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If you received a TiVo DVR or a Linksys router for Christmas, the open source people should sing praises to your name. Linux is appearing in households around the world in millions of nice devices and is so well-hidden under GUIs and web interfaces that the average user doesn't even know it is there. This quiet proliferation of dedicated Linux devices has gone unnoticed by both the open source crowd (who should be standing up and shouting about it from the rooftops) and SCO's lawyers (who could stand to collect a tidy sum if they could win a case and collect a dollar per box shipped).

The company introduces the first public beta of Novell Open Enterprise Server, a dual operating system that can run on top of either SLES 9.2 or the NetWare 7.0 kernel—or both.

Novell has begun a widely available trial of its Open Enterprise Server, software that combines tools from company's proprietary NetWare with the open-source SuSE Linux operating system.

The latest article in my "Secure Programmer" series is now available! This developerWorks series describes how to develop secure programs for Linux/Unix; this article describes how to securely invoke other programs.

Open Source Software, particularly the Linux Operating System, provides many advantages over proprietary Operating Systems, particularly Microsoft Windows. The advantages to Public School Systems, the increase in use of Linux in the Enterprise, the increase in Linux used as Web Servers, and the increase in the use of Linux by governments, makes Linux a viable alternative for use in Public School Systems. Gary Glasscock submitted the following editorial to osopinion/osViews which suggests that Public School Systems now have an economic and academic responsibility to introduce Linux into the mix of their Computer Science education curriculums.

Opinion:By embracing Linux and not forsaking NetWare with its Open Enterprise Server, Novell may have made its best move in years.

Discussing technology, the human experience, homeland security and the future with the author of Islands in the Clickstream.

Unlike an operating system in the role of a server, a desktop OS needs to wear many hats. Of all the various requirements we place on the desktop, there are only three that stand out as being key: look and feel, usability, and diversity. First and foremost, the desktop needs to be visually appealing. This is not necessarily for marketing reasons alone. A desktop that's pleasing to the eye is easier to look at for hours on end (as most of us seem to do) so that the end user doesn't tire of using the machine. Applications need to be readily available, even if they aren't installed on the system. This is something even Windows falls short of. Anyone that says Windows is easy to use hasn't tried Xandros yet. Read the full story at Mad Penguin

If you have ever pulled your hair out in frustration over data loss, no doubt the word 'backup' has special meaning in your life. Databases offer a nice way to catalog data, but with the amount of data being trusted into MySQL databases these days, the after-effects of an unwise DROP DATABASE command, an unlucky system crash, or a failed hand-edit of the table structure are catastrophic and can be unrecoverable -- unless you have a backup to restore from.

In recent years, Open Source has become a relevant and strangely addictive force in IT. As the Internet age has dominated businesses and consumers with the same well oiled, yet clunky machine, Open Source has crept out of the dimly lit bedrooms occupied by toiling hackers and into the network rooms and 'enterprise centric strategies' of todays businesses. Open Source has not just become more acceptable, it has become more relevant.

Most software for personal computers in the developed world presupposes a single user per computer, whether it's located at home or at the office. This is a rare situation in Africa, and the networking and security aspects of Linux help to set up such group environments, as does the ability to customized source code to Africa's culture and needs.

The hottest topic of discussion in the IT sector to day is whether Microsoft will open its source code. If Gates surrenders to the Linux challenge, it will be the biggest corporate story of this generation.

Mobile News Qtopa 2.1 PDA Edition, the latest version of Trolltech's award-winning development platform and user interface for Linux-based personal digital assistants (PDAs), is now available for download under the open source GNU general public (GPL) license.

Application News The GIMP developers are proud to announce the availability of version 2.2.0 of the GNU Image Manipulation Program. About nine months after version 2.0 hit the road, we have completed another development cycle and can bring a new stable GIMP to our users' desktops. The GIMP developers are proud to release version 2.2 of the GNU Image Manipulation Program. About nine months after version 2.0 hit the road, we have completed another development cycle and can bring a new stable GIMP to our users' desktops.

The team that put Firefox together, Mozilla Foundation, now offers a free standalone e-mail application, called Thunderbird. But this time, the case for switching from Microsoft products is less compelling. I just can't see too many people abandoning Microsoft's Outlook, if they use it. Outlook is the gold standard in e-mail programs, despite its $109 list price. Among other things, Thunderbird lacks a calendar application, and its tools for sorting your incoming messages are rather rudimentary.

There is a nice (but rather long) reply from Bruno Souza (Javali Project's Leader) to Onno Kluyt's question of "What do you think (the open sourcing of Java) does that people can't do today?"

In most of the articles and forum entries everyone always mentions that installing Mono is greatly simplified by using Red Carpet. Now that I've done it, I'd have to agree. Getting there was, however, not as easy as I would have liked. In this article I'll provide the step by step instructions for installing Mono on SuSE Linux Professional 9.1 using Red Carpet 2.2.3. After reading, you should have a clear idea of how to get through the installation, and hopefully avoid some of the snags I ran into. In the end, with this article, setting up Red Carpet will be as easy as using it to install Mono.

Some of you may have read my previous entry that sparked quite a bit of debate. Looking back on the content, I realize that the title of the entry could be misinterpreted as FUD or even trolling.

I’ve always been a bit of a Linux junkie. Sadly, being a gamer, I’m stuck with the Microsoft OS’s if Itux baseball want to play most games. (Yes, I know there are options, but if I’m going to run Windows games, it’s easier to run them natively.) I still keep Linux on a couple of machines here.

Novell has launched an indemnification scheme to protect its SuSE Linux Enterprise Server customers against what it described as "certain intellectual property challenges to Linux". Novell's Linux Indemnification Programme follows a similar announcement from Hewlett Packard last year, but is not limited to copyright infringement claims from The SCO Group.