Reiser pleads not guilty in wife's slaying, Mar 24, 2007

Oakland computer programmer Hans Reiser pleaded not guilty today to murdering his estranged wife in a case that could go to a jury next month after he exercised his right to a speedy trial.

Police arrested Hans Reiser, 42, at 11 a.m. at an acquaintance's home on Simson Street in East Oakland. The computer programmer is expected to be arraigned on murder charges Thursday in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland.

In a sign the Linux operating system may be gaining traction beyond servers and other back-room systems, Hewlett-Packard Co. said Tuesday it will be the first major PC maker to ship a business notebook computer pre-installed with the open-source software.

The HP Compaq nx5000 will feature Novell Inc.'s SuSE Linux and support a CD burner, a DVD and media player, wireless connectivity and the OpenOffice software suite. It will start at an estimated street price of about $1,140 -- about $60 less than the basic model outfitted with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP Professional operating system.

A San Francisco judge shot down a Linux company's attempt to process claims on behalf of customers in Microsoft's $1.1 billion settlement with California consumers, the Redmond, Wash., software giant said Thursday.

In this settlement of 27 private antitrust lawsuits, California consumers who bought Microsoft products between 1995 and 2001 can collect rebates from Microsoft in the form of vouchers good for software or computer products.

Lindows.com, of San Diego, has been offering to process claims ranging from $50 to $100 on behalf of consumers via its Web site. Lindows.com's plan was to send the customers copies of its Linux-based software up front and then collect the money to pay for it from Microsoft.

Linux software has been approved for use on the most sensitive computers in corporations and the federal government, including those inside banks and the Pentagon, an important step for software widely considered the top rival to Microsoft Corp.

Seven states dropped out of the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp., leaving only Massachusetts and possibly West Virginia to appeal a landmark settlement between the computer software giant and the federal government.

Massachusetts on Friday appealed a U.S. judge's decision accepting the settlement, which its attorney general criticized as a "loophole-filled deal" that won't affect the software maker's aggressive practices.

Bruce Perens disagrees with both sides in this debate. By striking a middle ground between the two, he's come up with a far more elegant solution. Unlike the most radical elements in the open-source movement, Perens maintains that a complete ban on state purchases of proprietary closed-source software isn't necessary. What is required instead, he says, is a simple set of principles that delineate the exact parts of the state's IT infrastructure that must remain open. Once those critical areas are protected, state and local government agencies would be free to buy whatever software best serves their needs.

The decision to enter the database market now seems a little odd, considering the competition they'll be up against. While Red Hat does command more than two thirds of the Linux market, in the database market they'll have to contend with big money from the likes of Oracle, Microsoft and IBM.

It's true that Red Hat plans to compete primarily with other Open Source database projects at first. But even company representatives don't deny that they're interested in a piece of the larger pie

The company is on the ropes, running out of cash, and could go out of business within a month. But if Mountain View-based Eazel manages to regain its footing and find the new investors it's seeking, the little-known firm could play an enormous role in restoring growth to core technology markets, not just for a year or two, but for decades.

Linus Torvalds -- Finland's most-famous son since Paavo "The Flying Finn" Nurmi was running circles around the world -- stepped in Apple sauce last week when review copies of his autobiography revealed harsh words for Steve "The Flying Ego" Jobs and his new operating system, Mac OS X.

While VA Linux has become a poster child for the Silicon Valley downswing, its employees -- who view their company as part of a larger computing revolution -- are remarkably stoic. Despite their heavy dose of shock therapy, VA Linux employees seem to be holding up just fine.

The author talks about his experience installing Linux.