Linux devotee tries to spread the word, Sep 15, 2008

Cafiero is leading a revolution in the redwood-ringed town of Felton. He's been inspired by others around the country and with them he's dubbed the effort "Lindependence 2008,'' a scheme hatched to turn Felton into an all-Linux enclave.

As a programmer, Reiser is known for developing a computer file system, Reiserfs, that is included in the widely-used Linux operating system, an alternative to Microsoft Windows.

Nina Reiser's two children were in the house on the day police believe her husband killed her, according to a probable cause statement filed by Oakland police this morning.

EIOffice also runs on Linux (with Mac and Solaris versions in the works). This may be more important in emerging markets where governments and businesses are trying to avoid paying the ``Microsoft tax.'' But even some U.S. companies and governments are beginning to chafe at Microsoft's prices, attitude and sometimes questionable quality.

Can EIOffice pull this off? There are a few issues to consider, not least of which is whether Evermore has the resources it needs; the company has backing from investors including Chinese government agencies, but it is looking for more.

The Centibots are part of a military project funded by DARPA, the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Working in teams of up to a hundred, they are designed to conduct surveillance in hazardous areas, spot intruders and find ``objects of value'' like prisoners or wounded people. After a year and a half of development, the Centibots' creators say they are ready to show their stuff to their military backers. On Friday, nearly 100 robots lined up in hallway for a class picture. They'll spend the next few weeks in final testing before snuggling into bubble-wrap for the trip back east.

The Centibots cost about $4,000 and are built from off-the-shelf components, including ordinary WiFi cards for communicating with each other and cheap PC cameras that send images humans can interpret. Via Technologies, a Taiwanese company with operations in Fremont, supplied the motherboards. A Linux operating system manages 1.2 million lines of code, written in Java, C and C++.

Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy always seemed like he was tilting at windmills when he said Sun would challenge Microsoft's dominance on the desktop computer.

But McNealy announced today that the Chinese government has pledged to deploy a million computers in the next year using Sun's Linux desktop software. The cost: $50 per license for Sun's desktop software, which includes its Star Office 7.0 productivity program that is a clone of Microsoft's Office suite. Microsoft Office can cost more than $400 a copy.

Citing security reasons as well as the fact that the Open Source philosophy appeals to China's leaders, the Chinese government wants to promote the use of Linux.