Kernel release: 2.6.20.16-rc1, Aug 11, 2007

2.6.20.16-rc1 has been released today.
See changelog for full details.

Files added: 0
Files changed: 28
Files removed: 0

In a decision that may finally settle one of the most bitter legal battles surrounding software widely used in corporate data centers, a federal district court judge in Utah ruled Friday afternoon that Novell, not the SCO Group, is the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system.

Linus Torvalds is often described as an open source champion, interested in licensing only insofar as it affects his ability to share code and improve software more quickly. However, his real position is more complicated -- and to some, perhaps surprising.

I could say there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, but that would only be half the truth -- pun intended. The methodologies of the two surveys vary significantly, and I can't for the life of me tell which one is more accurate.

Warren Woodford of MEPIS has built KDE4-Beta1 Live DVDs to verify the compatibility of KDE 4 with SimplyMEPIS 7.x. The 32 and 64 bit DVD isos are available from the testing directory of the MEPIS subscriber site and the MEPIS public mirrors.

Microsoft has submitted two of its Shared Source licenses to the Open Source Initiative for review and approval as open-source licenses: the Microsoft Permissive and Microsoft Community licenses.

While Novell's CEO is calling for Linux to expand its market, the Linux Foundation's executive director is declaring that the open-source OS is moving into its second stage of growth.

The first question a company asks when presented with a Microsoft Office alternative is how well the software supports Microsoft's de facto standard file formats.

The overall vote is not, to me, a surprise. Leaving all politics or opinions aside on whether OOXML should become an ISO/IEC standard when ODF already exists, I do not believe that OOXML is in good enough shape to recommend a yes vote, with or without comments.

U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball has ruled that Novell, not SCO, owns Unix's IP (intellectual property) rights. This, in turn, means the end of SCO's cases against IBM.

The French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen is slated to become one of the few large scale conversions to desktop Linux.

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