Microsoft files new case against Lindows, May 11, 2004

The international trademark battle between Microsoft Corp. and Lindows Inc. continues to generate work for lawyers and the courts, with the software giant once again asking a Dutch court to fine Lindows €100,000 ($118,570) a day, the open source software vendor said Tuesday.

According to the San Diego company, Microsoft is charging that even though it has changed the name of its operating system product and corresponding Web site to Linspire, users accessing the Web site are becoming confused by the Lindows company name in some of the pages on its site. A hearing concerning the request will be held later in the day, Lindows said.

HP has unveiled its latest business desktop PC, which offers companies the choice of Mandrake Linux 9.2 and Microsoft Windows XP Home as the default operating system.

The firm described its HP Compaq Business Desktop dx2000 as a simple, low-cost PC designed to meet the "basic computing requirements of price-sensitive business users".

I recently spent the better part of a week working with the latest version of the open-source GNOME graphical desktop environment on Linux. I've decided that the only way to explain the regression of GNOME over the years is that Microsoft and/or SCO moles have infiltrated the GNOME leadership in a covert effort to destroy any possibility that Linux could compete with Windows on the desktop.

South African Internet millionaire Mark Shuttleworth and his foundation have teamed up with HP and the CSIR in an R18 million campaign to promote open source software (OSS) to the masses.

The two-year Go Open Source awareness campaign is described as a “world first aimed at putting SA at the forefront of new technology adoption”.

For Linux to become a real competitor to Windows on the desktop, Linux distributors must refine their software installation and management systems. There are some loose ends that need to be tied up and some tricky legal knots to unravel.

Just when we think that the codec wars are just about over, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has released a codec that works differently from other existing systems. In March it issued it to the open source community through Sourceforge under the name of Dirac, named after the eccentric and brilliant British physicist.

This week the BBC said that it has been working on the codec since January last year, and now it is asking for open source help in taking it towards a product. Dirac is different from existing video compression systems, in that it uses wavelet technology.

Victorian system integrator Remora today announced it had added the laptops to its range after entering a deal with California-based UNIX platform notebook developer, Tadpole Computers.

Currently the Linux notebooks are only available with Intel processors, but Remora said it planned to make a version offering AMD's (Advanced Micro Devices) Opteron processor available by the end of June.

Microsoft's image isn't what it once was. Much like it was with client-server computing and IBM, the IT audience is actively exploring Linux as a desktop option. There are trials backed by vendors like IBM and HP springing up all over the globe. Governments seem particularly enamored with the offering, which is an important development because governments set standards.

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