Business

The three most famous European authors of open-source software today issued an appeal against software patents in Europe. Linux author Linus Torvalds, MySQL author Michael Windenius and PHP author Rasmus Lerdorf are urging the European Union Council, which will convene later in the week, not to adop...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off a mini-brouhaha today with a comment he made at the Asia Government Leaders Forum about a controversial Linux study. The study, from Open Source Risk Management, which aims to sell insurance policies and "risk mitigation consulting" services to users of Linux, ...

President Bush has made it clear that tort reform, narrowly construed in terms of medical liability reform, is on the short-term agenda. In theory, that should be easily done and very positive in its effects, but of course, reality is never as simple as theory, and there are some real risks to open ...

Linux vendors from Europe, Asia, and North and South America have teamed up to create a common core implementation of the Linux Standard Base (LSB) 2.0. This implementation will serve as the core for each of the new consortium members' future Linux distribution products, the companies announced join...

In a competitive move against IBM and HP, Microsoft came as close as it might ever get to supporting Unix and Linux when it bought a minority share of platform integration solutions firm Vintela. Vintela technology will allow companies to use Microsoft Windows software management tools to manage Uni...

The speculation is over. Sun is set to release a new version of its Solaris operating system today, and Solaris 10, the newest version of its Unix-based operating system, will soon be available for the first time ever as a free open-source product. Sun spent billions of dollars developing the code, ...

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...

Hewlett-Packard and JBoss announced a deal today in which HP will support JBoss' open-source application server and use its Services division to help clients migrate to JBoss' platform. With the arrangement, HP becomes the first big Linux vendor to certify JBoss. "Most of the Linux firms are pretty ...

In a move to tap into the demand for low-cost software in developing markets, Red Hat announced yesterday it would open its first office in Beijing, China this week. The company said it is working with partners such as HP, IBM, Intel and Oracle to help the Chinese market learn more about open source...

In a move to diffuse Microsoft's "Get the Facts" campaign that openly slams open source, Novell has launched a Web site bent on "unbending the truth." This comes at the same time that open-source advocate Chris Stone, Novell's vice chairman, office of the chief executive officer, unexpectedly left t...

Recent low-key efforts by Adobe Systems to bolster its presence in the Linux community makes good business sense, according to one analyst who covers the company. Adobe, which makes well-known software brands Acrobat, Illustrator and Photoshop, is keeping all its bases covered by expanding its Linux...

It's not clear whether or not industry watchers were holding their breath for the SCO Group's planned November 1 launch of its legal information site to counter the popular Groklaw.net site. But if they were, they may be blue in the face before they see the site that was supposed to chronicle SCO's ...

Computers are becoming pervasive learning tools in K-12 education, whether in individual classrooms or in a shared media center. Both Apple and Microsoft have donated millions of dollars worth of equipment to schools in order to aid education and spread their doctrine. But what about the growing inf...

Linux could be poised to take another big step into the public sector overseas, thanks to a new report from the UK Office of Government Commerce (OCG). The OCG study concluded that open-source operating systems such as Linux are "viable" and could "generate significant savings." The UK joins other E...

The world's largest distributor of Linux expects 50 percent of its revenues to be coming from overseas sales within the next year -- a revelation one analyst sees as a bit of a capitulation. "It's our goal that within the next 12 months, 50 percent of our revenues be from sales outside the United St...