Revenge Of The Nerds, Dec 17, 2003

In the real world, Brenda Banks is a 54-year-old grandmother in Greer, S.C., a former warehouse supervisor who teaches rubber-stamping arts and crafts classes. But online she transforms into "br3n," a passionate user of Linux software who cruises Web sites posting smash-mouth messages about SCO Group. So far Banks has posted more than 1,500 messages on SCO's Yahoo! message board alone--including five on Thanksgiving.

"I feel very strongly about it," says Banks, who runs Linux on a six-year-old Acer home computer. "They want to come and stab Linux. It's just not right."

Behlendorf believes that the open source movement is now at a major crossroads ("tipping point") because it has moved from being centered in far-flung, independent development shops or studios and is becoming more crucial to day-to-day work in the established business world. "Look at Apache," he said. "It's been running 60% of all the world's Web sites for six years now. I think it's now up to about 67%; it increases something like .2% per month. That's pretty amazing, when you think about it."

Linux is ready for business IT systems – although there are still concerns about the cost, compatibility and security of migrating systems to the open source software, according to the latest silicon.com CIO Jury.

Following recent desktop Linux trials announced by the NHS and the government and recent IDC figures that showed the open source software continues to eat into the Unix market on the server side, we asked our panel if Linux is ready for the enterprise.

President George W. Bush signed a bill into law Tuesday establishing federal rules for commercial e-mail and penalties for unsolicited mass spamming.

Known as the CAN-SPAM Act, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 takes effect Jan. 1. The law prohibits the use of false header information in bulk commercial e-mail and requires unsolicited messages to include opt-out instructions. Penalties for violations include fines of up to US$250 per e-mail, capped at up to $6 million.

Lindows.com on Tuesday released a new version of its operating system meshed with Internet telephony technology created by company CEO Michael Robertson.

LindowsOS 4.5 comes with Session Initiation Protocol, or SIP, technology that allows PC users to call up others using the same technology. Customers will get a unique number to send and receive calls and use features such as four-way conferencing and 800-number access. Using this number and a virtual keypad, they can connect to the phone number of anyone with a SIPphone, videophone or SIP-enabled computer.

Dominic Paulraj, who worked on processor and operating system technology at Sun Microsystems, has been named chief technologist at Linare, which sells inexpensive computers using the Linux operating system. Paulraj will lead software work at Linare, the Redmond, Wash.-based company said in a statement on Monday.

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