Linux switch vendor sued over GPL, Jul 23, 2008

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has filed yet another copyright infringement lawsuit on behalf of the developers of the Linux-based BusyBox utility suite. This time the lawsuit claims that networking vendor Extreme Networks violated redistribution stipulations of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

If you need to repair PCs, even if you don't use Linux as a rule, you should have a Linux repair CD. These self-booting Linux distributions give you all the software tools you need to bring all but the deadest computers back to life. The best of these distributions is, hands-down, SystemRescueCd.

Linpus Technologies has long been known in Taiwan for its Linux distributions. Now, it wants to become a player in the global Linux market with its new Linux distribution Linpus Linux Lite, which features a dual-mode user interface. One mode is for people who may never have used a computer before; the other is for experienced Linux users.

While The SCO Group may go on to pursue its plans with a $100 million buyout, it will do so without its longtime CEO Darl McBride.

With open source that can be a very good thing since when security problems are found they can be fixed quickly. That's the case over this last weekend, Feb. 9-10, when a security problem was found, and given a hot fix, in the 2.6.17 to the most recent production Linux kernel, 2.6.24.1.

At a recent Australian Linux conference, Sam Varghese reported that two Debian developers pointed out that the Debian Project needs more corporate support for "men, money and machines" to advance the operating system.

Say, you're a software developer. Say, you want to write an easy-to-install program for any Linux distribution. I'd say, "You have a problem." OpenSUSE, however, has improved upon its solution for this problem: the openSUSE Build Service, which now supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS.

Want to run Mac OS X, Linux and Windows on the same machine? Then you’ll want to listen to SWsoft. This virtualization company claims its Parallels Server will let you run all these and more.

Sometimes open-source development projects plod along at a slow walk. Sometimes they develop at a gallop. Bazaar, the version control system from Canonical, is entering the Kentucky Derby.

First Red Hat turned to Delta for its new CEO. Now Mozilla has appointed John Lilly its new CEO. While Lilly has some time in at Mozilla, most of his past has been spent in proprietary software companies.

Open-Xchange, a German open-source groupware company with long ties to SUSE Linux, is changing its top management team.

It's a pity, really. Caldera and SCO were both grand companies, but their legacy was squandered on anti-Linux lawsuits that, in the end, came to nothing but tens of millions of wasted dollars.

No operating system, no not even Linux, is ever completely secure. So it is that the Debian Project released on Dec. 27 its second update to Debian 4.0, Etch, with an eye to improved security.

Red Hat announced outstanding financial results for its third fiscal quarter, which ended Nov. 30. How outstanding? The Linux company's revenue for the quarter jumped to $135.4 million.

Even before I picked up Unix, I worked on networks. While networking has gotten simpler, it's almost all TCP/IP now instead of Arcnet, Token-Ring and a half dozen dusty wiring and protocol schemes. The services that use networking have gotten ever more powerful and more complicated. That's why a book like Carla Schroder's Linux Networking Cookbook is so valuable.

Open-source projects often face the problem of keeping track of a project's code, while avoiding stifling developers' creativity. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, claims it has a solution to that problem: Bazaar 1.0, its new version control system.

Second in the Linux server business to leader Red Hat, Novell is continuing to strive for major server wins. In its latest significant victory, Novell announced that Office Depot has elected to consolidate its server infrastructure on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 1.

Red Hat claims that Red Hat Enterprise MRG (pronounced merge) is a revolutionary distributed computing platform that will provide record-break grid performance through revolutionary new techniques in scheduling, messaging, real-time, low-transaction latency and distributed computing.

When SCO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, it was widely seen as a move to avoid the final steps in its case with Novell. On Nov. 27, however, the bankruptcy court lifted its stay on the Novell trial, and so the SCO/Novell court case is once again free to proceed.

For the fifth year, CIO Insight polled IT executives on how well their major vendors deliver business value, reliability and quality. This year's winner? The No. 1 vendor? None other than Linux distributor Red Hat.