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Computer geeks and music fans will have something in common this weekend in Winnipeg. OpenCity FreedomFest, an effort organized by the Prairie Linux Users Group (PLUG), will be the first festival in Canada to unite the concept of open source software with music and art. Kicking off on Friday evening, the festival will feature local political activists, musicians, video artists and Linux fans at four venues in the Exchange District.

Motorola plans to sell mobile phone network equipment that uses Linux-based code, a step forward in network gear makers' efforts to rally around a standard.

Hewlett-Packard Co. will release the final processor upgrade for its AlphaServer line of Unix servers on Monday.

Xandros Desktop 2.5 represents the fourth release of the desktop GNU/Linux distribution formerly known as Corel Linux. Xandros prides itself on superior Windows compatibility, and to maintain that reputation it includes some hard-hitting tools for making Windows programs work well on GNU/Linux. It's a little on the expensive side as far as desktop distributions go, and it feels somewhat like a slightly watered-down version of Linspire, but Xandros 2.5 Business Edition definitely has its advantages.

Novell Inc. earlier this month bundled the open-source, J2EE-compliant JBoss Application Server with its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, giving application developers a built-in deployment option.

The company behind China's leading Linux client distribution, Red Flag Software Co. Ltd., is shifting its main focus to its server operating system and enterprise customers, and planning to expand sales overseas, the company's acting president said in an interview on Friday.

Lindows is rumored to have shelved its plans for a near-term IPO, according to news items published by TheStreet.com, the San Diego Union Tribune, and elsewhere. The San Diego-based company, in the process of changing its corporate identity to "Linspire" subsequent to a Microsoft settlement, was scheduled to trade under the symbol, LINE.

America Online has just released Netscape 7.2. Based on Mozilla 1.7, this latest version features better popup blocking, vCard support, an improved junk mail algorithm, better standards support, performance enhancements and several hundred other bug fixes. It also includes patches for recent security vulnerabilities.

A discussion of how to use frame styles in OOo Writer.

While IT is improving the quality of life in many developed nations, the use of technology is still out of reach for people in many other countries. Nowhere is this digital divide as big or visible than in India. Apart from access to a computer, unfamiliarity with the English language is one of the biggest factors contributing to this problem. In countries like India, where the majority of the population is English-illiterate, computing has to speak a language the locals understand. This is where user-interface localization steps in.

I read something in one of the comments for an OSNews posting a couple weeks ago that sent me thinking. It wasn't an original or profound thought. In fact, it's a rather commonly-held opinion that happens to be quite misguided. It's an opinion summed up by the "open source = communist" meme that gets thrown around in thousands of flamewars all over the internet. In this essay, I will explore why this idea is wrong and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of economics.

A look at three GUI front-ends for the LilyPond music notation software.

O'Reilly's Open Source convention (OSCON) in Portland followed by LinuxWorld in San Francisco were like star spangled siblings each celebrating the visionary sparkle and practical promise of Open Source.

There are many people questioning the motives and determination of this small company. Yes, the SCO Group folks sincerely believe the intellectual property rights they own will eventually be borne out in courts of law, and the staff is quite willing to absorb the sticks and stones they are currently encountering on the road to the ultimate vindication they believe they will win. They maintain a long-term view of what the company is trying to accomplish.

Unisys has long been the main booster -- possibly the only one besides Microsoft -- of Windows as a mainframe operating system. Now Unisys says it loves Linux -- but still claims to be a staunch Microsoft partner -- and it seems like most of its contributions to the Linux kernel are only useful to Unisys customers. And then there's the specter of the Unisys GIF patents (now expired), and how the company used them as weapons against free and open source software projects only a few years ago. In light of all this, should we welcome Unisys as a "member of the Linux community" with open arms, or maintain a skeptical distance until the company proves that it has truly seen the open source light?

LinuxBeta.com's latest Linux beta slideshow is of the Spanish Debian based Guadalinex 2004 RC4.

Independent medical schemes manager Medscheme has contracted Unisys Africa to install two ES7000 servers running SuSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell. These are to replace the company's existing SCO UnixWare servers.

The London Borough of Newham has signed a deal with Microsoft which it said will be cheaper to support than migrating its systems to Linux. The deal follows a comparison of the costs and benefits of Microsoft versus Linux - carried out by consultancy Capgemini - which concluded that Newham could reduce support costs by 13.5 per cent, or £3.2m over five years, by using Microsoft products. This is double the £1.6m saving from using Linux.