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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...

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'...

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...

Didn't Netscape lose the browser war? Mozilla, the technology that lies underneath Netscape products and a slew of its own products, just gets better and better. Netscape is effectively dead, but Mozilla keeps on keeping on. In 2010 we'll look back and say 2003 was the year that Mozilla really began...

The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has released a set of guidelines aimed at helping users deploy Linux in corporate data centers. Following a process that mirrors the open, ongoing development of Linux software itself, OSDL is inviting feedback on the Data Center Linux Technical Capabilities 1...

If you were to make up your own list of the top 10 issues likely to affect computing over the next five to 10 years, would you include liability reform in the American legal system? I think you should, even if you live, as I do, in Canada or some other country where American law doesn't apply direct...

In a somewhat uncharacteristic announcement about Linux, Hewlett-Packard said its revenue from the open-source operating system and connected products and services hit record levels in 2003, earning the Palo Alto, California-based company $2.5 billion, an increase of about a half-billion dollars fro...

Novell has announced it will indemnify users of its newly acquired SuSE Linux software systems. Following the lead of Hewlett-Packard, which was praised for its savvy in being the first Linux vendor to indemnify customers in the face of SCO's source-code claims last September, Novell said enterprise...

Didn't Netscape lose the browser war? Mozilla, the technology that lies underneath Netscape products and a slew of its own products, just gets better and better. Netscape is effectively dead, but Mozilla keeps on keeping on. In 2010 we'll look back and say 2003 was the year that Mozilla really began...

Linux is poised to claim a major victory: the bourgeoning market for robot software. The battle is not over yet, but if developments in Japan are any indication of what the future will bring, Linux will rule the world of robots. The stakes are high. Carmaker Honda believes that robots will become th...

Several computers supporting the 10-year-old Linux development project Debian were compromised by hackers late last week, causing a delay in the release of the latest distribution of the operating system and disrupting services for the project's 1,100-plus developers. Leaders of the open-source soft...

Claims and counterclaims now have turned into dueling subpoenas, as IBM and SCO continue to spar over allegations that a Linux kernel promoted by Big Blue was copied from SCO's Unix System V source code. Earlier this month, IBM issued subpoenas for SCO investors and analysts, including Bay Star Capi...

In what is being viewed as the maturation of both the company and the Linux operating system, Red Hat has announced it will no longer produce or support its free, consumer version of Linux. Industry analysts praised Red Hat's move to ride a building wave of Linux adoption by exclusively selling Ente...

Like other governments and corporations seeking to mix yesterday's IT investments with today's emerging technology, the state of Massachusetts has directed its IT staff to begin adopting open standards and open-source software. The move mirrors other government and enterprise initiatives that have I...

What is the world's most widely used operating system? It's not Windows, Unix or Linux, but ITRON, a Japanese real-time kernel for small-scale embedded systems. ITRON runs on mobile phones, digital cameras, CD players and countless other electronic devices. The T-Engine Forum, a project that counts ...

On most workday mornings, my e-mail contains a newsletter promising "unbiased opinion" -- an editorial oxymoron whose intent is probably to deny the presence of commercial advocacy. We tend to think of bias as necessarily negative, but in fact a bias is just a predisposition to believe or disbelieve...

Both VeriTest on Microsoft's behalf and IBM have recently issued reports on running Ziff Davis Media's NetBench performance benchmark on mainframe Linux. Overall, it appears that Microsoft reports better mainframe performance than IBM does. These results might seem surprising enough to those unfamil...

Calling it a "migration product" intended to take desktop users away from Windows and toward 64-bit computing and the new 2.6 Linux kernel, SuSE Linux announced its 9.0 desktop update will be available next month. The German software maker said SuSE Linux 9.0 will provide support for both 32- and 64...

Apple this week released the latest source code for its Darwin open-source project -- Darwin 6.7 and 6.8 -- which corresponds to the Mac OS X operating system and its latest versions, 10.2.7 and 10.2.8. Among the most prominent of open-source projects from Apple, Darwin is based on FreeBSD 4.4 and i...

Asia's PDA markets have long been dominated by local players that have developed their own proprietary operating systems, with support for local languages serving as one of their strongest selling points. But Palm and Microsoft have targeted the Asian PDA market, and regional players are increasingl...