No tax support for Mac or Linux yet, Jul 25, 2008

The Australian Taxation Office has advised Australians using Apple or Linux operating systems that they will be unable to lodge tax returns electronically using the ATO's e-tax software unless they use a Windows emulator or a kiosk in one of the agency's shop fronts.

Federal government agencies are adopting free and open source software (FOSS) with increasing zeal, according to a new study undertaken by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO).

Open source accounts for between 25 and 70 percent of all software in Australian, Chinese, Indian and Korean companies, according to a recent IDC survey.

Indian state Kerala is looking at Open Source software to help improve literacy rates and boost the local economy; in January of this year, another Indian state Tamil Nadu switched over more than 3,000 government desktops to Linux and will not offer Windows unless it's an "absolute necessity".

Red Hat, the largest Linux vendor, and Ubuntu-maker Canonical have both rejected calls from Microsoft to forge a deal similar to the one the Redmond giant signed with Linux distributors Novell, Xandros, and Linspire.

Qantas will next month shift the underlying platform running its internal finance systems from Linux to IBM's Unix variant AIX as part of its wide-ranging eQ transformation project.

Intel is developing its own take on the mini-tablet, with a new ultra-mobile PC platform to be announced at this week’s Intel Developer Forum in Beijing. The big surprise? It’s based on Linux.

Melbourne company Opes Prime Stockbroking told ZDNet Australia that in the weeks following its announcement to adopt Oracle Linux, upset Linux enthusiasts phoned, e-mailed and wrote about the company online to complain at the decision.

Australia's future economic prosperity will depend on it embracing the principles of community-driven technologies such as Linux and Second Life, according to Glen Boreham.

Birmingham City Council is mulling an extension to its open-source software deployment, which was criticised last year for falling short of expectations.

Ubuntu developers are finalising preparations for the release of the next version -- dubbed Feisty Fawn -- of the popular Linux distribution in mid-April.

Steve Ballmer has reissued Microsoft's patent threat against Linux, warning open-source vendors that they must respect his company's intellectual property.

Novell will continue its march against Microsoft and any uptake of Vista despite a recent alliance with the software giant.

KVM, a new virtualisation technology that lets Linux computers run multiple operating systems simultaneously, has won a significant endorsement from Red Hat.

To help make kids aware of alternatives to proprietary software, the Ile-de-France, the political district of greater Paris, will give 175,000 school children and apprentices USB keys loaded with open-source software.

Linus Torvalds said he tends to not plan further than three months into the future.

The kernel development community can be "unfriendly", according to Linus Torvalds. In this three minute video, the Linux guru talks about why it is getting more difficult to bring in new blood.

Linus Torvalds explains why the unexpected resilience of kernel version 2.6 has delayed the move to kernel version 2.7. In this two minute video he said that when work started on 2.6, he was worried that major changes would destabilise the kernel.

Local software vendor Squiz has re-licensed its MySource Matrix tool under the popular GNU General Public License (GPL), nearly two years after facing criticism the software's previous licence wasn't "open" enough.

Digital rights management and the General Public License cause a lot of 'hot air' to be exchanged but they are not a 'big deal', according to the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds.