Showing headlines posted by dave

In muted tones, Microsoft’s chairman warned governments and companies that open source software is not the way to go if they are in the business of creating jobs and intellectual property.

The browser war was almost dead when the spunks at Mozilla hotted it up again with simply better browsers. But a simply better way of getting news, Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, promises a new challenge to the browser, and perhaps even the telly.

As more companies and government departments deploy Linux-based servers and desktops, the market for specialist support services is beginning to hot up, according to IDC. Business services supporting Linux and open-source applications are no longer a niche market, according to a report published by IDC on Thursday.

There are a lot of different persistent options in Knoppix, so many I can't really fit them here, but if you want to get a head start on this whole "ubiquitous computing" thing, I recommend grabbing a usb key and giving Knoppix a look.

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has launched a new fundraising campaign, following an EC decision not to award the group public monies. The group needs around €10,000 per month to keep going at its current level, and wants to double this budget so that it can expand its activities. It also wants to put down roots and set up a real-world office.

New IDC research has indicated Microsoft's grip over the software industry is being loosened as spending on Linux IT services in Western Europe grows.

Vidalinux is a promising new GNU/Linux distribution based on Gentoo Linux and developed in Puerto Rico. It's currently in beta pending the first release -- and as such is full of bugs and problems. However, there's a bright future for this distro with its OS X-like GNOME interface and the new graphical front end for Gentoo's Portage system, Porthole.

The feedback on my recent column about the advantages of monoculture — that is, standardizing on one platform or vendor — was anything but monolithic. Any discussion of monoculture risks devolving into anti-Microsoft ranting. One reader ended an otherwise rational e-mail by proving that Godwin’s Law (“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one”) also applies to e-mail discussions: “Remember, Hitler wanted a monoculture.” That’s the first time in the three-plus years I’ve been writing this column that I’ve elicited even the faintest Hitler comparison. I guess I’ve finally arrived.

I have created a timeline of the latest security bug. It shows how quickly the Mozilla developers handled the problem, tracking from the first mention in Bugzilla to the last CVS commit to the webpage. Readers get a peak into how development works over at mozilla.org, in particular into how security issues get resolved.

Yet for all its virtues, open source presents a dilemma: If important building blocks such as Linux and Apache are free, then how can commercial software vendors stay in business?

Opinion:The crackers currently have the whip hand over Windows, and Microsoft's assertion that Internet Explorer is now part of the operating system shows its flawed reasoning.

PARIS - Researchers at three French government-funded research organizations this week revealed something they hope will increase the spread of free, open source software in the country: a new license they say is compatible with the Free Software Foundation Inc.'s GNU General Public License (GPL).

Wietse Venema is best known for the software TCP Wrapper, which is still widely used today and is included with almost all unix systems. Wietse is also the author of the Postfix mail system and the co-author of the very cool suite of utilities called The Coroner's Toolkit or "TCT". He is currently working at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center and he has gratiously agreed to allow us to catch up with him and and see what he's been up to lately.

Just when Windows users thought it was safe to move away from Internet Explorer and its litany of security issues, a flaw has been detected in Mozilla, the open-source alternative to Microsoft's widely used browser. ... Future versions of Mozilla Firefox will include automatic update notifications, the foundation said, providing users with prompt information on security issues.

Business services supporting Linux and open-source applications have attained mainstream status in Western Europe, according to a new report from IDC.

Although Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer waxed optimistic about the company's Linux competition in his annual memo to employees, analysts and Linux leaders say Microsoft is losing traction fast and that its battles are "only going to get worse."

Developers at the open-source Mozilla Foundation have confirmed that the latest version of their Web browsers have a security flaw that could allow attackers to run existing programs on the Windows XP operating system. Developers said the flaw affects only Windows users, not computers running the Macintosh and Linux operating systems.

In light of a recent memo from the Executive Office that directs agencies to include open-source software in federal purchases, we interview an leading advocate of OSS in government.