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The long-awaited report on the use of open source software (OSS) in schools was published today by Becta, the Government's lead agency for ICT in education. As expected, the report concludes that OSS can offer a "cost effective alternative" to proprietary solutions. But it also cautions that an OSS implementation needs careful planning and support.

While Microsoft struggles to capitalize on 64-bit power, Linux has led the way for years. Correspondent Rob Reilly dusts off an older version of SUSE and demonstrates that even year-old Linux technology can run rings around anything out there for the 64-bit desktop and provide users with one screaming portable machine.

CVS, the Concurrent Versions System, is used by developers around the world to develop software in a flexible and collaborative manner. Whether you'd like to use CVS to check out the latest sources of a particular software package, or whether you'd like to begin using CVS as a full-fledged developer, this tutorial will get both general users and new developers up to speed quickly.

This MIDI sequencer's simple interfaces and design put usability and functionality at the forefront.

Metadot provides an open-source alternative for small companies and departments for building Web and intranet portals.

Mandriva (formerly Mandrakesoft) announced the latest version of its Linux operating system for machines based on IA-32 and PowerPC processors.

Mozilla Europe has considered for some time the opportunity of spreading Firefox with innovative means, including viral marketing. While Flash animations were an obvious choice, we have met with a French advertising agency, which has made three short videos located on http://funnyfox.org/ while meeting our goals in terms of (very small) budget and ability to be understood by the vast majority of Europeans who have trouble understanding English (hence the lack of dialog in the three movies). Enjoy and spread the word!

While networking giant Cisco has advantages most competitors don't - dominant market share, a multi-billion-dollar R&D budget, thousands of engineers - the vendor is also taking advantage and making the most of resources that are open to everyone: Linux and open source software.

The Linux Professional Institute today announced its official accreditation and endorsement by The National Infocomm Competency Centre (NICC) of Singapore.

At least one version of Java code, Java 2 Standard Edition, may soon be set free of Sun Microsystems' notoriously complicated licensing. While Sun is apparently OK with it, some of its large, license-paying-through-the-nose customers won't be.

I'm sure quite a few of you had a chuckle reading last week's newsletter outlining the attempts by Nick Farrell of the U.K.'s The Inquirer to install SuSE Linux 9.3. One of the bigger guffaws came from Novell's Doug Clower, who is a global solutions director (formerly a global solutions manager - I've no idea what that means translated from marketing-speak, though).

In this issue of Industry Insider, Con Zymaris, our guest columnist from Open Source Industry Australia, describes the major barriers for Linux in the education system.

ITTIA is releasing db.* 2.0 to its community members (Club ITTIA). Club ITTIA is a mobile and embedded database community, where developers come together to share information. The new features include XML export support, improved test suites, better multi-platform support and an enhanced autotools-based build system.

Sun Microsystems on Monday will formally announce an upgrade to the open-source NetBeans development platform and remains undaunted by the rival Eclipse offering.

I read a fascinating article in The Inquirer (not the one from Florida, the one from the U.K.) last week. In it, IT gadfly Nick Farrell documents his attempts to install SuSE Linux 9.3 on his home computer (see editorial links below). You'll appreciate it, because it will reflect the opinion of many of your users should you install the full bore of Novell Linux Desktop on their machines.

In an effort to raise awareness of Linux and other Open Source within government, corporate, and private sectors, the Stuttgart Region Economic Development Corp. has created a live, interactive online Linux demonstration. Thanks to unexpectedly high popularity among fellow Germans, the group has now translated the demo into English.

Finding it difficult to keep track of all your usernames and passwords on Web sites, forums, and portals? Don't start writing them down on scrap paper -- get help from a password manager application. I found three open source candidates for this task: Password Gorilla, KeePass Password Safe, and Oubliette.

While Sun Microsystems concentrate in providing a robust linux distribution for the needs of everyone, gcclinux.com tries to help the JDS community by providing that little bit extra.

I chose VectorLinux as my workstation operating system because I love Slackware, on which Vector is based. Vector is what I would like Slackware to be.

Combining new and old technologies, Integrated Facility for Linux lets customers run the open-source operating system on an IBM mainframe.