E*Trade switches to Linux servers, Feb 01, 2002

E*Trade announced Thursday that it is the latest company to jump on the Linux bandwagon.

The online brokerage is moving its computer systems over to IBM servers that run the operating system. In a statement, E*Trade cited cost savings and performance as reasons for switching to Linux.

I very much fear that those great big companies forget the source of that code from which they hope to make money. It is true that the big guys are familiar with the management of big projects, and Linux is experiencing some pains with projects having grown to the point where they're hard to manage, but the innovation is not happening at the big companies, it's happening in some room where a lone programmer with an idea is beginning the kind of thing that will be a Checkinstall or Gimp-Print. And yeah, it's probably a young man who is listening to music that many of us would liken to the sound of a dental drill. He might well dress strangely and hold genuinely odd views of the world. When I got home from LWE a few minutes ago and checked the Web, I found a report that this year's LWE is all business, and people who are interested in fun and swag ought to stay home. Well, dammit, those are the people who made it possible for this conference to exist at all!

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's order late Wednesday came two days after 60 days of public comment on the settlement ended. The Justice Department expected that thousands of comments would pour in, partly because of canvassing on the part of Microsoft through its Freedom to Innovate initiative and because of Microsoft competitors working through trade groups

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