linux

Novell's buyout and its effect on the industry

For years, Novell has served as an odd bargaining chip between Microsoft and enterprises looking to move to Linux.

Novell's Suse Linux distribution, while a distant No. 2 to Red Hat's leading Linux server business, has helped Microsoft keep some measure of control over its open-source competition--or, at least, to keep a close eye on it.

With Novell now up for grabs through a $1.8 billion buy-out offer from Elliott Associates, what is likely to happen to the Linux market, and to Microsoft, if it goes through?

The easy view is that Red Hat will benefit and … Read more

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The economy may be getting better, but unemployment is still high. Companies slashed budgets and personnel last year, but as the economy begins to recover, the creation of jobs is not falling in line.

The lack of new jobs continues to be an issue even for San Francisco Bay Area tech companies. So, how are unemployed developers and technologists supposed to find work? One solution: learn new skills.

Drupal is a free software package that makes publishing and managing social content on the Web easy. It's been downloaded more than 2 million times to date. And though Drupal has … Read more

Amazon, Microsoft sign patent deal

Microsoft and Amazon announced on Monday that the two have entered into a patent cross-licensing deal.

As part of the pact, Amazon will pay Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money, though the two sides did not disclose more details.

The deal covers both Amazon's Kindle product as well as the company's use of Linux-based servers. Microsoft has maintained that many implementations of Linux infringe on its patents and has signed numerous licensing deals that cover Linux with both companies that sell Linux-based software and those that use the operating system in their hardware.

Microsoft, which started an intellectual property licensing push … Read more

Linux and Windows heat up mobile market

For those resigned to 30 years of Apple dominance in the mobile market, think again. While Apple clearly hit a home run with the iPhone, it's now under several serious threats from the Linux camp, and it seems Microsoft might finally have its act together with Windows Phone 7 Series.

Time to kiss your iPhone goodbye?

Maybe. Google had already been giving the iPhone serious competition with its Linux-based Android platform, but Monday Intel and Nokia joined forces with their own Linux initiative, MeeGo.

MeeGo is an amalgamation of Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo, two initiatives that … Read more

Adobe joins Linux-phone group to spread Flash

In an effort to spread its Flash technology as widely as possible, Adobe Systems has joined the LiMo Foundation, a group devoted to putting Linux on mobile phones.

Adobe's Flash Player is ubiquitous on computers, but the company's Flash Lite effort hadn't met with much success extending the programming foundation to mobile phones. With a new generation of relatively powerful smartphones on the market, Adobe is trying again with a full-featured but lightweight version of the computer software, Flash Player 10.1, due in the first half of 2010.

Flash is missing from the highest-profile smartphone, Apple'… Read more

The application is the new the operating system

If you're a Google Nexus One user, you experienced a bit of magic last week.

In one click of an over-the-air update, your Nexus One became an iPhone--offering the ability to pinch and expand the screen to zoom in or out.

Just one click, with little to no user intervention. That's what operating systems look like in the 21st century, a future more clearly playing out in mobile than in the more traditional realms of personal computers and servers.

Apple is leading the way on this, but application developers have been quick to pick up on the trend.… Read more

Linux founder endorses Google's Nexus One

It's still not clear how well Google will surmount challenges selling its Nexus One to ordinary folks, but when it comes to endorsement from the tech-savvy realm, it doesn't get much better than this.

Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel programming project, said Saturday not only that he likes the Google phone, but that it was good enough to convert him into a mobile phone believer.

"I generally hate phones--they are irritating and disturb you as you work or read or whatever--and a cell phone to me is just an opportunity to be irritated wherever you … Read more

Which open-source vendors can afford the cloud?

Cost and quality are two driving factors for open source's role as the bedrock for public cloud computing. Google, Amazon, and other public cloud providers simply can't compete with expensive, proprietary license-burdened infrastructure. They need open source.

As cloud computing matures and moves from public to private clouds, however, we may see enterprises flock to free (as in cost) and open (as in freedom) infrastructure, too.

What would this mean for subscription-based open-source vendors?

It might not be pretty. Tim O'Reilly pointed out nearly two years ago that

almost all of the software stacks running on cloud … Read more

Windows 7 sales deal Linux a winning hand

Thank heavens for Windows 7. If you're Microsoft, at least, you may be doing that.

While most of Microsoft's businesses were flat to down year over year, Windows 7 generated record profits (and units sold) for the software giant. That's great for Microsoft. It's not so great for anyone else.

On the not-so-fortunate list: the PC makers who actually distribute Windows 7, as The Wall Street Journal reports. Windows 7 helped drive demand for new machines, but not higher prices, leaving Microsoft partners with sagging profits, according to the report.

In other words, when budget-conscious consumers … Read more