Out the Window, May 15, 2006

What I found was that for some people, Linux systems may do just fine. But they still are largely more appealing to computer hobbyists who would like to see Microsoft face more competition. Specifically, while the installation and simple functions worked well enough, the systems couldn't handle all the multimedia applications I needed. And getting some of the systems to work required more time and effort than I was willing to exert.

FreeBSD developer Scott Long told ZDNet UK on Thursday that the operating system, descended from the Unix derivative BSD, is "quickly approaching" feature parity with Linux.

Nokia Corp. is adding the Google Talk application to a Nokia handheld Internet browsing device, in a move that could help boost the search company's reach in mobile communications.

Scott McNealy is out. Jonathan Schwartz is in, and the future never looked brighter for Sun Microsystems — or so we’re told.

Many enterprises use a mix of open source and proprietary software. But there's one place where Linux in particular threatens to impinge on Windows' dominance. Quocirca's Bob Tarzey explains.

Oracle has been running roughshod over the enterprise-software world of late, winning gobs of market share by buying up the competition in an $18 billion acquisition spree.

After two months of delay, the OpenSuse project has released version 10.1 of Suse Linux.

The Wine project has released version 0.9.13 of its free implementation of a Windows application platform for Linux systems, project manager Alexandre Julliard announced May 12. Wine is an open-source translation layer that allows users to run many Windows applications on Linux and Unix operating systems.

Startup Ajax13 Inc. is looking to do to Linux what Microsoft Corp. is doing to Windows -- dissolve the operating system into the Web.

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