Does Linux really offer improved IT security?, Oct 01, 2004

With costs of software flaws exacting a huge toll on organizations -- NIST pegs it at nearly $60 billion annually in the U.S. alone -- many security experts advocate the use of open-source applications, which they say have fewer undiscovered, unpatched flaws.

A Gartner statement claiming that pre-installing Linux on PCs encourages piracy of Windows has been challenged by the Open Source Industry Association.

The industry body for open source within Australia said in a statement that if Gartner's conclusion that pre-installing Linux encouraged people to steal copies of Windows were correct, then this "tenuous logic" could be extended by stating that pre-installing Windows in turn must clearly encourage people to pirate application-level software.

All Linux vendors need to do to break Microsoft's death grip on the desktop is unravel a few chicken-or-the-egg type mysteries.

Which comes first? Widespread demand for Linux operating systems preloaded on PCs, or hardware manufacturers anxious to do the loading? The latter are as scarce as hen's teeth today.

The race is on to deliver a version of the Linux open-source operating system that will be more secure than any of its predecessors but also manageable and affordable enough to garner widespread acceptance. Linux developer MandrakeSoft SA and a consortium of European software makers have tossed their hat into the ring, as has Trusted Computer Solutions Inc., a maker of software used by government agencies and businesses to securely transfer sensitive data.

Windows upgrades and IT staffing costs remain the biggest drains on British corporate IT budgets, with operational expenses reducing the amount of money left for new investment, according to a new report.

A survey of 168 organizations in the United Kingdom found that more than half expected IT spending to increase over the next year by an average of 1.9 percent. The annual Benchmark of IT Spending was conducted by Britain's National Computing Centre.

Linux based thin clients are surging in popularity, buoyed by advances in embedded Linux and advances in network computing technology. This Hot Topic reading list provides a brief overview of thin client technologies, summarizes recent news related to Linux thin clients, introduces our brand new Quick Reference Guide to thin client products that run embedded Linux, and provides a reading list for further study.

We've got to find a better way to settle open-source disputes than fighting them out in the press.

In the latest tussle, Furthermore and Miro, the copyright owner to the open-source Mambo OS content management system, are fussing over whether some Furthermore copyrighted code was improperly placed in Mambo.

A panel of contracted suppliers has been formed to directly service government agencies that choose to adopt Linux systems.

Tenders for the panel close with the Department of Commerce on October 28, 2004.

The creation of the panel will enable government agencies considering or using open source software to better support services.

As part of a re-examination, the U.S. Patent Office has issued a preliminary rejection for a patent previously granted to Microsoft for a Windows file format.

The agency ruled that, based on existing inventions at the time, the ideas behind the FAT (File Allocation Table) patent would have been obvious and are therefore not subject to patent. Microsoft now has 90 days to respond to the filing and make its case for why the patent should be upheld.

President Chavez announced yesterday that “we are working on a decree to establish in Venezuela, in an official and obligatory manner, the support and adoption of free software in the public administration.”

Chavez made this announcement during an event at which he opened numerous “info centers,” public internet access points, throughout the country.

The Mark O. Hatfield Library at Willamette University has used networked X terminals in its public and staff computing environments since 1995. The original workstations were NCD and Tektronix thin clients, but over the last two years, we have been replacing the systems with recycled PC hardware that otherwise would have been scheduled for replacement.

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