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Open source startups can hit profitability sooner than it took closed source incumbents, as long as they steer clear of rivals' costly business practices. That's according to MySQL chief executive Marten Mickos, who told vendors and venture capitalists open source companies could cut their costs by not ploughing money into expensive sales and marketing activities. However, start-ups shouldn't expect a fast track to growth just because they have adopted open source code or development methodologies. "Maybe we [MySQL] come from Scandinavia, but open source is not socialism, it's not a party. Open source is not a business model. Open source...

The day Linux advocates have been waiting for has arrived . Dell has announced three different systems with Ubuntu 7.04 installed: the XPS 410n and Dimension E520n desktops and the Inspiron E1505n notebook. However, those expecting lower prices for their Linux boxes may be disappointed because there is little or no price differential between the Linux and Windows models. In fact, the entry level E520 Windows desktop is significantly cheaper. Related stories * Novell, Microsoft, patents and the EFF * Dell and Ubuntu: why bother? * BadBunny macro worm targets OpenOffice * Has Microsoft violated the GPL? * Microsoft: shades...

Article Cant be posted because its from AP, here is the link http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MICROSOFT_OPEN_SOURCE?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT Score Card Linux Kernel - 42 GUI (KDE,..) - 65 E-Mail Progs - 15 'Other" ------ 68 OpenOffice --- 45 I am most skeptical of the GUI and email numbers as those lend themselves to some of the most ridiculous patents (eg mouse over stuff). It will be interesting to see if MS releases the patents for the Linux kernel so that changes can be made, if needed, to address their concerns and while IANAL I believe they have an obligation to mitigate the damages form infringement...

Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. It's versatile - it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task - and it's blessedly crash-resistant. A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers....

Toshiba is also contemplating installing Linux on its systems, Toshiba Italy computer division manager Luigi Cattaneo has revealed.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--MySQL, purveyor of the open-source database of the same name, is on the road to becoming a publicly traded company, bolstered by $50 million in revenue in 2006. "It's still in the pipeline," Chief Executive Marten Mickos said of the plan to hold an initial public offering of his company's stock. He declined to discuss when the company planned to go public, but said, "We're making good progress, doing all the things we need to get done." During the days of dot-com mania, companies would go public without being profitable and in some cases without much in the...

Google on Tuesday released new programming code under the GPL license to enhance MySQL databases. Google uses the MySQL open source relational database internally for some applications that aren't search related. And its engineers are keen to improve the code by making their improvements publicly available. "We think MySQL is a fantastic data storage solution, and as our projects push the requirements for the database in certain areas, we've made changes to enhance MySQL itself, mainly in the areas of high availability and manageability," said Google engineer Mark Callaghan in a blog post. MySQL is the second most popular database...

A protester calling for free computer software and open-source programming crashed a speech by Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates at one of China's top universities yesterday. Gates, who is very popular on Chinese campuses, had just finished a speech at Peking University and was handing out prizes to students when a Chinese man walked on stage and unveiled a banner with "free software, open source" written on it. Gates and most of the group appeared shocked at the intrusion, which ended when the man ran off the stage and was tackled by security officials. No one was hurt. Gates is...

A protester calling for free computer software and open source programming crashed a speech Friday by Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates at one of China's top universities Gates, who is very popular on Chinese campuses, had just finished a speech at Beijing University and was handing out prizes to students when a man walked on stage and unveiled a banner with "free software, open source" written on it. Gates and most of the group appeared shocked at the intrusion, which ended when the man ran off the stage and was tackled by security officials. No one was hurt. Gates is...

For people wanting simplicity from their Linux distribution, Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) may well be the best release ever from any Linux company. While using Feisty Fawn from the late beta stage and right on up to upgrading to the final version, I kept thinking “Feisty is so easy, my mom could use this!” Not to say you can’t get more obtuse with command line syntaxes in Feisty, but for the folks that wants their Linux distro to work with a minimal amount of fuss, Feisty Fawn is a smashing success. The installation is really as easy as 1-2-3 and...

As far as the old guard are concerned, however, Ubuntu is no longer real Linux. For traditional Ubuntu users of course, such talk is anathema because Ubuntu like all the other distros is built around the Linux kernel. Thus, the argument rages between the Linux elitists, who couldn't give a damn whether the year of the Linux desktop ever arrives, and the Linux evangelists who would like to see Linux distros like Ubuntu and Suse replace Windows as the desktop system of choice. Related stories * Samsung latest to buy Linux patent protection from Microsoft * Microsoft aims to double...

