Penguin not taking flight down under, Jan 18, 2006

Adoption of open source software is slow in the Australasian region according to a report from analyst firm Forrester.

Iran has become the latest country to edge towards ditching the ubiquitous Microsoft computer operating system in favour of the open-source Linux solution, even if its refusal to abide by copyright laws means that the Islamic republic does not pay a penny to Bill Gates.

According to Mohammad Sephery-Rad, the man in charge of the Islamic regime's computer systems, long-term political and security considerations have sparked a major initiative to make the switch.

Hacker, open-source advocate, venture capitalist, company man, pundit: Bruce Perens has worn a lot of hats over the last few years, building up a unique combination of hacker credibility and business know-how. These days, when he's not fielding press queries about the ongoing dispute between The SCO Group Inc. and the Linux community, Perens spends his time speaking about Linux and open source software and providing consulting services for technology companies.

On May 1, Perens was appointed to the board of directors of Open Source Risk Management LLC, (OSRM) a 15-person start-up based in New York that offers professional services, and even indemnification against lawsuits, for users and developers of open source software. Perens, one of the founders of the Open Source Initiative, talked with IDG News Service Thursday on the topics of OSRM, Linux indemnification, and how the SCO lawsuits may eventually change the world of proprietary software. Following is an edited transcript of the conversation:

Linux users outside of the Fortune 1000 cannot buy the software licence The SCO Group Inc. has been offering since August as a way to protect themselves against legal action, the company confirmed Tuesday.

"We're trying to execute on this licensing plan (by) really starting to deal with the very top players and working our way down," said Blake Stowell, a SCO spokesman. "After the company has rolled this out to the Fortune 1000 and we're satisfied with how the program is going ... we'll then roll it down to small to medium businesses."

Forrester Research Inc. has changed its policy toward vendor-sponsored research following last month's publication of a controversial Microsoft Corp.-funded study that compared the cost of developing applications on Linux and Java to a Microsoft-based approach.

The policy change was announced in a letter written by George Colony, the CEO of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, company, and posted to the Forrester Web site late last week.

"We will no longer accept paid for, publicized product comparisons," Colony said in an interview. "The best example of that would be the Microsoft report."

Dell Inc. will build a high-performance computing cluster for the University of Texas at Austin that is just the latest in a recent string of Linux-powered clusters, Dell announced Friday.

The Round Rock, Texas, company plans to unveil the 300-node cluster during an event at the Texas Advanced Computer Center (TACC) featuring Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell at the university he briefly attended before dropping out to found his company.

Dell built the cluster in conjunction with Cray Inc., said Reza Rooholamini, director of enterprise solutions for Dell. It features 300 dual-processor Dell PowerEdge 1750 and PowerEdge 2650 servers that use 3.06GHz Xeon DP processors from Intel Corp., he said.