Search

Joining the ranks of Linux distributors HP, Novell and Red Hat, a company named Open Source Risk Management (OSRM) has launched a program to protect large and small users from legal entanglements arising from adoption of the open-source operating system. Unlike some other indemnification programs, u...

The SCO Group late Friday disclosed that one of its investors is extremely unhappy -- and wants its money back. But the Lindon, Utah-based Unix provider apparently isn't going to resolve the legal controversy without a fight, at least for now. In a letter released to other investors by SCO, BayStar ...

Sometimes bitter humor is the only sensible response to absurd injustice. A few years ago, for example, a lot of frustrated Apple fans were sure that if Steve Jobs walked across San Francisco Bay, the PC press would thunder "Jobs Can't Swim!" Or, more topically, if Sun won a major legal victory agai...

Listening to some Linux critics, you might think that the open-source operating system is more of a threat to U.S. national security than a gaggle of Islamic jihadis lugging rocket-propelled grenade launchers around Fallujah, or mad Pakistani nuclear scientists selling secrets to rogue states. At ye...

Japanese scientists have built their largest distributed computing grid yet, a supercluster that performs 11 trillion floating operations per second, at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). As Japan's largest public research organization, AIST is charged with ...

About a month ago we had some people over for dinner, and the discussion drifted to top-10 lists of the Letterman variety. As part of that conversation, I got challenged to name the top 10 worst IT decisions ever -- something I couldn't do then and still can't do now, which is why I'm asking for you...

Computing giant IBM is seeking a declaratory judgment in its ongoing defense and counterclaim lawsuit with SCO, which has based its $5 billion suit against Big Blue on copyright and contract issues surrounding SCO's intellectual-property claims to Linux. While SCO, which has threatened and sued user...

The creators and distributors of the Gnome open-source desktop software project are investigating a server breach that reportedly did not affect released Gnome sources and the project's source-code repository, but nonetheless delayed the latest update scheduled to come out this week. The sysadmin te...

A week after announcing it was putting Linux on more of its desktop machines for the Asian market, HP made bigger waves this week, disclosing a deal with Novell to put SuSE Linux on the entire HP portfolio of business desktops and notebooks in North America, to be followed by other markets later. An...

Adding to what the company says is a successive list of firsts for Linux, Novell has released SuSE Linux 9.1 Professional and Personal, the first retail offerings of the 2.6 Linux kernel. For Linux novices, Novell is providing a new LiveCD disc that allows them to test and familiarize themselves wit...

Among the allegations raised by The SCO Group in its current spate of lawsuits is that the GPL -- the GNU General Public License, which is used for much open-source software, including Linux -- is unconstitutional and in violation of federal copyright and patent laws. SCO bases this claim on the cla...

What really are the most fundamental differences between Windows variants like 2003/XP and Unix variants like Linux? From a practical perspective, cost is an obvious differentiator, as are access to source and the ability to run outside the Intel processor environment. But it's possible to argue tha...

Silicon Graphics on Wednesday touted as a breakthrough and industry first its achievement of support for as many as 256 Intel Itanium 2 processors with a single instance of the Linux operating system. In addition to immediate availability of its Advanced Linux Environment with ProPack 2.4 for Altix ...

Software giant Computer Associates is refuting reports that it is among a handful of companies that have agreed to buy a license to run Linux from SCO Group, which has sued companies that have refused the license on the basis of its claims to owning certain source code used in Linux. SCO backpedaled...

A buzz of activity in the SCO-Linux legal saga probably is not distracting Linux developers from their work, according to a survey by Evans Data Corporation that indicates more than 90 percent of those developers believe SCO's claim to own source code used in Linux has no merit. SCO Group, a Utah so...

There's nothing like a good legal battle to whip up passions, and the SCO Group-versus-the-open-source-world dogfight is no exception. Rhetoric runs high. From the open-source advocates, it's "you're stifling free thought in the name of greed." SCO allies counter with "you're attacking the core valu...

The diversity of operating systems and hardware in the datacenter is greater than ever before, while data software specifically designed to manage the different types of systems is becoming more widespread and popular. With a firsthand view of the evolution of Linux and its increasing role in today'...

I've been puzzled by Sun's Linux strategy for a long time. On the software side, things make sense: Linux is Unix, so supporting Linux in the short term brings new value to Solaris in the long term. On the hardware side, however, I couldn't see any logical reason for Sun to sell x86 boxes until just...

One of the unfortunate realities of the Wintel monoculture is that expectations are set mainly by ads, the Sunday supplements and stereotypes like TV character Marshall, the supertech on the show Alias. But delivery is constrained by reality. As a result, the Microsoft Certified Systems Engin...

If you read a report sponsored by the Flat Earth Society in which an independent research organization found the world to be flat, would you believe it? I'd guess not, but any reputable research organization hired to survey the society's membership on the question would have to come to that conclusi...