Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

MySQL creator Michael “Monty” Widenius has finally left Sun Microsystems following a long-drawn-out disagreement over what he saw as the firm’s “premature” release of MySQL 5.1. As we reported in September, the MySQL daddy was understood to have quit the company, less than seven months after Sun paid $1bn for the free database outfit. And it turns out the rumours were – sort of – true.

Mark G. Sobell's freshly revised reference work on Ubuntu Linux may be the most impressive computer book I've seen in the last 10 years. If you are currently stranded with a pile of abandoned computers on a desert isle, I'm telling you, this is the book.

Back at the 2003 OSCON, r0ml Lefkowitz gave a talk called "Six Missing Open Source Projects".The next year he gave a talk titled "More Missing Open Source Projects". At the top of his first list was CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, systems.

With news today of Windows 7 being made available in no less than six different versions, it is getting harder and harder to not move lock, stock, and PGP key to Linux on a full time basis. Except…

Cost savings and improved flexibility are just two of the benefits that can be realized from virtualizing an enterprise infrastructure. However, the transition can sometimes bring about new issues that impact business metrics. Organizations must find the right balance between benefits from virtualizing and their abilities to monitor, analyze and accelerate application performance, writes Aberdeen's Andrew Stamer.

HP has dropped Linux as an operating-system option for its latest netbooks in the UK market. An HP spokesperson told ZDNet UK on Thursday that it will not offer the Linux version of the new HP Mini 1000 in "quite a few of the European markets", including the UK. The netbook, which was launched in October, was planned to go on sale in all versions this month. In fact, British customers cannot buy any version of the Mini 1000 other than the designer, premium-priced Vivienne Tam edition. That version, which comes only with Windows XP, is already on sale for about £450.

Vodafone has picked U.S. software firm Azingo to develop Linux-based applications, the latest sign the world's largest wireless operator by sales is keeping Linux operating system LiMo as one of its key choices. Privately held Azingo unveiled the deal on Thursday. Vodafone, one of the founding members of mobile Linux foundation LiMo, has stressed the importance of cutting the number of different operating systems, raising some media speculation it could dump LiMo support.

For years, linux.conf.au has been one of the best places to go to catch up with the state of the X Window System; the 2009 event was no exception. There was a big difference this time around, though. X talks have typically been all about the great changes which are coming in the near future. This time, the X developers had a different story: most of those great changes are done and will soon be heading toward a distribution near you.

Sunday again had talks about a large range of topics. The day started a bit late, but Guillermo Amaral really made up for it by providing us with a funny and interesting talk about the opportunities for the Business use of KDE in Mexico. He pointed out how important it is to handle cultural differences well, continuing the theme set by Pradeepto Adriaan and Till.

The Linux Foundation is soliciting speakers for LinuxCon, a "brand new" annual North American technical conference. Planned for Sep. 21-25 in Portland, Ore., the inaugural event is expected to draw core developers, administrators, end users, community managers, and industry experts, the Foundation said.

Debate abounds between Linux lovers which distribution to choose on the desktop. But what about the server? Yes, all versions of Linux are equally capable of serving your mail and web site, but just what is it in those so-called "enterprise" editions that make them, well, enterprise-y?

At long last it looks like the release of Debian 5 (aka Lenny) is very near - in fact it could be less than two weeks away! In a Sunday post to a Debian mailing list, Debian developer Adeodato Simo said that Lenny was now officially in 'deep freeze' meaning that the release is really being locked down.

Mark Graham's promotional products business had hit a ceiling – it couldn't push enough paper to keep up to speed with the nearly 100 suppliers it relied on for day-to-day business operations. Just a couple of years into launching Rightsleeve.com with no venture capital assistance, Graham knew he had to find ways to deal with more information, but for a low cost. The budding entrepreneur recognized the promotional products industry essentially used low-tech tools. It had been around for almost a century and the companies in this space were entrenched in some conventional habits.

The Linux Defenders organisation was Established in December 2008, with the aim of eliminating poor quality patents. Its Defensive Publications initiative is intended to improve the quality of patents and fight patent trolls through pre-emptive disclosure, publishing descriptions and artwork of a product, device or method, so that it enters the public domain and becomes prior art

The mobile market has a big problem. Despite endless hype, the iPhone, Android, Blackberry e-mail and all the rest, data still represents less than 5% of the market.

The Canadian Government has put out a "Request For Information" (RFI) - essentially, a formal invitation for feedback on the topic.

In a recent CNET interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Ballmer calls out two "primary forces" for Microsoft in the enterprise: Oracle and Linux. These are the things that keep Microsoft's Ballmer up at night. It's odd, then, that neither Red Hat nor Novell seem to be doing much to take Microsoft on directly, except in the Unix-to-Linux competition with Windows that either Red Hat or Microsoft is winning, depending on whom you ask.

This week Novell announced they've signed a deal that will see Dell using SUSE Linux Enterprise on their new OptiPlex FX160 thin clients. This move means corporate IT departments will be able to simplify IT at a lower cost than ever before.

With Linux traditionally coming in many, many flavours, a common call among some Linux fans - but mostly among people who actually do not use Linux - is to standardise all the various distributions, and work from a single "one-distribution-to-rule-them-all". In a recent interview, Linus Tovalds discarded the idea, stating that he thinks "it's something absolutely required!"

With Microsoft readying itself for the release of a fast, streamlined operating system in Windows 7, the Linux community needs to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat if the free and open-source operating system is to stay relevant on desktop computers. Microsoft last month released a “beta” or test version of Windows 7, its newest operating system for desktop PCs. Unlike Vista, which was derided by consumers and the technology press for being bloated, slow and problematic for many users, Windows 7 is winning plaudits from those who have installed it.