What operating system do the heads of Fortune 500 companies run on their personal laptops? In the case of Michael S. Dell, president and CEO of Dell, it's Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn.

Intel is developing its own take on the mini-tablet, with a new ultra-mobile PC platform to be announced at this week’s Intel Developer Forum in Beijing. The big surprise? It’s based on Linux. Called a Mobile Internet Device (pic), or MID, the devices will have screen sizes from 4.5 to six inches with a target audience described as "consumers and prosumers" rather than mobile professionals. The MID2007 platform, currently codenamed McCaslin, will gain a more marketing-friendly moniker closer to next year’s release of the products. This is tipped to be an extension of the successful Centrino mobile brand, in the...

It is with pleasure and certainly a large amount of relief that I come to you with an announcement of immense importance to many in this community. We have a race team with Tux at the wheel. Tom Chastain, a legend in the Indianapolis Racing Realm and the owner of Chastain Motorsports has announced his team's entrance in this year's Indy 500. And if we've got anything to do with it...as long as I have one struggling breathe left inside of me, that monster of a race car will have Linux splashed all over it when the flag drops. It...

ABSTRACT Open source software has changed the rules of the game, impacting significantly the economic behavior of stakeholders in the software ecosystem. In this new environment, developers strive to be committers, vendors feel pressure to produce open source products, and system integrators anticipate boosting profits. 1. INTRODUCTION The advent of open source software has produced more than lower software costs for users. It has also created major changes in the economic interaction among players in the software ecosystem. For many, open source embodies a specific approach to software development---even a lifestyle. But it's also sound business strategy. Ron Goldman...

Palm is developing a Linux-based operating system for its handheld devices, the company's chief executive, Ed Colligan, revealed on Tuesday. Colligan said the new operating system — which has been in development for a "number of years" and is now due to appear on Palm Treo handsets by the end of this year — would improve the stability of its smartphones while enabling greater functionality. Your view What do you think of RHEL 5? Have you put Red Hat's virtualisation-primed Linux through its paces? Or are you holding off — and if so, why? Tell us what you think. Join...

A few days ago Red Hat shared with the world the first ISO images of the system that is planned to be installed on the OLPC laptops. I suddenly felt an irresistible urge … I downloaded the 291 MB ISO, burned it on a CD and started testing. Here is what I got. If you are looking for the technical details of OLPC project, take a look at our previous article: One Laptop Per Child: XO Phase 2 Progress which explains the technological progress made recently in the project. Author: Piotr MalińskiA journey to the unknown After booting the CD...

Sun Microsystems is planning an announcement next week on a new strategy for open source network attached storage (Nas), according... Article Continues Below ... to industry insiders. The initiative, that some say is code-named FISH for fully integrated software and hardware, will feature Nas on servers running Solaris. It will include the ZFS file system and another open source performance-monitoring tool called DTrace. The goal is to generate interest in Sun's NAS storage products in the open source community where Java has already been a success. Sun Microsystems in the news Sun restructures again, promises new array Sun scraps 6920...

Oracle Corp. executives have finally revealed the names of 26 enterprise-class customers that have gone with that company for their Red Hat Linux support needs. However, the number of customers in that list doing wholesale migrations to Oracle's brand of Linux is much smaller. Only the International House of Pancakes is on the record saying Oracle Enterprise Linux completely replaced Red Hat in its data center. In a statement, IHOP CTO Patrick Piccininno said the switch from Red Hat to Oracle Enterprise Linux "couldn't have been easier." Yahoo was previously on the Red Hat-to-Oracle Linux migration list, but that migration...

Like a titanium-wired bra, XenSource has become more supportive. The software maker this week patted itself on the back for releasing Version 3.2 of XenEnterprise. The software adds support for Windows 2000 guests. So, stragglers can now run the OS alongside the already supported Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. Users of Microsoft's fresher operating systems will also now discover SMP support that lets them use servers with up to eight processors rather than a single CPU, as had been the case. Click here to find out more! Those of you paying close attention to XenSource will also be pleased...