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Way back in ancient history, in 1997, Clayton Christenson of Harvard wrote The Innovator's Dilemma, explaining a seeming paradox in high-tech. Why is it, he asked, that in many product areas, innovation does not come from established companies, but from startups? Why is it that companies doing exactly what the experts tell them to do, that is, to listen to their customers, are constantly going under? The short answer is, because the next big market isn't with your current customers. It's with a vastly larger group of would-be users who couldn't afford your previous products, or couldn't carry around the huge devices of previous generations.

The openSUSE Conference was held September 17 - 20, 2009 in Nürnberg, Germany. There was full schedule with talks, workshops, Birds of a Feather sessions, an RPM summit, and more. We talked with openSUSE community manager Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier about the conference.

The development team behind open source file and print server Samba have released versions 3.0.37, 3.2.15, 3.3.8 and 3.4.2. They fix three vulnerabilities which attackers could exploit to access data or disable the server. In addition to the new versions, source code patches are also available.

The SEP firm has released its Sesam backup and recovery software in version 3.6. Among the new features are a command line interface and support for Hyper-V.

It's official now, PlayOnLinux will be available directly in the Ubuntu distribution soon! is what annouced Playonlinux team sometime ago, they confirmed that PlayOnLinux 3.5 will be available in Ubuntu's "universe" repository for the next release, Karmic Koala, in October

The first devices with the new Linux based Chrome OS from Google will probably hit the markets this month. This Operating System is mainly targeted at netbooks.

A social networking site can be a place where you have a conversation. If you automate the propagation of your tweets or updates to other sites, are you acting like that guy in the airport waiting area or the coffee shop talking loudly on his cell phone?

Commercial DNS software firm Nominum has responded to the backlash against its criticism of open source alternatives. During interviews promoting its recently launched cloud-based DNS (Domain Name System) service, SKYE, Nominum slammed open source and freeware DNS packages as a recipe for security problems. During a question and answer session with ZDNet, for example, Jon Shalowitz, Skye general manager, was particularly strident in his criticism.

Many vendors offer a variety of operating system options, but very few preload an OS targeted specifically at the netbook. ZaReason is one of the few and preloads Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix on their Terra A20 netbook. Paul Ferrill takes this little beauty for a spin.

e reported earlier on a blog post entitled "Ubuntu Report Card (2009)" where the author detailed how they felt the Ubuntu experience had improved over the years. In a follow-up series of articles looking at the future, Tanner Helland has written 10 different broadly-scoped feature requests that [he] 'and many others would like to see by the time Ubuntu 10.10 rolls around'.

After a tremendous, though work, Sabayon5 is eventually here with a joint release between GNOME and KDE editions. Dedicated to those who like cutting edge stability, out of the box experience, outstanding Desktop performance, clean and beauty. Sabayon 5.o (five-point-ooh!) will catch you, anything that could have been compiled, has been compiled, anything cool that could have been implemented or updated, it’s there: you will find outstanding amount of new applications and features, like XBMC 9.04.1 (formerly known as Xbox Media Center), KDE 4.3.1, GNOME 2.26, E17, Linux kernel 2.6.31 and so forth.

The free version of Google SketchUp (for Mac and Windows) delights the mind. I've had very good experiences using it in combination with the draw program in OpenOffice. Use it with Inkscape, too.

Akonadi is the magic word for data storage for the KDE 4 desktop. Unfortunately none of the KDE 4 apps really use it. The KDE address book, KAddressBook, should become the first to do so.

A few days ago I received the latest issue of Linux Journal Magazine. I must admit that one of the sections I look forward to reading is diff -u. This section summarizes the latest updates and discussions of the Linux kernel development community. It becomes much easier to read a summary as opposed to signing up for the mailing list because you will just get bombarded with e-mails which can be overwhelming the majority of the time. While reading I came across a Montavista developed project called pramfs. In summary pramfs is a non-volatile RAM based file system, similar to your ramfs and tmpfs with a few differences to distinguish it from the others and in turn adapted for an embedded environment. Two obvious differences are that it is persistent like a traditional disk-based file system and does not reside in volatile DRAM. Pramfs is not new. It was originally announced back in 2004. It is designed to be a simplified file system that does not carry the same weight of the journal-based file systems.

This is a response on an article at my neighbor site: http://www.nintenlord.com/x/?page_id=405. This time, it is not Pro Linux, but Con Linux. I agree with David's article, but many people do not. So I'd like to sum up what most people walk into when trying Linux. Note: This is written out of the viewpoint of a regular user that wants to try Linux. Not from "our" viewpoints. These are the points most people complain about. Agree with it or not, it is the reality. (At least, for a lot of people). 1. The most Linux distro’s are free of charge (and good). Also, the most Linux software are free of charge (and good). And there are lots of them! So, enough choice. For every Windows software are most likely different Linux alternatives.

Red Hat has filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court. In the brief, Red Hat explains the practical problems of software patents to software developers.

This document describes how to install the Internet Explorer (IE) 6 or 7 or both on Fedora 10 or 11 using IEs4Linux package. Some Web developers and designers (and rarely users) need to view their pages on IE for testing purpose (and see how CSS / JavaScript behaves).

Consider the following scenario: mindSHIFT, a Microsoft Gold Partner, is pretty excited about Windows 7’s scheduled Oct. 22 launch. Yet mindSHIFT also is launching a cloud service that blends hosted Windows desktops with open source applications like OpenOffice. This is the start of a bigger trend. Here's why.

Forget the netbook or the net-top PC. How about a tiny net-server that fits in the palm of your hand and sells for $600? A Japanese vendor is touting a lilliputian Linux Web server that weighs 8 ounces and consumes just 8 watts. At 5.2-inches-by-3.1-inches in size -- and 1.2 inches thick -- the OpenBlockS 600 is about the size of two cigarette packs side-by-side. For non-smokers, that's two iPhones stacked on top of each other.

A UK-based systems integrator, has completed its first ever Skype for Asterisk enterprise deployment. Is this the start of a larger trend involving Asterisk and open source IP PBXes? You’re about to find out.