Matt Asay has some interesting news about a shareholder proposal that will be presented to Oracle’s forthcoming shareholder meeting asking the company to detail its commitment to open source and use its patent portfolio to protect open source. Oracle isn’t keen on the idea, which is the tabloid headline. The interesting news, as Matt suggests, [...]

Between BusinessWeek’s “That’s One Way To Reinvent A Company” and “Scott McNealy’s five reasons that free, open source software is good for Sun and our customers” from Jim Laurent’s Weblog, there’s some good insight into the history of Sun’s open source enlightenment this week. It is interesting to see how far the company has come. [...]

I recently read with great interest Walt Mossberg’s review of the latest Ubuntu Linux, described as “relatively slick,” but still not ready for non-technical users. I have a couple of differing perspectives. The first is that Ubuntu is ultra slick. It’s free. It’s open source. It’s growing. It’s Linux and it works (usually). My second [...]

Last fall was marked by some fairly stunning announcements for open source. First software behemoth Oracle said it was going to offer its own support and version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Then, of course, was the pact announced between Microsoft and Novell. We also heard news that Sun would not only be open [...]

IBM and Sun Microsystems announced today a deal whereby IBM will distribute Solaris on select x86 systems from IBM. IBM customers will now have the option, in some cases, to select Solaris as an operating system, alongside Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). From the press release (press [...]

The purchase of XenSource by Citrix reinforces the direction for the Xen hypervisor and virtualization technology toward Windows and Microsoft’s Veridian, but what does it mean for virtual machines and management using Linux? For one, it makes what is happening with KVM, OpenVZ, Virtual Box and others all the more interesting and important. With VMware [...]

Much of the talk leading up to this year’s LinuxWorld Conference & Expo centered on how the open source OS has become so mainstream, it seemed somewhat silly to have its own conference. However, the conference (bolstered by the concurrent Next Gen Data Center show) did highlight the continuing evolution of Linux and other open [...]

I recently saw an interesting article on the use of Windows in HPC clusters and as I read through it, I realized that the names ‘Windows’ and ‘Linux’ could have easily been swapped throughout the piece if the subject was enterprise servers in 2002. The OS with the hold on the market and most of [...]

For those of us tired of all things iPhone this week, there are some other, refreshing signs of product and market innovation and the all-important sexiness factor. Where? Well, it’s Linux of all places. I’m referring to the latest laptops from OEM goliath Dell that deliver Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux — which itself represents an effort [...]

Canonical has announced that Dell will sell personal computers pre-installed with Feisty Fawn, Ubuntu 7.04. Financial details, such as what license fee if any is being paid by Dell to Canonical, which sponsors Ubuntu, were not disclosed. Dell will offer optional paid support from Canonical, maintaining Canonical’s support revenue model; some Dell customers are willing [...]

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) released the third draft of the GPLv3 for public review and discussion today (press release). The “last-call” version expected in June before finalizing and publishing the GPLv3. If you have the time and interest to plow through licensing text, feel free to read the new draft yourself. The FSF has [...]

IDC reports that shipments of laptops are ready to overtake shipments of desktops, a long-running trend in the PC industry. We’ve also been hearing more and more about ‘green computing’ and how energy efficiency and environmental impact are becoming priorities for consumers concerned about their world and enterprises concerned about their reputation. This got me [...]

Canonical CEO and Ubuntu Founder Mark Shuttleworth told recently about his support and board seat for the Linux Foundation. This is a great addition and endorsement of the Linux consortium, formed earlier this year by the fusion of the OSDL and Free Standards Group. It brings Shuttleworth’s proven open source community and business leadership to [...]

Over the last five years or so, there have been a number of rumors, stories and announcements on pre-loaded desktop Linux from big PC makers that typically get Linux fans excited, then disappointed. Sometimes, it would amount to sending out PCs with a basic OS like FreeDOS or no operating system at all. If the [...]

Today, the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group (FSG) announced a merger, thereby forming a new organization called The Linux Foundation (press release). Those of us overwhelmed by technology acronyms can move FSG and OSDL into the ‘retired’ column. From the press release… For Linux to remain open and attain the [...]

We’ve been saying here and elsewhere that the Microsoft-Novell and Oracle-Red Hat announcements have been market changing events. Some ripples are at the fore: Microsoft has siezed an opportunity to simultaneously head off Oracle and irritate Red Hat. Novell has turned its greatest weakness (the spectre of irrelevancy as recently as last week) into what [...]

We don’t want to make too much of this, but if we’re looking for reasons why Novell is facing challenges we can say that one is that the left hand doesn’t watch the right. Either that or Novell is ambivalent about what it’s doing internally, because its Analyst Newsletter, sent at 7 am PT, leads [...]

Red Hat has been busy for the past two weeks. First, it was “Unfakeable Linux” and now it’s “Unthinkable.” Last week, I said that the biggest loser from the Oracle announcement was Novell, not Red Hat. One week later, Novell partners with Microsoft and changes the rules. Oracle should be on the phone to Red [...]

I don’t travel much – I really don’t. I may travel 8 to 10 times per year, and this is light compared to many of the ‘air warriors’ I know out there. Yet, the three most significant events in open source this year – Red Hat’s acquisition of JBoss, Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux, and Microsoft’s partnership [...]

Random quotes from a discussion on the Daily Dave pen testing list regarding the IPO of Sourcefire, the security company founded by Marty Roesch, the inventor of the Snort open source intrusion detection system (IDS). Priceless stuff, seeing comments on IDS from those who avoid it. “Making IDS part of a defense in depth strategy [...]