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The competition between open-source and proprietary software promises to be the most significant force in IT over the next decade.

Ever since PC-based computing exploded in the early 1990s, corporate America has relied on Microsoft Windows. But a new competitor has emerged. A growing number of corporations and government agencies are using Linux, an operating system that can be downloaded for free from the Internet

The car hire firm says its has cut hardware and maintenance costs dramatically by migrating 1,500 rental stations to thin clients running Linux

If anything trumps the number of large enterprises using Linux, it's the number of security patches Microsoft has posted in response to its operating system vulnerabilities over the last few years.

Using Ruby and SQLite to create Linux clusters that take advantage of idle nodes and bypass expensive software solutions.

Keeping track of what you want and what to get others is always a chore at this time of year, but a pair of open source applications can make your life easier: SecretSanta and PHP Gift Registry.

Fedora Core 3 (FC3), released last month as the successor to Red Hat's consumer-grade product that was discontinued a year ago, takes Linux to a whole new level.

Earlier this year, IBM's Power architects and forward-thinking partners held court at the Power Everywhere event in New York to extol the future of Power Architecture in all its manifestations. But what does all this ubiquitous Power mean for Linux?

Netscape DevEdge, the Web developer resource, has returned. This follows the sudden disappearance of DevEdge in October. The last we heard, the Mozilla Foundation was trying to get the rights to the DevEdge material, so we suspect the reemergence of the Netscape DevEdge site is a temporary measure until the Mozilla Foundation can begin hosting the content itself.

Bruce Perens is one of the founders of the open source movement. He operates his own consulting company, sits on the board of Open Source Risk Management, and is senior scientist for open source at George Washington University's Cyber-Security Policy& Research Institute. In an extended interview with InfoWorld, Perens got to the heart of open source's value to the enterprise.

Today I received my actual printed copy of my actual book, the "Linux Cookbook." This is a thrill beyond measure. It was a long hard slog, and many times I found myself wishing I'd committed to something simpler, like walking across the US on my hands. But it's done, and I believe that this is the primo Linux user's and system administrator's howto book. No fluff, just dive in and get the job done.

The continued success of the open source movement is entirely dependent on contributions from developers. But according to a study conducted by InfoWorld and IDG in July 2004, although 85 percent of respondents said that they were either evaluating or actively using open source in their businesses, only 36 percent cited access to source code as either?very important? or?extremely important? to open source software?s overall attractiveness.

The IT industry has a reputation for forward thinking and new ideas. And yet, when it comes time to reform the way entire companies do business, sometimes it pays to look to history.

Linux software maker Xandros has joined the growing number of open source software offerings on PC desktops at Wal-Mart's online store. Like other PCs available from Wal-Mart, the Xandros-powered systems don't come with a monitor, and range in price from US $200 to $600.

A Sun Microsystems engineer chartered with directing the engineering effort to open source Solaris has published a new software license that could be used for the open-source release of Sun's Unix operating system. Though Sun is vague on details about the license, called the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), it is incompatible with Linux's software license.

When Firefox 1.0 came out in early November, the praise was deafening.

Sun Microsystems Inc. has proposed a new open-source license to the Open Source Initiative, but Linus Torvalds and others doubt that it will help Sun create an open-source community.

While many of you would post guards on your server room door rather than migrate from NetWare to another platform, the desktop is a different kettle of fish. I know plenty of people who long for the days of DOS workstations. There's even still a few who like their OS/2 desktops. But there are many of you who run Windows on your users' machines and are looking for an alternative. NLD could be that alternative.

Note the heavy use of the default Mac browser and the hefty numbers for FireFox. Skewed true, but very recently IE was at the 90% range for this site! Remember too that this probably is not a techie haven site, more likely regular folk interested in politics.

Commentary: So IBM is looking for a way out of the PC business. Big Blue's personal computer division is going to be sold. It's hard to believe after all these years, even though the PC business at IBM has never really recovered from the kidney-punch Microsoft delivered to it by withholding licensing for Windows 95 until 15 minutes prior to launch. The malignant monopoly was just as open to the possibility of competition in those days as the Bush administration is to dissenting views today, so IBM had to be punished for daring to push OS/2.