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Awards Celebrate Performance of Top Hardware, Software, Training and Solution Provider Partners

Former Oracle Corp. President/COO Ray Lane, who is now an IT venture capitalist with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, recently brought together a panel of open source experts at the Open Source Business Conference for two hours of candid commentary on the state of the enterprise software industry and the impact of open source.

The focus of the 22nd Annual Computer Olympiad, supported by the Computer Society of South Africa (CSSA) and Standard Bank, has shifted to the open source programming language Python.

The Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser is without a doubt an open source software success story. One of its strengths is the active development community that works to expand and improve the browser's functionality through the development of Firefox extensions -- small applications that add functionality to Firefox. Here are a few of my favorite extensions, all tested with Firefox 1.0.1 on Windows XP and Mandrakelinux.

W3schools has updated their website browser statistics, and the good news is that Firefox has jumped up another 2% in the past month to just a tiny bit less then 24 percent of their overall visitors.

One challenge of Linux is finding a way to use it because few computers come with the operating system already installed. Using a Linux-based operating system such as Linspire (formerly Lindows) has its advantages, such as few worries about viruses and spyware. But most users must install it as a “dual boot” with another operating system.

SugarCRM is offering a new version of its core application this week that adds campaign management, E-mail marketing, sales forecasting, and wireless support.

Over the past several weeks, Tom Lane has been working on replacing our old Cache Management Alorithm (ARC) with a new, patent free one (2Q). In order to reduce the number of 8.x deployments out there that are using the old manager, we have just released 8.0.2, and encourage adminstrators to upgrade at their earliest convience.

VIA has posted open source drivers for its graphics chipsets, part of its project to encourage the use of Linux with its EPIA embedded x86 platform. The chipset maker said it had made driver code available for S3 Graphics' UniChrome family of graphics cores integrated into its CLE266, CN400, PM800 and PM880 North Bridge components. The drivers support Linux kernel 2.6.x.

Being the best doesn't always mean being the most popular. We all know of many inferior products that are immensely, sometimes perplexingly, popular. However, this does not mean that one must forsake the pursuit of excellence when pursuing a broad market share. As proponents of open source software, it should not be beneath us to pursue popularity or to look to proprietary developers as examples. And by following the right examples, we can help spread the usage of open source software without sacrificing the goal of software excellence.

Linare Professional is a commercial GNU/Linux distribution based on Fedora Core. It is themed to look and feel like Windows XP and aims to be a full-featured well-integrated desktop OS. Sadly, I've found it offers little more value than Fedora Core, and that value comes at a cost.

Citing desires for both a "new identity" and an end to possible legal liability, Mandrakesoft changed its name to “Mandriva” last week, not long after announcing a merger with Conectiva and many details of a future product roadmap. Some members of the Linux community are unhappy about the changes, but Mandriva has plans to make the changes more palatable.

Template for open source code will handle international issues.

I have espoused the cause of Ingres for some time and, especially, I have commended Computer Associates' decision to take the Ingres database into the open source community.

One of the most famous Linux distributions, Red Hat, has all the reasons to be proud because of the association with several European top companies that operate in the financial and insurance segments.

Most SMBs and enterprise customers deploying Windows Server 2003 find its quality, performance and reliability equal to or better than Linux, according to the Yankee Groups's latest study, its Linux-Windows 2005 TCO Comparison Survey. Yankee, reports Maureen O'Gara, "says that Linux is having trouble displacing Windows Server, XP and Office in both the SMB and enterprise markets - a finding that isn't going to win it any friends among the open source zealots, who tends to treat such observations about as impersonally as if you said their mothers wear army boots."

Microsoft and Canadian police launch an open-source system that helps find connections between cases of child exploitation.

Corporate users are taking a more pragmatic look at Linux than in the past. They're stripping away the hype and finding the true cost, as well as how it stacks up against Windows in terms of reliability and security, according to a pair of reports released last week.

Investment flows to companies that help businesses use systems effectively, rather than tie them to one flavor of open-source software

SA learners taking part in the CSSA Computer Olympiad this year will be able to put their skills to work on open source software such as Python and stand to win up to R100 000 in prizes. The new focus on open source software for the Olympiad has been boosted by the investment of more than R300 000 by the Shuttleworth Foundation and the CSIR.