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If you have ever spoken passionately about a favorite operating system, computer, technology or other tech topic on an online discussion board, the chances are good that you're among those that have been labeled a "zealot." Tarential submitted the following editorial to osOpinion/osViews which suggests that the term is being thrown about too flippantly on some online discussion boards... especially with regard to discussion relating to free/open source software.

Nearly one-third of Oracle's software sold in China now runs on the Linux operating system, compared with less than five per cent a year ago, a trend the company calls "an unstoppable wave".

The revolt barely puts a dent in Microsoft's dominance. But the decline of a full percentage point suggests millions of users are paying heed to warnings from the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, which is advising people to "use a different Web browser."

Enfobridge has announced a free support program for OpenOffice.org, along with the launch of a new website that offers users a way to register for support and download OpenOffice.org software. The program is available to new and existing OpenOffice.org users.

When Ireland's leading bank, Allied Irish Bank (AIB), last month disclosed that it was disposing of the Windows PCs that its tellers used on their desktops in favor of Linux-based terminals, experts said it demonstrated that an IT insurgency is emerging in the financial services sector. Linux is finally proving itself on the desktop in the financial industry, where cost-conscious executives want powerful performance at an affordable price.

The Firebird Project announces the release of Firebird V1.5.1. this relese represents a committment by the project to develop and deliver ongoing improvements to this popular open source database engine. The NPTL (Native Posix Thread Library) Linux builds referred to in the http://www.ibphoenix.com/downloads/Firebird_v15pt1_ReleaseNo...">release notes will be available shortly.

In this week's Gentoo Weekly Newsletter you'll read about the release of Gentoo for MacOS X. Now Portage is available under MacOS as a package manager, ready for Macintosh users who want to install packages like TeX. We also bring updates from six projects, in addition to the regular community and security coverage, and a tip about using the command history in bash. Enjoy!

It departments charged with integrating Linux clients among the Windows desktops they're running can make life easier by administering Linux user accounts with Microsoft Corp.'s Active Directory. Samba, the open-source project for providing Windows-compatible file and print services, makes this possible, but it doesn't make it easy.

Finnish software maker Lineox recently released another update to their Always Current Lineox Enterprise Linux. The distribution now contains over 376 updated or new packages, or almost half the contents in the just 5 months since its debut. A new version is released each time Red Hat releases a bug or security fix package for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 or new features are added Lineox's software.

Japan's anti-monopoly watchdog has slapped a warning on Microsoft, demanding that the US software giant remove what it said was a restrictive clause from contracts with computer makers. Microsoft issued a statement within hours of the warning, saying it would contest the decision.

Mandrake has announced the availability of a new update service for users. Mandrakeonline offers services to cost effectively keep software updated on systems running Mandrakelinux.

Opponents of open-source software applauded a recent memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget that they claim puts proprietary software on competitive footing with open-source software in federal procurements.

Apache, FreeBSD Sendmail are lesser known. The share of the market they have will surprise you

THE PEOPLE at Zend Technologies quietly announced last week the availability of the long awaited PHP version 5. The rise of PHP - the open source, server-side web programming language that took the Net by storm starting in 1998 with its 3.0 release, seems to be unstoppable, if one believes the usage charts at php.net.

Linux vendor Linspire Inc. has released PhoneGaim, a free software program that adds voice-over-IP functionality to the Linux-based Gaim instant messaging client.

I have spent the past week (5-11 July) at the Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre (Libre Software Meeting) in Bordeaux. I attended the Free Software Printing Summit which was one of the topics at the conference, and this message is a short report of the proceedings. I was there representing both Gimp-Print and Debian. What we worked on will have an impact on the Debian printing infrastructure in the medium to long term, and this will affect a potentially large number of printing packages. I hope this is found to be informative. Please send any followups to debian-devel.

Microsoft has removed the free software downloads from Lookout's Web site, a day after it announced it bought the Silicon Valley startup. Before it was acquired by Microsoft, Lookout offered critically acclaimed free software that quickly searched files within Microsoft's Outlook e-mail system.