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IBM has released its new Open Client Solution for business, a package of office software applications that supports several operating systems, including Linux and Windows. In particular, the Linux business desktop runs on both Red Hat's Enterprise Linux Workstation and Novell's SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop).

The BBC has a long and glorious past as a technological innovator. Throughout the history of broadcasting, it has often been the first to develop and promote new technologies. Sadly, it seems now to be teetering on the brink of making technical choices that will not only damage its own reputation as a world-class institution, but which will also have serious knock-on consequences for free software.

Chief maintainer Andreas Jaeger announced today that development of the next version of openSUSE Linux is officially under way, with the release of the first public alpha. OpenSUSE 10.3 boasts a 2.6.20 kernel, a choice of GNOME or KDE desktops, and its usual full-bodied application set.

Let’s be clear, Linux really isn’t the most lucrative platform on the market. It goes on the least expensive hardware, and much of what goes into it appears subsidized by other revenue streams. The marketing, such that it is, appears largely voluntary. The organizations that sit at the center, like the Linux Foundation, seem constantly underfunded or in the process of downsizing or changing leadership in preparation for downsizing.

[You know, we should all just quit supporting Linux and jump in the river.. - Scott]

Sun has assembled a new program stack to give users access to some of the most popular open source applications. Sun's enhancement primes the existing applications to run optimized on Sun's Unix-based Solaris platform. Apache, MySQL and Perl already are well established on the Linux platform.

Members of OASIS, the international standards consortium, this week approved version 1.1 of the Open Document Format (ODF) for Office Applications (OpenDocument) as an OASIS Standard. A key enhancement in OpenDocument 1.1 is support for users who have low or no vision, or who suffer from cognitive impairments.

[Excellent! Instead of beating Curtis Chong over the head, we've won him over. Now, if we could just do the same with that Ballmer guy. - dcparris]

Mozilla plans to fire up its revamped Firefox add-on Web site tonight.

One sure way to catch the eye in the IT marketplace these days is by announcing that you are "going open source" - whatever that means. In one of the latest such happenings, CNET reports that a company named Aras, which develops software entirely using Microsoft technologies released the code to a design application.

OpenVZ Open Source Software Virtualization Project Delivers New Features

A tiny Russian software piracy case that ended up pitting Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin against Bill Gates has been thrown out of court.

Colonizing a new world is not a trivial task, even when you're doing it in a clone of a famous game. FreeCol is a free-as-in-free-software Java-based clone of Sid Meier's Colonization that's currently at the 0.5.3 release. But even this far short of a 1.0 release, it is coming along nicely enough to have earned it the designation of SourceForge.net Project of the Month. It is certainly playable, albeit with a few rough edges here and there and a few missing pieces.

HP today gave its Unix business the big squeeze with a new release of HP-UX and a pair of compact Itanium-based servers.

Sizing the Linux market ecosystem is no easy task. Downloads of Linux operating systems and applications are not an accurate measure. Analyst firm IDC, however, has a handle on the market and its size, and it's large. At this week's LinuxWorld Open Solutions Summit in New York City, IDC analysts detailed where they see the Linux ecosystem today and where it will be by 2010.

According to Forbes, SCO recently tried to subpoena Pamela "PJ" Jones, editor of the popular Groklaw legal news website. They were not successful. I've been unable to confirm with SCO that they indeed attempted to have Jones file a deposition for one of their Linux-related lawsuits.

LinuxBasics.org, The community that helps people to run Linux, offers their third free Linux class, An Introduction to Linux Basics.

WorldVistA is offeringVistA Office EHR (VOE) training at the1st WorldVistA Learning Conference and Seminar.The early bird registration rates will be expiring on Feb 17, as will the special hotel rates. Further, the list oftopics and presenters is now available. The presenters include some of the top Free and Open Source luminaries in the VistA community.This is the only place to learn about the new Open Source Clinical EHR that has beenfeatured in the New York Times

French bluetooth accessory specialist Com One is readying a portable WiFi clock-radio powered by a 2.6.15-7 kernel and the Familiar Linux distribution. The battery-powered "Phoenix IP Radio" is based on an Intel PXA270 (Bulverde) processor, and goes on sale direct to consumers next month.

Is there something new that open source development methods and values can bring to the economy? How about something old? I think the answer may come from the developing world, where pre-industrial methods and values persist and offer some helpful models and lessons for a networked world that's less post-industrial than industrial in a new and less impersonal way.This began to become apparent to me a few years ago I had a Socratic exchange with a Nigerian pastor named Sayo, whom I was lucky to find sitting next to me on a long airplane trip.

Zero Install is one of the more promising alternatives to native package systems for Linux distributions, such as RPM and Debian's dpkg. Originally developed by Thomas Leonard, a professor in the Department of Electronics and Computing at the University of Southampton, it begins with a criticism of existing package systems the difficulties of using them, and is built to provide an answer to the problems raised by the critique. However, like other alternative package systems, it faces the problems of winning acceptance from the major distributions and fine-tuning its features.

RadiSys is shipping a toolkit that lets developers combine Linux with its OS-9 RTOS (real-time OS), in embedded systems based on RadiSys boards and Intel Core 2 Duo processors. The MultiCore Development Kit includes the VLX-NI platform virtualization product from VirtualLogix.