Zend, Sun bringing PHP to the enterprise, Nov 03, 2003

Zend Technologies, inventor and parent company of the popular open source PHP Web scripting engine, today will announce a major partnership deal with Sun Microsystems in a move that may well advance PHP's position in the major leagues of e-business.

The small, Israel-based company today will announce a new suite of products that integrates directly with Sun's newly branded Java System Web Server 6.1, formerly known as Sun ONE Web Server 6.1. As a result of this new partnership, Sun has enlisted a key ally in attracting the PHP development community to its server offerings.

With more than $32 billion in sales last year, Microsoft Corp. doesn't usually worry about losing one customer. But this one may be different.

In September, Massachusetts adopted a policy of "open standards, open source" for all future spending on information technology.

The directive likely wouldn't completely cut out Microsoft from the state's $80 million technology budget. But it may have been the clearest example yet of a state government taking sides against Microsoft in the most important struggle in the software industry.

Microsoft gadfly Michael Robertson, the CEO of Lindows.com and the guy who greeted the letter from Microsoft lawyers telling him to take down his MSfreePC Web site with a raised middle finger, now says that 10% of each claim against Microsoft's $1.1 billion settlement with California over the price of Windows that the site processes will go to a needy Linux company that the claimant picks from a Lindows-supplied list.

The offer is for "a limited time" only - exactly how long is unclear and includes such possibilities as poor old Mozilla, the more buoyant OpenOffice.org, Gnome, KDE or Debian.

Robertson is out to see that as much of that alleged $1.1 billion in vouchers is siphoned out of Microsoft's bank account as he can and that a lot of it turns up at his bank.

Microsoft, meanwhile, has labeled the scheme "fraudulent" and claims that it will result in bogus claims that the settlement claims administrator denies because Lindows is ignoring the rules established like producing receipts.

IDG News Service reports that Moscow-based security software developer Kaspersky Labs has released a new version of its antivirus software for mail servers running on Linux and Unix operating systems. System administrators use the plug-in module Webmin to centrally manage systems settings.

"At a research university, graduate students and faculty are first in line for high-performance computing," Bottum said. "Through a combination of the Linux cluster and refurbished computers from Sun and HP, we're able to provide high-performance computing power in our undergraduate classrooms."

Moffett says a computer cluster is generically defined as a set of computers connected with a high-speed network that allows them to work in a coordinated fashion. A Linux cluster runs on free or inexpensive software but can still deliver high-performance computing at a fraction of the cost of a supercomputer.

Six years ago Chad Harrelson started using the Linux operating system and says he’ll never go back to Microsoft Windows.

“My eyes have been opened,” he says.

Linux—often recognized by its penguin mascot—is a free operating system created in the early 1990s by college student Linus Torvalds and perfected by developers from all around the world. The source code for Linux is similar to Unix but is free, and developers are encouraged to build upon the code and redistribute it for worldwide use.

Last month, Geekcruises' Linux Lunacy cruise to Alaska proved that Linux and Open Source are hot enough topics to even warm up Northern waters. The feature of the trip was a candid Q&A with Linux creator Linus Torvalds. Courtesy of GeekCruises Capt. Neil Bauman and Senior Editor of Linux Journal Doc Searles, OET brings our readers an extended transcript of Linus' shipboard Q&A, where he responds to Linux dev questions on the future of Linux, including the status of Linux 2.6, impacts from increasing corporate (and vendor) adoption, an ever-growing kernel, and even on the pending lawsuit from SCO.

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