Showing all newswire headlines

Linux now leads the pack of operating systems on the Top500 project's list of the world's most powerful supercomputers, the latest of which was released at the International Supercomputer Conference (ISC2005) in Heidelberg, Germany, last month.

BIG BLUE has hammered the final nails into OS/2's coffin. It said that all sales of OS/2 will end on the 23rd of December this year, and support for the pre-emptive multitasking operating system will end on the 31st December 2006.

It's doubly ironic that IBM has rather kindly posted a migration page for existing OS/2 users, so that they can easily move to Linux.

Any large piece of software has its own ways of doing things, and OpenOffice.org is no exception. In fact, because of its history and its design assumption that users are at least as interested in designing documents as in writing them, OpenOffice.org needs more orientation than most. OOo is not difficult to learn, but if you approach it expecting it to behave exactly like another office suite, especially MS Office, you are setting yourself up for frustration.

The company can now sell its open-source collaboration server packaged with Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Server—even to Novell's competitor, Red Hat.

Novell has signed a national agreement with the New Zealand Ministry of Education to provide all state and state-integrated schools with a range of Novell software, including SUSE Linux operating systems.

I've been using Linux for four years, with the majority of that time spent using Red Hat distributions. I liked Fedora Core 1, but I was not impressed by Fedora Core 2 and its annoying bugs. Fedora Core 3 made up for the shortcomings of its predecessor. Now Fedora Core 4 is out, and unfortunately, it's a mixed bag.

IBM, which is one of Tallard's business partners, is launching a series of Linux products in Mexico where Linux has not reached a very high penetration due to a lack of advanced products and applications, standards, security and technical support, Linux Center director Carlos Muñoz was quoted as saying.

Open Source Development Labs head denies that he knows of any concrete plans for Microsoft to bring its applications to Linux.

Our company is developing a server version of the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine. We plan to package it within a print server appliance that will be available in Fall 2005. By server, we mean that it runs headless, without browser windows or any kind of graphical user interface (GUI). In addition, it renders multiple jobs concurrently. Our target market is users of custom web applications that generate XHTML for interactive use and use some other formatting technology for printing 'souvenirs of transactions' to paper or virtual printing to formats such as PDF, AFP, and SVG.

The information that Microsoft conceded to offer royalty free in its server interoperability licence is already publicly available, according to a company evaluating the agreement A firm involved in the market testing of Microsoft's server interoperability licence on Wednesday criticised the royalty-free concessions the software giant made in its final offer to the EU.

Recently, the Globus Alliance announced that it had adopted the BSD-style Apache License Version 2.0 for the Globus Toolkit. IBM's Grid Toolbox, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Grid Engine and Nortel Networks Ltd.'s Dynamic Resource Allocation Controller are examples of early grid products that use the Globus Toolkit. The APL2 license allows these vendors to use Globus Toolkit implementations of the open standards in their grid products. Thus, those products are able to interoperate with other hardware and software resources in their customers' IT environments.

In what's become almost a yearly ritual, the big three database suppliers--Oracle, IBM and Microsoft--are prepping major product releases meant to steal away one another's customers. But unlike previous competitive cycles, this time around the entrenched suppliers are eyeing the threat posed by a growing number of open-source alternatives, particularly on the low end.

Oracle Corp has released the second version of its Database 10g product, but the database management system is only initially available for Red Hat Inc's Enterprise Linux operating system.

According to Bhatia, the Intel-Linux combination presents compelling return on investment, combining economics and flexibility. He cited an International Data Corporation study which indicated that companies deploying Linux on Intel servers saw 504 per cent ROI over three years. Another study by the Robert Frances Group showed that the TCO of Gnu/Linux was 40 per cent that of Windows and 14 per cent that of proprietary Unix, he said.

Yes, you really can make money from"free" software; you just need to have a good business plan.

Marten Mickos, the CEO of MySQL AB, "I believe that it is possible to build a fantastically profitable business on free software, but one must realize that open source/free software is not a business model in itself. It is only a production and distribution method."

In the heat of major political campaigns and elections, we hear a lot about electronic voting and the fight over their accuracy and trustworthiness. However, it is now -- between elections -- that the real work gets done. While experts have placed transparency through open source systems and software high on the list of requirements for trustworthy elections, the debate over a verifiable voter paper receipt has recently overshadowed all other issues. Experts indicated while both printed paper backups and open code are key components to reliable and trustworthy electronic voting, openness may be suffering from lack of attention and support.

Editor's Note: Singapore, previously a major holdout on Linux and Open Source Software adoption is an opinion leader in Asia.

Oracle’s LEAP (Linux Enterprise Applications Porting Centre) is based in Singapore and serves independent software vendors and systems integrators across South Asia. It is the first Oracle-Red Hat-HP Linux solution centre in the world, providing porting, tuning and testing services, partner solutions certification and training. According to Oracle, the centre involves a commitment of about $20 million in software, training, servers and networked storage.

Tonight on The Linux Link Tech Show, episode 92 : Dan has fun configuring Asterisk This years ultimate linux box from Linux Journal Update on TLLTS magazine and tv show And much, much more

Linux and open source are moving beyond academic and government institutions, with small and medium enterprises and large corporations embracing and committing their technological future to this technology. Speaking at a CXO Executive Breakfast Seminar held in conjunction with Linuxworld Singapore 2005, Wolfgang Herrmann, chief information officer, Schenker Asia Pacific, shared his experience on the switch to Linux and open source.

Progeny and more than half a dozen other Debian Linux distributors are working toward forming a common Debian Linux distribution for the enterprise based on the next version of Progeny's Componentized Linux. This is not a done deal yet. Two companies previously mentioned as being involved with the project, Mandriva (formerly Mandrakesoft) and Turbolinux Inc., appear to not be participating at this time. Progeny Linux Systems Inc. continues to lead the way.