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James E. Gaskin writes: "I planned to spend more time playing with the recent Linux distribution from Xandros, Version 3 of Business Edition, but Microsoft caused so many headlines recently I moved this column up. Since the state of Massachusetts and the country of South Korea are pushing Microsoft away, or at least demanding open source document formats, should you dump Microsoft? No, but you should at least take some time and consider alternatives such as Linux and OpenOffice 2.0, especially if saving money matters to you."

[Ed. Aside from being confused about open standards, he at least is willing to point out the cost benefits of Xandros Desktop over Windows. - dcparris]

Novell has backed down on a decision to end support for the KDE desktop on the SUSE Linux distribution, following an outcry from users.

Eight storage industry heavyweights have joined forces with the intention of creating an open standards storage management platform. The new management platform will be released free of charge and the individual organisations are expected to release their existing storage code to the open source community.

One of our editors, Don Parris asked : "I'm curious to know what brings you here? If you have recently made us your primary news site, perhaps you'd share your reasons?" Here's an interesting response.

Related to:
Survey: What Brings You to LXer?

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, MIT's Media Lab turned down millions of free copies of Apple's OS X operating system, an offer extended by Apple Chief Steve Jobs himself. The proposal was Apple's attempt to support theuniversity's effort to supply children in developing nations with cheap laptops, the paper reported. The university decided to use free, open-source software instead because designers can freely tinker with it, the paper said.

But in a note to CNET News "clarifying" the Jounral story, Media Labs co-founder Nicholas Negroponte said Jobs' offer applied only to China and that officials in China actually rejected it last year.

"I took (Jobs') offer and mentioned it to the Minister of Education (of China)," Negroponte said in an email relayed by a Media Labs spokeswoman. "He said: 'No thank you,' that they preferred Linux and Open Source."

Diggable

This article describes how to become your own Certificate Authority (CA) and issue your own server certificates. Be advised that noone else, apart from you, your internal network’s people or your friends, will or should trust this kind of certificates. These are intended only for providing secure communication with your own services.
Diggable

An SSH server can be set up in various ways, but in this document I’ll describe how it can be configured to:

* only support connections through the 2nd version of the SSH protocol (SSH-2)
* use 2048-bit DSA keys for user authentication, without permitting authentication with passwords
* allow only a specific group of users to authenticate

Diggable

No matter how much Linux moves toward the desktop, GUI-based environment, there are still many things that are much more easily accomplished with a command line and a couple shell commands or scripts. Classic Shell Scripting, an O'Reilly publication, brings some of the most common and versatile shell tools to the table and shows the reader how to use them. LinuxForumsDOTorg's Content Development crew has written an excellent review on the book. Read it here.

Culminating a year of joint development, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Silicon Graphics (OTC Bulletin Board: SGID) today announced that an open-source version of the SGI(R) SpeedShop(TM) performance analysis tool is now available to developers.

Rowan Wilson writes: "The GNU General Public License (GPL for short) is the most commonly used open source licence. Over two thirds of the open source-licensed projects on software repository Sourceforge use the GPL. This document attempts to draw together the main features of the GNU General Public License into a friendly and comprehensible digest, and in addition to note some details about its history and usage."

[Ed: This is an excellent overview, and is an excellent introduction for IT executives. If you don't understand the GPL, or just think you do, this is a must read. - dcparris]

An operation that uses the lure of free lyric files, browser upgrades, and ring tones to download spyware and adware on consumers’ computers has been ordered to halt its illegal downloads by a U.S. District Court at the request of the Federal Trade Commission.

Colin Barker writes: "Even as Microsoft continues with the most aggressive product rollout in its history with the launch of the Live series of hosted applications, it is showing no inclination to consider alternatives to its long-standing packaged software approach. IBM's on-demand model is "crazy" and Open Source is "really a developer phenomenon" that does not stand comparison with "customer experience of Windows Live", said Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy, last week."

[Ed: O.k., what he really said was that MS Live users wouldn't likely go "dorking" around in the source code. Is Barker being sensationalist? Read and decide. - dcparris]

If you want to kill yourself, or anybody, with candy, Energy Fiend has produced a handy Death by Penguin Mints calculator.

New Additions to Panasas Storage Cluster Help Maximize ROI and reduce TCO of Linux Clusters through Simplified Deployment, Accelerated Performance and Improved Business Continuity

Even though I've had problems with Microsoft, I can't recommend using OSS in every situation. In this installment of a two-part column, I'll not only discuss what I consider to be Microsoft's unethical practices, but I'll offer advice on when not to use OSS.

Mandriva today announces that it is organizing a Worldwide Install Party for Saturday November 19th. Following the release of Mandriva Linux 2006, Mandriva is mobilizing its network of Linux User Groups (LUGs). Free community installation sessions will take place around the world. Major participating locations include the United States, Brazil, Canada, China, Moroco, and the island of Reunion.

Anti-spam vendor Postini has looked at spam from both sides now.

The Spamhaus Project, a popular U.K.-based organization that maintains a database of spamming activity, placed two of the San Carlos, Calif., company's IP addresses on its Spamhaus Block List (SBL) last week after receiving numerous complaints of unsolicited e-mail from the company.

Finnish researches today announced a high-risk vulnerability in a security protocol that serves an important role in key exchanges in IPsec VPNs. The severity of the flaw depends on different vendors, some of whom report it exists in their products and others who for now maintain their offerings are unaffected. But its impact could be great, given those vendors include heavyweights Cisco Systems, 3Com, Juniper Networks, Microsoft and IBM.

There are good reasons for using open source software (OSS), and I've learned those reasons through 15 years of experience with more traditional, commercial or closed source applications. In part one of this two-part column, I'll cover problems I've had with proprietary software and my take on the total cost of ownership (TCO) debate. In part two, I'll talk about what I consider to be Microsoft's unethical practices and when not to use open source software.