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[ED- This must be the first self-referential story posted -- bstadil.]

During the last month, we conducted a survey of readers who use Linux. We asked them why they switched to Linux and received a plethora of answers. Surprisingly, anti-Microsoft sentiment had less to do with the choice than one might imagine.

Could the pundits have it all wrong? Is it possible that Linux stands on its own merits? Most Linux users would say "yes". Use of Linux does not represent a rebellion against Microsoft and Linux stands on its own as a user preference.

Think you need to cough up large sums of money for an office suite, security tools, and other essential programs? These free and low-cost alternatives provide power without the high price.

[Ed: In other words, don't look a gift horse in the mouth]

Under the name OpenLogos GlobalWare AG is offering to private individuals, universities and other public institutions a free translation system for Linux. The software can be downloaded from the website of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI).

One of the hottest companies on the planet, it is a well-known fact that Google has relied on open source tools and technology to build itself. But how good of an open source citizen is Google? Based on its actions in 2005, the company's doing a pretty good job.

Don't call it Little Blue quite yet, but IBM yesterday announced that in mid-November it will roll out an open source J2EE application server based on the Apache Geronimo project.

Called the WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE), the roughly 60 MB free download builds on the May acquisition of Gluecode Software, which had made significant contributions to the Geronimo project, including a user interface and administration.

Current users of SuSE should not panic even if the 20% workforce cuts cited in recent news reports come to fruition, said Charles King, principal analyst for Pundit-IT Research, Hayward, Calif.

To date, the official response from Novell Inc. has been that it does not comment on rumor or speculation, but the company did state in a conference call this month that "some cost-cutting moves" were on the horizon.

Even in the unlikely event that Novell does fold, King said, the SuSE Linux brand is attractive enough to be picked up by another vendor.

"I don't see Novell going anywhere anytime soon, but if [they] bobble this, I see it reflecting more badly on Novell than on SuSE," King said. "Then, if Novell can't get it together, SuSE may be an interesting bit for another vendor to acquire."

Many developers who started out using C++ will admit some nostalgia for overload operators such as + and -. The Java language has banned operator overloading, but upstart Groovy says "bring it on!"

When computers first became available to individuals, most of the cost was in the hardware, and the software that it came with was basically free. But today, with computers available in abundance for a few hundred dollars, most of the computing cost is in the software that users purchase. Fortunately, for the cost-conscious, free or open source alternatives now exist for many popular, or expensive, applications -- whether Yalies choose to use Windows, Mac OS X or Linux. Open source projects are programs that provide source code along with the application, allowing users to modify the software to their preference, or run it for free.

You can find lots of news about Sun's JDS Desktop becoming available for Linux distributions. Fernando Cassia's offering on "The Inquirer" offers valuable insight into the significance of the offering.

The Apache HTTP server - now 10 years old - is the product of an open source initiative dedicated to keeping the internet free from commercial control. It is a key part of the Lamp (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python) platform.

The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications.

The GNOME Foundation is holding a referendum through the end of next week to decide how many people will sit on its board of directors.

In a move that could put Google in competition with eBay, the search giant is testing a new service that would allow people to post and make searchable any type of content, a Google spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

Google's controversial Web Accelerator application that is designed to lessen the time it takes to load Web pages has returned after a four-month hiatus. But the second revision of the application, which is still in beta, does not address concerns with the first release, webmasters say.

SGI Altix and SGI InfiniteStorage Shared Filesystem CXFS Transparently Manages Multiple Operating Systems in an SGI SAN Environment [Pharmaceutical company, Organon, is using the SGI SAN solution to manage several operating environments, including a Linux cluster and Linux on an Altix 350 system. This solution overcomes the limitations of NFS. -Ed]

In June, GroundWork released its GroundWork Monitor Architect (Monarch), a free, open source configuration management tool that simplified the deployment of Nagios and GroundWork Monitor, GroundWork's IT management solution based on Nagios. GroundWork recently announced GroundWork Monitor 4. However, that announcement appears to be only the tip of the iceberg as far as GroundWork's future plans are concerned.

Microsoft has joined a Yahoo-backed effort to digitise the world's books and other works to make them searchable and accessible to anyone online.

In the true spirit of Linux, there is a slightly different approach to support than the commercial norm. After all, Linux represents an unparalleled community of experts, it includes industry leading problem determination tools, and of course, the product itself includes the source code. These resources are in addition to the professional Linux support services that are available from companies, such as IBM, and the various Linux vendors, such as Redhat and SUSE. Making the most of these additional resources is called "self-service" and is the main topic covered by this book.

Sixty per cent of Red Hat Linux is distributed through partners like Dell, Hewlett Packard and IBM, eliminating Red Hat from direct contact with a large number of users.

In an earlier look at LDAP, we set up a simple LDAP-based authentication system. We configured client machines to retrieve authentication information from a server running OpenLDAP. Now let's go further by enabling encryption and looking at how to make user modifications through LDAP.