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When it comes to open source operating systems, most people consider Linux the only choice. This is simply not the case. No, there is one operating system known as BSD that has gone largely ignored by the mainstream world.

This talk was on converting a really large (over 3 terabytes, largest table is 1.8 billion rows) data warehouse database from Oracle 8i to PostgreSQL. The reason for the conversion was to save in licensing costs. They wanted to move their Oracle licenses over from the data warehouse DB to use them on the online transaction processing (OLTP) system.

Most companies think they are prepared for disaster by backing up critical data, which they can quickly restore if a loss occurs. Few companies, however, are prepared for a catastrophe-total system failure-in which they lose all their data as well as the entire operating system, applications, settings, patches and more, reducing their system to "bare metal" and experiencing costly downtime.

In retrospect, it was probably a mistake to arrive at DEFCON 14 early Friday morning in hopes of avoiding some of the crowd at registration. Nonetheless, in spite of several spurts, sputters, and delays, it is now safe to say that the occasionally ordered chaos that is DEFCON 14, the largest hacker's conference in the world, is off and running.

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Organizations adopting Linux might not abandon Unix entirely. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for example, has migrated its e-mail system from Sun hardware and Solaris to HP servers and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. But even though the use of Linux on production servers is growing, the practice isn't yet the norm at the laboratory, said Douglas Hughes, a service engineer at JPL Information Services.

LinkGear is shipping a small form-factor, ultra-low-power network appliance device that comes preinstalled with Linux, and targets WiFi bridging and routing applications. The LinkGear Series 100 (LG100) is powered by an SH-4 (SuperH) processor, draws only two Watts (typical), and costs $200 in quantities of 25+,

Some prominent people have called free software “communist” in an attempt to bring Cold War bugaboos to bear against the movement—a kind of “nuclear option” of FUD. I remember the paranoia of the Cold War personally, and I thought then (and I still do now) that it was “just stupid”.

So rather than react as some have done with a knee-jerk “no it’s not!”, I propose to accept the label and see where that insight takes us. Maybe there is something communist about free software? I think we will see, however, that the idea behind free software is far more radical: no less “communist” than “capitalist”, but no more so, either.

Could we be heading towards the end of all technological proggress? If "Trusted Computing" initiatives with their "Digital Rights Management" (DRM) have their way, we may be.

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) announced today that Mapbender, a portal-based suite of software for geodata management using Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) OWS architectures, has met all of the legal and community requirements to become the first official product supported by OSGeo.

"Math hasn't changed since Isaac Newton," declares Scott McNealy. So why, he asks, is California paying some $400 million annually to "update" grade-school textbooks?

That's just one of the practices questioned by the Sun Microsystems chairman. And one of the problems he believes can be solved.

Review: Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is a strong contender to Windows on corporate clients, with a well-thought-out desktop environment and some innovative features.

Elein showed how to use timestamps to keep an audit trail of all changes in your DB. With this technique, you never actually delete records, you just give them an end date. Multiple copies of a record (again, with timestamps for each one) also allow you to track edits. (This is a pretty standard approach, especially in ‘validated’ environments, or in government-regulated industries.)

At the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland, Ore., last week, I had the opportunity to sit down for a few minutes with Mozilla Corp.'s Mike Schroepfer to talk about Firefox development, security, updates to JavaScript, and cooperation with Linux vendors and other downstream providers of Firefox.

For most of us, the philosophical debate of "open source versus Windows" is reduced to a simple fact: We have both types of systems, and they have to work together. Rick Cook discusses how to make seemingly incompatible formats get along.

LAS VEGAS -- The Black Hat Briefings wrapped up yesterday, ending two full days of fast-paced, crowded, sometimes hectic presentations, panels, and Turbo Talks. Many Black Hat attendees, both feds and civilians, will now stay on in Las Vegas for three days of DEFCON.

[Joe has some interesting comments about ethics and bottom lines. -- grouch]

It all started innocently enough. Last Thursday, the Free Software Foundation released the second discussion draft of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3. What followed was an interesting and overblown media misunderstanding, though we can hardly say that no one followed the "discussion" very well!

If about a year ago, Microsoft could still afford to look at Firefox with the superiority that its dominant position of Internet Explorer allowed, the things have radically changed nowadays.

The GIMP finally has a documented file specification. The free image editor has long been criticized over the fact that its native image format XCF was not publicly documented. Recently the issue came to a head, sparked unintentionally by discussions over the proposed OpenRaster graphics interchange format. Once the argument cooled off, however, an independent developer decided to tackle the problem head on -- to the benefit of all.

Dextrus Prosoft today announced that it has joined the SpikeSource Solution Provider Program to deliver business-ready open source applications to early stage technology firms. Dextrus Prosoft will offer services to tailor Spike™ Ignited Content Management and Spike™ Certified Customer Relationship Management solutions to meet the requirements of companies that want Fortune 500-class infrastructure at a price that will please ‘Series A’ Investors.