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Startup EnterpriseDB said it aims to compete with MySQL AB, the open-source database leader while also taking on rivals Pervasive Software and Greenplum. Greenplum recently unveiled a software and hardware bundle that includes data analysis tools and an early version of the company’s specialized business intelligence database, which is built around a version of the PostgreSQL open-source database designed specifically for building large-scale analysis databases. PostgreSQL is the collective work of hundreds of developers which started at the University of California at Berkeley. Pervasive Software touts Pervasive Postgres as community-maintained open source database along with a bundle of connectivity drivers and management tools like views, triggers, stored procedures and security.

AUGUST 12, 2005 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer halted the steady market share advance of The Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser in July, a Web site monitoring company announced today. Last month, Internet Explorer, by far the most used browser, regained lost ground and pushed back the upstart Firefox for the first time since Version 1.0 of the open-source browser debuted late last year, according to NetApplications.com, an Aliso Viejo, Calif., maker of applications for monitoring and measuring Web site usage. Firefox's share shrunk to 8.07% from 8.71% in June, while Internet Explorer grew its market slice to 87.2% in July from 86.56% last month. (Editor's note: Anyone interested in a bridge I have for sale in Brooklyn?)

Coverity, a maker of software analysis tools, said it had analyzed the 2.6.9 version of the Linux kernel in December and a newer version of the kernel (2.6.12) in July. The study found that open source developers who write and maintain the kernel had fixed some significant issues with the software over the six-month study period. Linux kernel code analyzed in December of 2004 was found to have five file system buffer overrun weaknesses and one major network buffer overrun issue. Both of these were corrected when the code was re-analyzed in July, the company says. The study says that the code base for the Linux kernel grew from 5.76 million lines of code to 6.03 million lines. Total code defects found in Coverity's study increased overall from 985 in December 2004 to 1,008 in July, but the number of defects per lines of code decreased from .17 per 1,000 lines of code to .16.

One of the original Windows selling points was that it included a version of solitaire, the centuries-old, time-filling card game. Later, in the mid-1990s, several critics told me Linux would never catch on unless it, too, included solitaire. Now, of course, solitaire has been part of the KDE and GNOME desktops for so long that most users can't remember not having it. So okay, everyone has solitaire, which leads us to the burning question of the day: "Which has the best built-in version of solitaire: Windows XP, GNOME, or KDE?"

Distrowatch reports - The second beta of Mandriva Linux 2006 is now available for testing. From the release notes: "x86_64 initrd generation problem is workarrounded (sic); new Mandriva theme; massive PHP modules update; fixed single user mode in initscripts; diskdrake: fix update boot loader on renumbering partitions; drakconnect: allow to use WEP keys in wpa_supplicant, use ifplugd for wireless interfaces, handle access point roaming using wpa_supplicant, initial IPv6 support (6to4 tunnel), keep MS_DNS1, MS_DNS2 and DOMAIN variables in ifcfg files; drakhosts, draknfs: do not crash when config file is empty.... OSDir has put together a lengthy screenshot tour of Mandriva Linux 2006 Beta 2.

Microsoft's platform technology director says he has to balance competitiveness with cooperation.

In a market climate, where IT is being asked to do more with smaller budgets, how prevalent is the issue of cost? Some IT organizations are turning to Linux as an alternative to reduce the licensing costs of software. So taking that thought the next step further, if the Linux platform is looked upon as a bargain or lower cost solution, then, are IT organizations less likely to pay for management tools for this platform?

Jeff Garzik noted that he has updated the Serial ATA Linux softwarestatus report, "things in SATA-land have been moving along recently". The status report notes that, "the 'ATA host state machine', the core of the entire driver, is considered production-stable." The libATA driver uses the kernel's SCSI layer, and causes each SATA port to appear as a new SCSI bus.

Rachel App is a renaissance woman whose interests are shared mostly by men and not other women. She's an independent label singer, songwriter, musician, and Linux geek who uses a variety of open source applications to record and enhance her music.

What goes on in Redmond's Linux and Open Source Software Lab? Chief Bill Hilf is the one to ask.

Today, as the FBI sought to take former Microsoft lobbyist Jack Abramoff into custody, a friend forwarded a supplement to a NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULEMAKING asking if it was OK to limit access to a Federal Agency by only allowing people with Internet Explorer to access a Federal Web Site.

Red Hat, Inc. has recently announced the availability of Red Hat Network with Monitoring Module and support for Solaris. Red Hat and BMC Software also announced collaboration to extend cross platform support for heterogeneous configuration management. In the Monitoring Module, customers can create dozens of monitoring probes for each of their systems, configuring warning and critical thresholds for each probe. Probes can monitor systems, network functionality, or applications. Over 60 pre-built probes are available initially, including many for applications from Oracle, MySQL, Apache, and BEA. Meanwhile, the Red Hat Network Solaris Management is a simple and inexpensive tool to patch legacy Solaris environments. Customers with both Solaris and Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployed will be able to leverage the benefits of a single, unified systems management system with Red Hat Network.

Every software company worth its salt already has some open-source strategy. IBM may have set the pace with its early support of Linux, but it has become common for tech companies to release open-source versions of software that does not earn its keep. What better way to undermine a more successful rival?

The Meraka Institute's Open Source Centre (OSC) will host Soweto's first ever open source workshop tomorrow and has announced plans to develop satellite centres in the area with local open source experts able to assist users.The move comes as Meraka attempts to bridge the digital divide it sees developing in the open source arena. "There seems to be a disturbing trend emerging which reveals that our message seems to be getting through to everyone else but women and underprivileged communities," says Dr Ntsika Msimang of the OSC. "The irony here is that open source seems to be engineering its own digital divide and the idea of creating satellite centres is to reverse that trend by targeting the communities that we deem are the ultimate beneficiaries of bridging the digital divide."

People like Firefox because it just works. We designed Firefox to be invisible; we want you using the web, not the software. We've spent years refining it and streamlining it down to the pixel so that it works intuitively right out of the box. We have a formidable competitor in Microsoft, but the emergence of the network has changed the rules. If you create a great product, it will spread through word-of-mouth and people will use it. If people aren't talking about your product, your product isn't worth talking about.

Most set-top digital personal video recorders (PVRs) cost anywhere from several hundred to more than a thousand dollars. The Neuros MPEG-4 Recorder is a much lower-priced PVR, but the reduced cost carries its own price: it can't do nearly as much as its more expensive hard drive- and DVD-based competitors, such as TiVo, ReplayTV, and UltimateTV.

A different sort of evidence of free software's forward march came today at LinuxWorld. Two sales people from two different companies approached me within a 24-hour period to say they want to talk to me about making part or all of their product open source

The basic open-source licence covering software such as the Linux OS will be revamped and ready by 2007, according to an industry official involved with the project. The planned changes to the GNU General Public License (GPL) include resolving patent conflicts, accommodating Web services, and resolving incompatibilities with other licences. Dealing with wikis in the GPL also has been pondered.

It's late, it's lame and installing it won't be cheap, so now is the perfect time for Linux desktop vendors to make a charge at Microsoft.

There's been a lot of Firefox vs. IE talk in the industry. Some people say that Firefox is better than IE, more secure than IE, and so on. While Firefox users sing their tunes on how much better it is over IE, most IE users don't understand what the fuss is all about. For starters, both browsers have security problems. No browser is 100% secure.