Bettering the Linux desktop -- Portland progress, May 10, 2006

Six months ago, architects from two dozen desktop-oriented Linux projects gathered in Portland, Ore. to work together on creating the best possible Linux desktop. Thus was born the Portland Project. Now, in Mainz, Germany, the expanded group is meeting again on May 8 and 9 to see how far it's come and to look at what's ahead.

The really interesting comparison is with Linux, a product of comparable complexity developed by an independent, dispersed community of programmers who communicate mainly over the net. How come they can outperform a stupendously rich company that can afford to employ very smart people and give them all the resources they need?

Novell is readying two major product launches meant to make its open-source software more palatable to corporate customers.

Motorola will demonstrate communications servers based on Linux and other open standards at the GlobalComm trade show, June 4-8 in Chicago. Faster ATCA switch fabrics and MicroTCA products will help drive adoption of modular, COTS (commercial off-the-shelf), open-standards based systems into data plane and edge applications, Motorola says.

Scott McNealy is out. Jonathan Schwartz is in. And the future never looked brighter for Sun Microsystems -- or so we're told. But if Sun's new CEO is going to convince me that his company can remain a dominant player in enterprise software, first he's going to have to get his story straight, particularly when it comes to Linux and open source.

Kevin Carmony has taken the heat from some in the FOSS community for offering non-free software in Linspire, and in particular, for attempting to lure the FOSS community into contributing to Linspire via Freespire. Don Parris spoke with Linspire's Kevin Carmony to learn more about his position. Are the community's accusations fair? What other options are there?

[Microsoft's] future has been clouded by the rise of Linux and the open-source software movement, which poses a long-term threat to the near-monopoly status of its proprietary Windows operating system.

So, what's one more operating system between friends? Linspire is preparing a new Linux-based operating system that uses AJAX as the interface for all of its applications and documents.

Applications are due today for Google's "Summer of Code" 2006, a program in which selected student developers will earn stipends and receive mentoring in exchange for contributing to open source software projects. Mentors are available from 102 projects, including several related to embedded Linux.

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