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The OSDL, in my opinion, is the proper place for a Linux and Open Source Business Benefits repository. Filling the pages with excellent material, and keeping the material fresh, seems to require an OSDL Marketing Working Group. The task of this Working Group would be to find, and if it doesn't exist, create, the best Linux/Open Source case studies, application briefs, business cases. and ROI studies, and polish and categorize them according to the competitive advantages of Linux and Open Source.

Novell seems likely to increase its presence and that of open-source software in the school market after concluding a nationwide agreement with the Ministry of Education last week. The 18-month agreement gives schools access to Novell Open Enterprise Server, Suse Linux server and desktop operating systems and other Novell applications such as ZENworks, Groupwise and Border Manager.

Everyone claims they're going to get better, everyone claims they're going to more scalable, they all have their code names and the things they're going to show up with that are going to be wonderful in the future. And I shrug my shoulders and say OK, I'm waiting. That's all very interesting. I don't let it distract me. I'm focused on solving customer problems and delivering the best possible technology to grow IBM's business.

Should you or your business consider open source? Bernard Golden thinks so. He's the author of the recent book Succeeding With Open Source, published by Addison-Wesley. The book is a how-to guide for organizations who want to move away from high-cost commercial software.

Old, but new to this site, a bit of early history on a project to build an open source warning system. The interesting part, however, is the discovery that monitoring systems of the raw data are already in operation for differing purposes. Moreover, in at least one case the director of such a site wanted to disseminate such warnings. Furthermore, the core problem is not technological, but political will. One case is cited where the knowledge of the impending wave's arrival was known but the warning not given, because of the potential harm to the tourist industry! So here Open Source plays the role of shaming those in charge to do the "Right Thing". An odd role for technology. [Read the lower quarter for this discussion.]

Since this is the first column in this series, I'm going to start with a little justification. After all, when you are doing something that looks more like fun than work, there always seems to be some "splainin' to do". So, let me explain. Linux as a computing platform has come a long, long way since it appeared way back in 1991, so much so that it is now ready to replace that other rather common desktop OS we see on PCs everywhere. (Shhh . . . don't mention the name!) In the server room, Linux has been king for some time. Now, Linux is ready for the desktop and the business applications that the average office worker depends on — word processors, spreadsheets, Web browsers, electronic organizers, email packages, and so on. If you're still following my logic, then winning the business desktop is already a done deal — it's just going to take a little while. That means it's time for Linux to look to the final frontier, which takes me back to the justification for this series.

Unfortunately for the purveyors of FUD, the SCO suit has not exactly opened the flood gates of litigation. First, SCO's action against Daimler-Chrysler was dismissed outright. Second, the AutoZone suit, while still pending, has been delayed until SCO's primary suit can be litigated.

I'm not convinced that the Linux community can pull it together enough to get behind one truly dominant distro. Part of the problem is that the anarchic and altruistic nature of the open-source movement keeps it from sacrificing features and quality in order to carpet-bomb the market with a product that works just well enough for mass adoption.

Mozilla's SpeadFirefox.com community marketing site became an unwitting spam platform after it was hit by "unknown remote attackers," the site's managers said. According to an e-mail sent from the SpreadFirefox.com site to users today, the attack was discovered only on Tuesday. The exploit did not affect any other Mozilla sites or software and was limited only to the SpreadFirefox.com site according to the email.

CO has moved to limit the fall-out from a recently unsealed memo, in which incoming Caldera boss Darl McBride was told that the company had no copyright claims on the Linux kernel. The memo said an audit had looked for, but failed to find a "smoking gun". A week later Caldera renamed itself The SCO Group, and three months later hired lawyer David Boies to lead a legal campaign based on its IP claims.

Mozilla Foundation releases Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.5 Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, cross-platform email and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a smaller and faster web browser. Just as Firefox aims to redefine the web browser, Thunderbird is a refinement of the mail and news interface. Users often use them both together.

The latest issue of The GNOME Journal features thoughts about marketing GNOME, a review of RSS feed readers for GNOME, a short preview on modeling with K-3D, an introduction to F-Spot, an introduction to Foresight Desktop Linux, and a review of Robert Love's 'Linux Kernel Development', 2nd Edition.

Aeronix used Linux to build a $99 instant messenger appliance aimed at keeping kids from tying up the family PC while chatting with friends. Naturally, hackers soon appropriated the device for other duties, such as remotely controlling/monitoring Sony's Aibo robot.

The ripples of anxiety from last month's landmark Supreme Court ruling on peer-to-peer software haven't quite made it to Jonathan Nilson's home in Tallahassee, Fla. Nilson, a programmer who has been working on peer-to-peer software called Shareaza for several years, says the loose band of developers who share responsibility for the open-source project haven't been dissuaded from their work by the court ruling, which is casting a dark legal cloud over the future of companies such as Grokster and LimeWire.

The average computer user is now in quite good shape to develop and publish content. Video is a fun and challenging way to bring ideas to life and expand your skills. Needed hardware is becoming less expensive, and software to make and edit video is becoming more practical and accessible. Linux is no stranger to video, and fortunately for us little folk, its quite easy to get a hold of great Free Software tools. Enter Cinelerra, the "50,000 watt flamethrower" of Linux video.

Go Open Source has released the Go Open television series for free download on the Internet. The series, hosted by John Vlismas and screened on SABC TV, is reported to be the first television show in the world to focus on open source. The broadcasts have been compressed and optimised for download purposes, using the MP4 format.

Personal video recorders free you from the constraints of TV schedules, let you skip advertising, pause live TV, and much more. You can find commercial PVR products, such as Windows Media Centre Edition; dedicated devices, such as TiVo; and open source PVR projects, such as MythTV, which is widely hailed as the best free PVR solution, with features that even commercial competitors lack. MythTV's downside is its complex setup; you need to install a Linux distro, then MythTV, which can be a daunting prospect for non-technical users. In 2003, developers combined MythTV with the Knoppix live CD distribution, which aims at simplifying Linux installations, to create KnoppMyth, a product that's as easy to use as Knoppix, with the power of MythTV.

The Linux provider has added another mail product to its enterprise server offering Linux distributor Red Hat bulked up its open source enterprise server offering on Thursday by adding support for another open source mail product. Open source collaboration toolset Open-Xchange Server 5, which until now was only available on Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Server, will now be supported on Red Hat Enterprise Server 4.

JP Mercury's FreeWheeling program is the software equivalent of that loop sampler. Of course, features have been added that are possible only in software, making FreeWheeling a powerful loop-based performance tool. In this month's column, I take a look at the latest version of FreeWheeling and consider its basic capabilities. FreeWheeling has features I haven't explored yet, but even its basic use shows off FreeWheeling's musicality.

ACCORDING TO A NetApplications report, FireFox is stealing away .5%-1% of Internet Explorer users each month.