Linux shows the way forward for business, Jul 17, 2004

Ever since the popping of the dotcom bubble, the world has been short of technology visions. We've heard little about the 'new economy' recently. Virtual-business models appear to have melted away. Digital communities have splintered.

In one sense, that's healthy. Too much hype surrounded the Internet. Too many grandiose claims were made for what often turned out to be a revved-up version of catalogue shopping. Yet there's also a danger. We may now be as complacent about how computer technologies are changing the way business works. P> A contribution to that debate has just been made by Steven Weber, professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. His new book, The Success of Open Source (Harvard University Press, 2004), discusses software programs such as Linux and Apache, where the basic code isn't owned by any single person or company, but is made available to everyone who wants to work on it

The Beaverton-based Open Source Development Labs has continued its push into the Asia-Pacific region by added Beijing Software Testing Center, China's largest software testing organization, as a member.

OSDL, a nonprofit consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux, said Beijing Software Testing Center plans to focus on Linux testing and development of internationalization features for Linux.