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I just finished Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, and like pretty much everyone else who has read that book, I was awestruck and inspired. Like a couple of other authors before me (see end of blog for list), I’m seeking to apply Diamond’s analysis to the question of which type of software will prevail: open source or commercial software.

This is a special podcast dedicated to the review of the newly released Linux distro Fedora Core 4 by Redhat. This is part one of the review and focuses on the initial installation and configuration of the OS. [The story links directly to the mp3 file]

The art of hiding information from anyone except from the intended receiver has been used for many centuries. Hiding information by embedding it in other, seemingly innocuous information is known as steganography, a word that means "covered writing" in Greek. Today, steganography applications can hide one file within another on a computer. Steganography applications are available on many different platforms, including Windows, Linux, and *BSD.

NetApp CEO talks open source, virtualization and IBM

A Linux board the size of a packet of chewing gum has been used to spur a wave of low-cost robotics applications, including a wireless helicopter, at England's University of Essex. Computer science researcher Owen Holland at the University of Essex has created an airborne robotics application.

Most of us have been conditioned for so long that the Microsoft "platform" is essential that we scarcely pause to think about alternatives. But as long as we can perform our essential tasks - print that report, send that e-mail - does the operating system really matter?

For every network service you run, you've opened one more window on your server to the world. Firewalls are great for defending servers against attacks from the outside, but attacks don't always come from the outside. If you have a server inside your firewall hacked, the attacker can continue hacking away at other servers without worrying about the firewall stopping his progress. For this reason it is important to schedule network audits of all of your servers.

This primer provides a broad perspective on the localization of Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) for the benefit of policy- and decision-makers in developing countries. It highlights the benefits and strategies of FOSS localization, along with case studies from various countries that are on the road to software freedom.

The Linux Kernel Archives provides an assortment of methods for obtaining the Linux Kernel source code. In an earlier article we spoke with H. Peter Anvin who has been maintaining kernel.org since its inception in 1997. In the beginning it operated on a generic PC connected to the Internet through a shared T1 housed by Transmeta Corporation. Since those early days, it has been upgraded several times to finally reach the current configuration which includes multiple ProLiant DL585 4-way dual-core Opterons donated by HP, each with 24 gigabytes of RAM and 10 terabytes of disk space. Both of the servers have a full gigabit connection to the Internet donated by Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.

VA Linux Systems Japan K.K. (VA Linux), Japan's leading Linux and Open Source solutions provider, has announced the release of 'FlexPOP', a fast and secure POP server which supports large-scale systems, and an Open Source Software solution. FlexPOP is a part of the company's VA FMS (FlexMessaging Solution), a total messaging solution for use in small-to-middle scale organizations to large scale network service providers with over one million accounts.

Welcome to this year's 25th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! This issue focuses on some of the interesting events of the past week, including the war of words between the Linux and BSD communities, the failure of Lycoris as a business model, and the surprising revelation that the founder of Gentoo and one of the leading Linux personalities has accepted a job offer from Microsoft. We also wonder why SUSE does not participate in this year's LinuxTag, introduce a Debian sarge variant "with a human face", and tell you how to get the latest release of Linspire for free. The featured distribution of the week is INSERT, a tiny security and rescue live CD. Happy reading!

The open source philosophy is popular enough that it is becoming a marketing cliche for some companies that don't have anything to do with software production. Take Jigsaw, for example -- not Jigsaw the open source Java Web server, but Jigsaw, the business contacts database.

Company is boosting the processing power of its p5-575 server, a machine geared for high-performance technical computing tasks.

In celebration of tomorrow's Youth Day holiday in South Africa, Mark Shuttleworth, open source advocate and Ubuntu Linux founder, will answer learner's questions over an amateur radio link.

Netline Internet Service, makers of the world’s leading open source collaboration server, announced today that it has transferred the intellectual property, trademarks, URL’s, branding and marketing rights to Open-Xchange Server from Netline to New York-based Openexchange Inc.

As of June 8, 2005, you can download initialization and boot source code based on the IEEE-1275 Standard for Boot Initialization Configuration Firmware.

The Schools Linux User Group volunteers yesterday rolled out ten Linux-based laboratories. And they did this before midday.

Ruby on Rails is a recent entry into the world of Web application development that is rapidly gaining mindshare, even while still in beta versions. Rails succeeds by automating the creation of the most common types of Web applications while not straightjacketing you if you want to add custom or atypical requirements. Moreover, compared to many Free Software libraries that perform individual aspects of a Web application, Rails contains a nicely integrated set of tools for all aspects.

As part of its worldwide expansion program, Daffodil Software today announced its reseller partnership with Softa SuperStore, Finland’s biggest software web-shop.

Pentaho will introduce reporting, analysis, data-mining, and workflow functions as a series of software components that can be deployed together or individually.