Linux goes walkabout, Mar 05, 2008

While Canadian telcos are still dragging their feet in following the U.S. example of making cellphone data fees more competitive, the U.S. telcos are about to scratch each other’s eyes out after the arrival of Linux-based handsets.

One of the most ambitious non-governmental aid projects is the One Laptop Per Child project, which had started life as a notion of putting rugged, simple computers worth $100 into the hands of Third-World countries.

[Katie McAuliff, president of Novell Canada] sat down with Jack Kapica of Globetechnology.com to explain her company and its plans.

It was like watching Darth Vader call a truce with the Jedi rebels, or Wile E. Coyote finally deciding to leave the Road Runner in peace.

Xandros Desktop has been out two years now, and Xandros Server, released May 1, has undergone extensive trials. But its maturity has not yet made much of an impact on the industry.

Self-healing computing could be just what the doctor ordered for small businesses.

If you miss the older days of fiddling with your operating system, or you enjoy getting your hands a little dirty, you can't do better than this. And if you have reasonably conventional hardware, you can probably be up and running out of the box in no time, with several software suites.

Ten years ago this summer, Rasmus Lerdorf created the wildly popular Web-development language while working at the University of Toronto.

Like any decentralized business with many branch locations, the diocese is discovering that Web content management is a vital part of working together. It has also discovered that an open source tool called "Plone" is just the software for the job.

More than a third of business computer users blame Microsoft Corp. for the latest virus attacks, a Web poll says.

As a Web developer and parent of teenage children, I'm adept at removing viruses and spyware from Windows machines, but I am getting fed up with doing so.

IBM Corp. hopes to do for its Power processor what it helped do for Linux: create a bigger market in which lots of vendors can play, and earn more money for IBM in the process

Novell has announced the availability of SUSE Linux Professional 9.3, the new version of Novell's Linux retail product. The latest version takes Linux for the home enthusiast to a new level of ease of use and system performance.

Xandros leading developer of easy-to-use Linux products, has announced the version 3 release of the Open Circulation Edition of its Linux desktop operating system. The new release provides a new Internet experience with Firefox web browsing, Skype Internet calling, and Thunderbird e-mailing. The Xandros Open Circulation Edition is available for download at no charge from the Xandros web site.

Dwayne Bailey hears the question all the time. "Why bother translating software into isiZulu?" people ask him. "Who needs it? English is the language of global business -- you'd be better off spending your energy teaching people English."

To which Mr. Bailey replies, quite simply, "Izixhobo kufuneka zisebenzele abantu, hayi abantu izixhobo. Isoftware sisixhobo ngoko ke kumele sisebenzele abantu ngolwimi lwabo lwasemzini!"

Mr. Bailey, a 33-year-old pioneer in software translation, typically declines to translate his reply, in isiXhosa, but it means: "Tools adapt to people not people to tools. Software is a tool, so it must adapt to people and their language."

As Canadian banks cautiously evaluate Linux, several counterparts in Europe are forging ahead with projects that embrace the open-source operating system.

Although there are arguments over the total cost of ownership of Linux against Windows over the long term, IT managers at some European banks are being drawn by the lower up-front cost of open-source software.

In a spirited and thunderous address, the head of Microsoft Corp. admitted that the company has much more work to do to improve software security, even as it rolled out several new products and strategies for combatting software viruses, which are attacking global information systems with greater frequency and sophistication.

“We're not perfect, we're not where we need to be, but we have velocity and purpose,” Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft, told several thousand people at a conference in Toronto.

Speaking for more than an hour, Mr. Ballmer also launched an impassioned attack on open-source software, tried to answer concerns about the long wait for the next Microsoft operating system, and fingered software that helps run small businesses as a multibillion-dollar growth opportunity.

Webmaster's note: The following is an interesting letter to the editor of The Globe and Mail

Dear Editor,

I read with interest the article from the AP wire services about Paris spooking Microsoft, and watching with interest the reaction from The Vole Party. I find it amusing that the first thing MS does in response to a threat from Linux/Open source is to lower their prices by largish amounts. I wonder why they do this, when their own websites tout the superiority and lower T.C.O. of MS Windows compared to Linux/Open Source. Don't they have Websites that say that Windows is cheaper and better?

They are Canada's newest Linux entrepreneurs and they're looking to make it big — before they graduate.

The four twentysomethings behind a Markham, Ont.-based company called Ignalum may all be students at the University of Western Ontario, but that hasn't stopped them from coming up with a plan to promote their new open-source operating system.

One key debate remains whether the emergence of a dominant platform might fuel demand for smart phones by enabling software developers to churn out more and better programs because they're not busy rewriting them for multiple operating systems.

The early running suggests that a Symbian-Windows rivalry will dominate the market, though some point to the rising strength of Linux in Asia as a significant wild card.