The struggle for the future of Linux, Feb 27, 2001

Despite some lowered barriers between Gnome and the competing interface KDE, the rift persists. De Icaza acknowledged that the split was "a very bad situation."

In the past, when Microsoft Corp. put Linux down, the Linux community would rely upon its users to defend it in such popular open-source forums as Slashdot (slashdot.org). The Linux vendors would stay above the fray. No more. Matthew Szulik, Red Hat Inc.'s CEO, has taken off the kid gloves and come out swinging in a rebuttal to Microsoft's recent Linux putdowns in an article published in Wired News.

Red Hat, Inc., an open source solutions provider based in Research Triangle Park, N.C., has acquired Planning Technologies, Inc., an Atlanta-based consulting service that focuses on infrastructure.

The acquisition strengthens Red Hat's strategy to offer open source solutions for software and a broad choice of services with Red Hat Network as the backbone for deployment and management. The acquisition of PTI was made through a stock for stock exchange valued at $47 million.

The Department of Defense has said it plans within the next few months to install a 512-processor Linux cluster that's supposed to be able to process 478 billion calculations per second at a computing facility in Hawaii for use in applications such as tracking and fighting wildfires across the country.

The supercomputer is being built by IBM at the DoD-affiliated Maui High Performance Computing Center and will be used by the DoD, other government agencies and academic institutions. In addition to tracking fires, uses eyed for the cluster include environmental research and defense projects related to military combat efforts

IBM chairman and CEO Lou Gerstner talked about e-business, middleware, and outsourcing. He talked about Linux, resellers, systems integrators, and independent software vendors, and how IBM is handing them more authority.

There's one operating system IBM likes a lot, though, and that's Linux. The vendor is tailoring the system to run on all its servers, and Gerstner said IBM has 1500 Linux developers on staff. "We think Linux matters," he said.

Brightware Inc. has announced that its Brightware 2001 suite now supports Sun Solaris and Red Hat Linux.

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