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Bob Young hung up his red hat this week, content that the software company he co-founded 12 years ago has lived up to his revolutionary expectations and is now better off without him.

The decision by the former chief executive officer of Red Hat Inc. to walk away from the Raleigh, N.C.-based company was hardly a dilemma at all. Instead, he said it was simply a case of recognizing the different traits that define an executive and a serial entrepreneur.

Today is a good day. I've been dragging home a Windows laptop every weekend for the past 19 months, for one simple reason - VPN access. When Mandriva switched to the 2.6 kernel, I switched right away, and immediately broke the Cisco VPN Client build. Getting it to work with x86-64 (I've been using Mandriva x86-64 since December of 2003) was completely out of the question.

Mainstream database software companies that have been watching open-source upstart MySQL in their rearview mirrors must be having some uncomfortable thoughts right about now.

When Microsoft last month announced at its Professional Developers Conference it was going to offer a Complete Cluster Solution on — get this — Windows, we couldn't believe our ears. But when CEO Stave Ballmer reiterated the move to cluster space in a keynote address at the Gartner Symposium & IT Expo in Orlando, Fla. this week, we realized that the vendor wasn't kidding.

A 122-year-old dairy equipment company has used embedded Linux in a robotic cow-milking system (the system is robotic, not the cows). The Voluntary Milking System (VMS) allows cows to decide when to be milked, and gives dairy farmers a more independent lifestyle, free from regular milkings,

The new version for Windows, Mac and Linux users includes improved e-mail and stability, support for additional Web standards, and changes to the user interface designed to make it easier to switch from Internet Explorer or Firefox.

When you’ve worked on as many sites as I have, you try to learn any techniques to makes your web management job as easy as possible. Nothing is more tedious and excruciatingly painful than working with HTML code for layout and web design. Before your carpal tunnel syndrome kicks in, you would probably benefit from taking a look at Peachpit Press’ PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites.

With its first commercial open-source solutions expected to launch within weeks, XenSource is poised to challenge VMware and commoditize the virtualization software market, observers predict.

XenSource, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup that oversees the open-source Xen project, is expected to launch in November its first management and automation solutions based on the open-source Xen 3 virtualization engine, said Simon Crosby, founder and vice president of strategy at XenSource.

TurboLinux Inc. Friday that TurboLinux FUJI Version 11 will be available in retail stores in Japan beginning on Nov. 25, the company said. Among its distinguishing characteristics is compatibility with Windows files, applications, and system functions, such as MS Office-compatible software, Active Directory Authentication, file sharing, Desktop Search, Turbo Search, and others.

IBM's blade server plans for 2006 include a new Infiniband-boosted chassis, improved management software and better iSCSI support. Oh yeah, IBM would like to beat HP to a pulp as well.

SYDNEY -- A U.S. effort to require voice technologies to support wiretapping is currently the gravest threat to cyberfreedom, according to Brad Templeton from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who spoke at an open source coders conference here Wednesday.

RSA MicroTech produces and distributes industrial fertilizer products to coast-to-coast wholesalers from four production facilities connected through their headquarters in Marysville, Washington. Orders range from a few hundred up to tens of thousands of dollars and total between $12 million and $15 million in annual sales. Along with managing inventory for the on-demand orders that can comprise up to half of all the orders it gets, RSA MicroTech must also meet complicated reporting requirements that differ for each state in which it sells. Although RSA MicroTech used Open Systems Accounting Software (OSAS) for some time, it used an older version that didn't have the enhancements that simplify workflow. And there was little connectivity between production facilities and the company's headquarters, making things inefficient and cumbersome. There had to be a better way.

Novell is expected to initiate a major round of layoffs that could cut 1,000 or more jobs in an attempt to restore the server software company's financial strength, according to employees familiar with the plan.

Novell has made some interesting changes in distribution and development since our last review of SUSE Linux. Many say it's for the better and I'd say I'm inclined to go with that theory. To tell you the truth, I never thought I'd see the day SUSE opened up it's doors to the community to help expand and concert development efforts, but here we are in a world where SUSE is open and still making geeks sweat every time a new release comes out. Without a doubt, OpenSUSE was one of the biggest announcements of the 2005... and for good reason. SUSE has always been one of the most popular Linux distros on the planet. As of this writing DistroWatch has it ranked as the #3 distro, coming in after Ubuntu at #1 and Mandriva at #2. SUSE has always been at the top of their game and judging by the numbers they still are. Is it worth the download? Is it worth our time? We're here to take a look....

Now imagine you're a lone Linux hacker trying to get Linux to run on a device that can fit in your shirt pocket. And the device manufacturer actively hides any technical data you might need to make the port work. In fact, they designed it to run Windows CE, and only Windows CE.

Ever since Apple launched the Mac mini back in January people have been waiting for a similar system based on x86. It didn't take long for Aopen to come up with their "mini PC" which was introduced at Computex in June. Now, several months later, it seems as though Pandora (codename for the "mini PC") and systems based on it are starting to become available. Legit Reviews and ExtremeTech posted a news-item several weeks ago about Aopen and its partners getting ready to sell these babies. Both of these websites were talking about entry-level systems selling for $399 (Linux OS) to $499 (WindowsXP OS).

The open-source consortium is about to release a new Enterprise Service Bus project—Petals—and is opening it up to JBoss.

As alternatives to Microsoft's Office 2003, the free OpenOffice.org suite and low-cost StarOffice both have a lot to offer.

At Google one works to change the world; at Microsoft one works to protect the Windows and Office profit margins. Which mission do you think high-IQ people prefer?

Massachusetts' frequently asked questions (FAQ) about state documents lists many office tools that support the OpenDocument file format natively: OpenOffice, StarOffice, KOffice, Abiword, eZ publish, IBM Workplace, Knomos case management, Scribus DTP, TextMaker and Visioo Writer.