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Open-source software, increasingly popular with budget-conscious companies, is beginning to expand into a new area: The lucrative infrastructure-software market dominated by industry giants such as Microsoft.

Novell may roll a version of Linux tuned specifically for the SMB market, chairman and CEO Jack Messman said Thursday during a conference call announcing the company's strong fiscal 2004 earnings and return to profitability. [SMB == Small to Medium Business. Thanks davewarner.]

Welcome to the Mandrakelinux Community Newsletter -- dedicated to keeping you up-to-date with the latest Mandrake-related news & info.

Microsoft claims that it did not warn Asian governments against Linux and was merely referring to a study done by an open-source group, but the author of the study says his report was misinterpreted.

Several new distributions make communicating with a Windows network more difficult than it should be.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA -- The annual LISA (Large Installation System Administration) conference has a devoted following; you meet people here who have attended five, six, even seven LISAs in a row. The '04 edition wasn't as big as the ones held during and immediately after the dot-boom years, but it's still exciting to gather 1,200 sysadmins and academics in one place so they can share knowledge with one another. The question, though, is whether the current blend of academic-style research paper presentations, practical tutorials, and general-interest keynotes should be continued or whether LISA should focus more in a single direction. And it's a good question, because the conference's demographics have changed noticeably in the last few years.

HP says it has certified its complete business line of desktops, workstations and notebooks on Novell's Linux Desktop. It will sell and support the distribution to volume customers.

I ran into a guy I knew from school a few years ago at a gathering in Pasadena. He worked for Sun at the time, and was talking with some other people, discussing linux. The tone in his voice was unmistakeable: linux was a toy, solaris was a serious kernel. He proceeded to enumerate the various virtues of the Solaris kernel and the demerits of the linux kernel.

The creator of Linux has urged the EU Council not to adopt a draft directive on software patents as he considers it 'deceptive, dangerous and democratically illegitimate'.

According to the Web site of its developers, the cAos Foundation, "The goal [of CentOS] is to reproduce RHEL in a freely distributable form that complies in full with RedHat's redistribution requirements. It is designed for people who need an enterprise class OS without the cost of certification or the RedHat brand name." To a large extent, it succeeds.

Commentary: Frank Ottink, COO at YEALD, recently opined that given Sun's recent moves, the Linux movement is dead and will only recede from its current market position. No, really. It's true. I saw a link to the story on Slashdot. Fortunately for Linux fans, Ottink's opinions seemed to be based on equal amounts of pre-revolutionary and wishful thinking. He may be a great guy, but he definitely doesn't grok free software and what drives it.

Linux industry observers were quick to draw comparisons between the Linux Core Consortium (LCC) and the pretty much dead and buried UnitedLinux commercial entity when the Consortium was announced last week. And while one of the founding members of the LCC agrees such comparisons are fair, it soon becomes evident that these two efforts are very different in terms of structure and goals.

A report has predicted that more than one in seven ERP servers will be running the open-source operating system by 2007.

Does getting rid of UNIX favor Linux? Or Does it play right into Microsoft's hands?

Like dozens of other federal, state and local entities, the U.S. Marshal Service is adopting open-source software for some information technology projects, a move that's making Red Hat a potent symbol within the service's IT department. Red Hat Linux may not directly nab more criminals, but it is helping the service run more efficiently.

Look I did not discover this story, but I think it gives perspective to some of the problems Microsoft is confronting and they are not all Linux/Free/Open Source driven. Indeed, I think the headline on the SlashDot entry is a misnomer. Moreover, Google denies it intends to compete for the desktop. The importance is that MS is being challenged by another corporate entity that is really unpredictable and innovative. Furthermore, that challenge emanates from a Linux based company! Microsoft has been too comfortable too long and it senses it is in danger.

Leader in Linux Email and Calendaring to Participate in Lab's Data Center and Desktop Linux Working Groups

This edition of The Locksmith provides a breakdown of the latest update to the SANS-FBI list of the top ten most exploited security threats in Linux/UNIX systems. [BIND, Web servers (Apache, etc), weak passwords, CVS, MTAs, SNMP, OpenSSL, NFS, databases, kernel.]

Massey University took delivery last week of its new Double Helix cluster computer and says it packs anywhere between five to ten times the computational power of the university's existing supercomputer, the 64-node Helix 1.

Red Hat Linux, Solaris 9, Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Server Added to Supported Platforms