise of virtualization is to match resources with what you need....

AUSTIN, TX and ROME, ITALY – Win4Lin, a leading supplier of enterprise virtualization solutions on Linux, announced today a strategic partnership with NoMachine, the makers of NX Server remote access and management software. The partnership will develop and offer a Linux hosted alternative to Citrix. Win4Lin and NoMachine will develop a Windows and Linux hybrid terminal server solution that can be used for desktop productivity, line-of-business and legacy Windows application access. The solution will be based on the NoMachine NX Distributed Computing Architecture and Win4Lin Terminal Server™. "Win4Lin Terminal Server is the best way to serve up real Windows sessions...

Many people take as a given that the desktop computer market is ossified and completely dominated by Microsoft. But, taking the global view, the PC market is anything but saturated. Some huge, untapped markets will ultimately decide how the market share pie will ultimately be divided. There will be room for Microsoft, Apple, and Linux, but how will it shake out? Page 1 Before I begin outlining why I believe Linux is not threatened by Apple's move to use Intel processors, let me tell you a bit about myself. My entire life I was surrounded by technology. As my father...

A totally new release of Knoppix was unveiled at LinuxTag 2005, Knoppix 4.0. This is the release that introduces the split between "maxi" DVD and "mini" CD releases. I've tried out the 4.0 DVD and let me tell you, I'm like a kid in a candy store. Note: This DVD is not yet available for download. Klaus often creates a special version of Knoppix for LinuxTag that then gets released to the general public (often with some updates) a few weeks afterward. In the case of Knoppix 4.0 I imagine the DVD being handed out at LinuxTag will be pretty...

The LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl) software stack is emerging as a popular and cost-effective Web development platform. This is understandable given that it comprises a free operating system, Web server, database, and scripting language. However, a problem with having a number of separate open source components is integration. The XAMPP project aims to eliminate this problem. With XAMPP, there is no reason for developers to skip over an open source solution when considering Web development platforms. The XAMPP download includes more than just Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl. It also includes a number of related open source packages. Included...

Motorola is set to ship another Linux/Java phone in Q4 2005. The E895 is a tri-band GSM cameraphone with a 1.3 megapixel camera, large LCD display, Bluetooth, and rich Internet, multimedia, video, and web capabilities, Motorola says. The company is demonstrating it at JavaOne this week. The E895 is the sixth in Motorola's line of Linux-based phones, which includes business-oriented phones as well as multimedia-oriented phones for consumers. Previous models in the business line include the original A760, the video- and VPN-enabled A768, and the quad-band A780. Multimedia-oriented phones include the original E680 and its Bluetooth-enabled followup, the E680i. Motorola...

In preparation for this column, I have strapped on the White Beard of Infallible Punditry. I remind you all that when I am wearing the WBoIP, all of my pronouncements are absolutely flawless from all conceivable logical angles, and are not to be questioned. Pronouncement the First: As a user-level operating system, Linux is a cruel and tawdry lie. Bigfoot will fly to your house and personally deliver a $30,000 tax refund before there's a Linux that can challenge Windows or MacOS in terms of usability. If anyone tells you otherwise, your only rebuttal should be to administer that thing...

NEW YORK - Theo de Raadt is a pioneer of the open source software movement and a huge proponent of free software. But he is no fan of the open source Linux operating system. "It's terrible," De Raadt says. "Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, 'This is garbage and we should fix it.'"

The Linux iPod Geek factor By Cyrus Farivar Imagine using your iPod and a regular old microphone to record studio-quality audio. Or sitting on a commuter train and playing Othello, Pong, Tetris, or Asteroids. All this and more is possible when you install Linux on your third-generation or earlier iPod. Best of all, one soft reset, and you’re back in Apple’s iPod operating system, listening to your tunes. Do the Deed To get started, you need your iPod, the FireWire cable you use to attach your iPod to your Mac, and free software from the open-source iPod Linux Project. Currently,...

NEW YORK - Marc Fleury is shocked--shocked!--that IBM would use the same tactics to attack him that he's been using to attack IBM. "Frankly, it leaves us scratching our heads," he says. For the past two years Fleury's company, Atlanta, Ga.-based JBoss, has been stealing business from IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) by giving away a set of open source programs that do the same work as IBM's WebSphere software. Fleury claims JBoss shipped more copies last year than IBM did. IBM apparently has grown tired of having a freebie program eating away at its sales. So...