Clouds Still Swirl Around SCO, Mar 30, 2004

When tiny SCO Group first claimed ownership to parts of the open-source Linux operating system in January, 2003, the software community reacted with a collective shrug. When SCO filed a Linux-related suit against IBM (IBM ) one year ago this month -- with alleged damages now at $5 billion, the industry perked its ears. Three weeks ago, when SCO launched a suit against two big corporate users of Linux, plenty of people took notice. Then they went right on buying Linux software.

Novell is developing a version of its Groupwise e-mail platform for the Linux operating system.

Groupwise, which lets users access e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging and other applications, is already offered for Novell's Netware operating system, Windows NT and Windows 2000.

Groupwise 6.5 for Linux will be available next month for both SuSE Linux and Red Hat's Linux distribution, said Marina Wasler, Novell's director of marketing for central Europe.

One key debate remains whether the emergence of a dominant platform might fuel demand for smart phones by enabling software developers to churn out more and better programs because they're not busy rewriting them for multiple operating systems.

The early running suggests that a Symbian-Windows rivalry will dominate the market, though some point to the rising strength of Linux in Asia as a significant wild card.

Some 75 towns across New South Wales have started accessing the Internet through Linux-based satellite routers in what is said to be largest network of its type in Australia spanning upwards of 800,000 square kilometres.

The Rural Link project by NSW.net was initiated four years ago when the State Library of NSW approached the federal government about connecting country libraries in NSW to the Internet via satellite due to the expense of ISDN.

Brian Behlendorf, co-founder of the Apache Web-server project, says he never considered building a commercial company around what has become the single most successful piece of open-source code.

Apache powers 68% of active Web sites, up from 54% two years ago, according to Netcraft, a company that surveys software used on Web sites. Apache has consistently captured market share at the expense of two formidable commercial competitors, Microsoft with its Internet Information Server, and Sun Microsystems with its SunOne Web server.

The Apache Web server sprang out of a group of eight Webmasters communicating with one another about what they wish they had in an HTTP server at a time when the existing offerings fell short. As each Webmaster contributed thinking and code to the project, "there was a lot of belief in the importance of the separation of church and state," Behlendorf says. The resulting Web server was a collective effort, and contributors would have been offended if a few in the group had tried to produce a commercial product out of the open-source code, Behlendorf recalls of the 1995-96 period.

Is it possible that, despite all the hype, open source is not necessarily the best way to develop software? That it's not about to take over the software industry, and that it's no more a threat to Microsoft than were Netscape, the Macintosh or Word Perfect?

Several important distinctions are slowly starting to become obvious in software. The most important is the distinction between simply writing a program, which any computer science student can do, and creating a software product for the mass market, which requires much more expertise, time and work.

I came upon Cobind Desktop via DistroWatch.com and was curious enough to download and install it. This is Cobind Desktop’s first distribution release. A little information about Cobind Desktop is provided on Cobind.com… “Cobind Desktop merges the reliability of Fedora Core Linux, the speed of a lightweight desktop environment, and the usability of a best-of-breed application suite into the basic, high-performance Linux platform designed with the average user in mind. Using XFce and Nautilus, it offers a Linux distribution that crosses into the mass technology market by giving typical users a fast and familiar desktop experience.” Cobind Desktop does look a lot similar to Fedora, but as we will discover soon, it does differ in many areas. This review will cover the “good” and “bad” side of Cobind Desktop. My good we mean the positive features that Cobind Desktop carries; by “bad” we refer to some negative features, or features that Cobind is lacking.

Red Hat’s monopolistic hold on the Indian market, which has made the brand almost a synonym of sorts to the word ‘Linux’, is all set to change with the entrance of new flavors in the Open Source front.

Altosys Software Technologies Limited, Chennai, is all set to release Red Flag in the Indian market by the second week of April.

Speaking to CXOtoday, L. Ramesh, business manager, Linux, Altosys, said, "Red flag will offer a complete range of Linux solutions starting from desktops to high end servers. All versions are currently in Chinese, and we are working on the English customization, which will be distributed shortly in India.”

2.6.5-rc3 has been released today.
See changelog for full details.

Files added: 151
Files changed: 2081
Files removed: 80

 View older news this year: May Apr Mar Feb Jan
 View news from other years: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999