$100 laptops? Not really, but $200 isn't bad, Nov 19, 2007

Forget about $100 laptops. It's a price point nobody's going to hit anytime soon - not even the One Laptop Per Child Foundation in Cambridge, the nonprofit organization that two years ago unveiled its plan to give ultra-cheap computers to poor kids.

Linux, the free operating system that's a perpetual underdog in the desktop market, is showing up in computers in Wal-Mart stores this week for the first time.

Software maker Red Hat Inc said on Thursday it delayed its August release of a version of its Linux software for personal computers that would compete with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.

Waltham software vendor Novell Inc. credited its controversial deal with Microsoft Corp. for fueling interest in its Linux operating system software in its fiscal first quarter.

Microsoft accord could leave other open-source software companies more vulnerable to patent suits

When the name of your product is Free Beer, the jokes are inevitable. And for the group of Danish students and artists who came up with Free Beer, that's part of the point, but only part. Because while the name of their beer is meant to be playful, the point they are trying to make with it is a rather sophisticated one.

Novell Inc., which makes the Linux operating system, said late Tuesday it likely swung to a profit in the latest quarter after cutting costs.

When Ron Hovsepian was named chief operating officer of Waltham's Novell Inc. in November, investors were already calling for the ouster of then-chief executive Jack Messman. In June, Messman's critics got their wish, and Hovsepian got one of the toughest jobs in the software industry.

Two years after the rebirth of onetime computer networking titan Novell Inc., the Waltham company is still having trouble learning to walk.

Opera now aims to catch up with Firefox by making its browser totally free, with no purchase price or embedded advertising.

Following up on the success of the Firefox open source Web browser, released by the Mozilla Foundation last fall, open source software developers are readying some new products aimed at a consumer market still dominated by proprietary software.

Among the scariest aspects of the problem is that many business executives don't know whether open-source code is in their software, or they mistakenly presume they have none. Either way they could be setting themselves up for a SCO-like lawsuit.

LinuxWorld Conference & Expo will come to Boston for the first time in February, underscoring the area's standing as a hub for the open-source software being adopted by thousands of businesses.

Software firms continue to give their products away in hopes of seeing profits down the road.

Sun Microsystems Inc.'s combative chief executive, Scott McNealy, fresh from resolving his long-running quarrel with archrival Microsoft Corp., has found a new target for his wrath: Linux software maker Red Hat Inc.

''We love Linux," said McNealy at yesterday's meeting of the Massachusetts Telecommunications Council in Newton. ''We just don't love Red Hat."

Computer experts will tell you that Linux software is unbeatable at tasks like scientific supercomputing or corporate number-crunching. But offer to take them on in a rousing round of Empire Earth or some other popular computer game, and watch their faces fall.

Linux is operating system software, code that controls a computer's most basic functions. Microsoft's Windows is the best-known operating system, and there's also Apple's Macintosh OS X. But Linux is something special. Created by volunteers scattered around the world, Linux is available free over the Internet. Yet Linux has been polished to the point where it's become a favorite with corporate and academic users worldwide.

But Linux software is so complex and unfamiliar that few casual users will give it a try. That means there's only a tiny market for Linux computer games. Of course, that means game companies rarely offer Linux versions of their top titles, which means even more consumers avoid Linux computers, and so on.

The future of the computer software industry was being fought out last week in the Massachusetts Senate. It was just a skirmish, but dozens more just like it are happening in legislatures around the world. And the outcome will go a long way toward determining the shape of the industry in years to come. Our state's role in the drama began in September, when a remarkable memo leaked from the office of Eric Kriss, Massachusetts secretary of finance and administration. The memo said, or seemed to say, that the entire state would abandon the use of traditional computer software and replace them with "open-source" programs.

The East Coast LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, a trade show for developers and users of the increasingly popular Linux computer operating system, will be held for the first time at the John B. Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay in February 2005. The show has been held at New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center since its inception in 1999, but its organizers said they were told they won't be able to return in 2005.

In the high-stakes legal showdown between Linux users and SCO Group Inc. over whether that company is owed unprecedented license fees, advocates for the free software on Thursday showed no signs of blinking at their biggest annual gathering.