Open Source Developer Dumps Novell Over Microsoft Deal, Dec 26, 2006

A key open source developer, Jeremy Allison, who cofounded the Samba project, has resigned from Novell in protest over the company's recent agreement to enter a collaborative arrangement with Microsoft.

In an open invitation to Novell OpenSuse developers concerned about the recent Microsoft-Novell pact, Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth makes an argument for abandoning Novell and joining the Ubuntu Linux development effort. He is trying to lure developers away from Novell by suggesting that they could thus avoid working with Microsoft.

Where Linux stands to gain the most is in clustered, high performance computing and grid environments where Unix has been present and Microsoft has not, says Gartner Research Vice President George Weiss.

In an effort to capture the educational market, Red Hat has established specially priced subscriptions and services.

Microsoft makes it sound like the big daddy of server migrations, but GoDaddy.com's move from Linux to Windows isn't exactly the glowing endorsement Microsoft makes it out to be.

Linux users and open source fans have few options when it comes to computerized filing of their federal and state income taxes in the United States.

Linspire President Kevin Carmony doesn't want Dell selling and promoting Linux desktops -- at least not yet.

The 3,000-student university took top honors at the first-ever TuxMasters Invitational coding competition, which awarded Clarkson both first and second place in the intercollegiate contest.

Linux now leads the pack of operating systems on the Top500 project's list of the world's most powerful supercomputers, the latest of which was released at the International Supercomputer Conference (ISC2005) in Heidelberg, Germany, last month.

Although it appeared that its Web site would remain stale and funds would not support Linux developers, there is now growing interest and opportunity for LinuxFund.

The threat of legal action has stifled several open source efforts that allowed interoperability between Linux-based computers and Plextor DVD burners.

"[Microsoft's] rivals -- IBM, HP and Oracle are being equally aggressive about pushing Linux and open source."

In addition to the same old accusations of lack of familiarity, applications, and support, Linux on the desktop may be facing an attack against its one clear advantage -- price. Microsoft may be willing to make deep price cuts to staunch a potential market outflow to Linux, according to Amy Wohl, a longtime software industry observer who presented a Linux desktop achievement report at the recent OSDL Enterprise Linux Summit in San Francisco.

"The [Linux] users who use default settings or do not harden for security are increasingly at risk," Dunham said. "They don't harden against attack -- they're not patching and they're not ensuring their passwords won't be attacked. That audience is growing increasingly for Unix and increasingly with Linux, which is now being sold at Wal-Mart."