Archive

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...

The Mozilla Foundation yesterday released a security update to the Firefox Web browser. The patch includes several fixes to guard against spoofing and arbitrary code execution. Firefox 1.0.1 patches several bugs, including a vulnerability in the Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), Web addresses re...

French Linux distributor Mandrakesoft will acquire its Brazilian counterpart, Conectiva, the two companies announced yesterday. Mandrakesoft will buy all of Conectiva's stock for US$2.3 million to take over the 60-employee company, which had $2.2 million in revenue and reached the break-even point i...

The European Commission recently tolled the death knell for the EU Software Patent Directive, or more precisely, the "Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions." Like most Americans, I am fairly clueless about the EU political process, and I wouldn't presume to write about e...

Reports that Nokia has replaced 55,000 desktops running Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser in favor of Mozilla's Firefox at its Swedish operations are bogus, according to the company. Nokia spokesperson Chantal Boeckman told LinuxInsider that "the IDG reporter got the information wrong. We ha...

In a matter of just a few years, open-source software has gone from the back room and skunk works to serious contender for corporate budget dollars. No longer is open source just an academic and hobbyist pursuit. Major technology vendors have taken note of its evolution and want to ensure they have ...

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...

In response to high double-digit growth in 2004 in the number of customers deploying IBM collaboration software on the Linux platform, IBM today announced plans to invest US$100 million over three years to expand Linux support and technology across its Workplace software portfolio. Big Blue said the...

Red Hat unveiled its updated enterprise Linux distribution today and used the occasion to take a shot at rival Sun. "It's the beginning of the end of Solaris in the enterprise," Paul Cormier, executive vice president of engineering at Red Hat, said of Enterprise Linux v4, which the company said is ...

Ellen Simonetti is a former Delta Airlines flight attendant who writes a Web log called the "Queen of the Sky." She is a "former" flight attendant because Delta fired her after she posted pictures of herself in uniform showing off her legs while lying across a row of seats in a Delta plane. Even th...

Yahoo today announced the beta release of the Yahoo Toolbar for the Firefox Web browser, giving the Mozilla Foundation's platform what analysts said is an endorsement of the alternative browser that should help it take more market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. "The Yahoo Toolbar provides...

In spite of his denial of IBM's request for a partial summary judgment, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball bolstered Big Blue's defense when he questioned whether SCO had any evidence to support the claim that IBM's Linux business infringed upon SCO's Unix patents. "Despite the vast disparity between ...

Linux has so far barely made a blip in the mobile phone market, accounting for less than 1 percent of units shipped in 2004, according to IDC. However, yesterday MontaVista announced an effort to change that. The company, which develops mobile phone software for Linux, has created Mobilinux Open Fr...

In an ongoing battle to keep software patents out of Europe, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament yesterday voted unanimously to restart the legislative process and request a rewrite of the European Commission's proposed Computer Implemented Inventions Directive. The decision is a ...

Some friends of mine are considering setting up a new company around an e-commerce idea and asked me to research the cost of the IT infrastructure needed. As part of that, I went Web shopping for a low end server to get them started, and found some surprises. Note that all pricing data shown below i...