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The open source database from Sweden has quickly risen to the forefront as a potential player. The company has accrued some customers here and will announce enterprise offerings this week, but is it enough? IDC Canada runs the numbers while Microsoft assesses its competition

This week at its MySQL Users Conference in Orlando, Fla., MySQL will launch MySQL Cluster. The main-memory database technology supports high-volume distributed enterprise applications, and it provides automatic failover and data replication across multiple nodes, according to MySQL officials.

Recently we've been receiving emails from users about missing sections and content in the newsletter. We've had some contributors leave the team, and others have been unable to participate due to personal issues, but once we start adding some new contributors to the team and reorganizing, we should be right back on track. Those who responded to the recruitment drive last week, please hold on as we determine what positions we need filled and begin responding to applicants. Thanks to all our readers for reading the newsletter each week; we'll bring back all our regular content as quickly as possible.

Proactive planning is the antidote to fear and resistance. Novell began its migration plan by documenting critical business processes, categorizing users, identifying "must have" applications and choosing the best opportunities for early success.

Last week one of LinuxWorld's sister sites reported on WiX. Now the wider technology community has begun to comment on the surprise move by Microsoft to open-source some of its technology for a change. Microsoft may not be about to make the source code for Windows or any other major program available under an open-source license, but it was still a nice change and has been welcomed.

A local Linux enthusiast has set up a website for New Zealand Linux users to swap information about compatible and incompatible hardware.

Don Marti responds to a new user's inquiry on a local mailing list.

In many ways Linux can be so much more graceful than Windows. The KDE project and the commercial desktops based on Gnome (Ximian, Sun JDS etc.) demonstrate this. And for daily use, I enjoy KDE more than I enjoy XP, period. It makes more sense to me. But the initial configuration and the gotchas that I have outlined above will continue to stunt the growth of large scale adoption. It's not that the learning curve is too high, it's that this entire generation of computer users has learned how to use computers the Microsoft way. Flaws and all. And unlearning all of that baggage is the biggest factor in "figuring Linux out."

Microlite Corporation is pleased to announce immediate support for the new Iomega REV drive for use as a backup and disaster recovery storage device under the Linux operating environment.

THE ABC's New Media and Digital Services wants a new Content Management System, but has placed strict rules on parties wishing to win the contract with an open source program. In calling for expressions of interest, it says "submissions from consultants aggregating third-party software, including open-source software will not be considered".

Downloading Lindows 4.5 via P2P file-sharing application BitTorrent cuts the cost in half.

Via Tobias Schlitt, Alexey Borzov kicked off a huge debate on PEAR quality and standards, part inspired by another discussion that raises a number of very valid issues related to PEAR (Sitepoint Forums regulars will spot a familiar name or two).

Linux clustering was touted as the next big thing by many vendors last week at ClusterWorld Conference & Expo 2004. But supercomputer vendor Cray Inc. scoffed at the notion of putting Linux clusters in the high-performance computing (HPC) category. In fact, Cray showcased a system -- Cray XD1 with Active Manager -- that will compete in performance and price with some Linux clusters upon its release..

In this installment, David looks at Python's two standard modules for unit testing: unittest and doctest. These modules expand on the capability of the built-in assert statement, which is used for validation of pre-conditions and post-conditions within functions. David discusses the best ways to incorporate testing into Python development, weighing the advantages of different styles for different types of projects.

Eirik Eng, CEO of Trolltech, and Matthias Ettrich, founder of the KDE project and CTO of Trolltech were interviewed by Philippe Fremy, KDE enthusiast. This interview was conducted in August 2003. The interview was made possible by Laurent Rathle, who is maintaining the KDE France website. A french translation is however available on KDE-France.

FUD hit embedded Linux this week, when Green Hills Software CEO Dan O'Dowd said Linux is a national security risk. The open source process should rule it out of defense applications, he claimed, because anyone can contribute, even developers in Russia and China, who might disguise their identities and slip in some subversive code. His company sells a competing proprietary RTOS.

The Microsoft Corp. program known as WiX isn't a particularly large piece of software. It would probably never be the subject of a splashy advertising campaign. In fact, most computer users wouldn't even know what to do with it. But the program caused a serious stir in the technology world last week, setting online forums abuzz with speculation and inspiring entire articles on tech-news sites.

It's time for some elements in the Linux community to grow up and chill out before they do more harm than good.

[ Editor's note: GTA is the "Greater Toronto Area". I looked it up for you. :)] Net Integration Technologies Inc., headquartered on Warden Ave. in Markham, offers an operating system called Nitix — a Linux-based program that can be loaded onto servers that then run a company's computer network and handle all the applications its workers use.

Casey Palmer had planned to run both Windows and Linux on his home computer, but the machine had other ideas at first. After he partitioned the hard drive and installed MandrakeSoft's Linux Discovery 9.2, he couldn't figure out how to get Windows running again.