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Don't make celebratory plans just yet to join the Open Source Solaris Community: Sun Microsystems is only saying that it is looking at its plans to open up the Solaris source code, meaning it could happen months from now, years from now or, in fact, never. Despite reports yesterday that it was a don...

This week's column is about the nature of the software needed to go with the elections administration hardware laid out in last week's column. In brief, the idea was to ignore political reality long enough to imagine a system in which the voting support application runs on the local servers but capt...

In a move applauded by legal experts in the free software movement, the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) yesterday announced its support for enhancements to the Linux kernel submission process that it hopes will improve accurate tracking of contributions to the kernel and ensure developers receiv...

Most of us are afraid of getting infected with a virus, whether it comes from a common cold or an attachment in our e-mail. Are open-source licenses viral in nature? Can they infect downstream users? The question is the subject of considerable debate. Companies refer to open-source software as "pote...

What would your answer be if a selection team charged with hiring a new CIO to develop and implement an organization-wide "strategic systems architecture" were to ask you what management considerations most differentiate use of Windows from use of Linux? The right answer, I think, is that the...

The author of a study accusing Linus Torvalds and others in the open-source movement of "stealing code" and of taking credit where it wasn't due nevertheless says he is pro-open source and is calling for a $5 billion government initiative to develop more of it. The study, written by Kenneth Brown, p...

If I write a novel about a boy wizard attending a wizarding school, and I never read or heard about someone else's copyrighted novel about a boy wizard attending a wizarding school, does my novel infringe on the copyright of that other novel? Not if I can prove that somehow I missed the Harry Potter...

New research once again confirms that Linux and open-source acquisition costs are a "fraction" of the cost of comparable proprietary options -- but the research adds a new caveat, noting that costs will be driven lower in coming years. Today, savings from Linux are often "offset by high integration,...

What is the safest advice an intellectual property attorney can give clients concerned about potential litigation? "Do absolutely nothing." The truth is that making or selling any products might get you sued for patent infringement. Advertising might get you sued for trademark infringement. And don'...

Tokyo-based VA Linux Systems last week launched a collaborative development project with NTT Data to develop a crash-analysis tool for Linux. According to the companies, this tool will provide crash-related data and crash analysis for IT departments. The project aims to have the tool in circulation ...

The developer of one of the world's most high-profile, open-source databases, Sweden's MySQL AB, this week launched MySQL Cluster, a new open-source database clustering technology for applications that need continuous availability. The MySQL Cluster combines a clustering architecture with the MySQL ...

Microsoft this week released a portion of its source code through an open-source license, posting the code on SourceForge, an online source-code repository, in its most high-profile code disclosure ever. The move is designed to help the company improve the toolset's documentation and to allow the op...

With financial and technical support from Hewlett-Packard, Foundry Networks and other leaders in Silicon Valley, students at the University of San Francisco (USF) this week launched a grand project to create an instant, do-it-yourself supercomputer. But technical problems with some of the PCs disabl...

Want to know why most business analysts and venture capitalists simply don't get it with respect to Unix? Take a look at the computer books they study while working toward their MBA, financial analysis certificate or accounting designation, and you'll understand that their ignorance isn't entirely t...

Industrial policy has long been discredited as an economic strategy in the United States, but not in Asia. The government of Japan, for example, has always worked closely with companies in IT and consumer electronics to influence corporate winners and losers, but the results have been exceptionally ...

The standard chip-making process, based on using lithography to etch circuits in silicon and other materials, has been in use since the mid-1970s, with change expressed mainly in increased manufacturing precision as decreases in the wavelengths used allowed the development of ever smaller components...

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...

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...

Online music store Napster announced this week a new cache-management technology that uses Linux, open standards and IBM services to provide its music service for universities, ISPs and businesses without impacting bandwidth or introducing security threats. The application, dubbed "Super Peer," will...

Last week, LinuxInsider published a story looking at the role of Groklaw.net, an informational Web site dealing with The SCO Group's lawsuits against Linux users and supporters. The story contained both expressions of support for, and criticism of, Groklaw and its founder-publisher Pamela Jones, inc...