Enterprise

FBI Poked Spy Hole in OpenBSD, Says Former Contractor
December 15, 2010

Allegations surfaced Tuesday that the FBI put backdoors into the network stack of OpenBSD. They were made by a Gregory Perry, who claimed to be chief technology officer of NETSEC, a government contractor. The allegations were emailed to Theo de Raadt, founder of OpenBSD. de Raadt sent it on to the OpenBSD community.

The Open Cloud: There's a Right Way
December 07, 2010

There is a great deal of commotion about the cloud, and rightfully so, but the noise can be overwhelming. The market is crowded with different products and platforms from the smallest of startups to industry behemoths, a condition that is not helped by cloudwashing and other tactics designed to take advantage of the cloud's lucrative popularity.

Corporate IT Needs to Embrace the Spirit of Open Source
December 03, 2010

So, does your company do open source? Really? I'm not talking about using open source. I'm asking if your company takes open source philosophy to heart by walking the walk. I doubt there's any decent- sized company that doesn't use open source. But how many do open source in a business setting? Does your company *do* open source, like, within?

Leveraging Linux for Supercomputing
November 30, 2010

High-performance computing applications such as numerical simulation -- whether for forecasting, mechanical and structure simulation, or computational chemistry -- require a large number of CPUs for processing. To meet these needs, customers must buy a large-scale system that enables parallel processing so that the simulation can be completed in the shortest possible time.

The Enterprise's Open Storage Quandary
November 12, 2010

Enterprises' need for storage is increasing exponentially as businesses use more and more rich media such as audio and video both within their networks and on customer-facing websites. That demand is going to continue growing, driven both by customer demand and demand from new hires who grew up with the Internet and want the same ease of use and features they already have at home.

Google Soups Up Apache With New Speed Module
November 05, 2010

Google on Wednesday released mod_pagespeed, a module for the Apache HTTP Server that will automatically perform various website speed optimization tasks. This includes 15 or so on-the-fly optimizations. Google claims mod_pagespeed reduces average page load times by up to 50 percent.

The Corporate Hoax on Linux Revisited, or I Said It Once...
November 02, 2010

The very same corporations that are making small fortunes with Linux servers give short shrift to Linux Desktop, I argued in a recent article, setting off a spirited discussion. Many of you responded with counterarguments, siding -- surprisingly -- with businesses. Perhaps not surprisingly, I continue to maintain that my original centention is valid.

Lighting the Fuse for an Enterprise FOSS Explosion
October 30, 2010

The Fuse family of software is now under the FuseSource name and has gained new autonomy from Progress Software with its own corporate identity. Part of the IONA Technologies acquisition by Progress Software in 2008, FuseSource has now become its own company, owned by Progress, but now more independent, to aggressively pursue its open source business model and to leverage the community development process strengths.

FOSS Could Fix the 'Broken' Enterprise Software Model
October 28, 2010

It's by no means uncommon here in the world of IT to hear it declared that one aspect or another of this world is "broken." To hear that charge made about something as fundamental as the way enterprise software is currently sold, however, is rare. That, however, is just what Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst asserted last week in a speech at Interop in New York.

Firesheep Exposes the Soft Underbelly of Website Security
October 26, 2010

Freelance software developer Eric Butler has released Firesheep, a plug-in to the Firefox Web browser that lets anyone capture cookies from an open WiFi network and possibly steal their owners' identities. Firesheep is free and open source program available for the Mac OS X and Windows platforms. Butler is working on a Linux version.

OpenERP Solves Open Source's Vexing Problem: Making Money
October 19, 2010

Belgian open source application vendor OpenERP has set up its first overseas business office in San Jose, Calif. Traditionally, the company has worked with reseller partners in the United States and 54 other countries worldwide. After four years, though, OpenERP has begun an aggressive expansion. It plans to have 1,000 partners around the world by the end of 2011.

Linux's Brilliant Business Career
October 18, 2010

Fans of FOSS already know that Linux is one of the best technologies out there for business servers, but it's always nice to see that point of view validated by good, hard data. Thanks to a recent survey by the Linux Foundation, that's just what we got last week. A new report from the group found, in fact, that large businesses have very big plans for our favorite operating system.

Penguins Old, Penguins New, Penguins Battered and Penguins Blue
October 04, 2010

The Russians just unveiled a monument to Linux featuring none other than Tux, our favorite penguin of all. In what appears to be an eerie coincidence -- Linux Girl is not making this up -- scientists just uncovered evidence of a never-before-discovered Giant Prehistoric Penguin! Now *that's* news!

Oracle's New Kernel: Custom Tuning or Proprietary Lock-In?
September 30, 2010

Ever since the recent OpenSolaris and Java lawsuit incidents, Oracle has not been high on most FOSS aficionados' lists of favorite companies. So when the company announced earlier this month that it was abandoning RHEL in favor of its own, homemade Linux kernel -- the "Unbreakable" Linux Kernel -- it wasn't surprising that the skepticism was palpable.

Open Source Databases Have Come of Age
September 28, 2010

When the Internet and World Wide Web finally went mainstream in the mid-1990s, new Unix-like operating systems running on PCs went mainstream too. Developers working on these systems had access to a wide range of development tools, but these platforms didn't initially offer anything like the mature, SQL-based and 4GL-based database frameworks common on traditional platforms of the time.

A Tale of Two Root Exploits, and Why We Shouldn't Panic
September 27, 2010

There's no denying Linux is more secure than perpetually-patching Windows, but the past month or so has not provided an ideal demonstration. In August, we saw the arrival of a long-overdue fix for a kernel bug that was six years old; now, in the last week or so, it's been not one but two root exploits causing a fuss.

Much Seen but Little Hurd at Oracle's OpenWorld
September 20, 2010

As spectators crowded in to see keynote speeches Monday at Oracle's OpenWorld 2010, the question on everyone's lips was: What's Mark Hurd going to say? The recently ousted HP CEO was hired by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison shortly after Hurd left HP amid a scandal involving a female contractor and fudged expense reports. Hurd's now a president at the database giant, and his name appeared on the list of Monday's speakers.

Clam or Klam? Either Way, It's Easy Linux Protection
September 08, 2010

Have you run a virus scan lately? Nope? Don't need to, you say. That's because you run a Linux OS. Think again. To quote the title line of Bob Dylan's third studio album, "the times they are a-changin.'" Yes they are. And part of that change is the greater risk of malware attacks to the Linux operating system. It used to be that Linux was so iron-clad safe security-wise that virus intrusions did not exist.

VMware: Get Ready for the New Infrastructure
September 01, 2010

The number of businesses moving toward virtualization is growing constantly, and together they will lead to an important change in the face of IT, according to to VMware President and CEO Paul Maritz. Speaking at his company's VMworld expo on Tuesday, Maritz told his audience that the focus will change from hardware efficiency to operational efficiency.

Cloud Computing Calms Open Source Warfare
September 01, 2010

Cloud computing, technology delivered over the Internet, has become a hot area in the last few years. The technology marketplace moves at breakneck speeds, but it is still shocking when innovation almost completely wipes out squabbles like those over open source vs. proprietary software.