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The never-ending TCO debate between the software industry’s greatest rivals in history -- Microsoft & Linux -- has got nastier. OSIA claims that Microsoft has its ‘facts’ on TCO comparison all wrong, and the IDC report was secretly funded by the Redmond giant, producing doctored results. The real evidence it claims, is the industry’s first concrete independent survey, which has delivered results strongly in favor of Linux.

Since the recent security warnings surrounding Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser were issued, more and more people around the world have been turning to a small Open Source alternative spawned from the developers of the Mozilla browser: Mozilla Firefox . Though it is small in download size, don't let it fool you. There's nothing small about this application. It's one hell of a contender for the Internet browser throne. Can it topple the software giants flagship product? Yes, I think it can.

OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 is ready for immediate download. It is our new stable release and replaces OpenOffice.org 1.1.2. OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 is free to use and distribute by all. At the moment, some languages, including English, are ready. As the month progresses, more languages will be available. Check with your Native-Language project for updates.

Welcome to this year's 39th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. Robert Millan reported that GNOME basically works on kfreebsd-gnu. The AGNULA Team has released version 1.2.0 of DeMuDi using the Debian installer and supporting Custom Debian Distributions. Santiago Garcia Mantinan noticed that current Debian CDs don't provide the required files to start the installer from within DOS.

- SUSE LINUX Professional 9.2 comes with latest open source functionality, including 2.6 Linux kernel enhancements, KDE 3.3 and GNOME 2.6 desktop environments

The World Wide Web was conceived as a medium for people to easily share information. With its wide adoption, it was only natural that it would be used for accessing and retrieving data by machine-based processes. In an intent to standardize a common approach to programmatic consumption of Web-based information, the World Wide Web Consortium has been working toward the new generation Web, dubbed the Semantic Web.

Replace Adobe FrameMaker with OpenOffice.org Writer? Most people's first reaction is amused disbelief. "FrameMaker is a hugely capable publishing product," my editor admonished me. "OOo is a marginally competent word processor." However, a functional comparison of several important desktop publishing features in both products shows that the products are more comparable than you might think.

is testing Linux software as a replacement for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, which runs the 70,000 personal computers used by its employees. AT&T Corp. is testing Linux software as a replacement for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, which runs the 70,000 personal computers used by its employees.

Looking for a faster way to compile with Ant? A growing number of Open Source developers say that Javamake or Jikes might just do the trick.

Want to give Linux a try with little fuss and bewilderment? Xandros may have just what you're looking for. I took a shipping version of Xandros Desktop OS Deluxe 2.5 for a spin and was pleased to find that everything just plain worked.

Yesterday we noted that more and more companies are heading to the courts to sue other companies in intellectual property disputes involving software, because they believe they can get away with it -- whether they're in the right or not. Eastman-Kodak Co. is the latest corporate bully to test the legal waters. In the culmination of a three-week-long case, a federal jury in Kodak's hometown of Rochester, N.Y., ruled that Sun violated a patent that Kodak held. But hold on -- this case is far from over.

Three former BEA Systems executives have launched a company they hope will become the Dell of open-source software. Lead by Byron Sebastian, CEO, Cornelius Willis, VP of sales and marketing, and Will Pugh, chief architect, the Bellevue, Wash.-based SourceLabs will assemble, certify, test and provide ongoing support services for open-source applications and infrastructure products.

Cray has begun selling its XD1 systems, machines using Opteron processors and the Linux operating system that the supercomputer specialist hopes will give it a better foothold in the lower end of the market.

A NSW [Australia] Government tender for open source software has caused a political stoush, with Minister for Commerce, John Della Bosca, slammed by the Opposition.

The United Nation's (UN's) World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has adopted a "development agenda" that acknowledges the need for balance in worldwide policy on trademark, copyright, and patents. In the past, WIPO has been roundly resistant to attempts to balance the interests of copyright holders, who make up the majority of WIPO participants, and the public, which had never been represented at the meetings.

IBM has just completed a three-year, US$100 million overhaul of the software engine behind the world's airline, hotel and rental car reservations systems, and credit-card systems like Visa and American Express.

The Coalition, Labor, the Democrats and the Greens all believes that open source has an important role to play in the Australian economy, the industry body for open source within Australia said in a statement today. However, Open Source Industry Australia (OSIA) director Brendan Scott said that while Labor, the Democrats and the Greens were actively supportive of open source procurement, the Coalition was silent on the issue.

ID Software has graced us today with the Linux Demo and Full Version of Doom 3. You can find their new Linux site for Doom 3 with all of the information you'll need to download and install both versions.

Hewlett-Packard has formally demanded that Sun Microsystems and its president, Jonathan Schwartz, stop publishing what it calls "misleading and factually incorrect statements" about HP's commitment to its version of Unix--but Sun is standing firm.

It's not perfect yet, but Eclipse marks a new way of developing applications.