Free software is nothing to fear, Mar 05, 2007

Free software is clearly an ideological movement, and as such it will naturally make some people uneasy. But a growing number of commercial software companies have begun to accept the Gnu GPL (General Public License), the most important expression of the free software ideology.

Red Hat, the largest business Linux distributor, is teaming up with the health care sector's largest company, McKesson, an US$88 billion-a-year pharmaceutical and IT supplier. Red Hat will provide a core of Linux and JBoss software geared to run McKesson's clinical applications.

The Free Software Foundation, taking advantage of what it says is the rejection of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, is urging major computer hardware manufacturers to offer consumers computers without any operating system or with a free GNU/Linux OS.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the Linux desktop has been picking up momentum. It keeps getting better and better, but Microsoft's monopoly has kept many PC users from realizing that there really is a viable alternative to Windows. However, that's about to change.

The SCO Group Inc. on Mar. 1 reported results for its first quarter ended Jan. 31, 2007. While it wasn't a pretty picture, the company's cost-cutting efforts seem to have placed profitability for the year within the realm of possibility.

California has introduced a bill to make open document format (ODF) a mandatory requirement for agencies when acquiring software, turning up the heat on Microsoft.

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