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Business software giant Oracle Corp. said it would continue pushing Linux as a platform of choice for their business applications in 2005, according to Yashi Kant, managing director of Oracle Philippines in an e-mail interview.

It began trickling out with a press release indicating IBM, Intel and the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) had an announcement with "dramatic and global" implications. Then it got dramatic alright, with a report that the big January 25 announcement, code-named "Operation Open Gates," was a plan to rewrite Linux kernel components that might be infringing on some 283 patents, particularly those owned by Microsoft.

A few days ago I posted a blog called "Are Blogs the New Journalism?" which garnered some lengthy rebuttals both here and on my blog. I learned something from that conversation and some other reading and started thinking about it in terms of open source.

Patent powerhouse IBM last week unlocked access to 500 of its software patents for the open source community, generating mixed reactions from industry watchers.

Red Hat plans to launch a major upgrade to its flagship Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system that will mark the first time the software has fully supported the Linux 2.6 kernel. The launch currently is scheduled to occur at an event that will coincide with the Linuxworld Conference& Expo in Boston next month, a spokeswoman for the company has confirmed.

Open-source software development may not be easy, and no one likes to air their dirty laundry, but in the end, it's the smartest way to make software.

Linux desktop releases will be fast and furious in 2005. Here are some suggestions of what to do now so your office or agency can take advantage of them.

Massachusetts is expanding its landmark stance on open-source software purchases to cover digital documents in general, planning to require all state agencies to create and store information in noncommercial software programs such as HTM and PDF.

In his recent article Why I won't upgrade my Linux distribution Nathan Willis argues that there are many reasons not to upgrade your Linux-based system frequently. What he is really talking about is the proverbial RPM Hell and the not-so-good fragmentation of RPM-based distributions. Packages not part of your distribution might easily be broken by a system upgrade. Even parts of the distribution can stop working due to the upgrade. But RPM-based distributions are not the same as Linux.

A lengthy and interesting thread was started on the lkml by Chris Wright looking to define a centralized place to report security issues in the Linux Kernel...He explained that he wanted to centralize the information "to help track it, make sure things don't fall through the cracks, and make sure of timely fix and disclosure". The resulting discussion was joined by numerous members of the kernel hacking community, exposing a wide range of opinions.

The Linux Trace Toolkit, or LTT, "is a fully-featured tracing system for the Linux kernel. It includes both the kernel components required for tracing and the user-level tools required to view the traces. Information on the project's page notes that the tool is not intended to be used as a kernel debugger, but instead "is intended to provide users with information regarding the dynamic behavior of their system which was previously unavailable using conventionnal tools such as gdb, strace, top, ps and the likes."

Mitch Kapor, of the Open Source Applications Foundation, said that Firefox users should stop gloating and thinking that the product's future is assured. Having made his fortune during the heyday of proprietary software, Kapor is both president and chair of the OSAF and chairman of the Mozilla Foundation.

IBM, Intel, the Open Source Development Labs, and other industry lights are planning to announce that a consortium has been created that will rewrite the components in the Linux kernel that have been alleged tread on other people's IP - or at least the 27 Microsoft patents that Linux is supposed to infringe. The aim? To rob Microsoft of the ability to scare customers off of Linux by saying that the operating system is a patent infringer, informed sources say. "Operation Open Gates" as they are calling it is reportedly going to be unveiled on January 25.

Sun Microsystems reported on Thursday a profit of $19 million, or 1 cent per share, for the last quarter of 2004, but the server and software company's revenues once again declined.

Once again a Debian Miniconf will be run as a prelude to the annual linux.conf.au (LCA).

ITtoolbox.com holds information on lots of infrastructures, protocols, and operating systems. Its Linux site hosts a wide variety of white papers on Linux. But it's hard to envision making regular visits to this sparsely populated portal.

I began using free software when I bought some Mandrake 8 CDs from Wal-Mart in 2000. At that point a severe addiction to Counter-Strike, a Windows-only game, kept me dual-booting with Windows XP Professional, but that Linux partition was there to stay. I repartitioned periodically, and the sliver of Redmond on my 40GB hard drive kept getting smaller and smaller. But though Linux served me well, I recently moved to a more elegant, if less user-friendly, operating system -- NetBSD 1.6.2.

Distrowatch is one of the best resources for people who want to choose a Linux distro they'd find suitable. The site also raises awareness for smaller distributions. It has a large database with just about every Linux distribution currently available, along with useful information about each one that will help Linux searchers find the best one for them.

Linux vendors Red Hat, Novell and MandrakeSoft on Wednesday released patches for several vulnerabilities, ranging from flaws that could allow denial-of-service attacks to buffer overflows.

Computer users may spend hundreds of dollars to equip their machines with software. But thanks to freeware and open source software that can rival high-priced software, those on a student budget may not have to choose between buying a software program and eating.