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"Now that we are (presumably) approaching the next merge window, can I ask what use (if any) will you be making of the linux-next tree? Alternatively, is there any information you want from it?" Stephen Rothwell asked regarding the tree he started maintaining last month for tracking upcoming stable merges.

Red Hat’s annual revenues now top $520 million, according to financial results released today, and the company is charting a course to $1 billion. Sounds wonderful. But there’s a bigger story here: Red Hat’s financial momentum will pave the way for more open source IPOs.

Welcome to the next step in studying for the Linux certification exam 301 or just build your skills on Linux systems administration. In this tutorial you’ll walk though searching your LDAP tree and using the command-line tool, and learn to set up Microsoft Outlook to query your LDAP tree.

OpenOffice.org has released the latest edition of its open source productivity suite, with refinements to further close the gap on Microsoft and enable migration from MS Office. The OpenOffice.org 2.4 database, Base, now supports MS-Access 2007, while capabilities for MySQL, Oracle JDBC and native HSQL databases have been improved.

Not every distro out there is well known. One can even go so far as to declare that some of them have active opposition against them. It is these little guys that do not always have the coverage that they deserve. So starting with this blog post, I will raise awareness of an interesting journey begun by Neowin forum members.

With fewer than 48 hours to go throughout most of the world, only a small percentage of the 87 countries that voted last summer on OOXML have announced whether they will stand by, or change, the votes that they cast during the original six month voting period. Here's a recap of what's known so far, and a new vote to report

Anyone under the delusion that you can't make money from open source and Linux should have been on Red Hat's 2008 fiscal year earnings call on March 27. If they had been, they would have heard Red Hat executives report that the Linux giant posted net income of $76.7 million, or $0.36 per diluted share, for the year, compared with $59.9 million, or $.29 per diluted share, in the prior year.

Managed services -- those IT tools that consultants use to remotely manage customer networks -- are increasingly built on open source and OpenBSD. Here's the scoop, from MSPmentor.

You've almost got to feel sorry for Google. It tries to do something cool with its annual Summer of Code program, but some sourpusses just have to spoil the idyllic 60's vibe. Google this month announced the 174 project organizations it is supporting in the 2008 GSOC.

There are a lot of people that confuse Free Software (and Open Source) with Shareware. Though all three types Free/Open/Share may well be available for free (as in zero cost), there are some fundamental licensing issues that make them each separate and distinct.

Matt Asay makes one crucial observation in Microsoft’s dilemma: The importance of the downstream: To work within the open-source community… Microsoft must stop polluting the downstream with patent encumbrances. (Emphasis in original.) This is my problem with Microsoft’s patent pledge, with the Microsoft-Novell deal over codecs for Monopolight, and just about everything coming out of Redmond except for the pretty words of the open source interoperability lab.

We got the chance to talk to a lot of developers at JBoss World, including Mark Proctor. In case you don’t know the name, he’s the leader of the Drools project, also known as JBoss Rules to the enterprise folks.

CostCo’s in-store promotional materials for the Eee PC from Asus barely mention that the sub-notebook runs Linux. That may be a smart move.

The systems management space has been dominated by proprietary vendors like IBM Tivoli and HP OpenView for years, though in recent years open source upstarts are trying to make a dent. Among those upstarts are GroundWork and Hyperic, both of whom are out this week with new product releases.

CinelerraCV (the community developed version of Cinelerra) has announced that the new video editor they are working on will be called "Lumiera".

Last weekend a group of developers gathered in Berlin at the KDAB office for an Akonadi sprint. The goal was simple, getting Akonadi in shape for the first public release of Akonadi when KDE 4.1 is released. In the couple of days they met, they made an amazing amount of 270 modifications to the KDE repository, and worked on average from 10am to 3am to make a big step into reaching that goal.

Filling out tax returns has traditionally been an area where Linux comes up short compared to the proprietary platforms, but you actually have several options for using commercial income tax products on a Linux platform. Here's a quick look at three commercial tax offerings I found that work just fine using Ubuntu 7.10 and Firefox 2.0.0.12, even though two of the three vendors warn Linux users they are not supported. Translation: Don't look for vendor help if you run into problems.

The SourceForge OpenEMR group would like to announce the recent addition of two board members, Dr. Michiel Bosman of the Netherlands and Dr. Mark Leeds of Florida.

Twenty-two organizations across 60 countries are taking part in DocumentFreedomDay (DFD) to raise awareness about what happens when formats are no longer supported by proprietary software. Inspired by the five-year-old SoftwareFreedomDay, the DFD initiative is being driven by supporters of the OpenDocumentFormat Alliance and other organizations such as the Free Software Foundation Europe, which is currently hosting the DFD's Web site.

["guerrillas", is an interesting choice of words.. - Scott]

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), which provides legal representation for free and open source software (FOSS) projects, is extending its services with the creation of a new law firm called Moglen Ravicher LLC. Named after the SFLC's legal directors, Eben Moglen and Dan Ravicher, the new firm will offer the SFLC's existing services to for-profit clients.