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In the latest development in the ongoing battle over patent law in Europe, the European Commission has rejected a request by the European Parliament to rewrite the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive. The directive was unanimously rejected by the EP in January and scheduled for additional revi...

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 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...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Microsoft has announced that it will share information on security-related issues in its software with government agencies using its products. Through the Security Cooperation Program, Microsoft will provide early warnings of security threats to participating agencies and alert them about security u...

Open source is undeniably on the march. Linux continues to grow at a torrid pace -- now forecast by IDC to represent a US$35 billion market by 2008 -- though it has yet to significantly breach the desktop market. Mozilla's Firefox browser debuted with much fanfare recently, with over ten million d...

Large patent portfolio owners seem to be in a particularly generous mood these days. A few weeks after IBM announced it was giving away 500 patents, Sun jumped on the bandwagon by announcing that it is releasing more than 1,600 patents associated with the Solaris OS, a move they describe as eclipsin...

Sun Microsystems officially started down the path to an open-source version of Solaris on Tuesday with a partial release of source code which ultimately will be OpenSolaris. Being released under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), which was reviewed and approved by the Open Sourc...

Pervasive Software has recently joined a burgeoning field of database vendors looking to capitalize on the open-source boom by way of commercial solutions. Best known as a seasoned veteran of database infrastructure management solutions, Pervasive is now looking to take advantage of PostgreSQL's sol...

Sun is expected to take a step forward next week with its plan to release the code for its Solaris 10 operating system. The company has scheduled a news conference on Tuesday where John Loiacono, Sun's executive vice president of software, will give an update on the issue. Sun's Common Development a...

Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) is calling reports that it is leading a revision of the Linux kernel to remove code that might infringe on software patents "horse puckey." OSDL, which promotes the adoption of the Linux operating system, debunked a Linux Business Week report based on anonymous "i...

Last week's announcement that Big Blue was giving away patents was viewed as uncommonly good news in open source circles. When IBM decided to contribute 500 of its patents to a "patent commons" for the benefit of open-source software developers and end users, it conjured up visions of a city commons...

As Linux increasingly hits the enterprise and consumer mainstream, a growing number of security threats are emerging which prey on holes in applications and files managed by desktop users. On Wednesday of this week, Linux vendors Red Hat, Novell and Mandrakesoft released patches for several vulnerab...

As the new year begins, the experts agreed that the big story for 2004 in the open-source world -- and one of the biggest in the larger realm of IT -- has been the growth of Linux and its acceptance as a mainstream choice for business. It's a trend that industry analysts expect to continue, even acc...

International Business Machines announced today that it plans to provide free access to the information in 500 company patents to individuals and groups working on open-source software. The company said this could be the largest pledge of patents of any kind and applies to any individual, community ...

A developer of security software for Linux had some harsh words yesterday for what he sees as a lax attitude toward security in the operating system's community. "Linux is being presented by commercial vendors as a professional, enterprise-ready product," Brad Spengler, of grsecurity, said. "When it...

Enrico Pesatori knows a thing or two about business strategy. He has been admired for his self-sustaining executive track record at Digital Equipment, Compaq and BlueArc. Now, as chairman and CEO of Penguin Computing, he's out to make the company a leader in high-performance computing servers, syste...

A vulnerability in Mozilla's open-source Firefox browser could be exploited, security experts have warned. Despite the hoopla about the superior security of Firefox, Secunia Research reported that the browser could be used by malicious people, know as phishers, to spoof the source URL displayed in t...