SCO's contract dispute with IBM has been accompanied by a smear campaign against the whole GNU/Linux system. But SCO made an obvious mistake when it erroneously quoted me as saying that “Linux is a copy of Unix.” Many readers immediately smelled a rat—not only because I did not say that, and not only because the person who said it was talking about published ideas (which are uncopyrightable) rather than code, but because they know I would never compare Linux with Unix.
Red Hat Inc is in discussions with Sun Microsystems Inc about launching an open source version of Sun's Java environment, according to Red Hat chairman and CEO Matthew Szulik.
In the latest of his legendary keynote stage shows, Steve Jobs kicked off Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this morning in San Francisco by showing off the company's speedy new aluminum G5 desktop Mac. But while listing the new machine's impressive specs, Jobs left out a related, eye-popping statistic: Business Week columnist Alex Salkever dropped the bomb last week that next year, “Linux should pass Apple in market share for desktop operating systems on computers.”
About a month ago, NeTraverse contacted OfB Labs with an early release copy of Win4Lin 5.0, the follow-up to the already impressive Win4Lin 4.0 released in May 2002. Win4Lin, for those not familiar with it, offers near-native (or better) speed “virtualization” of a Windows box so that one can run Windows 9x (95/98/Me) inside GNU/Linux.
With concern rising about SCO's recent legal maneuvers, many organizations are trying
to grasp the exact ramifications this may have on their deployment of GNU/Linux projects.
While there is clearly no solid answer yet, in a special to Open for Business, GNU/Linux
developer, consultant, and author Andrew D. Balsa interviews Tony Iams of D.H. Brown Associates (DHBA)
on the subject.
Ximian, one of the most influential companies in the GNOME community and publishers of an enhanced version of the same desktop, announced Ximian Desktop 2, also known simply as “XD2” today. XD2 is the first offering from Ximian to be based on GNOME2, which was released last June.
Wiscore Inc. (Taipei, Taiwan) announced support for incorporating the Xilinx XC95288XL CPLD into uClinux/ARM7-based embedded systems and devices. The support consists of a “CPLD daughter board” that plugs into the expansion connector of Wiscore's NET-Start! platform, an ARM7/uClinux embedded system development kit. The daughter board includes a Xilinx XC95288XL CPLD, a JTAG port, a 7-segment LED, a clock generator, 4 LED Displays, 4 push buttons, 4 slide switches, and a parallel port, Wiscore said.
Armonk, NY, June 5, 2003 — IBM today announced that The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has deployed a new email system running Linux so that its veterinarians and field workers can respond more quickly and efficiently to animals in need of their care. The new mobile email system running on IBM eServer xSeries servers gives the ASPCA, the nation's oldest humane organization, a secure enterprise class messaging infrastructure that allows it's employees to get fast access to mail and data from anywhere.
Embedded system designers using the Linux® operating system (OS) can now
leverage AltiVec™ technology to boost the performance of their networking
and communications applications. Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) has created a
downloadable source-code library of AltiVec technology-enabled functions that
are frequently used in the Linux OS. The code library (AltiVec technology-
enabled equivalents of the Linux string.S and checksum.S files) is designed to
help Linux OS developers enhance the speed and efficiency of their
applications based on the Motorola G4 processor containing PowerPC™ cores,
without upgrading to higher processor speeds.