Open source sneaks in SA govt back door, Jan 12, 2004

The South Australian Democrats may have failed so far in their campaign to have legislation passed promoting open source software, but open source products are slowly infiltrating the government nonetheless.

In his opening speech at the Linux and Open Source in Government Conference in Adelaide on Monday, SA Democrats deputy party leader Ian Gilfillan revealed that the SA government procurement department had begun assessing Open Office for its suitability for use by government employees

Roaring Penguin Software has added three new staff, bringing its workforce to nine and doubling its growth in one year. A new software developer/technical support specialist and two inside sales staff will be instrumental in enhancing and delivering CanIt, the company’s enterprise anti-spam software product line, to even more campuses, ISPs and enterprises in 2004.

Linux, said Forrester, will cement its position in the data center in 2004, thanks to a maturation in the operating system distributions targeting enterprises. By the end of 2004, said the IT managers surveyed, close to 10 percent of the Global 2000 companies will have moved from Windows-based servers to Linux for their basic network infrastructure.

Silicon Graphics Inc. plans to expand its Linux computer line into the midrange area on Monday, when it will unveil an Altix model with as many as 16 Itanium 2 processors.

The maker of high-end computers and storage systems introduced its Linux server line a year ago with the release of the 64-processor Altix 3000. The new 16-processor Altix 350, which can be assembled from four-processor modules, could appeal to customers with more modest demands and budgets.

The choice of upgrade or no support may provide an opportunity for providers of open source alternatives to Microsoft's range, as companies look to control costs and extend hardware life.

"2004 is looking very exciting," said Jasmin Ul-Haque, commercial director at SuSE Linux UK.

"We're seeing a lot of companies actively investigating open source. It has always been one of the strengths of Linux that you can run it on legacy systems, and that helps the argument."

Intel has become involved in the legal battle between the SCO Group and Linux, contributing money to a defence fund geared to protect users of the open source operating system.

The Open Source Development Labs, an industry consortium that employs Linux leader Linus Torvalds, is organising the legal defence fund. OSDL plans to announce details of the fund later today.

"It would be made available to some Linux customers that come under litigation from SCO," said the OSDL's executive director, Stuart Cohen. A sub-committee of the consortium's board of directors will decide how to allocate funds, he said.

 View older news this year: Nov Oct Sep Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan
 View news from other years: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999