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In an effort to capture more of the vital overseas-customers-who-don't-have-much-money market, Microsoft released localized versions of Windows XP Starter Edition in several countries, which is so dumbed-down and crippled that those of us who thought our low expectations of Microsoft could not be beaten were proven wrong yet again.

OSV has developed a free product called LiveLAMP, which is a bootable CD that turns a spare computer into a Linux development server for students to practice and publish programming exercises in over a dozen languages with hundreds of development tools.

The UK government's school computing agency, Becta, has said schools could save costs by switching to what is known as open source software. In open source software (OSS), the underlying computer code is freely available so users can alter it and publish new versions, to benefit the community.

Red Hat, a leading provider of the Linux-based operating system, continues to see increasing acceptance of the open source technology. While the Microsoft faithful may be yawning at the latest results from its competitor, they nonetheless would have to grudgingly admit that the first quarter showed impressive growth.

Partnerships between the government and Microsoft announced on Thursday upon the visit of Microsoft chairman Bill Gates are worrying the open source community which wants to promote alternative open standard software.

Sun Microsystems may be warming up to the idea of selling Microsoft's Windows operating system on its servers. Tom Goguen, vice president of operating platform marketing for Sun, said this week that while Sun currently has no definite plan to strike a deal with Microsoft to sell Windows, the vendor will consider it if customers and partners think it's a good idea.

First Community Bank chose the Phoenix System because of its advanced technology, including the ease of integrating the bank's existing third-party systems into the Phoenix System using PhoenixXM middleware; the open source architecture of the system; and Harland Financial Solutions' strong reputation in the marketplace.

Linux versus Windows isn't just servers and desktops anymore. Smart devices are showing up all over the place, and the embedded arena features fighting just as intense. This Smack-Down aims to sort it out once and for all, and find out which embedded OS is best.

Jonathan Schwartz's claim that the best thing about free and open source software is the price has raised hackles

Company announces new step in its plan to remake most of its mobile phone line with the open-source OS.

The SCO Group's controversial Linux-related lawsuit against IBM does not go to trial for another year, but the Utah company's litigation already has corporate software buyers worried. Information technology professionals identify indemnification of "open source" products, such as the freely distributed Linux operating system, as a primary and growing concern, according to a new survey of 200 United States-based IT professionals.

There are compelling reasons for Windows users to switch to (or at least evaluate) Linux, but when you know no other world than Windows or don’t want to even think about partitioning your precious hard drive, it can be one heck of a leap of faith! As a Windows user wanting to try Linux but scared of losing the world as I knew it, I found a risk-free method of trying Linux without threatening the installation of Windows safely installed on my PC. Mandriva Move and Knoppix are two different flavours of Linux that reside entirely on a bootable LiveCD.

African open source advocates will be putting their best foot forward next week when they showcase many of their open source education solutions at the World Conference on Computers in Education. WCCE, which is held every four years, will be held in Stellenbosch from 4 to 7 July.

Sun Microsystems, the developers of Java, recently opened the great gates to their coding. Before we all jump with joy, however, it is important to determine exactly what coding was open sourced. Sun open sourced Java EE 5, otherwise known as Java Enterprise Edition 5.

Measuring return on investment is always a tricky prospect. Properly assessing a software's future value and savings versus it's roll-out cost requires more than a peripheral knowledge of the software involved. This guide attempts to enable the reader to ask the right questions.

Project Harmony is seeking code donations from commercial vendors of Java Virtual Machines to kick-start the development of its new open source Java project. "There is a lot of software out there that we are hoping can be donated. We are hoping that we will get seeded with some code from exiting production Virtual Machines," Geir Magnusson, director of the Apache Software Foundation, said at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco.

Commercial Linux developer Red Hat has reported Q1 revenue up 46%, following strong sales in both public and private sectors.

Linux Centre from Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro organises conference on localisation of free software. The Conference will bring together the free software activists working in the Balkans to discuss about localisation/translation issues and to unite their efforts in these spheres.

Sun Microsystems Inc. is pulling back plans to market and sell its Linux-based desktop operating system and is considering giving the technology to the open-source community, the company quietly acknowledged at JavaOne this week.

Are the software giant's recent attempts to reach out to the open source community genuine or just another example of its embrace, extend and extinguish strategy?