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A network of companies collecting patents and pledging them to defend the Linux operating system and environment recently acquired more patents, but doubts linger as to the effectiveness of the effort and corporate support for it. The Open Invention Network, an entity formed last year with support f...

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) this week released a document specifying the process and guidelines for revising the GNU General Public License (GPL). The FSF will release the first discussion draft of the GNU General Public License (GPL) revision in January 2006. The GNU GPL is the most widely u...

IBM says it is pleased with the better-than-expected results from its Power.org effort, which seeks to open some of the silicon hardware of the PowerPC processor to developers similar to how developer communities collaborate on software in the open-source world. Pointing to growing membership, impro...

Much the same as any other open-source debate, opinions about the future of Linux on the desktop are about as varied as they come. On one side you've got the Desktop Linux Consortium with its mission to advance the open-source operating system on desktops everywhere. On the other side you've got sof...

Novell this week said Linux on the desktop is gaining on Windows in European public and private sectors. The company said many IT organizations are choosing Novell Linux Desktop for transactional, engineering and fixed-function workstations because of the cost and security benefits Linux provides ov...

The Firefox juggernaut, which had been slowed recently by a spate of security concerns, has picked up steam again on the strength of a decision by IBM to endorse the alternative to Internet Explorer for its massive employee base. Firefox, now the second most popular browser and by far the biggest th...

IBM today announced it has acquired privately held Gluecode Software, an open-source software and support services provider whose product compliments Big Blue's WebSphere application integration middleware portfolio. Based on core open-source technology from the Apache Geronimo application server, G...

In a move to help customers run heterogeneous networks, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that Virtual Server 2005 Pack 1 will include support for Linux. The announcement came at the Microsoft Management Summit yesterday. In his keynote address, Ballmer announced increased investments in support ...

Adobe Systems today launched its free Adobe Reader 7.0 for the Linux operating system, allowing users to view and print content published in PDF format. Novell and Red Hat applauded the move, but analysts said not to expect heavy Linux investments from Adobe going forward. Adobe Reader 7.0 joins Ad...

On the eve of the second annual EclipseCon2005 user group meeting this week, Eclipse Foundation founding member Borland Software has announced it will take a seat on the organization's board of directors and new members are joining the group's roster. Eclipse is an open platform for tool integration...

Linux software vendor Trolltech says 20 mobile phone and hand-held device manufacturers are working on products that use its version of the open-source platform. Trolltech said some 50 vendors are using the Qtopia platform and other embedded Linux programs that it offers in a range of devices, inclu...

Microsoft and Sun Microsystems say that eight months into their 10-year cooperative alliance, dividends are already being paid in the form of increased interoperability of their products. The companies, which reached a groundbreaking deal in March that settled years-old lawsuits and brought the two ...

Desperately seeking their future, African countries that virtually no Western commercial software vendors have cared about in the past are turning to free and open software. They are doing so at a pace just quick enough to alarm some commercial software vendors, who fear the prospect of an entire co...

Users of Transaction Processing Facility (TPF), IBM's mainframe operating system, seem to have both pride in the OS and an inferiority complex, often referring to it as "IBM's unknown operating system." Even IBM called it "little known" in a press release for its latest version of the system, zTPF.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has made courting Linux users and those considering the open-source option a top priority and said the sheer volume of innovation that Longhorn development efforts are producing will make the next version of Windows worth the wait. Ballmer commented on a range of topics d...

When you ask business folk if they've considered hiring an IT consultant to move their company to an open-source platform, some think of a penguin logo and sleep-deprived, pony-tail-sporting developers. Others conjure up an image of an unkempt young techie with his feet up on the desk and Cheetos cr...

JBoss is throwing its open source weight around in the business process management (BPM) ring, adding a workflow engine to its middleware platform with today's launch of jBPM 2.0. JBoss will compete with the likes of Oracle, BEA Systems, IBM and Microsoft for its share of a BPM market that Gartner p...

IBM is putting rivals Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems on notice with the announcement of two new p5 servers capable of running Linux and Unix and allowing users to run 254 virtual servers on each machine. "HP and Sun should be concerned about IBM's p5 because the price of the machines are relat...

Hoping to position itself to deliver its perspective on the epic legal battle over the future of Linux, the SCO Group said it would launch its own legal-defense Web site. The site, called Prosco.net, appears to be a direct reaction to the popular Groklaw.net site, which offers extensive analysis of ...

Leading open source vendor Red Hat said it will buy certain security-related assets of Netscape Security Solutions from America Online in a deal worth US$25 million. Red Hat said it will integrate the products it is buying, including the Netscape Directory Server and Netscape Certificate Management ...