Open source helps Flickr share photos, Feb 05, 2005

Flickr, the online photo-sharing Web site, is a good case study on the benefits of open source. The technology that powers Flickr is a catalog of open source tools: Red Hat Linux, the Apache Web server, MySQL databases, PHP, Perl, Smarty templates, Postfix mail gateways, and even ImageMagick to handle the image manipulation.

Bill Gates has sent an email to all Microsoft's corporate customers warning that those in search of technological interoperability shouldn't look towards open source software.

It looks to me, however, like the Microsoft monopoly has such a stranglehold on the tier 1 manufacturers that it is now not possible for a corporate shopper to save money by avoiding Windows unless they are prepared to go outside the first tier (which brings another whole set of buying issues in organizations with strong procurement rules), or unless the size of the deal is large enough to merit special treatment

A source-code analysis of the MySQL database, a popular open-source program at the heart of many Web sites, revealed few bugs compared with the number found in commercial code, testing company Coverity said Friday.

Now, as someone who hates software patents, I like the idea of anyone—Novell, IBM, Sun, whoever—opening their software patents up to the community. But, questions began to spring up about exactly how 'open' Sun was being with its 1,600 patents.

Perhaps there is something I'm missing. Maybe there's something I don't understand as to why there is not a massive rush of consumers and IT managers to dump PCs in favor of Macs (or even Linux OS).

Walmart apparently will offer its second note bond below the $500 mark. Manufacturer Linare said that it will bring a Linux-based device to the retailer "within the next few days".

 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